Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
I have read all of the books, the last two several times and the movie Half Blood Prince was shockingly bad(just got back from a midnight showing). Avoiding spoilers for the movie the book revolves around Harry discovering certain vulnerabilities that would allow Voldermort to be destroyed, the movie pays only a passing nod towards that element. Given what the final installments revolve around this oversight was profoundly moronic. Why Voldermort is the way he is, what kind of genetics and environment he dealt with and how that shaped him, how he made the choices in his life that led to the creation of powerful objects that are crucial to him, all absent from the movie. All utterly critical story points.
They removed a fairly good sized battle from the end of the movie, added in a very small skirmish that doesn't happen in the book near the middle, and pretty much totally rewrote the entire script. A great deal of the time they would reproduce the setup for something that happened in the book, but totally change what each character said for no savings in dialogue but for a MUCH weaker story overall. Whoever wrote the screenplay isn't worthy of taking out JK's trash. Not that I think she is the pinnacle of literature, but she is leagues beyond what the pathetic sap is who wrote this script.
They also changed some key elements that happen on top of one of the towers at the end of the book, I don't want to spoil anything but let's say that they made Potter seem like a pathetic pussy compared to what actually happened. The romantic relationship that Harry had was only brushed on slightly while the movie spent a hefty length of time dealing with Lavendar Brown. They may have actually included every bit of Lavendar Brown from the books, in the original story she was a non important side story(obviously they can't make a 12 hour movie, but if they did and followed the book in its' entirety her part wouldn't be any larger then it is in the movie).
Without comparing it to the book, the movie was boring, one thing of interest took place at the very end to do with the larger storyline, but other then that it was a fairly poorly done teenage romance flick with moderate humor. I don't think they could have done much worse then they did with the movie.