Harry Potter Exhibit in Chicago
My friends and I traveled to Chicago last week to see the HP exhibit and it was certainly worth the trip.
We traveled by train from Indpls. to Chicago just to be all Hogwarts Express about it. We ate candy and corn beef sandwiches just to be silly.
We came home via Megabus, which was a double-decker bus. They didn't have triple-decker purple buses, so we had to improvise.
Being a big Ron fan, I wondered if he would get slighted in the exhibit, as sometimes he is in the overall media. Such was not the case! Indeed, there was the boys dormitory with both Harry and Ron's bed, dresser, and their open trunks with all the items displayed...every detail from Rowling's book accounted for. I had never noticed the Chudney Canons pennet on Ron's dresser from the movies!
Their school uniforms, quidditch uniforms, Yule ball garb, and the outfits the trio wore during the Whomping Willow scene. Ron's outfit even had the mud-sliding stains from being dragged by the Grim and blood on one pants leg. The dress robes from the Yule ball had one sleeve with the lace coming loose. All the sweaters etc. had holes in them here and there.
On every prop and costume, the details were terrific. Sometimes as fans, we complain because the script isn't accurate to the books. But by and large the HP things are massively detail-oriented.
Hermione's outfits were also on display. It was funny to see how they had grown. Comparing the outfits from POA to the outfits from HBP were fun, because the kids had grown so much.
Ginny, Neville and the twins had an outfit each. Snape, :uin, Umbridge, McGonagall, and Slughorn had an outfirt each as well. They had two Dumbledore outfits, one worn by Richard Harris and the other by Gambon, which I thought to be especially thoughtful, honoring each man.
They had a giant rook from the chess scene. I would like to emphasize GIANT. I felt intimidated looking at just one chess piece. How awesome the entire set must have been!
I especially liked seeing Buckbeak and the Ford Anglia. We got our pictures next to the Anglia as it was outside the exhibit on display in the general concourse of the museum. You couldn't take pictures inside the exhibit.
My HP geekdom hath achieved its crown as one of the curators, seeing our group as avid fans, asked us to identify a creature in the candy display (Wizard Wheezes were prominently displayed). It was something not in any movie whatsoever. At first, I was baffled, but noticed the extremely long, sharp fingers and the trunk-like body of the creature...VOILA...it must be a bowtruckle!
Of course, I let the staff know that the bowtruckle should be over by the other magical creatures or perhaps in the herbology section and that it had absolutely nothing to do with candy. Just FYI to the professional museum curators.
So having set the museum straight on bowtruckles, I went to the gift shop and I resisted temptation to buy all kinds of HP goodies. (I'm on a recession budget, you know. Just going on the trip was a big splurge.) They had a lot of stuff.
I saw the Tonner Ron doll. (That's the one with the loose flowing hair, not the hard plastic). Yes, indeed, that doll looks just like Barbie's friend Midge from the 60s. Cracks me up.
All in all, it was a very good day!