Half-Blood Princicisms

Seeing as the sixth book is the awesomest, and I saw the movie twice on its opening weekend, this beckons some hardcore nerdlery thanks to my obsessive-compulsive-anal-retentive-attention-to-detail.

[All references refer to the hardback American version of the books, published by “Arthur A. Levine Books, an Imprint of Scholastic, Inc.”]

Pros:

1. Harry and Draco finally get into serious fisticuffs including the bloody nose-smashing on the train and a showdown in the bathroom (the Sectumsempra fight).

2. When the young orphaned Tom Riddle asked if it’s normal to talk with snakes, Dumbledore reacted as if Tom asked, “where do babies come from?”

3. Overall, the acting is improving:

a. Jim Broadbent did a fantastic job of incarnating the Horace Slughorn character. “Oh, hands on deck, Granger!” And Broadbent turned Slughorn into a desperately confused old codger in the ‘let’s get belligerent with Hagrid scene’ while Harry trips on Felix Felicis.

b. Tom Felton’s (as Draco Malfoy) acting skills have made leaps and bounds. You can almost sympathize with his fear and loathing of Voldemort as he tries to stomach murdering his Headmaster.

Cons:

1. During the book’s raid of the castle, the Death Eaters battle Dumbledore’s Army and other school faculty. In the film, we get Bellatrix (also known as Marla Singer) kicking goblets and blowing out windows. That’s supposed to be the story’s climax where Harry is vindictively slaying all in his path in his distraught attempt for vengeance upon Snape! What the deuce?!?!

a. In addition, the book contained no surprise attack on the Weasley’s Burrow during Christmas break. I assume Bellatrix and Fenrir were making a half-assed attempt to capture Harry to bring before Voldemort. I’ll also assume our despised screenwriter was demonstrating that no one is safe outside the Hogwarts’ “force field” of protection.
b. Furthermore, the Burrow wasn’t torched and scorched in the sixth book. This particular attack may take the place of the seventh book’s attack on the Burrow during Bill and Fleur’s wedding. But let’s not try to overanalyze…


2. Uh, what about the House of Gaunt [Chapter Ten]? The moviegoer misses several levels of depth pertaining to Tom Riddle’s familial background and childhood upbringing. Anthony Hopkins would have made a perfectly demented Marvolo Gaunt, Merope Gaunt could have been portrayed by -uh- Christina Ricci, and we’ll round out the trifecta with Jason Statham as Morfin Gaunt.

3. Dumbledore is supposed to be thoroughly weakened after drinking the cave’s potion. In the movie, he appears sober, clear-headed, and strong enough to stand erect. “Dumbeldore’s face, which was even paler, and rather lower than usual, as he had slid so far down the rampart wall” [page 594]. This was supposed to be Dumbledore’s final moment of weakness where he tries to talk his way out getting murderized by Draco as the Headmaster is too weak for any further magic.

4. Sectumsempra is the most violent curse in the series, but the PG rating deprived the audience from the shock, awe, fear and loathing leveraged onto all readers: “Blood spurted from Malfoy’s face and chest as though he had been slashed with an invisible sword. He staggered backward and collapsed onto the waterlogged floor with a great splash” [page 522].

5. Most heinously, Alan Rickman’s apathetic acting continues to suck the intriguing arcane out of everyone’s beloved Severus Snape character. In the book, Snape is described in a livid rage when forced to kill the Headmaster: “Snape gazed for a moment at Dumbledore, and there was revulsion and hatred etched in the harsh lines of his face” [page 595]. In the movie, Rickman casually walks in, as stoic as ever, sighs, “no, I must do it”, and pulls the trigger. Way to convert the death of the most powerful wizard into a pit of emotional dearth, Rickman!

Throughout the novels, we’re continuously exposed to the twisted emotions of Snape’s character: “ ‘DON’T – ’ screamed Snape, and his face was suddenly demented, inhuman... ‘CALL ME COWARD!’ ” [page 604]

Damn you, Rickman! I banish thee to prequels of Die Hard!

6. These two are nitty gritty, but have always stuck in my mind:


a. When realizing how to achieve entry into the cave via blood sacrifice, Dumbledore drops his one and only insult throughout the entire series: “Then, after two solid minutes, Dumbledore said quietly, ‘Oh, surely not. So crude.’ ” [page 559]

b. The potion in the cave’s basin was supposed to be a bright phosphorescent glowing green, just like absinthe [page 567]! What was with the movie’s purple stuff? Was Dumbledore drunk on Dimetapp?

Bottom Line:
Steve Kloves (screenwriter for all HP movies) and David Yates (director of #’s 5 & 6) have disgraced the past two HP films from the depth & brilliance of Rowling’s nuanced writing style. If we voted, the audience would elect Alfonso Cuaron (director of #3) to wrap it all up. Or I could also settle for a Steven Spielberg/George Lucas combo (Voldemort builds a Death Star).

On the other hand, Rowling appeared lost as to how to conclude her epic saga in Deathly Hallows (let’s go camping for a year). Ergo, chapters 7a and 7b of the HP films may be a melee of action-packed nonsense, enabling Hollywood to sell more theater tickets. This could end up like The Matrix III - no depth, just action (again, Voldemort builds a Death Star).

And for the love of Merlin, let’s get back to a PG-13 rating. How will David Yates be empowered to kill off so many characters under a wet PG blanket? Will we get a nod toward the homosexual shenanigans of Dumbledore & Grindelwald?

And most importantly, how will I bring myself to tears with a PG-rated death of Snape? “There was a terrible scream. Harry saw Snape’s face losing the little color it had left; it whitened as his black eyes widened, as the snake’s fangs pierced his neck… who fell sideways onto the floor, blood gushing from the wounds in his neck… a terrible rasping, gurgling noise issued from Snape’s throat… something in the depths of the dark pair seemed to vanish, leaving them fixed, blank, and empty. The hand holding Harry thudded to the floor, and Snape moved no more.” [Deathly Hallows, page 656-658]

wait’ll you see those Goddamned bats

Top this, Klosterman:

2008’s “The Dark Knight” was more of an intellectual thriller than an action movie.

Is a misanthrope one who wants to watch the world burn?  Is an anarchist a misanthrope without faith in the civility of mankind?  There must be some sort of transfer function where you stir together one part misanthrope with one part severe lack of morality, and you get a terrorist!  A la the Joker!

Is “The Dark Knight” as simple as order versus chaos?  No!  Batman is the embodiment of vigilante order while the Joker is just plain psychotic.  Of course, for the laypeople, “order” is referred to as “good” in the film since modern storytelling is completely enthralled in the battle and eventual triumph of Good over Evil.  So Batman represents order while the Joker represents chaos even though this scenario exhibits a skewed vigilante order (Batman) versus a relentless unrestrained terrorist (Joker).  The Dark Knight may not embrace conventional processes of law enforcement, but he holds to his own creed (primarily: thou shalt not kill).  On the other hand, the Joker adopts his creed of no compliance to any rules, whether it originate from civilization or from his own mind.  The Joker seeks not personal gain, fame, or wealth; he just wants to watch the world burn via manipulation of average citizens.

Does the theme of the film boil down to civilization (Batman) versus Darwinism (Joker)?  You remember the crux of Darwinism: survival of the fittest, kill or be killed.  If your competition is superior, then you shall be destroyed.  As long as the Joker continues to murder his competition, he remains the fittest.  Furthermore, the Joker applies two strategies to devolve the citizens of Gotham City into blood-thirsty apes: [1] Darwinism and [2] infiltrating our psychological circles of loyalty.

Machines are driven by cold indifferent logic.  Unfortunately, mankind is more animal than machine.  Due to our animalistic vicissitude, we’re driven by emotion and instinct.  These emotions overwhelm us within our concentric circles of loyalty: family first, then close friends, then provincial community, then city or state, then country, then major global civilization, then all humanity, then all mammals, then all land-based creatures, then multi-cellular life, then all life, then the entire Earth, then our solar system, and so on.

For examples: you would help a dying whale rather than a dying dung beetle because, since you are a mammal, you are more loyal to the mammalian family of animals.  If you’re a Christian, you would rather aid a fellow Christian before any Muslim, Buddhist, or Taoist.  To carry the theme, you would rather kill a stranger than allow a family member to perish in an exploding hospital.  This is because the family member is in your tightest circle of loyalty, so family always takes priority over those people you don’t know and don’t really care about in the context of your personal life.  The Joker simply plays these instincts programmed into us all, thereby turning Gotham’s innocent bystanders into mindless swine.

 

Now, most predictably, we enter Theme of Balance: creating more “good” results in automatic creation of more “evil” elsewhere so that the net sum (all good + all evil) remains zero.  This balance compliments fundamental physics such the Laws of Conservation of Mass and Conservation of Energy.  This also reinforces the theory that we live in a universe with equivalent quantities of matter and antimatter (sorry, I just read Dan Brown’s “Angels & Demons”).  Despite mankind’s finest engineering efforts to maintain order, time eventually crumbles then recycles absolutely all of existence.  Or as the Joker quaintly stated, “everything burns”.

Keeping this balance in mind, all rules, laws, or attempts to control humanity get automatically undermined by subconscious firmware embedded in each of our brains.  The Joker admits “it’s fear” that devolves us into Beasts, thereby ridding ourselves of the pain of being Men.

In turn, the Joker reveals that Batman himself served as the Joker’s inspiration to throw conformity in the dumpster.  The creation of a hero automatically spawned a villain, keeping the net sum of order and chaos equal to zero.  However, somebody threw a greasy monkey wrench into this theory: like the Joker, Batman is also an existential individual.  They both break the rules established by civilization!  They’re like two valence electrons speeding along a molecule’s outer rim: one trying to keep its resident molecule, Gotham, inert while the other tries to blast all of Creation with Photons of Bedlam.

Anyways, poor Batman’s dilemma as the protagonist is when “an unstoppable force meets an immovable object”.  The Joker admits these perceived polar opposites are “destined to do this forever”.  Order and chaos will negate each other forever, amen.  Also notice neither our hero nor villain get annihilated at the film’s conclusion, hence maintaining the balance.  Or, more likely, it was a setup for a sequel.  And this is totally tragic given Heath’s finest career performance followed immediately by his death.