The "right" way to view Deathly Hallows Part 2

This has been on my mind a lot lately, especially after the Academy Awards nominations, and I will get to "why the Academy Awards" at the end.

Look, my love for the film isn't a mystery to anyone and it's easy to point at someone who clearly loves something and see everything they say about it as bias. However, I think I do have a very unique and interesting perspective of Deathly Hallows Part 2, and I would like to share it.

Now, almost immediately many of you are going to write this off as the same old argument-- Part 2 is an entire film vs. Part 2 is not an entire film. And while it's certainly debatable, I find it to be more subjective than anything. For the kids, "subjective" means something that is determined by how the psyche of an individual perceives something. For example, in horror films, some people find some scary (The Exorcist, The Blair Witch Project) while others laugh at them, and this is because the horror genre is highly subjective. Some people are going to find something scary that others do not, and vice-versa.

With that out of the way, I find that Deathly Hallows Part 2 is a very subjective film in that clearly some of you wish to see it as one film, which leads to complaints about the runtime, cuts, etc. And that's fair game, as the two parts were released separately and the filmmakers also see them as two different films. However, I actually think that this is incredibly detrimental to the film and in some sense doesn't really do the overall adaptation of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows justice. If you look at Part 1, and compare the breadth of the material in that installment to the book, you'll quickly see that the majority of the book is actually covered in Part 1. I don't personally see it as "Part 1 is half of it and Part 2 is the other half." Had they cleaved it directly in the middle, would Part 1 have not ended somewhere around the Nagini ambush at Godric's Hollow? However, Part 1 doesn't stop there. It doesn't even stop close to there.

In fact, Part 1 doesn't even end until roughly two thirds of the way into the book. It's almost as if the filmmakers decided to have Part 1 take care of the brunt of the story, and leave the climax and resolution for Part 2. Oh, wait-- hold up, that's exactly what happens! In fact, Part 2 picks up right before the final third of the film begins. So I ask, with this being absolute fact-- how is it fair to see Part 2 as an entire film of its own? Take any other film (or book), even in the same franchise, say Goblet of Fire. Now, let's imagine that they split Goblet of Fire in the exact same manner as Deathly Hallows. Let's say that Goblet of Fire Part 1 were to end after the second task and Goblet of Fire Part 2 were to begin, naturally, after the second task. Now, after the second task is the buildup and resolution of the story. But would that make it a complete film?

To me, a complete film has a beginning, middle, and end. It tells the story, starting at the beginning, and tells it until there's an ending. Episodic, installment-based films are different because they don't end the entire story but each episode or installment presents its own, smaller self-contained story that makes up a larger whole. This is what Harry Potter does. However, splitting one of these into two means that each part is going to be incomplete-- the first part is going to end without the resolution that is in the second part, and the second part is going to begin without the beginning that is found in the first part. Therefore, I do not see Deathly Hallows Part 1 and Part 2 are two separate films.



Now you may be asking: okay, but this is the same conversation we've been having for months! Well, that's true to an extent, but what I'm actually proposing is that Deathly Hallows Part 2 should only be seen as the actual climax and resolution-- not a complete film in of itself. If Goblet of Fire Part 2 were post-second task, the third task, climax and ending, would you see that as a totally complete, standalone film? Because that's exactly how Deathly Hallows Part 2 is. It literally picks up just before the climax begins. What I'm saying is that Part 2 is a climax, and not a standalone film. The entirety of Part 2: Gringotts, Hogwarts, the battle, the Room of Requirement, Snape's death, his memories, Harry walking to his death, and the precipice of the battle and finally Harry vs. Voldemort-- all of it makes up the climax. Harry vs. Voldemort is the climax of the climax, but it's like Goblet of Fire. You have the third task and then the graveyard scene, but the third task is also part of the climax-- the graveyard scene is the climax of the climax.

Essentially, the entire film is nothing but one massively epic climax stretched just shy of two hours. The majority of other films handles their climax and resolution in about 10-15 minutes. Our filmmakers graciously gave us one that lasts nearly two hours, and this is right down to the basic, psychological reason that I eye-roll every single time I see someone complain about the runtime and why I frequently argue it. In summary, I think Part 2 should be viewed as an elongated climax and resolution because when compared to its source material, that's exactly what it is. It does not stand alone. Am I wrong? Could someone start with Part 2 and know what's going on? Right!



Now, back to the Academy Awards. Very few were expecting a best picture nomination. I was not one of them, and here's why: beyond knowing the Academy a little bit better, I never expected them to nominate an incomplete film for best picture. And truthfully, they should not. Now, if Deathly Hallows Parts 1 and 2 were all completed and released as one film, I would be writing hate mail to the Academy, strongly believing that it should have been nominated. However, the majority of the film was actually released over a year ago, so why should merely the final third of a film be nominated for best picture? Frankly I don't believe that would have been very fair to other other fully completed films that are up for nomination.

Bane

Please note: I am not telling anyone that this is the right way to see the film, which is why I put the word "right" in quotations. I'm merely stating that, if you have issues with how long it is or something along those lines, then this is a possible perspective to try out. If you feel it's too short, try watching both parts and get back to me after the 4 hours and 10 minutes it will take you to finish it.

Darth Ledger

This is exactly how I view it. If you could combine the two together somehow through master editing, and re-release it on Blu-Ray as one film, it would help people see this better. That won't happen so you just have to link them in your brain and make these connections yourself. What you said about horror can be directly applied to this because we see the movie for something more than what a film critic who cares little for Harry Potter sees.

Darth Ledger

P.S. @Bane if you don't read my short horror story over there and criticize it I will kick your ass.

Bane

Yes, the way that they're split concerning the editing would make it very hard to connect them, but like you said if you can do it "in your head" it's easier to see. It's really in large part due to the music and how Hogwarts is introduced at the beginning of Part 2. I think the white flash from the end of the Voldemort scene at the end of Part 1 could transition to the white foggy glow of the dementors shot, but then you have the music and the shots of Snape to deal with which makes it more difficult.

Bane

I will, I will!

Darth Ledger

Bane said:

Yes, the way that they're split concerning the editing would make it very hard to connect them, but like you said if you can do it "in your head" it's easier to see. It's really in large part due to the music and how Hogwarts is introduced at the beginning of Part 2. I think the white flash from the end of the Voldemort scene at the end of Part 1 could transition to the white foggy glow of the dementors shot, but then you have the music and the shots of Snape to deal with which makes it more difficult.

When I view it as linear it goes like this:

Voldemort takes the elder wand and fires it into the sky. The very next transition is from the screen lighting up from the spell to the clouds seperating to show the dementors and Hogwarts.

Then go from there.

Braveheart

I can see where you're coming from, certainly, but because there is such a distinctly different feeling and atmosphere between both Parts, I find it hard to mesh them as one movie in my brain. It would probably work more successfully without the Hogwarts transition and everything - in fact I'd love to see how they originally had it edited when Malfoy Manor was the opening for Part 2.

However I think comparing a two part GOF is slightly unfair. For one, in Part 1 we had the Voldemort wand plot which was more or less the overall story arc for Part 1, and gave it at least some sense of closure and completeness. On the other hand, the Triwizard Tournament is a much more direct overall story for GOF, and gives it a clearly defined three act structure; to split that really would make it feel much less complete than either part of DH did, because no story arcs within the story are actually tied up at that point. If you're looking for a comparison, imagine OOTP as a two parter. Part 1 would be about their struggle to learn DADA, with the DA and ending roughly around Dumbledore's Departure. Part 2 would be concerned with the Department of Mysteries and Occlumency lessons and all the members of the Order at Hogwarts being taken away one by one until Harry is forced to the Ministry. I think that would be a more similar comparison to make to DH.

I have a much greater affinity for Part 2 these days, but Part 1 feels much more polished to me, as if much more time was spent perfecting it. We know that they were struggling with meeting the deadline for finishing Part 2 in time for 3D, and there's been talk from Yates of scenes he wanted to add if given more time, but I'm not letting those factors govern how I feel about this. It's more that within itself, Part 2 feels a tad unfinished in places. There's a few too many plot points skirted or ham-fistedly mentioned without introduction or any further mention.

This goes more for the series as a whole, but a lot of times I think the problem with the writing is that it fails to introduce plot points when they were supposed to appear, but then in the next film suddenly starts acting as if it had in fact been introduced, instead of taking the time to introduce it in a different way for the movie. It gives it such a disjointed feel at times, and then hastily making up ground with hole-plugging dialogue can make scenes frustrated. I look to the mirror shard as a prime example. Why not introduce it in Dumbledore's will? Have it simply lying on Dumbledore's desk at the end of HBP and then have Harry think he catches sight of Dumbledore? It just throws you off balance to have this appear in Harry's hand from nowhere and have it unexplained for the better part of 2 films when it figures so importantly. I'm sorry to go off on a quite unrelated tangent here, but this just got me thinking. ;)

TheDoctor

I think Part 2 can stand pretty okay on its own tbh

And yes, Part 2 is kind of a "2 hour" conclusion/climax to Part 1 and the entire series, but that's because that's what the source material and the plot calls for, the film makers didn't generously stretch out the climax, the story's structure required it to be that long because much more happens in it than can be fit into 10-15 minutes (i'm probably not getting my thoughts across well lol)

I'd say in both book and movie the climax of the entire series is basically the entire Hogwarts sequence and the climax of the entire DH story is Harry sacrificing himself/Harry vs. Voldemort

yonythemoony

I think that The DH movies are just like a single movie, with three acts. The first act with Harry at The Burrow, then going to Grimmauld Place and sneaking into The Ministry. The second act is The trio's exile, Ron's departure, going to the Lovegoods and Malfoy Manor and Dobby's death. Voldemort stealing The Elder Wand it's The end of Act 2. And The third act it's Gringotts and the final battle. Basically we had a two hours movie of the third act. When they could have made a single three hours movie, and the third act as the last 30 minutes, like OOTP.

Darth Ledger

I know everybody generally hates me for this but I really want to see remakes within 10 years so we can see a telling of the story with the whole plot being known.

TheDoctor

yonythemoony said:

I think that The DH movies are just like a single movie, with three acts. The first act with Harry at The Burrow, then going to Grimmauld Place and sneaking into The Ministry. The second act is The trio's exile, Ron's departure, going to the Lovegoods and Malfoy Manor and Dobby's death. Voldemort stealing The Elder Wand it's The end of Act 2. And The third act it's Gringotts and the final battle. Basically we had a two hours movie of the third act. When they could have made a single three hours movie, and the third act as the last 30 minutes, like OOTP.

But that's the thing. They could not have made that entire third act 30 minutes even if it had been one film. It's much more dense/long than, say, OotP's climax.

LoyalWeasley18

I agree with @Braveheart. Over thanksgiving holiday, I watched DH 1 and 2 back to back from a filmmakers point of view, and coming form that point of view, Part 1 and 2 had very different feels and tones to it, Part 1 had a slow fast pace to it putting storyline and background to it, Part 2 had a very fast pace storyline, (We were in Gringotts by the first 15 minutes of the film). But I have to admit that Shell Cottage was the best place for the split. It had "the calm before the storm* moment feel, or in the words of Gandalf, "The deep breath before the plunge" feel.


PS: Im doing my review thread of both films soon.

Bane

Parts 1 and 2 feel different, not because of the filmmakers, but because of the book which also had two different tones to it. That's why I don't really agree with that argument. They feel different because the book goes from being slow and melancholic to action heavy and dramatic as well. I think if you're going to say that Part 1 and Part 2 feel different enough to be separate movies, then I say the exact same could be said of the book. But it's not, it's one book, it's just that part of it is very slow and character centric and melancholic and the final third is more action heavy yet contemplative in moments (Snape's memories).

I say this because I don't think the filmmakers could have made them similar. It's what the source material called for. That and I don't think that they're so different to the point where they look and feel like two different movies. The filmmaking style is much the same, although I think Part 2 has slightly better cinematography and coloring.

Bane

TheDoctor said:

And yes, Part 2 is kind of a "2 hour" conclusion/climax to Part 1 and the entire series, but that's because that's what the source material and the plot calls for, the film makers didn't generously stretch out the climax, the story's structure required it to be that long because much more happens in it than can be fit into 10-15 minutes (i'm probably not getting my thoughts across well lol)

The point I'm trying to make is that they could have condensed the climax down much, much further than they did. Heyman even said that if they kept it as one film they would have completely lost the Snape memories. That's how dire it would have been. So yes, I feel that it was a gracious move on their part to split it and stretch out the climax. Basically I'm saying that we got a lot more than we would have otherwise, and we got a lot more than we were at some points going to get before Kloves said hey, this can't be done without a much longer running time or two movies.

Bane

Finally, yes, I understand that the way that Part 1 ends and Part 2 begins wouldn't work together as one long film as they are, but that was done by the filmmakers to help differentiate the two movies and justify the split-- they didn't want people thinking that they were paying for half a movie, so it begins where Part 1 left off and has its own grandiose opening with Hogwarts and Snape and the title and everything. Those are elements that were put into place in order to make Part 2 begin in a standard kind of way instead of just starting the film right off the bat. So naturally it would be difficult to make them flow but only in that regard; it would be very easy for them to redo it to where it would sync up perfectly.

Bane

Good post though, Braveheart, excellent points that I don't even necessarily disagree with, especially the comparison to Goblet of Fire. I wasn't actually saying that it's a fair comparison, I was just using its events and act structure as examples. But each book/film is very different in terms of the amount of material.

TheDoctor

I know this is an extremely lame argument and i'm just sort of going against what was said, but I think there is no way they would ever have completely cut Snape's memories. I think Heyman was just saying that for dramatic impact to justify the split. Why would you cut Snape's memories, one of the main cores of DH and the entire series, when there's plenty of other stuff that could be cut/trimmed if it just had to be one film. That would be an awful decision.

I do think they should have given Part 1 more of an ending with a better climax and more of an emotional resolution (Hallows vs. Horcruxes).

Braveheart

See to me the movies feel different on a film-making level too. It's probably intentional, since the crew and Yates set out to make them feel different, but the cinematography in Part 1 was much more naturalistic. In Part 2 there was a lot more of that sweeping operatic feel to it. The music was ten times as grand and epic, too. Of course different sections of the novel call for different styles, but it doesn't look to me as though they were particularly bothered with trying to make the style similar anyway.

Braveheart

TheDoctor said:

I know this is an extremely lame argument and i'm just sort of going against what was said, but I think there is no way they would ever have completely cut Snape's memories. I think Heyman was just saying that for dramatic impact to justify the split. Why would you cut Snape's memories, one of the main cores of DH and the entire series, when there's plenty of other stuff that could be cut/trimmed if it just had to be one film. That would be an awful decision.

I do think they should have given Part 1 more of an ending with a better climax and more of an emotional resolution (Hallows vs. Horcruxes).

I don't think they would necessarily have taken away the whole thing, but the memories would certainly have been cut to the bare essentials, possibly less since they aren't too concerned with exposition. Basically it would have been the scene of Snape changing allegience, him promising to kill Dumbledore, and the reveal of Harry being a Horcrux. The whole Lily motivation would likely have been savaged.

The funny thing is, Kloves would probably have kept the tent dance. :))

Bane

Braveheart said:

See to me the movies feel different on a film-making level too. It's probably intentional, since the crew and Yates set out to make them feel different, but the cinematography in Part 1 was much more naturalistic. In Part 2 there was a lot more of that sweeping operatic feel to it. The music was ten times as grand and epic, too. Of course different sections of the novel call for different styles, but it doesn't look to me as though they were particularly bothered with trying to make the style similar anyway.

I simply think its more naturalistic because they're in more naturalistic environments. The cinematography is piloted in such a way to where when they're out in the woods and getting pissed off at each other, we get more off-balanced shots to reflect the uncertain, doom-like situations whereas its more focused in Part 2 because they know what they have to do and there's more of a bee-line to the resolution instead of being stuck and having nowhere to go or any idea what to do.

I get what you're saying but I simply think the filmmaking style is nothing more than a product of the material and the environments where they were shot. It makes all the sense in the world for Part 1 to have a more naturalistic and unsteady style because the story takes place in such environments and with such a tone. However the entire film isn't shaky cam or off kilter, there are plenty of very deliberate and steadily-shot sequences like everything in Godric's Hollow. In fact I would say that apart from the scenes in the forests and a couple of shots in Grimmauld place that there wasn't a whole lot of shaky cam used.

I think the most natural shot in the entire movie is right after the cafe attack when we see them walking down the sidewalk from afar.

Richard

I agree Bane. That is all.

Darth Ledger

Just as Deathly Hallows is one book with two feels, so the movie is one movie with two feels.

The first act of Full Metal Jacket is so radically different than the rest that it feels like two movies but it's not. In our case we just got more of our finale than anybody else.

Pumpkinjuice

^ And the first part of that film is much better than the second.

I choose to see them as two films. Partly because I prefer part 2 over part 1 and thus would not want part 1's flaws carried over into my precious part 2 (which does have some minor weaknesses too, mind you). The main reason, however, is that they have different filmmaking styles and themes. Natural, yes, as they were cut into two halves at the book's turning point, but putting the book aside there is no denying that they are two different films. If the book was divided into two parts, I would have regarded them as two books because they would have been released as such. That's why I view the two parts as two different films.

If they are considered one film, then some of its themes would not feel well-developed, particularly that of racism. Part 2 didn't focus on Voldemort's regime in itself at all like part 1, but rather on the importance of fighting against it. Moreover, when adapting part 2 Yates and Kloves chose to omit all scenes in the book concerning "magic is might" ideas because it wasn't part of the story they told. For instance, rather than Neville telling Voldemort that it doesn't matter that he is a Griffindor, they replaced that with him saying it doesn't matter that Harry is gone; they will continue fighting. Why? Because they told a story about undying devotion.