Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Countdown!!

Sozlet and I are figuring out more and more lapses as we talk ("GRAWP!"). But the closing-credits reaction was still "wow great job."

Since about the fourth movie we've been saying that we can't wait for the miniseries. (It'll happen, eventually. Maybe 10 years? The BBC miniseries with allll the important details.)

For the rest of the glorious article!
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=3211

Cool!

So far the kid and I have decided that the lack of SPEW (and therefore the lack of the reason that Hermione finally kisses Ron) is the biggest lapse.

Overall still happy with the movie tho.

Sozobe? Should I bother to read the books sometime in the near future after seeing all of the films?

Or is it too late for that? (AKA would I be too spoiled by the movies?)

I'm not Soz, but I'd say--by all means, read the books! Books are almost always better than their film versions, and these are no exception. There is so much more in the books, the films will just seem like an introduction!

Mercy buttercups Eva!

I'll second that: there is much, much more in the books! In a way, it might be even more fun this way: since you know what's going to happen, you can catch the dozens of hints scattered throughout the books--how the Room of Requirement is foreshadowed in Goblet of Fire, how "R.A.B" and one of the Horcruxes make discreet cameos in Order of the Phoenix, etc. (Even the little illustration at the beginning of Chapter 24 in Half-Blood Prince, in the US Scholastic edition, is a kind of hint if you know what you're looking for!)

You'll probably still enjoy the books (I know you love to read). I've decided to put all the movies in my Netflix queue...in order. I should get most of them before I cancel my account on 9/1.

OH GAWD YES.

I find the books to be waaaay better than the movies, and I say that as someone who really, really likes the movies.

Note, I read the books as a mom, expecting a children's book, and some people I know who started reading the books expecting Literature were disappointed.

I was bowled over by the books though (just read the series for the first time last summer, at the same time as my kid).

There is just so much more detail in the books and what is amazing about them is that Rowling had the entire plot mapped out before she began the first one. So there are foreshadowings, yes, and also details that seem throw-away minor (so that the movies didn't include them) that then become very important later on.

Rowling evidently had a sit-down with Alan Rickman before the first movie to explain that Snape needed to have some character shadings, he wasn't necessarily all evil. (How did you like the flashbacks in HP7 pt 2 btw? I thought that was awesome. Anyway.) The first movie came out before the last books were out (at book 4 or so?) so the world didn't know yet that Snape would emerge as, in some ways, the hero of the books, but Rickman knew (if only in abstract).

But Rowling couldn't do that for the thousands (probably literally) of details that end up paying off in some way down the line (like SPEW). (I'll leave SPEW for you to discover. )

Just as a tiny example that I can remember now, Harry actually sees the diadem in the room of requirement when he's hiding something, in an earlier book ("Half-Blood Prince," I think, when he's hiding the Half-Blood Prince's textbook from Snape.) He just has no idea that it's important. So there's this little gasp moment as you (the reader, if you've retained all this info!) realize exactly where the diadem is, at about the same time Harry does.

That's what Rowling is GENIUS at in the books, that I haven't seen to the same extent in the movies. Hints, information that is THERE but you have to think about it, and then the thrilling CLICK as you get it.

As one more example, in the movie Snape out and says "you have your mother's eyes," in the book it's just "Look... at... me..." (conk), and it's not until the next chapter, when Harry views Snape's memories, that we put all of the "Harry has his mothers' eyes" comments into context. (And in the books, Harry is always being told how much his bright green (ahem, movie) eyes are like his mother's, to the point where he's sick of it.) Those dots are never explicitly connected, you just have this "OH" moment.

Since you know how it turns out you won't get the full benefit of all of those, but I bet there will be a lot of them anyway, even if in reverse (i.e. when the info first comes up, rather than at the payoff).

Anyway.

Highly recommended.

My favorite hint (of the ones I've found, anyway... I'm sure I missed tons more) is in Goblet of Fire, when Dumbledore casually mentions that his brother Aberforth was once convicted of practicing improper charms on a goat. Then, in Order of the Phoenix, the kids go to a dingy bar in Hogsmeade and Harry notices that it "smelled strongly of something that might have been goats," and that the barman "looked vaguely familiar." It's Aberforth, though we don't find that out for sure until the end of Deathly Hallows, when they Apparate into Hogsmeade, the alarms go off, and they are rescued at the last minute by Aberforth. (And I was a bit disappointed that the movie did not include the final touch to this foreshadowing: in the book, Death Eaters send out Dementors to find the intruders who set off the alarm; Harry casts his Patronus to ward them off; the Death Eaters see the stag Patronus, confirming Harry Potter is somewhere in the vicinity; but then Aberforth covers for him by telling the Death Eaters that what they thought was Harry's stag was in fact his own Patronus... a goat.)

Yep, that's a good one! And I agree about being disappointed that the movie didn't include that part.

Since I've been kind of down on the movie here even though I did really like it, one thing that impressed the heck out of me was Helena Bonham-Carter's acting when she's Hermione (that is, when Hermione turns into Bellatrix). It didn't take any special effects, just pure really good acting -- that was Hermione with a Bellatrix face. Her expressions, body language, gestures (a certain way of tucking her hair behind her ear), everything.

Ha! I agree. A lot of reviews singled that out too--the scene basically consisted of Helena Bonham Carter parodying herself, to marvelous effect.

Here's one thing the movie did that the book didn't do, and I thought it was a good move: after Harry witnesses Snape's memories in the Pensieve and realizes he has to sacrifice himself, he encounters Hermione and Ron on the way to the Forbidden Forest. This is different from the book, where he deliberately sneaks out to his confrontation with Voldemort without letting anyone (except Neville) see him. In the movie, he reveals to Hermione and Ron that he has to die in order for everything to be done and he suggests the three of them sort of knew it all along, and they share a poignant moment. Nice touch.

I might change my mind after I see it captioned, but uncaptioned I didn't like it. They would INSIST on going with him. They've done that so many other times. It didn't look right that they'd just let him go to his death, yeah, bye-bye. Even if they all had to die.

I can't decide if I like the Neville vs. Nagini change better or not. Sozlet did (the theater we were in erupted in cheers when Neville sliced off Nagini's head). I didn't really, because of how it works within the final fight with Voldemort. It's supposed to be that Harry knows that this is it, that all of the horcruxes have been dealt with and it's just him vs. Voldemort. In this version, Neville has too much to do with it -- Voldemort is visibly weakened, mid-fight, when Nagini dies. It's supposed to be a more elemental Harry vs. Voldemort thing at that point.

Also, and this is minor, I missed the actual spells. Expelliarmus (which he learned from Snape!) vs. Avada Kedavra.

This discussion reminds me of something else I wanted to say to Tsar re: reading the books, which is that I find Ron to be pretty much exactly the same in books and movies (I love Rupert Grint), Hermione pretty similar (she's more passive and fragile in the movies than in the books), and Harry fairly different. I had only seen the first three movies when I read the books, and he's more or less on track in those first three but as he gets older and as more is required of him, the movie and book Harrys diverge more and more IMO.

Since I read the books before seeing the later movies, I think of the book Harry as being the "real" one and I get a bit peeved at the movie one/ Daniel Radcliffe. (A big part of that is just that the movies had to condense things and a lot of the figuring-out that Harry does in the books -- where a lot of his personality comes through -- is glossed over.) If you're coming to the books after watching all the movies, where Daniel Radcliffe is the "real" Harry, you might be surprised at the book Harry.

Well, remember that Neville kills Nagini in the book too.

Right, but what I'm saying is that in the book, Neville kills Nagini before Harry begins his final showdown with Voldemort.

In the book, Harry knows Nagini is dead and that it's just him and Voldemort, no horcruxes left, this is it.

I think it was a better way to give Neville his moment (killing that last horcrux was extremely important) while also making the final showdown JUST Harry vs. Voldemort.

Ah... gotcha. I hadn't thought of it that way.

In general I do like the way Rowling gave Neville his moment too. I don't know if she did this purposely, but it makes for a neat kind of symmetry because, as Dumbledore reveals in Order of the Phoenix, the prophecy did not necessarily have to refer to Harry. The prophecy mentions only "a boy born at the end of July," and he says Neville was born around the same time as Harry. So Neville's offing of Nagini sort brings the whole thing around full circle: the two boys implied by the prophecy both play their parts in bringing the prophecy to fruition.

Yep!

I can see that, I guess. Mostly what I liked about that moment in the movie is that it put in perspective (in just a few seconds) everything the three had been through--both the characters and the actors! It was a fitting touch to the end of the film series.

So HArry dies eh?