In Defense of the Harry Potter Film Franchise

[Yopaz]

I like Harry Potter, both the books and the movie, but I have to forget that I ever read a book by the same name before I watch the movies or else I'll get annoyed at the things that aree not supposed to be the way they make it.
I also have to make an exclusion to the 5th movie which was just terrible. It felt like they ended the scenes when they were halfway done and just left lose ends lying all over. It was the worst of the series in my opinion.

 

[kiwi3000]

This last movie really really sucked. God dammit it was dull. They could have fit the book into one film, so much pointless wandering around any rubbish "angst". The second film ever in my life I have walked out on.
Sure I'm 30, and my wife wanted to see it. But it was her idea to leave the theater. It was just that crap.

 

[Darkwolf22]

I love the books, but have hated the movies since number 3. The films focus on the stupidest things, the books are always focused on harry, yet the films focus solely on petty grievances between the supporting characters. The sharp witty, and well written dialogue from the books, is replaced buy convoluted tripe. as though they hired Stephanie Myer to pen the script.

Go ahead and tell me with a strait face that the "Half-Blood prince" film didn't stink of the sickening "who's gonna get pussy-whipped next?" plot line that the Twilight series has been pumping out like so much puke and bile. You could have replaced Hermione with whats-her-name, and have it be indistinguishable from that rancid pile of undigested shit.

 

[moretimethansense]

J.K. Rowling is a terrific storyteller.

And this is where you lose credibility, because for the first four books her writing was absolutely atrocious. Compare it to some legitimately good books like Speaker for the Dead or the Pendragon series, and you'll see my point. Obviously there are some writers significantly worse than her *coughpatrickcarmancough* but she's not nearly as good as people say she is.

It has so many genres: fantasy, supernatural, romance, horror, tragedy, action, adventure, school life, mystery, and a bit of slice of life.

But no thriller... wait, mystery? Since when?

...Really?
Have you even read the books mystery is one of the largest elements in the first two books and a large part of the series overall, how did you miss that?

 

[Dimensional Vortex]

J.K. Rowling is a terrific storyteller.

And this is where you lose credibility, because for the first four books her writing was absolutely atrocious. Compare it to some legitimately good books like Speaker for the Dead or the Pendragon series, and you'll see my point. Obviously there are some writers significantly worse than her *coughpatrickcarmancough* but she's not nearly as good as people say she is.

It has so many genres: fantasy, supernatural, romance, horror, tragedy, action, adventure, school life, mystery, and a bit of slice of life.

But no thriller... wait, mystery? Since when?

Maybe she is not a great book writer but at least her books aren't dependent on large words and grossly boring topics which will make the reader feel smart when they read it but they slowly die inside, but she can at least make an environment were most of her readers love and wish they could be apart of it, so she may not be as smart as or as good as some other writers but her imagination in writing is what I would rather read in a book than anything else.

 

[Woodsey]

What "ethical grounds" are there for not reading Harry Potter?

 

[thenumberthirteen]

I LOVE the Harry Potter films!

I only read up to the 4th book as a kid, but I always look forward to the movies. They're quite good (and always look nice), but I work at a Cinema and since they're so popular I get double the amount and length of shifts, and therefore a nice big paycheck at the end of the month

 

[k-ossuburb]

I'll say what I said in MovieBob's review. I'll rent the films when they eventually come out on DVD, but if I happen to "miss out" it's no skin off my nose. I've seen pretty much every HP film that's been out just to keep up with what my friends are talking about so I'm not completely out of the loop but I can't really remember if I've seen all of them, I just know enough to get by if the conversation swings in the Harry Potter or Twilight direction (I watched that too, to make sure I understood what all the fuss was about). Not my taste, to be honest, I find it simply unchallenging and devoid of any interesting conversational subject matter. It's a very vanilla franchise as far as I see it; it's great, if you're into that sort of thing, but for people looking for something a little more substantial it's nothing to write home about.

 

[k-ossuburb]

What "ethical grounds" are there for not reading Harry Potter?

Religious zealots will claim it's all about paganism (which in their narrow minds conflates to Satanism), devil worship, witchcraft, alchemy and sorcery.

All things that the devout have been brainwashed against despite the fact that every one of those things are completely harmless (yes, even Satanism). I know one or more people who practice witchcraft and all they really use it for is a spiritual method of maintaining their daily lives. The pagans I know are normal people, I only really see them go a little crazy on the solstices when we go for a trip to Stone Henge. As for Satanism, my tattooist is a Satanist (atheistic Satanist, to be specific) and he lives a pretty normal life and only hurts the people who hurt him (eye-for-an-eye).

But, as far as I know, these things never really come up in the books as their system of magic is more derived from the rules of various fantasy novels. HP shares a lot more in common with D&D than it does with ritualistic magic or magick. And yet, those same religious zealots will ignorantly complain that D&D is "evil" too. They're just uneducated and willfully ignorant, there's no real method of convincing them to change that.

 

[LadyRhian]

I loved the series. But the 7th book...? Needed to be edited until it screamed for mercy. For me, most of it seemed to consist of people arguing in a tent. I probably won't watch the first part of the 7th book film, because if I had to see that in cinematic form, I'd stab my own eyeballs out.

 

[Taninger]

I think Harry Potter is, far and away, one of the best children's series there is right now, especially because adults CAN enjoy it.

Putting aside the issues I've had with the last film in particular, though, one thing I've noticed is that they seem hard to get into for anyone that hasn't read the books. Around the third film or so there are little details that don't make sense if you aren't familiar with how the films are supposed to go. I'm glad the movies were made, and I love a lot of the acting, but I don't know how good the movies actually are outside of my fanboyishness. Doesn't mean I won't keep going to see them (though I suppose that's a limited time promise, now) but it does mean I'm going to criticize them for their faults.

I haven't been in many debates about the films, but the arguments used in the article have the depressing ring of being what a lot of people might say without thinking too hard on it, because the films have plenty of actual faults to point out.

Just like the books did.

They're wonderful, but that doesn't mean they're immune to criticism. I love 'em, but that only means I feel like the big faults matter more, even if that's massively unfair of me.

 

[Krantos]

My stance isn't that they shouldn't have been done, but that they were done poorly. This really didn't start being an issue until film number 5. Up til that point the films had managed to remain faithful yet interesting adaptations to the books.

Then number 5 happened. Almost eveyone I talk to about the fifth book says that it felt rushed, and it did. There was way too much ground to cover in the amount of time the films take. The problem is the way they chose to work around that. Certain characters were nerfed (Ginny), subplots were summed up in single dialogues, and, in general, the film felt like the director was trying to do as much as possible in as little time as possible.

The sixth film was actually better, partially because it chose to mix things up a bit. A lot of fans were upset that many of the things in the movie never happened in the book (the beginning flirt between Harry and the waitress for e.g.). However, with some exceptions, I felt that these elements improved the movie, because they provided a way to get the information about the characters and story across without having to do the rush job the 5th one did.

Still there were two things I REALLY hated. One was an action sequence in the middle of the film that seems to have been put there for no other reason than to have an action sequence. Though, it did slightly help the other thing I didn't like.

The second is Ginny. This goes back to the 5th movie again, because the fifth book was when she finally got over her Harry-phobia and start expressing her personality (which is pretty much what you'd expect from a girl growing up with 6 brothers). The film, however, shoves her development to the side. Then in the sixth movie, Harry suddenly falls for her. Even though she still is practically without a personality. In the books, the characters have great chemistry because of Ginny's personality (strong, willful, and funny), but in the movies she never moves past the mousy character. And it's hard to imagine Harry falling for that.

I haven't seen the latest movie yet, but I'm hoping that since it's part 1 of 2, that it will finally give the series the chance it needs to explain sh** and set the sort of tone the books had.

 

[blankedboy]

J.K. Rowling is a terrific storyteller.

And this is where you lose credibility, because for the first four books her writing was absolutely atrocious. Compare it to some legitimately good books like Speaker for the Dead or the Pendragon series, and you'll see my point. Obviously there are some writers significantly worse than her *coughpatrickcarmancough* but she's not nearly as good as people say she is.

It has so many genres: fantasy, supernatural, romance, horror, tragedy, action, adventure, school life, mystery, and a bit of slice of life.

But no thriller... wait, mystery? Since when?

Maybe she is not a great book writer but at least her books aren't dependent on large words and grossly boring topics which will make the reader feel smart when they read it but they slowly die inside, but she can at least make an environment were most of her readers love and wish they could be apart of it, so she may not be as smart as or as good as some other writers but her imagination in writing is what I would rather read in a book than anything else.

Well, sorry you can't handle an adult-oriented book. Your loss.

 

[Mako SOLDIER]

The problem with people seeing the films first and reading the books second is that the books are written very much as mysteries, full of detail, some of it important, some of it not. Knowing what happens already from watching the oversimplified (and unnecessarily altered) movies will detract from one of the biggest joys of the books: trying to work things out for yourself and getting excited about what certain plot points and details mean for further books in the series.

 

[Tminusfun]

Why does a popular movie franchise need defending? Why is making "scads of money" something that needs to be apologized for?

 

[The Rockerfly]

Because people think that that having a good writing style is more important than actually getting the reader interested and drawing people in. Plus those people will call fans idiots because they don't appreciate some obscure book that is very well written but dull as anything

 

[WaderiAAA]

People who think Harry Potter is immoral should be very few now- I mean, when even the pope changes his mind about it, at least the ones of them that are Christian should have a hard time condemning it.