SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t yet the book (but really, you should) and don’t want to know about anything that will happen in the 2nd part of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, then don’t read on. I repeat, don’t read on.
In a little less than two weeks time, the moment millions of people have both been anticipating and dreading will come. The 2nd installment of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallowswill hit screens, capping off one of the (if not THE) biggest movie franchises off all time. I’ll save all the farewell drama for until after I’ve seen the movie. For now, the anticipation still trumps the sadness of the prospect that this movie virtually represents the end of EVERYTHING Harry Potter. So instead of focusing on how sad it will be to have nothing Harry Potter-related to look forward to anymore, here are my thoughts/questions about the upcoming movie:
- Do they even go through Dumbledore’s backstory in detail? In the first movie, they didn’t really touch on the former Hogwarts headmaster and the controversial revelations in his biography, The Life and Times of Albus Dumbledore as much as they did in the book. So I wonder how much they’ll discuss it in the second book. It would be quite a lengthy sidestory involving Dumbledore’s parents, borther and sister and friend Grindelwald. But it’s needed to explain Dumbledore’s obsession with the Deathly Hallows and how he came to possess the Elder Wand, so they can’t do away with it entirely.
- King’s Cross Station – The part where Dumbledore and Harry meet again in a limbo-version of King’s Cross was my least favorite part of the book. I found it unnecessary and so random, so I wonder if they’ll even bother with it in the movie. If they do, though, I wonder what the scene will look like, since in my (admittedly unimaginative) head it’s just King’s Cross with a fog machine on overdrive.
- Snape’s Story – Severus Snape’s secret love for Lily Potter is one of JK Rowling’s most brilliant bits story-telling, and that’s saying a lot. It’s a beautiful, heartbreaking story, but is quite lengthy, as it goes as far back to when Lily, Snape and even Aunt Petunia Dursley were children. But I daresay fans will be in an uproar if Snape’s story isn’t told in its full glory. So it will be interesting to see how much screenwriter Steve Kloves put in and took out. Also, I can’t wait to see what a young Petunia looks like.
- The Epilogue – Will they even show this in the movie? After what surely will be an action-packed face-off between Harry and Voldermort, I think it would anti-climatic to fast-forward to the time when Harry and Ginny and Ron and Hermione are sending their kids off to school on the Hogwarts Express. Besides, I don’t really need to see Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson artificially aged 19 years or, worse, replaced by completely different, more adult actors.
There are other things that I wonder about, in terms of what will be in the movie or not (the death of Lupin and Tonks, Grawp) but it’s the in/exclusion of the plot points above, I think, could make or break the movie. I don’t envy Steven Kloves and director David Yates in trying to figure out what will make it and what won’t and how long something will be in if it does make it in… But who am I kidding, even if they condensed Snape’s story into one sentence (which I’m pretty sure they won’t do anyway, if Kloves values his life at all), I’d still be there on opening day (yes, I’m a little pathetic) to watch this movie. It’s the end of an era for me and millions of other readers, and I wouldn’t miss it for the world, even if the whole thing was in 2D animation. Or worse, 3D.