Finis

Posted by morynot on 09:23 AM on July 18, 2011.

After 10 years, 8 movies, 4 directors, 3 stereotyped people and billions in dollars in production...
The Harry Potter Movie Franchise has ended. 

The final music with live video, similar to the one that ended Sorcerer's Stone and Chamber of Secrets was tear-jerking, hair-raising, and heart-breaking all at the same time. The last time I felt like this was the day I finished reading the Deathly Hallows book, at 2 in the morning, after having bought the book 12 hours earlier. I have to admit, though, that the final Harry Potter movie was just epic as it is; it wasn't anything as great as I imagined it to be. The hype was too much that its epic-ness consumed the substance of the movie.

The whole movie was a big experiment in itself: it tried its best to connect disconnected details shown in the movie, for example, the Pensive that was in a pedestal in HP-Chamber of Secrets and was a floating bowl in HP-Half Blood Prince were connected when Harry threw it into the air for Snape's memories (It should've been a temple string, but for the drama of it, they went with tears. Disappointment number n). They also tried matrix-inspired freeze shots of Death-Eaters being flung back outside the castle, cinematography that wasn't Harry Potter - Compliant, and more effects. 

Has anybody noticed that Grindelwald was out of the whole equation? That Dumbledore still appeared to be as high and mighty as a kite with his reputation? Arianna's mention was, as it appears, cut out by Hermione herself. Aberforth looked stupid being cut off by a kid. 

It also seemed like they can't finish the Potter series without the help of Columbus and Williams. They had to return to the set -- the exact set (or replica thereof) of Sorcerer's Stone and Chamber of Secrets, and the music of John Williams to tie it all up. The result: A more binding-yet-confusing map of the Hogwarts Castle. 

I open at the close. 

I'm going to see this movie one more time, again to do it wrongly: look at every aspect of the movie in one screening. Nobody should do that. As one of my literature professors told me: watch a movie three times -- first, appreciate the story, second, mind the story-telling and its details, and third, watch the effects and the acting of the cast.

I'm no film critic. I'm just one of the millions who enjoyed the movies, and loved the books. The Harry Potter Movie series is 76% of what the books are worth.

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