In NYC saw a guy with a Tshirt that read
“Hairy Pothead” in the same typeface of the Harry Potter logo. Priceless.
I’m sorry – - Harry what? Should I have heard of this?
“What happened to Hermione’s lovable, bookish, know-it-all pluck and her big sisterly scolding of Harry?”
Yates wanted to close the character development of the characters by putting them outside their typical roles, to show how they’ve grown into themselves. Hermione twice is surprised by Ron taking over her role, revealing to her that he has been paying attention to her despite her misgivings, leading up to the kiss.
“What happened to the impish banter from Fred and George?”
They got one shot to cover it but then Yates did a criminal act and didn’t show Fred’s death. He went the same route he goes in the previous movies he shot and focus mostly on Ron, Harry, and Hermione while using other characters for more necessary plotpoints, without going into too much detail about them, but in this case he really could have cross-cut between the Battle of Hogwarts and Harry’s decision making. Instead, the Battle of Hogwarts was mostly regulated to transition scenes, the three characters running through the chaos, and the movie missed a fuckton of very important showdowns that occur and close off a lot of threads. Fred and George’s character arcs were one of them.
“What happened to Ron’s odd-man-out sarcasm?”
It’s still there when he’s one-upping Hermione. No complaints from me there.
“They’ve disappeared, replaced with an incoherent hyper-expository script.”
I think the eighth movie ran out of energy. The seventh was clearly the movie Yates wanted to make. It’s interesting but Yates’ contribution to the series has been the best because he started focusing squarely on the three main characters, but it just didn’t work for the fifth because the Battle of Hogwarts was supposed to be a release of the tension that occurred during movie seven. So ironically to the fact that the Battle of Hogwarts covers about 75% of the playlength, it’s actually not all that action filled, and I find it significant that we saw more of nondescript stone soldiers fighting nondescript giants than characters struggling with characters, just so that Harry can spend more time in the Room of Requirement trying to think. Cross-cutting, Yates. Griffith was doing it a hundred years ago.
—PolarisDiB
DH Part 1 was my favourite of the series but this one might have been my least favourite.
The film was a mockery of HP. It was to the book what the highlights of a sports game are to the game itself. The important plot points remained but all the other scenes that made those plot points make sense were dropped. The pacing was so quick that it was comical. I would have liked this more had half the shots been twice as long. This adaptation is completely shameless (even though it was adapting something very commercial to begin with).
First off, after this last movie I have decided that the series as a whole can be summed up as “illustrative.” Every other movie really failed to achieve to stand alone without the help of the book, and opposite to Star Trek, it seems most of the odd numbered ones were the best whereas all of the even numbered failed. (1 sucked, but 3 finally got the ball rollin’, as regards actually adapting the series).
I think Harry Potter could have been a good series, but it did really subsist ultimately off of the fans of the books. Its releases could be more like conventions than movies—gatherings of fans for the shared event.
That said, I think 7 was the best movie at all. It was actually quite daring. When I was reading the book, I thought to myself, “No way are they even going to try this in the movie.” But they did. The scenes when they are alone in the woods and directionless, no clue where to go, mostly worked, despite the danger of showing aimless bored kids to an audience that could become aimless and bored.
I don’t know, someday they may get a bug up and decide to remake these, possibly for a “new generation”, and do it well, but all told I sort of have to write-off the series. It did manage to get me going back to the theatre, I’ll give it that (I was going to give up after 2 until Cuaron showed there can be actual magic in the screen in 3), but I don’t own a single one of these things on DVD and have no intention of watching them ever again. I do, however, want to reread the books. ‘Cause I’m like that.
—PolarisDiB
I only saw one Harry Potter film – the first. That was more than enough for me.
If Del Toro got onboard for the 3rd or 4th film—whichever one he was offered—i would have definited watched another one, but he didn’t, so I didn’t :-)
So what makes Del Toro stand out for you, Joks?
—DiB
The first 3 minutes and the animated sequence on 7.1 make it a masterpiece. 8 needed more fireworks imo. But I’m not complaining. The scene at the ministry of magic was verry funny also.
The animated sequence in 7.1 was a real surprise, and a good one, one that seemed to really win over most audiences. Though there’s always someone out there.
—PolarisDiB
The animated sequence sucked! It was the worst thing evah!
No, not really, actually that entire episode of the saga was pretty good. If it wasn’t for some of the ridiculous plot I would have found it a damn fine little film. It speaks well of Yates abilities for future films.
The narrative structure of this one is bewildering, as though it starts out as a third act and attempts to retain that energy but just can’t. I wonder if the two-film strategy was really necessary here. The second film’s super scanty on details as it is.
SPOILER?
Also, did anyone see the kids-as-adults ending as presenting strange man-child versions of all the actors? When we can make Brad Pitt look like he’s 90 in a really bad movie, can’t we take a minute and make 20 years olds look 35 in a kinda-bad movie?
I actually felt that two films wans’t enough. One shorter film with more bang or a longer more developed 3logy seem better. But I also have to say that the Potter films are somewhat of a small miracle given the mess ups Hollywood often turns out. If there is to be a hollywood it can only be justified with good films like these.
Yeah, that ending… another one of those “out of energy” feels, it’s like, they spent eight whole frickin’ movies employing makeup effects artists to make interesting looking people, and they cannot even age these kids like Edward Scissorhands ?
I’m glad the 7th book wasn’t a movie trilogy in and of itself, but I know what you mean.
—DiB
Polarisdib,
They did took the safest and most effective route and that was to make 2 films. It works.
@ToddJ: I am so relieved someone else thought the makeup at the end looked ridiculous. Totally agree.
Zach S.
I’m surprised no one’s started a thread on this film… Anyway, I adored all seven previous movies but this one was a massive disappointment for me. I missed the characters. What happened to Hermione’s lovable, bookish, know-it-all pluck and her big sisterly scolding of Harry? What happened to the impish banter from Fred and George? What happened to Ron’s odd-man-out sarcasm? They’ve disappeared, replaced with an incoherent hyper-expository script. I know the film required a lot of action but for me this is no excuse to jettison the magic, personality, and wonder that made the books and the first seven films so heartwarming.