Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince

This is another one of those movies that I feel kind of stupid talking about. Everyone knows what Harry Potter is about. You don’t need a plot run down, right? To sum it up in a few sentences, I will say that this latest installment of the HP franchise finds that as Harry continues his battle against Voldemort, he travels, with Dumbledore, through various memories to explore the past in order to find a way to stop the Dark Lord. The wizarding world is growing darker and darker, Hogwarts may not be the safe haven it always was, and the effects of the death eaters are even leaking into the muggle world. Harry and his friends find, however, that facing dark wizards and trying to prevent evil from enveloping the entire world does not make them exempt from traditional teenage angst and love pangs. If you’ve read the books, you know the rest. And if you haven’t read the books…I’m not telling you. BUT…all in all…it was good good stuff.

I REALLY liked the movie. I knew that I would, so I wasn’t surprised…but it was just great. Lots of humor…a great story…and magic magic magic! What more could you ask for? It was just great…in so many ways.

I’ve read some reviews and heard just some people grumbling about how the movie left things from the book out. To those people, I say…get over it. They CAN’T put everything from the books into the movies…they are already long enough as it is. And it’s going to happen EVERY time. You KNOW it’s going to happen. So…if you’re going to complain about it…why even watch the movie at all?

Don’t get me wrong…I love the books. LOVE them. But the movies (and really any movie, that is based on a book) never claim to perform every aspect of the books on the big screen. If that’s what you think is going to happen…you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. And while it’s fine to wish that a certain part of the story had made it to the big screen…if the fact that it DIDN’T make it to the big screen is something you have to dwell on and lament over…then maybe you shouldn’t watch the movie at all.

I’m not saying one can’t prefer books to movies…or think that a book is better than the movie that is made from it. I just wish people would remember that the movies are actually independent from the books. Although they are based ON the books…they are made, not to cater to the book readers alone…but to anyone who loves a good movie. And I think that this WAS a good movie. My mom, who’s never read the books, enjoyed it. I’m sure that a LOT of people who haven’t read the books enjoyed the movie. I HAVE read, and loved, the books…and I really loved the movie. You can love both. And that’s okay.

Not sure why, but people saying “they left too much out,” for some reason…just bothers me. A movie doesn’t have to be EXACTLY like the book in order to be good. And it’s not like you’re “cheating” on the book if you admit that you liked the movie…exactly how it was. Was there something in the movie that you thought didn’t NEED to be in there? I can’t think of anything. Or did you just want a 5 hour movie, so that every last detail and conversation could be left intact from the book? Because that’s NEVER going to happen. So…make your choice. Either you get a movie that inevitably leaves some things out…or you get no movie at all. That’s just how it goes.

I just wish that HP “purists” could sit back and relax when it comes to the films. Once you stop trying to pick apart everything that the director/writer/whatever got wrong, when it comes to the book…you might find that they got SO much right…when it comes to the movie.