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harry potter feelings post, part two
I actually did get up at 4:30 to rewatch Order of the Phoenix through Deathly Hallows I. And then half an hour after I finished it, I went off to see Deathly Hallows II. #AWESOME LIFE CHOICES
Deathly Hallows II! Let's deal with the obvious big wrong thing first: Dumbledore's backstory. I never expect the Harry Potter movies to make any sense to a casual moviegoer, because they are so, so terrible at actually explaining any character backstory. I am just sad here -- I love Dumbledore's amazing dickery, the full extent of which can't be understood without the backstory; the wand plot makes little to no sense if you don't know the Dumbledore links; and fuck, guys, I still want my actual, textual canon Dumbledore/Grindelwald.
That said, things that annoyed me in the book annoyed me a lot less in the film! I still find the Snape/Lily stupid and obvious, but I think I have enough distance from the bitter disappointment that I just felt ambivalent rather than annoyed. (My mother, meanwhile, cried during the Snape/Lily flashbacks. I don't even know.) I was also much more okay with the epilogue, possibly because it was entertaining to see the kids in aging makeup, and possibly because the way the films hacked up the books got rid of issues like house elf rights entirely, so I wasn't sitting there going, "Oh god, but it's just happy het family time, it's the same old thing, you haven't SOLVED ANYTHING, it's all going to happen again!" So, y'know, that was nice.
...On the other hand, they stuck the entirety of Slytherin House in the dungeons. Fuck interhouse unity, guys! Let's drop that theme EVEN HARDER than the book did!
I realize that some of this makes me sound like I didn't like it, but believe me, I loved it. The scene where Harry reveals himself in the Great Hall, and the Order's there, and the student body is great, and Snape flees, is wonderful. Everything Neville does is wonderful. Everything the Malfoys do is goddamn wonderful. Remus' pre-battle self-quotation was wonderful. The unexpected Ron/Hermione kiss (unexpected because I totally thought Harry would be there when it happened) was wonderful. The equally unexpected but GREAT hinting at Neville/Luna was wonderful. And ... fuck, seeing Hogwarts being defended like that, and destroyed like that, was beyond amazing.
I didn't really cry, despite having LOTS OF FEELINGS, but I did tear up a bit at the part where James and Lily and Remus and Sirius appear. It was way sentimental and overdone and I don't even CARE, because shut up, I'm a Marauders girl, and FEELINGS.
In conclusion, I think I need all the Harry/Ron/Hermione fic now. Like, desperately.
:DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD IT'S BEEN A GREAT RIDICULOUS DECADE OF HARRY POTTER, YOU GUYS.
Deathly Hallows II! Let's deal with the obvious big wrong thing first: Dumbledore's backstory. I never expect the Harry Potter movies to make any sense to a casual moviegoer, because they are so, so terrible at actually explaining any character backstory. I am just sad here -- I love Dumbledore's amazing dickery, the full extent of which can't be understood without the backstory; the wand plot makes little to no sense if you don't know the Dumbledore links; and fuck, guys, I still want my actual, textual canon Dumbledore/Grindelwald.
That said, things that annoyed me in the book annoyed me a lot less in the film! I still find the Snape/Lily stupid and obvious, but I think I have enough distance from the bitter disappointment that I just felt ambivalent rather than annoyed. (My mother, meanwhile, cried during the Snape/Lily flashbacks. I don't even know.) I was also much more okay with the epilogue, possibly because it was entertaining to see the kids in aging makeup, and possibly because the way the films hacked up the books got rid of issues like house elf rights entirely, so I wasn't sitting there going, "Oh god, but it's just happy het family time, it's the same old thing, you haven't SOLVED ANYTHING, it's all going to happen again!" So, y'know, that was nice.
...On the other hand, they stuck the entirety of Slytherin House in the dungeons. Fuck interhouse unity, guys! Let's drop that theme EVEN HARDER than the book did!
I realize that some of this makes me sound like I didn't like it, but believe me, I loved it. The scene where Harry reveals himself in the Great Hall, and the Order's there, and the student body is great, and Snape flees, is wonderful. Everything Neville does is wonderful. Everything the Malfoys do is goddamn wonderful. Remus' pre-battle self-quotation was wonderful. The unexpected Ron/Hermione kiss (unexpected because I totally thought Harry would be there when it happened) was wonderful. The equally unexpected but GREAT hinting at Neville/Luna was wonderful. And ... fuck, seeing Hogwarts being defended like that, and destroyed like that, was beyond amazing.
I didn't really cry, despite having LOTS OF FEELINGS, but I did tear up a bit at the part where James and Lily and Remus and Sirius appear. It was way sentimental and overdone and I don't even CARE, because shut up, I'm a Marauders girl, and FEELINGS.
In conclusion, I think I need all the Harry/Ron/Hermione fic now. Like, desperately.
:DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD IT'S BEEN A GREAT RIDICULOUS DECADE OF HARRY POTTER, YOU GUYS.
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...On the other hand, they stuck the entirety of Slytherin House in the dungeons. Fuck interhouse unity, guys! Let's drop that theme EVEN HARDER than the book did!
YES!!!
I can't understand that for the life of it...
Seriously, they might have gotten fighters out of these guys!!!
...
*said everything else she though in her own blog*
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The Grindelwald thing was just WTF though, because why go and set it up so heavily in the first movie and then never follow through? Ditto the Hallows-besides-the-Elder-Wand/the Peverells/Harry's invisibility cloak, which is mostly annoying because it could've been taken care of in two lines of dialogue. But wow did they ever drop the ball on Dumbledore's backstory. :(
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That's how I feel about most of the backstory they leave out, though. Like, in the PoA film a lot of ridiculousness would have been cleared simply by Harry saying, "Professor, why do you know the Map is a map?" and Lupin could say, "Because I helped write it! I'm Moony; your father was Prongs, and I can't tell you about the other two because this conversation takes place in my office before the Shrieking Shack. Now go the fuck to bed, Harry, I'm very angry with you." BAM, KIND OF SOLVED. And by that same token, just a line realizing that the Invisibility Cloak is a Hallow would've been great. Idk if they could've dealt with Grindelwald in just a line, but SIGN ME UP for flashbacks.
Also, oh man, if I cared enough I would be writing Dumbledore/Grindelwald fic right now, seriously. I suspect I'd have to actually reread DH first, though, and I am up to a bunch of other things, but ... tempting.
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And ditto Dumbledore's backstory not being there! I am almost satisfied that Aberforth and McGonagall got to kick major ass in trade, except not at all. Given the way it was played up in 7.1, though, I very much suspect that they were originally planning to include it and that it's on the cutting room floor.
Neville/Luna may seriously be my new HP ship. I think the movies did a lot better by Luna than the books did, and I was really glad that she forced Harry to listen to her the way she did. Luna, you are awesome!
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The only bit of Harry Potter that has ever made me actually sob was Sirius' death. But yeah, I teared up something fierce during the resurrection stone scene.
Yeah, sigh. That was a weirdly big amount of setup with no payoff. And I remember hearing somewhere that they even cast young Dumbledore? Maybe we'll get it in deleted scenes or something.
I kind of always shipped Neville/Luna, in an absent sort of way, but I am ALL OVER THIS now. I adore movie!Luna so much. In fact, I adore movie!Neville so much too, especially in this last. So that was really nice. :D
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Movie!Neville and movie!Luna are so, so awesome. And even better together, clearly!
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I mean, I supported Luna canonically getting married, since apparently she had to, a) later to b) someone she didn't meet in school, but given how everyone was paired off
heteronormatively with schoolmatesin text, Neville/Luna makes a lot of sense and is made of awesome as far as I'm concerned!no subject
Also, still refuse to believe Snape's dead. That's just not canon in my head, and there are many ways in which I can explain how it didn't happen and LALALA EVERYTHING'S FINE IN MY SHIP.
Was really happy that the Malfoy's didn't have that final scene of sitting sadly and ashamedly in the corner of the Great Hall, though. Narcissa was just like HEY GUYS LET'S GTFO BECAUSE WE DON'T NEED ANY OF THESE BITCHES. <3 Malfoys.
In general, though, I was left feeling a little hollow by the movie. Felt the same about the book, too, actually. I think what is, in my head, real Harry Potter swerved heavily in the direction of not canon during the Long Summer. There's a lot of OotP, but after that I can't remember much that felt like it was my HP. Basically fandom ruined me (or, perhaps, made me much much happier than canon ever did).
Epilogue was fantastic in my theater, though. The whole audience had been crying and gasping and laughing and being veryvery involved, and then the screen faded to black and "19 years later" popped up and EVERYONE GROANED. There was some booing. And then what must have been almost the entire audience spent the epilogue laughing uproariously and wincing over the aging make-up and the lines and the actors and EVERYTHING. It was like we'd just watched a movie that was incredibly important to us all, and then someone stuck a blooper reel at the end so we could all recover. IT WAS GREAT.