I don't get it...

I just saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince today, expecting to be at least midly entertained.

I was wrong.

I was bored out of my skull. Bored with the moodiness, the lack of humour the damn teen angst. Has Twighlight even scared the makers of the HP movies?

I love the books. Can't read them enough. Have read them all at least twice, as I recall. I love the humor, the adventure and the not so hidden Christian message in the whole series. A scholar of children's literature, Jack Zipes - Marxist and athiest - said after only three or four of the books were out that this series was following the pattern of the Christian knight. I didn't believe it then, but after book 7, I saw it loud and clear. This profound idea is lost to the idea that we need to just show a string of scenes from each book.

The movies? Don't own or want to own any of them. I find they're more to appeal to fans who want to see "certain scenes" on screen. Unlike Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, I feel the makers of the Harry Potter movies have lost touch with the spirit of the stories. Jackson added, deleted and manipulated the key events in the story to fit cinema and illustrate his own interpretations, but I don't feel that we lost Tolkien's original themes and ideas. Harry Potter tends to be scenes from the books, without the ideas that propel the story. I guess, in a sense, I felt the same way about Star Trek (2009) - something was lost in the translation to the big screen.

Although, like ST, perhaps in 20 years we'll get the "reboot" of the Harry Potter movies. I wonder what Jackson is doing after producing The Hobbit?

EDIT: Yay! Here's a review of the movie that I agree with! And it's from Philly!

Opposites

If you haven't noticed - I've been BUSY with many things. Among them, writing papers for the graduate courses I finished a month ago. Although, don't feel sorry for me - I'm still loving every minute of it!

I'm down to my last two papers. One is on censorship (just about finished) and the last one is about free will (read a lot - haven't started yet...). It just occured to me only yesterday that I'm writing about opposites. I wanted to write this note about two books I've read recently and how they relate to my writing.


The first book is by Al Gore and it is a devastating critique of the Bush administration. It is all about censorship, it turns out. Bush/Cheyney had a vision: invade Iraq - they had it right from day 1 and September 11 was just the excuse they needed. There was,and is, no connection between Saddam and 9/11. Afghanastan is left for Canada to sort out, even though the US did nothing about finishing the job. If even half of what Gore says is right - George Bush should be put on trial for crimes against humanity. The Department of Homeland Security is a waste of taxpayer money - the administration knew all they needed before 9/11 and just didn't act on the information they were given. All the extra security measures in the airport - having gone through that joke this summer - was not even needed. Our intelligence system before 9/11 worked just fine, thank you very much. If the executive branch had listened to their own intelligence, there could have been prevention. They knew all the hijakers before the flight. They knew they were training to fly commercial jets! Bush and Cheyney & co. were so set on Iraq, they blinded themselves, and continue to blind themselves to reality. It's amazing there aren't more protests. It's also amazing that Gore isn't running for president, because this book would make a good platform. Here's hoping Hilary reads it (how could she not?)



**WARNING:SPOILERS TO THE 7TH HARRY POTTER BOOK AHEAD!!

The other book to deal with censorship is the book than many have been screaming to ban from school libraries: Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Please note that I've given the link for the far superior Canadian edition. I have never forgiven the USA publishers for ruining the title of the first book. The title in the rest of the world is: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone! Another form of censorship in the US. It's amazing that this book has been so condemned by fundamentalist Christians, especially considering, as stated by Jack Zipes (He's an expert on children's literature) - That Harry Potter, despite being formulaic and sexist (I really don't agree with him on the second), is a "Christian knight". In fact, interviews with followers of Wicca say that Harry Potter bears more resemblance to Christianity than to the Wiccan religion! Does anyone listen, though? I guess not. Here is a hero, who is singled out and hunted down by evil. Evil knows he will triumph and evil also knows that only he or Harry must survive via the other's death. So, what is the final solution? Harry puts his life on the line, not only for the wizarding world, but for the muggle world. Harry dies to save the world. He then is able to return to life. Does that story sound vaguely familiar to ANYONE???