I am a huge Harry Potter fan. I will freely admit that right up front. I own all seven books from both Bloomsbury and Scholastic. I deliberately flew through London on a trip to Europe specifically so I could buy the Blooomsbury adult cover editions. It took two years, but I did manage to get all of them via Heathrow airport bookstores. And yes, I own all the companion books including the fairy tales. I know. I'm a dork.Having said all that, I'm also a realist, a pragmatist, and easily pissed off. Last fall when Warner Brothers announced they were moving the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince from November of 2008 to July 2009, the world reacted. In a time of business failures, bank closures, and recession, one way for a person to escape was to go to the movies. Warner Brothers never gave a reasonable explanation for the delay, at least none that consumers believed. Some believed it was due to Daniel Radcliffe, the star of the franchise, and his naked performance in Equus on Broadway. Others, that the movie wasn't finished and they needed the extra time to prepare. But in the end the only viable excuse 99% of the world believed was that the WB did it for the money. It was/is aimed towards the teenage market. Kids are in school in November and not in July. You do the math.
Okay, so the WB delayed the release for money. I get that. I don't like it, but I get it. Times are tough right now, but when you have a confirmed blockbuster, 6th in a series of devoted worshipping fans, it's not like people aren't going to see it no matter when it's released. Delaying it specifically for the higher summer audience revenue was just a slap in the face to a world faced with imminent job losses and their impending highest-unemployment-rates-in-decades headlines.
If anything, the WB only hurt themselves by delaying the release. Why? Because some fans, such as myself, remembered the feelings of betrayal at the WB's money grubbing greed. I had lost my job last year, and for the month of November was traveling an hour each way for only part time employment. Yet, I would have willingly taken a day off work to catch a midnight showing of my favorite fantasy series of all time, no matter how far behind it would have set me in my bills.
Did I do that in July? No. Did I really, really want to? Yes. But I figured if I was made to wait that long for the film, it wouldn't hurt me any to wait one more week. I would be damned before I gave them any more opening weekend box office numbers. I'm proud to say I know plenty of other people who felt the same thing.
I'd like to exclaim here how much I loved the movie. I would like to also sit here and expound upon how much I hated it. Because really, it was a case of both. As a book to film translation, I've read fan-fictions with better plots that still stuck to the canon facts. I'll never forgive the WB, David Yates, Steve Kloves and anyone else that made the decision to let Harry be unpetrified during the climatic scene on the Astronomy Tower. Part of Harry's innocence rely's on the fact that he never has a choice in what happens to him. By giving him a choice during the most pivotal moment of the film, his personality is drastically changed. He may as well have said the fatal words himself. As far as I'm concerned, the movie is no longer anywhere near canon compliant.
As for what I liked? Well.... for a mindless bit of fluffy entertainment, I give it 3.5 stars out of 5. I'm taking off 1.5 for the whole additional Burrow scene that didn't need to replace things that should have been there and every scene with Ginny Weasley in it. That added moment of them in the Room of Requirement? Yeah, that was one of the most painful moments I have ever watched on screen. I physically cringed in the theater it was so embarrassing.
I take that back. 3 out of 5. Just thinking about it makes me gag. The best part about the entire film was how you could tell Yates thinks Harry and Draco were meant to be together. At least, I'm hoping that's why every Harry and Ginny moment had no chemistry whatsoever with Harry having the most sour, relieved (it's over!) expression on his face. See, even Daniel knows that relationship screams incestuous Oedipal complex. Besides, there were too many poignant, passionate moments between Harry and Draco for Harry/Ginny to be plausible. They're young. They're confused. And like every other young crushing couple, somebodies pigtails need to be pulled. Maybe Draco will start growing out his hair...
I would see the seventh book on film just to see how that non-canon compliant bit of fiction plays out. But not until movie eight is released. I don't watch works-in-progress.
