It’s been a long time since I paid attention to any promotional materials related to a Harry Potter movie. After awhile, it had seemed the movies all look the same, at least in trailers, posters and other marketing tools. And since I stopped caring about both the books and the movies after Goblet of Fire (though Order of the Phoenix has admittedly been floating around the bottom of my Netflix queue since it was released to DVD), there really was no reason for me to bother with ads for whatever installment Warner Bros. is currently attempting to ram down my movie-blogging throat.

However, due to my job of keeping abreast of all that’s super-hot in the world of film (according to film blogs, at least), I was obligated to watch the latest trailer for this summer’s Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. And I have to admit that it makes the new movie look incredibly epic. I feel like even if I had never seen a Harry Potter movie before, I’d still go see this, whether I went back and acquainted myself with the predecessors or not. Even more than exciting me with its percussion-heavy music and its promise of kissing scenes (aka “mild sensuality”), the trailer really impressed me with its turn-face on the usual trailer-pause technique, in which the cliche “It has begun” is replaced with “It’s over.”

After the jump, read what other bloggers are saying about this new spot:

• Seth Abramovitch at Movieline got an early peek yesterday afternoon, after which he related his interest as it relates to appreciations for the Up! documentaries, Lost and The Lord of the Rings:
  

  Draco Malfoy is enlisted by the guy-from-The Reader-who-must-not-be-named to wreak meteorological havoc on the London mass transit system. Clearly no expense has been spared, as the installment boasts three smoke monsters, a half-dozen Gollums, two fire tornados, and a couple of those scary cloud-skull-thingies to boot.

• Potter fanatic Jeremy Medina at EW’s PopWatch also makes a LOTR comparison:
  

  And we even get our first real glimpse of the Inferi, who look like cast-offs from Lord of the Rings but are downright chilling nonetheless.

• Rachel Josue at MTV Movies Blog tries to assess all that the trailer displays:
  

  [Director David] Yates’ much appreciated humor shines through in this new trailer, which is jam-packed full of information.

  How do you even take it all in? Death Eaters are everywhere. Draco Malfoy has a mission from the Dark Lord. Dumbledore asks more of Harry than ever. Harry seeks to uncover dangers that lie within the castle grounds. Love strikes all over Hogwarts …

• Rob Bricken at Topless Robot starts off declaring he never liked the Potter books or movies, but he will say this:
  

  the people who make the trailers for the Harry Potter movies are absolute geniuses, because they’ve make Half-Blood Prince look incredibly awesome, certainly far beyond the actual awesomeness of the finished product. they do this every time, for every movie. Well done.

  Also, note that this Potter flick is warning of “mild sensuality” in the flick. I’m calling it now — the first film of Deathly Hallows will be rated R for nudity and sexual situations, and the second will feature hardcore Gryffindor-on-Hufflepuff action, rendering all further Potter fanfic unnecessary. In my dreams.

• Vic Holtreman at Screen Rant is as suddenly excited for the franchise as I am:
  

  I have to say… I’ve only ever read the first book and as far as the films go for me it’s “watch it once and I’m good,” but this thing is looking pretty damned epic. I still don’t see how it has garnered a PG rating - it looks as dark as the films that have come before. I think that just indicates a raising of the bar as to what constitutes PG-13 and now even PG.

• Neil Miller at Film School Rejects also pays notice to the trailer’s epic proportions:
  

  As someone who has long been an outsider to the whole Potter craze — though I have seen all of the films — I have to say that as they go along they seem to get darker and bigger. In fact, if there is one word that I would use to describe this particular trailer it would be epic — it feels like a much bigger, more ferocious film than we’ve seen before in the Potter series and I like that. Hopefully that tone holds true for the entire film.

• Harry Knowles at Aint It Cool News likes the tone, as well:
  

  I have to say - this is the creepiest and most eerie looking Harry Potter I’ve seen yet. I just can’t get past how creepy it looks. Can’t wait to see it all.

• Alex Billington at First Showing compares this one to previous spots:
  

  At this point, we’ve seen so many trailers (at least five in total), that there isn’t too much footage we haven’t seen before, however this one is very well put together and much more thrilling than the last few. I’ll gladly admit that it’s probably one of the movies I’m most looking forward to this summer. Also, every time I see a trailer, I keep wondering how the heck it’s PG, because it definitely doesn’t look tame.

• Lane Brown at Vulture thinks it’s astonishing how Warner Bros. secured that PG rating:
  

  This looks like nightmare fuel. Death Eaters! Fire! Noseless Ralph Fiennes! How many small, parental-guardianless children will Half-Blood Prince irreversibly scar this summer? Does WB — the same studio whose The Dark Knight inexplicably escaped with a PG-13 last summer — have compromising photos of the MPAA, or what? Anyway, this looks completely awesome.

• Meredith Woerner at io9 calls the trailer “frighteningly beautiful,” while commenter “mekki” offers reason to worry:
  

  I am very weary of HP trailers with this director. The trailer for that last movie was amazing but I hated the movie. Seriously, I was left seething because it was so poorly done.

  I hope this one won’t be as bad as the last.

• Brad Brevet at Rope of Silicon has a minor complaint:
  

  Is it just me or was that trailer damn near completely devoid of color? Silver, turquoise, a touch of red and that’s about it. There were a few good shots though.

• Mark at I Watch Stuff humorously seems as though he won’t be seeing this movie, whatever it’s called:
  

  things are getting bleak for Harry, red-haired boy, and the girl. “The darkest hour is upon us all,” the narrator claims! But also there’s some Quidditch. Always time for a little Quidditch. The darkest hour is here; the black arts are winning; we might all die; still though, let’s do that Quidditch tourney. We can squeeze that in. Hogwart’s has a great offensive line-up this year!

  Harry is totally going to make it with whoever this girl is.

• Speaking of the trailer, Hulu apparently had some new form of countdown for the thing, which caught the attention of David Poland at The Hot Blog (now I’m sorry I missed it, whatever it was):
  

  I actually think this is a bit absurd and when I got my annual note about the countdown to the new Potter trailer, I rolled my eyes and started thinking about writing about how I think that this kind of countdown stuff is reaching its point of cultural irrelevance…
  … at some point, all the “must see now” alerts become “must wait til it happens to float past me.”

  However, I haven’t seen this specific kind of thing before… and so I post…

• Now, the trailer, via Hulu: