What is the difference between a good adaptation and a bad one? Especially when we are considering the adaptation being written from a property we hold close to our hearts? To me, the answer is be truthful and faithful to the source material, all the while being able to visually and stylistically surprise us. This may seem an easy feat to accomplish, but considering David Yates past work on the series, in my least favorite cinematic installment of the series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, this may not always be true. One aspect is just the psychology of it all. When we each read J.K. Rowling's epic wizarding tale, we read our perfect version of it, meaning we made our perfect casting choices (such as my mental casting of Alan Moore as Rufus Scrimgeour), our perfect style and essentially our perfect translation of the novel ourselves. Therefore, when we got Order of the Phoenix, we had a few things matching our vision, the young Evanna Lynch as Luna Lovegood and the CGI rendering of the thestrals for example. However, Michael Goldenberg's (the man currently destroying our film version of Hal Jordan in Green Lantern) script left out important scenes, changed a few things and ultimately fell short of what we all had in our heads while reading.

I'll admit that Yates' next adventure into the Rowling mythos was better. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince we get the return of screenwriter Steve Kloves, whom in the end will have adapted seven of the eight films. Kloves still, in my head, missed some of the more important parts; however, we get some tender moments between Ron and Hermione, some significant Alan Rickman screen time, a slightly more foreboding atmosphere and of course the always stellar cast. It ended up being something that, for me, I hated to love. That is why when I read the news that Yates was returning to film the two films that would split the last book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I cringed deep inside. The film series, which started out with director Chris Columbus, moved onto the incredible Alfonso Cuaron (Y Tu Mama, Tambien and Children of Men are among his impressive filmography) and finally dropping off into the hands of Mike Newell, not to mention the fact that Terry Gilliam, a true cinematic visionary and Monty Python alum, has always expressed interest in being part of this franchise, makes the choosing of Yates anything but settling.

So, anticipating disappointment, I settled down for the midnight showing of the first part of our last journey into the world of Harry Potter and his friends. Was I disappointed? Aside from the scene kids that kept talking about how much they loved Harry Potter, throughout the film, completely ignoring the film itself, I was delightfully pleased. Yates cannot take all of the credit, as given two films to adapt the screenplay, Kloves puts out the most faithful adaptation yet. (As a note, and spoiler alerts ahead, as I am pretending someone may actually read this, I, by no means am saying there wasn't things I disapproved of, for instance, the fact that Harry hardly even grieves over the death of Hedwig among several other things.) But Yates, along with franchise noob, cinematographer Eduardo Serra create a dark landscape that coincides with the bleak, death-ridden storyline.

But for me, the biggest saving grace for Yates, is the entire visually and stylistically surprising us thing I mentioned earlier. When we read this book, we pictured it to be foreboding, we probably played out the acting in our heads (maybe even not up to par as the likes of Helena Bonham Carter gives), but the addition of something out of the ordinary, not in my imagination while still fitting with the film and Rowling's storyline was the animated sequence when Hermione reads the tale of the three brothers. The entire thing looked like somebody took one of Tim Burton's rather macabre and twisted ideas and put it to imagery combining Gilliam's Tideland, and the anime prequels to Play Station's Heavenly Sword. It is this one moment that completely redeems Yates for me, and officially puts Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 as one of my most anticipated films in a long while.

As a note, I did some research and found out that the animated sequence came courtesy of animator Ben Hibon. Cartoon Brew has a bitching little short called Codebreakers that he did for MTV Asia. If you have a few moments to kill, check it out.