Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Widescreen Edition)

4 Comments

1. Shannon Cassul

   September 21, 2010 at 4:51 am

   Review by Shannon Cassul for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Widescreen Edition)
   Rating:
   This is not a review of the movie, but rather of the poor job Warner Home Video has done with the Blu-ray video transfer. There are horizontal bands visible in various scenes throughout the movie. They are not constantly visible, but appear primarily in scenes where there are large areas of darkness – though of course that means they are visible in quite a few scenes of this very dark movie.
   
   The bands are not being produced by my player – I can see them on all three of my Blu-ray players, including my PS3 and two computers with Blu-ray drives. The bands are part of the image and are visible when the movie is freeze-framed.
   
   I recommend that those considering a purchase refrain from buying this disc until and unless a replacement is offered by Warner Home Video.
   
   I own over 200 Blu-ray discs, and this is the first time I have seen this issue on any transfer. It is obvious to me that this disc was mastered incorrectly.

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2. Midge

   September 21, 2010 at 4:32 am

   Review by Midge for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Widescreen Edition)
   Rating:
   I agree with Geoff. I love the Potter series and I love the movies… until this one. I was positively mortified and left hanging with a lifeless conclusion of an almost unrecognizable movie; butchered by Yates.

   While I realize things have to be omitted and trimmed for reasons of time and expense, there was no excuse for the butchering this Director Yates did to this movie. He didn’t trim… he decided to rewrite the entire book to his own version… as if he thought he could do a better job than a billionaire author? It had nothing to do with saving money either. Did it not occur to him that hundreds of millions of fans had already read the book and were expecting some semblance of similarity between the movie and the book? Did they think they would win brownie points with ANY of us by butchering our story? We don’t go to the Potter movies to see something different. We go to see a video version of the books we read because we enjoyed the books… not a hack job by some hack director trying to rewrite the series. Where the heck were the executive controls at WB who should have been watching what Yates was doing? And who did Yates blackmail to get the last 2 movies after what he did to this one? It certainly was not a case of talent on his part.

   I had to reread the book to make sure I didn’t miss something. The things this director did to butcher this movie did nothing to improve the story or save money and were completely unnecessary. We have to wonder if Yates ever bothered to read the books. I shudder to think what this poor excuse for a director will do to the final two movies. We’ll watch it because we have no choice… but I can guarantee, after the Potter films, I will never, ever watch another movie directed by Yates… ever again. I hope everyone else boycotts his future ambitions as well.

   Burning down the Weasley’s home… what purpose did that serve except to upset all of the fans? It was disrespectful like having someone spit on your family heirlooms. It did nothing to improve the movie or “move along” the progress of the movie. It had no useful purpose whatsoever and certainly did not please any of the movie fans and wasted the original Christmas scene… which would not have required as many expensive CGI’s as this distorted Yates version used.

   Same with the exclusion of the interaction with the Dursely’s and Dumbledore… so instead this terrible director has Harry hanging out in the underground metro diner hitting on some waitress while reading the daily profit out in the open… while Dumbledore appears outside the metro station dressed in his usual Wizard robes for all the muggles to see…. Not only was this totally in contradiction with the book, it served no useful purpose except to leave the entire audience wondering if they were watching the right movie. A dud of an opener.

   The exclusion of Kreacher and Harry’s inheriting Sirius’s home made no sense whatsoever. Kreacher is a big part of the final book.
   
   There is no semblance of a relationship between Harry and Ginny. That entire endeavor has fallen flat and nothing they can do will spark that part of the storyline now. There is zero magic between them. In fact, there is much more magic between Neville and Ginny than there is with Harry. Every relationship they have tried with Harry has been a dud. Hermione would have been the only one which might have worked.
   
   The relationship with Lavender and Ron was just terrible. Talk about “over acting!” They could have cut that part out and none of us would have missed it.
   
   Neville was almost nonexistent in the movie and that’s a shame. He adds a lot to the stories.
   
   Cutting out all of the storyline about Riddle’s family was cutting out the heart of why Voldemort is so obsessed about hating muggles and the hypocrisy of it.

   Then there was this ridiculous Yates version of the potions book. Like others have commented… Snape didn’t even react to Harry nearly killing Malfoy. He didn’t even act upset as he calmly healed Malfoy’s wounds… and unlike the book, Harry wasn’t even punished. Part of that punishment would have given Harry an insight as to how cruel his own father had been toward Snape.

   Yet, Yates completely changed the story where Harry put the book in the room of requirement with the Tiara on top of it… which is critical for the ending of the final book. It is substituted with some ridiculous scene with Ginny hiding the book… ending with a flat moment of meaningless intimacy.

   The worst moment of the movie by Yates is where Harry remained quietly below, watching while Dumbledore was being accosted and killed… where in the book, he had been paralyzed by Dumbledore and covered with his cloak so he could not interfere. I can’t see where changing this scene saved a single penny or a single moment of time. What it did was to be completely out of character for Harry to just stand there gaping while his mentor was killed. This was totally unpalatable for fans.

   Then, out of the blue, Snape declares himself to be the Half Blood Prince… when there wasn’t any reason given in the movie as to why Snape would even be aware that Harry was familiar with that name or the book… other than the fact that he had used one of his own spells on him… but there was no connecting storyline in the film that made his statement make any sense. It was just blurted totally out of context.

   The big let down was the ending. There was no ending. It just faded away without any climax or closure. It ended with a dud.

   I don’t know what WB is thinking… but they are allowing Yates to make enemies out of millions… hundreds of millions of fans. That is a huge fan base to upset just to protect some hack director who is butchering the most popular series of books ever published. I cannot imagine where their heads are… certainly not anywhere we can describe in public… Just like the idiots who cancelled Star Trek… a billion dollar franchise. Shallow thinking pitbulls who can’t leave a good thing alone… and then blame everyone but themselves when they shoot themselves in the foot.

   Yes… we go to the Harry Potter movies expecting to see what we read in the book with the understanding that they don’t have time to include everything. We do not go to the Harry Potter movies to see the story changed or rewritten.

   There is only one thing that all the fans would agree on having rewritten…. and that would be to use the resurrection stone to bring back Sirius, Dumbledore and everyone else who was killed in the series… including Harry’s parents and Snape. If WB and Yates want to change something… then change that! That is the one change we would welcome… and it might be enough to salvage WB’s reputation from this hack job they allowed to be perpetrated on our movie series.

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3. Christopher Omarah

   September 21, 2010 at 3:21 am

   Review by Christopher Omarah for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Widescreen Edition)
   Rating:
   I’ll leave it to others to discuss the sorry translation from novel to film. My WARNING is about the horrendous quality of the video. I saw the original in a theater, and this Blu-ray version is a sad mess of a transfer. Dark (yes, I know the movie is “dark”), soft, erratic quality. Most scenes dim and muddy with the rare, occasional cut to something bright and contrasty. I even attempted to adjust the viewing quality twice during playback and nothing made it better. This appears to be simply a bad job of mastering or duplication and this disc should be recalled without hesitation. I’ve haven’t seen video quality this poor since the early days of VHS.

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4. M. Potter

   September 21, 2010 at 2:39 am

   Review by M. Potter for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Widescreen Edition)
   Rating:
   Since I had to look elsewhere for DVD details (to decide whether to buy the 2-disc or one-disc film), I thought I’d post here:

   1-Disc Wide screen and Full Screen DVD

   *Includes both a wide screen and full screen version of the film.
   
   *No special features
   
   *RRP $28.98
   
   2-Disc Digital Copy Special Edition DVD

   *Widescreen version only
   
   *Additional scenes (6:31)
   
   *Close-Up with the Cast and Crew of Harry Potter special. Matthew Lewis (“Neville Longbottom”) and Alfred Enoch (“Dean Thomas”) lead us on an entertaining look at the cast of Harry Potter as they explore their interests away from acting and spend a day on set with the production team (28:30)
   
   *J.K. Rowling: A Year in the Life: A fascinating and intimate look into the life of J.K. Rowling over the last year of writing “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.” (49:32)
   
   *One Minute Drills: The cast has 60 seconds to describe their character’s personality, history, relationships and other traits before time runs out (6:43)
   
   *What’s On Your Mind: Hosted by Tom Felton, the cast is put on the spot when asked a series of rapid-fire questions on their likes and dislikes. (6:41)
   
   *Universal’s “The Wizarding World of Harry Potter” Sneak Peek: Get an “inside look” at the amazing world of magic and excitement being created at Universal Orlando® Resort in Florida (11:38)
   
   *Digital Copy of the theatrical film (2nd disc)
   
   *RRP $34.99

   I can’t believe the negative reviews. I read the book and thought the filmmakers did a fantastic job with it. Anyone who wants a film to be an exact replica of any book should do themselves a favor and just read the book again. Am looking forward to enjoying it again (and again) on DVD.

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