I'll admit, I waited eight months for the final installment of Harry Potter to come out. I literally counted down the days until the worldwide phenomenon hit the big screens for the last time ever in the past ten years. I'll also admit to crying like a baby when it was done and over with. I'm not ashamed. That was my childhood leaving me in a small, but substantial, way. Harry Potter was over with and it would never be marked on my calendar for countdown sessions again.
The movie itself was a work of art, complete with epic cinematography and a tightknit cast that had been together for the last 11 years to boot. The storyline picked up halfway through the book, effortlessly knitting together where the last movie had left off. This is by far one of the darkest movies made in the Potter series due to what has to occur- an epic battle between Lord Voldemort and Harry Potter, and ultimately the end of one of them. But so many other things happen in this film as well. The Deathly Hallows, both difficult and very riddled throughout the books, have to be summed up in less than two movies, all the while leaving the same line of clues that Rowling weaved in order to please viewers and complete the storyline. Here was where the movie struggled. The Deathly Hallows seemed very underplayed in the film when compared to the books where they were so important, leaving fans slightly disappointed. The Elder Wand is supposed to truly belong to Harry and this is what allows him to win, but in the movie that wasn't the case. The riddle and subplot of the Deathly Hallows was rather lost in the fiery and strange battle scene between Voldemort and Harry.
I believe that the director was right in choosing the path he took with the movie, though – the epic battle between good and bad, light and dark, dark wizard and boy. It echoed strongly of the other movies, which was nice because this movie had to do an impossible task – bring all that had happened in the last seven movies to an end. Watching Hogwarts be destroyed by the Death Eaters and watching friends that had survived so much with Harry perish was all the more real when portrayed on film. "It was great, wonderful! A tear jerker, though," said Kaitlyn Gunn when asked about the movie in general. "I only didn't really like the scene where Lord Voldemort and Harry's face come together in the fight scene. It was awkward."
And Gunn wasn't alone in her opinion. Fan sighs went wild when the finale of the movie was finally released and the London Premiere was slammed with eccentrically dressed fans. So, even though Harry Potter is finished after over a decade of popularity, I doubt it is soon to be forgotten.
Fans are also highly anticipating the release of a website called Pottermore, a site that will be open to the public in October. The site will contain plot ideas that were never used, minor character's detailed biography's, a plethora of information and notes that J.K. Rowling has never released to the public, and much more.
