Rant I

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II*

Coincidentally, I received an emailed blog post from a good friend on above topic, 5 minutes before we left for the movie theater. Alongside an account of said friend's opinions on the movie, it also contained a detailed description of...I can't say it, the most feared thing in the wizarding world.....you know what....

Alright, spoilers. RRrrrgh! After reading the first sentence I felt the strong urge to gouge out my eyes in an attempt to atone for the iniquitous sin that my treacherous eyes had unknowingly stumbled upon! Seriously, even though I know that Harry dies (just kidding. Well, only partly. That is, he dies/has a concussion, I mean, he kind of dies, then he comes back alive with a new imunity to the cruciatus curse. And, everyone says he dies, but he's alive again, but.....

It's complicated.

Anyways...) and I also have the bad habit of reading the end of a book/ wiki'ing the plot summary before I finish the book, this is Harry Potter and some part of me wanted to keep this pristine. Another part was urging me to cheat like the wind, but it was too late because by the time that part won over, we were already heading to the movie theater.

What can I say? (Besides woooooaaaahhhh. And oooooohhhh...) Deathly Hallows Part 2 was neither here nor there. Very good for the book purist, it stuck pretty well to the plot, film effects were really cool, dragon in Gringots was really cool (Oh yeah. If you haven't read or watched deathly hallows, wait until then to continue reading. No explicit spoilers ahead, but I do reference a few things which I believe could be improved) and I think I got a little more of the thought behind Deathly Hallows. That is to say, watching the movie brought out a lot of thematic revolutions that questioned death, mortality, good and evil, etc.

There's no fun, however, in sticking smiley faces and A+'s to a movie review, however. It's time to break out the heavy artillery...

While the film stuck nicely to the big details (in fact, I say it excelled in this area), however, it missed a few things that I found slightly disturbing as they cast darker shadows on more obscure issues. Like Griphook, for instance. In the book, he wasn't really nasty he was just following his nature as a goblin when he took Gryffindor's sword from Harry. It was an interesting perspective on genetically predetermined natures (Like Smaug from the Hobbit. He isn't really evil, that is, even though he is an evil character. We ask, can we really label him as evil, since he's just following his nature as a dragon?), really, the diversity between two different races. Where something taboo to one culture may not exactly be so to the other. The movie, however, added his parting remark, which, for me, totally negitated Harry's intention to double cross Griphook. Did they even mention his intention to double-cross Griphook? It polished over a minor issue in the books, that is, the tension between Goblins and Wizards, almost putting a Pro-wizarding propoganda spin on that scene. It also made the character of Griphook a little shallower (what were his motives? Why did he want to keep Harry locked up in Lestrange's vault?), 2-D, and over simplified/generalized Goblins. While the book gave a delightful mini-example as to the conflict between wizards and Goblins (neither side is exactly right, and both sides are bending- not breaking, just bending- the rules a little-- although in this scenario, I am inclined to believe Griphook entirely in the right) the movie's addition of that parting remark really negitated Harry's own flaw in trying to double cross Griphook as well as changed Griphook's character from it's orignial form, into a more malevolent, malicious, evil for the sake of evil stereotype.

The storytelling, as well brought up a few problems. The dialog, in some places seemed to be one huge excerise to see how many meaningful/thoughtful/mystic lines they could pack into one conversation (i.e. Dumbledore and Harry at 'King's Cross' and Mr.& Mrs. Potter, Sirius, and Lupin right before Harry was killed) All those lines were really great, they showed a new side to the questions Harry was asking and a new face on old issues, and they really would have popped by themselves, but crammed together in one scene, it really looked like the Potters and Black were either trying to show how smart and clever they could be, or reading from a hallmark card/dictionary of corny lines. Not to say the lines themselves were corny, but crammed together they all sounded so canned. Whereas Dumbledore came across as a mystic, purposely confusing, even slightly antagonistic/ unconcerned man in the King's Cross Scene from the movie, the scenario as played out in the book really portrayed him using the mystic dialogue to enhance Harry's pursuit of the questions, to encourage Harry to seek out the answers himself. The book left readers with a sense of confirmed faith in the answers, the movie, baffled seeking and confusion.

Plus, the Ron/Hermione kiss was just really, what the heck? The way Emma Watson was going on during the premier about how they were carefully building this all up made me think that they were carefully stucturing the Ron-Hermione relationship for this perfect moment where the audience goes 'ahhhhh' because it was just flawless. Instead, they're staring at the camera, then each other, then trying to eat each other's face off, and I was just, "wow. That was seriously random". It has none of that perfect mixture of solidity and spontaneousness (actually, it was really spontaneous. As spontaneous as if I suddenly said spontaneously combusting alpaca's in this post) that the book did, or the aknowledgement of the total randomness that we get from Harry (Harry is just priceless at that moment, btw).

It also made no attempt to fill in the audience of the backstory, and I'd hate to think what novice to the world of Harry Potter would be pondering as they left the movie theater. Without the crucial knowledge of the complex relationships between the characters, the backstory about Voldermort and his gang, heck, don't even mention the freakin' prophecy, it must look like one huge blur of random events, shallow characters and what the heck moments. Of course, filling in backstory would have been a tremendous task for the filmakers, and in fact, I think the movie wouldn't be half as good for the die-hard HP fans with it, but for the people who only know Harry, Ron and Hermionie (and....you know. who.) a bit of backstory would have been nice. Or at least a warning!

Then they mangled one of my favorite parts in the book. It's that introspective lull in the chaos of battle, that poignant moment where everything comes together and you just close your eyes and really fall into Harry's world. It's the part where you realize how your viewpoint of this book has been so integrated with Harry's, where you unknowingly assumed this one-sided frame of mind, where, just like Harry, you realize how you've fallen into all these cliche's of judging a book by it's covers and....argh, I'm mangling it too. Let me just say, discovering Snape is priceless. And you know, what's great is that he's still a jerk! He's prejudiced and a jerk and an bleep bleep censored bleep; he's not even one of those jerks who turn out not to be such a jerk (like Luke from the Lightning Theif, or Gollum and Boromir from LotR), he's still a huge jerk, but you see a human side to him. He's not just this one-sided force of greasy-haired antagonism, he's still a slimeball, but he's a slimeball with humanity.

Which is why it makes me so mad when the Snape memories were played out as this string of incomprehensible flashbacks. They really put his complex relationship with the Potters on the back burner, instead, as manifested by their reiteration of this point and how it monopolized time, focusing on how Harry had to die. I know, I know, there's limited time here. But I really think they didn't give enough justice to Snape. Sure, the part where his Patronus appeared as a doe was good, but by rushing through his childhood moments with Lily, they really missed that kind of obsessive devotion that lends a whole new side to Snape. It's this great part where you realize he can actually be nice (heart attack!), where he displays forgivable human flaws such as hating James Potter and obsessively over-protecting Lily. There's also a tender side too where he tries to protect her from You Know Who and a tragic part where he cries over her picture. We really lose this part of Snape, even though the movie gives us the feeling of, 'well, maybe he's not such a bad guy'. It's those crucial memories of various emotions that move us, like the books invariably do, from a childlike, black and white perspective to a realization that maybe, yes, everyone is human.

Ok, rounding up....my last bash targets....Neville.

Seriously, Neville is one of my favorite characters. You see how he progressess in the books from this incompetent annoying lump of aaarrgh to this leader who isn't afraid to stick up to....you know. The Dark Lord. But what is going on at the end? I mean, first of all, you have all these people runing around with Basilisk fangs trying to off Nagini, and it's like, "woah, if Neville doesn't have his moment, I am seriously going to throw a fit". And then Neville has his moment and Harry loses his!

Did anyone else notice that? How Nagini kicks the bucket and Voldermort follows suit? Ok, ok, let's give them the benefit of doubt and say they made it unclear exactly who killed Volder-uh, I mean, the Dark Lord (You know what, he needs a make over. From now on, he's Psycho Powerhungry Obsessive dude. Or Snake Boy. Maybe pasty-face? You know, 'cause he's so pale?). But they really took away Harry's moment! It's this point in the book where all the dulers stop and they just watch Harry lay everything out bit by bit, that dawning realization of Pasty-face's that even though he killed every one off, Harry's method of disarming everyone made Harry the master of the elder wand, that perfect moment where he's offered salvation, the chance to try to put his soul back together, that moment when he turns down the offer, shouts a spell and dies. That really brought together all the themes that had been weaving around Snake Boy, the idea of redemption, forgiveness, punishment, remorse, everything is just so "wooooaaaahhhh". Instead, he disintegrates. Hooray. Good for Neville, I mean. But I really hope the movie directors weren't trying to be clever by tying in the prophecy, etc, bouncing back to how Neville or Harry could have been 'The One' (wait- that's HP, right? Not Matix?), but I mean, really? That seriously, seriously, sucked. You really can't do that at the end of eight (yes, let's call it eight. They seriously jeeped us off by spliting Deathly Hallows into two parts) movies after building up this guy for like, forever. I mean, in one movie, it would have been cool. In a book, cool. Two books, even. But with 7 books? That just takes the oomph off the end! It creates this wobbly ending that lacks a big bang. Sure, he's dead. Great. But what about Harry? Why was he even here? Why did we even bother with him?

Ooops, I lied. There's just one more thing I wanted to mention. The saga of growth. There's more to Harry Potter than just spells, wands, and smart girls who kick serious butt (Hermione Granger forever!) there's the story of personal growth. And they really skim over that in the movies, perhaps not intentionally, but all the action and time constraints (plus the love of dark, moody, task-oriented, OCD heroes) really served to obscure the growth that Harry has. I don't have any examples to cite specifically, but maybe it was the lack of narrative, the lack of time spent on those personal, introspective moments (such as Snape's memories) and the lack of reverence during those times that really made Harry Potter into less of a thoughtful film and more of an action one. Plus, you have Daniel Radcliffe delivering all the snappy, straight to the point lines, that, while they make him seem really, really into his current task of destroying horocruxes and offing Pasty-Face, they really lose that inner struggle, those doubts, those hopes, and the anguish that Harry feels somewhere in the urge to captivate the audience.

It's the humanity of Harry that calls so strongly to the readers. It's those moments of doubt, of cluelessness, of pure luck; those times of inner struggle, hatred, jealousy and jerkiness; the times when his heart swells with love and happiness, and the times when it simply breaks; it's when Harry is no longer an airbrushed hero with the perfect flaws that really aren't flaws at all, but full to the brim of raw, pure, poignant emotion. And the best thing is, out of this base of emotion that we all identify with, he rises to those levels that few of us have felt. That by the end of the books, through a battleground of emotion, he truly does rise above it all and becomes a real hero. Perhaps it offers some hope for our humanity as well.

This is Quiet Girl, signing off.

Not really. Did I offend anyone? I mean, I really, really loved seeing Deathly Hallows. It was a great movie, it stuck close to the books, and the blast shield around Hogwarts was seriously cool. But I mean, small things, like McGonagall's "I've always wanted to use that spell" (animation of the statues) really split the tension and darkness that was present in the last book and sort of cheapened the effect. It really was supposed to change from a child's fantasy world, to this dark, war torn, desperate race that really stands no chance of succeeding. Ooops. I slipped into criticism again. But honestly, I'm a book purist (aaahh! I admit it!) and any book compared to the movie is bound to raise differences, even if it stuck completely to every last OCD detail. Because simply, movies and books are different mediums, they used different techniques (and similar ones, but they also use different techniques), and have different standards that create 'canon'. Which is why it seriously ticks me off when people plead watching the movie as a substitute to reading Pride and Prejudice! It's soooo....oops. We're never going to wrap this up, are we? Let's just say, the movie was good. Compared to the book, it was interesting. The book trumps the movie, any day.

So anyways, this is Quiet Girl, who is now trying to keep very, very , very. QUIET

-Shhhhhhh....the rats are coming......kidding.......ok.......goodnight.... .

*Roman Numerals are cooler than regular numbers. And as an added bonus, they also confuse anyone who reads them as x's and i's.