you're a wizard, harry!

spoiler alert! spoiler alert!  this post is about the latest Harry Potter movie, if you haven't seen it you probably don't want to read this.

unless a) you're not planning on seeing it, b) aren't interested in Harry Potter at all and thus won't have a clue what this post is about but won't actually find reading it detrimental, or c) don't mind being spoiled.  in any of these circumstances go right ahead and read on.

Just some observations and opinions about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.  Marissa and I spent a verrrrry long time discussing the movie after seeing it, so most of this post is actually our collective thoughts on the movie, not just mine.  So here we go, in no particular order.

• Overall, it was pretty good.  The acting was believable for the most part, and the sets were lovely, as they always are.


• Buuuuut the first half of this movie kind of undermines most of the previous movie-- if Harry can just sense the Horcruxes, why bother with all the camping and roaming around looking for them?  We were also disappointed that none of the backstory of the Horcruxes was explored, it took away a lot of the impact of.....


• Voldemort's past!  Where'd it go?  I know there are time constraints, obviously, but in this last film of the series, Voldemort was made into a simple representation of evil.  The audience never learns about why Voldy is so anti-Muggle (because his father was a Muggle and abandoned him, although I'm sure Voldemort's bad attitude in general didn't help anything).


• And then we've got the mysteriously pastless Dumbledore.  In the same way that Voldy-voldy-voldemort became simple evil, Dumbledore became simple good.  One of the aspects of the seventh book that I found most compelling was Harry's struggle to come to terms with the fact that someone he thought was truly without faults actually wasn't.  It seemed to me like that moment when kids realize that their parents existed before they themselves came along, and that they're as capable of misstep as anyone else.  Since Harry was an orphan and Dumbledore was the closest that he had to a parent by the seventh book (boooo, bring back Sirius!), that was part of Harry's painful decision between clinging to childhood and blind faith and learning that people weren't always as he knew them.  The Dumbledore-Grindelwald-Aberforth storyline was important to me because it showed the struggle between greatness and goodness, much like the conflict between Harry and Voldemort.


• Speaking of Voldemort, what's with all the yelling and freaking out all the time?  Part of why he was so creepy in the books, in my opinion anyway, was because he was so completely emotionless and cold.  It also undermined the force of his hubris-- like in mythology, the character who falls because of his own inability to see any possible weakness, Voldy's demise was sudden and unforseen, because he himself could never believe it could happen.  I thought the idea that he could feel a Horcrux being destroyed undermined his ego because it meant he acknowledged his own mortality, if not humanity.


• Luna was totally adorable, and the Grey Lady was perfect.  Yaaaaay!  I totally want to be a Ravenclaw.


• Shirtless Ron is way cute.

I think that's all for the moment.  I've out-nerded myself.  Accio pocket protector.

I'd love to hear what everyone else thought of the movie!  Was it hard to follow if you hadn't read the books?  If you have read them, how did you feel about the translation to film?

♥