The first in the two-part conclusion to the biggest film franchise of all time is often considered a controversial entry. The plot doesn’t really kick off until the final few moments, and most of the screen time is reserved for some uneventful camping sequences.
Despite this lack of action, the filmmakers still made plenty of mistakes throughout. Whether these were semi-necessary in order to facilitate certain plot points or glaring errors they missed in the editing room, there are plenty to look into. We’ve gathered ten of them.
Fred Doesn’t Seem To Know The Term ‘Minister For Magic’
Considering he has been born and raised in the wizarding world, you’d think Fred knew a fair few of the basic terms dotted around the universe. However, when they've finished putting up the wedding and the Minister For Magic is wandering towards the house (unguarded and alone, for some reason) Fred asks, ‘what’s the ‘Minster Of Magic doing here?’.
You’d really think that he knew the correct term. You wouldn’t see a muggle calling the Prime Minister the Primary Minister, would you?
The Dartford Tunnel Traffic Is Going The Wrong Way
If you live near the Dartford Tunnel, which you probably don’t, you’ll know that the northbound traffic is split between two tunnels and the southbound traffic goes over the Queen Elizabeth II bridge. Unless the bridge is closed, you won’t see the traffic going in the direction it does in the film.It's a pretty boring and useless piece of information to have, but there you go. We know that the bridge isn’t closed, because it's shown from above in the scene before, so the only explanation is that the crew managed to get the whole tunnel closed for filming.
Bellatrix Changes Arms
During what might well be the most brutal scene in the entire franchise, we see Bellatrix torturing Hermione and carving ‘mudblood’ into her left arm. She initially leans towards the right arm, but as soon as the shot changes, she’s going for the left.
It can’t really be that she changed her mind, because the shot change is pretty much instantaneous, so this must be something they missed when editing the film.
Hermione Has Forgotten How Long Polyjuice Lasts
Back in her second year, Hermione became a bit of a master of Polyjuice potion brewing. Well... sort of. She did end up turning herself into a cat, but still. She certainly told Harry and Ron that the potion would last exactly an hour, meaning she knows how long it’ll last when they ask her again this time around. Of course, there is every chance that the potion can in fact be brewed to different strengths, but this isn’t explained. It's hard to tell if this is an error or not.
How Did Harry Get His Glasses Back?
When the Snatchers show up and capture Harry, Ron and Hermione, she really makes a point of disguising Harry as best she can. She does a terrible job; he looks exactly like Harry and should be immediately recognisable to everyone in that house. Anyway, she takes his glasses and puts them in her pocket.
When they’re down in the cellar with Luna, he pulls his glasses back out of his own pocket. Given Hermione was pretty busy getting tortured at the time, she couldn’t have really given them to Harry, so how has he ended up with them?
The Flashback Shows Resurrected Voldemort
When Harry has a flashback about the night his parents were killed, we see Voldemort entering the house and carrying out the famous deed. For some reason, Voldemort looks exactly the same all those years ago as he does in the present, which doesn’t make a lot of sense. It is suggested that his evil took a toll on his appearance, but his resurrection as a weird snake-alien type thing suggests that he looked a lot weirder post-resurrection than he did back in the days of Harry’s childhood. It would have been pretty cool to have seen an alternate version of Voldemort, so they really missed a trick here.
They Forgot To Put Dumbledore On His Book
When Rita Skeeter wrote and released The Life And Lies Of Album Dumbledore, she had it published with a classic moving image of the great wizard. Firstly, this doesn’t make a lot of sense because by this point she’s supposed to be a ladybird only printing what Hermione lets her, but that might not canon in the films.
Either way, there is a brief scene where the filmmakers have forgotten to edit the moving image of Dumbledore onto the book cover. Considering these moving images are allowed to come and go as they please, perhaps he was just on a trip to a different book?
Ron Seemed To Know About The Final Horcrux
When Ron destroys the necklace, he excitedly announces that they have three left to get a hold of. As far as he knows, this isn’t the case at all; to him, there should only be two more (they don’t know what either of them are yet, but for your information, it's the diadem and Nagini). For some reason, he seems to have some insider info that Harry needs to sacrifice himself as the final horcrux. Considering Voldemort doesn’t even know about this one, it seems pretty weird that Ron would, so maybe they should have thought about that one while writing the line.
Harry Doesn’t Attempt To Use Parseltongue On Nagini
As far as Harry knows, Nagini is nothing more than a really mean snake. He has the very rare gift of being able to speak to snakes and a surprising amount of interaction with a snake for a school-child. Why has it never crossed his mind to try and speak to Nagini?
As we found out in the Fantastic Beasts series, Nagini was once a real person, so maybe Harry could find out a way to try and sympathize with her? Or try and explain something about the situation? Or even just throw it off guard when it’s trying to attack him in Godric’s Hollow?
Voldemort Shouldn’t Have Risked Leaving Nagini In Godric’s Hollow
Speaking of Nagini, why on earth did Voldemort have the guts to leave her unattended in Godric’s Hollow? He knew she was a Horcrux, and he knew his Horcruxes were being tracked down and destroyed one by one. If he used to her to get to Harry and he ended up killing her, that would have been another horcrux he had pretty much gifted them. Plus, it really seemed like Nagini was shooting to kill, which doesn’t really match Voldemort’s desire to put an end to Harry himself.