Like so many others, Harry Potter shaped a huge part of my childhood. The books were magical, and the movies thrillingly brought the books to life. The story of The Boy Who Lived going through the wizarding world and battling impossible odds was immediately one of my favorite stories. Which is why when I heard that HBO plans to reboot the original series, I felt hesitant.
Do we really need to tell the same story again????
Honestly, I don't think so. The original movies, while not perfect adaptations of the books, hold a special place in my heart and many fans' hearts. I feel that trying to recreate the magic of the series with a new cast and style is setting up the new series for failure, and here is why.
No matter how carefully they cast or how amazing the visuals are, people will spend more time comparing it to the originals than actually enjoying it. This is a common phenomenon seen in recent remakes of movies such as Snow White.
I feel that instead of trying to recreate the series we know and love, HBO should take this opportunity to do something new within the wizarding world. J.K. Rowling created such a large world that goes much broader than just Harry's story. There are plenty of directions this could go, as Rowling created thousands of years of history and plenty of quickly brought up places that could have a series dedicated to them.
Even though I am not a large fan of the Disney Star Wars movies and series, I feel like they did one thing right, and that was making shows for a lot of individual characters and continuing to add to the story of many characters that didn't get a lot of development in the original movies. If HBO made a series following Draco Malfoy and his life, I feel that a lot of people would really like it (granted, as long as it's well made), as his story was never really expanded upon. Some other topics would be the founding of Hogwarts or a magical family in a completely different country.
I think that I represent a majority of the Harry Potter fans when I say that we don't want to see the same thing done with "shinier" special effects; we would much rather see an expanded world.
-Jameson
I could not agree more. I've rewatched the Harry Potter movies a great handful of times, and the magic isn't something that can be easily replicated. Everyone also has grown so attached to the original actors, so a remake would just feel.. off. I might still check it out just to see how they format it into a series, so let's see if I regret it. Anyway, nice post!
ReplyDeleteThis blog post is a great argument against reboots of Harry Potter, and I agree with you and Isabella that everyone would compare it to the original series. It's hard to match!
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