I've seen every Harry Potter movie, and I remember pretty much exactly nothing from any of them. Sure, I can summon the likenesses of Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, and others when necessary (although my mental representations of the characters are still stronger) but there was never a single scene that was so well presented that it overtook the one I saw when reading the novels. This is a bit surprising, since exactly that happened when I saw the Lord of the Rings movies, amongst others.
Although I don't think it will happen with the most recent attempt at screenplay magic, it's the closest yet, and I think it's a movie where I'll actually be able to recall some of the scenes. I went into the movie with low expectations, and was rewarded with the best Potter film to date, and probably the first one where I exited talked about its strengths rather than its manifold failures. Considering Book 7 is my favorite in the series (with 5 almost but not quite a tie), it was a welcome relief, and makes part 2 sound all the more appealing.
I don't know whether the splitting into two parts was a financial or artistic choice, but it seems it was at least both, which makes it ok in my book. The seventh volume contains a lot--after all, it's tying up a couple thousand pages of loose ends. Even more so than the other books, you can't afford to cut much. By splitting it in half, they were able to go at a reasonable pace and hit all the key scenes, and do them justice (as opposed to the 4th movie, which if I remember correctly, they covered the first 200 pages in 5 minutes or less). I was quite impressed that many of the lines were taken verbatim from the book (having recognized after rereading the novel 5 days before the release) and a lot of care seems to have been taken in matching both the content and tone set in the books. There were naturally scenes left out that I wished hadn't been (particularly Harry finding his old house/memorial) but in general I felt everything cut was reasonable. In addition, some scenes were handled far better than I expected, the story of the 3 Brothers being the prime example. All the actors did well, the locations were good, and so on and so forth.
Naturally some flaws still exist, some of which have been present throughout the movie series. I still highly dislike the portrayal of Voldemort; my assumption has been that they wanted him to be a distinct on-screen villain, but he comes off as weird and utterly unterrifying, whereas in the book he always seems much more of a cross between the Emperor and Saruman. Various other casting choices have also always annoyed me, as have depictions of certain locations, but those are mostly minor objections, I suppose. The nice thing was that movie 7 didn't add much to this list. Perhaps the most baffling was the feeding of the shippers, with basically HermioneX[Name] multiple times.
This may be just personal viewing, though. In talking to my friends on the movie, some people saw romantic subtext with the Harry and Hermione dancing scene, myself included. Others didn't. Some people saw subtext in the torture scene with Bellatrix. Others didn't, myself included. I can't say for certain whether it was intentional or not, but it seems that personal viewpoint is a large factor in this. If anything, the biggest omission from my view relates to the HarryXHermione thing, in that after Ron destroys the Horcrux in the book Harry tells him how Hermoine cried every night and they have a relationship like siblings. That Ron just bounces away from the demonic vision without any reassurance seemed a bit hollow, but then again perhaps that's just me.
One final problem, one that relates to the splitting, is that if anything the movie feels only like a build-up to the finale. A lot of critics seemed to take issue with it, and I can understand the complaint. However, if you view it as actually being two parts to a whole (rather than a sequel) it makes a lot more sense, and the film's many strengths outweigh this weakness. As I said earlier, it was an excellent film for what it is, and I'm highly excited to see the second half next July.
-HTMC
P.S. I might be looking forward to this even more, though.
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