I believe it’s out in soft cover.
Just saw it at a midnight screening.
I have to say that I would pay to see a full-length Beedle the Bard movie done in the same way the Three Brothers story is told in the movie.
I’ll be going on Monday , pretty excited to see it! :D
Just saw it. I’ve never read the books. Still waiting for my kids to grow a bit older and I’ll read the whole series to/with them. Thought it was awesome. Nothing confusing whatsoever to someone w/ no knowledge of the books, and I can’t wait for the last installment.
Well, except for the two things.
- How did the Death Eaters track Harry?
- Whose patronus lead them to Godrick’s sword and how did the sword get to the bottom of that particular lake?
Both answers are in the book, but they are not in the movie.
Both those answers are in the second half of the book, so it stands to reason they will be in the second half of the movie.
I guess I’ll be the first one to say it: this was not a very good movie. It’s way too long; 20-25 minutes could have been cut and you wouldn’t have missed anything. There are several things not explained in the movie* that you have to just accept, and saying that they’ll be explained in the second part is unacceptable and makes for a lazy movie. There had to be a better way to convey that Harry, Ron, and Hermione were in hiding and alone for a long time without 2 hours of camping. And so many things felt really contrived. I hated that every plan someone came up with was the perfect plan that worked they way they hoped. Dobby suddenly being the ultimate badass was too unbelievable. Dobby’s death would have been much more emotionally impactful if he was buried with the other people who had died. Ron made it clear in the beginning that the struggle was much bigger than just Harry, yet when it’s time to rest and mourn only the person important to Harry that died is remembered.
I can’t say that it’s a bad movie because there’s some great things in it. The escape out to the Weasley’s house is a fantastic scene. The Ministry of Magic heist was perfect. The visit to Luna’s father showed that the movie could do more than just good action and could actually move the story ahead effectively. And I think no matter what this will always be “the movie that sets up the finale”, not a movie that can stand on its own. But using that as an excuse to be lazy with the knowledge that things will come together in part 2 is unacceptable.
*The broken mirror, why everyone leaves the three kids alone after taking so much care to try to protect them, the convenience of the sword, Dobby’s suddenly useful abilities, why the Malfoys are so defeated and suffering yet still so important to Voldemort, why Harry suddenly can’t say Voldemort.
Spoilers, I guess?
Was the scene with the images the horcrux used to try to manipulate Ron really awkward and weird, or were my friends and I just immature for laughing out loud at the naked ghosts?
I just assumed the ghostly foal that led Harry to the sword was an enchantment left by Dumbledore.
Most of the other stuff really doesnt beg for any explanation. The Malfoy’s looked so desperate because aligning with an evil sorcerer probably sucks compared to what it may have seemed to offer on paper. I didnt even notice Harry fail to say Voldemort. The mirror didn’t actually do anything so whats to explain? If someone sent that little elf dude from beyond the mirror, I assume it’ll be revealed in the finale. As for not protecting the three kids, well all the elders were getting routed. It seemed all they could do to help them escape.
HP book nerds really shouldn’t waste energy worrying about how the movies work for us neophytes. They work just fine.
Not the tracking part. In fact, in this movie Harry suddenly started saying “You-know-who” with no explanation when he’d never done so in any other movie.
And the only reason I don’t feel this is a nitpick is because the kids repeatedly wonder how Voldermort’s folks are able to find them.
Okay, but why that particular lake? The one that just happened to be near their camp?
Had to be somewhere!
The fact that the doe was able to find them is going to be a little hard for the movie to explain the second act.
For people who have not read the book, here’s what’s missing: You know how in Harry Potter we’ve seen subjects of paintings traveling between different paintings? Like for example… the fat lady hid out in the safari painting when Sirius black attacked her in the 3rd movie, or in the 5th movie, when the kitten turned and left its painting when Harry was trying to use Umbridge’s office to contact Sirius (and then Umbridge shows up)?
At the bottom of Hermione’s beaded bag, there is supposed to be a painting. They removed the painting from Sirirus’s house when they were staying there before they went to the Ministry to get the locket. And the painting has a brother in another location that the subject can travel between. This was established in book 5. If they happened to let slip where they were while the bag was open, the subject of the painting could hear them and report it back to someone standing in front of the other painting.
But I guess since they didn’t put any of that in there, the doe was able to find them because of… magic. The don’t-ask-questions variety. :)
Most of the other stuff that was left out was pretty minor. Honestly, Neville doesn’t really factor heavily into the story until after they return to Hogsmeade, which is pretty late in the book (we hear reports that Snape has been liberally giving Ginny and Neville detention, but we saw more of him in the movie than I would have expected), and a fair number of scenes were pretty spot-on for how I imagined them in the book. Except for the scene where they finally destroy the locket. That burned a bit.
I remember reading the 7th book the first time and hating that it spent so much time camping in the woods, but on a re-read recently, I realized that there really is a lot going on, it’s just that the camping in the woods scenes feel a lot longer than they are because you’re so eager to see a resolution to the story and showing them casting about without a lot of ideas of where to find Horcruxes and how to destroy the one they’ve found is frustrating.
I think the clomping around in the woods bit was handled better in the movie than in the book. In the book I was bored silly by it, but in the movie it seemed to offer a good bit of exploration of the relationship between the 3 main characters. Especially Harry and Hermione, which isn’t every explored very much otherwise.
A wizard did it.
As someone who hasn’t read Book 7, sadly this movie was “Harry and Hermoine Hide in the Woods”. Not that there wasn’t good stuff in it, but coming out of the theater it just seems like… ‘hey… what actually happened beyond lots of running in the forest?’. I just expected… more. Which will likely come in the last movie, but that was a looong movie to not progress the story much.
That doesn’t bode well for me… I hoped all along that they’d trim the hiding in the woods stuff that was so slow and lame in the book. When they announced they were doing book 7 as 2 movies, I began to lose hope… now it appears all hope is lost.
Just saw it myself. I was hoping that the story would end with the Gringott’s raid, which would have been a nice climax. Oh well, I wasn’t expecting much. Most of the films have been just OK, and so was this one. I wouldn’t bother seeing them if my wife didn’t want to so much.
The movie was pretty good, but anyone who has seen the movies and never read the books should be ashamed, especially if those same people are bitching about a ghostly doe or a cliff hanger.
My one word review: Dullsville.