Minor Post/Comment #5 (I think?) by Kate Hanson

The recently announced (long-awaited?) Harry Potter series………………… why?

 

I have many thoughts but I should start with this small one.  I was a big fan of the books and an even bigger fan of the movies.  I admit that I even have a wand, a marauder’s map, and a few wizard cards from the chocolate frogs.  However, all that said, I have issues with the author (as many of us do these days).  Now I could spend this post talking about how the entire idea of this series is quite literally a desperate attempt by Warner Brothers to do something with this franchise that will finally make them money again. (Because Fantastic Beasts missed the mark by a long shot and most of the original cast won’t agree to Cursed Child movie when JK Rowling is involved.). And it’s also a desperate attempt for her to make money because now that her problematic tendencies have been revealed, her production company is flailing, and her contract with Warner Bros for the HP franchise is all she has left.  I could talk about this forever, but I won’t waste my word count any further.

 

INSTEAD, I want to talk about books vs movie vs tv.  If I read the series announcement correctly, the goal is to tell the story of Harry Potter in much more detail, with episodes closely resembling chapters in the books and each season being like one of the books.  Here’s my two cents: I think it runs a high risk of failure.  No matter how much detail they cram into those episodes, they will never quite capture everything that was included in the books the way that the die-hard readers would want them to.  But in the same way they will be creating a completely different visual language with a new look and new cast that will differentiate from the original 8 films many of us grew to know and love.  Thus, I think the series will land somewhere in the middle between straying too far from the movies but still not getting close enough to the books. It will rely on a younger generation who hasn't yet read the books or seen the movies in order to find success.

 

So will I watch it?  Eh… 10 years is a long commitment for a television shows (I say that as someone who has watched all 19 seasons of Grey’s Anatomy and all 15 seasons of Criminal Minds).  I’m curious to see what they do or don’t do with the series.  I want to compare the visuals, analyze the change in the story, even think about the way different actors portrayed the same characters 20 years later.  But I also believe that at some point, you have to let your stories go.  And if you ask me, Harry Potter did it’s duty, it ran its course and it’s time to leave it in the past so we can all continue to grow and move on to bigger and better projects (like the Percy Jackson series I am stoked to see).