My Review of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

[Carol]

Note: Don't read this post if you don't want spoilers. (I've already been "spoiled" by too many clips, previews, and reviews!)

Valerie Flowe wrote:
<snip>
> Now I can't even remember how H got Sluggo to hand over the memory, in the book? <snip>

Carol responds:

He keeps secretly refilling the bottles of mead(?) under the table after Aragog's funeral so that Slughorn is good and drunk, in the sappy-sentimental stage, and then he takes advantage of Slughorn's feeling of guilt of Lily's death. Something about Lily's eyes, which, of course, we see again later in DH (the book).


Valerie:
> They said she was ill. She did look fragile.  Maybe that's why they didn't have the Deatheaters stun her in that Hogwarts fight scene??
<snip>

Carol responds:
Who is ill, McGonagall or Dame Maggie Smith? (It wasn't DEs who Stunned McGonagall; it was Aurors in OoP, the whole point being that she was absent when Harry needed an Order member to talk to. The filmmakers considered that scene expendable, along with the much more important information that Snape sent the Order members to the MoM. Was that information conveyed in HBP, or are movie viewers who haven't read the books still in the dark about it?)

They ostensibly didn't have the Order members fighting the DEs in HBP because it would duplicate DH--odd reasoning considering that their ridiculous and uncanonical attack on the Burrow duplicates DH. (Is the Burrow magically repaired or are the Weasleys homeless for the duration of the film?)

Valerie:
> Luna has some witty comment in the book which I can't quite remember... <snip>

Carol responds:

Are you talking about her (to me) hilarious line about the Aurors being involved in the Rotfang conspiracy, a plot to bring down the Ministry using a combination of Dark Magic and gum disease? I wouldn't call that line witty (well, it's witty on JKR's part, not Luna's). It's more a reflection of the ridiculous things that "Daddy" tells Luna and Luna believes. (The filmmakers should have left it in but I've heard that they didn't.)

Valerie:
> (by the way how DID D hear about Tom Riddle in the orphanage? Just part of D's secret intuition of all things magical?)

Carol responds:
The magical book that records the names of all the witches and wizards born in a particular year must have told him. I assume that's how they find out where the Muggle-borns live as well (little Severus says in DH that they're visited by Hogwarts staff members rather than being sent owls), and how DD knew to address the letters to Harry to "the cupboard under the stairs" and the hut on the rock and so forth. (It's magic!) 

Valerie:
> > Rickman's line delivery was brilliant as always. Don't remember if he made that comment in the book to D about what if he didn't want to do it anymore, and D replied that he had already agreed to it or  something like that. Or was that more foreshadowing of Snape's  innocence in DH?? 

Carol responds:
Yes, it's foreshadowing, but it's in the books as well. In HBP, Hagrid overhears part of the conversation and repeats it to HRH (he thinks that Snape is just overworked; Harry, of course, puts the worst spin on it). In DH ("The Prince's Tale"), we get the whole conversation. (Odd that Snape doesn't want to do it any more even though he must know that the Unbreakable Vow could kill him. He'd rather die than kill DD as DD wants him to. Must have been terrible to be forced to make that choice!)

Valerie:
I thought Snape gesturing for Harry to keep quiet while he was hiding under the tower, was way too much of a giveaway of Snape's ultimate goodness.<snip>

Carol:
Well, since they apparently haven't indicated that he sent the Order and they're making a big deal (from the clips I've seen) about Harry's hatred of Snape, they need some sort of hint that the "murderer" and "coward" is really neither. (Apparently, Snape removes the curse from the opal necklace in the film as in the book, but do they indicate that he, not Madam Pomfrey, saves Katie Bell? (They do show him saving Draco, apparently, but since Draco is a junior DE and he's taken the Unbreakable Vow, that only shows his skill in fighting the Dark Arts without revealing his loyalties. It also *ought* to serve as a hint that he invented both Sectumsempra and its countercurse, but apparently not. It's, IMO, a bad decision to have the boys using nonverbal curses (and not even a hint that Snape is trying to teach them to Harry in DADA class but Harry isn't listening).

Carol responds:
> > - Did they make it clear that the locket was a horcrux? The book and ring, yes.

Carol responds:
I don't understand the question. You're the one who saw the movie! But in the book it's clear that both Harry and DD thought that the locket was a Horcrux until the note from RAB (which they'd better have retained in the film!) fell out, at which point he knew that RAB had taken the real Horcrux.

BTW, forgive my asking, but why is your whole post in brackets as if you're quoting yourself? Makes it very hard to read.

And one more question for anyone who's seen the film. In at least one of the trailers, it sounds as if DD in the cave is shouting "hocus pocus!" Please tell me he's not really using that Muggle magic spell! What is he really saying, can anyone tell?

Carol, who plans to see the film in a week or two when the crowds are smaller