The Harry Potter Retrospective: Part VI

The Half-Blood Prince – David Yates

How can someone just have half of their blood? That doesn’t make sense! Oh wait, you mean it in the Wizard sense of the term in how someone is born from muggles but still can perform magic or has a parent who is a wizard. I see. Well now i just feel silly. So Potter returns in this darker than dark tale of when shit is really about to hit the fan, and when i mean shit i mean Dumbledore’s body. OHHHH YEAHHH, i gave away the ending, boo hoo, i was told about the ending of the book when it was released by fucking idiots in my class, i was not happy. Of course reading that dear old Albus had died was sad but to be told by fucking losers on the day it came out after buying it made me just angry. My emotions were all over the shop. And now finally seeing what they would do with one of the biggest and most loved characters of the whole franchise: i was a little disappointed as i’m sure you were too. The Zack Snyder editing technique of showing the graceful and influential Dumbledore slowly fall out of the window after being killed by Snape, it just didn’t fit. I wanted people crying, i wanted heartache. I wanted what happened when Sirius Black was killed, that same emotion and considering Dumbledore is more pivotal to the whole piece, it just wasn’t right. I probably gave away a lot of the film from those two last sentences, which i apologise, but by now you should know what Potter is about, i shouldn’t be the first person to give you information about it because, you know, i’m not exactly laying out all the facts.

Year 6 and Potter and co are now experiencing the seemingly fun side of Hogwarts, and where i mean fun, i mean people learning to kill others, people getting seriously injured and sometimes dying, cheating on their work and exams, it’s all fun! Starting off lightly with a book that Harry finds which seems to give him answers that no one else has, especially in potions, where he is met by the new Potions teacher Horace Slughorn, who may or may not have the secret answer to the rest of the film. After getting this book, it leads to a series of events where Ron becomes a Quidditch keeper and is now well liked, Hermione and Harry become part of Slughorn’s inner circle of perfect students and where the memory containing secret information about Tom Riddle AKA Lord Voldemort is hidden in his mind, which Harry must extract. This memory reveals the whole point of Voldemort’s plan, the horcrux, which you’ll find out more about in the next film! Malfoy meanwhile, after his family being abandoned by the dark lord and seen as weak, he must save his family’s name by helping the dark lord’s army infiltrate Hogwarts and kill Dumbledore, which ultimately ends up being the task for Snape, who after many years seems to be batting for the bad guys.

I liked many things about this film; it had the same vein and same styles as my two favourite Potter’s, Prisoner of Azkaban and the Goblet of Fire. It was dark, but it wasn’t pitch black in its bleakness towards the teenagers in how there impossible mission is really impossible. The inclusion of the secret and fun horcrux, opens it up to new dimensions which i found enjoyable and should be fun to see what happens in the next film in how they handle them. The change of scenery and pace for the next films is obvious, it’s not set in Hogwarts anymore, and it’s more a journey picture from what I can remember from the books. So i look forward to seeing the very latest instalment of Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived.

Simon Childs