Magic in the Movie

[peacockharpy at yahoo.com]

Just something I'd like others' opinions on, but...

It didn't occur to me until the next day that magic -- good ol' wands
and spells and charms and such -- is oddly missing from the film.

We see McGonagall transform twice (once in shadow), and Hagrid does a
bit with his umbrella.  Dumbledore does the big change of decorations
at the end.

As for students, we see Hermione use her wand three times:  Wingardium
Leviosa, Alohomora and Petrificus Totalus.  Other than that, we see
see Seamus blowing things up twice, Ron getting everything wrong
except in the case of Troll, and Harry getting his wand has some
magical bits.

I know that Hogwarts itself is a magical place, but it seemed like,
having established that magic was there, the specific use of it
suddenly faded away except when needed for plot purposes.  We hardly
ever see students practicing charms or transfiguration or whatever. 
We rarely see wands out, and in fact, we don't really even see Harry's
wand after he gets it in Ollivander's (and why did they leave out the
detail about holly and yew?  that's symbolic.)  Even potions class was
missing out on eye of newt and such!
Is it just me, or do we need a bit more magic at Hogwarts?  ;)

- Darice