The Harry Potter series, written by J.K. Rowling, is an incredibly successful work of literature.  There are clothes, accessories, the books themselves, the movies, and more.  But, as often happens with things attached to massive titles like this one, oftentimes profits can outweigh accuracy and actual quality when it comes to decision making.  This was the problem with the Harry Potter movies, slowly becoming less and less accurate, betraying people who had read the books, and culminating in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.

Rowling has personally supported the movie, saying, “It is simply impossible to incorporate every one of my storylines into a film that has to be kept under four hours long…”  Harry Potter, while a great story, is not exactly what I would call deep or incredibly complex.  The film could have easily stuck more closely to the book without really increasing the length of the movie.

The style of the film is fine.  Don’t make them wear the wizarding cloaks like they did in the first two films, make it a bit more casual, more “character driven”, sure.  However, that does not justify ripping up the last quarter of the final book in the series and essentially starting fresh.

Little Things:

1. The fight between Snape and the other teachers was shortened down to nothing.
2. Gropp doesn’t come back and fight.  Neither do the Centaurs.
3. Crabbe wasn’t in the movie (Though I heard he got caught with drugs or something so they couldn’t cast him, which makes this point forgivable).
4. Lupin’s kid was cut out.  While not a big plot point, it did really take away from Lupin and Tonk’s deaths, which I’m sure not many audience members reacted to at all.
5. Percy doesn’t come and make up with his family when his brother dies.  They cut Percy out of the movies though, and it was a rather small and inconsequential plotline, so this isn’t too big a deal, though it certainly made Fred’s death a lot more powerful in the book.
6. Ron and Hermione’s kiss, while it did happen, didn’t really make sense.  There was suddenly a wave out of nowhere and they just kiss because of it?  I know that when I get drenched by a mysterious, nonsensical wave I don’t want to just kiss the person closest to me.
7. Voldemort hugging Draco.  Every single person in the theater with me laughed.  Every single one.  Enough said.

Big Things:

1. Harry snaps the Elder Wand.  I have no idea why he would do this.  You can’t count on Ollivander for anything anymore really, and you can’t use the Elder Wand to repair your old wand now, so now you have no wand Harry.  It’s a good thing magic isn’t a huge part of your life or anything, since you on longer have a wand to do it with.  This was a huge mistake, and I can’t see it possibly adding any more than three minutes to the movie.
2. What was that dramatic moment where Neville lunges out and kills Nagini as she’s about to bite Ron and Hermione?  I think I threw up a little in my mouth when I saw this part.  It was so incredibly cheesy.  It was actually a nice moment in the book where Voldemort’s puts the sorting hat on Neville’s head and lights it on fire and Neville stands up for himself for once and pulls the sword of Gryffindor out and kills Nagini.  That actually makes sense, rather than him coming out of nowhere to save Ron and Hermione.  I don’t care if it’s “more dramatic”, it was awful to watch.  Plus if it’s a matter of time, as Rowling seems to make it, the time spent filming Ron and Hermione failing to kill the snake was a complete waste.
3. The really long, drawn out fight scene between Voldemort and Harry wasn’t even interesting to watch.  I guess the reasoning behind it and Voldemort turning to ash when he died was to make it more dramatic.  It reminds me of a certain Eragon movie.  Voldemort was originally fighting three teachers at once, and with the spelling whipping that was so cool to watch towards the end of the fifth movie, I would have loved to have actually had a chance to see this part.  Instead we got to watch Harry and Voldemort swirl through the air…

While this movie could be “entertaining”, after Harry goes to the forest and Hagrid carries him back, the movie is pretty much completely different from the book.  It was utterly disappointing to see something that could have had a scene like the battle for Minas Tirith from Lord of the Rings, turn into something that was more anticlimactic than anything.

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