I can't believe some prefer Columbus' boring carbon copies of the books to Cuaron/Newell/Yates' films.
@Badcompany - these are films not books. What may work for a book may not work for a film, as they are entirely different mediums and entities.There is only a certain amount you can place into a film that has to be kept under 2.5 hours long with budget constraints. There neeRAB to be cinematic style along with substance. I find it sad that some judge the films on what they include from the books, instead of rating them on the quality of their cinematic structure: pacing, editing, cinematography, character development, score, script etc....
The films have got better with each instalment and I really don't know how you can say nothing happened in HBP.
The film's plot had three sides to it: Draco's devouring childhood, Snape's Identity and Voldemort's Horcruxes.
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The film showed us that Snape had made an Unbreakable Vow - if Snape did not help Draco carry out his mission as best as he could, Snape would die.
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Harry found an old potions textbook, which had the title 'Half-Blood Prince' inside the back cover. It was later revealed that Snape's old nickname was the 'Half-Blood Prince'. The book also contained Snape's own spell called Sectumsempra, which leaves the victim with severe blood loss as shown in the Draco and Harry fight in the bathroom.
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The film starts off by showing us that Draco is now a Death Eater and Voldemort had instructed him to kill Dumbledore. Draco tried to do this all year by cursing a necklace, which he tried to send to Professor Dumbledore via Katie Bell. His plan failed when Katie ended up being possessed by the necklace. She was saved by Hagrid immediately, therefore the necklace did not have time to kill her.
Draco then poisoned a bottle of mead, which Slughorn was going to give to Dumbledore as a Christmas present. However, Ron ended up drinking it and was poisoned, thus Draco's second plan to kill the headmaster failed. Ron was saved by a magical medicine called a Bezoar, just in time. Don't forget that Draco is only a 16 year old and to be placed in a situation like this would be extremely stressful and difficult for him. He even broke down in the bathroom scene.
Draco then started to fix the two-way cabinet in the Room of Requirement. The cabinet served as a gateway from the "Borgin and Burkes Shop" into Hogwarts School. He needed the Death Eaters to enter the school after his previous plans failed. By fixing the broken cabinet, the Death Eaters would enter the school and make sure he would kill Dumbledore once and for all.
All of this was in striking contrast with the normal teenage life. As everyone was under pressure from raging hormones, Draco was under pressure of being killed if he did not kill Dumbledore by the end of the year. It showed how Draco was affected by the Death Eater lifestyle in comparison to the average teenage life.
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Harry extracted the memory from Slughorn. In this memory we learned that Voldemort, aka Tom Riddle, received information from Slughorn on how to split the soul.
Voldemort split his soul into seven pieces and placed them in various items. These items, with the soul contained, are known as Horcruxes. The film then explained that one cannot kill Voldemort unless all of his Horcruxes are destroyed.
We were then told that Dumbledore had tracked down one Horcrux (the ring) and had destroyed it, thus injuring his hand and destroying one piece of Voldemort's soul. He also showed us Tom Riddle's diary, another Horcrux that was destroyed in Harry's second year in the Chamber of Secrets. Dumbledore then said that he had found another and that he needed Harry to help him get to it.
This Horcrux was the locket. After the situation with the Inferi, Dumbledore and Harry obtained the Locket, but soon after Dumbledore was killed by Snape. We then found out that the Locket Horcrux was fake and that a person named RAB had taken the real Horcrux and intended to destroy it as soon as possible. This left a cliff hanger ending in which Harry, Ron and Hermione need to venture out into the wild and track down the other Horcuxes as well as finding RAB and what became of the Locket Horcrux.
So, taking everything into account, the film did have a plot and executed it well with brilliant cinematography, pacing, symbolism and foreshadowing.
Also, splitting the later books into two parts would only drag this series out and it would become very tedious. Good for the fans to enjoy, but WB Studios need to take into account other audiences too.