In case you don’t know how this works — a while back, I decided to rank my favorite Disney movies and rank my favorite James Bond movies. And the Disney ones were mostly straight synopses and not too much fun, but when I got to Bond, I enlisted the help of my friend Colin (whose blog is TokyoRemix.com. Fuck yeah, promotion!), who knows everything about the Bond franchise that I do not, for those articles, and along the way, learned how to have fun with it. And, by the end of the Bond articles, we were having so much fun that I said, “Man, we have to do this again with other stuff.” Because I spent about a straight month and a half putting together those articles. That’s how much time and effort actually goes into something like that. And not once did it feel like work. It was so much fun that I knew, as long as we were doing it for comedy purposes and able to riff off of each other — we could do pretty much any film and it would work.

And very quickly, the first ones you come up with are the major franchises, because those are not only the most fun, but also the most universally known. Everyone’s gonna understand all the jokes we make (well… most of them. Some of them might be limited to three people) about them. So that’s what we’re doing. And if you’re gonna have fun with franchises, it wouldn’t be right if you didn’t franchise it. Also, just so we’re clear, this is all for parody. We’re just messing with them because we love them.

And that’s Fun with Franchises. Right now, we’re doing the Harry Potter franchise, and today is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Part II.

We begin Part II as everyone prepares for war.

The paintings are in on it too?

Or are they just breaking out?

Ron and Hermione were thinking – it doesn’t matter if they find the horcrux, they need to be able to destroy it. So they were thinking…

“Well, Ron was thinking, it was Ron’s idea, it was completely brilliant…”

Jesus, you two. Get a room of requirement already.

Colin:

Who cares whose idea it was? Stop sucking Ron’s dick.

Really, though. It’s a ginger dick.

Just — eww.

They’re gonna go get a basilisk fang.

I bet there are some wizard dildos shaped like that.

(Right, Emily?)

Harry gives them the Marauder’s Map so they can find him when they get back.

One thing I like about franchises, especially this one, is how, in certain circumstances, they introduce something the first time and it’s a big deal, but by the end it’s just a commonplace thing you use. The invisibility cloak (which it turns out is a huge fucking deal), the Marauder’s Map – they used to have their own scenes when they were used. Now it’s like, “Take the map,” and it’s just an aside. I like that. I like that feeling like we’ve gone somewhere during all the time we spent here. We’ve grown and learned more, so the shit that was a big deal when we were eleven is like, “Oh, yeah, that.”

Of course, this works both ways. Colin and I have taken some issue with similar things. But you know – sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn’t.

By the way… where the fuck is the invisibility cloak?

He’s going to the Ravenclaw common room.

But Luna’s got something to say. And then she ain’t gonna say no more.

(It’s like a compulsion to finish that phrase with the rest of the line. It really is.)

Colin:

It’s been quite a while now that everyone’s been prepping – why are they all still running up and down the stairs? I’d have found my spot and be holding it down. Like, I’d find a remote classroom to hide in the back of. And then I’d pull a combination of Splinter Cell and Home Alone shit, putting broken glass and marbles on the floor so I hear them come in just before they slip and fall. Defense. 

You know what’d be REALLY effective? How about having a full-grown mandrake on hand and giving out earmuffs to students? You know who doesn’t wear earmuffs? Death Eaters.

The strategy here that’s not taken is quite incredible.

Send a dude up to the Dark Tower or the owlery as a sniper. Take some fucking Felix Felicis, for christ’s sake!

Then again, it’s not like they’ve had any consistent teaching in this area, so it stands to reason that they don’t know how to defend against the dark arts.

(You think anyone has a degree in the dark fine arts?)

Colin:

It’s a castle, too. It seems like everything about this place is medieval except its defenses. Ain’t got any boiling oil? Can’t you Wingardium Leviosa some shit down on them? Even if this wouldn’t stop the Death Eaters, it might slow down some giants. Even if they’re super strong and have magical resistances, you’re talking about a physical being that lives in a world based on rules. It will never be as strong or as fast as they are. Stop trying to hit them and hit them.

That is true — why aren’t there spells that throw boiling oil on a motherfucker? Also, why aren’t people breaking out right now? Take the fucking passageway to Hogsmeade. You’re making it like this is the one war to end all wars. No it’s not. This isn’t Sauron. This is literally Voldemort taking over this tiny ass area of London right now. He only wants Harry anyway. He literally does not give a fuck about any of you.

But back to the original point… what the fuck are people doing, running around? Are they trying to load their shit into cars? Are they trying to get on brooms and break out? This happens in every panic scene, and it leads me to believe it’s just to give off the idea of panic. This is one of those things I need to remember, since it seems like it’s one of those stupid things that movies do just because. One of those things nobody thinks about.

“So let me get this straight – you’re actually giving us permission to do this?”

“That is correct, Longbottom.”

“To blow it up? Boom?”

“Boom!”

I love Maggie.

Colin:

Maggie Smith saying “boom” made this whole franchise worthwhile.

Ladies and gentlemen — the internet:

“How the fuck are we supposed to do that?”

“Why don’t you confer with Mr. Finnegan? As I recall, he has a particular proclivity for pyrotechnics.”

Colin: 

YES! The running gag about Seamus blowing shit up constantly has finally been put to good use! He gets to be the Don Cheadle.

Yes.

(By the way — one of my favorite moments in cinema. Ever. That’s so badass to me.)

Also, look at Filius Flitwick (baddest motherfucker at Hogwarts). He knows.

I heard Flitwick once rubbed his balls on Voldemort’s forehead while he was sleeping and Voldemort didn’t do anything about it.

“I can bring it down.”

“That’s the spirit, now. On you go.”

Flitwick’s like, “You know this is only a temporary fix, right? He’ll get in. You-Know-Who will get in.”

“His name is Robert Paulson Voldemort! You might as well use it. He’s going to try to kill you either way.”

Colin:

Thank you for finally voicing this point, Maggie. Use the guy’s name, people.

Maggie needs some protection.

^ ^ ^ ^ ^

Tally ho!

That’ll work.

“You must protect this house!”

“I’ve always wanted to use that spell!”

Maggie.

Colin:

Mrs. Weasley’s like, “THAT WAS A THING?” And rightly so. That’s one of the most badass things we’ve seen at Hogwarts yet.

Maggie says she’s always wanted to use that spell…us too. But that means she hasn’t used it, and it was on some teacher’s manual that she got when she first became a professor. “So that’s where all the fire escapes are. Next, the spell to summon a host of stone golems to protect the school in the event of invasion.”

That was always one of the things I loved. Because presumably there are these kinds of spells. Just like how we’re all waiting for that one day we get to legally pull a fire alarm (which I totally got to do), or use a fire extinguisher. It’s very exciting when there’s this awesome sounding thing you can’t use unless there’s an emergency or something. So when there is an emergency, finally, it’s like, “YES!”

I want to expand on this shit. That’s why I want to do the TV series. Because you get to think about this stuff. What’s on the emergency pamphlet of shit you can use? What are those spells that exist that have use in only like one or two situations?

Time to work your shit, Filius Flitwick.

This is a man that can literally charm the pants off of any woman.

This looks like he’s just lobbing mortars out at them.

Oh, they’re all casting Protego Maximas.

Colin:

Three people firing off Protego Maxima, and only one of them makes it look fucking badass. Do I even have to say which one I’m talking about?

(Hint: he’s gonna fight in the battle and conduct choir practice at the same time.)

Hey, you two – how bout you fucking help too?

Shit be protected.

Colin:

Wait…wait. Right?

Luna needs a word.

She says he won’t find what he’s looking for up there. He ain’t got time for this shit.

“Harry Potter! You listen to me right now!”

YES! Luna!

Reaction shots are the key to comedy.

“No one alive’s seen this thing for hundreds of years.”

“Don’t you get it? We have to talk to someone who’s dead.”

Colin:

Note how something Cho said is the basis for Luna’s line of reasoning here. Cause that makes a whole lot of sense. Maybe there IS someone alive who’s seen it. Voldie’s seen it, so there’s already at least one. I think she should have told Harry to talk to Helena Ravenclaw on the grounds that she’s smart and he’s a moronic Gryffindor. Sure, they’re brave, but if Hermione wasn’t there to raise the house GPA…

How do the grades work at this place? Presumably you can’t get “Exceeds Expectations” on a paper.

Light bulb. (Literally.)

“It’s very impressive, isn’t it?”

“Goddamn right, it is.”

Colin:

Wait…wait. Right?

The Battle for Helm’s Deep is over. The Battle for Middle Earth is just begun.

They’re going to talk to the Gray Lady.

What up, Kelly MacDonald?

She’s Helena Ravenclaw. Rowena’s daughter.

(Ain’t got time to haunt your own house so you have your child do it for you?)

(Man, this is like Christianity.)

He’s friends with Luna, so she’ll speak to him. (Of course Luna would be friends with a ghost.)

She says she can’t help.

Just like Voldemort.

(Also does this count as ghost sex?)

Here’s what Colin had to say about the same shot:

Colin:

When ghosts fly through your chest, is that like their version of a ‘fuck you?’”

It’s probably both.

“Wait, you’re not gonna help me, after what we just shared?”

“I love you!”

(There’s the panty dropper.)

“At my signal, unleash hell.”

“They never learn. Such a pity.”

I feel like that might be the tagline for this entire franchise.

Ooh, Pink Floyd show!

Colin:

For your consideration: the Jericho.

I guess they’re gonna fight in the shade.

I wonder what Jet Li’s doing right now.

“Look, baby. These fireworks are all for you.”

Goddamn, Helena. Calm yo tits.

Colin:

I don’t like her. Why you gotta be all evil-ghosty? I wonder if she and the Bloody Baron still talk.

Harry Potter TV series idea: That conversation.

(And if you guys don’t know why that conversation would be so interesting, google “Bloody Baron” and find out.)

Harry says he can destroy the diadem only if she tells him where Voldie hid it.

She says it’s in the castle, “In the place where everything is hidden.”

That would be both nowhere and counterintuitive at the same time. Great job.

Colin:

She didn’t even need to give him the riddle, did she? The place where everything is hidden? This place comes up left and right for just about everything.

OUTTA MY WAY BLACKIE!

(He doesn’t have a good relationship with the blacks.)

Why do they have Dean with them?

Colin:

I love the idea that Dean Thomas is like Kingsley Shacklebolt’s protégé. Although, I don’t think he’s supposed to be here. He wasn’t at school that year because it was suspected he was of muggle birth. Remember how Rowling made him a half-blood whose [black] father skipped out on them and then got killed? Racism.

I thought Kingsley was just teaching him how to play the blues.

“Tell Professor McGonagall Remus and I will handle this side of the castle.”

That’s awesome. “Us two – we got the whole side.” And he says it with that tone of – “We got this shit.”

Oh, but then he tells Dean they might need a few more wands. That would have been awesome if he stuck by his “we got this shit” guns.

Lupin says some bullshit about how it’s the amount of conviction you have and not the number of followers that dictates success. Which is totally true, for the most part, it’s just – why would you randomly say that? Because you needed to get a line in?

Colin:

Saying some weird, poetic shit and then it turns out you’re quoting yourself. Little Patton for you.

The way he does it is kind of dickish. Why would you ask who said that? It’s just one of those things someone says and you go, “Yeah, all right.” This reeks of “dialogue.”

Aww… one of them’s gonna be dead soon.

Colin:

These are the only twins I like. Every other set of twins – especially identical twins – creeps me out. Somebody needs to separate them all.

Or bring them together.

(For anyone who didn’t click on the link yet — I don’t blame you. You have no idea where that’s going, but you can guess. And you’re right.)

Ron be speaking that hassa hassa shit now.

Colin:

That ACTUALLY started with “hassa.”

“Oh, that’s right, I can do parseltongue too. I’ll show you later.”

He actually says, “Harry talks in his sleep. Have you noticed?” And she’s like, “No, of course not.”

(Thanks for reminding us too, assholes.)

Colin:

I will accept that Harry talks in his sleep. He’s fucked up to begin with. What I’m a little confused about is how Ron was able to distinguish which hassa hassa word meant “friend,” and why Harry was saying that in his sleep at all. Does he have snake dreams? Do we want to know what a snake dream entails?*

*Not kidding, in college I had to read a 12th century Japanese story called, “How a Snake Who Sees the Penis of a Napping Monk Dies after Receiving and Swallowing Semen.” No matter what I do, that will always be something that contributed to earning my undergraduate degree. Japan: Disgusting for Over 1000 Years!

Well there goes that autobiography title!

Also, what does a snake dream entail?

And that is a point — how does he get the exact wording of parseltongue correctly? How did Harry manage to say the exact Chamber of Secrets password in his sleep and how did Ron know that’s what it was and differentiate it from all the other hassa hassas Harry said in his sleep and memorize it?

Wouldn’t he have memorized it better when he was fucking THERE when Harry opened it last time?

Also, have they just not opened this thing since their second year? Didn’t plug it up or nothing? Just left it there for people to open? You could probably get a good stickball game down there.

Not the Quidditch pitch!

Well that’s not good.

There must be some crazy sales going on today.

“Whoa, shit!”

Colin:

This guy has a pretty awesome Gangs of New York outfit going on.

“That’s right. DO SOMETHING!”

Colin:

People can’t act badass in a Cosby sweater.

Great framing.

I like how they all make each other destroy horcruxes. Harry destroyed one, and then with the second, is like, “Here Ron, you do it.” And now Ron’s destroyed one and is like, “Here, Hermione, you do it.”

That means the final tally of who destroys horcruxes is – Harry does 2, Dumbledore does 1, Ron does 1, Hermione does 1, Crabbe/Goyle does 1 (depending on if it’s the book or the film – more on that later), Neville does 1 and Voldemort does 1.

Sorry. Couldn’t resist.

Look at Ron. “Goddamn, that’s a lot of water.”

Colin:

They just got Ramses’ed.

“Wanna make out?”

“Yes!”

It had to be this way. They never address SPEW once in the movies. (Assholes.)

“I can stay down here too, if you like.”

Well, we know how he ejaculates.

(Also, fun thing to do – go back up to Hermione destroying the horcrux and just scroll through the photos. The cuts to Voldemort make it hilarious.)

Aww… they’re gonna die too.

And that’s the final time we see them, I think.

(What happened to Kingsley?)

Dude came so hard he cracked the Elder Wand.

Colin:

I feel like we’ve been pussyfooting around this for a while now, but isn’t it weird how the Elder Wand has knuckles?

This might be the best image in the film.

Colin:

Gosh, maybe you should’ve just unleashed that power in the first place. Doesn’t feel like you’re taking this all that seriously, Tommy.

Yeah, you’ve kinda fucked, Neville.

Colin:

This looks like a fucking Capital One commercial.

How the fuck did they string dynamite on that bridge so quickly? That’s a pretty fucking steep incline to be traversing over the span of like, twenty minutes. Why couldn’t we see that scene? With Seamus stringing up the explosives?

Bye, bridge.

Hard to tell who’s more turned on right now, and for what reason.

Nah, son, Neville ain’t dead. He got a snake to kill.

Colin:

And…Neville climbs back up, just like Harrison Ford in The Last Crusade. This is pretty blatant.

“That went well.”

Why wouldn’t you just put up more protections spells?

Colin:

Right? Can’t you just replenish the charm as it gets worn down? Can you make layers? It doesn’t seem like there’s a limit to their magic ability. Obviously this happens in video games, cause they need to keep you from having UNLIMITED POWER, but in the films it seems like you can do just about whatever you want and not get fatigued. Why would you not just put up more? I guess they already broke this one, but it would take THREE PEOPLE another TEN WHOLE SECONDS and NO ENERGY to do it again. 

Of course they have a troll.

Most dangerous motherfucker in the group right there.

I heard he once did ten shots of snake venom, and had to stop because the snake died.

Helm’s Deep. Not even gonna mention it again. You all know it.

He’s the orc with the torch.

Zap!

“Bitch, don’t you try that shit on me. I’m Arthur Weasley.”

(Also, here’s a question – how come Durmstrang and those other places don’t come to help out? They say the fate of the wizarding world is up for grabs, but this is one school. The Ministry of Magic is just the English Ministry, isn’t it? Or are we supposed to believe that this is still actually the center of the wizarding world?)

Colin:

THANK YOU. WHERE IS AMERICA? I refuse to believe American wizards are bitches. How great would that have been if America showed up in the last book, and it was a ‘stupid Yanks, late for every war’ thing? But then we totally kick ass.

Kingsley is awesome.

Flee, children. Flee!

Oh, Harry just fucked his day up!

Colin:

Okay, we’re under attack by HUNDREDS of Death Eaters, looking to harm and probably kill anyone they can, especially you. Can you PLEASE stop using Stupefy? MURDER THEM ALL.

“You haven’t seen Luna, have you?”

Oh, god, this moment!

I need to take a second here and talk about how much I hate this fucking moment. Because not only does it reek of “let’s tie everything up nicely,” but it also reeks of AWFUL EXECUTION.

First off – you know they were sitting there, like, “Harry and Ginny get together, Ron and Hermione end up together, so we should pair up Luna and Neville and make everything perfect.” You know they did that. That’s the only way you make this decision. And second – THIS is where you throw it in? How fucking terrible is this moment? “I feel great, I just almost got killed! Oh, by the way, you know that girl I never really interacted with ever on screen? I have a thing for her. I’m gonna go tell her in the middle of this fucking WAR ZONE, because we’ll probably both be dead soon anyway, and because it’ll make shit seem nice for the viewing audience at home.” It’s so horrible I think it gave at least three people cancer. No joke. Pick any three people with cancer – I bet you this moment is the cause of it.

I’ve never actually said “Fuck you” to this franchise before, but I’ll say it for this moment. That’s actually unforgivable, what they just did, because it was done for all the wrong reasons.

Now, I get that you can say, “Oh, well, they just date for a bit before he marries Hannah Abbott and she marries Rolf Scamander (not that I have any idea who they marry or anything),” but this is a movie. When the movie ends, we don’t get to see the future. We only see what they tell us. This is something we’ve said all along the way. In the movies, for five movies, all we saw was Harry and Hermione clearly on the path to getting together. We fucking SAW IT. What movies tell you is all you have to go by, and nothing more. And this movie says “Neville fancies Luna and is going to tell her he loves her,” and nothing more. Well, we see them sitting next to one another later, and then nothing more. So what are we to presume from that? You can’t bring the books into this, because when a movie does it, there are implications. Which is why this scene may, in fact, be the single worst in the entire franchise.

So I’ll just come right out and say it again – “Fuck you guys for this.” It didn’t need it, it’s wholly unnecessary, and if you cut it out no one would miss it.

Horrible scene.

And again, I’m telling you – at least three people. Cancer.

Colin:

This is a movie-only relationship. Neville confesses his love for Luna, which isn’t really a thing. In the books, he ends up marrying Hannah Abbott, whose only appearance in these films was wearing a “Potter Stinks” badge during Goblet of Fire. Luna marries Rolf Scamander, the grandson of the author of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. They’re book zoologists. But since we don’t have time for that, why not put two characters together at the last minute for dramatic effect? Fuck ‘em.

And of course they need to make out now.

“We may die, but I love you.”

“What about your five brothers and your parents?”

What’s even dumber is that she just says, “I know.” I guess the assumption is that he was thinking. “I love you,” which of course we never hear him say. Which is always the basis for a solid marriage. But how do we know that’s what he was thinking. What if it was, “I really wish we had time for you to suck my dick right now”? “I know.”

“Now you got me thinking about the time where I fucked you doggystyle over the Chamber of Secrets sink.” “I know.”

“We really need to schedule that appointment with the abortion guy tomorrow.” “I know.”

“Is my door unlocked? I’m worried I may have left it unlocked.” “I know.”

“Pizza.” “I know.”

Seriously. “I know.” Was that supposed to be awesome or something? Or was she just covering up for the lack of intimacy she knows he has? No – make him say it. That’s his JOB to say it. Who gives a fuck if he has to go find some pieces of his mortal enemy’s soul before said enemy kills him – it’s two words, and he can say them.

Colin:

She just says, “I know,” and we’re expected to know what he means as well. After all the action has died down and they get to talk again, it turns out he was about to say, “In case I die, and you find my porn stash…I’ve only gotten into amputee stuff as a coping mechanism after Mad Eye died for me.” And she’s cool with it.

And look at this run up the stairs – seriously, where are you going? Where are any of these people going?

Hey, remember when you couldn’t apparate on school grounds?

(Why the fuck isn’t everyone else doing this? Apparate to fucking America or something. Shit, apparate to the fucking Bahamas. I don’t think Voldemort’s making his way to Nassau anytime soon. Go drink liquor out of a coconut and bang bitches.)

Colin:

What if someone was running through that exact spot as Draco apparated to it? Does that do a splinching sort of thing? How does that work, if you don’t know what’s there? What if you imagine a place and then apparate to it, but it’s changed since you were last there, and now there’s something in your way or nothing there at all? (Oh…Alderaan. I’m so sorry.)

“You – black kid, Goyle. Come with me.”

Also, fun fact: you know why the black kid is now Draco’s new henchman? Blaise? Or Token, as I call him? Because the actor who played Crabbe was arrested for having weed and they wrote him out of the franchise without telling anybody. So now Goyle is the one that has Crabbe’s scene in the Room of Requirement coming up, and Blaise is the other sidekick.

Another fun fact: the actor who played Crabbe was also, in 2011, sentenced to two years of prison for participating in the London riots and having a Molotov cocktail with him.

So if you’re gonna go out, go out like that.

Fiendfyre indeed.

Colin:

You don’t really NEED need something unless you close your eyes.

(Note: That’s how Harry summons the room. I’m not wasting time with a screenshot.)

You know what’s funny? The Room of Requirement has been in the same place for the last two years, and it has had the same look to it for the last two years. It’s my understanding that it presents itself wherever the person is and fits itself to the person’s particular needs. Two questions with that –

One – why didn’t it present itself to Harry downstairs when he was talking to Helena Ravenclaw? He knew where he had to go and he had real need of it. Why did he have to run all the way upstairs to find it? Is it actually just in that one spot? Is that it? I thought the beauty of the room was that it could appear anywhere within the castle? Do you actually have to be walking by it and have real need of it for it to appear? Because that’s bullshit. Then it’s just about, “Can I make this thing appear with what I need?” Once one person finds it, then everyone knows where it is and what it’s deal is.” Then it’s about who needs it more.

Two – why isn’t it appearing for everyone and turning into a fucking panic room?

Colin:

One – it’s always in the same spot in the castle, and everyone seems to know about it. 

Two – regardless of what your need is, it seems that it’s not indestructible. Remember when they needed a safe, secret place to hide and have practices for Dumbledore’s Army? Umbridge was still able to break through the wall with no problem.

Which is so dumb. What the fuck is the point if that’s all it does?

And going back to the other thing — how the fuck do you fix a room of requirement? Umbridge broke the wall? How’d they get that back together?

(You think they made Filch do it? Made him stand there with some bricks and a trowel?)

They’re tracking Harry.

And speaking of tracking — did we ever find out just how the “Ministry” tracks all these people? Did we ask about that? Is it a wand thing? Unless you’re putting devices in people’s forearms, I don’t see how you can track everyone like they’re doing.

Yes, Ron. That’s Harry. Good job. You can read.

But then Harry disappears.

“Maybe he’s gone to the Room of Requirement.”

HOW FUCKING DENSE CAN YOU BE?!!! OF COURSE HE WENT TO THE GODDAMN ROOM OF REQUIREMENT!

You figure all this shit out about horcruxes based on NOTHING, and you can’t figure out where the fuck Harry went when he disappears on a Marauder’s Map in the EXACT place the Room of Requirement is?

Colin:

So the Room of Requirement is in the same place all the time, and I feel like an idiot repeating myself, but why would you NOT know that he was going there? You spent like half of your fifth years in this room. It’s like when Luna and Harry are going to Slughorn’s party, and the Room of Requirement is RIGHT there, but Luna says it’s her first time in that part of the castle. Everyone knows WHERE it is, so it should be no mystery whatsoever when he disappears. This feels like them saying, “Harry’s at 42nd and Broadway…do you think he’s at Times Square?” YES, YOU RETARDS.

(Also, again, where’s the Invisibility Cloak during all of this? He had it in Gringotts, so I guess that means Hermione has it in her bag. Which makes it even dumber of a question for Ron to wonder if he went to the Room of Requirement. No. He just stands there and thinks really hard and he can turn himself invisible at will. You fucking mo-Ron.)

Then again, this does back up my idea that the Room of Requirement isn’t in a fixed location. So which is it –am I right or are they just really stupid right now for no reason?

And then they try to pass it off like Ron being, “You said it doesn’t show up on the map last year,” and Hermione being like, “That’s right, I did.”

Look, Hermione, he didn’t just get smarter, you just had a really low opinion of him. Or your brain is completely clouded with thoughts of ginger dick. You JUST said how smart he was with the basilisk fang thing – why are you so impressed that he remembered something?

Is this how low the bar has fallen for Ron?

Colin:

He tied his own shoes this morning!

Ron:

I wipe my own ass!

Gonna have to get some squib day laborers to fix this shit.

Why does Malfoy need backup to go there? I get that he’s a bitch, but he did fight against Harry twice now.

Seriously – hasn’t changed in two years. Kind of a mixed message on the word “requirement” there. Harry required the ability to find the horcrux. I’m pretty sure he didn’t think, “You know what I need right now? A giant room full of shit that I have to sift through to find what I’m looking for.” This looks like Charles Foster Kane’s house at the end. Good job finding the sled, buddy.

(Where’s Ginny when you need some Rosebud?)

Colin:

Are there infinite Rooms of Requirement? This is one that’s full of junk, and junk that’s been here for decades at least. But when they used it two years ago, it was empty and just what they needed. This goes with the idea that the Room of Requirement is whatever you need it to be. However, what if two people need it for two things at the same time? If someone’s already in there, do you not get to go in unless you have the same need as them? Or would it open into a whole new room that’s completely separate just for you and your need? If so, why would all this junk be stored in the same room?

Wouldn’t you want your own room to hide something so precious, instead of leaving it around for literally ANYONE who needs to hide their shit to just come across? And if there ISN’T an infinite number of rooms, wouldn’t the best strategy be to have someone take up residence inside with some very peculiar needs so that nobody else could get inside and use the room?

It’s also weird that he managed to turn three of the four major house objects into horcruxes, but not that fourth one, the one that can destroy horcruxes. What if he also turned the Sword of Gryffindor into one? I’d say they’d be pretty fucked then, huh? Kind of weird that he never got his hands on that one, but got his hands on all the other ones.

I also love that the Slytherin ring was always his, by birth, the Ravenclaw diadem he got by conning Helena, but the Hufflepuff Cup? He probably just said, “I’m taking this,” and nobody did anything.

Also, isn’t this “the place where it is hidden”? Padfoot wasn’t here. More shit is hidden here. The prophecy wasn’t hidden. The prophecy was just sitting on a shelf. Everyone knew where it was.

Cornish pixies?

Or have we reached a special state of evolution, when you’re stuck in a room that technically doesn’t exist for years on end?

Oh good. Nice thing, to hide something that can talk to you and tell you where it is.

Can my soul speak hassa hassa too?

Colin:

This feels vaguely like the end of the Tintin book Red Rackham’s Treasure, when he’s snooping around the basement of Marlinspike Hall for treasure among the junk.

Mr. Magorium?

Has there ever been an instance of someone wearing a tiara who wasn’t a cunt?

Colin:

Yes.

If it was anyone but her, I’d have made the argument. But… fair enough.

It just occurred to me that Draco is now gonna have that Death Eater tattoo on his arm for the rest of his life. It’s kinda like that Inglourious Basterds thing where there’s always gonna be a reminder that he fought on the Nazi side. Ain’t no more short sleeve shirts for him ever again.

Malfoy wants his wand. Harry tells him to go fuck himself.

Malfoy’s using his mother’s wand. “It’s powerful, but it’s – it’s not the same.”

Just gonna leave that one right where it is.

“Doesn’t quite – understand me.”

That too.

“Know what I mean?”

WHY ARE YOU STILL TALKING I’M TRYING TO GIVE YOU AN EASY OUT DRACO.

Harry wants to know why he didn’t tell Bellatrix. Good question.

“You knew it was me.”

Why is Goyle all “rah rah let’s do this”? A minute ago you didn’t even want to be here.

Colin:

What the hell happened to Malfoy? He starts out the only real badass among his crew when they were young, and now it’s his backup guys that are telling him not to bitch out? Draco’s like a gangsta rapper that went Hollywood. Ain’t pullin’ drive-bys no more.

Break yo self, fool!

She’s the best. Seriously. Ain’t no one gonna outdraw Double Tap Granger.

Malfoys be losing wands like a MOTHERFUCKER.

(Also, why did his mother give him her wand? Do they ever explain why he’s here? I figure it’s to get Harry, be forgiven by Voldemort. So his mother gives him her wand so that could happen? This is just one Wile E. Coyote scheme one top of another. This family can’t do anything right.)

(Not even check a body, as we’ll find out soon enough.)

Shit, Goyle – breaking out the Vada Kedavra… let’s get settled into the fight first.

Stupefy.

Wow, they really did replace Expelliarmus with Stupefy. Which I can accept. It is a much more useful spell and does inflict some kind of damage on your opponent.

(That is, I accept it as a substitute, not something you should be using at this moment in time.)

She doesn’t hit Goyle, but…

But that diadem…

She’s better when she moves.

Great, now it’s on top of a fucking mound of shit.

“Bitch, what are you doing?”

What the fuck?

“That’s my girlfriend, you looney!”

Colin:

I got respect for Goyle, whipping out the killing curse. Ron charges in yelling, like Han Solo trying to intimidate those Stormtroopers. I wonder if he’ll continue the pastiche and come running back in a few seconds, screaming…

There go those pants.

THIS REALLY IS LIKE GUTS!

And that really is a Cornish pixie.

He fucking LAUNCHES that thing!

Do they just hide out up there?

They got it.

How about destroying it instead of wondering what Ron is doing?

“Is he naked?”

“How’d he get that stuck in there?”

“He just couldn’t wait til we got home later, could he?”

There’s a Balrog in there too?

Glad to see Ron has become a serious character.

Jesus, Goyle. You are fucking UP.

Hey, those lanterns were from the last movie. Is this where they store all the shit? Are the Halloween decorations up here?

Well not anymore.

You shouldn’t have touched the jewel, Abu.

Yes, throw more stuff into the fire. That’ll stop it.

Here’s a question – is the room gone for good now, or is all the shit stored up there just gone and then the room can just come back as something else? They never explain this.

Also, will the rest of the school burn down now or just this room? The answer seems to be just this room, but how do you explain that? Umbridge broke into this place, so presumably this fire can spread through the rest of the castle.

Colin:

Ah, yes. Mike is on the bandwagon of asking completely logical questions about things. These aren’t attacks, so much as — “Hey, check this out. What’s going on here?”

“Ah, yes, Mike isn’t just saying stupid shit anymore.”

I have Ron expectations.

Now if you’ll excuse me, Imma go get some wittles.

He can’t turn it off.

Colin:

This Charizard won’t listen to its trainer.

There you go. Leave the wand. Take the cannolis.

Colin:

It’s safe to say that spell back….fired.

Bay shot.

Jesus, this thing is like the magnet from The Brave Little Toaster.

Right, there just HAPPEN to be brooms right where Harry casts a Robertus Kellyus spell.

Hey, remember when you just apparated like three minutes ago, Draco? How about doing that again?

Bye bye, Goyle.

No idea why you look like a member of KISS. Or the wrestler Sting. Or Rob Corddry on Children’s Hospital. Or the Phantom of the Paradise.

Wow, is that the first time we can legitimately say, “And that’s the end of” somebody?

I mean, we could have said it about some others, but we were supposed to care about them. We never really got a full on death scene for too many people in this franchise. Mostly it was off-screen, or in flashbacks or weird scar-mind meld things. There’s never really been an established character death that wasn’t Sirius or Dumbledore or someone like that.

Colin:

Also, remember how Slughorn’s fish died when Lily died? I took that to mean that the person’s life is linked to their spells and enchantments. Does Fiendfyre act that way? Why doesn’t it matter that the wand gets incinerated? Even when Goyle dies, it continues. What types of magic don’t have anything to do with the caster?

You fucking Gryffindor.

(And Colin’s notes?)

Colin:

Don’t be such a Gryffindor. Just leave them. You think you’ll lose sleep, but this is why we have booze.

Why would he even lose sleep? He watched Sirius, Dumbledore and Dobby die in front of him, and literally all three are HIS fault. All of them. I don’t see why this one is even remotely his fault, even if he leaves him to die.

“If we die for them, Harry, I’m gonna kill you!”

♫ “I can show you the world…” ♫

But actually.

It’s weird that the black guys actually make it through this franchise.

Look at Hermione. On point.

Oh, wow – the door was open! What a shocker!

Naturally Malfoy hightails it out of there.

But that’s still there.

Did she just toss him a basilisk fang? That’s awesome.

GOOOOOAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!

Fluffymort.

THOSE ARE WOODEN DOORS!!!

Now, here’s a question — in the book, they make that the horcrux is destroyed by Fiendfyre. That never really made too much sense to me as a thing. Eventually, Fahrenheit 451, it’ll burn. This way, I get it. They stab it, then they throw it into the fire. Fuck you and the ghost you came in on. (Though, that is a famous school heirloom that is just gone now. Same for the cup. And the ring. Basically only the sword is left in terms of school artifacts.) So this technically puts Harry’s film total to three horcruxes destroyed. He has 3, Ron has 1, Hermione has 1, Neville has 1, Dumbledore has 1 and Voldemort has 1. So basically Gryffindor beats Voldemort, and Voldemort drives the final nail into the coffin himself. Jesus. Literally, only Gryffindors destroy horcruxes in this movie. And Voldemort destroys the one he didn’t mean to make.

“Now what?”

He just kills the political ruler of the country because he can. Granted – circumstances – but he’s still the Minister of Magic. Puppet regime or no, that’s still pretty awesome.

Taking Nagini with him. Hint hint.

Colin:

Sometimes he just speaks English with the snake? Okay.

Harry realizes the snake is the last horcrux.

Colin:

Question – if Nagini is the last horcrux, doesn’t that make Voldemort mortal after all? Cause the last time I checked, snakes do die of old age if they aren’t killed.

Well, there’s still Harry. Plus I thought that was what happened to him in Albania — he inhabited snake bodies for a while, but had to keep moving because his possession of them made them die quicker. I presume that it being a part of his soul makes Nagini live longer, but that is a legitimate point.

Colin:

I mean, even Harry is mortal. Right now, Voldemort has two horcruxes that — even if left completely alone, would die eventually. Poor planning, sir.

Harry also does the reverse scar thingy to find out where Voldenrod is.

Which we will find out about tomorrow, because that’s the END OF PART II.

- – - – - – - – - -

Tomorrow is Part III, and “Always.”

http://bplusmovieblog.com

In case you don’t know how this works — a while back, I deeldercided to rank my favorite Disney movies and rank my favorite James Bond movies. And the Disney ones were mostly straight synopses and not too much fun, but when I got to Bond, I enlisted the help of my friend Colin (whose blog is TokyoRemix.com. Fuck yeah, promotion!), who knows everything about the Bond franchise that I do not, for those articles, and along the way, learned how to have fun with it. And, by the end of the Bond articles, we were having so much fun that I said, “Man, we have to do this again with other stuff.” Because I spent about a straight month and a half putting together those articles. That’s how much time and effort actually goes into something like that. And not once did it feel like work. It was so much fun that I knew, as long as we were doing it for comedy purposes and able to riff off of each other — we could do pretty much any film and it would work.

And very quickly, the first ones you come up with are the major franchises, because those are not only the most fun, but also the most universally known. Everyone’s gonna understand all the jokes we make (well… most of them. Some of them might be limited to three people) about them. So that’s what we’re doing. And if you’re gonna have fun with franchises, it wouldn’t be right if you didn’t franchise it. Also, just so we’re clear, this is all for parody. We’re just messing with them because we love them.

And that’s Fun with Franchises. Here it is, folks, the last one, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Part I:

Previously, on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:

Voldemort has the Elder Wand. Does this mean the end for Harry Potter and all of wizardkind?

Once more, dear friends, unto the breach:

What a way to open.

Colin:

This opening music over Hogwarts is giving me weird Hymn of the Fayth vibes. Since this is the last movie, I guess you could call it this franchise’s final…fantasy? Although it also sort of reminds me of the song that Pippin sings for that bitch ass steward in Return of the King.

Note to self: Make sure Denethor is called a “Bitch ass steward” at least once when we get around to Lord of the Rings.

Beautiful shot.

Colin:

Alan Rickman’s come a long way from the days when he was nothing more than a common money-Gruber.

I’ll say it now, just to get it out of the way, but I’d have been fascinated to see what that school year was like for the kids still there. That’s why I have all these Harry Potter TV series ideas. Because you get to flesh out stuff like this. The amount of stuff you can get into with a 24-episode season and 42 minute episodes is never-ending.

Aww…

(I thought you said no magic, Potter.)

Colin:

Wow, did he do the headstone without magic, too? Cause that’s pretty good. If you asked me to come up with a headstone for a grave on short notice, you’d get a rock with some berry juice smeared on it. Maybe two rocks. Tops.

I’d do the Tom Hanks thing in Cast Away.

Colin:

Masturbate in front of a volleyball you talk to?

Or is that part assumed?

It’d be funny if someone desecrated it. “Potter sux Owl cocks. Umbridge was here, sucka!”

But yeah, it’s assumed.

Why not just stay there? That would be awesome.

(Unless Jude Law is inside, waiting for you. Then it would suck.)

“It’s beautiful here.”

Colin:

“Muggles think these keep evil away. But they’re wrong.” That’s a complete throwaway line. But I love it.

I also love that the first line of this is what the last line of Half-Blood Prince is.

Lots of noticing going on.

Oh, so this is their house…

Colin:

Bill and Fleur? Were they here already? Did Ron know they’d be here, or is this coincidental? Either way, nice to see Fleur. Ca va, baby?

Didn’t you mean, Ca va, Betty?

Colin:

Holy shit, I just realized that three of the four main characters from In Bruges are major characters in Harry Potter. That’s awesome.

I wonder which side of the Battle of Hogwarts the Vietnamese are on.

“I need to talk to the goblin.”

I need to work that line into everything I write.

Jesus, look at that nose. You could practically jerk that thing off.

These shots are always my favorite – what exactly is Bill’s purpose in this? Harry’s like, “I need to talk to the goblin,” so Bill escorts him upstairs and shows him into the room and then leaves? Why wouldn’t he just be like, “All right. First door on the left, you know where it is”? No, he had to bring him to the goblin’s room and then awkwardly leave. What the fuck is that? Why couldn’t he stay? Why does he need to be bringing them? And they do it in EVERY movie! No one ever calls them out on it.

“How are you?”

“Alive.”

Wait a while. See what happens.

Harry’s like, “You probably don’t remember, but…” and Griphook’s like, “That I showed you to your vault the first time you came to Gringotts? Come on, buddy. Come ON, buddy. Errybody knows who Harry Potter is.”

(His voice was much higher pitched in that movie. Must be a smoker. His voice went from 70s Pacino to 90s Pacino.)

(Also because he was played by a different actor. But whatever.)

“You buried the elf?”

I always felt like this hinted at some sort of weird racism between short people. You heard him say his name. You could use his real name.

There’s also a nice exchange here, where Griphook asks how he got the sword, and Harry goes, “It’s complicated,” and then Harry asks why Bellatrix thought it should be in her vault at Gringotts, and Griphook goes, “It’s complicated.”

Could you imagine what Harry and Cho’s Facebooks must have looked like in the second half of Order of the Phoenix?

Colin:

You tell me where you got that teeny shirt, and I’ll tell you where I got this sword.

I wonder what wizard clothing stores look like. If goblins have their own store, or their own section, or if they just make them have to buy in the kids section, or what.

Imagine that — a five-year old goes into a dressing room with his mother, and a forty-year old goblin goes into the next one.

Comedy.

Harry’s like, “The sword presented itself to us. We didn’t steal it.”

And Griphook’s like, “That bitch got a fake. Got that shit down at Chinatown. Made by some Indonesian children. Only goblins could recognize it as a fake.”

(Get it? Because they’re Jews!)

Colin:

He says that only a goblin would recognize it as the true Sword of Gryffindor. Probably because it’s a goblin-made sword. But is there something that they can see that we can’t, or is it safe to assume that it’s just a familiarity with goblin craftsmanship? Cause what if a human kid was raised by goblins? Big Little Man. Or Dances with Goblins. (Harry Potter TV Series idea)

I’ll stop short of doing a remake of Elf with Will Ferrell as a goblin. Or will I?

Griphook also says it was Snape who put the fake sword in the vault.

He also says there are a few “strange” things in the vaults at Gringotts. Specifically in Bellatrix’s vault.

Colin:

So already we know that Snape is messing with Bellatrix. She’s pretty much the most evil member of Voldemort’s jolly band, so it can be assumed that Snape’s up to no good (or I guess he’s up to good?). How amazing would it have been if SHE’D been one of the ones to be good all along? I would have never seen that shit coming.

Snape’s up to no good, which I guess makes him up to good. That could be a subtitle.

But how messed up would that be if Bellatrix was like, super undercover. Like some Leo shit from The Departed. I mean, she’s clearly too crazy for that to be the case, but how awesome would that be?

THERE’S a Harry Potter TV series idea. Holy shit. Some deep undercover shit.

“Man, I been dealing with you for three months and I ain’t seen you use a wand in front of me yet…. I think you 5-0.”

Harry needs to break into Gringotts. He can only do it with Griphook’s help. What does he want in return?

What the fuck are you gonna do with that? It’s bigger than you.

“Are you thinking there’s a horcrux in Bellatrix’s vault?”

“No, I just wanna rob the bitch.”

(Potter’s Eleven.)

One thing that pisses me off about this scene is how they throw in a half a line of exposition just for the idiots who don’t know. He’s like, “I’ll bet you anything there’s another horcrux in there, another piece of his soul.” That’s the kind of shit that infuriates me, since you should, if you’re watching this movie, know what the fuck a horcrux is. And if you’re gonna feel the need to explain to the idiots who don’t – find a better way to do it. I write dialogue for a living, motherfuckers. Do you know how bad and out of place a line like that sounds? That’s just amateur hour laziness, right there. At least be a little more delicate about it.

And I’m not putting it all on the writer, either. This was probably one of those moments where they were working out the scene, and the director was like, “We need to mention that it’s a piece of his soul,” so they just added that part later and went, “That’s fine,” not thinking of how horrible it sounds.

The worst part is that people are conditioned to just ignore it, which is so wrong. Don’t any of you hear shit like this and think, “Why are they condescending to me?” If you made it through seven movies before this, chances are you know what the fuck is going on. So if you’re gonna do it, at least do it artfully. It takes literally a half a line to have that not seem less hokey.

(This is one of my major pet peeves, as you can probably tell.)

Colin:

Aw, Peeves.

I always pictured Peeves as having an Amadeus laugh. I basically just picture Peeves as Mozart. Not even just similar. Just, Tom Hulce from that movie.

Seriously, though — you assume they’re gonna know N.E.W.T. but not this?

Colin:

Remember when we talked about this in the first movie, how Dumbledore and McGonagall had to say each other’s names in the first scene to set up who they were? Like that needed to happen. And as if when they were alone, Dumbledore didn’t call her “Baby Boo.”

Time to see Ollivander.

Colin:

What’s wrong with him? Has he been Hurt in some way? Oh, tortured. That’ll do it.

He actually stared into the eyes of a giant alien crystal — that’s all.

(THAT’S RIGHT PEOPLE, I WENT THERE. NOW LEAVE ME ALONE I HAVE SOME MONKEYS TO GO SWING WITH.)

He needs him to identify a wand. (Which is my favorite thing about Ollivander. He’s the Rain Man of wands.)

“Walnut. Dragon heartstring. Twelve and three-quarter inches. Unyielding. This belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange.”

And this one?

I love it. I’d sit there and watch him do this for an hour. One after another. Just telling you all about the wand from looking at it, and telling you whose wand it is.

Antiques Wandshow.

Colin:

He’s really good at measuring length by sight. Not the sort of guy you wanna run into in the locker room.

“Hawthorn. Unicorn hair. Ten inches. Reasonably pliant. This was the wand of Draco Malfoy.”

“What do you mean, was?”

(How come you didn’t ask that for Bellatrix’s wand?)

“I sense its allegiance has changed.”

“You talk about wands as if they have feelings.”

“The wand chooses the wizard, Mr. Potter. That much has always been clear to those of us that have studied wandlore.”

I love that this is something you can study. I want to study wandlore.

Anyway, they talk about the Deathly Hallows. Ollivander doesn’t know much. Harry knows more than he does.

“He’s after you, Mr. Potter. And if he has the Elder Wand, you really don’t stand a chance.”

Colin:

Can characters please just swear? Especially old men. Ollivander should have been like, “I’m afraid…you’re fucked.”

“Well I suppose I’ll have to kill him before he finds me, then.”

The only thing that allows that line to make sense is the horcruxes thing.

Even Hermione’s like, “Do you listen to yourself sometimes?”

“Who is she, Ron?”

(That’s how it starts, though, isn’t it?)

Nah, that’s Bellatrix’s hair. Remember that weird shot during the last movie? Yeah, this is the payoff.

I love this scene. So much. Helena Bonham Carter pretending to be Hermione pretending to be Bellatrix.

Colin:

Polyjuice is NOTHING now. They just use it on a whim. Remember how it took a whole month to brew, and now they’ve just got it chilling in the fridge anytime? It’s like there’s vending machines for it or something. Who’s making all this stuff this far in advance?

In Knockturn Alley, you can buy giantess panties in the same vending machine. It’s pretty fucked up.

Look at Ron!

They tell him, if he can get them past the guards and into the vault, the sword is his.

Is this supposed to be hesitation or him figuring out his plan for later on?

This is great. She says “Good morning” to the guy, and they’re like, “Bitch, have you met her?”

“He’s right. I was being stupid.”

Helena Bonham Carter’s performance is one of the highlights of this franchise.

They redesigned the place.

Colin:

It’s great how during this scene, Ron looks like a younger, more handsome version of Tim Burton.

“Ahem.”

“I wish to enter my vault.”

They need her to present her wand.

(Didn’t it used to be a key? Or was that what they used before a person had a wand? In which case, did they seriously just do that to gloss over shit? Why am I surprised? How many times has Rowling done this?)

Fart bomb!

Or, Imperio.

That’s two unforgivables (or should I say, “unforgiveables”) for Harry now.

Colin:

Wait, why doesn’t she just use the wand as ID? They have it. She should just give it to them, but make them feel really shitty about it when it’s the right wand. Also, how did they know she was an impostor right off? Is she also a goblin-made sword?

Maybe she didn’t want to give up the wand because she knew they knew it wasn’t her? And they didn’t want the wand to be confiscated? No idea. Makes no sense. I’m hoping the book version makes more sense and it’s just the movie version that doesn’t because they shortened it or whatever.

(Also, “Is she also a goblin-made sword.” I didn’t notice this the first time I read it. That shit is hilarious.)

This place looks more like it should.

Colin:

Why would something on rails have a steering wheel? That’s not just brakes he’s holding there, he turns it several times.

Motherfucker, this is a highly secured bank. Did you think some Polyjuice potion and a little Imperius curse could get you all the way in?

Colin:

Well that was a bullshit roller coaster.

Boobies.

The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Again.

What actually happened was that the “Thief’s Downfall,” as the waterfall is called, washes away all enchantments, so that nobody can break in.

Colin:

So it washes away ALL enchantments? What exactly does that mean? EVERYTHING? Wouldn’t that also include shit like the extension charm in Hermione’s bag, allowing the sword and everything else to fit inside? Nah, I guess it’s just the shit we can see. Moving on.

I like how Imperio is commonplace now. He’s back to normal, and they’re like, “Nah, nah, Imperio. How can something so convenient be so illegal?”

They have a dragon.

“It’s been trained to expect pain when it hears a noise.”

“That’s barbaric,” Hermione says.

Ron:

THAT’S wizard’s chess.

Colin:

What did they have to do to train it like that? Is this what Bill does for a living? Rattle shit while torturing dragons?

Might as well call it SAUDI Romania.

“Hey, hey you guys! I wanna come too!”

The vault.

Hood locks.

They shut down all the trash compactors on the detention level.

Seems like Lumos has been the most useful spell in this entire franchise.

“Accio horcrux.” Bitch, don’t make me laugh. That’s twice now they tried to pull that shit.

“You’re seriously not gonna try that one again, are you?”

Ha ha! Ron says it!

Colin:

This is a moment where Hermione tried something – however unlikely it was to succeed – just to cover all the bases. I’m really glad they did this for once. Ron calls her out on being stupid for attempting to make life easier for everyone. This is the guy who jumped on a chess piece and got knocked the fuck out before checking to see if he could give orders from the side of the board. 

But seriously… what were they calling? Voldemort’s soul? Does magic know what a horcrux is? Don’t you need to know what the soul is attached to before that shit can work?

What if it pulled Harry over to Hermione? What would have happened then?

Look at this place.

Scrooge McDuck would nut in his… oh… he doesn’t wear them.

Found it. The Cup of Helga Hufflepuff. (The good effort medal of house objects. Gryffindor has a sword, Slytherin has a ring, Ravenclaw has a tiara, and Hufflepuff gets a, “Oh, good job, you tried” cup.)

Jesus, watch where you’re going.

♫ I got cups, they’re muliplyin’ / And I’m losing control… ♫

“Sword me.”

It’s protected by a spell that makes everything they touch multiply.

Is this a legitimate spell, or does the stuff go back? Because that’s a great way to get compound interest on shit.

Harry Potter TV series idea: Multiplicity

Colin:

This looks to be a rather lucrative charm. Is all that shit real gold? I’d arrange a break-in on myself if it multiplied all the shit I had. What is that, the Missingno Charm?

This is totally like the Agro Crag.

Also, it seems unlikely that you wouldn’t all be dead and trapped right now. If everything you touch multiplies, Harry is now underneath like fifty cups at once.

GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY CUPS!

“Throw me the idol, I throw you the whip.”

(Colin and I both made this joke and the “trash compactors” joke, I’d like to point out.)

Colin:

There’s SO much Spielberg and Lucas going around this movie.

I feel like there was consideration of Spielberg directing this movie for a minute or two as well.

“I only said I’d get you in. I never said anything about getting you out.”

This is the one mistake that gets people killed.

“You mother-FUCKER!”

Well that’s fucked up, Griphook.

YES! Police!

Lots of boobies in this one.

Total Star Wars moment.

(Ron does rhyme with Han…)

(Is saying “Punch it, Cho-wie” going too far?)

Colin:

Wait a minute, two guys and one girl being fired at by bad guys. The girl steps out and blows a hole in a wall and jumps through it? Are we doing the garbage masher scene from A New Hope backwards?

Hermione’s got an idea. A wonderful, awful idea.

Reducto.

“What this bitch doin’?”

“I’m Hermione Granger, and welcome to Jackass!”

Tally ho!

Oh yeah, straddle that shit. Straddle it real good.

Yes. Hide behind the pillar. I’m sure that’ll suffice.

Smaug test.

“Whooooooooaaaaaa-SHIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTT!!!!!”

Oh, I love her. Look at that aim.

Go on, man. You’re free now.

FUCK YO CART!

(This would certainly make roller coasters more interesting.)

Nice chandelier. I didn’t notice that the first time. I was too busy looking at the redesign of the other stuff.

Colin:

The chandelier moves a little bit, which means a dragon is coming. With all this blatant borrowing from Spielberg and Lucas, I’m surprised we didn’t see ripples in one of the goblins’ water glasses.

I’m also just now noticing that this is a different set from the first film. There were several chandeliers before and they were all covered in cobwebs. Now there’s just the one and it’s clean. I see they took my advice. 

OH YEAH!

Is that a Ginger Jew?

Also, I love that they have scales.

Colin:

I do love seeing this, though. The goblins are clearly neat-freaks. Nothing pleases me more than to see people who are uptight about stuff have their whole world fucked up like this. This old goblin measuring out gold on his scales, and BAM IT’S DRAGON TIME BITCHES!

(I also love the dual interpretations of “I love that they have scales.”)

Holy shit, who does that old guy look like?

Colin:

I’m gonna say…Kirk Douglas?

Close enough. We’ll take it.

He just looks so familiar. I wanted to call him the midget version of someone, but I can’t think of who it is at the moment. Maybe like an old Ralph Bellamy.

We’re gonna need a bigger bank.

Colin:

Also of note – take a look at the exterior shot here. It looks like Diagon Alley (or what looks like Dickensian London) goes on as far as the eye can see. Isn’t this just on the other side of regular London? Once you’re inside, is it a huge expanse of city? They only ever really talk about the two alleys, so why don’t we see regular London around them? I get whey regular London can’t see us, but we should be able to see it.

I feel like it works just like Platform 9 ¾. Small opening, giant and magical on the other side. What I want to know is what other magical places are around there? Since we don’t necessarily see many other magical places in the city. How does that work? Is the magical world that small? It would certainly explain how they all know each other. It’s just the Ministry, Hogwarts, Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley, and then people living all out in the country and shit. We saw Snape living in a house in London. Do they just have to keep their magic hidden from muggles, is that it? They just live among them but don’t ever interact and don’t do magic when people can see? How does this work? Are there more places to go that are magical? The Magical Mall or something? A bunch of teenage wizards and witches running into the alley behind Trader Vic’s and going to the wizarding mall for the day? Calling someone’s mom to come pick them up. Going to wizard Hot Topic and shit. There have to be other places. There’s no way it’s THAT limited.

Colin:

That’s the thing — this shit is all hidden using charms and such. You go into alleys that don’t actually exist, or buildings that exist between two buildings and stuff. It’s all hidden away under or behind something else. We never see or hear of a vast expanse of shit within the city that’s ALL magic other than Diagon Alley, which is presumably why it’s the place we see everyone in the entire wizarding community every time we’re here.

Even the Ministry and stuff, that all exists underground and you have to get in via phone booths and toilets. I don’t see how this wide shot works. Even with Hogwarts, it’s enchanted so that muggles think it’s ruins and stay away. It doesn’t exist between or behind anything, breaking the laws of physics. But it’s Harry Potter, physics ain’t got shit to do with shit no how.

From the looks of this shot — and this is me making something up to rationalize, just to make sense of it — it seems like maybe Diagon Alley is a big circular or elliptical set of houses, and maybe they’re built directly behind the muggle houses. And maybe the muggles think behind their house is a brick wall, but maybe that’s just the back of Diagon Alley. Since if you look in the shot, the houses are really close together. So maybe one’s magic and one’s muggle, and the charms protect them that way.

Just a guess.

♫ “If you want to view paradise…” ♫

Oh, wow. I thought they reused that shot with Buckbeak, where he puts a talon in the water. Guess not. Seems like this dragon would be more likely to do that than Buckbeak, who is pretty free most of the time.

Why is it that whenever Harry is sleeping or underwater, we get this?

Colin:

Have you ever jumped into any water with your glasses on? Cause they don’t stay on.

So Voldie knows about the horcrux destroying.

Colin:

He’s only just finding out now? Cause later on we see that with every one that gets destroyed, he feels it. And we’ve already destroyed a few. The ring is toast, and they got the locket pretty recently. You’d think he’d have seen this coming a lot earlier.

Actually the only one he really would have felt was the locket. Since the other three were gone before he had a body again. And they didn’t show us anything after the locket (I don’t believe). Maybe that one he just figured was an acid flashback or something. All those flashbacks seem to be kind of trippy anyway.

Harry knows the next one is at Hogwarts.

(And apparently he knows that was Helena Ravenclaw. He seems mighty up on school shit for someone who barely studied.)

Colin:

I mean, the Ravenclaw tapestry or whatever should have given him a ballpark, and then I’m sure there were paintings and shit around. That’s the most probable explanation. Although, she is a ghost that he would have seen a lot. Anyway, he knows somehow.

I like that better. “Anyway, he knows somehow.” Just like with Malfoy. “I just… know.”

He just… looks like a motherfucker that would like pineapple.

This is great. Harry’s like “We gotta go,” and Hermione’s like, “We have to plan first!” and Harry’s like, “When have any of our plans actually worked? We plan, we get there, all hell breaks loose.”

Colin:

Though, Harry makes an awesome point here. They plan, they get there, all hell breaks loose. What’s the point of planning if the Dark Lord is gonna figure you out and mess things up? Just wing it like you did with the dice game juice. Which, now’s the time for some of that stuff again. Felix, or whatever.

You just did the thing you got up on Hermione for doing with Voldemort’s name.

Colin:

Yeah, but I ain’t got no vendetta, I think he’s a boss. Why WOULDN’T I call him the Dark Lord? Besides, I like a little variety. Just saying his name all the time gets boring. 

(Wait until you see what I did in the next couple parts, then.)

Couldn’t you let this shot linger like twenty seconds longer?

Ah, Tuesday.

Love this shot.

Colin:

Voldemort looks a little disjointed. Lots of dead people around. Lucius hasn’t even gotten a chance to shave. Gotta wonder how he does it these days. Used to be that Dobby would shave him with a straight razor out on the porch, three times a week for fifty years.

Oh, lawdy.

Aww, too bad. This is what happens, though. Should have not been a dick.

Colin:

Griphook got what was coming to him, the bastard. And the sword disappears again. You have to wonder if it has a personality and would be pissed that Harry gave it to a goblin. Isn’t he gonna need it again for killing horcruxes?

I feel like this statement is usually funny, regardless of what the name at the beginning is.

Try it as a mad lib:

“(Name) got what was coming to him, the bastard.”

What kind of Grand Theft Auto shit is that?

Hogsmeade.

Colin:

When that alarm sounded, I’m almost positive I wasn’t the only one to think of this.

They know.

“In here, Potter.”

And you trust this guy, because…?

Seriously, guys. This guy could be a Death Eater. Wouldn’t that be a smart thing to do? “In here, Potter.” Then he comes in – BAM – right in the fucking head like Joe Pesci in the elk lodge.

Why would you automatically listen to this guy at all? He could be a murderer. He could be a rapist. He could be a murderer AND a rapist. He could be a murderer rapist – a rapist who only rapes murderers. And at this point none of you really have clean hands in that matter.

Ain’t you motherfuckers seen Misery?

And he’s been watching them. I repeat my previous statement.

“You fucking mo-rons. Why would you come here?”

It’s Aberforth. Aberforth DUMBLEDORE. You know that new information you’ve been looking for? Well listen to THIS!

(Also, Ciaran Hinds is awesome.)

He’s been watching Harry. He sent Dobby.

“Dobby’s dead.”

“Sorry to hear it. I liked that elf.”

Mundungus Fletcher gave him the mirror. It was Sirius’s. He knew Harry would be pissed if he found out he had it, but where would Harry be if he didn’t have it?

Dead. The answer is dead.

Colin:

So the mirror is finally explained. I’m glad.

Yeah, but that’s no excuse for the amount of times they’ve shown it without addressing it in these movies. You have to address it from the other side too. Dude’s literally looking at a piece of glass for a movie plus and it’s never brought up by anyone. We don’t even know where he got the shard from. (Anyone? Bueller?) Complete dumb thing to never explain. All right, fine, don’t want to explain N.E.W.T.s because we don’t get heavy into academics, fine. But this is a major plot point that we see for more screen time than Ginny, so maybe throw a line or two its way.

Aberforth says the Order is finished, and that Voldemort has won. He also says they’re on a suicide missions and all of that. You know the drill. He doesn’t trust his brother because of all that past shit no one ever brought up in the movies.

I also like how he gave them sandwiches.

He wonders why Harry is still believing in Dumbledore despite all the shit he never told him and kept from him.

Harry says, “I trusted the man I knew.”

Colin:

It’s interesting that they keep calling him “Dumbledore” to his brother, who is also a Dumbledore. Wouldn’t they just say “your brother”?

Also, as seemingly minor as Aberforth was in the grand scheme of the franchise, I really love this character. He tells it like it is. He just broke Harry down in like ten seconds.

My questions is how come we never met him before. Sure, the inn has a seedy reputation and no one goes there, but you had your first Dumbledore’s Army meeting in there. And this dude’s the owner. Was he just not around during any of this? There’s a character in that movie, but it’s certainly not Aberforth. (He goes off to fuck a sheep, too. Remember that?) It’s weird that their paths have never crossed, ever, given how small this universe is and the fact that he apparently looks just like Dumbledore.

I also love that he and Dumbledore would have meetings and talk to one another. I’d have loved to see how those went.

“You know what to do.”

Wait, what?

Colin:

Once again, we have someone talk to a person in a painting, who acknowledges that they’ve been listening in on the whole thing and can come and go as they please. Why don’t they ever speak? The Fat Lady spoke, and that was a painting of someone who’s now dead. They seem to retain personality and can keep up with new developments in what’s going on. I wish these things were explained in detail.

Isn’t that just it, though? The paintings retain personality and can talk and come and go as they please. I know they said that Snape consulted Dumbledore’s portrait a bunch when he was headmaster. And one of the former headmasters is directly responsible for Arthur Weasley not being dead. I think my only question is what their range is of where they can go. It seems like they can go between paintings as they wish. Which, given what we’re about to see in a second, leads to a whole bunch of other questions, namely — so does that mean there’s a whole other painting network people can use to travel between places? That’s probably a more important thing to explain.

Colin:

I have those questions, but mostly I have questions about the personality retention and how sentient they all are. Cause we’ve seen on SEVERAL occasions (the portrait of Fudge watching Harry trying to use Umbridge’s fireplace and doing nothing, for instance, even though it was pointed DIRECTLY at the fireplace and had a full line of sight) where they don’t appear do be doing much more than smiling when they — or their real selves — would probably be interested in what was going on right there. With the Fudge portrait, she then puts it face down on the desk when she’s gonna do illegal shit, which implies that she doesn’t want his portrait to see what’s going on, but he didn’t do shit before! What the fuck is that?

I’d love to see paintings argue from across the room.

“Fuck you, Maximus!”

“Oh yeah?”

And then one gets up and goes into the other’s painting and beats the shit out of him.

(Harry Potter TV series idea.)

(Also — that scene, but with the people in the Coming to America barbershop.)

Colin:

I think what would be an even bigger thing is that if they are indeed carbon copies of their real selves and they can all talk:

1. Why don’t they all talk? Some of them just nod and shit, even though they’re people we would want to hear from.

(They probably did that because we never met Ariana. And most of the paintings don’t really talk unless they’re outside the common rooms and a password is required. Not in the movies, anyway. So that makes some sense.)

Colin:

2. Wouldn’t it be prudent to just keep a 2×2 inch snapshot of Dumbledore (or anyone you wanted to consult, ever) in your pocket? Cause if they’re not around, asking a portrait what the hell was up would be a hell of a lot faster than sending an owl. Or maybe they’re dead and there’s no way to talk with the actual person, but a portrait will do instead, so why wouldn’t you do that? We see characters wondering about the motives and intentions of people they can’t talk to, but I’m pretty sure Harry could come up with a picture of Dumbledore nearly anywhere (they have his biography, he’s been in the Daily Prophet probably hundreds of times, he’s got paintings up, etc) to ask for advice. What gives?

I feel like the pictures don’t talk. The pictures just move. Which is also why I didn’t think the Fudge picture could actually see them. That’s why I liked the line so much, that she was just doing it because she treated it almost as real. Like when you turn away all the pictures you have in your office before you masturbate because it’s almost like they can see you (Have I gone too far?). I just thought photos moved and portraits did have the ability to talk. And I think them talking is personality retention and probably a lot like what happens in the train station later. It’s mostly a one-sided conversation but feels like a regular one because the person is kind of there.

But yeah, that part is weird. I do want to know more about that. How much of the portrait is actually them.

Colin:

3. If — like Dumbledore’s portrait that talks to Snape, or this portrait of Ariana that can at least follow what’s going on and react to the people outside the portait — so many of these pictures live in real time, why do so many others appear trapped in a single moment? Remember Sirius Black’s handbill? Even when Harry looked at it, it kept screaming at him and looking like a crazy person, even though you’d think that a sentient picture of Sirius would want to appear calm and warm toward Harry. The only conclusion is that these pictures all live by separate sets of rules, and most of the time those rules are fitted to meet the needs of a plot device or an aesthetic choice. 

Again, I think only the portraits seem to do it, because the pictures are a moment in time and the portraits are almost the people as they were. Somehow that’s one of those things I always just sort of bought without an issue. Portraits, yes, everything else — no.

Colin:

So…could I just do a shitty painting of Dumbledore? It seems like there could be multiple different portraits and they could all talk, right? So this feels like a horcrux thing, where someone could enchant a painting to make it sentient, like the Fat Lady. So is that something only you could do? Is that something that anyone could do? Is it like Polyjuice, where you’d need something of that person to bring it to life? Or could I just paint a shitty Dumbledore and use Portrait Personificum to make him alive?

If you painted a shitty picture of Dumbledore, there’s no way it wouldn’t turn out to be mildly retarded.

Colin:

Is there a limit on how tiny he could be, so I could paint it and put it in my pocket?

Or maybe it would be him with a stroke face, half his lip lopsided, talking half-deaf, half-Downsy.

Also, I’d love to see a tiny Dumbledore painting end up with a really high-pitched voice.

Colin:

They go to each other’s paintings and the size of their paintings seem to have no bearing on that, so one could assume that the size of the painting itself has no bearing on things. The other thing is the accuracy. Since art is subjective, the accuracy of a portrait can’t really be judged — so theoretically, Picasso could do a portrait of Dumbledore and as long as the proper enchantment was in place or his intention was understood, you’d be able to talk to Picasso Dumbledore? You see how there are lots of questions here that just aren’t answered?

I think maybe that’s what it comes down to — it’s not so much the person but rather how the artist saw the person. So the artist is putting the characteristics into the painting, so anyone we see with three-dimensional characteristics doesn’t end up talking because the painting could never approximate that level of character depth.

Colin:

And there are SO many paintings here that could be helping in so many ways, that the fact that some of them DON’T talk is questionable. I’m the sort of person who’s always trying to think about what latent resources are available. Why aren’t they taking full advantage of portraits? Why aren’t they brewing Felix Felicis around the clock? Shit like this.

At least use the paintings as scouts. “Spiders on the third floor corridor. Giants in the east wing.” They can tell you where people are so you can go defend. There are so many underutilized resources here it’s incredible.

Not to mention the fact that they’re all fighting in this tiny ass space, for the most part. No strategy at all. I get that from the Voldemort end, but not from Hogwarts. It’s pretty ridiculous how little strategy is devised for this battle. Also — no centaurs — or giants. Remember when Dumbledore went to parlay with the giants? Where are all the backups? This is such a confusing battle on so many levels. It’s probably better that we only see brief glimpses of it, because it’s probably a giant clusterfuck.

Also, how come none of the paintings work for Voldemort? It’s not like they have any stake in this, one way or another. If Voldemort had a portrait working for him, that’s an easy in to the castle.

Very poorly devised plan.

She’s got someone with her.

(Do the paintings fuck? I’d really like to see if the paintings fucked.)

Colin:

You know that oil paintings don’t fuck water colors.

(… Harry Potter TV series idea.)

“In 1966, Neville Longbottom escaped from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

The other secret passages were sealed off before the start of the year. This is the only way in or out.

I should start saying this about my girlfriend.

Colin:

So they acknowledge that this wasn’t on the Marauder’s Map and that it’s new. I’m cool with this. This is all it takes to explain things smoothly and answer questions. Although it’s also suggesting that Arianna went to Hogwarts and talked to someone. So much for talking to US.

I just realized there’s no more one-eyed witch passageway :(

I love this – Neville says their Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson today was practicing the Cruciatus curse on first years. That’s awesome.

Colin:

Neville’s more of a BAMF now. Which isn’t saying much by earlier standards, but he’s getting there.

What is this, the Lost Boys?

Always with the clapping.

Look at this fucking set up. It’s like Home Alone. Just saw off some of the rungs of that ladder — why the fuck would you do that? You’re in the Room of Requirement anyway, shouldn’t you require an easier way to get into and out of the castle?

Also, they did a real poor job of policing this school if they couldn’t find the people that have been living in here for the past whatever months.

“We have a new weather report. Lightning has struck.”

Nice code. Subtle.

Also, where’s Lee Jordan? Dude was announcing Quidditch Games as a first year. Why isn’t he on this radio? Isn’t he the main guy on it in the books? Why would you cut him out?

Racists…

Also, the whole Potterwatch thing — fascinating, and completely undeveloped and ignored in the movies.

Oh shit, it’s Cho.

Colin:

She graduated a year ago! What the hell is this? 

I’m pretty sure she wasn’t there in the books. (Was she?) This was sloppy on the part of the filmmakers.

Or they just were like, “Fuck it, we’ll make her their year too.” Since in no part of the movies do they explain how old she is. Plus also she is apparently here for this at some point in the books, and given the consolidation, I bet they just did the, “Well fuck it — she’s here and people will just think she’s their year” thing. Because honestly, you saw me in the fifth movie — I assumed Luna was a first year. They don’t explain shit like that at all after Chamber of Secrets.

Harry explains they need to find something that has to do with Ravenclaw.

Luna knows all about that shit.

“The lost diadem of Ravenclaw? Hasn’t anyone heard of this?”

I love how after she says it, you hear Ron’s whisper, “Here we go again…”

It’s not exactly Babbity Rabbity, you fuck.

Colin:

Where does one get a diadem? Diadem Alley, of course!

Cho’s like, “Yeah, but that shit’s lost.”

I like the assumption that people know the history of their own houses. Either that or the author just decided to give these people knowledge in order to move the plot along…

The world may never know.

“Harry.”

Colin:

Hey, look. It’s Ginny, the love of Harry’s life. Remember? She exists.

All right, clear out everyone. It’s about to get loud.

This is great. Ron’s like, “She hasn’t seen me for six months either and she doesn’t even fucking look at me. And I’m her fucking brother.”

“She has lots of those, though. But only one Harry.”

“Shut the fuck up, Seamus.”

Snape knows.

So… no sex?

♫ “We don’t need no education…” ♫

Colin:

Why not have them goose step? 

“Yo, yo, yo, yo – My name is Snape, I run this shit. You better believe it, I’m the Half-Blood… Prince. Wi-wi-wicki-wicki-wicki…”

Is that the Joker back there?

Holy shit, though – that’s the Joker!

Wanna know how Harry got that scar?

This school deserves a better class of teacher.

He likes this job. He likes it.

Wanna see some magic?

Okay, one more, one more…

They’re gonna kill the Bagman.

(And all that without the one obvious joke to be made. I’m proud of that.)

Colin:

You made six jokes. (Six!)

Also, that’s the Carrow sister. Joker’s a woman.

The movie don’t tell us that. I’m going by what I see. I know she’s a woman, but I see a Joker. I Alecto’d to ignore that piece of information.

(OH DON’T YOU GROAN AT ME. THAT WAS FUCKING MAGICAL.)

Maggie!

Anyway, Snape says if anyone – students or staff – tries to help Harry, they’re gonna get fucked up. Fingernails pulled out and shit.

What up, Slughorn?

He also says anyone who is found to know about this, despite not having helped, will be found e-qually guilty.

Which is a great moment, because you can hear the tension in his voice. He doesn’t want to be saying this.

I think we can appropriately call this place the Great Hall of China right now.

“Now then – if anyone has any knowledge of Mr. Potter’s whereabouts this evening, I invite them to step forward.”

I love how they cut to Cho. Motherfucker, were you paying any attention for the last two years?

Also, fuck Cho – who’s that Chinese immigrant chick on the end there? That’s the kind of woman who looks like she was welding machinery since she was six.

Colin:

You know he’s only saying that because of the hat. Look like her name Patty. Rice Patty.

She’s totally the chick that has to clean the toilets. You walk in there, she’s elbow deep in a shit-filled toilet. Then you randomly walk in on her in the break room, she’s got a cigarette hanging from her lips and is chopping the head off a duck.

Colin:

Just like Lana Turner.

“It seems despite your exhaustive defensive strategies, you still have a bit of a security problem, headmaster.”

Christmas card.

Colin:

KINGSLEY MOTHERFUCKING SHACKLEBOLT, RUNNING HIS SHIT!

Why is the black guy front and center? What kind of Operation Human Shield situation is this?

Also, why did Harry call Snape headmaster?

If you don’t agree with him having the position, why would you address him by it?

“How dare you stand where he stood.”

“Tell them how it happened that night.”

“Tell them how you looked him in the eye – a man who TRUSTED YOU – and killed him!”

Or… do that.

Oh shit! Maggie’s ready to throw down!

Colin:

Maggie Smith takes the crown of the second baddest motherfucker at Hogwarts, having previously been third.

(She was always second. Kingsley was never at Hogwarts. Oh, wait… you count the ghosts that run around on horses holding severed heads. I forgot.)

Colin:

Nah, I was talking about Michael Gambon — note that I make the distinction there. After seeing him unleash the fire and zap the Inferi underwater, I give Gambon more credit than I did. Also, if we’re talking books, there’s really no arguing with his exit in Order of the Phoenix.

But yes, also those ghosts.

I put him third behind Maggie. You can’t be a badass when you’re such an underhanded dick as he is. True badasses aren’t shifty that much. They can do shifty things, but it’s usually in order to be a badass.

In terms of all-franchise badasses, Dumbledore might not even be top five for me. Flitwick, Maggie, Hermione, Kingsley, and one other person I’m probably not thinking of right now.

I was gonna say Luna, but she doesn’t get many chances to be a badass. She’s just awesome.

Moody’s kind of a badass. I’d probably rank him over Dumbledore.

(Note: As I was typing that, I accidentally typed “Dumblecore,” and just got an entire new idea for a film movement.)

“Try it, bitch.”

Look at Lupin, hiding behind Kingsley.

Oh she fucking means business, Snape.

Don’t you fuck with Dame Maggie.

YES! Shoot that fuck!

This is pretty great. How he takes them out while making it seem like he’s just defending himself.

And there goes Snape.

NOW you can clap. Because that was some badass shit right there.

“Wow. I’m sexually aroused right now, Minerva.”

Oh, no. It’s scar time again.

Colin:

“Oh no, everyone’s paying attention to HER! CUE COLLAPSE!”

Wait, so are those two dead? That’s awesome! Maggie’s got a body count already! Shit ain’t even went down yet.

Colin:

I didn’t even notice that when I was watching. Snape killed them and made it look like an accident. He covered his bases. I’m liking it a lot.

Snape also makes my list of badasses on pure accomplishments alone. That’s six people ahead of Dumbledore on my list.

And we haven’t even gotten into Voldemort yet…

Colin:

Apparently the Carrows are only stunned, because Snape wasn’t using any killing curses. They get tied up and put in a tower during the battle.

Yeah, but it wasn’t Snape’s curses that they were hit with. Whatever Maggie was throwing, that shit had the power to kill. Molly Weasley doesn’t use a killing curse on Bellatrix, she just gets hit directly with it. These two get hit the same way — no time to block. I’m sure Rowling did have them stunned, but it would be so much better for all involved if they ended up dead from this.

Kind of like with Dobby. I want Dobby to have a body count. I know Maggie’s gonna have a body count, but I want Snape to get the assist without seeming to. That’s badass.

People be screaming.

Colin:

Stop fucking screaming. What is this, Voldemort’s equivalent of a “Breaker One-nine?”

(I can’t not.)

Colin:

It’s kinda like those cases of schools where one girl starts having nervous tics and seizures and shit, and by the third week, there’s like sixteen of them of them doing it. There’s no explanation for how or why this happens, but the best theory out there is that these silly children are jealous of each other getting attention, so they want to be a part of the disease and then conversion disorder makes it real.

Voldemort tells them that if they give him Harry then he’ll leave Hogwarts alone.

They have one hour.

Colin:

I prefer ‘galactic standard week.’

Also, quick question – why does he whisper in these messages? I know it sounds creepy, but can you imagine him on the other end? He’d say all this while crouching down, with all the Death Eaters listening, and then he’d stand up, clear his throat and say, “So….where were we?” Silliness.

Imagine Voldemort calling someone personally… “Go to the end of the hall, stay as low as you can.”

Colin:

Look! It’s the really black kid!

Where? It’s too dark, I can’t see him.

“What are you waiting for? Someone grab him!”

Is that Katie Bell? What the fuck happened to her? Went from being a chaser to being cut (out of nowhere) to being cursed to being a cunt.

Oh, wait, that’s Pansy Parkinson. Right. Draco’s piece. Trophy.

Colin:

I read the beginning of that where you thought she was Katie, and I was so excited to be like, “No! It’s TROPHY!”

Not gonna lie, I actually had no idea who Pansy Parkinson was until a couple moments from now. I didn’t know who she was when she showed up in Half-Blood Prince, and I didn’t know who she was here until Maggie said her name out loud. And since we saw Katie Bell in the last movie, and she looks a little bit like that (white women all look the same to me), I just assumed it was her.

And aliteration. I totally kept it because of the aliteration.

Colin:

Trophy wants to give him up. Cause she’s all about giving it up.

Yeah, I wouldn’t fuck with those two. One’s a sharpshooter and the other will blow you the fuck up.

I also love how the two chicks that move to help him after the first two are Cho and Parvati, the two chicks he almost banged (or at least, had a chance to) for a good minute.

Colin:

I would have been good with either of them. Cho, you make me sad. Ginny ain’t shit, it’s not too late.

Cho no :(

Colin: 

“No! We’re friends, so we stand in a group, and we don’t pick you in gym class!” I hate this bullshit. Instead of all circling around Harry, how about you stay where you are and just call her a bitch?

What if they all circled round him and knocked him out?

Then he wakes up in a seedy motel bathroom in a tub of ice and an incision where his kidney used to be.

Colin:

Just like Lana Turner.

What if when Pansy said that Harry just Stupefy’d her?

“Students out of bed! Students in the corridor!”

“They are supposed to be out of bed, you blithering idiot!”

“Oh… sorry Mom.”

Colin:

Wow, Filch sounds horrible. Repeat after me: The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.

Squibmalion.

Maggie tells Filch to take her and the rest of the Slytherins and throw them the fuck out of there.

Colin:

Way to say Slytherin like an asshole, Maggie Smith. This time I meant it.

“And exactly where is it I’ll be leading them to, Mom?”

“The dungeons would do.”

Really? They’re clapping? Do people really hate Slytherin that much?

Wow. They’re like the Yankees.

But seriously – they said in book 1 that there wasn’t a bad witch or wizard who wasn’t in Slytherin. You mean to tell me… not one member of the other houses went on Voldemort’s side? You’re telling me Slytherin is the only house that’s pro-Voldemort? Just their parents are the ones who are Death Eaters? What if there are some Slytherins who aren’t pro-Voldemort? They just have to go to the dungeon too? What if they were previously undecided? Remember when Lincoln didn’t make slavery illegal at the beginning of the war so as not to push Kentucky and Missouri to the Southern side? McGonagall literally just told them all to go fuck themselves. Which way you think they’re gonna side now?

Colin:

Yeah, this was another example of Rowling being cool with fascism, basically. This is guilty til proven innocent. So yeah, Hogwarts is like just this side of a Turkish prison. We’re supposed to be cheering this, too. I was initially all, “Ha ha!” but when I stopped to think for just one second, I had a problem with it. This is just like the internment camps for Japanese-Americans during WWII.

As to your query about non-Slytherins supporting Voldemort — Peter Pettigrew, Gryffindor.

“I assume you have a reason for returning, Potter. What is it you need?”

“Time. As much as you can give me.”

“Motherfucker please. I’m McGonagall.”

“How dare you doubt me.”

“Potter –”

“It’s good to see you.”

And that’s where we’ll END PART I.

- – - – - – - – - -

Tune in tomorrow for Part II, when the battle begins.

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This is our space to go over what we liked and didn’t like about each film we watch for Fun with Franchises. We talk about specific things as we get to them during the articles, and we’ll mention our general thoughts during them, but we don’t really ever get to sit and do broad strokes during the articles. So this is why we do these Final Thoughts. We get to take a step back and talk about the films as a whole, rather than discussing specific scenes or images. We’ll talk about how we felt about the film, how we liked it as a film, how we liked it as a member of its franchise, and where we think it falls within that franchise.

Again, it’s not very complicated, but it is a place to find out what we actually thought about certain movies, since, while we’re having fun with them in the articles, it may get difficult to tell sometimes. Because we’ll just rip things to shreds for fun, even if we love them.

So here are our final thoughts on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1:

Final Thoughts on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1:

Colin:

Big fan of this one. I think it’s primarily because this is the first time the formula goes completely out the window. We’re not at Hogwarts, so there’s no steady build of dread punctuated by happiness and joyful occasions. Remember how they did it with the first few films? Sure, there’d be a troll in the dungeon (remember how that was gonna be the new euphemism for ‘pregnant’?) (Mike Note: What do you mean ‘was’?) one day, but the next day everyone’s eating treacle tart before the quidditch match. The effect was a lot like a live lobster in lukewarm water that slowly comes to boil by the end of the film. And then you have to fight Voldemort with rubber bands on your claws and it’s a whole big thing.

This is what I’ve been waiting for, pretty much since Azkaban. Finally, the characters have acknowledged that this ain’t Trading Places, it’s real fucking life. We start out with death, then there’s some more death, and we end with death. There are real issues between our main characters, and we finally get to see some of them aired! IS Harry better than Ron? (Yes.) SHOULD Hermione be with Harry instead of Ron? (Yes.) This is stuff that needed to be addressed, and they finally stopped beating around the bush with it. It’s all story stuff, of course, but I thought they did a great job with the dialogue and the execution of it.

The dancing scene works as an idea. As an actual scene with Daniel Radcliffe dancing…oh dear.

We should talk about how awesome that animated sequence was. I love the style of the animation, and the sepia especially. But the little things like the second brother hanging himself and the noose being a little string going up to Death’s hand — that was absolutely perfect.

There are still things that I don’t quite understand. What exactly does it mean to be the master of death? Does that make you immortal? Why would that be the case? Has this quest been on Voldemort’s radar the whole time?  Or is he all of a sudden excited about collecting powerful artifacts, like Hitler in the Indiana Jones movies? What the hell is up with this shard of mirror that keeps cropping up all the time? If I have one gripe, it’s that they assume that anyone watching already knows everything about the story. It’s fine to not explain some things, just don’t make them big plot devices, or at least clue us in on what the main characters think about what they are.

But all in all, well done. I’m going to have to watch Part II again now to see where that goes, but this is either tied with or even edging out Azkaban. And everything else sort of falls behind that, so this is ranked up top. Ah. And I see Mike has similar thoughts on the matter.

My Final Thoughts:

I must say — after I saw this movie in the theater, I thought it was bottom three or four for the franchise. I was aghast at what I saw. And then I realize at least 40% of that had to do with that naked horcrux scene and another 40% had to do with the fact that I was stupendously drunk less than an hour before it started.

Watching this again — I really love this movie. To the point where I think now, my three favorite movies in this franchise are Azkaban and these two. With Order of the Phoenix right there as well. I just love how it pays off a lot of character development with some really emotional moments, and how it really gives Hermione a chance to shine, in terms of both comedy and dramatic stuff. The screenshots for this did me good, because I was really able to slow it down and just watch the specific moments rather than watching this as a film. Because those quiet moments really are quite beautiful. Hermione wiping her parents memories is hands down the saddest moment in the franchise, and then her asking for her wand so she can use it on Ron might be my favorite moment of hers in the franchise. And then the moment Ron gets splinched, and she’s doing like five different things at once — acting as group mother (“It’s going to be okay”), thinking quickly about how to fix it, scared shitless because one of her best friends (whom she’s in love with) is seriously wounded, thinking how she needs to quickly put up protection spells so they don’t get caught, and ravaged with guilt over everything that’s just gone on and probably some other shit too (like wiping her parents’ memories). And that shot of her with the blood on her hands is more powerful than almost anything else the franchise has ever provided.

Plus you get these nice moments with just the three of them (until Ron starts being a bitch and they cut him out of it. Which is good, since Harry and Hermione were really always the two that mattered anyway), and then the two of them. For me, the action scenes in the movie actually lessened the overall impact of it. I mean, I get the Ministry break-in had to happen, and I think they did an okay job of it (though it took a bit more of a comic tone than I’d have liked). The naked horcrux thing — we’ll leave that one alone. It’s in the book, after all, and it works, character-wise. I just will never get over the initial shock of “What the fuck was that?” I think the scene with the snake was too long, and should have been shorter. It certainly felt like it was shorter in the book. Like, “Boom, snake, Harry’s bitten, Harry’s almost dead, here’s Hermione, let’s get the fuck out of here.” It was much too prolonged in the film.

I really prefer the quiet character moments in this film to the action sequences. The action sequences take away from the real power of the film and are actually kind of shoddily handled. The one action sequence I was excited for — the escape with the seven Harrys at the beginning — they didn’t show us much of anything and spent way too much time on the freeway with Harry and Hagrid. But that’s all nitpicking. I still love the movie.

The Deathly Hallows animation was brilliant, and that’s all that needs to be said.

And then the whole sequence at Malfoy Manor — I’m mixed on that. I love the torturing of Hermione, because you really get the sense of how fucked up it actually is. The whole Pettigrew thing is questionable, since it makes no sense and they never explain it. I’d have liked if they set up the mirror more and didn’t just relegate it to a Luna punchline (which was great, but still. Don’t use that to escape responsibility).

Normally I don’t have all that much to say (or rather, add) about a movie because I did it over the course of the articles. But this one — we really didn’t say too much in the articles. Because unlike the other films, this one felt like everything was set up for us, so it was only payoffs of shit that’s been in the works for six movies now. And then whatever logic issues that came up with what Rowling introduced. I couldn’t really make fun of too much stuff the way I normally would, because most of it was either some serious shit or it was stuff I really liked.

So, I’m a huge fan of this movie and would rank it among the best in the franchise. I think it’s a beautiful film that’s almost bogged down by the fact that it has to adhere to shit that happens in the book. (But even then, they add nice flourishes, like the silent “snatching” scene right before the end.)

Plus, I actually got a little misty when Dobby died, which, I guess means third time’s the charm for them and major death scenes in the movies.

- – - – - – - – - -

Tomorrow is the beginning of the end… Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.

(See the rest of the Fun with Franchises articles here.)

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What we usually do is, just how we watch the films, Colin and I go in separately and pick out about ten to fifteen shots that we really liked. Then we compare lists, and whichever ones we both picked automatically go on our final list. And everything else we talk through and discuss why we like them, and eventually we’re left with a final list of ten images we liked the best, along with ten honorable mentions, which were also as good, but just missed out on making the list proper.

It’s not very complicated (like most things we do here on B+ Movie Blog), and is just a way for us to point out shots that we really liked in the films, especially since we tend to pick stuff that’s not always on the beaten path. (We also don’t officially rank the list of shots. We just put them in chronological order. Simply picking them is hard enough. We don’t want to make our lives any harder. Plus, we’re lazy.)

That said — here are our favorite images from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1:

I’ll start off by saying… this might have been the one film where Colin and I actually had the most shots to talk about. This film seems to be the most thematically and visually rich film in the franchise, in terms of what Colin and I like to talk about for these articles. And, rather than get into more specifics, let’s just get started.

I’ll try to rapid fire my intro additions, just because I think we all understand what I really like at this point. My intro ones are basically examples of ones I’ve already talked about. Like symmetry. You know we love us some symmetry here at B+ Movie Blog.

And I’m sure you know how much I love abstraction, too.

Or a good, crisp, wide shot involving shadows and alleyways. (This one doesn’t have the exposition as those other ones, hence why it ends up here. It’s just nice.)

Not to mention shots that almost abstract characters with darkness.

And now for a few types shots that I haven’t actually brought up yet, but didn’t have enough space for on this list:

This shot. I really like how they make it a point to set the camera so far down the end of the table. It’s almost as if the ghost of Sirius is watching them or something. But, just simply, I like how we have this really long table in the foreground, and they’re way at the end of it. It’s a nice way to show you how alone they are, keeping with the shot earlier, which I love, where they show up and Hermione uses a spell to reveal who else is there, and realizes, “We’re alone.” Though, the way the camera pulls back and the way she says it, we’re not sure if that’s a good thing or not. And, that shot there, I love it because of how everything else is in complete darkness except that little sliver of frame with the three of them in it. I’ll be honest, if I had one more spot on this list, that shot would have gone in it. I really love that shot.

And then this shot I love because of the camera placement. It’s not an “I can’t feel my legs!” shot. It starts as one, but then the camera moves all the way from above Harry, all the way to the ground, where we end on the locket sitting there in the leaves. We even rack focus from Harry to the locket. It’s a brilliantly designed shot and is one of those I wish I had room to talk about. But, it’s very similar to ones we joke about and have mentioned before, so I decided against it. But, this one — just as good as anything on that list, conceptually. Very underrated (and memorable. Tell me you don’t see this shot and immediately remember it).

In fact, fuck it:

Bam. Here it is, in the article. Unofficial #22.

And here’s our unofficial #21:

Incredible shots. I feel like if they’re actually in the article, people will notice them more. So here they are.

And then, this shot I like a lot, but I felt we didn’t need it to go on. It’s a pretty simple one in terms of why it would be here. There’s not too much thematic relevance to it. It’s mostly just an aesthetic choice. And a pretty obvious one, at that. So I left it here. It’s just a nice shot of the glasses sitting on the ice, as the only thing in focus. I like it because it’s the one shot of this entire sequence I do really like. I was going to, if we had other shots from it to use, pick this one instead and talk about how I think this is actually the most memorable one (kind of like I did last movie).

And also — fuck these papers.

And before we begin –

Here’s our requisite shot of alcohol, and a top five favorite magical object in this franchise for both Colin and myself.

Gotta love liquor glasses that fill themselves up.

Let’s get started:

1. “Obliviate”

Hands down the saddest scene in the franchise. It’s usually these scenes that work the best, the ones that don’t really get expanded upon in the book, that the writer sees and goes, “Wait a minute, there’s something there,” and works it into the script and it ends up transcending the material. That’s this scene.

It’s almost a throwaway line in the book, and here, it starts, and you’re watching it, going, “Holy shit, this is awful. This girl is wiping her parents’ memories of her to keep them safe.” It’s so sad.

And the fact that it’s Hermione, who is required to do all the heavy-lifting in this franchise anyway, in terms of emotional scenes… it’s really heartbreaking. I don’t even think we need to say anything — the shots speak for themselves.

Colin:

I took this as — she could very well die at any time and she knows it, but her parents don’t. They’re just regular muggles. So she wiped out their memories so they wouldn’t have to be involved at all or have to find out that Hermione had been killed in a wizarding war. Makes you wonder what kind of secret war is going on RIGHT NOW under your very nose. Nike vs Adidas? You’ll never know, cause you wear Reeboks and your daughter wiped your memory.

Rocawea.

And what makes the moment even better (i.e. more tragic) is that they make her relive it later on. In the coffee shop:

Incredibly powerful images. It’s one thing to have a sad moment. It’s another thing to make a character have to relive that moment again. I feel like this shot might actually have been the choice, since how many people remember that they make her do it again? She has to wipe this dude’s memory, and the entire time, you know she’s thinking about having had to do that to her parents. And you know they don’t know, which makes it even worse. She has to keep it all to herself.

Love this scene. Love these expressions, love everything about it.

2. Mad Eye

Colin:

I didn’t know you could sweep the floor with a fucking La-Z-Boy. Is this something you can just get, or did he make it himself? This is such a great shot cause you’re all into the action, and then Mad Eye comes busting through on something he must have picked up at The Scooter Store.

This is so amazing. You’re ready for this action sequence to begin, and here comes Mad Eye, chilling on a broomalounger. It’s just one of those naturally hilarious images. And the look on his face only makes it better.

I like to think that Mad Eye just sits in his garage and tinkers with shit like this.

Whatever it is — the man has it right. That’s how you ride a broom.

3. This shot.

I went nuts for this shot when I saw it for the articles. It’s so good. This is one of those shots that nobody notices when watching the movie regularly. This is so powerful.

Because think about how many times we’ve actually seen blood in this franchise. Granted, it’s been more lately, but how many times have we see quite this much blood? So that’s striking, for starters. And then, you get into the fact that the reason this has happened is because Hermione decided to change the place they were apparating to, mid-course, so Yaxley wouldn’t see Grimmauld Place. And because of that, Ron ends up getting splinched, which a lot of the time can end up being fatal.

And the reason this shot is so powerful is because of what splinching is, which is — someone gets splinched when you’re not fully determined enough to get where you’re going. That is, successful apparation happens when you are completely, and without hesitation, concentrating on one particular location. And Hermione, in the middle of all this chaos, is going, “Shit, we shouldn’t go where we’re going, we’ll be fucked. Uhh, uhh… let’s go to this place,” and changes course, and because of that, Ron’s arm is now in danger of falling the fuck off. So she’s freaking the fuck out. One, because it’s one of her best friends, and two, because it’s the guy she’s in love with. And more specifically — it’s her fault. Hermione is the last person who would fall victim to a lack of concentration. Remember the Devil’s Snare, way back when? She was the only person who did keep her wits about her. So the fact that this happens — she literally has blood on her hands. And it’s an astounding shot for this franchise, because I really wasn’t expecting something as simple and as deep as this shot.

Not to mention, what actually happens in this shot is — she picks up her hands (all in this frame, by the way, we don’t see her face or anything, which makes it even better), pauses them right here, as if seeing, “Oh my god, this is my fault,” and then she brings them back behind her skirt, which is either her maybe trying to hide how bad it is in front of Ron, who maybe doesn’t know how bad it is outside of the pain level, or her figuratively trying to put this behind her so she can get to fixing it. And then she ends up wiping her hands on her skirt and on the leaves on the ground, even. Which always stood out at me as being particularly powerful. I’m not really sure why. But everything about this shot and this scene is incredibly powerful, so that extra part really doesn’t matter so much. (But I do like the idea of her wiping the blood off her hands and getting to work, even if she’s still completely rattled by it all.)

I’ll also say — this shot is made even more powerful by the acting in the scene. She’s legitimately distraught as this happens. Her facial expressions in this scene are incredible. You really get the sense of fear and guilt and genuine concern. My favorite dramatic Hermione moment in the franchise.

Colin:

My reading of this scene was different. I thought Ron got splinched because Yaxley was holding onto him and so it wasn’t a clean change of direction for Ron. Wasn’t so much Hermione messing up as it was Jeff Goldblum having Yaxley in the teleportation chamber when they left. But it’s still powerful because Hermione feels responsible for what’s going on here, and the guy she loves (which I guess we’re going with now) is badly wounded. Anyway, I’d be making the same faces if my Abra teleported me to Viridian Forest, but when we got there, Squirtle was bleeding profusely from his arm. I actually prefer the next image for sheer power because you can see her trying to concentrate and remove herself from the situation.

Which is just as powerful as the one chosen, albeit a little more obvious. I like the blood on her hands as she gets up and realizes, “We need to protect ourselves,” so she goes over and puts up protection spells before she even wipes it off. It’s very similar to the other shot, for all the same reasons, only it highlights more Hermione’s awareness than that primal sense of guilt that’s so prevalent in the other shot.

But, Colin does have a point. She is definitely trying to remove herself from the situation. Either way — powerful shit.

But it’s nice, since this will lead us right into the final version (I know, it’s sad) of my personal favorite segment of these articles for this franchise:

4. Hermione’s Reactions

It’s an extra long one, but, to be fair, there isn’t one for the next movie, so it’s basically two in one. Plus, this is really the film where Hermione gets to be front and center, so I stand by there being so many shots here.

She’s a fucking trooper. Moody just goes, “All right, Granger, as discussed,” and she just fucking does it. No hesitation, at all. People like this don’t lose.

Colin:

Simple Jack.

“What has it got in its Pocketses, Precious?”

Colin:

I really, really….REALLY don’t like looking at this picture.

“That’ll be the books.” A quintessentially Hermione moment.

Colin:

What’d she expect, honestly? She brought a bunch of books, presumably in stacks? But that’s why we love Hermione. She’s 65 steps ahead of everyone else and an overplanner. “I hope none of them knocked the kettle. I put it on during the wedding because I assumed we’d get scattered by Death Eaters and someone would want tea.”

This must be where she brews her Polyjuice Potion.

Gunfighter face. How many times have we seen this so far?

Let’s also point out that the reverse shot of this image is this shot, where she literally blasts a guy through the fucking stomach through a glass case.

Granger Danger, indeed.

Colin:

The most impressive thing is the determination in her face. She doesn’t even go snake-eyed. Which I guess would be more Harry’s thing anyway.

The magic always works, though.

This really belongs up there with the “Obliviate” shots, but I like it for a couple reasons, most notably the fact that Radcliffe is just staring into the barrel of the camera for no reason. But, I like that it’s a nice little Ron and Hermione moment, and I like that she’s thinking about what she had to do with her parents and the fact that she’s probably going to have to do it again.

It really fits up there, but honestly, Radcliffe’s face is too funny to not leave this here.

Colin:

Touching a girl on the face like this is something that just worked in the 1940s and somehow…doesn’t now. I don’t know what it is, but when I saw this, I was blown away by how awkward it was. Obviously, you’re thinking about Hermione having to relive her painful experience, but then there’s the touching on the face, which looks more like a, “You’ve got a smudge just there,” than a consoling gesture. I hadn’t even noticed Radcliffe until now, to be honest. Holy fuck, with the John Lennon glasses.

I actually like this shot a lot less now that I’ve noticed Radcliffe. I honestly hadn’t noticed it until this article.

Not a reaction, just a really beautiful shot that had no place anywhere else.

It actually works, since Colin chose this shot, which also didn’t have a place anywhere else, and they both basically work toward the same purpose, which is actually giving Ron and Hermione moments where they actually seem like they belong together.

We both agree it’s too little, too late, but, for what it’s worth, it’s actually nice.

Colin:

I believe my phrase to describe Ron was “walking second place ribbon.” But that’s neither here nor there. They’re trying to make up for lost time during this movie by giving Ron and Hermione SOME moments at the very least. If they’re going to make this pair happen, they’re going to give us some advance notice. That’s why this shot works, and why I’d chosen the piano shot. The piano shot, to me, is them acting out their characters through music — Hermione plays gracefully and beautifully, and then Ron’s all thumbs and sounds awful. She tries to correct him, but they’re both having a good time and clearly enjoying each other’s company which is the point. I’m not saying I’m ever going to be pleased that these two wound up together, but at least shots like these let us dip our toes in the pool to get us ready for the eventual conclusion. 

Expelliarmus… catch! What makes this work is that Radcliffe sees the wand flying and moves out of the way and is a deer in the headlights.

Not Hermione. She’s catching that shit. No drops. That’s a real badass, right there.

Colin:

This is Hermione’s movie. He doesn’t catch shit. He doesn’t steal action. He gets the fuck out of the way.

“That BITCH!”

This is actually the reverse shot of this moment, where Mary Cattermole realizes she’s not kissing her husband Reg, but rather Hermione’s husband, Ron.

Colin:

This is silliness. Get your shit together, you’re about to be fucking murdered. 

I love this shot because, even in body language, she and Harry have a more convincing relationship than her and Ron. Look at the one up there with Radcliffe staring down the camera. Which one seems more authentic? And which one isn’t trying to be?

Colin:

Who knows? Maybe she actually did have a smudge. Truth be told, I’m even vaguely resistant to the idea of Harry and Hermione together because even though it’s been set up and works better than Ron, I have almost as much disdain for Harry as I do for the lousy ginger. I never really had a favorite character before we did these articles, but covering these so intensely has convinced me that not only is Hermione my favorite, she’s also the only one I like at all.

This is a direct descendant of that moment in Goblet of Fire – the, “Please don’t make me say it again.” Only now, it’s, “Please don’t make me choose between you two.” It’s a really dumb moment in the movie, made okay by Hermione’s reaction to it all.

Colin:

This is why she’s great, and also kind of how you can tell this series was written by a woman. Every time Hermione gets into a fight with them, she acknowledges what it is, and it’s understood that she’s just going to be pissed at that person for awhile before it’s all better. You just go through the paces cause you fucked up somehow and she’s angry. But Harry and Ron get pissy. These guys are irrational drama queens, and she’s just trying to hold things together.

I love this shot. Because this comes out of nowhere. They’ve been traveling a bunch, and have just apparated, and Radcliffe walks over one way, and she walks over here and is just crying out of nowhere. Which I love, because it’s really the one moment where you go, “Oh, wow… she really does have some deep feelings for Ron.”

Which backs up what I’ve said all along — the only thing that makes the Hermione/Ron relationship okay in the movies is the fact that you completely buy it on her end when they give her the chance to feel something about it. Beautiful shot, completely forgotten within the context of the film.

Colin:

Cause she’s the one that CAN feel something about it. Give any emotional developments to Hermione, she’ll take care of that shit. The other thing you need to take into account as you evaluate her feelings in this shot is, she’s out a scarf as of this moment, which…she liked that scarf.

That’s true. It’s The Gift of the Mudblood, and that tree didn’t get her anything.

“Maybe we should just stay here, Harry. Grow old.”

Because, yes, you should.

Colin:

I loved Mike’s parenthetical in the article. It was just, (Yes. Do that.). Cause that’s how we really feel about this — wouldn’t be great to see them just give up together for awhile? It worked for Star Wars. On a macro level, the only thing we don’t really see is the world being messed up by Voldemort. We don’t see a lot of muggles dying or him imposing his will on the rest of the world…it’s all pretty contained to attacks on Hogwarts and stuff. That’s all well and good, but I want to see Voldemort’s world. This franchise sort of brings you to the brink, but it’s never really convincing that he’s going to take over when you consider that they have to make quite an effort to fight the schoolchildren; how about the jillion other normal witches and wizards out there who’d probably be able to fight, too? The point is, I want things to go horribly wrong and for Harry and Hermione to stay here together. Then maybe later they can do the fighting back thing.

And with magic, the rum is never gone.

I love this shot. It’s so — it almost feels like they caught it without trying. I know they didn’t, but still, it’s so innocent. Harry and Ron have just defeated the naked horcrux and are coming back. And we just cut to this shot of Hermione sleeping and then waking up upon hearing the noise, as if she knows it’s Ron coming back. It’s another one of those quiet, beautiful moments I love so much. (The kind that, goddamnit, I will get you all to appreciate as well even if it’s the end of me.)

(It’s the quiet ones you gotta watch.)

Colin:

Everyone’s quiet to Helen Keller, but she can’t watch any of them. :(

Oh, it’s sad, because the eyes in that frowny face can’t see anything :(

This is actually a Hermione reaction shot that I didn’t choose (astoundingly). Normally I’m responsible for like 98% of them. Because I just won’t let it go. This one was actually a Colin choice (and I’m surprised I didn’t put it on my end as well), so I’m gonna give the floor to him for this one:

Colin:

I couldn’t help picking this shot because it’s the exact look that Michael Ian Black talks about in his comedy special, “Very Famous.” The look that all girls somehow master on the same exact day they start 8th grade. Anyway, it is a fantastic look on her part, and I’ve certainly received it from more females than I can count. The reverse of this can only be a guy looking stupid or doing something stupid. This is Ron we’re talking about, folks — he doesn’t disappoint. He shows up, like, “Truce….?” and holding the horcrux he’s just successfully destroyed. Like Hermione gives a fuck.

It’s pushing it, but fuck it, it’s the last one, right? Ron does something stupid to try to stay on her good side, and she acknowledges it’s stupid, gives Harry a look that she knows what he’s trying to do, and also smiles like, ‘I know what you’re doing, but don’t stop.” She’s awesome.

Colin:

Black power?

And this one, where she literally fires behind her back, while running.

Colin:

Another instance where she’s the only one doing the right thing. I’d be firing like crazy. This scene made me think of the second Sherlock Holmes movie.

(I almost disapprove of this. Nothing should remind you of that movie.)

Which leads us into our final (sort of) Hermione’s Reactions shot:

It feels like an appropriate way to end. This is such a quintessentially Hermione thing to do. She realizes they’re caught, and before anyone else can have the time to react, she’s processed the situation and decides the only thing to do right now is to shoot Harry in the fucking face. It’s so great.

Plus, on a simple visual level, Harry fucking GOES DOWN. That’s like, Anthony Anderson outside the elevator goes down. He fucking DROPS. Which is just so great whenever you watch it. She really levels him.

Hermione really is amazing.

Colin:

That was a swift appraisal of the situation, although we do find out later that she didn’t quite pull it off. Then again, I shouldn’t presume to call a wizarding getaway effort at subterfuge from an armchair.

So that’ll do it for Hermione’s Reactions. I hope we encounter a character as badass as this in another franchise that we can do this with.

5. Godric’s Hollow / “Merry Christmas, Harry”

First let me shout out this shot, which Colin and I both individually had on our lists, but we couldn’t fit on the list for space reasons. It’s a nice, quiet wide shot, with symmetry. You’ve seen it before, so it didn’t feel essential for a spot on the list, since you all know we go for that sort of thing. But still, it’s nice.

Colin chose the first image here, and I’ll let him primarily talk about it. But I will say — I do really like it. It’s a nice, quiet image, with a lot of power to it. She realizes that’s where he is, and suddenly all the focal points of the scene, by us and by the characters, all shift to this one thing. It’s really nice.

Colin:

I chose that first one, cause he’s just standing among a bunch of stone dicks. No, I actually chose it because I liked that it was from a distance and didn’t just center in on Harry at his parents’ grave. He’s framed in these headstones because he’s been surrounded by death his whole life. This is the closest thing he’s really got to a home at the moment. And that’s sad.

That’s actually a better dissection of this shot than I thought of. I never looked at this shot like that before, and I’m actually a lot more impressed than I was with it before (not that I wasn’t before… I just… only saw it aesthetically).

And now I feel so proud, since that’s the kind of shit that basically makes a film student, and the fact that you basically did it by just watching shit instead of going to classes makes me very happy. I like that you’re actually a better film person and have seen more movies than 90% of the film students out there, especially since at least 60% of those 90% are pretentious as shit.

Anyway…

I chose the second shot, which I love. That’s another one of those — I really like finding these small moments in these bigger sequences and picking them, because they’re starting to stand out to me more than the bigger ones. I like being able to point these out instead.

And this one I love on the simple level of how they’re standing there. It’s a nice little moment between the two of them, standing in front of Harry’s parents’ grave, no closer to finding any answers, completely cut off from their families (remember, his are in the ground right there and hers have no idea who she is at this point. And they have no clue where the fuck Ron is), and yet — they have each other.

And then, the lines — “Merry Christmas, Hermione.” “Merry Christmas, Harry.” The fact that they changed it from “Happy” to “Merry” aside (I guess America does eventually win out in the end), it’s a complete mirror of the scene in the first film, with Harry and Ron. And I love that they worked that in, because it really gives you a sense of, “Holy shit, look how far we’ve come with these people since then.”

It’s such a beautiful little moment, one that I’m not sure too many people catch when watching this film. And it’s one of my favorites.

6. “Where’s my wand, Harry?”

This is the single greatest Hermione moment in the franchise. I completely lost my shit when I saw this happen in the movie. It’s one thing to watch it regularly, but when you’ve watched seven movies as closely as I have, and have grown to really love a particular character for all their behavior and nuances, and then this happens — she’s seriously the best character in this franchise. No one will ever be able to convince me otherwise.

She’s literally just woken up to find Ron, who has been missing for weeks, who’s caused her such pain and anguish, and he just walks up and says, “Hey.” And she just loses her shit. She starts kicking leaves and him and berating him, and yelling, and then finally she stops and just goes, “Where’s my wand, Harry?” Which is maybe the most perfect line in the franchise. It’s really the most legitimately human moment I’ve seen. Because that’s what you do! You get so upset at someone that simple words aren’t enough, so you have that moment of realization and go, “Where’s my wand?” or gun, or whatever. Just — I need to fuck this person up. I can’t. It’s so great. And then she’s like, “Give me my wand, Harry,” trying to get it from him. The best part about it is — we don’t know what she’s gonna do when she gets the wand. The thought of what she has planned for him is only making it better.

This is her best moment. I don’t care what anyone says. This line is so perfect. This is the only moment that I demanded get its own spot in the top ten. This could have easily been part of Hermione’s Reactions, but I refused to give it anything less than a top ten spot because of how amazing it is.

Colin:

I like when someone threatens violence and actually makes an effort to do it. It’s like you know they’ll never actually GET to that step of hurting the other person because of some obstacle, but it’s still great. It comes in a step above a “one of these days, Alice,” because instead of one of these days, it’s right the fuck now.

7. The Deathly Hallows

Colin and I both agree that this sequence is jaw-droppingly animated and is absolutely amazing. We could have posted shots from the entire thing here, since they’re all that good. But we felt it would be better to just pick one and let that stand for the entire sequence. And the one shot we both thought was so beautifully inventive was this one. Colin said to me in an email that this was the only one he had an audible reaction to when watching the sequence. It’s an insanely creative shot. So we’ll use this in place of all the other shots of this sequence.

Colin:

The reason I love this shot in particular is because of how it works with multiple mediums. The second brother is in his house and hangs himself, having just hung the noose, but as he does, the walls are wheeled away as if by a stage crew. This is animation, so they can make it look any way they want, but they chose to make it look like a theatrical piece here and then pulled back to reveal that it was actually more of a diorama that Death was looking in on. This sort of abstraction is absolutely gripping. He’s the puppeteer. I have to say that this was my favorite sequence of the whole franchise — hands down. I wish this could have stood alone so it could have gotten more recognition for how brilliant it was.

I’d also like to point out that, if it weren’t for my horse that shot, we’d probably have ended up choosing this shot instead, which I feel is the go-to memorable image from this sequence because of how evocative it is.

Personally, I’m a fan of this one, and Death doing Walken fingers. But that’s just me.

And then, personally, this shot always stuck out at me as well.

But, either way — the sequence is incredibly animated, the shots are all amazing, and we wanted to recognize that. Since we could probably do our own top 20 with just shots from that specific sequence if we wanted to.

8. Torture

This is one of the few moments in the franchise that elicited an audible reaction from me. Because I was watching and was like, “Holy fuck,” and actually wincing. Because you feel this shit. This is one of those moments where you’re legitimately worried for a character. Because this isn’t some situation they can get out of. This is some perilous stuff, right here. There’s no getting out of this.

Plus, it’s the fact that she’s reacting to this the way you’re supposed to react to torture. Too often are the reactions not something that invokes genuine concern for the character. Here, she’s screaming, she’s crying, she’s pleading with her, “I didn’t take anything!” You can tell she’s in genuine pain right now, which makes the scene all the more unsettling and effective.

Just looking at these shots, it’s making me think of how fucked up this moment was. It’s that way in the books, too. There’s like a good, page or so, where they just go into how fucked up this torture is, and how close Hermione comes to breaking. (Which, I’ll point out — she never does. That’s why she’s the best character in the franchise.)

I had to put this here. It’s such a powerful moment. I mean — she crucio’s her and etches the word “mudblood’ into her arm with a knife!

Which, also, one final image from this scene — this one. Kind of diluted by the fact that they deliberately set up the falling hair, but look at the expression on her face. That’s the look of someone who has just been legitimately tortured.

This is a really fucked up scene, and definitely one of the most memorable for me in the entire franchise.

Colin:

I wasn’t quite as moved by this scene, I guess because we don’t really see anything going on. From her reactions, I get that it sucked, but as I’ve said before — I need that drip drip drip of pain, where you can see them getting messed up. Zero Dark Thirty didn’t make me squeamish, it just made me uncomfortable for a very long time. Syriana was the one that made almost made me gag. I know that things were done to Hermione here, but for the most part, all I saw was Bellatrix on top of her, laughing. Which is creepy, but also sort of amusing. Probably why I said it was “kinda hot” in the article itself.

9. Dobby is a Free Elf

We had two separate Dobby shots (haha… Dobby shots), or, should I say, Dobby moments, to choose from — him being a badass, and him getting prison shanked. We just combined the two into one for space reasons, since Dobby himself is really the uniting factor here anyway (plus, I refused to give up my Hermione shots. Which also was a factor here).

The first is Dobby’s badass moment in the dungeons, where he gets to show up and basically kill Wormtail. (I’m a huge fan of this shot, where the mud on the wall acts as a visual representation of blood spatter after Wormtail gets shot in the head.)

The line, “Who gets his wand?” is so perfect.

But, this was a Colin choice, so I’ll let him talk about it before we move onto the second part of the entry.

Colin:

So many movies do this in a corny way. So many movies do this, period. Bad guy advancing on you, taking up a lot of the frame, and then something ends up getting them from behind. Then you get the reveal, and it’s another good guy. Modern film is AWASH with these shots, but the standout that I’m sure everyone remembers is from Return of the King, when Frodo’s about to be killed by orcs, and Sting pops through one of their chests cause Sam’s back to save the day. Anyway, a lot of times you have to groan at these because its such a ubiquitous tactic, but in this case I was cool with it. Why? It’s fucking DOBBY, bitches. He’s the goofy cartoon who drops cakes on people and makes stupid jokes and shit. Up til basically 10 minutes ago, your whole consciousness of Dobby is that he’s idiosyncratic, useful, but generally harmless. And now he caps a wizard in the head like he does that shit every Tuesday. How can you not have a response to that? It’s his complete lack of remorse that makes it amazing.

The other reason this is okay, based on the reasons you hate this moment — they set it up! Dobby says, “Meet me at the top of the stairs in ten seconds.” And then Wormtail comes down, like, “What was that noise?” and then Dobby just caps him. There’s no suspense there, really, it’s just Dobby being badass. If they had done it the other way, I actually would have had a problem with it for the same reason you did. But it’s the fact that he said, “I’ll be there in ten seconds, and then was, and then calmly blasted him in the head and then was like, “All right… now who gets his wand?” Great moment.

And then my shot…

So Dobby basically caps Wormtail, and then he gets his, “Dobby is a free elf!” moment, which makes you feel so happy for him. (Even that shot scale evokes famous monologues and stuff. It makes me feel something every time I see it, which is great, since the shot itself isn’t particularly memorable unless you know what he’s saying.)

And then they apparate, and we find out he’s been knifed, which is the other shot Colin chose from this scene.

Colin:

Wide shot, for one. You all know by now how I’m into those. But it’s a reveal without being a reveal. I DID have to complain about the knife being all slowed down as it was thrown because that basically gives it away, but this part was nice because it’s not a full reveal. You just see him with his legs bent a little funny, and that’s enough for you to put two and two together. A lesser film would have just cut to him hitting the ground covered in blood, or even worse — wait for it — cut straight to the knife in his chest and zoomed out. Blech.

You’re right. The slow motion was awful. I do like the fact that you hear him say Harry’s name all weakly, and you can suspect, and then you get the wide shot, which doesn’t really spell it out immediately at first.

Then he ends up dying in Harry’s arms, which is a really sad and beautiful moment.

But, despite all that, I chose the shot I chose because it struck me as such a powerful moment amidst a scene where (again) we have so many other shots to choose from, and yet this one stuck out to me more.

Dobby is dying, and all this chaos is going on around him, and Harry just looks up to Hermione and Ron (but let’s face it… Hermione) and says, “Help me!” Which is such a great line. Because he’s completely out of things to do. There is no magical fix for this. He’s out of options, so all he has is, “Help me!” Please, make this better. That’s all you can do. And that’s one of those moments that really stayed with me since I watched these movies again. Not to mention, there’s that look Hermione gives him when he’s like, “Hermione has something in her bag that can fix this,” right before it, and you realize, “No… there’s nothing,” which is when he says, “Help me!”

It’s really a powerful moment. I stand by this shot choice. That stood out to me more than most other ones.

Colin:

Quite a bit of desperation going on here, and one of the only times I can honestly say I found Radcliffe believable. Go figure.

That’s not fair. I know you believed that he was too stupid to end up with Cho.

And we all believed that he lived in a closet for ten years.

10. Wide shots, Part Deux (aka, But Seriously)

This film, arguably more than the previous one, has a shitload of beautiful wide shots. Now, I’m not gonna say the cinematography is better, because this one has the benefit of having an entire second act that basically takes place with the three (or two) of them roaming the landscape in search of a place where a man can be a man and a woman can be a woman horcruxes. So it’s going to have more nice wide shots. I still say the Half-Blood Prince cinematography is best in the franchise, but in terms of beautiful wide shots, on a pure quantity level — this one has the most.

So we’ll just rapid fire them, save our comments (if there are any — I think the comments here are mostly, “Goddamn, look at those shots”) to the end, and leave this one as simply — “Goddamn, look at these shots.”

Lot of shots that evoke The Assassination of Jesse James here. Big fan of that.

Also want to say — I think my two favorites are the ones in the barn up top. With the Death Eater, “Surrender Dorothy” wisps flying overhead, and the one with them sitting against the walls of the barn to hide from it. Those are gorgeous.

That overhead shot of the tent on the rocks and the water also sticks out at me. But they’re all beautiful.

Colin:

I love all of them, and also, Deakins much? Except for the last two, which can’t not make me think of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

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Honorable Mentions:

• Privet Drive

Colin:

I enjoyed the Privet Drive thing because it really drove home the concept of their neighborhood being so cookie-cutter. I remember being annoyed about the cars in the first movie, and Mike suggested that they were all the same on purpose. But because of the way they shot it, you didn’t really get that effect. There were like three cars and three houses that looked pretty much the same, but it could have just as well have been a mistake. But here, it looks like blown up Monopoly houses. The way they go off into the distance makes the muggle world look kind of abstract. I felt myself reacting to this with more surprise than I do most of the wizarding world. It was a nice return to the muggle world to remind you that it exists and to show how foreign it looks to us now that we’ve come this far in the franchise. I liked it.

I like that he’s getting the house to himself. He went from the closet to full on homeowner. And all it took was mass murder, brought about by — actually, this is all Sybil Trelawney’s fault. This entire franchise is the fault of Sybil Trelawney.

Think about that.

I’d also like to shout out this shot as well. It’s similar to this shot in the sense of — look how far we’ve come. I really like seeing the house completely empty. It’s one of those images that means a lot without really saying anything at all.

And, of course, this shot, which goes all the way back to the first movie, which I said back then — the reason that first shot was so important was because it was a complete throwaway, and yet, when this second one came back here, we all remembered it. If I didn’t use the first one already, that one would have had its own entry. But I did, so I’ll just refer back to the first shots article where I brought up this shot and why those figures are actually one of the most memorable things/images in this entire franchise.

• “Spoken like a true politician!”

So much to say about this one. First, and most simply — this is the shot where he makes the joke, “Spoken like a true politician,” which I love because I think it’s genuinely funny. I love the idea of Voldemort cracking jokes and having fun. Plus, look at the smile on his face. I was shocked when no one else laughed at this in the movie. Because not only was it worth a smile or at least a chuckle — this motherfucker will kill you. He actually kills the guy he’s making the joke about later on!

This is a three-parter for me — it’s the face he’s making, the line, and the fact that it’s Voldemort sitting in a chair, in a house. It’s like he’s people. I can’t get over the idea of Voldemort doing anything in a domesticated space. He just does not fit at a dinner table. And that’s just so funny to me, whenever I see it. It’s just, “And Voldemort himself carved the Roast Beef.” It’s just inherently funny to me.

Colin:

Cause fuck politicians, right?

Voldemort’s about to make Pius sponsor a bill to put a dame at Willet Creek.

• “Give me your wand, Lucius”

I fucking love this moment. Voldemort is such a dick. It’s glorious.

The first image is visually funnier. Just him sticking his arm out, like, “Give me your wand, motherfucker.” By itself, it’s just a funny image. So I tied it with the second one, which I love, because, once Lucius gives him his wand, he’s all sarcastic and condescending about it, like, “Do I detect… elm?” And the core, “dragon heartstring… aah.” He’s completely rubbing it in that he can just take this guy’s wand and the guy won’t do shit about it. He just snapped it from its holder right in front of the guy.

Not to mention — the whole situation is even funnier considering the actual wand guru of this area of the country is currently locked down in the dungeon as he says this. So this moment really does have it all in terms of what I like to single out for these articles. It’s perfect.

Colin:

He’s halfway between relishing Lucius’ discomfort and being annoyed with him for being a pussy. Man can act.

• This shot

Colin wasn’t sure why I picked this (I still don’t think he fully gets it) shot — and to be honest, I’m not really sure either. But this was jut one of those things that I saw and went, “Wow… that’s a nice shot.”

It’s just — the framing, and the shot itself, it’s just memorable to me. And I think, what it really comes down to — what’s just happened in the scene is, Hedwig has been killed, and now they know this is the real Harry. So all the Death Eaters following them have gone away, and now it’s time for the boss battle. And Harry’s scar starts hurting like crazy, because Voldemort has arrived (which is a great way to signal Voldemort’s incoming arrival).

And I think what made this shot really work for me is the fact — this is an old-ass, rickety bike. And this is basically a loose headlight sitting on the front of this bike. I’m sure the wiring isn’t very complicated, and it’s basically encased by metal that’s just sitting there, exposed. There’s no way you’re telling me that thing does not get crazy hot when he’s flying this bike everywhere. There’s just no way. So I think what’s so visceral to me about this image is the idea that Harry’s scar is hurting so much that he’s doubled over in pain, and he’s putting his head against this thing, which must be scalding hot, and isn’t even noticing it. The scar is hurting so much that this light isn’t even something he notices.

I think that’s why I like it so much, outside of the actual image itself.

Hopefully I explained it enough to where people understand what I’m going for/are starting to appreciate it as well.

(At the very least, I hope, from now on, when people watch the movie, they go, “Oh, it’s that shot.” If I can get that much, I’m good.)

I’d also, before we move on, like to point out a couple of other shots from this scene (because, again — I went small in a scene with a lot of “big” choices), like this one, which is probably the obvious choice. (But we have a lot of that stuff in these articles, so that didn’t need to be singled out again.) And then there’s this one, which is great and almost abstract, but we kind of covered it in Order of the Phoenix and I also felt like I could get people to remember the shot up there more than this one, so I kept this here. Then there’s this face, which, on a pure facial level — yes. And also, that’s the face you make that’s just, “Uh oh,” before you blow the fuck up. And then this shot, which is incredible. Dude’s so angry he’s wiping out an entire power grid. And I also like how the bottom half of him is just weird smoke wisps and shit. It’s almost like when Ursula got huge or something.

Anyway, that’s what I got for that sequence.

• The Ministry of Magic

Colin:

First of all, these are all fantastic sets. But as Mike pointed out, and as I noticed independently — they did a great job making the place straight up Orwellian. I was getting serious Brazil vibes from this part of the movie, and I always love when that sort of thing happens. When movies remind you of other good movies. More movies should do that. The only thing I’ll say is, that purple carpet? No.

Movies should not be allowed to remind you of better movies, though.

I am a big fan of the Ministry as a location. All of the sets. They’re really the only circular sets we have in these movies. The only part of the Ministry that doesn’t make sense to me is that weird cavern room with the door that Sirius died in. That really has no business being there. But the actual building — good shit.

• George

Colin:

Dude had his ear sliced the fuck off, sneaks in, finds his sister making out with Harry and decides to put his toothbrush in the wound hole to make them uncomfortable. I would have laughed at any combination of these circumstances, but altogether it becomes too hilarious to ignore. I love the twins.

They won’t be twins for much longer.

I also love this shot, where Ginny just leaves because she knows he’s just making fun of her, and then Harry stands there, trying to play it off like, “You’re a dude, I’m a dude, you understand,” but George just stares him down until he backs away awkwardly.

George is awesome.

• The Dancing Scene

I was actually surprised when Colin had this on his list as well. Since I thought that he wasn’t a big fan of this scene in the movie. I figure a lot of people aren’t big fans of this scene in the movie. But I am, and when has what everyone else thinks stopped me from saying so?

But yeah, I think this is another one of those nice, quiet moments that I love so much. (It’s not a true quiet moment, since it’s clear they want it to be a quiet moment, but it’s still nice nonetheless.)

I just like the scene, conceptually — “Let’s try to feel normal again, if only for a few minutes.” And it’s made better by the fact that these two have such great chemistry, they don’t need any words in the scene at all. And it also gives me a little bit of hope that maybe these two could actually end up together for a second.

So… I like the scene. I think it’s a nice moment that people like to deride because it comes out of nowhere, but, in context, I think it’s a nice moment between the characters and is exactly the type of scene, if I were writing these movies, that I’d want to work in as well.

(Also, I’d like to point out that the first shot of the scene is really nice as well.)

Colin:

Oh, see — I just let you go on thinking that. I chose it cause she looks nice and this is the scene where he went full retard.

I had a feeling. But I won’t give up my opinions. Because then I’d be Dan.

• This shot

Colin:

FILMMAKERS: FRAMING. DO IT. This whole thing feels sneaky. YOU’RE sneaking, too. 

I completely skipped over this shot when picking my shots. Didn’t think twice about it. And when Colin pulled it, I went, “Wow… that’s a great shot.” Because the camera has no real business being there. And yet — it’s so much better of a shot for it being there.

I second Colin’s comment.

• This

Colin:

This woman is so good at looking fucking evil, I find it troubling that she’s in a stable marriage with children. I wonder if her son’s seen this. That’d be a fun movie night at home. Watch Mommy torture and kill people before she explodes.

I’m thinking about her at a soccer game.

It’s quite entertaining.

• This shot

I love this shot. Just, visually, it’s perfect. I kind of wish they pushed Dumbledore’s face into the frame a little bit more at the bottom, but still, you get the idea. This image is so good, I think that’s what gave them the idea for the poster.

It’s just a simple, great image. Two sides of the coin. Good, and evil. And then, in context, Voldemort looking down at a dead Dumbledore — it’s a really great shot. Definitely one of my favorites, filmmaking-wise.

Colin:

“Give us a kiss.”

- – - – -

So, that’ll do it.

Before we finish, we do have one request for you all:

And, of course….

“I can’t feel my legs!”

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Tomorrow are our Final Thoughts, and Monday is Deathly Hallows Part 2, and the beginning of the end of our first (official) franchise in Fun with Franchises.

(See the rest of the Fun with Franchises articles here.)

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In case you don’t know how this works — a while back, I decided to rank my favorite Disney movies and rank my favorite James Bond movies. And the Disney ones were mostly straight synopses and not too much fun, but when I got to Bond, I enlisted the help of my friend Colin (whose blog is TokyoRemix.com. Fuck yeah, promotion!), who knows everything about the Bond franchise that I do not, for those articles, and along the way, learned how to have fun with it. And, by the end of the Bond articles, we were having so much fun that I said, “Man, we have to do this again with other stuff.” Because I spent about a straight month and a half putting together those articles. That’s how much time and effort actually goes into something like that. And not once did it feel like work. It was so much fun that I knew, as long as we were doing it for comedy purposes and able to riff off of each other — we could do pretty much any film and it would work.

And very quickly, the first ones you come up with are the major franchises, because those are not only the most fun, but also the most universally known. Everyone’s gonna understand all the jokes we make (well… most of them. Some of them might be limited to three people) about them. So that’s what we’re doing. And if you’re gonna have fun with franchises, it wouldn’t be right if you didn’t franchise it. Also, just so we’re clear, this is all for parody. We’re just messing with them because we love them.

And that’s Fun with Franchises. Right now, we’re doing the Harry Potter franchise, and today is the fifth and final part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1.

We begin Part V at Malfoy Manor.

I really like these shots.

“He who would enter must answer me these questions three.”

“Well shit, never mind. That’s a scar of a different color.”

Say cheese!

Draco’s gotta ID the body.

That whole family’s got the Monster.

I also love how Lucius is like, “Now make sure, Draco, because if this is him, all the shit we fucked up with will be forgiven.” He’s such a sniveling little prick. It’s great.

Colin:

This illustrates my previous point about Lucius Malfoy being a rich Republican perfectly. One second, he’s showing his anxiety over the dangerous ideologue that he’s “allied” with, and the next second he’s berating a member of the rank and file that he could buy a zillion times over. 

Great moment. Draco has all the power here.

What’s interesting is how they don’t automatically know it’s him based on the fact that he’s with Ron and Hermione and has a fucking scar over his head. Who the hell do you think it is? Why do we need Draco to identify him? Context clues, people!

But yeah, Draco actually sort of redeems himself a little bit here.

“What’s wrong with his face?”

Bellatrix figures Hermione did it.

She says why don’t they check Hermione’s wand to see what the last spell it performed was.

(They can do that?)

Colin:

Is that a thing? You can just find out what someone’s last spell was? Like a *69 for a wand? I guess it’d be more like a redial. 

I guess that’s what priori incantatem is (based on what they’ve told us about it in the movies).

“Got you!”

The laugh is everything.

Colin:

I love her.

Uh oh. That’s not good. Whatever it’s about to be. Whenever a crazy person is stopped in their tracks, the result is never good.

Lance-luck to you there, buddy.

“Where’d you get that from?”

It was in Hermione’s bag. He figures it’s his now.

Yeah, about that…

I love when people go flying.

This is great. She’s just a fucking major boss. She just destroys like four people in about ten seconds.

Remember when she was Greyback’s friend last movie? What’s that all about? Motherfucker was at the Astronomy Tower and now he’s climbin’ in yo windows, snatchin’ yo people up.

I know Voldemort won’t let him be a Death Eater because he’s a werewolf (it’s like not letting half-Irish people join the mob. Don’t pretend like you didn’t immediately think of Goodfellas too), but he was there when they killed Dumbledore, and now she’s telling him to get the fuck out of her house. I can see attacking the other people and leaving him alone, since he’s sort of the leader of the group and they’re just the dirty help he’s hired. You expect that shit from the help, but the main guy you figure won’t care and won’t do anything. It’s just weird that she’s attacking him like this all of a sudden.

Even Boy George gets it.

It’s pretty awesome how she does this, though.

They’re putting the boys in the cellar.

Bellatrix is gonna “talk” to Hermione, “Girl to girl.”

Wormtail and his hand.

Remember when that meant something in the book?

Yeah, we’ll get to that in a second.

Colin:

Pettigrew’s such a tool. And that hand looks like a Nubian starship. I hope you know, asshole.

I like how people’s first reaction upon being locked up is to try to get out by pulling on the bars. Not once do they think, “Hey, maybe we can take out the wall next to the bars.”

“Ron?”

Luna!

(Also, I love that this deluminator actually serves a purpose and wasn’t just that plot point for Ron to come back. Notice how I didn’t even bring that up at all. It’s because I can accept a plot device when it has uses outside of the device.)

(Also, it’s a plot device that actually is a device. That’s humorous.)

Colin:

They searched them all, no? Why does Ron have the deluminator? Did he pull a Chris Walken?

Torture.

Apparently the sword is supposed to be in Bellatrix’s vault at Gringotts.

This is actually one of the most fucked up scenes in the franchise, because you can feel the torture. Any time someone reacts to torture the way you’re supposed to react to torture – it’s not pleasant.

“I didn’t take anything!” And she’s crying – this is legit torture right here.

Oh, this is fucked up.

I remember this from the book, too. This was some legit scary shit. This was one of the few (maybe even the only) times in the book where I was legit worried about a character’s safety.

Colin:

This is kinda hot.

What kind of fucked up porno would that be?

Colin:

I like yo purple overalls.

“That’s a curious thing to keep in your sock.”

This is why we love her.

“Help us.”

I love that he puts the light out when someone’s coming. This device is terrific.

No sure how Pettigrew doesn’t notice the light being on and going off, but that’s not the device’s fault, so I’m still a huge fan of it and how they use it.

It’s Griphook’s turn.

Back! Back you animals!

I feel like I had to have said this before, but…

Harry Potter TV series idea: Remember Deer Hunter?

It’s Dobby!

I love that when he turns around his face just lights up and he goes, “Ahh!” He’s so joyous. I love Dobby.

And then, of course –

“Dobby’s come to rescue Harry Potter. Dobby will always be there for Harry Potter.”

Which is a really touching line. It’s lines like this that make this sequence work.

Dobby can apparte in and out of the room. (Well he worked there before, didn’t he?)

Can he take them with him?

“Of course, I’m an elf.”

Awesome.

He’s gonna take Luna and Ollivander first. to Shell Cottage over on the outskirts of somewhere or other.

“Whenever you’re ready, sir.”

“Sir… I like her very much.”

Me too, Dobby.

Colin:

You can tell that Luna tried to say the ‘sir’ nonchalantly, but was really trying to show off how progressive she is.

Reminds me of this tweet that somebody wrote (I hate that I can’t remember who it is and am too lazy to go and look so I can’t properly give them credit: it’s something to the effect of, “Don’t you hate it when someone refers to God as “She” like it’s not a big deal but you can tell they want it to be a huge deal?”

Because yes.

So, can house elves just travel anywhere? This is sort of a two-part question, having to do with what happened earlier and what’s about to happen now. The first part of the question is – can they go anywhere? Since I think the rule is you can only apparate somewhere you’ve been before. I presume because how else would you fucking know where you were going? Every time they apparate, it’s somewhere they’ve been or somewhere Hermione remembers from her childhood and can picture very clearly in her mind. Or, like, in the forest later, she puts her scarf around the tree as a point of reference so they can apparate back later on. And here, Ron tells Dobby to take Ollivander and Luna to Shell Cottage, a place that Dobby has never been before. And yet – they all end up there when Dobby apparates them out of there. So do house elves not have to follow the rules? Are they just wizard Mapquest? Can they just go anywhere without issue? How does that work?

I feel like the argument against this is, “Well, they’re so small, so there aren’t any issues,” but if you’ve never been where you’re going, how can you get there? I could buy apparating to somewhere like Times Square, because everyone can picture it. But even then, it shouldn’t really work for you, since you’ve never actually been there, and how do you know that’s what it is? I don’t get how Dobby can just go to Shell Cottage with nothing more than, “It’s over near these two places.”

And the other question: Harry told Kreacher earlier to go bring him Mundungus Fletcher – how does that work? What if he can’t? Is he just under orders to keep trying until he does or until he dies? Is there some kind of montage of Kreacher setting Wile E. Coyote traps for Mundungus to try to catch him? Does this turn into some Team Rocket shit? And also, what if you told your house elf – who has to do what you tell them to – to bring you someone famous? Like, “Kreacher – bring me Keira Knightley.” Does that just happen? Are there no rules against this? Do they just bring you back anyone you ask for? This seems really dangerous, that house elves can just go anywhere unimpeded. You can send a house elf to go kidnap Keira Knightley and they just do it? This really seems like it could lead to some bad situations.

Colin:

My big issue with it was that Dobby, while still a slave of the Malfoy household, was perfectly able to apparate in and out of Hogwarts whenever he pleased. We now see that house elves can take people in and out of protected places, too. So how about evil people have their house elves take them and like six evil friends each into Hogwarts in the middle of the night? So much for your castle’s defenses.

After trying to get into this place numerous times, the Death Eaters could have gotten in whenever they wanted using elves. This is never addressed, even though the elves are required to do what their masters tell them, and there are elves — like Kreacher — who would GLADLY take evil wizards to go fuck up Hogwarts from the inside.

Con-ti-nui-ty!

Anyway, time to get them out of there. (I love the slow track in as he says what he’s about to say.)

“Meet me at the top of the stairs in ten seconds.”

That’s badass.

Coming down to check all the commotion.

Sniped!

“Oww.”

The mud on the walls makes for a nice blood spatter visual.

(Also, why is there mud on the walls? Especially right there. I can’t think of a single logical reason for that to be there except that they wanted it to look like blood spatter. Which is fine, I’m just… I just started thinking about it logically for a second. I’d rather the shot be there than make sense.)

So did he kill him, or what?

Since Wormtail dies in the book, the presumption here is that Dobby just headshotted him. Which is badass and fucked up at the same time.

Which, I guess, now’s a good time to wonder – how come they changed what happened in the book? It has to be time constraints, right? Or the fact that they never explained the whole life debt scenario in the movies.

Since the whole thing is that when Harry didn’t kill Pettigrew in Azkaban, or let Sirius and Lupin do it, Pettigrew owed Harry a life debt. So instead of strangling Harry, as he was about to do, his hand that Voldemort gave him strangled himself, him owing Harry a life. Right? So I guess they didn’t want to be bothered with explaining shit. That’s the only real explanation for it.

Colin:

Should’ve gone out like Chewbacca. Motherfucker got hit by a moon. THAT’S how you pay a life debt.

So the moon actually did hit him just right…

“Who gets his wand?”

Oh, he totally killed him. That’s a badass thing to say after you cap someone’s punk ass. That line works so much better if he killed him.

Golden snitches get golden stitches.

RANDOM SHOT THAT WILL BECOME IMPORTANT LATER BUT YOU’LL FORGET ABOUT IT BECAUSE THEY SPLIT THE MOVIE INTO TWO PARTS

(Man, that seems complicated.)

Colin:

Tell me I’m not the only one who heard the theme from Forrest Gump playing as Bellatrix’s hair floated down to Hermione.

(Some people hear that theme playing over almost every movie.)

(You know who you are.)

This is some Holocaust shit.

Colin:

Pretty sure Rowling’s racist ass already established the Goblins as this franchise’s Jews.

Bellatrix wants to know who got into her vault.

“Bitch, I don’t know.”

Spare the gob, spoil the child.

Not if Ron has anything to do about it.

He just expelli-disarmed the shit out of her.

Stupe-fuck you, Lucius!

Fighting the Malfoys.

This is kind of like Family Double Dare.

Colin:

DOUBLE BATTLE! (Remember when that first happened in Pokemon Gen II, and we were all like, “Whaaaaaat.”)

No.

It’s weird — she’s much more attractive than they make her look in these movies.

That’s always such a buzzkill in these moments.

Jesus christ, Quasimodo.

I love this moment. “Look who we have here…” and then she whispers to Hermione, “It’s Harry Potter.”

That smile.

Who you gonna call?

Bad time to play Knifey-Spooney?

“What the fuck?”

What the fuck was he doing to call Voldemort? Don’t you just put the wand to the tattoo? What’s with the David Blaine shit?

“Wait — I had something for this…”

“No, no, take your time. I’ll be fine with this big ass knife to my throat.”

TALLY HO!

That must feel good for him, having had to clean it for all those years.

“Give me my wand, bitch.”

Technically that’s the most important shot in the franchise.

Lucius be getting thrown all over his house.

I love the thud with which he hits the floor. That’s awesome.

“Stupid elf! You could’ve killed me!”

“Dobby never meant to kill! Dobby only meant to maim, or seriously injure.”

(So does that mean Pettigrew is still alive?)

Narcissa has had enough of your shit.

Nuh uh, bitch.

Oh, that’s right. Dobby a real gangsta.

Look at that gangsta lean.

“How dare you take a witch’s wand! How dare you defy your masters!”

“Dobby has no master!”

“Dobby is a free elf!”

“And Dobby has come to save Harry Potter and his friends!”

YEAH DOBBY!!!

DOBBY UNCHAINED!

Griphook’s like, “Well all right. Fine by me!” He’s enjoying the shit out of this.

Wow, it’s like apparting only goes slow when it needs to.

Love the single curl that blows out when she exhales.

Colin:

Personal preference, but if you want it to be a surprise, have her throw it in real time and leave the audience wondering what the fuck happened for that split second before the reveal. With this, you know they wouldn’t slow it down unless the knife is going through and fucking someone up. And who’s it going to be? One of the main characters, or a former slave who just made a speech about having gained his freedom?

I agree completely. Weird choice. But, like a lot of things in the franchise, they operate under the fanboy assumption that everybody knows what’s gonna happen and is expecting it. Definitely not long game stuff at all.

I can’t feel my legs!

(I have to say — there is a ridiculous amount of “I can’t feel my legs!” shots in this franchise. Between this and Bond — reaction shots, rear projection, and “I can’t feel my legs!” shots — those are pretty much the major themes of all these articles. I’m sure there are a few more that I’m not thinking of right now, but those are definitely the ones that keep coming back. And I love it. Since those are the best ones of all.)

Colin:

Just like Lana Turner.

I am never going to explain that one to people. I hope one day that becomes an actual thing.

“We’re safe. We’re all safe!”

“Harry Potter…”

Oh, that’s sad.

But on the other hand — he just got knifed.

I mean, objectively, a house elf got prison shanked. That’s fucking hysterical.

But anyway — sadness.

“Hold on. We’ll think of something.”

Whenever you have to say that – shit’s bad.

Hermione must have something in her bag.

Uh oh.

You went to the bag once too often.

Colin:

Can’t Hermione fix this? He’s just a little elf. Somebody get a vet.

But seriously, remember when Snape fixed Malfoy and put all the blood back and everything? You’d think at least Hermione would know how to do a simple patch job. Bandaidicus or something. The girl knew how to repair glasses before she even got to Hogwarts. And they have wands! Why is she just sitting there with the helpless face? I guess even Hermione is helpless against the author and her need to further the plot and set a tone.

“Help me!”

(That’s a great line. That really ups the emotion of the scene.)

“Such a beautiful place to be with friends.”

“Dobby is happy to be with his friend, Harry Potter.”

I think we can all safely say we wept like children when this happened in the book. This was one of those scenes I saw coming, and didn’t expect to be moved by, and was. It was actually really sad in the book.

They did a decent job of it here. It definitely is better than Sirius’s death in the films. I felt more emotional here than I did with that one. (Though I will admit, that one has grown on me since I watched the film again for the articles.)

“We should close his eyes. Don’t you think?”

And they show it, too. That’s always the most awkward part of dealing with a dead person.

That and the whole emptied bowels thing.

The rest is just logistics.

“There. Now he could be sleeping.”

With a knife wound in his stomach.

Though I guess that’s not completely implausible. It’s not like I don’t know someone who’s woken up covered in blood and no idea of how it got there.

Colin:

Hey….hey.

Forgot about that.

Crinkle crinkle SHIV.

Yes, it’s sad.

Harry wants to bury him. Without magic.

Like I said – logistics.

Colin:

The fact that he says, “without magic” sort of brings me back to the point I was making at his parents’ graves. About how using magic sort of robs the gesture of any thoughtfulness, since you can just do shit on the spot. It was a nice thought when Hermione made the wreath of flowers, but it was too spontaneous to be truly profound. This is Harry trying to show his love for Dobby by choosing not to use magic when he could. He’s gonna Stanley Yelnats it.

Also — maybe pitch in and help, other people?

(Also, where’d he get a shovel from? Did Hermione have that in her bag?)

(I guess… the cottage. I’ll go along with that. Of course it had only one though, right?)

My grandmother went the same way.

I hope you brought something to wipe.

Fun fact: That was originally going to be the ending of the film until like, the last week or so of editing, and they decided to end with this:

I told you they’ve been setting up that grave for six movies now.

Great shot.

There it is.

This is like when the Grinch takes the candy canes from the sleeping little kid Whos.

It’s his, now.

Colin:

What’s with the Dark Knight score playing over this?

You noticed it too, right? I said that back at the beginning. It’s strange — Alexandre Desplat is not the Dark Knight type, either.

And that’s where they end Part I.

- – - – - – - – - -

Tomorrow we do favorite images, Sunday is Final Thoughts, then Monday is Part 2, which is just wall-to-wall fucking war.

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