Have you ever fantasized about being more than an average person? Have you ever sat wondering what it would be like to be thrust into an extraordinary situation and imagined yourself winning through the most difficult challenges and gaining the admiration of the people you care about most? If you have then this series is exactly what you’ve been looking for. The Harry Potter series is about more than just a young boy learning cool spells and encountering fantastic people and creatures, it is about the in bred desire every individual has to realize their inner strength and become he or she was truly meant to be.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is the first part in a series that has captivated the hearts and minds of people across the world. This movie introduces the young hero, Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), as an orphan living with his cruel aunt, uncle and cousin who are obsessed with maintaining a “normal life”. Harry Potter represents the inner strength we all know we possess and these relatives represent the restraints placed on us by society, our family, and most importantly our own doubts and fears.
Harry is introduced as an intelligent, cultured child who is trapped with people who make it painfully clear that they have no love in their hearts for him. He is constantly berated and ridiculed by his family and they do their best to make him feel like a lower form of life, as if he is a burden to them and they wish he wasn’t a part of their otherwise perfectly “normal” lives. Within the first few minutes of the movie it is apparent that Harry possesses certain powers that make him anything but normal.
After interrupting his family’s otherwise mundane lives several times with his powers he begins to realize that he has powers unlike anything he has ever imagined. Just before his eleventh birthday he begins receiving letters, his uncle steals these from him immediately and destroys them minutes after reading them. These letters continue to arrive constantly and in much larger numbers but his uncle continue to keep them from Harry. The letters continue to come in, delivered by owls, and soon Harry’s uncle becomes so upset that he brings the entire family to an island to avoid the letters. That night the family is visited by a giant riding a flying motorcycle that announces himself as Hagrid and reads Harry’s letter aloud to him.
Harry learns that he has been invited to become a student at Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a mystical place where young Wizards like Harry are trained in their art. The following day Hagrid escorts Harry to Diagon alley to begin purchasing the supplies he will need for his first year in school. This is his first experience with this new and magical world, and he quickly learns that he is not only a Wizard, but famous. As soon as Harry and Hagrid arrive in The Alley he is approached by an old man who tells Harry how honored he is to meet him. Harry is confused by this introduction and soon learns that he is the son of two famous Wizards and is also very wealthy. After purchasing his materials for school, he boards a magical train where he meets Ron (Rupert Grint) the first of two companions that will accompany him throughout the entire series. Ron begins to teach Harry about the Wizard world, and after seeing that Ron does not have enough money to buy food on the train Harry buys some for both of them.
At this point it is important to note one of Harry’s greatest traits, although he has been raised in an environment completely empty of love he has not become bitter. Harry, seeing that his newfound friend, indeed his first true friend, is in need he immediately helps him out. Harry represents the loyal friend within all of us, the ability to be there for the ones you care about regardless of the personal cost, this is just one of the things that make Harry special to all of the readers. While on the train Harry comes into contact with two other characters that will become pivotal to the entire series, Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) and Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton). Hermione is a young woman whose parents are muggles (ordinary people without magical powers) and Draco is the arrogant son of one of the oldest and, as we later learn, one of the most corrupt and vile Wizarding houses. At the end of the train ride they arrive at the huge castle that houses Hogwart’s where Harry learns about the four great Wizard houses.
After a solemn ceremony Harry, Ron, and Hermione are placed in House Gryffindor and Malfoy is placed in their rival house Slytherin. Ron’s two older and mischievous twin brothers who immediately take the newcomers under their wing. Shortly after arriving at Hogwart’s Harry discovers that he is a very talented broom rider and he is selected to become a crucial member of the Quidditch team. Quidditch is a high flying magical sport similar to
Harry soon learns that a mythical object “The Sorcerer’s Stone” has been stolen from the magical goblin bank in Diagon alley by his nemesis, Lord Voldemort. This discovery throws the entire school into a panic, and Harry learns that Voldemort is the man who killed his parents and attempted to kill Harry but failed, which is what made him famous. Eventually Harry and his friends find out where Voldemort is taking the Sorcerer’s Stone and track him to his secret laboratory. When they find Voldemort he and Harry fight an epic battle and Harry emerges victorious.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone may look like your typical hero vs villain story where the hero emerges victorious and everyone lives happily ever after, but nothing could be further from the truth. This story sets the stage for a series that will take the viewer deep inside the mind of this special young man and provide them with a mirror into their own souls. The characters in this series represent people we all know well, we all see pieces of Harry in ourselves, the ability to do reach deep within themselves to find the strength to win out against adversity. We all see ourselves with Ron’s steadfast friendship and Hermione’s staunch confidence, combine all these characters in a movie and you can’t help but fall in love.
December 8th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
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