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Pottermageddon

Kim Hollis: The real story of the week is the impending release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2, the eighth and final film in the franchise. Let's warm up for the week with a couple of topics. Did you read the Harry Potter books before seeing the movies? Did you watch the Potter films immediately upon release or did you wait until home video/ABC Family marathon? Which Potter character is your favorite? Which movie subplot would you have rather done without? Do you believe Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2 can get the opening weekend record?

Edwin Davies: I was 13 when I started reading the Harry Potter books (it was just after the novel of Prisoner of Azkaban was released) so I was a pretty rabid fan of the books by the time that the films started rolling out. I read each new book on the day of release - which was something of an achievement once you get to the later ones - and saw all the films on opening weekend, with the notable exception of Order of the Phoenix, which I skipped seeing in theaters because I disliked the film version of Goblet of Fire so much that it put me off seeing the next one. When I watched it on DVD, I loved it, so I went back to my tradition of catching them opening weekend.

I love the books, partly because the story is so strong, but also because they were one of the key touchstones for turning me into the voracious reader that I am now. The film series I view somewhat differently, because my love of film grew around them, rather than because of them, but the main thing that I love about them is that they still fill me with a sense of wonder. I may view Deathly Hallows Part 2 in a very different way to how I viewed The Philosopher/Sorcerer's Stone because I'm older and think more critically about film, but there is still a sense of magic to them that hasn't disappeared over ten years and eight films (even Goblet of Fire, which is the worst of the series for me, still has moments of real awe in it), which I think is nothing short of miraculous. It doesn't have the scope and scale of Lord of the Rings, which is probably its closest contemporary since Philosopher/Sorcerer's Stone and Fellowship of the Ring were released within weeks of each other in the winter of 2001, but it means as much to me as Star Wars does to people who grew up in the '70s and '80s; it's cinematic escapism of the highest order.

Remus Lupin's my favourite character, and one of the joys of the film series has been seeing David Thewlis bring the character to life so well. I kind of hope that the final film does justice to him, because I always felt that the book of Deathly Hallows shortchanged him a bit. That may just be bias on my part, though; there were so many characters that needed to have their stories resolved that some of them were always going to be shunted to the sidelines, but I love that character so much that I want him to get a fair shake. I've also really dug what Alan Rickman has been doing as Snape, and I'm really excited to see how the film handles his story, which winds up being one of the more surprising and touching of the series.

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