This movie series may be the greatest movies ever made. Now, before you get all agro on me and say.. but WAIT.. Lord of the Rings! Let me Clarify. There are 8 movies in this series filling a total of roughly 20 hours of time. This series is directed at Young Adult to Adult audiences, and is much the same an EPIC quest to Win as LOTR's.
The difference is that while LOTR is visually fantastic and a wonderful story, it's not something that I constantly finding myself picking out off the dvd shelves in my apartment. I am not someone who is discerning when it comes to movies. I love all kinds of movies from (get this!) the Lizzie McGuire Movie to Pitch Black to The Last Unicorn, to 3 Men and a Baby. I like movies for what they do for us, and if you don't get it, Movies allow us to forget reality for a few hours and live an adventure.
Harry Potter is an Adventure by Every single stretch of the imagination. The world that JK Rowling created is a world MANY of us have probably thought about being part of at some point in time. For those of you who claim to not know anything about Harry Potter, I call Liar. You may not know the story, but you know the Characters. Even the Amish know who Harry Potter is! You may claim that it's not your cup of tea (as I've recently been told by several people), and I too call Bullschkiva. How can you not love a story that has love, family, Friendship, Epic Battles, Magic, Adventure, Travelling, LOVE, and FAMILY. Yeah, I said those last 2 twice. Harry Potter's central theme (imho) is Love and Family. How a boy can come from essentially nothing, and end with so much. Harry starts out with Friends, who eventually become his family. JK taught us that it's not necessarily who your blood relatives are (although some a quite awesome - see the Weasley Family), but who loves you. He gets to use Magic, travel across the UK, fight the most dastardly evil villain of all time (Tim and I have used his name to describe a certain person who shall 'remain nameless' on this blog for their evil ways), Go to school in a grand castle, and gain family and friends. What part of any of that sounds like 'not your cup of tea'? What kind of movies do you enjoy? Documentary? Fine. Harry Potter is a Documentary about the life and struggles of a young wizard growing up. Nature? Sure. There are PLENTY of creatures you've never heard of before from Acromantula's, to Doxies, to Half-Kneazles. Love Story? Wow, this one is REALLY covered. Harry + Ginny = Forever, Ron + Hermione = Forever, Bill + Fleur = Forever, Tonks + Lupin = Forever... There is love by the BOATLOADS in these books and movies! Action / Adventure? Are you kidding? It's one giant epic battle waiting to play out! Horror? Have you SEEN what Voldemort looks like? Suspense - only if you haven't read the books!
So tell me again how you are not interested in Harry Potter. Tell me how it's not something you'd ever care to watch, and then tell me once you secretly went to the theater by yourself to see how it ends! =)
So we waited in Line at the Mira Mesa IMAX 18 from 6:30am-Midnight for Harry Potter. We were about 70 people back in line at that point. Yeah, really. We had a FANTASTIC group of people in front of us, who had I of not been exhausted and struggling in the heat, would of probably befriended them WAY before we got inside the theater. The one guy in the group, wearing a Green Sweater - didn't learn names - was especially wonderful. After seeing my cousin Stacy struggling once they put us inside the theater to wait for 5 hours, he went and got an employee to get her a chair to sit in. It was incredibly thoughtful, and we all appreciated it. If I knew his name, I'd let everyone know! This group also hooked us up with CUPCAKES in the theater once we all got seats. How thoughtful again! I wish there was a way to repay them. Some people really do get it though! The girls behind us were a completely different story. Loud, Obnoxious, Screeching at high loud volumes, generally being a pain the butt, with NO sense of respect for those around them or their belongings. After sitting in the HOT Sun ALL DAY LONG, we were all pretty exhausted. These girls actually gave me a headache from their screeching. We are all there to have fun, but there is such a thing as volume control. Stacy was not feeling well, and REALLY struggling, and I had like 3+ hours sleep that I was rolling on, and Timmy was getting sunburned... but the group in front of us still made us appreciate the Harry Potter experience.
So around 6pm the theater "managers" come out and tell us that some patrons at the BACK OF THE LINE have been complaining that they don't have enough ROOM, and they are going to move the first 80 people inside the theater. Are you kidding? So he tells us to PACK UP OUR CHAIRS AND UMBRELLAS to go inside and SIT ON THE FLOOR for the next 5 hours. SERIOUSLY. The people at the BACK OF THE LINE who had JUST ARRIVED at 6PM (we'd been there since 6:30AM), were complaining about their place in line. I hope every single one of them burns in hell. EVERY ONE. We got put inside the theater at that point, lined up outside the IMAX theater down the hallway. It then WRAPPED BACK AND FORTH on the hard TILE FLOOR, where were got stuck. We got forced into a Corner UNDER THE DRINKING FOUNTAINS for that side of the theater, with no chairs, and a super miserable floor situation. I went to the truck and got all the blankets I could, and we made do by 'stealing' their electricity to watch HP7pt1 on Tim's Laptop. No one said anything to us, because if they had, I'd of told him to take a flying leap of a bridge at that point. While sitting there, we got Gold Stars on our tickets, which then allowed us in and out privileges for the theater. Something no one else had at that point, but whatever!
They finally let us into the actual Theater around 11pm. We got our 3D glasses and pretty darn awesome seats, considering we were around 60-70 in line. The endless announcements every 2-3 minutes was annoying, and unnecessary.
I don't want to ruin the movie for those who haven't seen it yet, but I was in TEARS for parts, Laughing at Parts, Cheering at Parts (and i'm DEFINITELY NOT a movie cheerer!), and I left feeling better about the world. Harry Potter can do that for you, you know. It was visually STUNNING, with the 3d worked into every scene, and WELL WORTH the wait. It was not traditional 3d with things coming at you, but more Depth 3d, with everything having depth and dimension. It was not overwhelming on the eyes, and for the first time in a LONG TIME, I didn't have a headache from 2 hours of 3D at the end! I think they could have EASILY added another 30 minutes to the story, and included some of the things they left out, and spent a little more time on things they glossed over. I understand big budget movies, but this is HARRY POTTER, and while the things they left out didn't affect the overall story, it did affect how the story is perceived. They made it clear that Harry had friends fighting for him, but left out the Centaurs, etc completely! There is a fine line between budget cutting, and getting the story right. They got the story about 90% right. So my score is a 90% for this last movie. I dock it the 10% ONLY because of the shortness of the movie. 2 hours and 5 minutes makes it the shortest of all the Potter Movies. Overall I LOVED the movie. It finished perfectly, and made me want to go back and re-read the entire series.
