Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: The End of the Journey

Do you remember ten years ago when little Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint first appeared as the young wizards in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s (Sorcerer’s) Stone? They were only around eleven or twelve years old then, and now they are filling the T.V and movie screens around the world as some of the most famous actors out there. And to think, there is only a little over a month left until they take the movie screen for the last time together.

            I can only imagine how emotional it will be for all the actors from this magnificent series of movies to go their separate ways for the last time after ten years. They practically grew up together. Radcliffe entered as his voice was just beginning to change and get deeper, Grint was just a little boy with blinding red hair, and Watson was a preteen with wild bushy hair. Now they are about to complete a ten year journey as grown men and women. We will now just have to watch and see where their futures will take them after these ten years when all they knew was Harry Potter.

            Getting on the subject of book and movie differences, we can only hope that Part 2 will be as accurate as Part 1. (FROM HERE ON, THERE ARE SEVERAL SPOILERS. BEWARE.) Let’s face it. The book was fantastic and perfectly written. J.K Rowling couldn’t have ended the series any better. Every single mystery and loose end was explained, and she left many readers in tears as the final pages came to a close. Personally, I think the end was perfect. Everything I wanted to happen ended up happening almost exactly how I pictured it. The movie has very high expectations to be as accurate as possible, but it is impossible to get it perfect. The writers and director need to make it suitable for the big screen, whether it is cutting out some of our favorite scenes, making some important scenes more dramatic, or just totally leaving out some of our favorite characters and other material from the seventh book. We will have to take it as it is, but I’m sure this movie will be one of the best.

            One thing that should be made extremely accurate is Chapter 33, The Prince’s Tale. By far, this is my favorite chapter in the whole book and one of the best in the whole series. To recap, this chapter comes directly after Severus Snape is killed by Nagini, Voldemort’s snake. Harry witnesses this and approaches Snape, who gives Harry a memory of his before looking into Harry’s green eyes for the last time. Chapter 33 begins with harry dropping the memory into Dumbledore’s pensieve. Now, this is where the story of Harry Potter gets emotional and where it touched the hearts of millions. Harry sees memories of Snape and his mother, Lily Evans. Harry learns Snape had loved Lily from the day they met, and he loved her the second he died. The clips of his memory are heartwarming and depressing, as Harry learns how Snape lost Lily to James Potter, Harry’s father.

Harry then learns that Snape wanted to save Lily from Voldemort after he got news that her son, Harry, is the boy in the prophecy that predicted the one who could kill Voldemort would be born. Snape begs Dumbledore to help him save her and even gets Voldemort to agree to stay away from Lily is he was to kill her son. (He kills her anyways as she doesn’t move out of the way of her son and protects him.) After Lily’s death, Snape, a former Death Eater, agrees to help Dumbledore protect Harry, the only thing left of Lily, and to be a spy for him. And as we all know, Snape torments Harry at Hogwarts because he reminds Snape of James, who he despised.

Anyways, this chapter is one of the most important of the whole series, and the movie needs to get this right. I have heard news that Snape’s death will actually take place somewhere else than the Shrieking Shack, which isn’t that big of a deal and is probably being done for effect.

Another Chapter, King’s Cross, where Harry meets Dumbledore in a middle-world between life and the afterlife, is greatly important. Harry learns that he is not dead after Voldemort casts the killing curse at him, Harry is the last horcrux and needed to die for Voldemort to be killed, and that Lily’s love and sacrifice for Harry is the reason why Harry did not die the night of his parents’ murders, causing a piece of Voldemort’s soul to get planted in him. This scene needs to be done and it needs to be done accurately. It explains so much about the whole series in a short amount of time.

Finally, Chapter 36, the Flaw in the Plan, needs to be accurate. In this chapter, Harry battles Voldemort and explains to him that he (Harry) is the master of the Elder Wand and the wand will not work for Voldemort. Also, the quick instance when Voldemort’s killing curse backfires and hills him occurs. This looks like it is going to be modified a lot. It looks like it will take place not in the Great Hall, but in an area right outside of the castle. Also, from the movie trailers, it seems like the quick battle in the book between the two foes will be stretched out, seeing that there are clips of them falling off a cliff together and battling in different places. I will not mind this. Others might, but I won’t. It will just make the movie more epic and exciting, which is fine with me. All I know is that Harry’s speech to Voldemort before they battle better be included, where he explains how Voldemort was wrong the whole time.

This movie looks great, and will likely be great. There will be changes, we know that, but I trust the writers and director to make good, accurate decisions. “It All Ends Here,” and it will take a while for the cast who grew up together for ten years to realize that it is over. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 comes out in theaters on July 15, 2011, and it is sure to be a good one.

The Magical Hans Zimmer

Do yourself a favor. Watch any movie that strikes you as epic, emotional, or touching. Then listen closely to the music soundtrack of the movie as you watch. Almost every great movie has a memorable soundtrack. Now, if you do some research on that movie soundtrack, there is a good chance one man was behind it all. His name is Hans Zimmer. No man may ever be able to touch the movie viewer like Zimmer does ever again. No movie would be half as good as it is without its music, and having Hans Zimmer compose the soundtrack is a double plus. Have you ever seen the movie Inception, Lion King, The Dark Knight, Batman Begins, The Last Samurai, The Rock, Gladiator, Pirates of the Caribbean, Pearl Harbor (there are many more)? The soundtracks of these movies were all composed by Hans Zimmer. I will bet you would not have appreciated the movies that he worked on that you saw half as much if he was not involved in them. He is a musical genious. It is as if he reads the emotions in the film and turns them into another language. The music.

Walking out of a theater that just played a movie with his music usually wants to make me go on an epic journey, run through a battle field getting lit up by dozens of bullets while doing something heroic, cry, and love.

I am not saying that there are no other great composers out there. Don't get me wrong, James Horner, Steve Jablonsky, and others are all great musical artists, but Zimmer tops them all.

So go ahead. Go through your movie collections, look at the credits. When you see "Music Composed by Hans Zimmer" or "Original Score by Hans Zimmer," you know where you heard it from.

Here are some of my favorite Zimmer soundtracks, which are most likely some of yours as well. (These are only a select few out of many great songs.)