Two WTF moments in the movie (spoilers)

[Carol]

va32h:
> Having read all your other posts in this group, I seriously suggest you not see the movie at all.  You are probably going to hate it. 
> 
> NOTHING that you are expecting is in there. 
><snip>

> But Carol, honestly - none of that stuff, the coins, the Hand of Glory, Madam Rosmerta, the Dark Mark over the Astronomy Tower - none of it is even mentioned. 
> 
> I look at the films as "a series of dramatized scenes from the book" rather than any attempt to recreate the story on screen. 

Carol responds:

Actually, I intend to watch and enjoy the movie, particularly the performances of Alan Rickman and Tom Felton. (I also like Rupert Grint and am glad that he's something more than a comic sidekick in this film.) I don't mind the changes to Cormac McLaggen; the filmmakers probably handle the whole romantic comedy subplot better than JKR did.

But my concern is with the Snape/Draco/Dumbledore subplot, which is really the heart of the book. Snape is the Half-Blood Prince, after all, so the book is about his relationship with Harry on two levels.

As I said, he needs to remain ambiguous. Yes, it should look as if he's betrayed Dumbledore's trust as he did in the book, but there should be hints that all is not as it seems. And the scene on the tower seems to be stripped of its power, its believability, and its pathos. (Harry needs to be frozen under the Invisibility Cloak, unable to act; Dumbledore needs to be weak, helpless, and obviously dying. How will they make Snape's agreeing to kill him believable in DH if he wasn't already dying from the ring curse?)

va32h: 
> We saw it with people who had not read the book and they had no clue what was going on. 

Carol responds:

See, that's my concern. They need to understand the story, not be given incomplete and inaccurate explanations that will cause problems for the faithful adaptation of DH. (the whole point of making it in two parts, aside from profits, is to include everything crucial to the plot. And if they've left out or altered key elements in HBP (as in OoP and PoA), they're causing difficulties for themselves and the viewers.

BTW, did the filmmakers make young Lucius, young Severus, and young Regulus cronies of Tom Riddle's at Hogwarts in the Slughorn memory? If so, any viewers who remember that Tom Riddle was at Hogwarts fifty years before Harry (mentioned in the CoS film as well as the book) must wonder how Snape and Malfoy could be so well preserved. (Yes, Alan Rickman is actually 65 or something, but Snape looks fortyish, as does Malfoy (one of the few adult actors who's the right age for his character.)

Carol, who has enjoyed the other films (except maybe OoP despite their departures from the books) but wonders how those Muggles, erm, nonreaders of the books, can follow the plot at all with all these alterations