Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 concludes the Potter film franchise that has lasted eight films and ten years. Thanks to its devoted worldwide fan base, the film is breaking box office records left and right. Critics are also showering the film with praise: it received a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, the highest for any film in the series.

We at Movie-Thoughts.com thought it would be interesting to talk about the franchise as a whole. Below is the conversation between Cliff Bugle (a casual fan who experienced the story chiefly through the movies) and Marisa Carpico (a long-time Potter fan who read the books and saw the movies). Be sure to get into the conversation by leaving your own comments!

Marisa Carpico

So have you never read Harry Potter? I couldn’t tell from your review.

Cliff Bugle

I read the first one but none others. I just didn’t care for the story. How about you?

Marisa Carpico

Read ‘em all. Enjoyed them a lot. I’m not an obsessed fan, but I’m very engaged. When the last book came out I didn’t buy it immediately because I didn’t think I cared that much. After about half a day, though, I was desperate for a book. I basically read it in about two days. But I’m not the kind of fan who doesn’t think the books don’t have some fundamental flaws that are reflected in the movies as well.

Cliff Bugle

Exactly what flaws are you referring to?

Marisa Carpico

Well, J.K. Rowling has a wonderful gift for fantasy, but I think creating believable romances is one of her weaknesses. To be frank, I find both the Ginny/Harry and Ron/Hermione pairings rather arbitrary, even absurd in the latter case. I never understood what a strong, intelligent woman like Hermione saw in a dunce like Ron. Yes, he’s loyal, but besides that I don’t get the appeal. He deserts his friends in Deathly Hallows: Part 1 during their greatest need. How could she choose such a man? And Ginny is incredibly bland. She possesses a bit more character in the book, but in the movies she’s just some girl. I can’t remember any of her lines.

Cliff Bugle

Absurd is a strong word, but I agree that I don’t know what any girl, let alone Hermione, could see in Ron.

Marisa Carpico

I’d be interested to hear what you think just seeing the films.

Cliff Bugle

Well frankly, after the first two films I completely wrote off the franchise because I thought it was way too kiddy for me. I didn’t see the third film for a couple years after it came out, then when I saw that the material was maturing I made a point to get caught up.

Marisa Carpico

Yeah, Prisoner of Azkaban was the turning point for the films and books, and I must say I like the darker tone better too.

Cliff Bugle

I’m a huge fan of fantasy, but witches and wizards never appealed to me. I find the world J.K. created to be interesting enough, but none of the main characters interested me. Harry seemed along for the ride most of the time, Hermione was book smart but still rather simple in terms of her personality, and Ron was just always useless. Of course, these opinions pertain to the movies.

Marisa Carpico

Sure, obviously. I think the way you feel about the characters’ simplicity is actually a symptom of what is the films’ major problem: they simply can’t translate the complexity of the books. Their cinematic value has always been a bit questionable for me, even as a fan of the books. (And p.s. I don’t actually like fantasy very much so this series is a big exception for me.) I think you touch on this point a bit in your review. The films would not stand up on their own, but they do give fans of the book  visual representations of a beloved story. I’ve always marveled at the fact that anyone who hasn’t read the books can decipher what’s going on. They’re so esoteric. I’ve read all of them and sometimes I had trouble figuring out what was going on.

Cliff Bugle

Well it’s not just the simplicity of the characters that drags the movies down for people like me who haven’t been engaged with the books. The movies had to be streamlined because of the transfer from one medium to another, and while I understand that (I even had to tell my HP fan friends to calm down after they ranted about how they hate the movies for lacking in detail) I can still sense that there is a lot missing from what ends up on screen. My main question with this would be that if Peter Jackson can squeeze the Lord of the Rings trilogy into three films and not have them feel like they’re missing anything important, why couldn’t the same be done with the HP films?

Marisa Carpico

Yeah, it’s definitely not a question of amount of details. The first two were positively slavish adaptations, and those films are, I would argue, much weaker than what comes later. I suppose it’s the spirit that they miss.

Cliff Bugle

I’m not really sure what to say to that. Exactly what do you mean by “spirit”?

Marisa Carpico

I guess what I mean by spirit is that although the movies often hit all the major plot points, I don’t know if they get the emotional impact across in the right ways.

Cliff Bugle

Do you think that’s attributable to the writing? directing? acting?

Marisa Carpico

For instance, in the last book there’s a scene where Hermione is tortured. I remember being so terrified by that scene because I thought she was going to die. Yet in the movies it’s barely dealt with. There’s more concern for Dobby’s death, and I can’t stand that character. He’s far too cute and cloying for my taste. Just thinking of examples like that, I think it might be a writing problem. I just don’t know if the films leave any breath for convincing human interaction, in a way. They’re so focused on hitting certain plot points and big action set pieces that I’m not sure we really have the time to connect with the characters in the right way.

Cliff Bugle

Is that a fault of trying to adapt the books to the film? Do you think trying to make movies of the books was a lost cause from the start?

Marisa Carpico

Perhaps, but I don’t think that’s an entirely convincing argument. Larger and more complicated books, like LOTR as you mentioned, have been successfully adapted.

Cliff Bugle

But the LOTR books, while they went into painstaking detail and had a lot of tangents, DID have a more or less main story that everything could connect to. Can the same be said for all the HP books, or were more side stories more integral to the main story?

Marisa Carpico

I think there’s still a main story: Harry has to defeat Voldemort. And Ron and Hermione help him do it. I mean maybe that core story isn’t written in the movies as being as strong and wonderful as it is in the books.

Cliff Bugle

That would be a shame, because I feel the main story is the ONLY one that’s really ever conveyed. I never got the sense that much else went on at or outside of Hogwarts than what the films showed.

Marisa Carpico

The world definitely doesn’t seem as rich as it does in the books. Do you feel any emotional connection to the characters after all these films, with no book memories to cloud your judgment?

Cliff Bugle

I can confidently say that I have no emotional attachment to the HP movies whatsoever. I find most of them entertaining and fun, but when I tried to take a closer look at any of them I rarely found anything lying beneath the surface regarding either the writing or cinematic techniques.

Marisa Carpico

I’m not a big crier at all, but I was pretty emotional in a few scenes. But I’m 100% sure that it wasn’t thanks solely to the movies. A lot of what I’ve been hearing from friends and such is that what made them so emotional is that these films were part of our childhood, so this final film marks the end of it. I think I definitely cried more for nostalgia.

Cliff Bugle

A decade is a long time for sure, and if I had been building an emotional investment in the movies for that long I might also be upset when I saw the last installment. But since I’m not one of those people, I simply can’t relate.

Marisa Carpico

The Snape-as-good-guy revelation really got me. I hadn’t remembered much of that from the book and I was struck by his devotion. Were you at all moved by that?

Cliff Bugle

I actually loved the Snape backstory. It may have been the highlight of the movie for me. What’s a discredit to HP‘s story though, to me, is that I found Snape’s story FAR more interesting and moving.

Marisa Carpico

I’m not sure if that’s entirely a discredit. That is a big moment in the books and changes the meaning of all of his actions from all the previous books.

But back to the question of what might be wrong with the films, I don’t know if it is about side details. I think maybe the films lacked human moments that make the big plot points matter. Like one of my favorite scenes in the previous film is when Harry tries to cheer up Hermione by dancing with her. It just seemed so sweet and real and honest and I feel like the rest of the films lacked quiet beauty like that.

Cliff Bugle

Well, condensing a 400+ page book into a 2hr movie leaves little room for such moments of quiet beauty.

On a different note, I thought it was obvious from the beginning that Snape was never a truly bad guy. J.K. may be great at immersing readers into her world, but more than a few things about her prolonged story were predictable.

Marisa Carpico

Absolutely. I caught on to the Ron/Hermione thing even as a 13-year-old and even then I thought it was cliché. By the way, what you said earlier about building an emotional attachment actually touches on something I noticed in your review. I don’t entirely agree with you that the films will fade quickly. You said that they will mostly last as totems for fans of the book, but I think the fact that a whole generation grew up with these stories will keep it relevant.

Cliff Bugle

I stand by what I said.

Marisa Carpico

Plus, it is making a fantastic amount of money. That alone will keep it in the collective memory.

Cliff Bugle

Now that I totally have to disagree with. The remake of The Poseiden Adventure also made quite a bit of money (though nothing comparable to the HP movies) and I would bet most people have completely forgotten about it.

Marisa Carpico

Well, that is a single movie. This is a multi-billion dollar franchise. Has any franchise ever accumulated that much money, besides Bond?

Cliff Bugle

What about the Star Wars films? The prequels made HUGE money but most people are actively trying to forget them.

Marisa Carpico

Yeah, but the HP films aren’t actively bad in the same way those are. I would say many Potter fans remember the films rather fondly. There’s something to be said for nostalgia.

Cliff Bugle

There are also EIGHT HP movies, so that’s a little unfair if you want to say that money equates to cultural staying power.

Marisa Carpico

I’m not saying that at all, but I don’t know if quality is always a measure of it either, sadly. Look at the Planet of the Apes films. Those become almost laughable in later stages and those are still remembered pretty fondly.

Cliff Bugle

I disagree again. Many of my friends are HP fans, and from movies 1 through 5 they did nothing but complain about them. I didn’t sense a fondness growing until the 6th movie, and even then they only admitted they didn’t HATE the movies anymore.

Marisa Carpico

The Potter films are well-made and not offensively bad. And there is something rather genuine and epic about them. I don’t think it’s conceivable that the generation that grew up with them won’t pass them on to their children. Thousands of fans waited outside in the rain for days to see the British premiere, certainly that must be fondness. There are plenty of fans seeing the movies multiple times. And look at the critical response to just this last film. I think it has a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes and I’ve read an article or two talking Best Picture nomination.

Cliff Bugle

If Deathly Hallows: Part 2 gets a nomination for Best Picture I will finally win my argument that award shows mean nothing.

Marisa Carpico

Yeah, I don’t think I would be too happy with that nomination either.

Cliff Bugle

When I was a kid I was a HUGE Batman fan (and still am). When a new Batman movie came out I went to see it multiple times. But now that I look back I see that Batman Forever was just OK and Batman and Robin was a piece of crap. The HP movies are not bad, I agree, but they are also not impressive. At least not compared to the truly top notch movies being released over the past 10 years

Marisa Carpico

Well, yeah, I know Spice World is a piece of crap now too, but that didn’t stop me from buying the DVD for pure nostalgia alone. I think childhood attachment is a powerful force, especially when it’s been built up for such a long time. And you have to remember too that a good number of HP fans are also older. It’s got a strong following among parents of this generation too.

Cliff Bugle

You’re talking about the kind of fans who have grown up with both the books and the movies, regardless of age. I’m saying that for everyone else the movies will leave their memories until a fan reminds them they exist, and even when that happens they won’t have a desire to revisit them.

Marisa Carpico

I understand that, but the fan base is large enough that I think enough people who ARE fans will pass it on. I mean, for children the movies are more than adequate, so even if they only live on to appeal to generations of children that’s more nostalgic fans being created right there.

Cliff Bugle

Well, agree to disagree. Time will tell if the HP movies will matter for long, and right now I’m just simply not convinced that things people agree are just OK are going to forever be culturally valuable.

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