England (part two)

England day two—AKA   HARRY POTTER STUDIOS

(Be forewarned: extreme cheesy-ness ahead so beware and don’t judge)

 

                Call me a dork but the second day in England I went to the Harry Potter Studios at Leavensden because I am such a Harry Potter nerd :)  Our trip liaison from the ship was also a HP nerd and he totally made the trip!  He stood at the entrance to our bus and as he collected our tickets said, “All aboard the Hogwarts Express,” in a British accent and proceeded to tell us that we would spend the ride to England singing AVPM songs!  He was great and everyone was so excited it was hilarious.  For those of you who don’t know, the studio is full of most of the props, costumes, sets, etc that were used over the ten years it took to make the Harry Potter films.  When you first walk in there are eight screens that alternate between the movie posters for all eight movies in all of the different languages that the movies aired in.  After waiting there for all of the people on the tour to enter we went into a mini-theater and watched a clip of Rupert, Daniel, and Emma explaining how this was their home for ten years and how much all of this has meant to them.  At the end of the clip they enter the great hall and as soon as the clip ends the screen rises up to reveal the actual entrance to the Great Hall and basically everyone there screamed in excitement. 

                I am not going to bore you with all of the details as I know some of you are not big HP fans (gasp!) and those of you that are fans are already jealous enough.  Basically though, we went on a self-guided tour of two large sound stages and one outside courtyard that were all full of enough HP material that you could have stayed in each area for a week and not seen it all—honestly.   The amount of work and detail that went into these movies is absolutely astounding even if you are not a fan.  Not only are there props and sets that are not very well seen (or even seen at all) in the movies but everything is done with such detail that it in and of itself could be a masterpiece—and no one ever sees it--insane! 

                There were several points on the tour where I looked at Amy and Allie (the girls I was walking with) and we all just stared at each other speechless, and occasionally with tears in our eyes because it was all so inspiring.  For those of you who did not grow up as part of the Harry Potter Generation it is hard to explain that we were literally walking through our life.  I started reading the books in Kindergarten and the last movie did not come out until my freshman year in college.  It sounds cheesy---I know—but Harry Potter really is our generation.  To see all of that and to know that it’s over was….well I guess J.K. Rowling was the only one who had the words to express it.  The last room on the tour was modeled after Olivander’s Wand Shop and in it there were thousands of wand boxes with the names of each and every person who worked on the films and in the middle was a screen with Jo’s quote, “The stories we love best do live in us forever, so whether you come back by page or by the big screen, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home.”