On Friday evening Beth got her grandmother to come babysit AJ and we went to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I love the books. I kind of like most of the movies. This one was made perfectly competently, but the ultimate problem is that trying to cram all of that rich, detailed writing into one two and a half hour flick always results in the same thing: the feeling that you've just had someone describe what it was like reading the Cliff Notes of that particular book. Prisoner of Akzaban seems to be universally viewed as the best of the movies thus far, and yet it's my least favorite. It might be great if you've never read the books, but I'll never know. Strangely, I think Chamber of Secrets is one of the best of the movies, and I'm almost positive it's my least enjoyable book of the series.
As for the recent offering, I've been writing a lot lately and that led me to watch it thinking about decisions that the writer made. There were some odd omissions and choices, to say the least. But really, it's a thankless task for the screenwriter. If he sticks to the material, the result invariably gets dubbed as "slavish to the source material," or some other nonsense. If the script veers too much in another direction, then it just infuriates the fans. There's no way to do it perfectly. Actually, there might be: film it as a cable series, with about a dozen episodes dedicated to each book. I think that could do the trick, and I really wonder if someone will attempt that some day.
Despite the fact that I think not one of the movies has hit it out of the park yet, they might have a shot of doing so with the upcoming, two part Deathly Hallows in 2010 and 2011. I'll be getting a baysitter then too.
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