Spoiler alert! This post contains spoilers from the final "Harry Potter" book.
Earlier today I stumbled upon what looked like a movie poster for a supposed movie called For The Greater Good. In all honesty, when I saw the poster I thought it was a really clever image created by a fan that wished such a movie was real. Then I saw that there really is a movie to go along with the poster and I was very curious to find out what this was all about.
It turns out that the 17 minute video was made by Harry Potter fans for Harry Potter fans, and that they did this without benefiting financially from their efforts. The movie takes place at the end of the 19th century, at the end of the brief friendship between Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald. The movie shows what happened that lead to the accidental death of Ariana Dumbledore, and is based on Rita Skeeter's book, The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore, and what Dumbledore told Harry at King's Cross.
I didn't have any expectations whatsoever as I watched The Greater Good so I was pleasantly surprised by how I was hooked right from the start. The special effects were impressive for a fan video, and I thought the music was well done, too. Then there was the acting - for the most part I believed these characters. There were a few moments where I had a hard time seeing the love that Albus had for anyone, particularly at the end after Ariana was killed, but that's a minor matter. Overall the actors did an excellent job. I especially liked Ariana and could clearly see Aberforth's love for her. I'll even admit that I was a little weepy by the end of it.
There are a LOT of comments for this video on YouTube and it was fun reading through them. One theme that I saw repeated throughout was whether or not Albus would have used the Killing Curse during this duel. Some people said he was too good a man to have ever considered using the Killing Curse on Grindelwald, while others disagreed.
This was something I needed to think about before coming to my own conclusion because I hadn't thought about whether or not Dumbledore would ever had used the Killing Curse. The text in the book explaining the scene depicting in the movie is one brief paragraph:
Dumbledore never said if he tried to kill Grindelwald during this duel, but I think the key part of this paragraph is, "The argument became a fight." When wizards fight it is with magic, not fists, and if Grindelwald lost control of himself then I can see this turning into a vicious fight. Were the words, "Avada kadavera," spoken during the fight? I think it is very likely that they were, possibly even by Albus.
In the end, though, it doesn't matter. The Greater Good is a movie made out of love for the world of Harry Potter and this is their interpretation of events. I think it is obvious that the fight took place indoors, not on a beach, since Ariana ended up on the floor but I like that the movie takes place at the ocean, and the writers even gave a reason for the location which I found touching.
The movie was made by a company called Broad Strokes and they are currently working on another movie called Snape and the Marauders. I can't wait to see that one!
You can learn more about The Greater Good movie short by going to http://www.thegreatergoodfilm.com.
Below are the three movie posters made for this movie.
