Re: Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince discussion...
I'm personally not very optimistic after OOTP. I really felt watching that movie that I was enjoying it in spite of the filmmakers work, rather than because of it. It just seemed that Yates and Goldenberg decided to throw out nearly everything that made the book special. I know that's a constant gripe by any fan of any literary adaptation, but the first four films all did a hell of a better job at it than the last movie. I even recall reading an interview with Yates where he said something to the effect that he was trying (with OOTP) to make the shortest film possible, and that just seems to be a horribly misguided way of going about it. Don't worry about making it shorter, worry about doing the story justice and the rest will fall into place. The Harry Potter audience has already proved that it will gladly sit still for an almost three hour film, no need to challenge that.
I really wanted to like OOTP, and it wasn't awful by any means, but it was the first time I walked out of the theater after seeing a new Harry Potter movie with truly mixed feelings. The things that mattered most to me in the book, like Harry's relationship with Sirius and (to a lesser extent) Lupin, were a big part of what made the book great to me, and what made the ending so devastating, and robbing the film of those scenes shortchanged the impact that the ending of the film should have had. After the huge finale to Goblet Of Fire, both visually and emotionally, OOTP was a letdown. For me, the last half hour of GOF made a promise that OOTP wasn't able to fulfill, not even close. The battle at the end of OOTP is great, undeniably, but everything that came before and after that was lacking.
So on one hand, while I cringe at myself for thinking this and even more for saying it, I can't help but have reservations about the film before I see even a trailer. When I started seeing previews for OOTP (as well as hearing about how short the running time was), my initial reaction was, "Hey, these films have all had the same producer, they know what they're doing and I'm just gonna trust that." But as I watched the movie, I kept thinking, "I can't believe someone read this script and thought it was up to the standards of the other films" and "I can't believe they were shooting this footage and cutting it together and no one has noticed that it isn't working as well as it should." Since they seemed pleased enough with what Yates did to bring him back, that doesn't exactly fill me up with warm and fuzzy feelings. I really do worry that they're going to fill the movie up with relatively insignificant moments and shortchange all of the crucial Voldemort backstory, as well as shortchange the Harry and Dumbledore dynamic. I hope not, but I just can't be optimistic at all after seeing OOTP. For better or worse, watching that film, I felt that the writer and director just didn't get it (for lack of a better description), and there's nothing about what they did that makes me feel that this one will be any better. I'm glad Steve Kloves is back to write the script, but at the same time, he can write the best script in the world but if Yates starts cutting stuff out of it or doesn't shoot it right, it doesn't matter if it was all there perfectly on the page. So we'll see.
Sorry to be such a downer, but that's been on my chest for probably too long... OK, gonna stop being a dork for a few moments
