(Note: If you're a kid and just randomly stumbled upon this post from a Google search or something, please note, the following—like everything else on this blog—is going to have a lot of strong, adult language. Blame no one but yourself if any of it offends you. Oh, and there're gonna be a lot of spoilers. Proceed at your own risk)
“Dobby” has been a trending topic on Twitter for over a week. While that sentence may read as gibberish to anyone on the wrong side of the generation gap, it is a mark of the Harry Potter franchise's immense popularity that a secondary character—one who everyone absolutely fucking hated upon his initial introduction—has been so widely discussed for so long. Of course, Dobby the house-elf's martyrdom at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange marks the dividing line between Deathly Hallows Pt. 1 and 2, making it a natural topic of discussion. (I had Ron smashing the Horcrux with the sword of Gryffindor as the last scene of the first movie, because I'm retarded).
So here we find ourselves near the end of the series. What a long, not very strange trip it's been. I had initially intended to save this post until part 2 of Deathly Hallows dropped, but fuck it, we're doin it live. We know how Part 2 is going to be now, because not only did Part 1 set it up damn near perfectly, the way all the movie adaptations have been, we've known since the book came out how the movie of Deathly Hallows was going to end: almost exactly the way the book did. “Almost” is the operative word there.
The real Harry Potter experience starts with the books. They're more detailed, obviously, with richer characterizations, but most importantly they are books about books, about reading, and about the value of reading. A whole generation of what we thought were irredeemable, post-literate fuckhead kids rediscovered literature through the Harry Potter series, and while the fact that step two was Twilight is a sign that those kids are irredeemable, post-literate fuckheads, hey, they still gave it a go. And the Harry Potter books are good books. JK Rowling's prose isn't fancy, but it gets the job done, and the seven volumes that make up the Harry Potter cycle constitute an epic narrative, not some foofy fancy prose writing Vladimir Nabokov fuckin' thing. Simple prose is what's necessary to tell this tale.
At its core, Harry Potter is about right and wrong. The protagonist, Harry, and the antagonist, Voldemort are both orphans raised apart from others of their kind (that is to say, wizards), but from there they diverge. Harry, against all odds, stays humble, does what's right, and most importantly, loves. It's not until the last book when Rowling makes it blatantly obvious that love was the most important thing all along, but it's not a departure in any way from what came before. Harry immediately makes friends with Ron, and in a matter of weeks they befriend Hermione as well, and that unbreakable triad sustains for the entire series. Voldemort, on the other hand, is too wounded from the horrors of his youth to ever trust anyone else enough to truly love, and too vengeful against his Muggle father (who, admittedly, is a gigantic douchebag fuckface rich guy, not the best the Mugs had to offer by a long shot) to ever accept a non-magic person as anything other than Avada Kedavra target practice, or even another wizard as anything other than a subordinate to help him to his goal of absolute power.
With the Harry/Voldemort, good/evil dichotomy set up, it's very important to note that the antagonists are so because of choice. There's a bit of misdirection in the books—especially the early books—where it looks like Rowling is taking a simplistic, determinist “Harry good, Voldemort bad, that's that” stance, but when Dumbledore finally starts taking Harry seriously as a grownup in the next-to-last book and starts clueing Harry in on what needs to be done, and that to defeat Voldemort he must first know Voldemort, Harry—and the reader—realizes that Voldemort didn't have to be Voldemort. He could have been Tom Riddle, ivory tower scholar. Tom Riddle, Hogwarts professor. Tom Riddle, normal dude. But he gave in to the anger that Harry only struggles with in one book (not coincidentally, the most annoying book, because you know Harry's not going over to the dark side, but he does have to confront his dark side and not in a cursory manner). And he thus becomes Voldemort, He Who Must Not Be Named, the motherfucker so bad people won't even say his name. But, and this is one of the most important things in the whole series, he always had a choice. Well, up until the first time he pulled his heat and Avada Kedavra'd a bitch of course.
There was no way that a movie of anything near a normal length could even include the whole story of each book, not to mention all the cool little details. The first book was a little misleading, in that it was just short enough that nothing of consequence had to be cut, and it still made a two-and-a-half hour movie, and the second book was pretty much the same, but after that . . . changes had to be made.
The most impressive thing about the Harry Potter movies so far has been how few truly noticeable changes have been made in adapting the books for the screen. For this, screenwriter Steve Kloves should be commended. His adaptations of Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone, Chamber of Secrets, Prisoner of Azkaban, Goblet of Fire, Half-Blood Prince and now Deathly Hallows (Michael Goldenberg did the adaptation for Order of the Phoenix, about which more later) have probably been more scrutinized than any other book-to-movie adaptations in the history of cinema. If there'd been an Internet when they were making Gone With The Wind, maybe that's your closest equivalent (Ed. Note: once I learn enough of the details, that's a post fo yo ass; fuckin Gone With The Wind had a fascinating production history). Kloves, of course, pissed the odd Harry fanatic off, but that was mainly the kind of people who know what House they'd have been sorted into and write fanfic (I'm not judging, I'd have been a Beater on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team and gotten a gig as a wizard movie critic for the Quibbler through my wife Luna Lovegood; say one word or crack one smile and you die). Kloves wrote some damn good scripts, if we're judging the movies as movies independently of the books. Every single criticism I've ever had of his scripts has fallen into the “but what about [insert cool but ultimately inessential scene from book here]?”
It's hard for me to say whether the movies would make sense if I hadn't read the books, but what I can do is ask people who've only seen the movies. My mom's a good example: she kind of violently doesn't give a fuck about science-fiction and fantasy, but has seen the first five Harry movies. I tried to get to the bottom of this question once:
Me: So, Mom, do you like the Harry Potter movies?And, yes, the kind of fan who's read the books a half-dozen times each might cringe at the idea of everything being boiled down to “Harry versus Voldewhatthefuck,” and hardcore cineastes might similarly recoil at the idea that cinema, as a medium, is incapable of handling the level of nuance of a novel, there's nothing objectively wrong with the movies being streamlined a bit. They do have to be. The thing about reading as opposed to watching a movie is you can go back and re-read a paragraph a couple times if the asshole writer hits you with some massive run-on sentence or 250 word mid-sentence parenthetical aside (Ed. Note: the author has no idea why you're smirking at him right now). Watching a movie in a theater, you can't do that, so no matter how brilliant you are and how close attention you're paying, you might miss something and not be able to go back and clarify. Doesn't make you any less brilliant or attentive, or cinema an inferior medium. Just the way shit's stacked.
Mom: Sure.
Me: Is there like a whole lotta shit missing to you, like assumptions of things they think you should know?
Mom: Not really.
Me: So . . . they make sense?
Mom: Sure. As much as they have to. It's Harry versus Voldewhatthefuck, right?
The movies have been pulled off with varying degrees of success. The first two, Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone and Chamber of Secrets, had a few problems. They were the first movies, based on the two least ambitious books of the series, were dependent on 11/12 year old actors to carry the story, and were directed by Chris Columbus, who as of this writing is trapped inside a wet paper bag with a pair of scissors clutched impotently in one hand. I'm sure he's a really nice guy, good to his wife and kids, helps little old ladies across the street, all that jazz, but giving that fuckin guy a movie camera is kind of like giving a gorilla a subscription to the New York Review of Books. I know I already went through this, but seriously, Warner Bros: buy some fuckin Pepto-Bismol, free up some liquid assets for when he goes over budget, and hire Terry Gilliam next time.
Granted, as badly as Chris Columbus fucked the dog on the first two Harry pictures they still weren't all that bad, due to the source material being strong enough to withhold the malignant incompetence, kind of like Harry himself growing up locked under the stairs with the Dursleys. However, just because that's a perfect textual analogy for the first two movies (Ed. Note: the author wrote the remainder of the post with his arm in a sling, having dislocated his shoulder patting himself on the back) doesn't mean that Alfonso Cuarón's descent upon the Harry franchise was the equivalent of Harry arriving at Hogwarts.
Now, Alfonso Cuarón is so far above Chris Columbus' level as a filmmaker that even crediting Columbus with working in the same medium is an insult to Alfonso Cuarón. I refuse to even compare the director of Home Alone and Mrs. Doubtfire with the director of Y Tu Mama Tambien and Children of Men. This isn't some horseshit comedy vs. drama thing, either, don't get me wrong. It's choad vs. visionary genius. That being said, in a bizarre way—and it hurts me in the testicles to even type these words—a yes-sir, unimaginative type like Columbus works better within the parameters of a big-budget franchise. Granted, you want your director-for-hire to actually be able to direct, but the last thing Alfonso Cuarón is is a director-for-hire. He was given a freer hand to adapt Prisoner of Azkaban, since Columbus' fidelity to the source material had become almost a fault.
Prisoner of Azkaban ended up an uneasy mix between fuck-yeah-anarchy scruffball cinema and Harry Potter movie. In spite of being the longest Potter book yet, it was the shortest movie. The kids at Hogwarts all suddenly had really long hair, and hung out in their dorm rooms eating gumballs that made pot smoke—sorry, enchanted steam, ahem—come out their ears. And I had never pictured Lupin as looking like David Thewlis, or thought of Lupin's being a werewolf as being a metaphor for being gay (Mike Leigh ruined David Thewlis as anything but a gay hustler for me, sorry), but like I said, this is the problem with being so attached to the books when trying to be objective about the movies. Still, stuff like squandering the climax/plot twist in the Shrieking Shack and ending the picture on a freeze frame of Harry ecstatically flying on a hippogriff when he already knew how awesome flying was (this ain't The fuckin 400 Blows, Alfonso) is reason why no one was particularly heartbroken about the series changing directors for Goblet of Fire.
(EDIT: Goblet of Fire sucked. I had a bunch of stuff written here based on a poorly-remembered, long ago viewing of the movie. The book's great, the movie combined the worst aspects of both Columbus' and Cuarón's approach. We won't dwell. Moving on.)
After all the jumping around from director to director, Order of the Phoenix brought on David Yates, who would stay with the series until its conclusion. Despite the fact that the movies all made mountains of money, Yates was still under pressure to keep the running time reasonable (since the movies had all been a bit long; the books, no matter how many forklifts you needed to turn the pages the further you got into the series, were always exactly the right length). New screenwriter Michael Goldenberg proved what a good job Steve Kloves had always done by coming and saying “Hey, all Kloves did was cut shit, I can do that.” In so doing he outed himself as the guy Eddie Murphy talked about in Delirious and Raw, who'd do his routine but only get the cursing, and thus not be funny at all. Order of the Phoenix is the one movie in the series that makes almost no sense whatsoever without the book for that reason. Still, Yates does a great job with what he's given, getting the atmosphere exactly the right and the pace crisp (really, all a director needs to do with these pictures). Also, we must not underestimate the achievement of Emo Harry being less excruciating than he was in the book, where every other page he's got sand in his vagina about something retarded and somehow he goes the whole book without Ron and/or Hermione putting a foot in his ass. I mean, the fact that all the emo bullshit's what ultimately gets Sirius killed, and that Harry realizes this and snaps out of it and is cool and everything, but we're still stuck with Harry having his fucking period for like 500 pages. Yates somehow managed to minimize the damage on the audience, as I barely even really remember Dan Radcliffe whining at all in the movie, a sign of both his increasing polish as an actor and the skillful direction.
Half-Blood Prince is where Yates really hits his stride, though. With Kloves back to make sure the edits/changes make sense, Yates is free to fuck around with green filters and generally pull the best “lookit how cool I am” act of any director in the series, out-Cuaróning Cuarón in a surprise twist. The best part of the book, which we were able to see in retrospect was all the elegantly indirect protection and reluctant tutelage of Harry by the endlessly fascinating and layered Severus Snape, is the biggest narrative loss. But then again, it's only re-reading the book that one sees stuff like, “Yeah, Snape taking the job as Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher meant Harry could continue Potions, which he'd need to be an Auror; yep, there's Snape totally making sure that Harry got Snape's own Potions book with all his brilliant notes and shit; wow, yeah, when you think about it, that's Snape giving Harry really good advice even in the middle of their running wizard's duel after Snape kills Dumbledore.” The movie implies all that, though really it's something your mind fills in because you know that's what Snape does.
By the way, Alan Rickman as Snape? Casting so perfect it verges on lazy, except Alan Rickman fucking brings it. He said a few years ago that since he started playing Snape, his kids both think he's cool and actually listen to him now. (Ed. Note: the idea of being that dude's kid, fucking up, and getting grounded by Hanseverus Grubersnape, Sheriff of Nottingham, is hilarious and terrifying).Deathly Hallows, of course, is as yet incomplete. I was a little too bitchy about it over at Tor the other day; if I wrote that review today I'd emphasize what a skillfully made movie it was over the incomplete nature of the story. The fact that Yates almost made Dobby's martyrdom into a big enough event to be the climax of a movie is a demonstration of some serious skill. Because, let's be real, Dobby getting killed was sad, and I cried that scene the first three times I read Deathly Hallows, no false macho, but it's an event in the story, it's not the event.
So, Part 2 is basically going to be breaking into Gringotts to steal the Cup of Hufflepuff, which should be fun, followed by the massive Battle of Hogwarts. (Christ, when Neville raises his fist/sword in the air and yells “DUMBLEDORE'S ARMY!” I am going to fucking lose it). Most of the narrative/character stuff was dealt with in Part 1, leaving a bunch of action for the grand finale. As one would expect. And it should be just fine, David Yates knows what he's doing, and Steve Kloves does too, and the kids are all pretty decent professional actors at this point.
What I and the other obsessive fans of the books all need to remember, of course, is that the movies are not the books. The last scene of the movie of Deathly Hallows will never have the same impact as Jo Rowling peeking nineteen years into the future and assuring us “All was well.” (If you're going to sit there and tell me that series could have ended in any other way other than a mildly cheesy, wistfully optimistic, British, “All was well,” you are going to get a very sternly worded rebuke). But it doesn't have to.
The Harry Potter movies do not have the same responsibility as the books did, nor do they have the same quality standards. All that is required of them as movies is that they be reasonably entertaining, look cool, and not insult us, and they do none of these things. They're never going to be the books, because the books are so profoundly books. Their story makes for one of the more compelling movie franchises around, but there's no way they can have the same impact, as movies, as the books did. For one, most of the people seeing the movies have already read the book and know what's going to happen (with the odd exception like “Whoa, what the fuck? We're only meeting Bill for the first time in the last movie, after the werewolf got him?”) For another, a huge part of the Harry Potter experience is the act of reading the book itself.
For me it went like this: I borrowed the first four books in turn in Fall 2000, senior year of college, became obsessed (if memory serves, I actually cut a class because I was on the Shrieking Shack scene in Prisoner of Azkaban, which was more important), and later acquired my own copies. Got my copy of Order of the Phoenix on my way to work the day it came out, and quit my job so I could start reading sooner (okay, not really, my decision to quit had to do with the job being commission-only and a soulless time-waster, but quitting meant I could get a head start on my reading, which I finished within 72 hours). Picked up my copy of Half-Blood Prince and managed to really fuck with some loudmouth at the post office in so doing (it was one of those rare moments of total, unambiguous win), finished in two sittings. And picked up Deathly Hallows at one minute after midnight on pub date, went straight home and read through the night, listening to “My Ever Changing Moods” by Style Council on repeat for some OCD reason that's lost to history, finishing at about 9:30am; instead of going to sleep, I got some coffee and breakfast and said “Wow” about thirty times.
Even though I've got a good memory and a strong belief in the experiential aspect of art appreciation, I'm extremely hard-pressed to recall movie experiences as vivid as the first time through the Harry Potter books. This is not to say that I can't; the experiences just don't come as vividly or as immediately. Harry's special, what can I say.
As a valedictory to the Harry movies, it must be said that with very few exceptions, no book or series of books as widely and passionately beloved has ever been turned into a movie with such success. The Lord of the Rings movies were all great, to be sure, but the books are ponderous gibberish. (Ed. Note: Refer your indignant protests to my dick; I'm right). The Harry Potter movies may not be as good movies, but they're damn fine. Also, Dan Radcliffe is (barely) taller than a hobbit, and just refer to Keanu in Speed for the benefits of superior height. But, the clincher is this:
When hobbits get back from Mordor, they go back to the Shire and spend the rest of their life getting shit caught in the fur on their feet. When Hermione graduated Hogwarts she went to Brown and became a Burberry model. That's my kinda people.
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