Magic Movie Marathon Comes to Grassroots

All eight Harry Potter movies screened June 6-8

On the morning of June 6, Harry Potter fans met in the Grassroots Cafe to watch the first of the franchise’s eight movies. Beginning with The Philosopher’s Stone and ending with The Deathly Hallows Part II, the Magic Movie Marathon stretched over three days, in a similar fashion to the Kwantlen Student Association’s Marvel Movie Marathon, held from May 2-5.

The two marathons are the first of many planned for this year by the Kwantlen Student Association’s vice-president of student life Natasha Lopes and Business representative John Shkurtaj. By choosing to screen the Harry Potter films, they hoped to target a new and passionate group of viewers.

“Like with every big movie franchise, there’s always that fan base that differentiates. With the Marvel series, it’s a bunch of superhero and comic book fans. For Harry Potter, it’s more fantasy world fanatics that will be more interested in this,” says Shkurtaj.

Lopes adds onto that point, saying, “Between Marvel Movie Madness and Magic Movie Madness, you get two different types of people. Although a lot of them share and transcend the two genres, you’re going to get another base of people. You’re going to get the kids who grew up with Harry Potter.”

Lopes herself identifies as one of those kids. She describes herself as a long-term fan of the films, even owning a “Weasley is Our King” t-shirt dedicated to her “favourite people in the entire Harry Potter franchise,” the Weasley family.

“We grew up with Harry Potter. Harry Potter was one of those streamlined things we knew was going to come out the next year. We were excited for it when we went and watched it in the theatres,” says Lopes.

Between 10 and 20 people at a time sat in the Grassroots on the first day of the marathon, their eyes on the television screen as the stories of The Philosopher’s Stone, The Chamber of Secrets and Prisoners of Azkaban unfolded. As promised, Lopes is “there and watching intently,” as is Shkurtaj.

Also at the marathon is big-time Harry Potter fan and Kwantlen Polytechnic University psychology student, Sharon Neb. Her love for J.K. Rowling’s series started when she was eight years old, born out of the desire “to wave a wand and make things fly,” like the students at Hogwarts.

“It’s so magical and so different from reality. It’s a different world,” says Neb. “It’s just something that you would never imagine, and it’s portrayed so well.”

Although she thinks that “the books are so much better than the movies,” since they are more detailed, Neb was excited about the Magic Movie Marathon because, “You can watch all of the movies in a few days and you can still come out, have a good time and get food.” Her favourite film and novel, which she is most excited to see at the marathon, is The Goblet of Fire, but her favourite Harry Potter moment of all time comes at the end of The Deathly Hallows Part II.

“I really liked at the end of all of them, when Harry’s sending his son to Hogwarts and they’re all standing there. It’s so adorable. At least there’s a happy ending to everything,” she says.