Harry Potter: Fin

It is hard to engage a movie critically when you have been watching the storyline develop for the better part of a decade. Pretty much all that can be said about the conversion of this wonderful story from the page to the screen has been said already in the reviews of all seven books and the seven movies so far here at NonModern. (Books: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7; Films: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7a Snape)

Wow. Ten years. When you count the time when the books began to come out and be read, this is a story that has been being told for over a quarter of my life. There are not a lot of things that can compare. To see the whole thing come to a satisfactory conclusion is pretty amazing.

The final book concluded the storyline in a way that makes these books classics on par with Tolkien, Lewis and even the old classics of world lit. The film in this last case delivers a near textbook example of how to change elements for a screen-telling. It does not change any of the major plot elements, but condenses some points that might even be considered as “dragging” in the book. The action element changes at the end are the sort that make events more visually stimulating without changing the meaning. In retrospect, how wonderful would it have been to see more of these films turned into 4-5 hour multi-parters? (Goblet of fire, this is directed at you.)