***Spoilers contained within***

I went and saw the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 tonight.

It was a fittingly awesome. Very dark. Very serious. It looked spectacular. Ron, Hermione and Harry are competent actors now. And the story is great.

I think one of the things I enjoyed most about this film was the pace. Generally the Harry Potter films have been about cramming as much of the story in as possible. This film they really took their time. Yates allowed for there to be plenty of silence between lines. People didn't spend heaps of time explaining things. We could take time just to watch magical visual effects and the battle of Hogwarts. It made the whole thing feel grander.

One of the things that Harry Knowles pointed out about Transformers 3 is that it takes people 3 seconds to process a shot. Which means that Michael Bay had to slow down his editing in the action sequences so that we didn't get lost. That totally changed up how Bay did action, and it made Transformers' action sequences a whole lot more fluid and comprehendible. I think it made them the best action sequences in the francise.

For Potter, I think it may have had a similar effect. The whole film felt like you could just take your time to absorb everything. It was quite special. I good way to say goodbye.

I must say, I think I may have mentioned it before, but Harry Potter is quite the Christ figure. I came out thinking "Goodness me, JK Rowling has to be a Christian."

And it turns out, she is. She said this after the last book came out "To me, the religious parallels have always been obvious, but I never wanted to talk too openly about it because I thought it might show people who just wanted the story where we were going." I guess I missed that piece of news.

About her faith she said "It's something I wrestle with a lot. It preoccupies me a lot, and I think that's very obvious within the books." (From here).

It is tempting, as a Christian who works with young people to exploit Harry Potter's obvious Christ connection. And perhaps I will. But that always seems a bit lazy to me. I'd rather be inspired to create art that points people to Jesus and appreciate art that is inspired by Jesus than just use other people's art where Jesus makes a cameo appearance.

I guess, thinking back to where Harry started to where he's come to, it's nice. I remember someone telling me back in 2003 that when Harry Potter ends, he's going to encourage everyone worship Satan. Instead Harry Potter ends by defeating evil through sacrificial love, and not by killing his enemy through being more powerful, but by dying himself. Love wins. And as Lesley pointed out, when Harry dies, where does he end up? Kings Cross. That's pretty spectacular for a book encouraging kids to worship Satan.

Someone must have written an interesting academic thesis on it. I'd like to read it.

Anyway, it's a pretty awesome movie. It ended well. Go see it.