HARRY POTTER (SPOILERSPOILERSPOILER)

I should probably start this with a HUGE spoiler warning: if you have not read the books, leave now. I have read them all religiously, so if you don’t wanna know how it all ends, stop.reading.NOW.

Last night, I went to see Harry Potter again (I went at midnight opening night, but was so caught up in the story I missed part of what I love about movies – the stuff constructed behind the scenes, specifically costumes, sets, lighting, cinematography, etc). Though everyone I’ve spoken to *loves* it, one girl left saying “I’m so upset! That was terrible!!”

I knew some of what was going to be left out of this movie, and I did know one of the scenes being put in (when I first saw the Burrow on fire in the trailers I almost shit a brick), so I may have been more prepared for this movie than that girl. But her disappointment made me think: Half-Blood Prince is not for the uninitiated. Half-Blood Prince should not be taken as its own movie. Half-Blood Prince, by itself, is not really an exciting adventure the way the rest of the books/movies are. The entire point of book/movie 6 is to set up book/movie 7(a&b).

My high school English program was very focused on the Hero’s adventure (For anyone out there who’s a lit major, we had to highlight and annotate “Hero with a Thousand Faces.” That was a *great* summer.). A refresher: hero lives boring life, someone gives him a call to adventure, hero crosses a threshold, hero’s guide dies and hero is forced to finish adventure alone, hero grows, hero returns home. Look at some of the most famous adventure stories of all time; from Hollywood to Greek mythology, they all follow this pattern.

Most of the Harry Potter books/movies individually follow this pattern as well. Half-Blood Prince…doesn’t. There is no real “adventure.” Sure, he goes off with Dumbledore to get the Horcrux, and there’s the epic battle (which looks like a bitch-slap fight after book 7) for Hogwarts in the book, but purely in the boring-call to adventure-threshold-adventure-boring sense, none. Book 6 is entirely backstory. (Incidentally, part of what I think makes the end of HP most interesting is that you get so much more backstory, you start to see that there is more than black and white, good guys and bad guys. Voldemort’s backstory in book 6 is exactly what the three new Star Wars movies *should* have been.)

Steve Kloves (who I go back and forth on) I think did a pretty decent job on this script. There’s a line in Lord of the Rings (I wanna say Two Towers, but it may have been Return of the King) when people start talking about fighting overwhelming odds yadayadayada and someone says that the difference between the two sides isn’t size, it’s that they have “Something to fight *for*.” Look at movie 6 that way, and it becomes the perfect set up for movie(s) 7. Ron and Hermione finally start to look like their going to go out during the next movie. Harry falls for Ginny. Draco (played unbelievably well by Tom Felton…seriously, he goes from mental breakdown to kicking Harry’s ass in 0.5 seconds) stops being an asshat when faced with true evil (murder). One of the last lines of the movie is from Harry: “I never realized how beautiful this place was.” Steve Kloves wrote a script not about magic and the battle between good and evil, but about *people*, about love, about death (and he managed to be pretty funny as well).

In the “big picture” sense of the series, Half Blood Prince is the last part of set up for the final part of the adventure. If you chart out the storyline, it would go like this: Harry lives in a cupboard -> Hagrid tells Harry he’s a wizard -> Harry goes to Hogwarts, learns about magic and the evil force (Voldemort) he’s going to have to face -> Dumbledore dies, leaving Harry to fight Voldemort on his own -> Harry beats Voldemort -> everyone lives happily ever after (with lots of snogging). The whole point of Half Blood Prince was for Dumbledore to die, leaving Harry with the realization that he has to fight Voldemort alone, and he can’t count on the headmaster to explain everything now. And though it did leave a lot out in the backstory department compared to the book (especially when you consider what amazing actors they had to work with playing young Tom Riddle(s)), it did explain well enough what Harry’s going to have to do to continue Dumbledore’s work.



Now that I’ve gotten that rant out of the way, I had some other random thoughts I figured I’d throw out:

First, this movie interestingly put in something not in the book: when Harry touches the ring in Dumbledore’s office and the ring wigs out, Harry does his creepy neck-crack-thing from the last movie, and Dumbledore gives him a look. It was pointed out in the comments of a blog I read that this might be Dumbledore noticing Harry’s reaction to another part of Voldemort’s soul, and putting two and two together: Harry is the last Horcrux. How much does that make you want to see the creepy train station of death scene? Or is it just me?

Second, there’s a line in the movie that completely changes Harry’s relationship with Slughorn (and kind of Dumbledore), and I can’t decide which version I like better. About halfway through the film, Dumbledore explains that Slughorn once taught young Tom Riddle, which is why he wanted Slughorn back:
Harry: You said professor Slughorn would try to collect me.
Dumbledore: I did.
Harry: Do you want me to let him?
Dumbledore: Yes.
Dumbledore at one point does concede to Snape (I believe…this is one of the flashback conversations Snape shows Harry when he dies, unless I’m totally mistaken) that he has been using Harry to fight Voldemort from the start, something Harry realizes when he’s about to face his death in the last book. The *end* of the last book. Harry actually has to spend all of the next movie with the nagging suspicion that Dumbledore’s always been using him; even though at the end of book 5 Dumbledore tells him that he has to fight Voldemort because that’s the kind of guy he (Harry) is, now in his darkest moments, he can question whether it was all a lie, whether he’s always been used by Dumbledore. Assuming that’s how they write the last movie.

Snape. Where to even begin with Snape. Alan Rickman is genius. His most important scene, when he finally kills Dumbledore because Draco can’t, was perfect. I was a little unsure how I felt that Harry just let it happen, but someone pointed out to me that earlier in the film, Remus (the last of his father’s friends left to act as a father-figure) says that they must trust Snape, because they must trust Dumbledore and Dumbledore trusts Snape. So when Harry sees him on the tower, he thinks, “Oh, good, you’re here to fix OMGWTFYOUKILLEDHIM.” Alan Rickman made me forget about the scene re-write however, because the look he shares with Dumbledore will just break your heart. It’s love for the man, and hate for what he has to do; it’s the fear of killing the one person who understands him, and fear of what happens if he doesn’t. His eyes show total anguish, and though you don’t really understand why until the last book, Alan Rickman plays it perfectly.

My final thought is something not totally Harry Potter movie related. I just found out recently (in this past week) that Daniel Radcliff has dyspraxia, a developmental disorder “affecting the initiation, organization and performance of action” according to Wikipedia. For Radcliff, apparently it just makes it harder for him to tie his shoes, however it also supposedly accounts for his oft-mocked interview style, or lack thereof. I don’t know why I find that so interesting, but there ya go.

Please, if you didn’t like the movie, or *especially* if you haven’t read book 7, tell me your thoughts! I really wanna know!!!!!

Show Michael Giacchino a Little Love

Last night I went to see Star Trek (yes again. What, I had a free ticket but the movie had to be more than 2 weeks old). ANYWAY, this time, as I already knew what was coming, I decided to spend a little less energy watching, and a little more listening.

First of all, as the only piece of pre-recorded music (not written specifically for the movie), The Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage,” was perfect. One of my favorite high school rebellion bands, with one of their biggest hits, was nice to hear in a major movie like this. Musically, the crescendo in the intro just got you ready for the joyride the rest of the move was going to be.

However, I’m not writing this about the Beastie Boys (though there’s tons that can be said there). I’m writing this for the composer, Michael Giacchino. JJ Abrams has had a string of successful shows and movies (including Alias, Lost, and Mission Imposible III), and he’s gathered a group of talented writers, directors, and producers he likes to work with (not to mention his “good luck charm,” Greg Grunberg). For music, he turns to Michael Giacchino.

Since the first episode of Lost, Michael Giacchino has been able to perfectly express the mood of any scene in the scoring, and he’s even used some strange and interesting instruments to do so (including hitting airplane parts). Some of the themes have become pop sound icons.

But Star Trek is different. Though it very much sounds like a Michael Giacchino soundtrack, Star Trek is much bigger, more intricate and interesting. The music is beautifully written and performed, and yet (except for a few exceptions, like the credits and the re-introduction of the original theme at the end), it is also very subtle.

Something interesting happened to me when I saw Star Trek again. When the full orchestra plays the same line as the Star Trek logo appears at the beginning, I realized I could have closed my eyes and been sitting and listening to a performance of the LA Philharmonic.

It doesn’t happen often that you can get people who would usually ignore a genre to really appreciate it. JJ Abrams has done that with Star Trek. And Michael Giacchino did it with his orchestra.