Harry Potter

I finished watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two less than half an hour ago (at the PACKED midnight screening of my local cinema) and quite literally legged it out the second the credits rolled. My reasoning was partly that I didn't want to catch the post-film rush out of the carpark, partly that I was knackered and wanted to go to bed (you'll learn why in a paragraph or two), but mainly that I didn't want to be involved in the post-film dissection my friends were about to embark on. Usually I love these discussions, but today I did not want to be a part of it.

My reasoning (which hopefully won't sound too pretentious) was that I kind of wanted to let the film digest on it's own in my mind, without the influence of others opinions. Because I am one of the 'Harry Potter Generation' and - pitiful as it sounds - this felt more like the end of an era than anything else that's happened in the past few months. I've passed my driving test, turned eighteen and finished school, but tonight it actually felt like the end of my childhood. The Harry Potter books have been with me since I was six, and the films since I was eight - I have spent more than half my lifetime looking forward to the next book or film release. And now it's over. I can't really describe how that makes me feel, except that it's a bit exciting, and a bit frightening, and very sad.

To commemmorate the ending of our personal Harry Potter phenomenon, my friends and I embarked on a 17-hour recap, going through each of the films one by one in the build up to the midnight release. I won't lie; I was half-asleep, on the loo or just plain not watching for a significant amount of that time, but it still gave me a massive nostalgia hit. I've been watching the young actors grow up as I've grown up myself, watched them deal with problems I've dealt with and escaped with them to somewhere without homework, routine and mundanity. I loved every second of it.

And I'm not going to say the films (or books) are perfect. Far from it. Every one of the young actors in films 1, 2 and - to a more limited extent - 3 was, to put it mildly, a tad wooden. Emma Watson in particular was producing quite vicious urges within me through her mastery of Exhale Acting. That said, it's brilliant to watch all of the actors progress massively, and remarkable to see them change slowly from boys and girls to men and women. That aside, there's some massive chunks they should have cut out (WHAT was the point of Grawp? WHAT?!) and some massive chunks they should have left in (like the entire climactic battle at the end of Half Blood Prince), as well as some outrageously cheesy dialogue (count the number of times anyone says the words 'love' or 'friendship' - should be a drinking game), questionnable continuity (Harry CANNOT use magic outside of school, INCLUDING lighting up his bedroom at the beginning of Prisoner of Azkaban) and very forced plot devices (like the majority of the seventh film). But regardless, they've still captured the imaginations of a generation.

There were plenty of things I complained about during the watching of the films, and several things that irritated me about the eighth film, but that doesn't change the fact thatI absolutely loved every second of it. Film 8 truly did the book justice in the way film 7 kind of failed to do. It was action-packed, it was funny, it was sweet (at the eagerly-anticipated Ron and Hermione kiss, several girls in the audience at my cinema actually screamed. I may have been one of them.), it was touching and it rounded off the franchise in the best way it possibly could. I'm not going to give HP7.2 a proper review because I don't think it needs it - if you like Harry Potter, you will see the film, and if you don't get it then you won't. And nothing I say will persuade anyone otherwise. For me, it was everything I hoped it would be, and finally achieved the thing all previous films failed to do - reduced me to tears. Twice.


So people can say what they like about Harry Potter. Critics can slag the film off to high heaven, hardcore fans can strip away it's differences from the book and cynics can batter it with stupid questions and mockeries, because it makes no difference. For me, this franchise represents the memories of dragging my dad to preview screenings and waiting beside the postbox for the latest DVD to arrive, partial credit to beginning my deep love of cinema and films, and accompanying me throughout my childhood. It really is the end of an era, and nothing, for me, will ever be the same as Harry Potter.