SHP#39 – The Ultimate Sacrifice
Part 3 of a special series dedicated to the movie ‘Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince’.
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Is Slugghorn is getting a bit of a bash?
IMO,at least by the way he was portrayed in the film, unlike Dumbledore I had no sense that at that time, Slughorn knew just what Tom Riddle wanted to become. If, anything, it is here that Slughorn acts grandfatherly because he treats Tom as a bright and gifted student. Something starkly contrasted to Dumbledore’s encouter with young Tom. Mindful of this, I’m not so sure Gambon’s Dumbledore isn’t the more accurate after all.
This also throws a spot-light on just how and when memories are collected. Was the memory intentionally altered-a lie-or was the memory what Slughorn convinced himself to believe by the time Dumbledore collected his version? In either case,
Dumbledore knows his version is wrong. That points to some knowledge of consequences and, as such, I’m not sure the grandfatherly Dumbledore envisioned by many fans could fully ever be there. To DUmbledore’s credit, where Slughorn shrinks at the ramifications, albeit in hind-sight, Dumbledore does try to rectify them. So when Gambon’s Dumbledore bellows (ever alarm your grandparent?), it is with the knowledge of just how delicate the balance of good and ill can be when children blunder about.
Something not mentioned from the film:
the Weasley twins’ suits: classic!
Thanks for your feedback. To be honest, we probably could have done ten shows reviewing the film. We’ve gone back to going chapter-by-chapter in Deathly Hallows.
As far as Slughorn is concerned: I’ve no doubt he had no idea at the time how Riddle would turn out. I suspect Dumbledore figured out the memory was tampered with because of the tell-tale signs (IIRC, from the book, there were some cloudiness in the memory, and I think they tried to portray that in the film as well).
The Weasley twins’ suit, and for that matter, the store, was brilliant in the films. You might want to try looking up ITV’s special (you can find it on YouTube) to get a closer look behind the scenes at the making of the film. I believe it’s in part three of five.
Thanks, Lyn. An HBP-BTS, I had no idea it was out…but then it’s YouTube-doh!
Thanks for the great depth you guys are able to add to the movie in this case. I had just two things that I noticed during the movie that I’d like to share with you and all the other readers of this post:
First, and this is a minor thing but still, I noticed that in the movie, the works of the luck-potion ‘Felix Flelicis’ (?) is somewhat downplayed. What I liked in the book is that the potion not only helped Harry with gathering the memory of Slughorn, but accelerated the break up between Ginny and -I believe it was- Dean Thomas. I’m not sure anymore since it’s been a while since I’ve read the book, but there might be even more things that Felix fixed.
Second thing that I noticed, and this might be a problem in the final movie, is the way Harry hid the book of the half blood Prince in the Room of Requirements, or to be more precise the way he did NOT hid the book. In the last book, when searching for the tiara horcrux, Harry suddenly realises he has seen a tiara in the Room of Requirements, on the head of a bust on top of the Vanishing Cabinet if I’m not mistaken. I’ve seen the movie twice, and did NOT see anything that could be the tiara. Of course there are other ways to solve this problem, but it was something that popped up in my mind and I felt like sharing with you all.