Harry Potter (and Stars Wars too)

In anticipation for the exciting upcoming Harry Potter events, I have begun to reread the books. I do this every time a new book or movie comes out and I always start with the latest and work my way back. Yeah, I know it;s odd to read them in reverse chronological order, there is a reason. I have already read the early ones a lot, I mean A LOT, so if I started with them I would get bored. But by reading them in this way I get a chance “get into” them again before I hit the first two. Also, each time I read them I pick up on new little clues in the later ones so that when I read the earlier ones, I can put more connections together. I just finished the 6th book again and today and heading off to get the 5^th book and semi-hopefully the 4^th movie. I say semi-hopefully because if the 4^th movie isn’t there, Craig and I will go to the old movie theater in town and watch it. By old movie theater I mean the one that shows old movies. They normally they show things like The Sound of Music and Casablanca but this weekend they are going through the Harry Potter movies. I think it would be really fun to go see it in the movie theatre again (although not as much fun as the first time with all my girlfriends at midnight, which was a blast) but it costs $5 a person, so the library would be better on our budget. So if the library has it, we’ll go with that, but if not we will have to spend the $10 to see it so I won’t feel bad about the money.

Anyway, the point of all this is that Harry Potter has been on my mind lately. Then Craig and I decided to watch his old Star Wars tapes. I have never really thought about them together before now but there are a lot of similarities between the two sagas. I 'm not going to pretend that I am the only one to have discovered these but I still am going to share them because I just thought it up and I think it is cool.

The obvious ones:

Protagonist is a young orphaned boy who lives with his aunt and uncle until he discovers the truth about a whole new world that needs his help. Antagonist is a powerful man who is trained up to be good but turns evil because of his power and his view of his past experiences; he then changes his name and loses parts of his soul, turning into really creepy looking guy. Somehow the good guy and bad guy are linked together. The young protagonists is being mentored by an extremely powerful something (Jedi/wizard) that for some unknown reason is unable to kill the antagonist himself. Then the protagonist’s older mentor dies, leaving the hero to finish the fight against evil and fulfill his destiny.

The less obvious ones:

• Luke has two side kicks that end up romantically involved: Leia who is known for her smart, strong personality and interesting hair, and Han who is funny and considered by some to be good looking.
• Harry Potter has two side kicks who are going to end up romantically involved: Hermione who is known for her smart, strong personality and interesting hair and Ron who is funny and considered by Rachel to be good looking.

• Luke has cute little helper named R2-D2. (FYI – R2D2 is my fav character in Star Wars)
• Harry has cute-ish little helper named Dobby.

• Luke has a big furry companion/protector named Chewbacca
• Harry has a big furry companion/protector named Hagrid

That’s pretty much it from me. This is the first time I really sat down and watched all the movies (while paying attention that is, LuBecca’s place doesn’t count) I can’t add anything more. I might think of more as I finished the movie but feel free to leave comments if you can come up with anymore.