Movie: Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part Two
Let me begin by saying that I am not a Harry Potter super fan. I don't know the books like the back of my hand.
Don't get me wrong: I love those books. I started reading them some time in high school. I think either three or four books had already been published, and I once I started reading it took maybe a week to finish and I loved it. I loved the whole experience. I loved how the writing got better and how the story just kind of exploded and how the characters evolved and gained depth . . . I loved those books. And when the next books in the series came out, I got them on the release day and read them in a sitting.
I think there's something seriously magical (yes, "magical") that a series of books can captivate the world. And there was something so cool about reading those books on the release day knowing that millions of people all around the world were doing the exact same thing.
Still, I've only read each book once. I often forget important plot points and I certainly don't remember the name of many of the important characters. I sometimes struggle to remember the difference between a patronus and a horcrux. Someday I hope to go back and reread all the books, but that day is a ways off.
Similarly, I'm not a Harry Potter movie fanatic. I've seen them all, some more than once. It was fun to get a visual on a lot of stuff in the books (like Hogwarts or Diagon Alley), but the movies started off as, "Meh. I might just stick to my imagination." Until, like, the third film where, like the books, everything got good.
And, just like the books, I showed up on release days (often at midnight) to experience the wonder of Harry Potter with a devoted audience because here's the thing I've learned about this franchise: It began from books, which is a relatively solitary medium, and expanded to a huge collective experience.
So, I went to see The Deathly Hallows Part 2 at the 12:20 showing Friday morning (midnight was already sold out). I'd last watched The Deathly Hallows Part 1 at midnight the day of its release last fall, so it had been a while. I'd last read The Deathly Hallows the day of its release years ago.
So, I'm sitting in my seat, and suffering through all those previews (though The Dark Knight Rises looks pretty cool) and laughing about War Horse (My Friend: "This looks boring." Me: "It's about World War One, the best war of all the wars!" My Friend: "Really?" Me: "But it's also about horses. And horses are boring." Find out the movie is actually called War Horse. Burst of giggling at the incredibly appropriate title and its relation to our conversation.)
And then . . . Lily's Theme started playing and Hogwarts emerged from a fog, surrounded by Dementors and I just got these hardcore chills up and down my body. This was it.
I won't go the obvious route and describe exactly what I did and did not like. That'd be boring and, truth be told, I only had a few issues with the movie as a whole (I wanted the actual Battle of Hogwarts to be bigger, I wanted Neville's role to be bigger as it was in the books, I wanted Mrs. Weasley's take down of Bellatrix to be bigger . . . Can you detect a trend?)
Because I think the movie was more than just a movie. It was, quite literally for a lot of people, the end of an era. I'm not a super fan and I can still count Harry Potter as my great literary and cinematic friend going back more than ten years. More than ten years, people. More than a third of my life. And I imagine all the people in the theater with me who were bigger fans than me and, for them, it really was saying goodbye to someone that they had loved. Hell, it was like that for me, too.
I think it's lucky that the people involved in this movie gave it such a wonderful send off. The franchise deserved it and so did the fans because it was the millions of people across the globe that really developed Harry Potter into the hero he became.
I'll still always wish that Harry had stayed dead after his trip through the Forbidden Forest (how powerful if, instead of a confusing resurrection, his sacrifice inspired the others and empowered them to finish what Harry had started?) but I understand that Harry can never really die. He really does exist in all of us. And that's so damn corny to say but I really think it's true. Harry, Ron, Hermione . . . hell, even Malfoy, are all facets of us all, even if we don't want to or can't acknowledge it.
A random thought:
1) Obviously, all of the books take place at Hogwarts, which is, I think, a statement about education, I think. I know, I know. I'm a teacher so sue me. But, seriously.
I think that education and teaching is just about as political an issue as you can find. It's a push/pull because students spend more time with their teachers and classmates than their parents and families during the school year. So . . . what you teach them has serious potential to find itself deep into their consciousness.
It's not wonder that the forces of good and evil convene at the school. Because Voldemort, more than anything, wants people to like him, accept him, and respect him. Get to them early, you know? Shape their minds so that they're yours.
This is not my best review. But it's so hard to sum up something that really goes beyond one movie but is a summation of a global phenomenon.
Just go watch it. Go be a part of it.
I'm going to go ahead and give Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part Two 5 out of 5 airlocks.
Don't get me wrong: I love those books. I started reading them some time in high school. I think either three or four books had already been published, and I once I started reading it took maybe a week to finish and I loved it. I loved the whole experience. I loved how the writing got better and how the story just kind of exploded and how the characters evolved and gained depth . . . I loved those books. And when the next books in the series came out, I got them on the release day and read them in a sitting.
I think there's something seriously magical (yes, "magical") that a series of books can captivate the world. And there was something so cool about reading those books on the release day knowing that millions of people all around the world were doing the exact same thing.
Still, I've only read each book once. I often forget important plot points and I certainly don't remember the name of many of the important characters. I sometimes struggle to remember the difference between a patronus and a horcrux. Someday I hope to go back and reread all the books, but that day is a ways off.
Similarly, I'm not a Harry Potter movie fanatic. I've seen them all, some more than once. It was fun to get a visual on a lot of stuff in the books (like Hogwarts or Diagon Alley), but the movies started off as, "Meh. I might just stick to my imagination." Until, like, the third film where, like the books, everything got good.
And, just like the books, I showed up on release days (often at midnight) to experience the wonder of Harry Potter with a devoted audience because here's the thing I've learned about this franchise: It began from books, which is a relatively solitary medium, and expanded to a huge collective experience.
So, I went to see The Deathly Hallows Part 2 at the 12:20 showing Friday morning (midnight was already sold out). I'd last watched The Deathly Hallows Part 1 at midnight the day of its release last fall, so it had been a while. I'd last read The Deathly Hallows the day of its release years ago.
So, I'm sitting in my seat, and suffering through all those previews (though The Dark Knight Rises looks pretty cool) and laughing about War Horse (My Friend: "This looks boring." Me: "It's about World War One, the best war of all the wars!" My Friend: "Really?" Me: "But it's also about horses. And horses are boring." Find out the movie is actually called War Horse. Burst of giggling at the incredibly appropriate title and its relation to our conversation.)
And then . . . Lily's Theme started playing and Hogwarts emerged from a fog, surrounded by Dementors and I just got these hardcore chills up and down my body. This was it.
I won't go the obvious route and describe exactly what I did and did not like. That'd be boring and, truth be told, I only had a few issues with the movie as a whole (I wanted the actual Battle of Hogwarts to be bigger, I wanted Neville's role to be bigger as it was in the books, I wanted Mrs. Weasley's take down of Bellatrix to be bigger . . . Can you detect a trend?)
Because I think the movie was more than just a movie. It was, quite literally for a lot of people, the end of an era. I'm not a super fan and I can still count Harry Potter as my great literary and cinematic friend going back more than ten years. More than ten years, people. More than a third of my life. And I imagine all the people in the theater with me who were bigger fans than me and, for them, it really was saying goodbye to someone that they had loved. Hell, it was like that for me, too.
I think it's lucky that the people involved in this movie gave it such a wonderful send off. The franchise deserved it and so did the fans because it was the millions of people across the globe that really developed Harry Potter into the hero he became.
I'll still always wish that Harry had stayed dead after his trip through the Forbidden Forest (how powerful if, instead of a confusing resurrection, his sacrifice inspired the others and empowered them to finish what Harry had started?) but I understand that Harry can never really die. He really does exist in all of us. And that's so damn corny to say but I really think it's true. Harry, Ron, Hermione . . . hell, even Malfoy, are all facets of us all, even if we don't want to or can't acknowledge it.
A random thought:
1) Obviously, all of the books take place at Hogwarts, which is, I think, a statement about education, I think. I know, I know. I'm a teacher so sue me. But, seriously.
I think that education and teaching is just about as political an issue as you can find. It's a push/pull because students spend more time with their teachers and classmates than their parents and families during the school year. So . . . what you teach them has serious potential to find itself deep into their consciousness.
It's not wonder that the forces of good and evil convene at the school. Because Voldemort, more than anything, wants people to like him, accept him, and respect him. Get to them early, you know? Shape their minds so that they're yours.
This is not my best review. But it's so hard to sum up something that really goes beyond one movie but is a summation of a global phenomenon.
Just go watch it. Go be a part of it.
I'm going to go ahead and give Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part Two 5 out of 5 airlocks.