I understand that there’s a certain grandiosity built into the production design and shooting style of the Harry Potter films. I understand that they’re not dogma movies. Nonetheless the acting is one the most fundamentally alienating aspects. Not once and not ever are you allowed, much less encouraged, to actually believe in anything that Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint say or do. Because they’re always “acting,” and you’re never allowed to forget that.

What Daniel, Emma and Rupert do is react to fantastical CG and wind machines and flying objects with wide-eyed excitement and/or alarm, and what you need to do in your theatre seat is submit, bitch. We are Marshall Warner Bros. We make the Potter films and you are the lemmings. We do what we want to do according to our paychecks and our determinations. We “love” the fans, but we also know who and what you are, and that you’re not bloody likely to complain or rebel so like it or lump it or…whatever, eat your popcorn. We do whatever we want to do. We are the masters making the rules for the wise men and the fools.

We’re talking obedience and regimentation. All of the characters, everyone…they’ve all been directed to play “characters” in a very expensive Harry Potter film, in exchange for which they’re being paid quite handsomely. And you sit there, knowing this and feeling this, and your soul just sinks into the swamp.

This is one of the many reasons why I got off the boat years ago, and why I intend to say not a single word this weekend about the enormous HP box-office. There is no Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1. It doesn’t exist, and it isn’t playing in theatres. Or at least, not on this site.