The final Harry Potter film is a hectic maze of action and battle, with almost no plot at all. Sure, the entire series comes to a close and we get the whole Snape twist, but otherwise, it’s just a massive fight with our heroes getting some pretty lucky access to the Horcrux-killing weapons that reside in Hogwarts.
Due to its fast pace, the film is littered with mistakes that shoot by so quickly that the filmmakers must have not been able to keep a lid on them. Here are ten mistakes from The Deathly Hallows Part 2.
Why Are Sirius And James Already In Gryffindor Robes?
When we finally get to take a look at Snape’s creepy, over the top love for Lily Potter, we’re shown some scenes from the childhood of Harry’s family members. When the camera shows Lily being sorted, she wanders away from Snape to befriend James and Sirius, who are already wearing Gryffindor robes.
This makes no sense because the boys would have only just been sorted, and wouldn’t have the robe for their house yet. For some reason, Lily is in the correct robe, so why didn’t they just keep them matching for the scene?
The Great Hall Seems To Have Moved
We’ve seen the entrance to the Great Hall many times over the course of the Harry Potter series. It is clearly inside and has a little entrance hall in front of it, whether this is the one right next to the stairs climbed in the opening of The Philosopher’s Stone, or the one with Umbridge’s signs on its walls as seen in The Order Of The Phoenix.
For the climactic scene of this film, we see it leading directly onto the courtyard, which is outside. How can one massive room move around this often?
They Use The Wrong Prophecy
Arguably the biggest mistake in The Deathly Hallows comes when we see death eater Snape spying on the prophecy Trelawney made all those years ago regarding a certain boy-wizard. Hearing this is what inspired Snape to go to Dumbledore and set up the events of the series’ conclusion.
This means there should have been a lot more care taken when choosing the audio for the scene, as the wrong prophecy is heard. We hear the one Trelawney made regarding Peter Pettigrew, which isn’t relevant to Harry’s parents’ death. In fact, it happened many years later. As a producer, how on earth did this get past JK Rowling?
Why Can’t They Keep Lily’s Eyes Consistent?
The most annoying thing about Harry Potter is the importance they place on Lily Potter’s eyes. Everyone says it to Harry how similar they are wherever he goes, and it is Snape’s dramatic final line that leads to the reveal that he has loved her forever.
You’d think this would be kept on top of, and they’d cast someone who actually did have similar eyes to Harry. This would probably work better than, say, someone with completely and utterly different eyes, right? They show them so clearly as well. Even if they’d just given her contact lenses this whole issue could be removed…
Where’s Ron?
When Dumbledore’s Army gathers around him to defend him from the wrath of Pansy Parkinson and her demands that someone grabs Harry and hands him over, we see a lot of familiar faces step up to the plate. Ron, who was with them up until now, is simply not in the scene at all.
He isn’t in the background, he isn’t busy doing something else, he’s just disappeared somewhere. You’d really expect such an important character to remain present in a key scene, rather than wander off. Maybe Rupert Grint was in the toilet?
Harry Still Doesn’t Have Lenses Sometimes
As we know from previous films, Harry’s glasses don’t always have lenses. This has a very innocent and completely understandable reason behind it. If he looked directly at the camera, it would be reflected straight back into his glasses, or some glare from the sun might get in the way of the shot.
However, considering Harry’s glasses are quite a key part of his character, you might assume that they’d eventually figure out a way of covering for this without breaking continuity.
Harry Steps On Dumbledore’s Cloak… A Lot
This is a pretty funny one. Rather than interrupting the plot, giving anything away or representing a mistake at the hands of the crew, director or an actor, this is potentially not a mistake at all.
In the Kings Cross purgatory scene, Harry is walking alongside Dumbledore talking about the strange situation they’re in, and Daniel Radcliffe just can’t stop standing on his silver cloak. If it wasn’t so long, you’d assume Dumbledore might fall over from it eventually. I’m impressed that they both kept a straight face.
Ron’s Moving Wand
When Ron, Harry and Hermione are running around in the room of requirement away from the fire Goyle started, we see Ron holding his wand in his right hand. He then uses that same hand to reach for Hermiones and we see his wand in the left hand.
Obviously, the idea of changing hands isn’t exactly far-fetched, but considering these scenes are cut between directly, it isn’t really plausible that Ron managed to change hands instantaneously.
They Use St Pancras Instead Of Kings Cross
During the final scene, Kings Cross is introduced with an external shot to show the audience where we are, but rather than showing Kings Cross itself from the outside they use St Pancras. Kings Cross itself isn’t exactly an ugly building, with a clocktower being surrounded by two arches making up the majority of it, but St Pancras is certainly more magical.
It has a much older, castle-like look that suits the feel of the films much more than Kings Cross. It isn’t really a mistake, as I’m sure the film crew knew exactly where they were when filming, but if you’re a Londoner then it really sticks out.
Why Does Voldemort Disintegrate?
Again, this doesn’t really count as a mistake, because it was obviously intentional and meticulously pre-planned, especially as it ended up looking particularly cool. However, it isn’t ever explained why Voldemort disintegrates in the way he does. We’d seen Bellatrix explode a few moments earlier, but normally the recipient of the killing curse would just stiffen up and fall backward, not have this sort of dramatic exit.
Maybe it’s because there was so little of him left after the Horcruxes had been destroyed? Or this is what happens to dark wizards? We like it, but a little explanation might be helpful.