Totally unprofessional, completely biased, highly emotional, utterly scatterbrained...
...Harry Potter review.
I'm not as disgusted as I was last night. Last night I hated it. There were a lot of really great individual scenes--some of the fight scenes, for example. I like Molly Weasley charging in to take out Bellatrix; I really wasn't expecting that. I loved Neville going all Samuel L. Jackson on Nagini--"That's it! I have had it with these motherfuckin' snakes in this motherfuckin' Hogwarts"--sort of. The great Gringotts caper was a cool, exciting scene that ought to look great in the movie. Bill and Fleur's wedding was good. I love Luna, she's just a great character. Hagrid holding what he thought was Harry's dead body and sobbing as he was forced to march back to Hogwarts--and McGonagall's horrible scream as she saw them--awesome. Kreacher!--he was great--the house-elves attacking the Death Eaters with steak knives and stuff--that had me howling with laughter. Godric's Hollow was really exciting and tense, too, as was the infiltration of the Ministry of Magic. Loved Narcissa pretending Harry was dead to protect Draco, too, and I can't wait to see who they get to play her in the films.
So there were some good things about it. I was, however, disappointed by a good lot of it. Remus and Tonks just die, off-screen, and we don't even get to know what happened to them? They were barely in it, and Lupin acted so out-of-character for all of his scenes I was disgusted. I'm still pissed about Hedwig--and don't get me started on Dobby. And why was it necessary to kill off Colin Creevey? Wth? And is Lavender Brown a werewolf now? Fricking Crabbe? Even that little creep upset me. Gratuitous death scenes. I mean, yes, it's a war, there are casualties, but the callous way she threw aside a lot of these characters we have come to care so much about over a ten-year, seven-book period really, really upset me--and like I said, I'm not even a crazy, hard-core Harry Potter fan. I bet there are people out there who are devastated. I can understand deaths--yes, they would have happened--so I think it's the WAY she did all of them that really irked me.
The worst one to me was Fred. Why, again, WHY?? I was so, so glad--elated--when Percy showed up at the last second. The Weasleys are the best part of the whole books, I think, so it was great to see the whole family reunited, then WHAM. That was horrible. And again, we don't get to see any reaction to it. Yes, everyone's sad and Ron's pissed off, but what about George, his twin? We get this sap-happy epilogue, 19 years later, where everything's hunky dory--that was so lame and contrived. I wanted Harry and Ginny (who was reduced to a bit player for Harry to pine over and eventually make babies with--bleh) and Ron and Hermione to be happy, but I wanted to hear all about the rest of the Weasleys and the rest of their class at Hogwarts. We got to hear about Neville and Draco, but what about Luna and Dean and Seamus and everybody else who was so important in defeating Voldemort, people we have been reading about for so long? And poor George? Did he go on and continue the business? I guess that's what fanfiction is for (I don't read Harry Potter though), but still. I just think she could have done better.
Remus and Tonks sucked too. Like I said before, I guess Teddy Lupin was supposed to be a parallel to Harry. He lost his parents tragically just like Harry, yeah we know. But unlike Harry, he's going to have not only his grandmother, but also his godfather and his whole family, plus Ron and Hermione and the Weasleys, and apparently Bill and Fleur's daughter (was that who Victoire is supposed to be?) to fall in love with. So I thought that was very gratuitous and unnecessary to kill both of them off. Like I said, it's almost like she's covering all her ground so that she doesn't have to write any sequels--like she didn't know what to do with everyone so she just killed them off.
I'm glad Snape wasn't evil--as if that wasn't blatantly obvious--but it annoyed me that his entire motive was him pining away for Harry's mom for his entire life. Give me a break. I guess I'm just not a romantic soul. Though I did like the scenes with a young Petunia and Lily. Shows a bit more behind why Harry's aunt resented him so much. That was well-done.
I liked the insights into Dumbledore's family. It humanized him so much more, instead of presenting him as this larger-than-life, untouchable saint figure who could do no wrong. That was great. I really liked his brother too.
So overall, I guess I didn't hate it. But I am very, very dissatisfied, and I think it could have been a lot better. For the very end of the series, I'm highly disappointed.
Two Stars out of Five.
I'm not as disgusted as I was last night. Last night I hated it. There were a lot of really great individual scenes--some of the fight scenes, for example. I like Molly Weasley charging in to take out Bellatrix; I really wasn't expecting that. I loved Neville going all Samuel L. Jackson on Nagini--"That's it! I have had it with these motherfuckin' snakes in this motherfuckin' Hogwarts"--sort of. The great Gringotts caper was a cool, exciting scene that ought to look great in the movie. Bill and Fleur's wedding was good. I love Luna, she's just a great character. Hagrid holding what he thought was Harry's dead body and sobbing as he was forced to march back to Hogwarts--and McGonagall's horrible scream as she saw them--awesome. Kreacher!--he was great--the house-elves attacking the Death Eaters with steak knives and stuff--that had me howling with laughter. Godric's Hollow was really exciting and tense, too, as was the infiltration of the Ministry of Magic. Loved Narcissa pretending Harry was dead to protect Draco, too, and I can't wait to see who they get to play her in the films.
So there were some good things about it. I was, however, disappointed by a good lot of it. Remus and Tonks just die, off-screen, and we don't even get to know what happened to them? They were barely in it, and Lupin acted so out-of-character for all of his scenes I was disgusted. I'm still pissed about Hedwig--and don't get me started on Dobby. And why was it necessary to kill off Colin Creevey? Wth? And is Lavender Brown a werewolf now? Fricking Crabbe? Even that little creep upset me. Gratuitous death scenes. I mean, yes, it's a war, there are casualties, but the callous way she threw aside a lot of these characters we have come to care so much about over a ten-year, seven-book period really, really upset me--and like I said, I'm not even a crazy, hard-core Harry Potter fan. I bet there are people out there who are devastated. I can understand deaths--yes, they would have happened--so I think it's the WAY she did all of them that really irked me.
The worst one to me was Fred. Why, again, WHY?? I was so, so glad--elated--when Percy showed up at the last second. The Weasleys are the best part of the whole books, I think, so it was great to see the whole family reunited, then WHAM. That was horrible. And again, we don't get to see any reaction to it. Yes, everyone's sad and Ron's pissed off, but what about George, his twin? We get this sap-happy epilogue, 19 years later, where everything's hunky dory--that was so lame and contrived. I wanted Harry and Ginny (who was reduced to a bit player for Harry to pine over and eventually make babies with--bleh) and Ron and Hermione to be happy, but I wanted to hear all about the rest of the Weasleys and the rest of their class at Hogwarts. We got to hear about Neville and Draco, but what about Luna and Dean and Seamus and everybody else who was so important in defeating Voldemort, people we have been reading about for so long? And poor George? Did he go on and continue the business? I guess that's what fanfiction is for (I don't read Harry Potter though), but still. I just think she could have done better.
Remus and Tonks sucked too. Like I said before, I guess Teddy Lupin was supposed to be a parallel to Harry. He lost his parents tragically just like Harry, yeah we know. But unlike Harry, he's going to have not only his grandmother, but also his godfather and his whole family, plus Ron and Hermione and the Weasleys, and apparently Bill and Fleur's daughter (was that who Victoire is supposed to be?) to fall in love with. So I thought that was very gratuitous and unnecessary to kill both of them off. Like I said, it's almost like she's covering all her ground so that she doesn't have to write any sequels--like she didn't know what to do with everyone so she just killed them off.
I'm glad Snape wasn't evil--as if that wasn't blatantly obvious--but it annoyed me that his entire motive was him pining away for Harry's mom for his entire life. Give me a break. I guess I'm just not a romantic soul. Though I did like the scenes with a young Petunia and Lily. Shows a bit more behind why Harry's aunt resented him so much. That was well-done.
I liked the insights into Dumbledore's family. It humanized him so much more, instead of presenting him as this larger-than-life, untouchable saint figure who could do no wrong. That was great. I really liked his brother too.
So overall, I guess I didn't hate it. But I am very, very dissatisfied, and I think it could have been a lot better. For the very end of the series, I'm highly disappointed.
Two Stars out of Five.