Harry Potter Exhibition Part 3

Creatures

Mixed throughout the Harry Potter exhibition were replicas of the many creatures seen in the movies.

As mentioned already Kreacher was there looking pissy as ever. What's his deal anyway? Little racist scamp, don't be hatin'.

Fortunately Dobby also made an appearance. Unfortunately he dropped a cake on our heads. Dangit Dobby you are not helping! That's why he looked so nervous and his eyes bulged wider than usual.

Near Mrs Sprout's costume was a mandrake root in a glass case.

Aw, aren't they cute? But that's not the only place the mandrakes were featured in the show.

In another fun interactive area there were four pots in a wide planting troth. If you were to pull up on the leaves in the pots you'd discover a shrieking mandrake root. Yes the things actually shrieked just like in the movie. It was especially funny to hear them all being pulled up at the same time. None of our party wore protective ear mufflers. Luckily only of us fainted because of the mandrake's screams, but I won't tell you who. (Okay I admit I have a weak constitution when it comes to suffering plant life).

The highest concentration of creatures was found in the Black Forest area of the show. Many of the denizens of the forest were there including a centaur, an acromantula spider, a baby thestral and a very detailed and scary Hungarian horntail dragon head.

This guy was fierce looking. He could easily swallow you whole with one bite. That is, if he didn't roast you with his fire breath first.

Everyone's favorite hyppagriff Buckbeak was also hanging out in the Black Forest. Is it just me or does he seem a bit tired? When asked Buckbeak just moaned, "lookit, you'd be tired too if you did 15 shows a day with only one 10 minute break and while having to deal with screamin' little kids trying to tear out your tail feathers! I gotta call my agent. I cannot believe I agreed to this gig on a pay for play contract. Screw it! I'm goin to my trailer."

The Great Hall

There was also an area with costumes the characters wore during the big Yule Ball from the Goblet of Fire. They were all very fancy, except for Ron's of course. Poor Ron, why didn't he just wear his regular school robe. That would have been better than the hand-me-down number he put on. I guess that wouldn't have been as funny though.

The last part of the exhibition was a recreation of the Great Hall of Hogwarts castle. It wasn't as big as the real set but we couldn't help but feel like we were really there. Above our heads were floating candlesticks. Wires? No there were no wires they just used the wingadiam leviosa spell on them. "Flick and swish!"

The back wall had the beautiful stained glass windows and below them were costumes worn by Dumbledore, McGonigal and others. I kind of prefer the costumes worn by the Dumbledore in the first two movies. They were larger and gave Dumbledore a greater presence. Nevertheless, these sleeker robes were still great and amazingly detailed.

On the table in the Great Hall was an equally great feast. True it consisted of plastic food, but having walked through a large museum exhibition we were all starving. This area made our mouths water.

Being a graphic designer I was particularly fascinated in the display case featuring packaging designs used in the film. There were boxes of Berty Bott's Every Flavor Beans, Chocolate Frogs (including beautifully illustrated collectable famous witch or wizard cards), cauldron cakes and even the fold-out box that Fred and George used to store and sell their novelties in. What great packaging designs! It'd be so fun to work as a concept artist for films like this. Again, this all made us hungry though so we moved on.

The Gift Shop

Having finished the Harry Potter exhibition the last stop on the tour was of course...the gift shop. But this was no ordinary museum gift shop with just rock pencils and velvet bags filled with tumbled rocks. Nay, this was a Harry Potter themed gift shop and ol' boy was it over priced!!! To be fair much of the merchandise was affordable even if it was a bit more than you'd pay for in any other shop. But some items were completely "riddikulus", er I mean ridiculous. For instance, there was a Marauders Map that cost $99.99. Let's see, they wanted a hundred bucks for ink on paper? Come on. And people were buying them like crazy!? It's interesting to note that when the Half-Blood Prince came out there was a special edition at walmart that included a Mauraders Map for under 20 bucks. This came with the DVD movie too.

There were also some action figures, t-shirts, snow globes, key chains, shot glasses, magnets and just about every other souvenir type item they could put the Harry Potter logo and characters on. Some more rare items included life-size replicas of several different character's wands. These were very nice (expensive) and came in felt-lined wooden boxes. Surprisingly they also were selling the notorious Nimbus 2000 broom stick toy. I say notorious because it was recalled from toy stores after an out cry that it's vibrating action was being used for other purposes than just simulating the feeling of flying. (Hope I don't have to spell that out any more explicitly).

I intended on buying a fridge magnet but didn't see any I liked. The kids got a few things and believe it or not we decided not to splurge on our own copy of the $99.99 Marauders Map. I know, how could we pass on such a bargain?

Leaving the tent (parasite) we headed back into the actual museum and hit the food court. The museum had a surprisingly nice selection of dining options. No chocolate frogs or Berty Bott's Every Flavor Beans, but who wants to eat a jelly bean that tastes like earwax or a dog's butt anyway.

There you have it. All I have to say (in a forced British acent) is "thanks for joining me on this tour of the Harry Potter exhibition at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. It was wicked cool!"

-Daniel