HP and the Deathly Hallows

[GrantDawg]

Wow. No thread on the 2nd movie or even the first? I am surprised. What did everybody think? The final story has been told in film. It was sad to see in a way. The second movie was definitely a "on the edge of your seat" ride. Very little down time (whereas the first movie was mostly down time). Made a great film, imho. Even knowing what was going to happen, it was very exciting seeing it. And saying goodbye to the kids we have seen growing up was so bitter-sweet.

I will say this. Did the "digital 3d" crap with this, and never again. Extra money for nothing to me. "3d" is a crutch you use to prop a bad movie up. If you can write/film a good movie, you don't need it.

[spleen1015]

Seeing it tomorrow. I know I will be a little bit let down by it.

I am frustrated by how these films have been handled. I think there have been details left out that really flesh out the story and make the story a lot more interesting for me. I'm sure they will get the overall themes right, though.

The trailers have already shown they've added some drama to make it what I assume a more appealing movie and that annoys me to death.

[spleen1015]

Dola,

I am still looking forward to seeing it though.

[Draft Dodger]

saw it with the wife and kids tonight (no 3D, thankfully). Not a huge fan of the series, but I liked this one.

[fpres]

I saw it Friday night with the family. The movies don't compare to the books in the series IMHO, but I thought DH2 was a great closing to the film series.

It just struck me coming out of the theater...after 10 years and 8 movies, there is no more to come. Lots of great moments.

[fantom1979]

I have not read one word of any Harry Potter book and have not seen one minute of any of the Harry Potter movies. I feel like the guy that has never seen Star Wars. Maybe one weekend over the winter I will sit down and see if this is for me.

[PackerFanatic]

Went to the midnight showing on Thursday night...and absolutely loved it. It's really hard to compare the books and movies (as can be said for any movie-from-a-book) as they are such different entities...but I think everyone involved in 8 movies did a pretty damn good job of portraying the story. This last one just blew me away though.

[Neon_Chaos]

*bows down to* Alan Rickman

[saldana]

I was very disappointed in the ending... the last 3 scenes were way too far from the book, and were so important that there should ave been word for word from the there

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by saldana

I was very disappointed in the ending... the last 3 scenes were way too far from the book, and were so important that there should ave been word for word from the there

Eh. I am usually a stickler about this (and have panned some of the movies in the past about their divergences), but I really didn't have a problem at all with the way this movie made changes. It all worked well to me. I enjoyed the movie overall. It is probably in top 3 of all of the HP movies, maybe even the very best to me.

[Warhammer]

Haven't seen the movie, but I'll echo the comments about divergences, my issue with LotR was not so much how they executed scenes or events. It was the theming. When you have a series of books, character interaction is paramount to the story. When you change a character's themes and motivations, you have to check to see how it impacts the rest of the story. That was where LotR fell down for me.

The Harry Potter series, has seemed to keep more in line with the character themes, and has diverged a bit more with the scenes. I felt this made these movies stronger overall than the LotR series.

[terpkristin]

Doesn't look like I'm going to get a chance to see it until after this mission. Surprisingly, though I'm a fan of the books and was a middling fan of the movies (except for the 5th), I was really bored by the first half of DH. I mean, to a point that I was looking at my watch and trying to figure out how much time was left.

Will be interesting to see it come to a close.

/tk

[whomario]

Originally Posted by Warhammer

Haven't seen the movie, but I'll echo the comments about divergences, my issue with LotR was not so much how they executed scenes or events. It was the theming. When you have a series of books, character interaction is paramount to the story. When you change a character's themes and motivations, you have to check to see how it impacts the rest of the story. That was where LotR fell down for me.

The Harry Potter series, has seemed to keep more in line with the character themes, and has diverged a bit more with the scenes. I felt this made these movies stronger overall than the LotR series.

I agree with that, but IMO the last couple scenes are where you have to "pay your dues" to the books in a way.
The final 50 sth pages of the book were very powerfull stuff and without having seen the movie yet i assume it refers to the final confrontation which in the book was this beautiful intense setting where it´s just as much about that setting and the realization of Harry that he can actually do this (before it was him seeing it all as basically a suicide-mission) as it was about the fight.

Overall i think the movies have been very well made and stayed reasonably close to the books while putting visuals on it and have made a similar evolution as the books did in terms of getting more sophisticated and serious.

[Doug5984]

Just got back from seeing this one- it's the first movie I've been to in over a year- and what really stuck out to me is how damn expensive the movies are...

We had to see the 3d feature since we have to be somewhere tonight- so it was $19 for 2 people at the day-time prices...and then $5 for a medium drink. We snuck in candy so saved a little but wow. I was amazed at how much the movies have become.

The movie itself was pretty good- the I'd say it was the closest to the books for me, but it's been so long since I've read them that I had forgotten some of what was going on.

[bronconick]

The problem with transferring the final 50 odd pages to movie form is that they're so powerful because so much of it is internal dialogue and we've been inside Harry's head for the entire book series.

Internal dialogue does not transfer well to film. At best, you get the ending of Kubrick's 2001, which is a pale comparison to the book. Worst case, you get Wonder Years' monologue.

[spleen1015]

Originally Posted by saldana

I was very disappointed in the ending... the last 3 scenes were way too far from the book, and were so important that there should ave been word for word from the there

I totally agree with this, especially what happens after Voldemort goes to Hogwatrs and tells them all that Harry is dead. The changes made for the movie took away from the scene.

That scene in the book wasn't really about Harry and Voldemort. It was about the good guys saying, yeah you killed Harry, but we don't give a fuck. We're not going down without a fight.

Then, Harry revealing himself. GAMEOVER!

This crap about 'That's end this the way we started Tom.... together' is bull shit. The flying around, struggling with each other was stupid.

I know movies based on books don't follow the books completely, but these books are so damn awesome, to leave GOOD details out and change GOOD scenes is flat out dumb to me.

Having said that, if I hadn't read the book and only saw the movie, I think it was a good movie.

[Draft Dodger]

Originally Posted by Doug5984

Just got back from seeing this one- it's the first movie I've been to in over a year- and what really stuck out to me is how damn expensive the movies are...

We had to see the 3d feature since we have to be somewhere tonight- so it was $19 for 2 people at the day-time prices...and then $5 for a medium drink. We snuck in candy so saved a little but wow. I was amazed at how much the movies have become.

The movie itself was pretty good- the I'd say it was the closest to the books for me, but it's been so long since I've read them that I had forgotten some of what was going on.

I was really stoked, as it was playing at some small-town theater nearby. $5 to get in, $5 for a popcorn, drink and candy. And the seats were great too.

[Crapshoot]

Originally Posted by Neon_Chaos

*bows down to* Alan Rickman

"". This. Playing the best character in the series, with an amazing performance. One of the few people who absolutely lived up to how I imagined him in the books.

[saldana]

Originally Posted by bronconick

The problem with transferring the final 50 odd pages to movie form is that they're so powerful because so much of it is internal dialogue and we've been inside Harry's head for the entire book series.

Internal dialogue does not transfer well to film. At best, you get the ending of Kubrick's 2001, which is a pale comparison to the book. Worst case, you get Wonder Years' monologue.

The final fight was not an internal dialogue..it was harry and voldemort in the great hall with everyone around them and the exchange between them was some of the best written parts of the entire series, imo...they took all of it out

[Scoobz0202]

How much better are the later movies then say the first two? I stopped giving them a chance after #2 and this is coming from a 23 year old who puts the books on a giant pedestal due to the "growing up with harry" thing.

The first two I just thought were shit terrible, mainly due to acting. I'm sure as they got older they got better, so... should I give it another go?

[Groundhog]

I went to watch this last night as my gf is a big fan, despite not having seen any of them since the one involving time travel? Can't recall the name of it, I guess it was 4 movies ago?

Despite not having seen the last couple it didn't take me long to pick up vaguely what was going on, although the full impact of the big reveal re: Rickman's character was somewhat lost on me, given I didn't know all the details. Even in my fading memories of the ones I have seen, Rickman was really the only character I found particularly interesting, because there was some real depth to his character that was explained in this film, and that was the part I liked the most. Outside of that, the action was well filmed, but paying extra for 3D was a complete waste of money, as it didn't really take much advantage of that, which was expected before going in anyway. Was definitely much darker than the other films, which had the "young kids get up to some crazy hijinks" vibe to them that turned me off the series originally.

[SportsDino]

My thoughts on the end. (And yes Alan Rickman rules, I actually saw the first movie before reading the series so to me Snape always was Alan Rickman which probably made me enjoy the character that much more.)

Spoiler

I think the last scene was diminished, although the whole movie seemed to be stretching out what should have been one somewhat long movie (although I think I could have edited a good 3 hour cut of it all, cutting mostly from the first movie).

The Harry reveal is too soon, the shit needs to hit the fan when the side of good has no hope of victory, Voldemort needs to lose his last Horcrux to the boy he dismissed repeatedly as less than a threat and in many ways was as tormented as Harry, and do so in a moment of ultimate defiance and 'certain death'.

The snake kill was dragged out to the point of having less impact. And instead of TRYING TO SAVE VOLDEMORT before having to put him down Harry is given a one-liner and an extended action scene with a pointless wand duel conclusion. They might have spiffied it up so it was a little less corny than the books possibly, but it works so much better as Voldemort losing due to ignorance and knowing why before the end.

[larrymcg421]

I was incredibly pleased with the film overall and I think Yates has proven himself a very good director as his four entries have been consistently well made despite problems I've had with some of his changes.

My thoughts on some of the changes. in this one...

Spoiler

I'm a huge fan of the books, but I'm also a huge film buff so I don't mind some of the changes. As great as the end is in the book, I'm not sure it works so well cinematically if translated directly. A long speech and then an instant wand duel? I like the way they did it by having Neville save Ron and Hermione by killing Nagini, then Harry and Voldemort both instantly realizing what just happened.

Other changes I liked were the Neville/Luna shipping (they have far more chemistry than Harry/Ginny, a pairing that never worked in the movies), Harry telling Ron and Hermione that he had to go to his death (Hermione's reaction just KILLS me), the Neville bridge scenes, the DA's entrance into the hall and McGonagall's duel with Snape (following the book here would've taken too long). Also, Snape's death was just a brilliant piece of filmmaking.