HARREH POTTAAAHHH!!
Oh, my childhood. My beautiful, bookish childhood that turned quickly into a nerdy, outcast-ish adolescence. It has come to a cinematic end. And what an ending that was.
For those of you who have actually read HP and the Deathly Hallows, you might be on the same page as me when I describe my following reaction to the book’s end. Hedwig made me gasp, the doe and the sword was a nice tie-in, Dobby made me gasp AND pause, the forest had me in tears, the end had me cheering, and then I turned the page and found it-the epilogue. I’ve since come to terms with it, but damn, it really messed up my read-a-thon, I’ll tell you that. Gone were the nostalgic feelings, gone was the need to commiserate with my Potter friends, and in went the need to separate myself from the series for a couple of weeks (I tried a month, but couldn’t stick it).
And so, even though I went into the cinema knowing what was going to happen, I had the exact same reaction to those points of the film as I had had to the book. I gasped, Warner Bros. gave me a couple months pause in between Dobby and Gringotts, I cried in the forest, and then I left the cinema wanting to throw those stupid 3D glasses (yes, I couldn’t find a good showing for 2D...it was rough, but more on that later) into the veil and then here we are now-almost a month later, and I’m finally writing about it.
My mother is so proud.
So in that, I guess I can safely endorse the two Deathly Hallows films being the most true to the books. No longer can I fall back on the ‘but it’s just based on the books!’ argument with myself. There were elements in this film I had to actually explain to people who hadn’t read the books themselves because we weren’t given an obscene amount of exposition for every single thing that couldn’t be explained with a well-placed sign. Which for an actual film, is a downfall-it’s called cutting the fat, and Deathly Hallows is on the verge of a coronary. There are going to be people watching this film who don’t want to be there (hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaa yeah, whatever), who haven’t read the books (pfft) and who won’t have a mountain of backstory to lean on when the filmmakers make a cursory glance in it’s direction.
These two films were basically a giant wake up call to people who only watch and don’t read-as in, get your ass to the nearest book store and read the damned books yourself! You’ve gone six films and almost ten years ignoring the source material and watching the watered down version, so now we’re going to give the book fans what they want-something that vaguely resembles the books.
And praise be Rowling, they did just that.
Because honestly, this was...I can’t tell if Part 2 was better than Part 1, but with that epilogue (which no, we’re not allowed to ignore), I’d say the race was pretty close. Close in terms of being an actual film adaptation of a book, and close in terms of quality.
General consensus is that Part 1 was just a bunch of camping scenes, but...I didn’t see it that way. Part 1 was almost like a preface, a preparation to what was to come in Part 2. There was the frustration Harry (Radcliffe), Ron (Grint) and Hermione (Watson) felt in this close to impossible task, their separation of ways, and their reunion-which makes Part 2 that much sweeter in that no-you don’t just witness the golden trio fighting for their lives and riding a dragon. No, in Part 2 you get that satisfaction of movement on their part, and how much closer they’ve come to ridding the Wizarding world of Lord Voldemort. Without Part 1, Part 2 would’ve been on par with a Transformers movie in terms of instant gratification. War isn’t that easy, folks. You have to actually figure out what you’re going to do before you start busting down doors, wands blazing.
On top of all that, you’ve got a stellar supporting cast to draw from-from young Brits making their first mark on the film world to world class veterans, Deathly Hallows has them all. In fact, scratch that-the franchise has had them all. What we’ve seen is essentially a home video for those young stars in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone up to now. Harry and the gang have all gone through the uncomfortable stages of puberty right in front of us, and Deathly Hallows (both parts, that is) shows us just how grown up they’ve become.
Puberty: you're doing it right.
All while continuing to grudgingly acknowledge the epilogue.
Grudgingly.
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