velvetpage | Harry Potter HBP

commanderteddog said, that was the Coles Notes version of the book. There was so much left out, even though it's been a couple of years since I read the book, I was still noticing it - and I'm sure I missed a lot of it.

The biggest thing missing was the final battle, and the stupification of Harry by Dumbledore during that final battle on the tower. Harry was supposed to be there but immobile, unable to help; the guilt will be totally different because he was physically able to do something but did nothing. Also, the fact that the Death Eaters didn't fight a battle to get through the castle to the tower meant that the Order of the Phoenix students and teachers didn't get a chance to show their stuff hardly at all. That key line from Snapes, telling Harry what he needed to do to be effective as the Death Eaters ran through the front gates, was missing, too. Oh, and Fenrir Greyback? They introduced him with a Wanted poster and a couple of shots of a slavering death eater, and then he didn't DO anything. Walking through the castle unopposed, with no random attacks on students just for the heck of it, was entirely out of character for him.

I was equally disappointed at the redux of the memories Dumbledore showed to Harry. All the ones about the Marvolo family were missing. That deep knowledge of Voldemort's motivations and choice of Horcruxes was necessary to set the stage for the OTHER searches. That's going to have a significant negative effect on the seventh movie - though it might be workable if they split the seventh movie into two movies, which

commanderteddog has heard rumours of. I'm wondering how they can split that book; it doesn't have enough mini-climactic moments in it to begin with, so picking one to be the climax of a first-half-of-the-book movie will not be easy.

Basically, the franchise is getting further and further into the territory where only fans who have read the book have any hope of understanding the movies. I don't like that, and I'm hoping there will be a good director's cut at some point to rectify that.

Now, all of that said, I thought the movie was well-done, for what it did. The pacing was good, the focus on the love lives of the kids was just about the right amount - the comic relief of Lavender in the hospital room in front of half a dozen teachers was great - and Harry was solidly in hero territory for most of it - more than in any other film so far. There was none of the indecision leading to people helping him with things he should have figured out for himself - which is, really, the single greatest failing of the entire series. And really, this could have been a huge focus of this movie, very easily - because it's a failing of the book. The only thing I really wanted and didn't get was that final battle through the castle.