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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005)
J.K. Rowling
([LibraryThing] [Amazon])
Sixth book in the Harry Potter series. (Read just prior to watching the movie version, as has been my custom with the previous Harry Potter books.) Harry and his friends return to Hogwarts for their sixth year. However, things are becoming very dire as Voldemore continues to work behind the scenes to reestablish his power base. Dumbledore takes a direct role in Harry instruction this year, sharing with Harry what is known of the dark lord's past. These flashbacks via the the magical device of Dumbledore's called the Pensieve are a focal part of this novel. At the same time, Ron and Hermione experience another rather sizable "bump in the road" in their relationship, while Harry starts to develop feelings for Ron's sister, Ginny. The pace of the book can seem a bit slow at times, especially with all of the Pensieve flashbacks, but once Voldemort's biggest, darkest secret is discovered and it is revealed what Dumbledore and Harry must do to defeat him, things really pick up fast. From a dangerous mission of just the two of them away from the school and back to the school again where the forces of Voldemort have infiltrated the school's defenses and are on the attack. Significant things happen in this installment in the series (including the death of a major character), and present an almost irresistible lead-in to the final, seventh, volume in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. (Finished reading 7/19/09)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) (Movie) (Opened in the U.S. 7/15/09; seen 7/19/09).
As the Harry Potter movies continue to come out, the directors and other movie makers seem to take more and more liberties with the novels in adapting them to film. This statement is not intended as a criticism, necessarily. After all, Rowlings Harry Potter novels (starting with the fourth one, in particular) are very long and some material obviously has to be omitted and/or reconfigured in order to work it all into standard length movies. The cast is once again very good in their roles, and the key elements of the novel are all there. However, I couldn't help but wonder at a few of the changes. For instance, the director chose to omit an entire sequence where Dumbledore comes to Harry's uncle and aunt's house in the beginning of the novel and discusses with them just how disappointed he is in that they have not treated Harry well over the years since Harry was first left in their care as a baby. Instead, in the movie we discover that Harry has been hanging around subways for most of the summer break, taking the trains from place to place. It is here that Dumbledore finds him. The movie also omits a good portion of the climax of the novel (a battle at Hogwarts involving many of the characters besides Harry and Dumbledore which is almost entirely omitted in the movie), and the funeral scene from the end of the novel that is very moving (and in which Harry also makes a decision regarding his newly burgeoning relationship with Ginny). It is questionable as to just why the director decided to leave these scenes out. (Well, the battle and funeral scenes would have taken a good deal of time and additional money to shoot as each has a lot of characters in it, but the movie would have been stronger with those scenes than without, in my opinion. And the introductory scene with Harry's aunt and uncle wouldn't have been all that much additional time, I don't believe.) Still, a very enjoyable movie, overall. As with the novel, the movie really whets one's appetite for the remaining installment, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (which the movie makers have decided to split into two separate movies in order to cover the novel more completely, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One (due to be released in November 2010), and Part Two (July 2011).
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
TV round up (part three) (animated series)
(Sigh... I'm really hating that limit on entry labels right now. Gotta split what I intended for "part two" into yet a third entry to get it all in.)
Speaking of Disney XD, I've been taking advantage of their airing late at night the short-lived Silver Surfer (1998) and Spider-Man Unlimited (1999-2000) animated series to get better quality recordings of those programs.
Speaking of Disney XD, I've been taking advantage of their airing late at night the short-lived Silver Surfer (1998) and Spider-Man Unlimited (1999-2000) animated series to get better quality recordings of those programs.
TV round up (part two) (animated series)
(Splitting this entry up to be able to get all of my desired "labels" in; I wish that maximum character thing for tags wasn't there.)
Other series I've been watching in the meantime:
Batman: The Brave and the Bold (Cartoon Network): Excellent animated series. Has quickly become one of my favorites (although I have to admit that I'm several episodes behind in my watching).
Wolverine and the X-Men (NickToons): Third regular animated series based on the X-Men. Not bad, so far. Enjoyable most of the time but at the same time, nothing out of the ordinary. Voice casting is pretty good, and they took an interesting turn in starting the series after a period in which the X-Men have been out of action for awhile. Wolverine reforms the team but several members are still whereabouts unknown. Some of them have been reintroduced as we've gone along while others are still a mystery. And, again, I've got several episodes to catch up on at the time of this blog entry.
Iron Man: Armored Adventures (NickToons): Interesting take on Iron Man. Visually, a bit of a mixed bag. I like the CGI type look on the Iron Man armor and villains, but a bit less so on the normal faces. Voice casting is good, though, especially the woman they got to play Petter Potts.
Spectacular Spider-Man (Disney XD): Second season of animated series. First season was awesome. Haven't yet sat down to watch the second season episodes that I've been recording, though. (This series moved to cable station, Disney XD, as of the second season as there no longer is a "Kids WB"/"CW4Kids" network block to air it under.)
(Having to continue this in "part three" entry once again due to too many "labels" to fit it all in one blog entry...)
Other series I've been watching in the meantime:
Batman: The Brave and the Bold (Cartoon Network): Excellent animated series. Has quickly become one of my favorites (although I have to admit that I'm several episodes behind in my watching).
Wolverine and the X-Men (NickToons): Third regular animated series based on the X-Men. Not bad, so far. Enjoyable most of the time but at the same time, nothing out of the ordinary. Voice casting is pretty good, and they took an interesting turn in starting the series after a period in which the X-Men have been out of action for awhile. Wolverine reforms the team but several members are still whereabouts unknown. Some of them have been reintroduced as we've gone along while others are still a mystery. And, again, I've got several episodes to catch up on at the time of this blog entry.
Iron Man: Armored Adventures (NickToons): Interesting take on Iron Man. Visually, a bit of a mixed bag. I like the CGI type look on the Iron Man armor and villains, but a bit less so on the normal faces. Voice casting is good, though, especially the woman they got to play Petter Potts.
Spectacular Spider-Man (Disney XD): Second season of animated series. First season was awesome. Haven't yet sat down to watch the second season episodes that I've been recording, though. (This series moved to cable station, Disney XD, as of the second season as there no longer is a "Kids WB"/"CW4Kids" network block to air it under.)
(Having to continue this in "part three" entry once again due to too many "labels" to fit it all in one blog entry...)
TV round up (part one)
My last "TV round up" entry was way back on April 20, 2009. In all honesty, my television show based entries may the fewest and farthest between as I don't always feel like doing them at the time that I've watched the stuff, and as time goes on I'm even less likely to sit down to type something up.
Picking up from last entry, though (warning: spoilers below):
Heroes (NBC): "I Am Sylar" (Monday, April 20) and "An Invisible Thread" (Monday, April 27) finished off the show's third season. At this point, I don't recall enough about the episodes to really do into any long discussion about them, aside from certain memories of the season finale. I have to say that I'm rather ambivalent about how the writers left things. In general, I have enjoyed this third season of the series. It's had it's up and downs, of course, but still, as a whole, it's been enjoyable and definitely better than the previous, strike shortened, second season. My gut reaction is that I don't really like what they did with Nathan Petrelli. At times they haven't really know what to do with his character, it seems, leading to some pretty widely varying characterizations. However, I still find the Nathan-Peter-Angela Petrelli (plus sometimes Claire Bennett) family dynamic to be one of the most interesting aspects of the show and now an important "cog" in that has been lost. Plus, I have to wonder just how long they can really keep Sylar looking like Nathan (it's not like they are going to get rid of actor Zachary Quinto, so, now that Nathan's dead, I guess that means that Adrian Pasdar is the one to eventually go). And I couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed at just how Nathan met his end. But, then, again, just how much chance would Nathan really have against Sylar by himself? He probably did well to keep fighting as long as he did (albeitly, most of the fighting was off screen). And the fact that Peter flew into the room and took off with Claire just seconds before Nathan and Sylar did strain credibility a bit, I have to admit. Anyway, I am looking foward to the show's fourth (and probably final) season. It's going to be a slighly shortened season, just eighteen to twenty episodes. But's that's okay. I just hope that if it is the final season that they will write it as such, leaving no significant plot threads or cliffhangers unresolved.
Smallville (CW): Last episode I talked about was "Eternal" (Thursday, April 2). There were four more episodes of the then current eighth season ("Stiletto", April 23; "Beast", April 30; "Injustice", May 7; and "Doomsday", May 14). Too much time has passed for me to discuss these episodes individually, either. But I did, for the most part, enjoy this season of Smallville. They took the series in some interesting new directions. I do have to say that I found the season finale to be a bit of a mixed experience. A lot of build up for only a few seconds of confrontation between Clark and Doomsday. And Clark's declaration that "Clark Kent is dead" or whatever, well, I'm sure that that will be resolved quite quickly. I do, however, have to admit that I in no way saw Jimmy Olsen's death coming, nor their revelation that the character we've been seeing has not been the Jimmy Olsen ("Superman's Pal", etc., etc.) but rather his older brother. The "real" Jimmy Olsen is seen briefly at his older brother's funeral near the end of the episode. Apparently the actor playing the part of elder Jimmy was quite surprised to discover this, too, from what I read, finding out quite late that his character was being written out of the series. It does, however, help explain how Jimmy could be so much older in the Smallville continuity as, obviously, he's supposed to be so much younger in traditional Superman lore. I'll also be interested to see how they'll pick up the Lois situation, what with her accidentally putting on the time travel ring that the Legion gave Clark. Will we see Lois (and perhaps Clark, too) in the Legion's future time period next season? That'd be cool.
American Idol (Fox): Well, too much time has passed for me to really say much about the remainder of the American Idol season, other than that (as everyone knows) Kris Allen won. I was for most of the season a big Danny Gokey fan. Once Gokey was eliminated, I started rooting for Kris. Nothing against Adam Lambert. Truthfully speaking, Adam is probably the better singer (he definitey has a much wider range than Kris does). But Kris is just more my personal style, both musically and personality wise. Plus, Kris was the underdog up until the very end. So I'm happy that Kris won.
(I'm going to have to split this entry into two separate ones due to Blogger's maximum number of 200 characters in the "labels" per blog entry. I'll talk about animated series I've been following in part two.)
Picking up from last entry, though (warning: spoilers below):
Heroes (NBC): "I Am Sylar" (Monday, April 20) and "An Invisible Thread" (Monday, April 27) finished off the show's third season. At this point, I don't recall enough about the episodes to really do into any long discussion about them, aside from certain memories of the season finale. I have to say that I'm rather ambivalent about how the writers left things. In general, I have enjoyed this third season of the series. It's had it's up and downs, of course, but still, as a whole, it's been enjoyable and definitely better than the previous, strike shortened, second season. My gut reaction is that I don't really like what they did with Nathan Petrelli. At times they haven't really know what to do with his character, it seems, leading to some pretty widely varying characterizations. However, I still find the Nathan-Peter-Angela Petrelli (plus sometimes Claire Bennett) family dynamic to be one of the most interesting aspects of the show and now an important "cog" in that has been lost. Plus, I have to wonder just how long they can really keep Sylar looking like Nathan (it's not like they are going to get rid of actor Zachary Quinto, so, now that Nathan's dead, I guess that means that Adrian Pasdar is the one to eventually go). And I couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed at just how Nathan met his end. But, then, again, just how much chance would Nathan really have against Sylar by himself? He probably did well to keep fighting as long as he did (albeitly, most of the fighting was off screen). And the fact that Peter flew into the room and took off with Claire just seconds before Nathan and Sylar did strain credibility a bit, I have to admit. Anyway, I am looking foward to the show's fourth (and probably final) season. It's going to be a slighly shortened season, just eighteen to twenty episodes. But's that's okay. I just hope that if it is the final season that they will write it as such, leaving no significant plot threads or cliffhangers unresolved.
Smallville (CW): Last episode I talked about was "Eternal" (Thursday, April 2). There were four more episodes of the then current eighth season ("Stiletto", April 23; "Beast", April 30; "Injustice", May 7; and "Doomsday", May 14). Too much time has passed for me to discuss these episodes individually, either. But I did, for the most part, enjoy this season of Smallville. They took the series in some interesting new directions. I do have to say that I found the season finale to be a bit of a mixed experience. A lot of build up for only a few seconds of confrontation between Clark and Doomsday. And Clark's declaration that "Clark Kent is dead" or whatever, well, I'm sure that that will be resolved quite quickly. I do, however, have to admit that I in no way saw Jimmy Olsen's death coming, nor their revelation that the character we've been seeing has not been the Jimmy Olsen ("Superman's Pal", etc., etc.) but rather his older brother. The "real" Jimmy Olsen is seen briefly at his older brother's funeral near the end of the episode. Apparently the actor playing the part of elder Jimmy was quite surprised to discover this, too, from what I read, finding out quite late that his character was being written out of the series. It does, however, help explain how Jimmy could be so much older in the Smallville continuity as, obviously, he's supposed to be so much younger in traditional Superman lore. I'll also be interested to see how they'll pick up the Lois situation, what with her accidentally putting on the time travel ring that the Legion gave Clark. Will we see Lois (and perhaps Clark, too) in the Legion's future time period next season? That'd be cool.
American Idol (Fox): Well, too much time has passed for me to really say much about the remainder of the American Idol season, other than that (as everyone knows) Kris Allen won. I was for most of the season a big Danny Gokey fan. Once Gokey was eliminated, I started rooting for Kris. Nothing against Adam Lambert. Truthfully speaking, Adam is probably the better singer (he definitey has a much wider range than Kris does). But Kris is just more my personal style, both musically and personality wise. Plus, Kris was the underdog up until the very end. So I'm happy that Kris won.
(I'm going to have to split this entry into two separate ones due to Blogger's maximum number of 200 characters in the "labels" per blog entry. I'll talk about animated series I've been following in part two.)
Movies round up
Ooops, I've got some catching up to do, obviously. (It's been over a month since my last entry.)
Movies I've seen since my last "Movies round up" entry (May 13, 2009):
Terminator: Salvation (2009) (Saw this one opening weekend, ca. May 21, 2009)
I thought it was good but not great. Lots of cool action stuff, of course, but by the end I sort of was feeling a sense of fatigue from the overriding grimness of the picture. The movie takes place entirely in the future, post-apocalyptic world in which the Terminators are at war with pockets of human resistance. John Connor is a soldier in said war but not leading the resistance yet (although some do see him as the spiritual leader of sorts; Connor uses radio broadcasts to rally the troops everywhere and to provide them with intelligence against the machines). Where it gets a bit confusing is in trying to figure out just how much this version of Connor knows about the Terminators and their goals based on what happened in the first three movies (which this movie supposedly recognizes; adding to possible confusion is that it does not recognize the Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles television series). And some of what happens is pretty obvious the way it is set up (such as the true nature of Marcus Wright, Sam Worthington's character). It is obvious that this movie is set-up to lead into a sequel. Presumably, that one will take us to the point where John Connor sends Kyle Reese back in time to protect Sarah Connor from the Arnold Schwarzenegger played Terminator. (There is some pretty good stuff in this movie when John Connor is confronted by one of the Schwarzenegger models. Schwarzenegger isn't actually in the movie but they are so good at visual effects by this point that you can't tell that this isn't a younger version of now current governor of California.)
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) (Saw this one about three weeks after opening, ca. May 29, 2009)
I enjoyed this one, too. Probably more so than Terminator Salvation but not quite as much as Star Trek (which I talk about in my last "movie round up" entry). Unfortunately, two months after having seen it, I really can't think of anything else to say about it. Hugh Jackman is, as usual, very good as Logan/Wolverine. The movie fills in a lot of his back story, including his past relationship with Sabretooth and how he got his adamantium laced skeleton and claws. You also see some other noteworthy characters, some from the earlier X-Men movies and some from the comics making their movie debuts.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) (Saw this one Sunday of opening weekend, July 19, 2009)
I'll do a separate entry for this one, discussing the book and the movie in the same entry.
Movies I've seen since my last "Movies round up" entry (May 13, 2009):
Terminator: Salvation (2009) (Saw this one opening weekend, ca. May 21, 2009)
I thought it was good but not great. Lots of cool action stuff, of course, but by the end I sort of was feeling a sense of fatigue from the overriding grimness of the picture. The movie takes place entirely in the future, post-apocalyptic world in which the Terminators are at war with pockets of human resistance. John Connor is a soldier in said war but not leading the resistance yet (although some do see him as the spiritual leader of sorts; Connor uses radio broadcasts to rally the troops everywhere and to provide them with intelligence against the machines). Where it gets a bit confusing is in trying to figure out just how much this version of Connor knows about the Terminators and their goals based on what happened in the first three movies (which this movie supposedly recognizes; adding to possible confusion is that it does not recognize the Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles television series). And some of what happens is pretty obvious the way it is set up (such as the true nature of Marcus Wright, Sam Worthington's character). It is obvious that this movie is set-up to lead into a sequel. Presumably, that one will take us to the point where John Connor sends Kyle Reese back in time to protect Sarah Connor from the Arnold Schwarzenegger played Terminator. (There is some pretty good stuff in this movie when John Connor is confronted by one of the Schwarzenegger models. Schwarzenegger isn't actually in the movie but they are so good at visual effects by this point that you can't tell that this isn't a younger version of now current governor of California.)
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) (Saw this one about three weeks after opening, ca. May 29, 2009)
I enjoyed this one, too. Probably more so than Terminator Salvation but not quite as much as Star Trek (which I talk about in my last "movie round up" entry). Unfortunately, two months after having seen it, I really can't think of anything else to say about it. Hugh Jackman is, as usual, very good as Logan/Wolverine. The movie fills in a lot of his back story, including his past relationship with Sabretooth and how he got his adamantium laced skeleton and claws. You also see some other noteworthy characters, some from the earlier X-Men movies and some from the comics making their movie debuts.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) (Saw this one Sunday of opening weekend, July 19, 2009)
I'll do a separate entry for this one, discussing the book and the movie in the same entry.
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