Archive for half-blood prince

Harry Potter Madness (Literally)

Posted in Dessert, Hobby with tags , , , on July 15, 2009 by Devo

[Warning: This is such a long entry]

The past two days have been full of Harry Potter for me. I tried to plow my way through Half-Blood Prince before midnight last night and it ended unsuccessfully. But that hardly matters as that this is the third time of me reading it. I am all for HP. It’s my favorite series of books because I am just able to fall into that world. So the movie that premiered last night had me excited even if that was soon changed. What I did to celebrate the event (besides reading through the book again) was my own attempt at making butterbeer.

ButterbeerGuess what. Butterbeer is delicious. And it’s very simple to make. I got my recipe from here but there are plenty of other out ones out there on the Internet. I used the hot one as I am not old enough to buy alcohol (although I wouldn’t mind trying the cold one). I did my own alterations since I didn’t have cream and I am very fond of Werther’s Originals… I maybe added four more than the recipe calls for. What is very important to know about this butterbeer: you must drink it while it’s hot. I’m not even kidding, it’s the most delicious thing while hot but so terrible when cold. And the best part about making this stuff: it makes you feel like you are cooking up a potion. It doesn’t get more HP than that.

Hooray!Now this is what I have done; I took the liberty of writing out all of my feelings about the movie as soon as I got home from it. So the rest of this entry are my highly unorganized thoughts about the movie. Let me get this straight though: I know the movies cannot fit everything in from the book. And I know the movies are supposed to entertain the people who haven’t even read the books. So do not complain to me in anyway about these two situations.


As I am writing this right now, it has almost been an hour since I got out of the movie theater of the midnight premiere of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I am currently fuming over this movie because they destroyed a crucial book in the series. I should warn you that I am so upset at this movie right now that there will be very few positive things that I will say about it and that means:

Do not even read this if you are not in the mood to listen to a crazy HP fan who expects only the best of the movies.

I was already so mad 30 seconds into the movie. I am not even kidding. Oh, sweet epic start with slow motion and everything but there was no mention of the new Minister of Magic, Scrimgeour. Not in the entire movie. People who are not reading the books are completely left out of that subject. Along with the fact that they made Fleur and Bill non-existent. I mean, bloody hell, they basically started the movie with Harry asking this waitress on a date. Something that never happend. The Durselys were not even mentioned. What basically happened was they changed everything before the kids went off to Hogwarts. The Burrow managed to become a gloomy place where it looked like none of them enjoyed being there and it just seems like they didn’t even try to stick with the book.

They didn’t stop there with this madness. Hogwarts was an all around gloomy place. Yeah, maybe there were trying to convey that it’s bad times and all but students are safe and have fun at Hogwarts still. Scenes from the book disappeared all together that are essential to Half-Blood Prince and that took away from its beauty even more. What happened was they decided they needed to change a scene completely or just make one up to replace what could have been good detail accurate to the book. THEY SET THE BURROW ON FIRE FOR NO REASON! A whole scene just out of the blue that had no relation to anything else. I could go on forever about how terrible that scene is.

The majority of the characters were even disappointing or how rarely some of them showed up. Dumbledore has always been the one character that has always upset me in the movies (except the first and second movies; Richard Harris was a wonderful Dumbledore). They portray him in such a serious light as opposed to Dumbledore in the books who is always humourous and light. Tonks showed up once in the movie to reveal something to viewers that they were not supposed to know at all during that part of the story (she called Lupin sweetheart for Christ’s sake!). Lavender became the biggest creep since Colin Creevy and exceeded his creepiness by twenty. Not to mention that is not at all how I pictured her to look. Narcissa Malfoy was also not how I pictured her. And her one scene was overshadowed by Bellatrix (although I do love Helena Bonham Carter). Neville had like two lines in the whole movie! That is just absurd. Then there is Professor Slughorn, the not fat enough or snobbish enough newbie. I don’t like the man in the book but the movie made him more sheepish and likable in a way which I feel is just not how Slughorn should be. Also, McLaggen was okay looking; not the fat, disgusting pig I had imagined him to be.

The three main characters remained true to their selves though. Harry being completely whiny and I guess he gets totally high when given a bunch of good luck, Ron the comic relief, and Hermione being completely flustered as usual. Hagrid was a delight although we only saw him twice in the entire three hours of the movie. Luna, always a joy. I really think they can do much to mess up Luna’s character.

I will give it to them that there were some pretty great scenes that were legitimately funny but most were made up. They did a very good job at capturing the awkward crushes that all the characters are suffering from currently (even if they did it wrong most of the time). But they did it well enough that I was able to laugh along and feel totally weird watching them.

Besides the whole setting the Burrow on fire for no good reason thing, the other that that irked me so badly was Dumbledore’s death. They did not do it justice at all. How it played out was not how it went in the book, there was no epic fight raging between people on the grounds but instead some exchanges of words in the bell tower. It still managed to be so sad (I mean, Dumbledore died) but it soon returned to anger when the film ended with no funeral. No. Funeral. What the hell?! Dumbledore was a great character and it just seems like the movie didn’t do a good enough job for his death.

All in all, the Order of the Phoenix gave me hope with its ability to mostly stick to the book. Half-Blood Prince did not follow suit.  Instead all I got was the disappointment all over again from Goblet of Fire . I truly could go on forever with this but I will refrain from it to the general population and that maybe a decent amount of sleep is in order.