10 Reasons The Harry Potter Movies Were A Massive Waste Of Potential

On the face of it, The Deathly Hallows' epilogue was pretty well handled. The ageing make-up did the job, it took the right stuff from the book to make its point and the reprise of John Williams' Leaving Hogwarts brought a cyclic finality only a film could achieve. Given the movie it's in, it's the best we could have hoped for. Any tears it pulled are justified.

However, it's why those tears are pulled that's the issue. While we're seeing Albus Severus Potter leaving for his first year at Hogwarts, the focus is so squarely on it being the end of Harry's journey, and in an overly nostalgic way to boot. This is to a degree what it's like in the book, but the emotion it kicks up is different.

Just look at how the scene was received at the time. Yes, your childhood is symbolically over (although someone who was the ideal reading age of The Philosopher's Stone in 1997 would already have been in their early twenties by the time the film came out), but in jumping forward nineteen years we're shown the breadth of adulthood. The "All was well" ending is as much about the after as it is relishing in the journey of before. This confusion always inevitable (especially with the bringing back of Williams), but Yates perhaps cut out too much of the focus on the kids to make it work at its best.

This is something that will be exacerbated as Harry Potter continues to grow outside of the original series; this year alone we're getting the sequel two-part play (which is getting its script released as a full book) and the first film in the Fantastic Beasts trilogy. Although, with that said, here's hoping that without a direct source to deal with they avoid some of the pitfalls the main series suffered in adaptation.

What do you think of the Harry Potter movies? Did it waste potential or was it a knock-out success? Share your thoughts down in the comments.