The ‘Harry Potter’ Franchise Through the Eyes of a Non-Fan

Last weekend's release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 2 concludes an epic 10 year run that captured the hearts and imaginations of fans around the world...except for mine. Unlike my wife and my mother, I've never read any of the books. Not because I think the story line is silly, but because I'm too lazy to read a book. Actually when it comes to movies, I, like nearly every other red-blooded male, gravitate more to comedies, action-adventure, sci-fi, and fantasy films. In theory, the Potter films would be right up my alley.

I did see Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone back in '01 partly due to the fact my wife had read and enjoyed the book and was curious as to see how accurately the novel was represented and partly because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. From what I can recall, I did enjoy it. However somewhere over the course of time, life must have gotten in the way, I guess. I got married, had kids, took on additional responsibilities at work, etc. Plus, I never felt like the next Potter film was a "must-see" for me like say a comic book movie (X-Men, Iron Man, Batman, etc.). Again, the concept of the story is appealing to me, because after all isn't the thought of escaping to another world for 2 hours the whole point of seeing a movie?

Before I knew it, Chamber of Secrets was in theaters, followed by Goblet of Fire, and Prisoner of Azkaban. The movies were coming out quicker than I could keep up. So, as I tend to do from time to time when I get too far behind on something, I got lazy and gave up. Although in the back of my mind, now that Deathly Hollows Part 2 is out and I know this is the end, maybe one day I'll rent all the movies and just have marathon geek-fest in my living room. But let's be honest here, will that ever happen? Probably not.

As it turns out, I'm not the last human on earth to have never become wrapped up in Potter-mania. Daniel O'Brien at Cracked.com has written an hilarious article where he describes how the phenomenon that is the Harry Potter franchise has also passed him by. Dan takes it one step further, however. He admits that he will go see Deathly Hollows Part 2, even though he has no clue as to what has taken place leading up to the finale. So to familiarize himself with the storyline, he tries to figure it out by watching only the trailers from the first 6 films. It's a great read that had me laughing out loud on more than one occasion. Check it out for yourself if you have a few minutes to kill and need a good laugh. I will warn you, O'Brien does use some "colorful language" in a few places so if your a prude or holier-than-thou type, then you may want to sit this one out.

If you've been living in a closet for the last couple of weeks and didn't realize there even was a new Harry Potter movie, check out the trailer for Deathly Hollows Part 2 below.