Mourning what we lost with the last film

Okay, so I watched The Deathly Hallows, Part 2 again yesterday on Blu Ray. This is the first time I've had the chance to watch it alone, in the privacy of my own den, without interruption or disruption.

I could watch every scene carefully, appreciate the nuances of the performances, the majesty of the sets and costumes, the rhythm of the editing.

What I still could not appreciate was what these filmmakers did to my beloved novel. They butchered it. They made the egregious assumption that they knew better than J.K. Rowling how to craft the end to her fantastic story.

I know. I know. You've read this all before. But it strikes me harder and harder each time I watch that last film.

And the thing that started to seep into my anger as I watched that ridiculous last battle was a deep sadness.

For all their flaws, the first seven movies were enjoyable adaptations of the Harry Potter world. Though not always faithful to the source, they at least provided us with a vision of Rowling's world and characters brought to life.

And Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint have come to inhabit our conceptions of the Hero Trio, no matter how we've tried to fight it.

So my sadness, I think, comes from the fact that this abomination of an eighth film cannot be made again. It will not be made again. We will never have the chance to see all of these actors inhabit these roles and do them well.

No one is going to go back any time soon and say, "Well, they messed that up pretty badly. Let's go back and do it right."

So I will never see some of the great scenes from the seventh book brought to life on the screen by these actors:
- I will never see Chris Rankin as Percy Weasley topple out into the Room of Requirement from the passage linking the Hogshead with Hogwarts, right into his gathered family to deliver his fumbling apology and be welcomed back into the brotherhood;
- I will never see Grint as Ron express his concern for the wellbeing of the Hogwarts House Elves as the battle is set to begin and, therefore, earn his first true embrace from Watson as Hermione;
- I will never hear Simon McBurney exclaim, as the form of Kreacher bursts from the Hogwarts kitchens to enter the fray, "Fight! Fight! Fight for my master..."
- I will never see the tide in the battle turn when the Centaurs and the rest of the wizarding world enters the fight as Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid holds Harry's apparently dead body;
- I will never get the chance to watch and listen as Radcliffe (as Harry) and Ralph Fiennes (as Voldemort) circle each other carefully, with Harry explaining to his arch enemy (and the gathered crowd), why the Elder Wand will never properly work for Voldemort and how Snape had fooled him for so long; and, worst of all,
- I will never get the chance to see that final moment when Voldemort's curse rebounds on himself and, as Rowling writes, "Tom Riddle hit the floor with a mundane finality, his body feeble and shrunken, the white hands empty, the snake-like face vacant and unknowing."

I feel sadness because, in choosing their own ideas over J.K's, in substituting their sense of drama for hers, the filmmakers have wasted this one golden opportunity to do it right, to capture the beauty of Rowling's final novel on film.