HBP To Be Rated PG?

I just found this article on The Leaky Cauldron, and apparently Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is being given a mere PG rating after both Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix were given PG-13 ratings and still were toned down.

Now, I have mixed feelings about this one. A PG rating isn't inherently bad - in fact, many of my favorite movies are PG or even G - it's just that Half Blood Prince comes off as being much darker, and, well, it has scenes in it that warrant a PG-13 rating, probably along with one of those "Parents Strongly Cautioned" tags on it. I'm half afraid that this is how executives plan on expanding their audience, but if they actually keep certain scenes from the book in the film, and especially if they don't tone them down, then we're going to have a lot of angry parents.

On the other hand, if they tone it down so that young children can watch it and not be traumatized by the rather graphic nature of said certain scenes, then they risk alienating the fan base. The Harry Potter series has a ton of older fans as well, and they want to see the harshness of the books shine through into the movie. The books mature as the series progresses, but for a lot of people, it seems as though the movies don't want to follow in that tradition.

As for me, I don't have very high expectations for the film, but I'd like to be pleasantly surprised. I got my hopes up really high for Prisoner of Azkaban despite all the warning signs telling me that I probably wouldn't like the film, and I just wound up disappointed. The first two films were great, but ever since then the characters have been written wrong, the magical feeling that permeated the first two films has been traded for something us Muggles would better relate to, and a lot of juicy plot points have been left of the cutting room floor. Thus, I'll go see the film, but Prisoner of Azkaban has killed my enthusiasm, I'm afraid.

Hmmm, I should start reviewing the films for my Friday Review series...

Anyway, so that this isn't a completely negative post, here's some pictures of Luna Lovegood in her infamous lion's hat in the film. At the very least I can say that they're not cutting out one of my favorite Luna scenes, they're just placing it in the wrong film!