While I personally think Harry is my favorite character, I’ve always known that most don’t see it that way. I think his depth and him being a hero through even his abusive childhood is a good role model type and like him the best. Of course I am pretty certain that most people like Ron the best, or Hermione. I also am a pretty big fan of Fred and George for comedy relief.

Always something Potter to talk about. MTV.com has been running the Harry Potter World Cup running up to the premiere of Deathly Hallows 2. It is now down to 4, and I am a little surprised by the results.

Not by Ron and Hermione being in the top 4 of course, but the other 2 are Severus Snape and Sirius Black after his escape from the steel buildings wizard prison, Azkaban. Good characters mind you, but surprising none the less. If it were the books I’d probably take the trio and Dumbeldore, but the movies don’t portray Dumbeldore the same way so I don’t like him as much.

The Finals will likely include Ron and Hermione as they are not matched up against each other this round since they were #1 seeds. Harry got knocked off by his most hated teacher Severus Snape and likely one of the most surprising character turns in the second half of DH.

At last the Harry Potter movie version of the stories have finished. Early reviews seem to love the film. Why not? It was probably action packed all the way through considering what was left to cover.

I’ll just preface by saying that I have read the books quite a few times. Well…listened to Stephen Frye read them to me on my iPod as I did other things several times which is like listening to a play. If you are a fan of the books I can’t recommend the audiobooks with Frye reading highly enough. His ability to voice every character is astounding, and I think he does better with the material than anything else that has been released.

I have also seen all the movies. Except for DH2. As many of you that read the books have found the movies are I guess you could say HP-lite. There just isn’t enough time to cover everything in the movies that are in the books. So we have to give them some leeway in that regard. To me as someone that has read the books a few times the movies just feel insanely rushed and a lot of the moments that were my favorites were omitted, or changed in the films. Dobby=Neville being one of the major turns I wasn’t in favor of.

That doesn’t mean the movies are bad, but they do feel a bit light in content. Things move along so fast, but I think the characters and the actors selected in all the films are very good. Harry, Ron, and Hermione have basically sunk into my mind while reading the books as the characters. Dumbeldore of the movies I consider a bit off, however. He’s too stern and serious in the movies, while in the books he is quite comical to goofy, and much more laid back. Completely different than the films, which I find to be a bad interpretation.

Films have a very good dark feel to them, and a lot of cool magic effects. Acting is average I guess, but the dialog is a bit meh. Really it all comes down to time available to the movies and they characters aren’t as fleshed out as the books. I know a lot of people say the books are full of filler, but they are a tremendous story of character development for the main characters. Something the movies can’t possibly stick with. We have to get a lot of info out in little time. Condensing 10 hours, or 20+ in the longer books of material into 2 hours just isn’t possible. The films are still OK, but as films I don’t necessarily see them as “great”.

The films themselves are a bit too cheeseball at times and the dialogue is just out of context at times, or plain odd. The script is basically the most low end of the movies I’d have to say. They look great, but the stories and dialogue leave a lot to be desired for me as a movie. These are more or less big budget movies with big budget dumbed down dialogue IMO. Overall as movies they are average to good. Something like a 6-7/10 based solely on being a movie.

Deathly Hallows 1 I didn’t expect much out of. The first half of the book moves rather slow so I figured the movie would be pretty slow paced and it was. That just meant that Part 2 would be an action packed finish.

According to most of the reviews I have read fans are happy with it. Of course they are. It’s an action film totally I would guess compared to Part 1. Meaningless I know because “HP fans” doesn’t distinguish between fans that have a “read the books” plaques, and people that have only seen the movies.

We don’t need to read reviews of this if we are HP fans, however. We are either going to watch it, or we won’t. Part 1 I wanted to stop watching when Harry and Hermione decided to have a dance together which was ridiculous.

Reviews I don’t want to read because I hear nonsense like this:

Justin Chang for Variety “surges ahead with tremendous urgency, superb spectacle and powerful, even overwhelming emotion, only to falter with a hasty sendoff that seems to buckle under the weight of audience expectations. Tears will be shed as fans bid farewell to Hogwarts, but catharsis remains just out of reach.”

“perhaps the greatest triumph of this final film is its ability to overcome the deficiencies of J. K. Rowling’s writing.” He adds, “But Yates here transmutes it into a genuinely terrifying spectacle, as bloodied students fight desperately against a horde of screaming black-robed Death Eaters.”

Now she may not be the greatest writer ever, but this is the kind of thing that bugs me about critics of the books. Their lack of patience and ability to see the importance of the character development that the books hold. They call it filler, while I find most of these moments to be some of the best of the books. The movies are the Cliff’s Notes of the books, and even less detailed than that.

they can both be good in their own ways. The books to me are infinitely better as most of the time they are, but the movies aren’t “great” movies to me either. Less to do with the content too. It’s that they are just a rush of information and poor dialogue with a lot of pretty magical effects. I want more from a movie than that.

Thursday in London the world premiere of the first installment of The Deathly Hallows was seen by an array of celebs. The U.S. release is tonight in New York and is expected to be quite the spectacle as well.

So much hype for this movie it is unreal. Things like Live streams of the event like this one can be seen starting at 6 PM ET sitting on your modern sofa.

There is so much out there about the movie it’s not even funny. Even talks of Harry kissing Hermione in the film. Emma looks hot at that premiere BTW.

Oh…you are wondering why Harry and Hermione are kissing? You read the books right? Remember when Ron saves Harry out of the pool for the sword? What he sees when they get ready to destroy the necklace? Yeah you remember now right? That’s as far as the spoilers go. If you didn’t read the book you have to watch the movie to understand.

If you have read the Harry Potter series you know exactly what the tale of Beedle the Bard is. It was the book that was left to Hermione by Dumbledore. If you are more of the popcorn machines and movie type then you probably own’t know much about this tale until the last couple of movies come out .

Although the stories of the book were covered in the Harry Potter books, the actual writings were not. After all the Potter books were finished, Rowling created seven copies of the Beedle the Bard, writing and illustrating the five stories. She gave six of the copies to friends and the last one to the Children’s High Level Group, a charity she helped create. The charity auctioned the book, which Amazon bought for $4 million.

Now we can all buy the book. It is being released this Christmas season to the general public to help raise even more money for the charity. In this version, Rowling tells us that the tales were translated from the Ancient Runes by Hermione. And adding a special flair, the stories are accompanied by notes from Dumbledore, expounding on their larger meaning. In her introduction, Rowling says the notes date to about 18 months before Dumbledore’s death. Definitely cool. Guess you need the actual book this time and not the audiobook to fully enjoy the tales.

Sorry, there isn’t another Harry Potter book coming out. Just like with The Tales of Beedle the Bard, this Harry Potter Prequel is going to be auctioned off for charity and as of yet, not available to the general public.

Author J.K. Rowling has penned an 800-word outline of a prequel to the seven book series that has made her into a billionaire which will be sold at the auction on June 10 by bookseller Waterstones.

The outline, which ends with the line “From the prequel I am not working on — but that was fun!” is one of 13 story outlines written for the auction by famed authors including new Bond writer Sebastian Faulks and Nobel laureate Doris Lessing.

So what’s the deal Rowling? We are going to have to find someone that stole it and published it online before they get sued? Find someone who has it stored in their bodystockings with a curse fit to fool Umbridge? What a tease.

Not the character, but the kid who plays him in the movies. Daniel Radcliffe , who is best known for playing boy-wizard Harry Potter in five films, will reprise his role as Alan Strang in ‘Equus’ on Broadway beginning next year, BBC News is reporting.

“I’m obviously nervous but I’m very very excited,” the 18-year-old actor said.

“If we can get a straight play to really succeed in a world of theatre that is so besieged by musicals, that would be a real achievement and I think the time is absolutely right to do it [in New York.]”

Oh noes. What about the children!? The children I say…the children.

Harry Potter fans, the rumors are true: Albus Dumbledore, master wizard and Headmaster of Hogwarts, is gay. J.K. Rowling, author of the mega-selling fantasy series that ended last summer, outed the beloved character Friday night while appearing before a full house at Carnegie Hall.

Unbelievable. People are freakin’ nuts I swear.

She was asked by one young fan whether Dumbledore finds “true love.”

“Dumbledore is gay,” the author responded to gasps and applause.

She then explained that Dumbledore was smitten with rival Gellert Grindelwald, whom he defeated long ago in a battle between good and bad wizards. “Falling in love can blind us to an extent,” Rowling said of Dumbledore’s feelings, adding that Dumbledore was “horribly, terribly let down.”

Dumbledore’s love, she observed, was his “great tragedy.”

“Oh, my god,” Rowling concluded with a laugh, “the fan fiction.” source

The fan fiction? What the hell is she talking about? She just made this crap up on the spot.