So I Saw Harry Potter 7.2 This Weekend...

I really enjoyed both Book 7 movies. Compared to the books, I've never been a huge fan of the movies. Yes, I saw most of them opening night, but very few of them have I ever felt the need to watch again. To the screenwriters' credit, I feel they had an immensely difficult job of not only adapting a beloved book series, but also adapting a large, arching story where, for the most part, the ending wasn't known yet. I think the book 7 movies were their best. A lot of people moaned about the studio fishing for more profits by splitting it into two parts, but I really appreciated the fact that they could take their time and tell the story, rather than rushing through. It gave time for both the storytelling and to take advantages of the visual format.

I divided my thoughts into categories:

Things I did not like:
-Harry/Hermione shipping by the filmmakers: Dear goodness, is this a thorn in my side. It doesn't happen, get over it. Girls and guys can be just friends without one of them having some major flaw. But in movies, it seems rare for normal-hero and normal-heroine to be just friends. Another factor is how Ron's character was reduced to mere comic relief as the series progressed, leaving Harry as the only logical choice for Hermione to be attracted to. It's annoying. At least Emma and Rupert had more chemistry than Dan and Bonnie.

-"Not my daughter you bitch": Such a disappointment. There was very little lead up to it; Ginny hardly looked to be in danger. It wasn't even portrayed as the all-caps kick ass moment it was in the books. Instead, it was just a mumble, and not even a venemous mumble at that.

-Gringotts: It seemed like a distraction from the real plot. I felt this way about it in the book too. It reminds me of when you're story-creating and you have to get the characters from point a to point b without really a nice, smooth, and important way of doing it, so you keep having to add ridiculous plot elements (dragons) to get it to work out. That part had little to do affecting the plot and in the movie was one of the more poorly explained things in this movie.


Things I have mixed feelings about:
-The Final Confrontation: I liked that it was extended from the book. If it played out exactly as it did in the book, it just wouldn't have been as satisfying. However, there were some aspects that I didn't like. For example, that Harry was shown to be able to fight almost man-to-noseless-man with Voldemort. That's very different from book!Harry who's always been an a wizard of average talent thrust into extraordinary circumstances. Another thing was the "Let's finished this how we started" bit before they fall off the tower. Seriously? What was that whole bit? First, it looks like Harry is getting all Eclipse!Jacob on Voldemort and that long flying scene? I really didn't get it. I was too distracted to go for the dramatic effect that it was supposed to be offering.

-Neville: Neville's level in badass is awesome in this movie, no doubt, but the way it's written in the movie felt more like he fell into it at that moment than it was there from the start of this movie. His speech was less of a STFU to Voldemort as it was a rousing speech to his compatriots. Good, but not great.

-The Epilogue: It's just as ridiculous in the movie as it is in the book.

Things I liked:
-Wizard Battles: I think this is one place where the use of special effects and visuals really shined. Both in terms of setting up the defense of Hogwarts and the actual fights themselves, they were quite spectacular to look at and exciting to follow. Very well done.

-Helena Bonham Carter: She does a great job portraying Bellatrix in such a disturbing way. Maybe it's just me, but she adds an extra something to the character from her mannerisms that is just so offputting, which is good for a fanatically devoted villianess. Where she really shined in this movie to me was when she's portraying Hermione!Bellatrix. She captured Emma Watson's mannerism so well that both my roommate and I questioned whether it was actually her or not. I can't find anything online to suggest motion capture or something similar, so instead I will remain in awe of her talent.

-Snape: Dear goodness, Alan Rickman. Cleolinda summed it up much better than I could: "There's a genuinely protective, more mature quality to the movies' Snape that you don't really have in the books--like that bit in the Prisoner of Azkaban movie where he actually puts himself between Lupin and the kids, and it looks like sincere, paternal instinct. I just really can't visualize Book!Snape doing that. I like both versions, but the memory sequence in this movie fleshes out the "sincerely protective" interpretation pretty consistently. So both versions have a nice complexity: One is a childish, spiteful man, mentally stuck in grade school, who still manages to spend his life doing incredibly patient, heroic things, even if it's for selfish reasons. The other seems to have some genuine maturity and goodness that is just completely poisoned by his hatred of Harry's father and bitterness at what could have been. The key to both is the idea that a bitter jerk can still do great things, while still also continuing to be a bitter jerk, and that's what makes Snape such a great character. TEAL DEER; IN CONCLUSION, ALAN RICKMAN."

There's definitely a more heroic nature to Movie!Snape than Book!Snape, and the flashback sequence was awesome. The fact that Jo told Alan Rickman Snape's backstory before the movies started filming makes watching the movies again have more meaning. This for one.

One more final though: AVPM has engrained itself within my HP canon. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't half expecting "I thought you were going to tell her to tuck in her shirt or something" or "Can you tell me how Lost ends?" or "Voldemort out, Bitches" to be said.

Links:
[Cleolinda: So I Saw Deathly Hallows]
[Potter postscript: 10 great, and 10 not-so-great, things about Harry Potter ]