On the Problem of Harry Potter

Normally, I would say that most books should be made into TV shows, if not just plain old miniseries. 

Read the novel Jurassic Park, and you see just how much of a pale imitation the film is. Heck, read both Critchon novels, you can see just how much story was jammed in, then cut up and sprinkled over so many films. 

It’s why miniseries were so big in the 80s—take a James Clavell novel, and it takes ten hours to tell the tale. I’ll still take Richard Chamberlain as Jason Bourne over Matt Damon any day of the week, even if the man was already too old for the part.

What prompted this?

You may have heard that the Harry Potter book series is being turned into an HBO TV show. It’s going to be one of those articles. If you want to look over the trailer, go ahead. But I’m not going to post it here.

Let’s look into why this is going to be a bit of an issue.

Modern Film Making

You thought that headline was going to be “Modern Audiences” didn’t you? Heh. Maybe later.

I saw parts of the trailer side by side with clips from the original movies. I must say, the new trailers were so dark, so dim, so poorly lit, so Zach Snyder filtered, when I saw the clips from the original films, I felt like I was flash-banged with color and light.

But this? Who turned off the lights?

I’m almost afraid to ask who directed this. But then I realized it doesn’t matter, because I rarely see color in a movie anymore. Sure, John Wick liked neon. Nobody 2 was a comedy that was pretty well lit. But so many people are using filters in sepia, gray, and dark blue that I feel like I need NVGs just to see what’s going on in the movie. Don’t even ask me what happened in The Batman, I couldn’t see anything.

Clearly, this show is going to suffer from Game of Thrones-itis, which has infected all of fantasy these days.1 Ooh, everything is so dark! So grim and gritty!

First of all, as Peter David pointed out, “grim and gritty” was a tagline coined for Adam West’s Batman. It was supposed to be absurd, not a suggestion for cinematography.

Second, these are kids books. We don’t need the grim and gritty kids book. Hell, I started having problems with some of the films when they decided to turn off all the lights for the better part of the film.2 Someone bring back Christopher Columbus.

Another issue of modern Hollywood: hiring nobodies to write the adaptation.

Francesca Gardiner has few credits. The most notable of which include Killing Eve (lesbian espionage, oh joy), His Dark Materials (let’s beat up on CS Lewis), and Man in the High Castle (Nazis).

Laura Neal … are you kidding me? Some of this is literal pornography. I thought I was joking about the Game of Thrones effect.

Martha Hillier has written some Viking stuff … some mystery stuff.

Not one of these writers has a substantial CV. What the Hell? Modern media really does mean “hire nobodies to write your scripts.”

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The Casting

The HBO show will, of course, suffer severely from a lack of casting.

What do I mean by this?

The original films had Shakespearean actors.

• Maggie Smith

• Michael Gambon

• Kenneth Branagh (whose entire career is Shakespeare.)

• Alan Rickman (I have a DVD of him playing Tybalt. It’s odd to see him that young.)

• Ralph Fiennes

• Emma Thompson

• Jim Broadbent

• Helena Bonham Carter

• Timothy Spall (Yes, the pet rat.)

• Imelda Staunton (Umbridge).

• Richard Harris had stage experience going back decades, probably with his drinking partners, Peter O’Toole and Richard Burton.

• Zoe Wanamaker practically grew up in the rebuilt Globe Theater, and she was wasted on a throwaway cameo.

• Robbie Coltrane played Falstaff.

• Gary Oldman is a damned chameleon.

All of these people were veterans of the stage and screen. Some of them for decades. Most of these people had star power all their own that you could draw an audience just for them. Even Bill Nighy has star power, and he was practically wasted in the Potter franchise.

This Harry Potter … doesn’t have that. Seriously, the biggest name here—if you’ll pardon the expression—is Warwick Davis, resuming his role as the music professor.

There is, of course, Jonathan Lithgow. His biggest role is … as a lizard person in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension.

That’s a promotion still I got from IMDB of Lithgow as Dumbledore.

Not to be picky, but why does his beard look like it’s AI? And the background look like it’s CGI? It’s sort of bending behind him, like it’s about to fold in half. Did they not have the budget to build sets? Are we playing Resident Evil on the original Playstation?

So, no, I don’t have much hopes for this cast. They’re going to be compared to the original cast, and unfavorably. It looks like they’ve hired a bunch of character actors. Which is great. I like character actors. They can, you know, act.

But none of these people have high caliber star power. None of them are draws in and of themselves. And if you’re going to try to sell people on a product they already have at home, you want to draw them in with something that will assure them that this product is at least as good as what they already have. “It’ll be just like what you enjoy, only way more of it.”

This cast? Doesn’t sway me.

I’m not sure the production values help much either. Am I the only one who’s wondering why the beards area all wrong?

I’ll at least give them this, the Weasleys are all redheads. This crew hasn’t signed on to the Ginger Genocide. I guess that’s a plus.

What’s that? I hear you ask. I’m missing someone?

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Snape

Meet your new Snape, Paapa Essiedu.

Now, ignore for the moment that he looks like a male model, and not the greasy, pale, hooked-nose character described in the novel. Let’s ignore that his hair looks like it was poorly glued on.

My first objection is who dressed this man? Seriously, who thought any of this was a good idea. Leather jackets? Are we in a school, or a motorcycle club? I think they may have stolen the costume from a Silent Hill production.

You see what I mean about having little faith in the cast … or the production … or costumes …

Anyway, you might have noticed that this new Snape is black. Why did they hire him and not Adam Driver, who kind of looks like Alan Rickman if the lighting is right?

Driver. I don’t know if this is modified in any way.

I suspect it’s because Adam Driver is in demand. (How does he have over 50 acting credits already?)

So is Mark Strong, who has a similar profile, and a great acting range.

So is Benedict Cumberbatch, and he looks funny enough to be Snape. (Yeesh. He was in five films last year.)

Paapa Essiedu’s demand? Not so much.

Good news. I looked up Paapa Essiedu, and he has Shakespearean credits.

Bad news. I have actually seen him act in these roles. I am not impressed.

Remember when the British media made Anne Boleyn black, in the most blatant DEI rewriting of British history? Paapa Essiedu played one of her relatives.

Of course, hiring a black actor to play Snape is going to be an issue later on in the series. Last time I checked my memory of the novels, during his time in Hogwarts, Harry Potter’s father James damn near tortured Snape, and I seem to remember Snape being hung upside down from a tree. No, that wouldn’t play differently with a black Snape. Not at all.

But I suspect that’s the point. Why hire a black actor? Cover. You might have already seen that Paapa Essiedu claims to have had death threats over being cast in the role. Really? Has he received as many threats as Rowling has had over the trans issue?

Isn’t it funny how those claims of death threats pop up immediately?3 I guess that means if you object to his performance in any way, you’re a racist.

Which is, I suspect, the point. HBO has a groundwork laid for the usual “Ghostbusters 2016” defense. Which is, you may remember, is “Blame the audience.” Ghostbusters 2016, or Ocean’s 8 or Charlie’s Angels doesn’t work? It’s misogyny! If Blue Beetle doesn’t work, it’s racism!

If this doesn’t work? Clearly racism.

Going through IMDB at random, I’ve been checking the resumes of various actors. Paapa Essiedu may have the least amount of acting credits among the adults. Normally, I’d write this off as more DEI casting, forcing diversity wherever it can be shoehorned in.

Though if that were the case, I’d be looking for more than just one race-swapped character.

I’m starting to wonder if he was hired solely on the basis of “if you don’t like this show, you’re a racist.”

It’s a theory.

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Back when the Harry Potter films were being made, I remember an interview with JK Rowling discussing how she was on set as a consultant to make sure the books were accurately adapted to the screen. After all, the last thing a bunch of Producers wanted were the parents of angry ten-year-olds writing angry letters, because “You idiots ruined my child’s book series.”

This is funny because it’s now 25 years later, and you have to wonder how much of the rationale is being used to make the current edition for HBO. Only the fans being targets are not fans of the books who went on to read other books. No. Of course not. Literate people are always a joy. They have open minds.

No. I mean the terminally online. Those people who only read Harry Potter, and nothing else. Those people who only see modern politics in everything, and through the lens of Harry Potter. They’re the ones who insist the President is Voldemort, and any supporters are Death Eaters. They hang out on Blue Sky all day and seemingly have nothing else to do.

Ironically, they’re also infected with the same politics that made a lot of them turn on Rowling. You see, they were carried away by leftist ideology, and Rowling had a line in the sand they did not.

The funny thing is, Hollywood is making Harry Potter for these people—people who probably aren’t going to show up, because they hate Rowling more than anything else.

Do I think it’ll go anywhere? It doesn’t impress me. The production looks cheap. It’s dark. The cast is meh. And I don’t care if Rowling is attached to it, she’s already proven she’ll happily rewrite her own books if it aligns with her politics, which are still infected with some of the same lefty DEI nonsense.

As usual, feel free to ask me anything in the comments. If you get an email, you can ping me through the comment button at the top.

And please, feel free to buy a book, or leave a book review. Either would be greatly appreciated.

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1

I don’t mean that Harry Potter will suddenly look like a snuff film, with even more porn.

2

EG: Some of Azkaban needed less atmosphere, and more lighting.

3

In case my sarcasm isn’t thick enough, I think he, and the production company, is lying out their ass.