Just got back from "Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince"

[OmahaBlueDog]

I have not read the books.

My wife and older daughter, who have read the books, liked it, but commented that more liberties were taken with this movie (vis a vis the book) than any of the others.

My take on the movie by analogy: imagine you've been invited to dinner at a wonderful restaurant in Yosemite. You drive into the mountains, and it is a very long, but lovely drive with breathtaking scenery..you get to the restaurant, they bring your meal....and the food stinks. That sums up how I, a viewer of all the prior films, but a non reader of the books, felt about it.

On edit: big crowds -- biggest I've seen in years. And the theater sold off promo items to benefit Will Rogers foundation -- which was very cool. They are having a silent auction on a big standee promotional for the movie in the lobby (also for charity).

10 posts to hiatus!

[Withywindle]

1. The movies are really seriously dumbed-down.

They always have been - they're like Cliffs Notes to the books. And considering that the books are as intricate and twisty-plotty as they are (Drop the "children's fantasy books" stereotype. They're really more like Victorian mysteries with an urban-fantasy stripe element--Wilkie Collins meets Neil Gaiman, with a child's-scary-world aspect like Roald Dahl), the movies by necessity must always focus only on the most visually-arresting elements (CGI creep) and let most of the nuances of the history and relationships go by the wayside.

The movies are nothing but moving illustrations for the books. If you see them without reading, it's just like looking at pictures and ignoring the words. They make most of their money from book fans who want to see the pix. Like me - I go to the midnight shows cause they're FUN. (And because I could watch Alan Rickman reading the phone book!)

The pix are well-done, but don't kid yourself that you really understand the story or the appeal of this world if all you know is the movies. They're a vastly inferior afterthought.