I’m Cautiously Optimistic About the Harry Potter TV Show! Here’s Why!
Yesterday the internet got a “fun” treat by getting the first trailer for the HBO Max’s Harry Potter tv show. This show has already spawned a number of controversies and debates about whether or not this show should happen. However, I’ve never been as skeptical about this show as many other people. Why is that? Let’s talk about it!
General Overview/Harry Potter Love: Before I start talking about the tv show itself, I feel it’s important to give my general overview of the Harry Potter tv show as a whole. I absolutely love the Harry Potter books. That eight film run is absolutely fantastic, I enjoy all of the movies. Some a good bit more than others but overall I’d go positive on all eight films. I thought the Fantastic Beasts films had some interesting ideas but didn’t work as a whole. Harry Potter and Fast and Furious are some of the few franchises in which my mom and I share a mutual love for. That franchise will always have a special place in my heart as this great part of popular culture. I haven’t read all of the books, but I’ve read the first three, Order of the Phoenix, and then Curse Child (which I actually really enjoyed). And I’ve played through both of the LEGO Harry Potter video games multiple times. I’m a big fan of Harry Potter so when they announced that they were re-adapting the Harry Potter books, I wasn’t as skeptical about the ideas as some people.
REASON #1: It’s Been 25 Years since Sorcerer’s Stone: This November will be 25 years since Sorcerer’s Stone came out. To me, 25 years is a good amount of time to do a reboot of a franchise. That’s a quarter of a century of time in between reboots, so that makes sense to me. It’s also been 15 years since Deathly Hallows Part 2 came out. So whether we’re judging the start of the franchise or the end of the franchise, it’s been 10+ years which I think is good. This will only be the second cinematic adaptation we’ve gotten of Harry Potter in 25 years which isn’t a lot. When you compare that to the superhero genre which has given us three different Spider-Man, three different Superman, and three different Batman in between Sorcerer Stone releasing in November 2001 and this show premiering in December 2026, that’s not a lot.
REASON #2: A TV Show Allows for A More Proper Adaptation:One of the criticisms of the later Harry Potter movies is that they had to cut a lot out in order to fit the runtime of a film. That’s a criticism and a struggle that happens with a lot of book to movie adaptations because they’re taking 8 to 10 hours of source material and condensing it into 2 hours. Whether that’s Harry Potter or Twilight or The Hunger Games, those movies face those criticisms. When you do a tv show that’s 8-10 hours long, it means that you can adapt the books. The first couple of movies were pretty good adaptations because those books were fairly short. You go from Goblet of Fire to Deathly Hallows and those books get much bigger and longer, so it’s hard to fit those books into 2 hour long movies. There’s so much lore in those books that were cut for the movies that when you do tv shows you can adapt them more faithfully. I think a tv show is the right idea to go because it’s a different cinematic format. Had they said we’re doing another 8-film franchise then I would be a little bit concerned and more skeptical, but as a tv show I think it gives them room to do more with the source material.
REASON #3: Updated and Modern CGI: For the most part I’d say that the Harry Potter movies have aged rather well. There’s some CGI in Sorcerer’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets that maybe haven’t aged the best especially during the Quidditich sequences. With modern technology and with where CGI is at, you can improve upon a number of things that can make a tv show look better. With modern technology and resources I’m very curious as to what the Quidditch sequences are going to look like. There’s of course lots of monsters and creatures that can also look very cool with modern technology.
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