Some emotional moments were removed from the Harry Potter movie, but something might have been added

11:01 PM 11/21/10
I saw Harry Potter twice yesterday. I don't know if this blog qualifies as a spoiler, since many people have already read the books.

I like the movie, simply because I enjoy seeing the familiar faces again. There was one scene that I liked a lot, but I'll mention a couple things I don't like first.

In the beginning, the Vernons are leaving the house for the last time. There is no scene where Dudley and Harry forgive each other. They don't even show a brief second or two where Harry and Dudley bond with each other like they do in the book. In the book, there is just a little bit of a realization, an understanding, between them, where Dudley shows some respect and brotherly love for Harry, when they say goodbye. But in the movie, nothing. Just the Vernons getting in the car, saying it's not safe here anymore, and then Harry in the empty house. I was disappointed with that. I think the Harry-Dudley goodbye bonding moment was a very important moment. It's something we've been waiting for, all this time, through all the books - all along, we wished Harry and Dudley could get along with each other and find something in common, some understanding, and it finally happens... and they didn't bother to show it in the movie.

The moviemakers weren't as interested in 'emotional bonding' moments as they were 'big exciting special-effect action' moments. Of course, there had to be a 'dangling from a flying vehicle' scene, just like in the Chamber of Secrets movie (where, remember, they had Harry dangling out of the flying car as they were dodging away from the train, which I don't remember happening in the Chamber of Secrets book, but it was a 'Hey let's do something big and exciting with special effects and action scenes, since this is a MOVIE and it has to be BIG!'), and so, in Deathly Hallows, they had to show Harry's feet running over the roof of a bus passing underneath them, while Hagrid and Harry were flying in the motorcycle to get away from Voldemort. I would have gladly skipped seeing a couple seconds of Harry's feet running over the top of the bus while he dangles from the motorcycle, and instead seen him and Dudley bonding and saying goodbye and forgiving each other for a few seconds. But it's all about action and special effects, not feelings and relationships.

What else got left out? They left out something emotional, and it was a HUGE thing, not just a little thing. Leaving this out made the scene totally unbelievable and unrealistic. It was the scene where Harry, Ron, Luna, and a couple of other characters are trapped in the basement of the Malfoy's house, while Hermione is upstairs screaming as she is being tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange. In the book, Ron is screaming and bellowing and trying to break the door down and screaming Hermione's name over and over. That's realistic. He is trapped and helpless and Hermione might be about to die. In the movie... you just wouldn't believe it. It is unthinkable to me how they made that scene in the movie. In the movie, Ron just stands around talking with everyone and he seems calm and apathetic and passive, like 'Gosh, what are we gonna do?' kind of thing. He doesn't seem the least bit upset that Hermione is upstairs making bloodcurdling screams, and believe me, her screams sounded *REAL*. They gave me goosebumps. She is upstairs screaming and Ron is just calmly standing around wondering what to do, like 'Oh well, Hermione's gonna die.' That was TOTALLY UNBELIEVABLE AND UNTHINKABLE. This was a HUGE OMISSION.

What did I enjoy? I liked the dancing at Bill and Fleur's wedding. I like cheerful scenes full of people, food, and music. It was a good dance song. That's a 'something worth fighting for' moment. There have to be moments like that. Otherwise, you just don't care about anything. Without any happy scenes, it would be like, who cares if Voldemort destroys the world, there's nothing worth living for anyway. So they had some good scenes at the Weasley's house as always.

There was a very special scene that I loved. It was so real and so emotional and heartbreaking. This would be a big spoiler, I think. In fact, I don't even remember this happening in the book (I could be wrong though), and it might actually have been added to the movie. I don't remember it at all. But it was GREAT in the movie, extremely well done. It was almost like a scene from a totally different movie, like it wasn't part of this movie at all. It was like it was made by totally different people. I haven't seen anything like this in any of the previous Harry Potter movies. Nothing in the other movies ever moved me emotionally as much as this scene did.

It was after Ron disapparated and didn't come back. Harry and Hermione were continuing on alone. Hermione is listening to the radio and Harry is alone with her. Hermione is miserable and depressed because of Ron leaving. Harry has a playful impulse to invite Hermione to get up and dance with him to the music. Hermione is still sad that Ron has left, but she gets up and dances with Harry and starts to smile and enjoy herself, and they both get into the dancing. They are dancing together and holding each other and having a special moment alone, in a world without Ron, just them. Now that Ron is gone, they're allowed to express this feeling. It was a moment of euphoric joy, a rebellion against despair, against a whole world falling apart, against hopelessness. It was a wonderful thing to do and it cheered them both up. It was a beautiful moment. You can feel the closeness and the sexual tension between them and the attraction and the desire for them to kiss each other. They are holding each other close, and then Hermione quietly lets go, the music fades, her smile fades, and she sits back down again, saying nothing, and it goes no further. It seemed very, very real, and I didn't remember seeing that happen in the book at all. Maybe it did, and maybe it didn't. It was like a moment from another world.

The reading of the Three Brothers fairy tale was TOTALLY AMAZING. They drew a cartoon and it was incredible. The style of the cartoon was what I liked so much. It wasn't beautiful in a happy way, it was beautiful in a dark way. And I didn't like it the same way I liked the Harry and Hermione dancing scene. But the drawing style was so amazing I can't describe it. It was computer animated. I remember noticing the see-through fabrics with lacy edges on the sleeves, and things like that. I liked the swirling autumn leaves that formed into the Death character. I liked the characters' graceful flowing movements, like a dance.

This is a spoiler. One thing that gave me anxiety, throughout the whole movie, was wondering 'When's it going to end?' The movie has to cut off and end somewhere, and then there will be a second half of the movie later. I kept trying to guess when it would end. I talked to a co-worker who saw the movie, and he said something similar, he said he was trying to predict when the movie would cut off, and he said he guessed wrong. I forget when he thought it would cut off. I kept thinking that it would cut off when Ron abandoned Harry and Hermione. For some reason, that felt like a huge division point in the book. (And apparently, the moviemakers felt that there was great significance to it, too, because of the dancing scene afterwards, which, as I said, was extremely unusual and different from anything in all the other movies.) But that was wayyyyy too early to cut it off. It actually cuts off after the death of Dobby. Voldemort gets the elder wand, and that is the end.

So this is a disaster movie, a world-is-ending movie. We are comforted when we see people bonding with each other in ways that they never bonded before. I never told you I loved you, and I always wished I could say it, but I might as well tell you now, because tomorrow we might all be dead. Those kind of moments. Dudley and Harry bonded when they said goodbye, but that moment was missing from the movie. Ron finally starts demonstrating his love for Hermione, but one of his biggest demonstrations of love - shouting and 'bellowing,' I think was the word, bellowing her name while she was being tortured upstairs, and trying to break down the door with his bare hands, like a wild animal - was taken out of the movie. But we see a special moment between Harry and Hermione, where they fight against despair and we see something we've never seen before. When we have a disaster, that makes it okay to behave in a 'socially unacceptable' way. We can tell them we love them, we can hug and kiss people, touch them, have sex with them, do things and say things we've always wanted to. I remember when I was a child and I had a crush on a boy, I would sometimes have a 'disaster fantasy' where I imagined that some terrible thing happened, like a tornado destroying the town, and we got stuck with each other in the disaster, and we would do something like sleep together to keep warm. It was an 'excuse' to do something that I always wished I could do anyway.

Well, I will surely see the movie another time, and if I notice anything else, I'll probably write more about it.