A Reactionary Review - Harry Potter

It's over.  At least for now... I have seen the second part of the seventh and supposedly final Harry Potter film.  I personally find it hard to believe that Warner Brothers or JK Rowling will never have the urge to make something more out of this multi-billion dollar franchise.

But anyways, I can't really do a proper review of the film because it doesn't exist in DVD form yet, so I can't include screenshots.  What I can do is finally point out all the giant gaping holes left behind by the filmmakers.  As the series is complete, I guess I shouldn't expect them to be filled at this point.

Unlike most of my posts, I expect someone to want to comment and answer my questions.  Please do.  If you can't comment here comment on my facebook page or send me an email.

And most important, don't offer your comment if it has to include some variation of, "Well, if you read the book..." I am not looking for book-based answers.  The movies should stand on their own.  So if you know the answer, please cite the specific scene of the specific movie that explains my burning questions.

No.  Fail.

Fair Warning: THAR BE SPOILERS AHEAD, MATEY!!!

1. That Stupid Mirror Shard - The first part of the seventh movie not so subtly jams in a plot point that was supposed to be introduced I guess in the fifth movie.  Harry suddenly has a chunk of a broken mirror.  When he uses it to look behind himself he sees a familiar set of eyes looking back at him (supposedly Gandalf's... I mean Dumbledore's.  I keep making that mistake for some reason!).  I actually like the unexplained mirror subplot.  It is the biggest fuck you from the filmmakers to the non-book-reading audience.  What they are essentially saying is, "We know we fucked up by leaving the mirror subplot out of the fifth movie.  But it's OK, because we assume most of you have read the book.  The rest of you, tough shit."

He might as well be flipping me off right now.

Still there was plenty of time once they realized the screw up to at least try to explain what was going on with that mirror shard.  What I gather is Gary Oldman had it and at some point gave it to Brother Dumbledore.  But before that he broke a piece off to give to Harry.  Why he did that is never explained.  Why the mirror works the way it does is never explained- why should a broken shard from this mirror show what's staring into the rest of the mirror?  What does the mirror show when it's whole?

2. What Is Up with the Malfoys? - It's clear Father Malfoy is an alcoholic, but that's about it.  I guess not capturing five small children then being beaten by Gary Oldman at the end of the fifth movie was really rough on his psyche.  But what is up with his son?  He seemed perfectly content with hating Harry until the end of the first part of movie 7.  Why did he change his mind?  Was he a double agent this whole time too?  Or did he just realize he really was a weakling and couldn't stomach following Voldemort?

Clearly a man conflicted about good and evil

And then there's his mother.  Is she a double agent?  I'm not even sure she was a part of this series until this last movie.  Why does she care so much about Harry dying?  And what was up with her asking Draco if Harry was still alive in that scene?  Draco was at the castle, so how could he have answered?  That was just needlessly confusing.  I gather that Harry and Draco eventually reconciled, as Draco was in the final scene and was smiling.  Still, seven movies worth of hard feelings just don't wash away without explanation.

3. The Thing About the Wand - In the first part of the seventh movie, Voldemort establishes he needs a new wand for some reason to kill Harry because their wands have the same... frequency?  Whatever.  But using Father Malfoy's wand doesn't work.  so he seeks out the Elder Wand, the most powerful wand ever.  Which for some reason belongs to Dumbledore.  It would have been nice to know why Dumbledore wound up with the most powerful wand ever, and how nobody, not even Voldemort, knew that he was using it the whole time.

Look at that smug bastard posing for a photo with the most powerful wand ever made.

And hold on a minute... Harry said the Elder Wand belonged to him at the end because he disarmed Draco in the first half of the seventh movie.  But was Draco carrying the Elder Wand or his own wand when he was disarmed?  He couldn't have had the Elder Wand at the time because it was buried with Dumbledore.  That doesn't really fit together.  Then there's the question of wand "memory" that is never explained.  There is also the problem of who John Hurt was playing at the beginning of the second part of movie seven.  I guess he's the wand guy from the first movie that was released ten years ago?  We're supposed to remember that?  Sheesh.

4. So Snape Was Harry's... Father? - Snape was in love with Harry's mother, and the movie kinda implies they hooked up.  But it was never expressly stated beyond the two sharing a patronis charm.  And it really doesn't make sense, because the guy they got to play Harry's "father" looks a lot like Daniel Radcliffe while Alan Rickman doesn't.  So I think the movie is being deliberately obtuse.  Also, Snape's memory seemed to include a vision of the rat-faced guy in the house when Harry's parents died.  So he knew the whole time that it wasn't Gary Oldman's fault?

I am not the only one on the internet who has this theory.

I don't really mind a little extra mystery, or that none of this was really tied up.  I just think the rather neat plot twist of Dumbledore being something of an asshole this whole time is disappointingly coupled with a cliched love triangle.  By the way, how did Snape put all that stuff into his tears?  Did his brain have it on like a mental flashdrive that he could just download it to at a moments notice?  And why did the snake not kill Snape when Voldemort flat out ordered him to?  At least I got the answer to one burning question about Snape.  Why was his hair so metrosexually teased for the seventh movie?  So when we see him in flashback we know it's the past because he hasn't teased his hair yet.  Brilliant!

5. WTF Dumbledore? - Turns out this whole time Dumbledore was just preparing Harry to be killed in a big final battle with Voldemort.  And Brother Dumbledore mentioned that Dumbledore had his own little quest for power going on.  So that's probably why he has the most powerful wand on Earth.  So really this whole time that Dumbledore was head master and horrific things were happening in Hogwarts, like troll invasions, dementor infestations, things like that, was all part of a clever scheme to keep Harry just safe enough to not die until he needed him to.  Sort of like how the fourth movie had a real clever plot of putting Harry into the most dangerous situation available at the time just so he could have the potential to touch the cup at the end and wind up in a graveyard.

What can I do today to possibly endanger Harry's life?

So is Dumbledore good or bad?  Harry still seems to regard him as good, even though he comes across in this movie as something of a jerk.  Then there's a problem of how the fifth movie fits into all this.  Dumbledore spent that whole movie ignoring Voldemort because he thought Voldemort was after him and not Harry.  Why would he do that if he already knew all that stuff about Harry being a horcrux?  Also, did Dumbledore know the whole time that it wasn't Gary Oldman's fault in the third movie?  Why did Gary Oldman have to take the fall for all those years if both Snape and Dumbledore knew he wasn't involved in Harry's parents murder?  Was Dumbledore purposefully withholding information so Voldemort would have an easier time returning one day?  Seriously, WTF Dumbledore?

6. Why is Harry Still Alive? - For a brief second, I thought they were really going to do it and kill off the main character.  But then I remembered a few scenes from the trailers that included Harry that hadn't happened yet.  In any case, Voldemort clearly used the killing curse, unlike at other times during the movies where it was mumbled under someone's breath (I'm still not sure if Gary Oldman is dead or not).  So what, did Voldemort miss?  Can a person be just scratched by the killing curse so they are only almost killed?  Or did Voldemort just happen to hit the pocket of cells on Harry's body that were carrying the horcrux?

There is a community of people who take pictures of gravestones
with fictional character's names on them.  Of course there is.

It just doesn't make any bit of sense.  When Neville killed the snake, it fucking exploded.  When Harry killed the book, it caught on fire.  Every other horcrux had some kind of fiery death.  But not Harry.  For some reason he just got to almost die and come back without even a visit to Billy Crystal.  Was it the wand that was supposedly not loyal to Voldemort?  Did it decide that Harry shouldn't die and only the horcrux part of him should?  Did Harry know this to be the case when he went to meet Voldemort?  He seemed to know about the wand before, like when he confronted Draco in that big room.  Makes him look slightly less brave.

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Before the first part of the seventh movie premiered, I came up with a list of predictions... more like demands that I was mentally pining for in order for the finale to be any good.  I'm actually surprised how well I did.

Here are my predictions and some updated comments:

• Hermione kills Ron accidentally-  The only romantic relationship they’ve done a decent job building for 6 movies is Ron and Hermione’s.  It would be utterly crushing and monstrously funny if when they finally kiss, Ron is allergic to Hermione’s lip gloss and winds up in a coma.  Hermione (Hermy-won?) would be so wracked with guilt she leaves the school and is never heard from again.

For a long moment during the first half of movie seven I was thinking of raising my arms triumphantly because it appeared that Ron may actually die by Hermione's hand.  Two things stopped me... Claiming "I called it" in a room full of people who already read the books and knew about this was pointless.  And he didn't die in that scene, so that's a shame.  But I did come close, and it would have been a nice twist had the filmmaker's been brave enough to change the story just a bit.

• Harry gets his ass handed to him by Voldemort-  Let’s face it… Harry spent so much time trying to save the world that he only attended like five classes in six years.  And of those classes, one was about sprouts, another about really useless prophecies, and a third about potions.  None of those would help in his final confrontation with the Evil Dark Lord.  So the cliff hanger for the first part is Harry crawling away from the fight beaten to a bloody pulp while Voldemort laments not having a worthier opponent.

Yeah, missed the mark on this one.  In fact, Voldemort barely appeared in the first half and there were no epic wizarding battles.  And in the end Harry somehow manages to defeat Voldemort by, of all things, dumb luck.  I mean really he's just lucky that Draco disarmed Dumbledore of the one wand Voldemort would eventually try to track down to use to kill him.

• Snape did it for the chicks- In Star Trek 8, we learn the inventor of the warp drive didn’t invent this humanity-altering technology to usher in a new era of peace, but simply because he dreamed of retiring to a life of uninhibited sex.  Everyone assumes Snape has some really deep motive, like a blood-oath, or promises of wealth and power, or perhaps he’s a double-agent working for Gandalf.  I bet he simply realized that freaky chicks like Helena Bonham Carter are way better in bed, so he’s switching sides.

I'll give myself a half-hit on this one too.  Snape was clearly in love with Harry's mother, and his motivation seems to be guilt, or maybe just sadness over her death.  I guess I was wrong about the uninhibited sex with all the evil freaky chicks, but sex probably played a part, especially if he's Harry's real father

• The nerd saves the day- It’s tough to pick a nerd in a film starring Harry Potter.  But “the nerd” is clearly Neville.  As a corollary to number 2 above, while Harry was out having all the fun, Neville was back at school learning to be a real wizard.  It’s kinda like how football players in high school wind up as shoe salesmen, while the nerds wind up designing billion-dollar social networking websites.  There’s been no point to Neville sticking around in the background of the series for six whole movies.  My guess is he was being built to be the true hero, even if he had to be strung up by his underwear a few times first.

TOTALLY CALLED IT!!!  Maybe not completely, but this was a stone cold guess.  It would have been great if Harry had just been killed and Neville literally picked up his sword to lead the charge, but still I think I got it pretty on the nose.

• Harry and Ginny get secretly married, publicly divorced- If I learned anything from the Star Wars prequels, forbidden love is the only love that audiences will swallow without asking questions.  So the marriage has to be secret, because nothing else they have done makes me see a reason for Ginny and Harry to be romantically involved.  According to the fifth and sixth movies, the only reason these two seem to like each other is because when one of them is dating someone else, they get jealous.  This is not a solid basis for a relationship.  Plus, since the fourth movie, Harry’s been a bit of a hounddog.  I can see no more fitting an end to his embarrassing career as a wizard than Ginny tossing him out in favor of Neville.

We only know that in 19 years, Harry and Ginny are together.  We don't know if they are still together or just together right then.  19 years is a long time.  And their son in like 10, so what happened in those other 9 years?  My prediction is still standing, waiting for an interquel between the last two scenes of movie seven part 2.

• Luna burns down Hogwarts, murdering everyone- There’s no question why she was introduced to the movies, seeing as how she’s had no impact on the story except to be that creepy girl that’s always saying someone stole her shoes.  Aren’t her parents also dead?  Did anyone look into that?  I don’t understand why more movie series don’t use the “everyone dies” ending.  It worked well on Son of the Beach.  It provides closure, and it would void the chance of further pointless sequels.

So it didn't happen, but it would have been awesome.  Turns out Luna was just weird because her father was weird.  There's still the question of what happened to her mother.

Conclusion


The Harry Potter movies weren't really made for people like me.  I don't mean I hate movies about children, or movies about wizards, or movies about magic, or movies about pure unstoppable evil losing to a jerkwad in glasses.  I mean I hate movies where you have to have read the book in order to understand half the plot.  Seriously, if I am required to read the book to follow the movie, I should get a free copy of the book when I walk into the theater, and the movie should include footnotes telling me what page to turn to at any given moment.  Screw the Harry Potter movies.  They've taken way too much of my time and money.  I really hope this is the end and when I close this sentence, I can leave the series behind forever.

-submitted by Dave