Snapshot: Harry Potter
Lucky members of the University wizarding world hopped on their Firebolts and headed to local theaters at midnight Friday for the premiere of the first part of the seventh and final Harry Potter film, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I.”
Harry Potter fanatics are rampant at the campus community and show their love for The Boy Who Lived in a plethora of ways. From renting out entire theaters to tattooing the mark of the Dark Lord on their bodies, campus devotees are still worshipping the series almost 10 years after the “Sorcerer’s Stone’s” release.
Sarah Williams, assistant manager of Rave Motion Pictures Mall of Louisiana, said the film’s ticket sales have been through the roof.
“We are actually sold out completely for the midnight feature, and we were sold out three or four days ago,” she said Thursday morning.
The Rave premiered the film on a whopping 15 screens in the theater, Williams said.
The Rave staff took special measures to ensure the premiere was a top-notch experience for both employees and audiences by dressing up as characters from the film.
Williams admitted her love of the film and said though it’s difficult to predict how long tickets for the film will sell out, sales will be on the rise for a while.
“With films like Harry Potter, we even have people come back and see it three or four times, so it will definitely be a big hit for weeks,” she said.
Sophia Hegmann, natural resource ecology and management senior, had a Harry Potter film marathon in Miller Hall during the weekend.
“I’m an RA in Miller Hall, and so this weekend, we had all the movies going in the lobby, and my friend and I were the ones who stuck it out the whole time,” she said.
Hegmann said by the time the sixth film rolled around, a crowd of Potter fans had formed in the lobby to watch the marathon.
“It took forever, but it was awesome,” she said. “It took us 12 hours to watch all the way to the sixth one, so it ran from 10 to 10.”
Mallory Prevost, education graduate student, also attended the Miller marathon.
“We got to watch him grow up and compare the directors and the different characters and see how they grew with Harry,” Prevost said. “So it was really fun to see them all back-to-back because I had never done that before.”
Seth Segura, civil engineering graduate student and keeper and chaser for the LSU quidditch team, said Potter fans should express their love in a different way.
“If you’re a big fan of Harry Potter, you should get a Dark Mark tattoo like I have on my left arm,” he said. “I just love the image of it. I was like, ‘OK, I’m a Harry Potter fan. I need to show it.'”
Fanatic Potter fans gravitate to the franchise for a number of reasons, according to Wesley Shrum, chair of the Department of Sociology.
The attraction to the wizarding world spurs from the idea that it is similar to the muggle world, Shrum said.
“It’s pretty much a parallel world, and the one difference is that we can take relatively easy human actions and create really big effects that we don’t normally get to see, but magic is just technology,” Shrum said.
Hegmann said she’s glad the seventh film is being released in two parts.
“I’m really glad they split it in two so this doesn’t have to be the last one,” she said. “The newness and the excitement doesn’t end quite yet.”
Hegmann said she prefers the books to the films.
“I didn’t even bother reading the book before the last two movies because I get really critical with the details,” she said. “I’d make sure to re-read the books right before the movies came out, and it would just ruin the movie.”
Faris Foyil, mass communication senior, said she loves the Harry Potter movies.
“I hate it when people get upset and say, ‘It’s not like the book. It’s not like the book.’ Of course it’s not like the book,” she said. “The book is 700 pages. You can’t condense that into a two-hour movie.”
 
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Contact Cathryn Core at [email protected]