The moment we've all been waiting for...

I know I said I'd do a blog post reviewing Mockingjay, but honestly, what just happened in my life takes bigger precedence.

For the past year and a half, I've been waiting with mixed feelings for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. Back in early 2008, we learned that WB would be splitting the book into two films, and at first I was kind of apathetic about this news, but the closer the release date for part 1 got, the happier I became with this decision. Because of my utter disappointment in the film adaptation of Half-Blood Prince, I was hoping that Deathly Hallows would be different- that they'd spend the time necessary on the two films to accurately portray the scope and detail of the final chapter of Harry's journey.

This summer, when I went to Wizarding World of Harry Potter and Infinitus, it finally hit me just how close we were getting to the premiere, and I started to lose myself in anticipation. School started, and I forgot about it for a while, but once October rolled around, I began to count down the days until the midnight premiere. All of a sudden, it was yesterday, November 18th, and I had bought my ticket weeks in advance and it was finally time to don my wizard gear, grab my wand and embark on Harry's quest with him.

I'd been careful to stay away from spoilers of any kind, and I was highly successful (the one spoiler I received was minor and was not intentionally discovered). I only saw trailers when they came up on TV, I never looked at production stills, I watched no interviews and certainly didn't look up facts on spoiler sites. Way to take the fun out of everything! But as excited as I was, I think it increased tenfold when I watched Pottercast's highlights from the UK premiere last Thursday on Youtube. Jo Rowling herself was an Executive Producer for this film, and when interviewed, she stated that this film was her personal favorite film out of all of them.

And then I died.

If I thought I had been excited before, I was wrong. My hopes had been realized: if it's good enough for Jo, I thought, it's good enough for me! So I went in to the movie last night with many of my best friends (Kelly D, Elizabeth, Jennie, Abby and more), stood in line for... not as long as I would have thought, since we got there early, was NOT the only person who dressed up like a champ (it was so awesome!!) and was filmed singing "Get Back to Hogwarts" from AVPM for our University's TV station, Eagle Eye. Once we got our seats in theater 12, we went over to theater 10, whose crowd was so much more awesome than ours, and reprised our performance for their Audience Talent Show. Needless to say, we rocked the house!

When we got settled into our seats again, it was about 25 minutes to show time. I thought that we'd have the regular 15 minutes of commercials and previews and then we'd be on our merry way.

Um... yeah, you would think that's what happened, but it's not.

It hit midnight. The screen changed to a blinking Sprint ad, with a reminder to turn off our cell phones and other noise making devices. And it never went away.

For 45 minutes.

Yes, that's right kid, theater wide, we were all seeing the same screen, and we started 45 EFFING minutes late, because of the geniuses who thought it would be a good idea to get to the theater right before it started. They were late because they had to find seating for everyone. It was awful.

Anyway, the movie FINALLY started (after a mixed bag of good and bad trailers). Here's where I have to put up the SPOILER ALERT! IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE SPOILED, DO NOT CONTINUE READING. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. DON'T BLAME ME IF YOU READ IT AND THEN GET UPSET BECAUSE YOU READ SOMETHING YOU DIDN'T WANT TO SEE. IT'S YOUR OWN FAULT. DON'T READ UNLESS YOU'VE SEEN THE MOVIE OR DON'T CARE. THANK YOU.

Ok, sorry about that, I just hate spoilers and I don't want anyone to get spoiled unwillingly.

I'm going to go as close to in order as I remember, but since I was delirious and half asleep and dead tired when I saw this movie (although somehow wide awake enough to watch the whole thing...), my memory might not be the best judge.

-As soon as the WB logo popped up, Elizabeth and Jennie and I held hands and I literally started crying. Just like I thought I would.

-I LOVED the fact that they included Hermione modifying her parents memories. It was gut wrenching and I started crying again at this point.

-Dudley didn't get the chance to say, "I don't think you're a waste of space." NOOOO! I wanted to see that soooo bad!

-Two names: Alan Rickman. Tom Felton. They are two of the most excellent actors I've ever seen, and in the Manor scene with the Muggle Studies teacher, I was so incredibly touched by both of their performances. They both exhibited the internal struggle that Snape and Draco are having, their extreme discomfort in their situations and how they would rather be anywhere else doing anything else. Alan Rickman is Snape. There is no other Snape. And when Part 2 comes next summer and he dies, I'm going to cry probably harder than I cried for Dobby. I'm not kidding.

-The Seven Potters sequence was EXCELLENTLY done. I was so, so happy that they gave the twins more screen time in the beginning, and that there were some fairly lighthearted moments during this scene. Because it is pretty funny when you see seven Harry Potters, some in girls clothing, undressing and... goodness, it was just very well done =]

-Hedwig. Oh my god. I am SO glad that they gave her a more heroic death in the movie, because in the book it just seemed so random and wasteful... her death was pointless in the book, but at least in the movie she died with dignity, saving her master... it was beautiful and so, so sad.

-I was kind of upset with the way they handled Voldemort finding out which Harry was the real one. In the book it was because of his use of Expelliarmus, but in the movie it was because Hedwig died to save him. Also, it wasn't very clear that it was Voldemort chasing them until you see him taking down a crap load of power lines in rage that he couldn't catch him... yeah it was a little weird. Also, Harry and Hagrid didn't go to the Tonks's, they went straight to the Burrow. Which was magically rebuilt after they burned it down in the previous film. CRAP.

-George's "saintlike" joke about his ear was word for word from the book. YESSS!

-I loved the moment when Kingsley sent his patronus to warn the wedding. I was so hoping they'd take the words verbatim and they did. So glad.

-The cafe scene with the trio and the Death Eaters was so well done. I really feel like the acting overall in this film was phenomenal.

-Kreacher wasn't in it enough, and Dobby's re-emergence into the storyline was a little random. They also cut the scene where Lupin comes to them at Grimmauld Place and Harry bitches at him for abandoning Tonks. I really wanted to see that, just because I love Lupin so much, and David Thewlis is a wonderful actor, but I understand why it was cut.

-The Ministry scene was amazing. Umbridge was so terrifying, even more than the fifth movie, because she was just so heartless and ruthless... God she just made me so upset. I liked this whole sequence because I felt like the actors who played the people they changed into did a really good job of capturing Harry, Ron and Hermione so you believed that you were watching them in someone else's body, rather than someone else entirely. They also managed to get hilarious moments into a very sobering scene.

-The whole arc with Ron's progression into jealousy and rage up until the point where he leaves is so realistic and you just feel for him. Rupert Grint was amazing in this film.

-The scene where Ron leaves is just... perfect. It kills you inside a little when you hear Hermione screaming after him, but it's perfect. I cried.

-They added a scene where Harry and Hermione dance after Ron leaves. It's so incredibly awkward and precious and I actually really loved it. But what I think its purpose was in the film was to show that there really is nothing romantic going on between Harry and Hermione, and there never was. They were always just best friends, more like siblings, and it was really great for them to have a scene where they just could forget, temporarily, the gravity of their situation, their sorrows and their burdens and have a bit of awkward fun.

-Godric's Hollow with Bathilda Bagshot was also perfect. Effing scary as crap when Nagini is attacking Harry, but perfect. I legitimately screamed at one point. That scene was very frightening. No joke.

-Ron killing the Horcrux... I thought this was very well done, and very similar to the book. The only creepy part (that did happen in the book, even though people think it didn't) is when Horcrux Harry and Hermione start making out in front of Ron... the change that I didn't really like was the fact that they were... *ahem* not clothed. At all. Nothing was shown, of course, but still. Yikes.

-I was a little disappointed in Hermione's reaction to when Ron returned. She was not NEARLY angry enough. She just hit him a couple times with his bag and yelled at him. She should have kicked and punched and slapped him and just... ugh I don't know, I feel like that scene was handled better in the book.

-Ron was so cute and awkward trying to get back into Hermione's good graces. Adorable.

-The Lovegood house was awesome. The guy who plays Xenophilius was perfect for the part, and you could tell just how torn he was between helping Harry and turning him in.

-They did something very interesting for the Tale of the Deathly Hallows, which I thought, honestly, was one of the best parts of the film. When Hermione read aloud from Tales of Beadle the Bard, they had a very cool animation that illustrated the story as she read. Very, very unlike anything we've seen in these movies, but ultimately one of the awesomest additions to the movie and I absolutely approve.

-Ok. Malfoy Manor. Where to begin? The arc as a whole was soooo good. So unbelievably good, with a sprinkling of a slight disappointment and a pinch of funny and a whole slew of upsetting and shocking.
Helena Bonham Carter, as usual, plays crazy exceptionally well. Bellatrix was legit scary as crap in this scene. I love that Jason Isaacs (Lucius) was very accurate in his portrayal of the "broken man," as he himself described Lucius in an interview.
I hated the fact that when Ron and Harry were in the cellar with Luna, Ollivander and Griphook, and you could hear Hermione screaming from Bellatrix's torture, Ron hardly... did... anything. He wasn't nearly upset enough. He was just kind of standing there, shell-shocked, not yelling and pounding on the door and going mad with fear that the love of his life might die and he can't save her. Instead he stood there. And did nothing. I was not ok with that. I was also not ok with how Wormtail died. Not cool. He got a hatchet in the back thrown by Dobby... um, can you say random??
What I did like was that Bellatrix carved "Mudblood" into Hermione's arm and it was like, the most intense acting that I've seen Emma Watson do, and I was very impressed. I mean, she screamed her effing head off, and it was so believable. I started crying there too.

-Last but not least at all, probably the most important moment of the night. Dobby.
Dobby's last scenes were amazing. The way he showed up and stood his ground against Bellatrix, saved all of the people left and then... oh god, when Bellatrix threw that knife I grabbed Elizabeth's hand and I started crying right then. And I didn't stop until after Harry dug the grave. But anyway, Dobby's dying scene was beautiful and heart wrenching and so incredibly upsetting, but he knew that he had done it to save Harry Potter, and when he uttered Harry's name for the last time before dying I just lost it. It was so emotionally draining, that last scene. I couldn't handle it at all. It was just like watching a friend die before your eyes. I don't even know what I'm going to do for Part 2 when everyone that I love dies... God.

-The last scene of the film, where they make the split, is Voldemort retrieving the Elder Wand from Dumbledore's tomb. That moment was soooo intense, and it happened right after Dobby died, so I was already crying, but when he broke into his grave and snatched the wand from Dumbledore's hand, I had this intense sense of rage that welled up inside me and I was just like, "YOU GET AWAY FROM HIM YOU $%*#@$*#% I HATE YOU SO MUCH I CAN'T WAIT UNTIL YOU DIE!" Silently, of course. But when he releases that electricity into the air I got chills and I knew instantly that this movie was a success.

So... I guess that's it. There's more, obviously, but I'm exhausted because I got 3 hours of sleep last night after the premiere (thank you 8am class after getting in bed at 3:30...), and I have a busy four days ahead of me, which you will hear all about in due time!

Thanks if you stuck with me for that whole thing and read my ramblings. I just love it so much. There are no words.

HPRT: This whole post is a Harry Potter Related Thing. Geez.
Current Book: None at the moment, but I will be starting LOTR during Christmas break, so I have that to look forward to.
Current Song: Don't Do Sadness/Blue Wind from Spring Awakening