The Half Blood Prince (HBP) is David Yates’ second directorial venture in the Harry Potter movies after The Order of The Phoenix (OOTP), and it seems as though he is beginning to understand the spirit of Harry Potter.

When I watched OOTP for the first time, I was quite scared – not only because the movie itself was devastatingly bad adaptation of the story (which, in my opinion, is probably the best story in the series), but also because Yates was charged with directing the rest of the movies.

Fortunately, HBP is much more enjoyable as a Harry Potter movie. And after watching the movie, I think I understand why OOTP was such a deviation from the story. Yates did not read the stories carefully before making OOTP. On many of the finer details of the story he simply misinterpreted the incidents, and shown them in a way that contradicts the rest of the story. It seems now he has read the books, and has a much better understanding of what to keep and what to remove from the movies. He did not try to cram the movie in a very short time (HBP is 153 minutes compared to OOTP’s 138 minutes, and I still fail to understand why that movie was so short in duration), and utilized the time well. more…

Harry Potter is a modern phenomenon. You can love it or hate it, but you can not ignore it. As far as fantasies go, Harry Potter is one of the best fantasy stories ever told.

The story is groundbreaking for many reasons – the plot is excellent and flawless, the world described in the story is believable and continuous, and the characters are well developed as well as matured (and maturing over the course of the story). But these are probably true for any well-knit story. There is another noteworthy characteristic of the Harry Potter story however, that is absolutely unprecedented. more…