Harry Potter

I went to see the final Harry Potter film this past weekend along with millions of other viewers.  I hate that I couldn't go opening day (the forces of exhaustion were against us), but at least I made it for opening weekend.  There have been many many reviews and raves about this movie and I am with them, mostly.

This is probably the only book (series) I truly really loved that I would see on the big screen.  For one, it's kind of hard to ignore all these movies and commercialization of the franchise.  But more than that, they were really working with the author for how how the movies should take shape.  This is not to say I haven't been disappointed in the choices they have made along the way, but I respect that the author at least approves of the substitutes and the vision of her story.

I can remember the very first movie when it came out.  I went to see it with Andrea and Tyler in between the finals at RIT.  It was November 2001, almost 10 years ago.  We were there for the 11am showing (the first one of the day, no midnight showings for the first one in our area).  We were there with bus loads of kids from the area schools, but it was magic on the screen.  I remember just being entranced by the movie and hoping there would be many more to follow.  My wishes were granted.

My love of Harry Potter started the year before at Christmas when I participated in a White Elephant exchange where someone brought the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for the exchange.  It went around like hot cakes and everyone was fighting over it.  I didn't end up with it, but I said, I need to get a copy.  That year, I took my bookstore gift card from my grandfather and went and picked up a copy.  I ate it up and wanted more.  I read all the way through the fourth book and was really disappointed when the fifth book was going to be a two year wait (from when I started reading)!  But that's ok, the movie would fill the void.

That summer, 2001, was when I think Harry Potter went big time.  The fourth book had gained quite a lot of momentum on it's own with the message from JK Rowling that one of the characters died, but then they were making a movie to be released in the fall about the first book.  Everyone wanted to know, well if this is a 7 book series, will they have a movie for them all?!  And the answer now is obviously yes.  As the books came out and they got longer, it was harder to condense it to the normal 2ish hour movie, but they did well.  The fourth book (first in the larger book sizes) was the first where I noticed the cuts they made.  Sure they can't really take up screen time to show how Hermonie made scarves to free the elves, but it would have been "nice".

Well here we are at the final Harry Potter film.  As I watched the story unfold in front of me on the big screen I couldn't help but feel a little sad.  I mean, after all, this had captured my attention for 10 years.  I have re-read the series more times than I care to admit (all books have been read at least 4 times, some more) and I have started the holiday tradition of watching the movies while I decorate for the holidays (as the first movies came out in the fall).  There were a lot of emotional parts to the movie and I will admit, I cried my eyes out when he went into the Dark Forest.  It really captured the emotions that I had when I read the book, but they didn't follow the story as well as they had in other movies.

I will tell you that I did re-read the last Harry Potter Book before going to see this movie.  This may have been a mistake, however, even if I had not done so, there are things I would have noticed anyway.  I understand most of the reasoning from a cinematic perspective, but that doesn't mean I agree with it.  I wish they had shown the events from when the enter the Room of Requirement until the end more true to the story as it was written.  There were a lot of "shortcuts" taken, which again I understand, but did not care for.  The way they get to the Gray Lady, how they handle the students in the castle, where Snape dies, the Kings Crossing scene (they leave a LOT of back story out, but they never explained it before either, so it made no sense to add it in now), the duel between Molly and Bellatrix, and the final scene with Harry and Voldermort.  I will always like the books better (as in any series), but I am still pleased with the movie representation of the book.

And so the ending is bittersweet, but the characters will continue to live in the books and in the movies.  I only hope that someday when I have kids, they will still enjoy the stories just as much as I continue to do.