Here is my review of the new Harry Potter trailer for The Half-Blood Prince. The trailer is embedded at the end of this post, or you can download a high-quality version here.
My overall reaction to the trailer was extremely positive. (Unlike my reaction to the new Star Trek trailer, but that‘s a different story.) However, the very first line spoken by Harry was pretty ridiculous. Dumbledore says, “You are, of course, wondering why I brought you here tonight.” Harry replies, “Actually, sir, after all these years I just sort of go with it.” What? Where did that come from? Yes, I realize it’s an attempt at humor, but I really don’t think it was in-character at all. Harry would never say that.
Next we see Harry and Dumbledore Apparate, although the next scene that they show is clearly out of order because we see Dumbledore leaning on Harry after Harry had Apparated the two of them back to Hogwarts. (Though technically they should have gone to Hogsmeade first, but I understand they cut it for time.)
Professor Slughorn isn’t quite what I imagined, but I still think that Jim Broadbent was a great choice and I’m sure he’ll do very well. In the scene in his classroom we see Hermione’s hair looking very different from the previous movies. At first I thought, “What, are they finally making her hair bushy? Isn’t it a bit late for that now?” Later we see her with normal hair again, so maybe it was just the steam from the cauldron making her hair frizzier. Who knows.
Next is the scene where Ron is head-over-heels for Romilda Vane because of the love potion. Of course all the Rupert (Ron) fangirls think he was brilliant in this scene, but I’ve heard that some people found it kind of dumb. I personally enjoyed the dialogue and thought the delivery and timing were pretty spot-on. So I definitely didn’t think the scene was dumb, but unfortunately I can’t say that I find either Rupert or Dan (Harry) to be “brilliant.”
Next we see Luna in her spectrespecs. Ok, so the effects for the spectrespecs was slightly cheesy, but I didn’t really care because I absolutely adore Luna. I’m tempted to call Evanna Lynch brilliant for her flawless portrayal, but if you’ve seen any interviews with her you know that she practically is Luna, so I’m not sure how much actual acting is involved.
Ok, what is it with all the head-smacking in these movies? Last time it was Snape smacking Ron and Harry, and now we have Hermione smacking Harry with what appears to be a folded-up newspaper page. I am personally at a loss to know why the filmmakers are apparently obsessed with this form of comedy, but oh well. I thought Harry’s response to the smack made a much more amusing moment than the smack itself.
The most amusing (not in a good way) scene of the trailer is a short clip of Hermione crying, wearing what looks exactly like a Gryffindor fan t-shirt that you could buy online. Seriously. It doesn’t look anything like what you would ever see a Hogwarts student wearing. It looks like a freaking fan shirt. Is this a ploy to sell more merchandise? I think so.
I’m really interested to know how they handle the whole Harry/Ginny thing, since we get basically zero lead-in in any of the previous movies. It’s only in the last one that they figured out they needed to give her more screen time. Hopefully they’ll get it right.
The island in the cave with the Inferi does not look like I expected. Rather more treacherous with all the crystal-looking things sticking up all over the place. Still, I have confidence that it’s going to be an amazing scene. Just thinking about it makes me want to go re-read the book.
In fact, the whole trailer makes me want to go re-read the book, and I’m taking that as a very good sign. It means that so far it looks like they’re going to properly capture the spirit of it, which is really all I can ask at this point.
My overall reaction to the trailer was extremely positive. (Unlike my reaction to the new Star Trek trailer, but that‘s a different story.) However, the very first line spoken by Harry was pretty ridiculous. Dumbledore says, “You are, of course, wondering why I brought you here tonight.” Harry replies, “Actually, sir, after all these years I just sort of go with it.” What? Where did that come from? Yes, I realize it’s an attempt at humor, but I really don’t think it was in-character at all. Harry would never say that.
Next we see Harry and Dumbledore Apparate, although the next scene that they show is clearly out of order because we see Dumbledore leaning on Harry after Harry had Apparated the two of them back to Hogwarts. (Though technically they should have gone to Hogsmeade first, but I understand they cut it for time.)
Professor Slughorn isn’t quite what I imagined, but I still think that Jim Broadbent was a great choice and I’m sure he’ll do very well. In the scene in his classroom we see Hermione’s hair looking very different from the previous movies. At first I thought, “What, are they finally making her hair bushy? Isn’t it a bit late for that now?” Later we see her with normal hair again, so maybe it was just the steam from the cauldron making her hair frizzier. Who knows.
Next is the scene where Ron is head-over-heels for Romilda Vane because of the love potion. Of course all the Rupert (Ron) fangirls think he was brilliant in this scene, but I’ve heard that some people found it kind of dumb. I personally enjoyed the dialogue and thought the delivery and timing were pretty spot-on. So I definitely didn’t think the scene was dumb, but unfortunately I can’t say that I find either Rupert or Dan (Harry) to be “brilliant.”
Next we see Luna in her spectrespecs. Ok, so the effects for the spectrespecs was slightly cheesy, but I didn’t really care because I absolutely adore Luna. I’m tempted to call Evanna Lynch brilliant for her flawless portrayal, but if you’ve seen any interviews with her you know that she practically is Luna, so I’m not sure how much actual acting is involved.
Ok, what is it with all the head-smacking in these movies? Last time it was Snape smacking Ron and Harry, and now we have Hermione smacking Harry with what appears to be a folded-up newspaper page. I am personally at a loss to know why the filmmakers are apparently obsessed with this form of comedy, but oh well. I thought Harry’s response to the smack made a much more amusing moment than the smack itself.
The most amusing (not in a good way) scene of the trailer is a short clip of Hermione crying, wearing what looks exactly like a Gryffindor fan t-shirt that you could buy online. Seriously. It doesn’t look anything like what you would ever see a Hogwarts student wearing. It looks like a freaking fan shirt. Is this a ploy to sell more merchandise? I think so.
I’m really interested to know how they handle the whole Harry/Ginny thing, since we get basically zero lead-in in any of the previous movies. It’s only in the last one that they figured out they needed to give her more screen time. Hopefully they’ll get it right.
The island in the cave with the Inferi does not look like I expected. Rather more treacherous with all the crystal-looking things sticking up all over the place. Still, I have confidence that it’s going to be an amazing scene. Just thinking about it makes me want to go re-read the book.
In fact, the whole trailer makes me want to go re-read the book, and I’m taking that as a very good sign. It means that so far it looks like they’re going to properly capture the spirit of it, which is really all I can ask at this point.
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