Harry Potter: Only Nicolas Flamel Can Live Forever

By Ferris Bueller

Oh…my…God. That was, without a doubt, my favorite Harry Potter movie of all time. To be fair though, in general, I hate the Harry Potter movies. The three movies that preceded The Deathly Hallows were poorly directed, money grabbing, scene ruining, shortened knock-offs of their far (and I mean far) superior book counterparts. The first three were okay; they were short enough to be covered fairly well in one feature-length movie. But in my opinion, the 4th through the 6th movies would have been better split into two movies a la The Deathly Hallows. It would have been very unpopular with the HP “fans” who have never read the book. But I think we can all agree there is already a special circle of Hell for those people anyway. I had a coworker look at me in the face today and tell me that The Goblet of Fire was his favorite movie. If I’d had a wand I would have cast a Crucius spell faster than a Firebolt can fly (although for the record I was always a Nimbus fan).

Today, however, I am talking about this movie, and I thought The Deathly Hallows was done quite well. I had been very worried about how Yates would handle the Battle of Hogwarts, quite possibly my favorite scene in the series. You see, the previous two wizard battles had been BADLY butchered. I still have nightmares about the end of Half-Blood Prince. Not because (spoiler alert) Dumbledore dies, but because of how different that battle (if we can even call it that) was from the battle in the book. It was just wrong. This time, however, I was pleased with the depiction. That was exactly how I pictured it. They did, however, spend a little too much time showing Harry and Co. running through the castle instead of the epic battle brewing outside. By the way, I thought it was funny that whenever Harry and friends moved around the castle, they were taking down dark wizards like Anakin Skywalker killing younglings. Come on, they’re 19, and they’re just taking these full grown wizards to school and giving them the paddle. Also, did you see how many dark wizards there were compared to protectors of Hogwarts? Those teachers must be pretty good at magic (a line regrettably left out of the movie). So what I’m saying is, it could have been better, but at least it was a reasonable depiction of the battle in the book.

I love Professor McGonagall.

The Gringotts scene was fantastic, although they gave no explanation as to why the goblin wanted the sword. In case your wondering, the Sword of Gryffindor was made by goblins, and in their culture, that makes it their property after the death of the person who it was made for. So there ya go.

My biggest criticism is the movies biggest omission. They completely left out the Dumbledore-Grindelwald back story. For those sinners who didn’t read the book, Grindelwald was the greatest dark wizard pre-Voldemort. He and Dumbledore had a thing and once plotted to bring wizards to power over muggles. It got out of hand, and a three-way duel involving Aberforth resulted in Dumbledore’s sister’s (the girl in the painting) death. Dumbledore eventually had to defeat Grindelwald himself, which earned him both his fame in the books and the elder wand. That little scene before they get into Hogwarts was not nearly enough. Whether it was to avoid the “Dumbledore is gay” twist on the story (probably the most likely), or to avoid confusing the audience with another bad guy, it was a mistake.

A couple more quick hitters:
• What were Harry and Ron wearing in the epilogue? They’re in their like early 30’s, not their 80’s.
• How did Neville know to kill the snake? Would it have been so hard to have someone tell him a la the book.
• The part when Harry came back to life could have been so much more dramatic, and when Voldemort was killed, couldn’t one person have been watching?
• Snape’s scenes were done beautifully, but did they have to make Dumbledore out to be such an asshole?
• It bothers me that my spell check knows some words from Harry Potter but not others. How can you know “Gryffindor”, but not Voldemort.

It’s easy to point out the mistakes the movie made, but it would take pages and pages to note all the things the movie did right. By and large, this movie was a success. It’s hard to see such a big part of my childhood fall by the wayside, but it would have been much more difficult to see it go out poorly. A well done conclusion makes losing Harry a little easier to take. From the duels in the theatre lobby, to the fans dressed up like Dobby, the experience was truly magical. Now begins the campaign for another book. Come on J.K.!