Harry Potter and the Deja Vu
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The actors who played the three main kids in the movies have publicly disagreed with Rowling's political views, so she decided to make new Harry Potter with people who won't do that. There's also a full-cast audio drama as well recently.
For the past few years there's been a kind of revisionism among Harry Potter Adults that paints the movies as flawed adaptations that failed to capture whatever makes Harry Potter great to them. There's also an insufferable element of HAN SHOT FIRST going on when it comes to discussing the liberties the movies deliberately took with the material. Like characters swapping lines, the writing playing to the popularity of certain actors rather than their characters, and just in general the kind of changes, omissions, abbreviations and the like that any sensible person understands is a natural part of the process but to these people they've become a personal 9/11. Like a line being said by one character instead of another, or another one being shouted instead of "said calmly" like the gospel teaches us.
The show isn't going to please any of them by the way, but that's how they've embraced it so far.
It’s not entirely a modern thing. My dear old mum had a good old whinge in my lughole when Prisoner of Azkaban came out and found a lot had been altered. And Reddit has more than a few “Justice for Ron” threads because of how dirty he got done. And I remember more than a few forum threads on old forums - including the V1 of The Escapist - where the novel tragics would vent their spleen.
Sure, and Gimli got turned into a comic relief buffoon while the nothingburger character that is book Legolas got the cool badass treatment to bait the under 25 quadrants. I liked Tolkien's books, I liked Jackson's movies. If tomorrow Bezos announces he's finally choked the life out of the last living Tolkien and he gets to remake Lord of the Rings I wouldn't go "Finally! Book accurate Gimli and book accurate Legolas!". I already went on that particular emotional journey.
The Harry Potter movies obviously favor Hermione over Ron and they definitely played with the idea of a triangle in ways the books never did (probably because Twilight became a thing, and Harry's designated love interest was a wet blanket). But you go on Reddit and the HP adults treat the movies like they butchered the books because they played up or down certain things in the process of adapting them to a different medium. Some nutters even go around claiming "movie only people" are second class citizens who are going to be oh so confused by a hypothetically book accurate show. Gimme a break.
Aside from everything else you can say about Harry Potter and its author, the movies did kind of lack a unified vision between them. Columbus' approach just felt completely different to Cuaron's, which in turn was pretty different from Yates'. Which is regrettable. The movies, overall, are certainly not perfect adaptations.
People complaining about the movies isn't really a recent thing. Matter of fact, I think a big part of why that's been happening since the movies originally came out is because for a lot of people they were the first time they've ever seen movies based on books they've read, when they were too young to understand that adaptation requires compromise.
On the other hand, the movies also had some performances that are absolutely iconic and in this trailer already, Nick Frost as Hagrid just doesn't really sound right.
And, of course, the fact that nothing about this so far looks like it has its own identity that would really set it apart from the old movies.
I dunno, man, it's just like the old saying goes:
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Its the poor bastard playing Snape I both feel sorry for and kind of respect. It must take some pretty solid brass balls to stand up and say "I'll play the guy Alan Rickman was basically born to play before he knew he was playing him", and I cannot imagine the horse bollocks that are going to be coming his way.
I'm pretty sure that happens for every popular novel property to film adaptation that has either A) enough popularity to run for President of the World or B) enough high brow clout to be considered a classic. The subreddit for Dune has been pretty much the same way since the first Villeneuve film adaptation and for exactly the same reasons. To say nothing of all the bullshit surrounding A Song of Ice and Fire.
I've come across at least one person complaining about Snape being black, because it adds an element of racism to James' bullying him during the school days that makes James look worse. You know...the bully.
To me the train looks like the train, the castle looks like the castle. Hagrid looks like Hagrid but younger, McGonagall looks like McGonagall but younger, etc. At every instance they've either copied someone else's homework or wish that they had. But if people have been edging to the idea of a "unified vision" of Harry Potter, here's a cheaper, longer version that's lit with the typical drab, low-wattage lighting of the average Netflix streamer.
They're gonna move around some furniture and people are gonna clap like when Leia finally gave that stupid medal to Chewbacca.
I never liked this quote in an italian set impossible and unrealistic expectations for anything.dunno, man, it's just like the old saying goes:
This makes me glad I never really took part in the fandom or barely looked at a distance. I know I know there are good people there and everything but I wouldn't have been able to stand any of the toxic fools for even two minutes. I really stopped caring about HP after the Goblet of Fire. Even then, mark brothers and I just saw it on a whim, just to see if we still even enjoyed the series. We both enjoyed the movie, but neither of us really came screaming back for the last movie sequels.
Fuck Rowling getting more money.
Good on the kids working on this getting money and possibly getting a good life out of it.
This show is probably going to have a release schedule with seasons so far apart that it's going to be a ***** to keep up with.
And that's about all of my thoughts on the show.
Good on the kids working on this getting money and possibly getting a good life out of it.
This show is probably going to have a release schedule with seasons so far apart that it's going to be a ***** to keep up with.
And that's about all of my thoughts on the show.
Draco Malfoy is gonna call the black Hermione a mudblood. I bet the internet will love that. Draco's whole crew gonna look like the clan.
Hermione isn't black in this television show, that was in the weird sequel stage show.
She brown though which will still look bad. Kinda looks like a young Jenna Ortega actually.
And the thing purist seem to miss is that despite being born for the role Alan Rickman wasn't actually really like book Snape either. In looks perhaps, but Alan Rickman's Snape is a cold fish through and through while Book Snape is actually rather emotional and explosively tempered.
I mean Death Eaters and their junior division at Hogwards called Slytherin basically is the clan anyway so that tracks.
I think the house elf subplot kinda makes a black Hermoine a bad idea. Her whole plotpoint is based around Hermoine just not ''getting'' the glory of house elf slavery and that she's just really silly about it.
So now we got the black teenage girl being ridiculed for....having strong opinions against slavery. Oh dear oh dear. I'm mostly indifferent to race swapping but if they don't rewrite or remove that subplot then that's going to be a really bad look.
Even looks-wise, Alan Rickman was a bit better looking than the book description, at least in earlier books where Snape was described as having greasy hair and a hook nose among other things. He was just so good in the role that even Rowling said she couldn't stop picturing Rickman as Snape when writing him in later books.
I do like Edgar Wright as Hagrid. I love that dude.
I think the problem people will have is that the big main characters have become so iconic that new castings for them are going to feel really fucking odd.
Emma Watson is basically only known for being Hermione, and while Radcliff is a fantastic actor outside of Potter he's still just so iconically Potter that I feel bad for this new kid.
It's gonna feel the same when Wolverine gets a movie without Hugh Jackman eventually too.
I think the problem people will have is that the big main characters have become so iconic that new castings for them are going to feel really fucking odd.
Emma Watson is basically only known for being Hermione, and while Radcliff is a fantastic actor outside of Potter he's still just so iconically Potter that I feel bad for this new kid.
It's gonna feel the same when Wolverine gets a movie without Hugh Jackman eventually too.