A Look Back on the Harry Potter Movies

In 2005 I gave up on the Harry Potter Movies.

I've always adored the books. Well, that isn't precisely true. I'd hated them before I read them. Thought they looked like populist tripe aimed at children and those with the mental abilities of children (and I'm pretty sure I wrote that somewhere when I was in college... I was one of THOSE English Majors) until I was home watching my younger siblings and my baby sister bullied me into reading the first book, hitting me with the trump card that she had read every series I had given her (Wheel of Time, Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia, Redwall) and so I had darn well better read something of HERS. I started reading... and then finished. I loved it.

So of course I was almost beside myself when the first movie came out. Hell, when the first TRAILER came out. Any of you who remember that first trailer will know what I mean... wondering what was going on until an owl flew across the screen ("Holy Crap, is that HEDWIG?") to seeing the Hogwarts Express, ("OMG IT'S PERFECT!) To Hogwarts itself, (Insert uncontrollable fanboying here.)

I was pumped, and I was vindicated. The first movie was practically a love poem to it's book, imagery capturing the magic of Hogwarts near perfectly, with amazing casting choices such as Richard Harris, Maggie Smith, and of course Alan Rickman (more on him in a bit) making me feel like this was the movie adaptation I'd always wanted of any of the books I'd loved, one that caught tone, feel, and characters perfect. I could forgive plot deviation (I knew it would have to happen to fit a movie runtime) but CHARACTER above all was important to me.

Then came the Chamber of Secrets, and I was nervous. It was still beautiful Hogwarts, but some of the characters were fading into the background. Prisoner of Azkaban was even moreso, as it came and went with no serious (excuse the pun) look at the Marauders and with Snape and Draco reduced nearly to cameos.

And then there was Goblet of Fire. I had already had my doubts about Michael Gambeon as Dumbledore. In PoA that had been through no fault of his own... Harris had been a, well, magical casting decision and any replacement was going to have difficulty stepping into those pointed shoes. But in Goblet I watched as Dumbledore crossed the room and shook Harry, demanding to know if he had put his name in the Goblet... and I'd had it.

You can mess with plot all you want. But in Order of the Phoenix, Dumbledore would straight out ATTACK Umbridge for physically grabbing one of his students. This wasn't okay. Dumbledore wasn't Dumbledore, Sirius was barely even in the movie, Draco Malfoy was a non-entity... and I was done.

Until my Wife's Birthday a few days ago.

You see, Rose and I have a system when we want to watch a movie. One of us will pick three films, and then the other will pick one of those three. It's a system that has worked so we're both invested in the movie we watch for the whole time we've been married. But on her birthday, I told her we would watch what SHE wanted to watch.

And she grabbed the Box set of Order of the Phoenix, Half Blood Prince, and Deathly Hallows pts 1 and 2. I grumbled, but I watched.

With it being nearly 10 years since I'd walked away from Goblet, I found myself a lot more forgiving than I had been. The new Hogwarts design might not have captured the feel of the old one, but it certainly brought out the growing menace of the rise of Voldemort. And Gambeon's misstep with shaking Harry seemed to be a one time thing... with every movie, Gambeon felt more and more like Dumbledore, with him undeniably NAILING Half Blood Prince and his Train Station appearance in Deathly Hallows.

I still wish we could have seen more of Maggie Smith's McGonagall. I regret not seeing the duel with Kinglsey, McGonagall, and Slughorn surrounding Voldemort (It would have been EPIC, and of all the all star casts, I feel that Smith never really got the opportunity to show off just how powerful McGonagall really was...)

And then there was Snape.

With Alan Rickman's passing, I have to talk about his performance of Snape.

I've read that Alan Rickman was entrusted by JK Rowlings with the true motivations of Severus nearly from the very beginning. He often did not have much time to convey it, but blast it, HE DID. In every scene, in every moment, with every step you can see the story of Severus Snape. The Pensieve moment in Deathly Hallows brings it all together like a hammer, everything that Snape was, even cruelly cut short due to the lack of exploration of Snape's relationship with James, the love of Lily seen in Snape's eyes was...

It just was.

I still don't think I will often put in Harry Potter Movies outside of Sorcerer's Stone unless I've decided it's time for a marathon, or to get my kids into the series when they're old enough. (And when will they be old enough? That's gonna be a tough one.)

But as someone who walked away, offended, I have returned to see some of the beautiful imagery, action, and character the later movies had, even if they were no longer the note perfect depictions that were only possible before because of how much simpler the Sorcerer's Stone was. But they were amazing.

And Alan Rickman's Snape was truly a masterclass.