No. Just, no.
Apparently I'm the only person who didn't like Deathly Hallows Part 2. I liked part 1 and thought it did the story justice. I cannot say the same for the second half.
There was not nearly enough dialogue. Harry should be taunting Voldemort in FULL VIEW OF EVERYONE during the final battle. In the book, he spent a good long time calling him Tom and asking him for remorse, which seriously unnerved Voldemort. Not in the movie at all. Not to mention, with the GEMD (Gratuitous Explosive Movie Death [tm]) no one will even know for sure that Voldemort is dead. He has to just *die*. There has to be a body. An ordinary human body.
And everything needs to STOP while that's happening. It distracts everyone else from fighting.
The same goes for the fight between Molly and Bellatrix. Obviously they had to keep "NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!" but what about the rest? What about Bellatrix threatening Molly and the Weasleys and Molly insisting that Bellatrix will never come near any of their family again? (And why did Bellatrix explode? Really?)
I absolutely *hated* that everyone got to know everything. Harry telling Hermione and Ron that he was going into the Forest to die really didn't work for me. They don't need to know that ahead of time, or possibly at all, ever. Same with Helena Ravenclaw. Her story was missing, and she seemed to know too much about the diadem being a Horcrux (speaking of which, Harry shouldn't have been blabbing to everyone about hunting Horcruxes, either. No one else was supposed to know!)
And Neville, again marginalised. Harry telling Ron and Hermione the snake needed to be killed and then a stupid chase scene with it? No. I mean, come on, in the book, Neville is SET ON FIRE and kills Nagini just as Harry jumps down from Hagrid's arms (actually, I think Harry is already on the ground at that point.) I think Neville still got to be a bit of a badass, but he's WAY cooler in the book, and they ruined all his moments for the sake of getting Ron and Hermione more screen time.
And I think the impact of Fred's death would have been better if we'd ACTUALLY SEEN IT HAPPEN. Or if Percy had been there.
I liked the scene of Harry going into the Forest like in the book, but I wish it had been longer. I wish we'd seen him walking deeper into the forest with his family walking/gliding silently by his side. It would have been much more affecting.
The Gringotts break-in made little sense out of context, too. I mean, really, spend an extra minute or two on the planning, and maybe go into the ideas Goblins have about their property. Otherwise, Griphook insisting on the sword just doesn't work.
I have the same complaints about this one that I did about Prisoner of Azkaban. It was choppy and jumpy and just seemed like a disconnected series of scenes thrown together to make the shortest possibly Harry Potter movie. I mean, would it have killed them to extend this by *maybe* 15 minutes to flesh out some of the scenes a bit?
I can handle Harry destroying the Elder Wand as a reasonable change, but ... shouldn't he have used it to fix his own wand first? (Not only that, but there was nothing, NOTHING about the Deathly Hallows really, and Harry being 'master of death' and what that actually meant. But I guess that's because Dumbledore's backstory was left out, too.)
I'm OK with cosmetic changes and maybe a few action changes to make things more movie-like, but I feel like a bit too much was left out for the story to make sense, and too many of the scenes that remained were changed so drastically that they lost their impact.
Oh, and of course, the breederific epilogue. Hated it in the book, considered walking out as soon as I saw '19 years later' on the screen.
There's probably more that I'll find when I see it again that I dislike (but maybe more that I do like, too, who knows?), but it largely left me feeling empty and disappointed.
There was not nearly enough dialogue. Harry should be taunting Voldemort in FULL VIEW OF EVERYONE during the final battle. In the book, he spent a good long time calling him Tom and asking him for remorse, which seriously unnerved Voldemort. Not in the movie at all. Not to mention, with the GEMD (Gratuitous Explosive Movie Death [tm]) no one will even know for sure that Voldemort is dead. He has to just *die*. There has to be a body. An ordinary human body.
And everything needs to STOP while that's happening. It distracts everyone else from fighting.
The same goes for the fight between Molly and Bellatrix. Obviously they had to keep "NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!" but what about the rest? What about Bellatrix threatening Molly and the Weasleys and Molly insisting that Bellatrix will never come near any of their family again? (And why did Bellatrix explode? Really?)
I absolutely *hated* that everyone got to know everything. Harry telling Hermione and Ron that he was going into the Forest to die really didn't work for me. They don't need to know that ahead of time, or possibly at all, ever. Same with Helena Ravenclaw. Her story was missing, and she seemed to know too much about the diadem being a Horcrux (speaking of which, Harry shouldn't have been blabbing to everyone about hunting Horcruxes, either. No one else was supposed to know!)
And Neville, again marginalised. Harry telling Ron and Hermione the snake needed to be killed and then a stupid chase scene with it? No. I mean, come on, in the book, Neville is SET ON FIRE and kills Nagini just as Harry jumps down from Hagrid's arms (actually, I think Harry is already on the ground at that point.) I think Neville still got to be a bit of a badass, but he's WAY cooler in the book, and they ruined all his moments for the sake of getting Ron and Hermione more screen time.
And I think the impact of Fred's death would have been better if we'd ACTUALLY SEEN IT HAPPEN. Or if Percy had been there.
I liked the scene of Harry going into the Forest like in the book, but I wish it had been longer. I wish we'd seen him walking deeper into the forest with his family walking/gliding silently by his side. It would have been much more affecting.
The Gringotts break-in made little sense out of context, too. I mean, really, spend an extra minute or two on the planning, and maybe go into the ideas Goblins have about their property. Otherwise, Griphook insisting on the sword just doesn't work.
I have the same complaints about this one that I did about Prisoner of Azkaban. It was choppy and jumpy and just seemed like a disconnected series of scenes thrown together to make the shortest possibly Harry Potter movie. I mean, would it have killed them to extend this by *maybe* 15 minutes to flesh out some of the scenes a bit?
I can handle Harry destroying the Elder Wand as a reasonable change, but ... shouldn't he have used it to fix his own wand first? (Not only that, but there was nothing, NOTHING about the Deathly Hallows really, and Harry being 'master of death' and what that actually meant. But I guess that's because Dumbledore's backstory was left out, too.)
I'm OK with cosmetic changes and maybe a few action changes to make things more movie-like, but I feel like a bit too much was left out for the story to make sense, and too many of the scenes that remained were changed so drastically that they lost their impact.
Oh, and of course, the breederific epilogue. Hated it in the book, considered walking out as soon as I saw '19 years later' on the screen.
There's probably more that I'll find when I see it again that I dislike (but maybe more that I do like, too, who knows?), but it largely left me feeling empty and disappointed.