Trailer Talk

Aug 10, 2008

Posted by: John Admin

Uncategorized

SPOILER WARNING If you haven’t read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince yet, you might not want to read this entry. Some of the things I discuss will reveal major plot points in the book. So if you’re haven’t read the book yet, I’d really recommend you stop reading now. Still here? Alright then, proceed at your own risk!

Let me add one more quick disclaimer. Since I’m going to try and cover the trailer in as much detail as possible, this blog is going to be a bit on the longer side way to long. I promise you, future blogs will be much shorter. Now, on with the show.

So I’m sure by now you’ve all seen the teaser trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. If for some odd reason you haven’t, go watch it!. And if you haven’t seen it in glorious HD, then go here. Done? Ok good, lets talk about it!

What struck me first about this teaser is its linear nature. The teaser focus almost entirely around one scene, the first meeting between Albus Dumbledore and young Tom Riddle. Oh, we get some quick glimpses of other moments from the film, but this teaser is centralized around this single moment from the film. This is rather unusual for a trailer. Traditionally filmmakers want to show you as many powerful moments as they can, while still not revealing anything and leaving you wanting more. Yet, I would argue that this trailer achieves the same effect. I am absolutely dying to see more. So lets talk about that for a moment; what we didn’t see.

There are definitely a few glaring holes in this trailer for me. Things that I certainly expected to see, and didn’t get a single glimpse of. Lets start with the most obvious: Hermione. Where is the third member of the trio?! Someone please correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe this is the first Harry Potter trailer we’ve seen that didn’t show all three members of the trio in some capacity. What’s more, we see Ginny! Don’t get me wrong, I love Ginny. But if I had to pick between the two, I’d rather have seen a shot of Harry’s right hand (or left, depending on your opinion) woman.

Second, no Professor Slughorn. This one is a little more understandable, but I still expected to see him. He’s a major player in this book, and there is always considerable excitement surrounding new cast members. I can only assume that Slughorn’s rather humorous nature didn’t fit in with the dramatic nature of the teaser. So I’ll let this one go, for now. All I can say is, he’d better be in the full length trailer, or Warner Brothers is going to hear some strong words from me.

Lastly, our favorite professor, Severus Snape. The Half-Blood Prince himself is absent from this teaser. I can guess at the reasoning for this. Showing Snape might seem like drawing a huge glowing arrow pointing at him saying “I’m the Half-Blood Prince!” That being said, it’s still a bit of a let down not seeing the title character for this film in the teaser. Snape is certainly dark and dramatic enough to have fit the mood perfectly. So once again Warner Brothers, I’m expecting some Snape screen time in the next trailer. Don’t disappoint me!

Enough about what we didn’t see. Lets talk about what we did see. Lets go bit by bit, shall we?

Ahhh, the lovely green PREVIEW screen. I love this screen. It always gets me so excited.

Okay, shot of the Hogwarts express rolling along. Nice way to get us into it. This shot is lost a little bit in the smaller resolution version of the trailer. Look at it in HD and its stunning. Add to that the score that comes in underneath and I’m already hooked.

Crane down on a snowy Hogwarts. For some reason this suddenly makes me wonder: how much of what happens before we go to Hogwarts are we going to see. In general the movies have moved through the early parts of the book pretty quickly, due to the time constraints of filmmaking. But we’ve got some pretty important events going on pre-Hogwarts in this book. I hope we get to see as much of that as possible.

Next we see a filled hallway in Hogwarts. Not only does this shot transition us into the world of Hogwarts, but it works to show us the active world around Harry and his friends. To me it is also especially poignant when we think about what will be happening in those hallways later on. In a film adapted from a book it can be hard for both viewers and the filmmakers to detach themselves from knowing the end before they see it. Sometimes I think shots like this are meant to work as a subliminal foreshadowing for those of us who already know what’s coming.

The shot with numerous vials of memories I find very intriguing. First of all, from a plot standpoint, this really sets up for us the focus of this film. We’re going to be venturing back through the world of memory, and its going to happen often. This leads me to believe that we will probably see all of the varied memories in the film that we see in the book. Two things I noticed that interested me here: first, there are a lot of vials labeled with Tom Riddle. Second, look at the dates. They cover about 40 years of time. This would seem to fit in well with the range of memories we see of Tom Riddle in the book.

Then we see Dumbledore showing Harry one of the memories. The big thing that jumped out at me here was Dumbledore saying this was the most important memory he had collected. If you recall from the books, the memory Dumbledore named the most important, was the memory of Slughorn and Riddle discussing Horcruxes. That is not however what we see when Harry dips his head into the Pensieve. That being said, it is not certain that the filmmaker has rearranged the plot to suit his needs. This could simply be an editorial decision for the purposes of the teaser. It could be that when we see the actual film, the memory Dumbledore states as the most important will turn out to be the Slughorn memory. We shall see.

Into the Pensieve we go and we get a glimpse of Dumbledore walking a rainy street in London headed to the orphanage. I must say, I was a little disappointed here. I was looking forward to seeing Dumbledore in his garish, plum colored velvet suit. Instead, Dumbledore appears to fit in quite well in the Muggle street. Then we get our first glimpse of young Tom Riddle. Here, I couldn’t have been happier. Hero Fiennes-Tiffin looks to fit the role perfectly. He has just the right mix of the orphan you feel sorry for and the dark troubled youth. His demand of Dumbledore to prove his powers and his subsequent look of excitement when the wardrobe bursts into flames is almost exactly what I had envisioned when I read the book. I’m quite certain this scene will more than meet my expectations when I see it in the theater.

We cut to a shot of field and see Harry running, followed by a shot of snarling man whom I can only assume is the werewolf Greyback. Then Ginny standing in a river, her wand being blasted from her hand. For the life of me, I have no idea what is going on here. Clearly this is a scene that has been added to the script that wasn’t in the book. We already know that they have added at least one scene at the Burrow, and we’ve been told the film is going to open with some attacks. I’m guessing this scene is taken from that new Burrow scene. I’m not usually a fan of adding additional content to film adaptations, mostly because it results in scenes that were in the book being cut out. That being said, this little moment certainly intrigued me and I’m looking forward to seeing what comes of it in the actual film.

As we hear Riddle say “I can make bad things happen to people…” we first see a shot of Ron lying on the floor, Harry bent over him. Clearly this is the scene in which Ron gets poisoned. I must say, this shot has an extremely dramatic effect. If you hadn’t read the book already, a shot like this could be enough to make you seriously concerned for Ron’s safety in this film. He certainly looks dead to me.

As Riddle finishes his statement, we get a large surprise. Dumbledore trying to put on Marvolo Gaunt’s ring. In the book, we only see the effect of this, we never actually see Dumbledore putting it on. Of course, this is later revealed in The Deathly Hallows to be much more than a simple ring. I’m honestly not sure how I feel about the filmmakers putting this into Half-Blood Prince. Now that they know how the story of Harry Potter ends, it seems possible that they will be dropping some subtle hints in this film to help set us up more for the next two.

Just as Dumbledore gets the ring close to his hand we are treated to our first shot of Voldemort. Is it just me, or does he look even scarier than in the previous films? Granted, the shot is only a momentary flash, but the effect is powerful. It instantly reawakens the horror and fear that we feel for He Who Must Not Be Named. But we are immediately reminded that hope is not lost, with the shot of Dumbledore surrounded by flames. This little teaser from the cave scene was just perfect. I honestly didn’t want to see too much from that scene, I’d prefer to be surprised in the theater. This tidbit was just enough to remind us that although Voldemort’s power is growing, Dumbledore is standing up against him, and has the means to do so.

The trailer climaxes with the declaration from young Riddle that he can talk to snakes. Dumbledore’s reaction is so powerful in this moment. I must say, from what I’ve seen in this teaser, Half Blood-Prince is really shaping up to be the film where Michael Gambon really comes into his own as Dumbledore.

One final flash of Voldemort and the picture goes to black. But it’s not over yet. This last line is so powerful, the delivery from both actors so perfect. It captures both the essence of the teaser, and of the film with remarkable profundity. The theme music comes in, and we hear: “Did you know, sir? Then?” “Did I know I just met the most dangerous dark wizard of all time? No.”

I cannot wait to see this film.





The Leaky Cauldron is not associated with J.K. Rowling, Warner Bros., or any of the individuals or companies associated with producing and publishing Harry Potter books and films.