Thursday, July 21, 2011

So...Have You Seen IT Yet?

If you don't know what IT I'm talking about maybe you've been blasted into space for the past ten years, but somehow The Boy Who Lived has probably made his presence known through the whole universe anyhow. I'm talking about Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows...part 2...otherwise known as THE END. I just got in from seeing it. Yep, a couple of days after the opening. While I was really excited about it, and quite frankly exasperated by the ending of part one last November (I have to wait until WHEN?!) I didn't run to the theater at midnight on opening day. I wanted to wait. To savor the anticipation a little longer.

Well, and after all, since I read JK Rowling's amazing books I KNEW how it all turned out. But would it live up to my own imagination? In the words of a fellow movie goer...

"It was so #$*@ing good!"

I kid you not. I didn't quite exclaim that out loud, but I thought it. As good as my imagination? Hmm...jury's still out.

I'm a fan of BOTH the books and the movies and completely get why some storylines would need to be cut out. The Potter books are so chock full of incredible details and various plot threads that there would be no way they could fit into a 2 1/2 hour movie. I often wonder though, if I would have enjoyed the movies as much as I did without having first read the books?

My favorite character/plot line/arc - whatever you want to call it - was Severus Snape's. (And yes,I think Alan Rickman helped that a bit too.) I always had the sense, even in the first book, there was more to him than a hateful Potions Master. And his big reveal in Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows did not fail to disappoint. Simply brilliant. In all honesty I would have been really upset if it was somehow left out of the last movie. Spoiler alert: It's not! But did it live up to the flashback in my imagination? Nope. This was one detail I wondered if I would have completely understood if I hadn't read the books. Not that it's glossed over in the movie, but the whole of Snape's relationship/friendship with Lily (Evans) Potter is done in a fairly quick flashback - cut up in such a way it was a little hard to comprehend, even for someone who read the book.

The least they could have done was get a little red-haired girl with, um...Harry's eye color to play young Lily!! (in the books HP's eyes are green, in the movie Daniel Radcliffe has blue eyes, young Lily Evans in the movie has beautiful..um...brown eyes...huh? But in all the books/movies they play up the fact that Harry has his mother's eyes...hello, CASTING?) Since Lily's eyes are almost a character unto their own in the books, I felt like this was something they completely missed. Minor, I now...but as a fan of that part of the story, well it ticked me off.

Otherwise?

It was so $#%&ing good!

How about you? Have you seen it? What did you think? Good adaptation? Or not worth your popcorn money?

2 comments:

  1. Really, really good, and didn't lose my concentration for a second. Mildly disappointed by mild change of setting for the big scene -- if that's clear enough without being spoilery.

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  2. Marcia - I felt the same way! Was riveted from the moment it started. My 8 year old who usually has to visit the bathroom for a movie this long, mentioned it felt like an hour. Which is a good thing :)

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