I knew that stuff would never make it to the screen, but I confess that I never really considered how much it mattered to the Snape/Harry story until I watched this movie. By removing a lot of it, the final outcome of that relationship became very… I don’t know. Weird? Meh? It just didn’t seem to matter at all.
The first hint of it was in the fifth or sixth movie, but it’s just a smattering, and then we never speak of it again.
I have no idea why anyone would think that. Cedric is a complete zero character in the film (and honestly not much better in the book, really) whose death does cause Harry to react but it always seemed more of an “OMG someone I know is dead” thing rather than a specific reaction to that character being killed.
Sirius’ death only has power if Harry is allowed to have his reaction to the death, which the movies do not allow him to have for the most part. Another waste.
I have not seen either Deathly Hallows film, so I don’t know how those handle it, but I have found all the major character deaths in the other six films to be incredibly badly handled.
I understand how the pacing is different if you haven’t read the books, because I went through the same thing with the early movies before I’d read them. I will just say that there are some great speeches and moments in the final book that were just left out of the movie altogether. For example, Harry makes a big speech to Voldemort as they are fighting, and says that it’s never too late to repent. And it’s clear in the book that the battle ends when Voldemort’s spell rebounds on him, while Harry cast a benign disarming spell (which I totally don’t know the name of… >koff<). But in the movie, it’s like, “Oh yeah, Harry finally killed Voldemort!” instead of “Voldemort lost control and ended up killing himself.” Maybe it’s a subtle distinction, but it says a lot about the two characters.
I like it as a final-movie twist, because it makes you examine the events of the earlier movies in a different light (a la The Sixth Sense).
+100. I wanted to see Harry getting wrenched apart by what was happening. I wanted to see his internal conflict, where he has to decide whether to keep fighting (and let more of his friends die), or sacrifice himself (and make all of their deaths be for nothing). I wanted more interaction with everyone who was fighting, but it seemed like he would watch a big battle, then have a secret huddle with Ron and Hermione for everything. Even the ending felt like that.
The death at the end of 7.1 was handled the best, and precisely for the reason you describe.
The lack of exploration of Harry’s dad being a prick is a failing of both the films and the books, but the films almost intentionally avoid the issue. I was always disappointed that Harry never really confronted that issue when it came to his idealized image of his father, and it’s also too bad that Sirius was dead by the time the Marauders’ behavior was revealed, as I would have liked a scene in which Sirius was made to answer for their treatment of Snape.
I’m not a Snape fanboy or anything, but it just seems a wasted opportunity for several characters in the story. At least the Snape/Lily connection comes across well, and adds a bit to earlier scenes in the series. I always thought it was interesting in the third book (and the third movie, to Rickman’s credit) that when Snape catches the three by the willow and scolds them, as soon as the potential threat of Black/the werewolf presents itself he immediately shifts to defense mode and places the kids behind him to protect them. I always wondered if Snape was really just that dedicated to his role as a teacher or what, but after the conclusion of the series it’s obvious that at least part of it is because Harry is Lily’s son.
I would not for a second be surprised if Warners pushed Rowling for the rights to make a set of prequels focusing on the Marauders at Hogwarts, which would seem a good idea in the head of a studio exec, but would be exceptionally difficult to pull off in practice without making all four of them come off as complete dicks.
I agree that the books do waste the potential for some really good interactions between Snape/Harry/Sirius but at least they convey that Harry is somewhat conflicted about his father’s past. The movies don’t cover it at all. I never got the sense in the movies that Harry ever thought about his father in any way other than him being the best of the best.
I did think it was funny that Harry barely acknowledges his father during the Resurrection Stone scene. It was like “Hey Mom! Sirius! Lupin! Oh, and you too Dad. I guess.”
Yup, but I can see why someone adapting the books would skip over that aspect of the Harry/James dynamic because it’s barely there in the books to begin with. It’s clear to the reader that James was not the paragon of virtue Harry likes to believe he was, but Harry never really seems to accept it himself. It seemed like kind of a really important piece of the puzzle to me, but the books just sort of gloss over it and Harry never quite deals with it fully. And of course Snape’s death basically means he never has to, although the epilogue does indicate that Harry recognizes Snape’s true nature in the end.
I noticed that too.
I swear, this film is screaming for an Extended Director’s Cut.
Both the way Harry ignores James in the Resurrection Stone scene & the fact that he names his son for Severus, not James, lead me to think that the movie is at least hinting at how he feels about his father.
Maybe that’s reading too much intention into it, but those two facts together seem more significant than either one alone.
The naming of the son is a definite nod to that in the books, but I wonder if it just seems random in the film if they’ve removed so much of the nuance (what little there was) of Harry’s opinion of his father.
They touch on that in movie 5, but cut out the most important part of Snape’s memory, when he irrevocably alienates himself from Lily by calling her a “mudblood”.
I’ve always loved that moment. It’s very revealing of Snape’s true character when his instinctive impulse is to immediately protect the children, one of whom literally just stunned him with three wands.
But his relationship to Harry is a really complex thing. Although this goes largely unspoken in the books and films, Snape is right about Harry. He’s a self righteous, suspicious show off who gets away with everything. He’s a constant reminder not only of the man who tormented him his entire school career, but also of the woman he loved AND the biggest mistake he’s ever made. Further, he knows what Dumbledore has planned for Harry, so not only does he have the impulse to protect the last remaining fragment of Lily Evans, but he’s been tasked to do so in the full knowledge that he is being raised like a lamb for the slaughter. AND he has to infiltrate the fucking Deatheaters and pretend to serve the man most deserving of his ire, Voldemort, not merely as one of the rabble, but as his most trusted adviser, all while not betraying his true motives.
I think in the 6th book Harry overhears Snape talking to Dumbledore, basically saying, “what if I don’t want to do it? You’re asking too much.” At the time you don’t know what it’s about, but after the last it’s clear Dumbledore was ordering Severus to kill him (since the curse was already fatal) in order to spare Draco the fate of becoming a murderer. Voldemort, of course, foolishly thinks all Dumbledore was concerned about was the lineage of the Elder Wand.
Of course, that’ not to say his undying fixation on Lily Evans wasn’t also really creepy.
My wife and I saw this yesterday. I have to come down on the side of being a big fan. They could have added another 20 min to cover all the Harry / Snape / Dad / Voldemort issues but in the end they kept the movie pretty focused on what really mattered. I disliked 7.1 as a movie for the same reasons I hated that part of the book but here I felt they really did get the pacing right. And who didn’t giggle with Maggie Smith “I always wanted to cast that spell” and Mrs Weasley dealing with Bellatrix?
Speaking of which, what the heck was that spell?
I loved McGonagall’s line, but I was a bit put off by Mrs Weasley’s line to Bellatrix. It came off as way too comical for that part of the film, and it’s one of the only things that managed to break the mood a little bit for me. I’m sure it works fine in print, but the way she says it in the movie is too silly.
Along the lines of the delivery, pun acknowledged but unintended, I can’t be the only one who thinks that the main three were really holding their own here against some truly great actors.
I had the same feeling here. Then again, this happens with fantasy or fiction in general for me, the initial wonder and magic is often lost when the plot threads are being resolved in an epic manner in the end. This was also the case when reading the book.
I did enjoy the movie, but I thought it was a bit rushed and at times over acted, somewhat melodramatic. I might be misreading the acting but I felt the characters didn’t convey fear and despair so much as stoic acceptance of their possible death, which doesn’t seem believable. I don’t remember how the book handled this.
I also thought that the first part had more varied pacing. There was the part when they broke into the ministry of magic which was much cooler than breaking into Gringotts, the Ron-Harry-Hermione conflicts and the animated exposition of the deathly hallows, besides the fight against Voldemort itself.
The animated exposition of the Hallows was one of the only things I really enjoyed in part 1
It can be very easily argued that this is what really matters when it comes to the core of the overall story.
Other things I noticed about the core story as a movie watcher:
I completely forgot Voldemort’s motivation and the details of the Tom Riddle backstory. Harry made a reference to it, and so did the ghost, but the meaning was lost on me. Oh, and I think Voldemort made some comment about magic users not killing each other. I had no idea where that came from.
Don’t feel compelled to write out a long explanation from the book unless you want to. I’m just pointing out what I missed watching the movies.
That was good.