The Finale
It's been a long time coming ... but the final Harry Potter movie has been released.
Yes, I know I'm a couple weeks late on that one, but as I've finally made it to the theater to see it, now's my chance to talk about my Hogwarts view.
Let me summarize: I love this series, both the books and the movies. If you don't want to read any further, you now know the general idea of it. Also, there will be spoilers. While just about everybody knows and understands most of them, I might let details slip that could be ... well, spoilers.
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It took awhile before I was willing to join the Harry Potter Club. It was a kid thing, and I -- at the ripe old age of 13 (just two years older than the characters, actually) -- didn't feel like joining in with the kid thing.
In fact, I resisted until after the first movie came out on video something like five years later. It was the summer of 2002 when we watched it at the day care ... and I was almost instantly hooked.
It was short business to get caught up on the books. At the time the first four had been released, and I found myself completely engrossed. Although I had seen the movie first, the world came alive to me in an unexpectedly brilliant manner. I had the movie's foundations on which to build the rest of the Harry Potter world and I loved it.
The books reflected things I had been through on my own. These characters were not much younger than me, going through the same adolescent issues I had survived, from bullying to the arguments between friends to dealing with crazy teachers -- albeit with the added bonus of causing wand-initiated explosions here and there. More than stories of a magical world, they were stories about three kids growing up ... with the kinds of hardships that face most of us.
In the meantime, they were causing enough controversy on their own. People had been lambasting them as Satanic for some time, inappropriate for kids, or altogether ridiculous. I saw little of that -- they were perhaps a bit dark at times, but as the characters aged, so did the storylines. I gave little thought to the Satanic claims. Yes, they were about magic, but a large portion of fantasy books are on some level or another. I simply chalked it up to people finding problems with something they didn't want to enjoy, as people often do. (Not surprisingly, that fervor has died down considerably over the years.)
The books continued and I found myself most amazed with the things that were included. Details were recalled in the sixth and seventh books that hadn't been mentioned since the first or second novel. J.K. Rowling had planned the story so carefully that by the end, the novels were so intertwined they no longer seemed like seven separate books.
As the movies were released, I was equally enthralled. They are admittedly not flawless. As adaptations go, they have a lot of the same problems most have -- details and characters were left out or combined for the sake of the already-long movies. (I still half-wish Peeves had been included.) The first two moved a little slowly (not surprising, given that they were directed by Chris Columbus, who did "Home Alone" and approached them in such a way as to make them palatable to 11-year-olds) and the third one was so drastically different from the first that it put a lot of people off.Overall, however, they keep the spirit of the books and give them incredible color. More importantly, when treated like a separate entity, they are fantastic. They're surprisingly consistent throughout, from the stories from movie to movie to the actors. (I find it particularly awesome that the actors are the same not just for Harry, Ron, and Hermione, but for every professor, relative, and main character as well. Malfoy's cohorts shift for a couple of movies, but that's not a major detail ... and the change in Dumbledore was unfortunately unavoidable.)
This final movie provided more closure than I expected. Almost everything, from Snape's death to the scene in King's Cross to Narcissa's final turn from old Voldy, lived up to my expectations. There were precious few things I wished we had been shown (maybe Fred's last scene, if only so we could see Percy at his best) and some things I was happy to be spared (like the Sorting Hat -- and Neville -- on fire).
And there were some things that were even better than I expected, like when the Slytherin crowd was dismissed, Molly Weasley's final victory over Bellatrix, or when Hogwarts' defenses first fell. I was equally impressed by the fact that I felt true sympathy for the Malfoys, despite their eeeevilness before.
I was even near tears several times -- and let me tell you, folks, I do not cry during movies.
While I'm sad they've ended, I'm excited they've been given a proper send-off. I'm even more excited that I can turn around and read -- or watch -- them over and over again.
Which I think I might just do right now...
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