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.