Critical Opinion?

When do you get to the point that critical opinion no longer matters? I am intentionally trying to stay away from reviews, or even clips from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows-Part I. This is an extremely new practice for me, cause typically with movies I really wanna see I scour the internet and find every morsel of footage I can see, every review left unread, until by the time I sit into the theater I already know what to expect and there is no surprise. I've decided to try and avoid these things as best as possible with these final two Harry Potter movies, and even still I have seen a few reviews. Most of the reviews are typically, "Blah, blah, uneven pacing, yada, yada, yada..." the same stuff that critics have been saying about the Harry Potter movies since the very beginning, and I'd actually venture to say, that by this point in the series tenure, critical opinion no longer matters.

Critics who have been reviewing these movies since the very first, if they didn't like that one, they're not gonna like any one that comes after it because it is a continuing story where the tone, character relationships, and same type of story structure are repeated movie after movie. Regardless as to what critics say, fans will see this movie. Regardless as to what they say, many fans will enjoy this movie. And regardless to what the say, just about as many fans will whine about any minor changes the movie made to the source material, and the fans will feud for decades to come. The critics opinion does not sway anyone here, much like it doesn't with Star Wars, and I think it's pretty safe to say that the Harry Potter movies are no longer trying to gain new viewers but simply be a service to fans, and that's how it should be.

Starting with the last Harry Potter movie, The Half-Blood Prince, I noticed that the filmmakers no longer were burdening themselves to try and clue the viewers into this world and reintroduce them to their characters, they just took off, to where if you had not seen the previous five movies, well you were out of luck. They spent so much time with the 4th and 5th movies trying to make them more commercial in appeal, and the end result wasn't so much Harry Potter, but Deathly Hallows-Part I seems to be following Half-Blood Prince's logic, and I'm fine with that. At least the filmmakers and studio seem to understand, if you aren't already a fan of the boy wizard, then this movie wont change your thoughts, and that is also why I think the movie was split into two parts, to do full service to the 750 page tome. I by no means want to see such a literal translation that I'd just rather read the book (like the 2nd movie, Chamber of Secrets), but I wanna see it realized cinematically in a way that fully does justice to the source material, but allows these movies to come into their own and be their own stand alone materials of time.