Hang on everyone, we have another treat this morning! In addition to the first report from the test screening of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” which took place yesterday in Chicago, TLC reader Rachezee sent us a new report today. This new report goes into great detail on the dramatic Cave Scene with the Inferi, as well as the pivotal events on the Astronomy tower with Snape, Draco and Dumbledore. Again a MAJOR SPOILER CAUTION is given, scroll down to read.
Thanks so much Rach!
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LAST CHANCE BEFORE REPORT
I am so sorry everyone, in my haste to write my review I completely forgot the cave scene! So here it is-
Dumbledore meets Harry at the top of the Astronomy tower and they apparate to outside the cave. As they are leaving Harry is surprised that that they can apparate from within the Hogwarts grounds, and Dumbledore says something along the lines of “That’s the beauty of being headmaster.”
The scene they apparate to, despite being slightly unfinished was nonetheless absolutely breathtaking. Cliffs and huge waves dominate the scene. Dumbledore finds their way to the anti-chamber and slits his hand (for you star trek fans – he does it in a Klingon way – straight across the inside of his hand). The wall crumbles away and Dumbledore explains to Harry that Voldemort would have set up defenses around the Horcrux.
The cave is very different than what I had pictured and than all the fan art I have seen, but still a chilling and amazing sight. It reminded me a bit of a normal cave mixed with the ice crystal place Superman goes to in one of his movies. The whole cave is a vast formation of huge crystals, jagged and rough, jutting out from the ceiling walls and floor.
They make their way to the water and Dumbledore cautions Harry not to touch it and he starts to raise the boat with magic. Then he has Harry reel it in with a very heavy long chain.
The island is a formation of crystals as is the basin. Now the only really cheesy and unspectacular thing about this whole scene is that they use a large white clam shell partially imbedded in a small rock to scoop up the potion. In my opinion it looked rather silly. Dumbledore tell Harry to force him to drink the potion and Gambon once again does a slightly better than usual job being forced to drink the potion.
At one point towards the end you can very softly hear Dumbledore mumble something like “please don’t hurt them, it’s all my fault.” But it was almost inaudible and I doubt anyone who has not read the book caught the line at all. Then after the last scoop is drunk, Gambon kind of goes back to his rather poor, unresearched acting and says with far too much strength. “Harry, Water.”
But first Harry goes back to the Basin and recovers the locket and in the background we can hear Dumbledore saying “Harry, water” getting slightly weaker each time he says it. Harry attempts to fill the basin with water the aguamenti charm, but can not get the scoop the water up with that silly shell. After trying several times and Dumbledore starting to collapse he goes to the lake to fill it there.
Suddenly the light that was emanating from the island with the basin goes out, and Harry lights his wand (most unfortunately with the non-existent spell luminous-maximus, or whatever it was he used in the beginning of the third movie), and slowly reaches down to scoop up the lake water. The moment he touches it a hand reaches out and grabs Harry’s wrist. The whole audience jumped in fear. Harry tries to fend off the inferi with all the spells we hear him try in the books. But in the end he is pulled down into the water.
Before I go on I must say the Inferi scene was one of the most spectacular of this movie. They looked a bit like the newer version of the Dementor, but much more human shaped and brownish. I fear I am not describing them well, because they were truly a scary site to see. The camera angles captured the scene of Harry trying hopelessly to defend himself and Dumbledore from them as they clambered onto the island from all different angles and the sheer number of them eventually overwhelms Harry and he is pulled down deep into the lake.
While Harry is underwater the view we have is from below him looking up and we can see the whole island from below as well. Suddenly the Inferi holding Harry releases him and he swims up to a surface covered in ferocious flame. The “ring of fire” Dumbledore conjures is an unbelievable sight, far more than I think anyone pictured in the books, but incredibly spectacular. Harry and Dumbledore climb back in the boat and the scene then cuts to Harry helping Dumbledore through the cave.
The every so anticipated lines of (I am paraphrasing) “Don’t worry sir, I’ll get us back” and Dumbledore replying “I am not worried, I am with you” are said. Executed very well by Radcliffe though rather poorly in my opinion by Gambon who clearly does not know the significant emotional value we fans know those lines have.
They then apparate back to the top of the astronomy tower. There is no dark mark in the sky. But as Dumbledore says he needs Severus not Madame Pomfrey they hear a commotion and Dumbledore orders Harry to go and hide and not come out or interfere. A command the book Harry would never have followed, but that the movie Harry would obey. Harry goes underneath the wooden floor of the tower where Dumbledore is standing where he can see everything through large gaps between the wood slates. Draco arrives and Tom does a brilliant job as a boy trying to be fierce and terrified at the same time. Some lines from the book are rather butchered by Dumbledore saying things like “Draco, you are not an assassin.” Then the Death Eaters arrive all in masks except Bellatrix and Greyback. Bellatrix urges Draco to do it though his wand lowers slightly.
Meanwhile under the floor Harry who is watching terrified with his wand at the ready is sneaked up on by Snape, whose wand is also out and puts his finger to his lips to make sure Harry stays quiet. My description does not quite capture that scene well enough, but I was surprised to find my heart ripping, perhaps because I knew what was going to happen when Snape appeared there. Snape quietly appears above, and Dumbledore, with far too much strength says “Severus Please.”
And Snape does the Avada Kadavra, and Bellatrix is ecstatic. The scene with Dumbledore being lifted into the air was unfortunately unfinished because we see him up in the air and then apparently falling down the side of the tower, but there was no motion yet. He is stationary in both scenes. I am sure more special effects will be added later. Then Bellatrix casts the Dark Mark (another amazing updated special effect with a black smoke skull and snake tongue). The Deatheaters all run out, destroying a bit of the castle in a euphoric tantrum along the way. There is no battle inside Hogwarts and the only one to chase them is Harry.
There was no Amycus or Alecto anywhere I could see. Oh, and there is no Rosmerta either. Forgot to mention that before.
Anyway, the Deatheaters set Hagrid’s hut on fire and the scene I already described happens between Harry and Snape. Harry then returns to find the whole school gathered around Dumbledore’s body, McGonagall in the front completely stunned and silent. Harry kneels down at Dumbledore’s side, brushes a hair out of his face and finds the locket, but does not open it. Clutching the locket He starts to cry and Ginny goes and holds him also crying. Then following McGonagall’s lead, everyone lights there wand (I think they all murmur something in unison but I can’t remember what) and slowly raise them as one in the air. Final shot of that scene is from above with all the lighted wands surrounding the tower, Dumbledore, Harry and Ginny.
It would have been nice if the reviewer could have given the review in a more objective manner and left her feelings about Gambon aside, but shrug. Some of us do actually like him as Dumbledore.
Sounds good…too bad we have to wait nearly a year.
I’ll watch it and I’ll like it, but every single change will still piss me off. As for Gambon, he’s a good actor, he just doesn’t get the role of Dumbledore (along with the last couple directors who are just as guilty). The fact that he not only shook and yelled at Harry, but that Harry was literally afraid of Dumbledore shows how off the character is.
Wow, this movie sounds really good. Maybe even worth the long wait…........................right, like anyone here will believe that
Only thing that really bothers me is that Harry gets dragged under by the Inferi but “swims up”, that kinda ruins how amazing it is that Kreacher managed it. Otherwise, it seems pretty aweome, best Harry Potter movie to date? Perhaps.
The author’s got some clear discrimination against Gambon though, I found that a bit weird. Talk about player hating, LOL. I mean, give him a break, he isn’t THAT bad. And the deleted/altered are bothersome, but I guess we’ll have to accept that the Harry Potter movies are just that; movies. We can’t expect a perfect representation. Besides, I take small comfort in knowing that the Harry Potter franchise is definitely going to be rebooted in another 10-20 years, and one of us fans will hopefully be the one directing and/or screenwriting.( Hopefully the next set of movies starts doing two parts from Goblet of Fire and onwards; that would be AWESOME)
Sorry, but this seems to be going from bad to worse, IMO. I read the new review hoping it would improve my view from the first one, but no. The cave scene sounds OK, although what is up with the clam shell? But Harry would NEVER stay hidden when others are in danger the way they are having him do under the Tower, if not immobilized he would definitely try to help DD. They have really messed up the characterization of Harry himself, and there is no excuse for that, that is what the whole series revolves around.
No Dobby. That means no Dobby death scene in DH, and I can’t wrap my head around that, that is THE pivotal scene. It is official. I have given up on these movies.
Oh, and mentioning that the Inferi resemble the new, ridiculous Dementors from OoTP just made them worse, I detest the new ones, they are not scary at all, they look pathetic. Like a styrofoam ball head under some ancient burlap bag. The whole audience laughed at them at the midnight release. The ones in POA were SCARY.
Oh JamesP7- shut up, no one is redoing the movies. Remakes are a waste of time. This movie sounds great. I think we could all be a little more adult about this. I am a die hard harry potter fan, I come here every day to see whats new. But life is life. Books dont equal movies. Watch any book adaptation and you’ll know what Im talking about. I think HBP sounds very well executed. I dont know though I will have to see for myself some of the things the reviewer reported on. The carrows were announced to be casted, as were alot of other people. But like I said this cant be every little detail from the movie, Thats impossible to include everything. I wonder if Bellatrixs wanted poster is up in Knockturn Alley- Hope so.
BellaSnape, no one is going to remake the movies?! Are you kidding me One of the most successful movie franchises is never going to get remade…......................right. Of course. Because that makes such practical business sense. I mean, look at Batman (the most recent reboot). Begins was positively received. And The Dark Knight is being considered one of the best movies in a while….....................maybe ever( I dunno about that though, I felt Schindler’s List and the Shawshank Redemption were a bit better).
Otherwise I agree with you, the movie sounds awesome, with a few unavoidable quips.
I still think that Chris Columbus the one who directed the first two movies was the best. They captured my imagination perfectly made the movies seem more magical. Unfortunately the movies have lost some of that golden magic in my opinion. But there still good.
Im not going to start that argument because its stupid. Harry Potter is a novel series. Batman is a comic book. Comic Books can be done many times over and over. No one would be stupid enough to redo Harry Potter, or Star Wars, or Lord of the Rings over again- I hope. Too successful the first time and too original. Even Jaws would be hard to remake and I hope no one even attempts. They are trying to remake The Birds and I think thats even disgraceful. Alfred Hitchkochs work should be left alone. I just really hate people who are quick to judge, about something like this. See it through your own eyes. Besides a movie series thats grossed 4.5 billion dollars isnt considered low key enough to remake, they would have to do all eight.
@ Potter Fan , you know why Columbus captured it so well? he had the two smallest books of the whole series. And not to mention the ones that were the least complex. We are getting near the end now, so things are getting more complex and I dont know if the comment was on here or on the other one but I like the added action.
Honestly, I think Gambon, on the whole, captures the essence of Dumbledore’s character. That said, there are moments where he is not warm enough, and not close enough to Harry. The bond between them is poorly established. Also, the script bits I have suggest that Dumbledore only figures out the whole bit about the Horcruxes after seeing Slughorn’s memory… That totally takes away from the Machiavellian, morally-ambigous, puppet-master Dumbledore of the books. But that’s bad writing on Kloves’ part.
Columbus, in my opinion, was the worst director of the series. He did a fantastic job capturing the magic of the Wizarding World, but he focused more on furthering the plot than properly establishing the characters. They were all flat, poorly-fleshed out, and motivationless. Dumbledore, for instance, was a plot exposition character, the old, wise mentor that every fantasy story requires to unload massive chunks of the plot and then die tragically somewhere a long the line. What made Dumbledore interesting, his eccentricities, his sense of humour, and any depth he had were lost.
For the people who think that us criticizers of Micheal Gambon as Dumbledore is unfounded and biased, that is totally wrong. I have no qualms that Gambon is a great actor but the way he portrays Dumbledore is highly unsatisfactory. Yates will not direct Gambon on how to deliver every scenes and for us hp fans, some of the most memorable scenes in the hp book series come from the interaction between the book dumbledore and the book harry and for Gambon to change it so much will make most fans dislike him as dumbledore. Richard Harris had a very traditional, powerful dumbledore feel about him and he was a great actor and would no doubt have been excellent in the later hp films, RIP. But Gambon makes dumbledore look like a bipolar schizophrenic escaped convict whose actions we can’t predict, is far too erratic, and overall not at all similar to the dumbledore we know from the books and love so much. For me, and a lot of people I know, we all concur that it would be much better if Gambon went back to acting in other series and mocies which he seems to be good at and Harris was around to play dumbledore. I for one know that from watching hp 1 and 2, Harris has the ability to bring people to tears in his profound role as canon dumbledore while Gambon makes me feel like “ok, that reaction is strange, let’s pretend that didn’t happen and move on to the next scene”
And to everyone who thinks this is a Gambon hater review, it’s not it is a Gambon playing dumbledore hate review. And that is my opinion along with Racheeze
The haters of Kloves and Gambon really need to take a chill pill! I’ve always liked the deviations Kloves made so I trust him completely here. I think it’s definitely more fun to see a few NEW things in the movie, stuff that isn’t just a retread of the books. I always think of the PoA DVD extra where Jo and Cuaron (it’s either him or Kloves) are sitting together and she LOVES the fact that new ideas are being used.
As much as I love HBP I always thought the whole Harry/Ginny thing was, frankly, lamely handled by Jo (yes, I’m slating Jo!). Harry/Cho got more book time FFS! All that stuff about the ‘beast’ in Harry’s chest, and Ginny being virtually a non-entity even after they are going out together. The movie sounds better. I KNEW they would cut the Quidditch celebration kiss because in order to do that they would have had to keep the part with Harry in detention with Snape which would have been too boring and slow.
I also knew they would cut Harry being petrified under the cloak on the Astronomy tower. We need to SEE Harry’s reactions, and that’s impossible with him being completely frozen. It’s fine in the book because Jo tells us what he’s thinking. I’m happy with him hiding, even though book Harry would have run out to battle Bella and the others. I hope it’s made clear that Harry HAS to follow DD’s orders.
I wonder if apparation is dealt with?
Posted by performingmonkey on September 08, 2008, 03:06 AM
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"This, Harry, is the secret of our success," said George, patting the parchment fondly.[br]"It's a wrench, giving it to you," said Fred, "but we decided last night, your need's greater than ours."[br]"Anyway, we know it by heart," said George. "We bequeat
It would have been nice if the reviewer could have given the review in a more objective manner and left her feelings about Gambon aside, but shrug. Some of us do actually like him as Dumbledore.
Sounds good…too bad we have to wait nearly a year.