Rant about Harry Potter saga

Due to Richard Harris' passing, fans never saw his full portrayal of Dumbledore.

I'm sure this is a divisive subject, but I've always felt (increasingly so) that Chris Columbus was the best director for the series. There is something magical about the first two films. It's hard for me to put into words, but the atmosphere, the heartwarming musical score and sort of "old fashioned/ancient" style of the magic made it feel like a real world for wizards. Voldemort was much scarier as a withered old man with red eyes, raspy voice, and a nose! and with a hood as a dark wizard on the rise in the flashback scene.

The score made me feel like Harry, a young boy who has fallen in love with this new world where he has friends and people who care about him. It made me understand why he loved it so and called it home when the theme plays.

Hogwarts was actually creepy in the first two movies.

On the other side, I've heard people say that Columbus didn't make 1 and 2 dark enough or made them too dull, but I completely disagree. The forbidden forest was spooky, a giant spider, a giant snake, a mighty underground chamber, a slithering phantom and even the screaming ghost inside of a book made Hogwarts feel much spookier, richer and mysterious than the other 6 films with plenty of ominous tones looming over the future events (eg. "Mark my words, Potter, one day, you'll meet the same sticky end", "Let's hope Mr. Potter will always be around to save the day | Don't worry; I will be", "After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things — terrible, yes, but great.")

Voldemort flirts with demonic possession in the first film.

I may be giving too much credit to Columbus but whoever made these characters feel real and layered must've fallen out of favor or simply lost their touch in the other films. I mean, 4 directors? I would go as far as to say that Mike Newell better understood the series than David Yates (who made 4 of the films and somehow effectively did 6), trying to somehow find a balance between Columbus and Cauron's styles whereas Yates just made everything so much worse consistency-wise when he made 5.

Fiennes' Voldemort is no Lord Vader.

Personally I hate it when people leave projects half done. I truly wonder and wish Harry Potter had one director all the way through, or art director, cinematographer or whoever (I'm not knowledgeable about what role every person has on a crew) was responsible for making those first two films so captivating and internally consistent.

I think it would a challenge for any director to present the big world that is to become the stage for a second wizard war, but by the end of the actual series, everything felt so out of whack, pedestrian and confused with thin characters popping up in every story whose deaths we don't even get to see.

Not only was Voldemort's return mildly impressive, but it felt so much more like real life with teenage angst/frivolity on the stage instead. They were all the same length and I'd rather see a consistent and otherworldly film instead of visiting a private school for British kids in hoodies with silly "dark lords" strutting around.