Harry Potter and the lack of a real plot

I know I've taken a lot of time off, and I'm really sorry. But since no one's been reading my blog anyway, I think it's safe to say, no one needs this apology.

I am now living in beautiful and (sometimes) sunny Colorado. Things here are great, except for the whole no job thing and the whole no money because of no job thing. It still beats Ithaca. Sorry, Ithacans.

Being unemployed means a couple things: sleeping in, watching moves, not really being able to fully enjoy either. Sure I've got a lot of free time, but when you're just waiting for word on a job, you can't really relax to the fullest, and therefore, all the great things that you'd be enjoying on a regular day off are eclipsed by your longing to not actually have a day off.

But this blog is about movies, right? Well I've watched a few recently, so here we go with some brief comments about one of them.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It was really dark...perfect tone for this one. They cut out all my favorite parts though so that upset me a bit. And really, when you take a huge long book and reduce it down to its bare necessities, you get to see what purpose it serves in the greater scheme of the fictional universe it resides in. Half-Blood Prince doesn't really have a lot of content. Sure, some stuff happens, but it's mostly business as usual. The really dark horrors of the Wizarding world aren't going to come to light until the final (next) book, and the Order has already been set up, so really this book is just a really really long way to tell the reader about Dumbledore's death. There's aren't any big plot revelations. Snape being the Half-Blood Prince doesn't give us any information or progress towards a resolution with the whole Voldemort taking over the world thing. Harry, Ron and Hermione don't gel any more, they don't make any huge revelations or grow much during this installment either.

I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it, but a movie has to have more to it than that. A movie has to be engaging all the way through and basically serve a purpose. While the book became a Voldemort historical guide, the movie omitted all that and we were left with nothing really. Nothing that couldn't have been told in the first two chapters of Deathly Hallows. What did we learn in this book/movie? Horcruxes. That's it. Not really substantial enough if you ask me, which you haven't, but you're reading this anyway.

The book can have all these great asides and give us some more minute character depth, etc, but a movie is forced to cut that out and therefore it feels more empty. Good movie, great way to get a preview of what's coming as far as tone and mood, but other than that, not fulfilling enough.

And just so we're clear, the parts they cut out that I was really excited to see were all the pensieve visits to the Marvolo residence. I would have been happy to see a movie just about Morphin and Marope and Marvolo. That movie would've been rated PG-13, but so much the better. Order of the Phoenix was rated PG-13, and I bet it didn't hurt ticket sales one iota. And why should the Wizarding world become a darker place while the movies get rated lighter? Half-Blood Prince was only PG. I'm not saying that a movie can't really be good if it's PG because Prisoner of Azkabahn, my favorite movie, is only PG. But man does that movie have substance and depth. I guess we can't all be Alfonso Cuaron.

I just wonder how the next two movies will be rated. Right in the first pages of Deathly Hallows is a scene with Voldemort and his followers sitting around the table in Lucious Malfoy's hall watching and talking about a naked woman suspended in mid air upside down being tortured and then killed. Make that PG...I dare you.

They will be able to though. Tomorrow I'll tell you why.