The end of an era...

[miss_monocle]

I took my sweet time for a viewing - didn't bother with a midnight screening (I'm too old for that!) and I'll be honest - I wasn't that enthralled by it. At all. It almost felt obligatory and despite the flaws of the films (such as, tweaking, cutting out of subplots and crucial scenes), it's never felt obligatory to me.

THE POTTER PROS

• The opening Hogwarts scene. Really well done - all the joy and fun of the school replaced by the order and oppression. The score written for this film I am looking forward to buying.
• Minerva. She was just. Everything. Absolutely everything I had hoped to see. While I think she hasn't had that much of a formative influence on the narrative - she's a character who has always, always put her school first, who has remained faithful and loyal and stood up for what she believed to be right - and I only have regret, knowing that we know hardly anything about her as a person.
• Helena as Hermione as Bellatrix. Flawless. Having Emma's voice dubbed over did help, but she did it well. Lestrange's Vault
• The defense of Hogwarts scene. I was crying. I can't even articulate how I felt watching.
• The Room of Hidden Things (despite the terrible, unimaginative name, honestly): a tweak that I truly thought was better for viewing - Fiendfyre looked exactly as I pictured it, and having Harry puncture the diadem with a fang before throwing it back into the inferno looked much, much better than if he just looked down at the blood oozing from it. I can't wait to get the blu-ray and gawk at the caps and look at all the little details of what was exactly stuffed in there ie the chess pieces, Fanged Frisbees etc. Or here's hoping Pottermore might have a whole section to it....oooh.
• Luna not in her uniform but in her purple and blue outfit. Bless. And bless her for yelling at Harry too. 
• Kelly McDonald as Helena Ravenclaw was totes awesome. The scene between her and Harry was pitch perfect.
• LAVENDER BROWN AND CHO CHANG. I was stoked to see them both. Thankfully they excluded that stupid bit between Cho-Ginny because that's just petty. I shed a tear when Lavender died (though she doesn't in the book??) and I wanted to kick the few people who clapped in my cinema, seeing her dead on the floor. Yes, she was grating in Half Blood Prince and yes, she was a blockade between Ron and Hermione, but she still had a choice, and she chose to be there, take a stand and fight for what she believed in. She paid the ultimate sacrifice for it too. Who cares who she was making out with?!
• Neville. Oh, my word. He can get it.
• "Nagini, kill" - brutal. Absolutely brutal!
• Rupert's performance upon finding out about Fred.
• The Prince's Tale. I was wet with tears. I could barely see the damn screen. And then, when I had just started to recover, that damn Harry/Hermione scene comes along and punches me in the nuts. Kloves, you're such a Harry/Hermione troll, we can hear you bashing your way up from the dungeon.
• THE MALFOYS. Lucius, when Voldemort asks him 'How can you live with yourself, Lucius?' and he replies 'I don't know' - and while most of my cinema thought it hilarious, never a truer answer has come from his mouth. Admitting that he's terrified and completely broken to Voldemort's face took guts. Narcissa, with her BOLD FACED LIE to everyone's face, she was fearless. And at the end, when they just up and leave - RESPECT. I still think of them as cowards, but not everyone is heroic.

THE POTTER CONS

• Lestrange's Vault - um, why weren't the duplicates burning them?! To me it looked a bit like one of those massive foam pits that you jump into. For funsies. Would have been much more dramatic. That kind of detail I do not understand deleting.
• Did anyone else notice the fact that Ron and Harry were gaily stripping off and blinding us all with their whiteness - and Hermione just takes off one piece and then wraps herself in a blanket? Ha.
• The Aberforth-Ariana-Albus deal. WHAT THE HELL. It just wasn't touched on hardly at all!
• Um, wtf as the ENTIRE Slytherin House being booted from the Hall? Pansy, yes - but the entire House? Ridiculous. Not all Slytherin's are automatically pro-Voldemort. Ugh.
• Hermione destroying the Horcrux-cup. I can't be the only one who thought it to be out of character? Hermione is no killer, that's obvious - and we aren't sure of exactly how it went down, as Jo didn't write it - but her hesitation and reluctance and seemingly disbelief in her own capabilties to actually destroy the cup; seemed so UN-Hermione. I'm not sure what they were trying to achieve with that. The Hermione I know from the books, who had sacrificed so much, who had made tough calls and never broke her loyalty to the mission that she was on, and to Harry would not have hesitated and needed Ron to egg her on. It's not like the Horcrux was opened and the soul fragment was actually speaking to her like the locket.
• The Ron/Hermione kiss. While I am not and never will be a massive fan of that pairing, it's still a pretty big moment, no? It really wasn't that passionate.
• The Neville/Luna side story. Way contrived, and as much as I would have liked them to get together in the books (seeing as my first preference of Neville/Ginny and Luna/Ron was dashed) it just doesn't work.
• WHERE THE EFF WAS OLIVER WOOD.
• And what the heck, PERCY. You just can't have him appear right at the very end, on the 'good guys' side, when he hasn't been seen or referred to for over 4 movie.
• No Kreacher or House Elves. I really wanted to see them - afterall, Hogwarts has just been as much their home as anyone else.
• The Deathly Hallows wasn't properly explained. I mean, the damn story is named, THE DEATHLY HALLOWS. It's like there was all this stuff about it in Part 1, and then they just skipped talking about the pieces coming together. The ressurection stone, dropping to the floor - it wouldn't have made sense if I hadn't read the book.
• THE VOLDEMORT/DRACO HUG. OMFG.
• Neville's scene with the hat, I know when I read the book, I was horrified, but I did really want it to go down that way in the film.
• The Molly/Bellatrix duel fell flat, not nearly as badass as I had hoped it to be. And what was with the whole 'exploding into particle fluff?' I guess it's quite dramatic, but it just made no sense.
• The actual ending before the epilogue - what. Great shot, the 3 of them - but no final scene in the Headmaster's Office? I WANTED THAT DUMBLEDORE PORTRAIT GOD DAMMIT. I WANTED THERE TO BE SOME KIND OF CELEBRATION. And it would have wrapped up the Deathly Hallows thing much better too.
• Epilogue. I don't get it. It's technically, 2017, right? So why are they all dressed like fuddy duddys? Apart from Draco and his wife, who were both looking flyyyy - Ginny looked awful, Ron looked hilarious (seriously, I couldn't stop laughing, especially his expression when you first see him) so the only two that looked sort of alright were Harry and Hermione. Thankfully, most of the dialogue was cut, because I don't know if I could have dealed with hearing Harry list off another one of his kids' names, just hearing Albus Severus was enough. I'm going to be down on the epilogue anyway, because it's my least favourite part of the entire series.

I won't say that I hated this film, because I didn't. But I also didn't love it. I didn't leave the cinema thinking 'I need to see that again', I left thinking 'meh'. And I certainly wouldn't pay to see it again the 3D. Am I being far too critical and picky? Perhaps. I'm always finding myself wanting Harry Potter to be more, to be better. And that goes for the books as well as the movie. But it is over, and I am extremely grateful for this series, for it making me think, and invest emotionally in it. I only enjoy it so much because I do love it.

Bring on blu-ray release, Pottermore and the next Lego installment ;)