Harry Potter: Classic Or Dud?

https://twitter.com/i/events/1269428759297265664

i mean it's like only loving a band's early shit, i guess. one of my friends wrote /the/ hp fanfic and she's talked a lot about how the series bent toward sucking hard after the third one

i am referring to the shoebox project

! I love that one and your friend is great, one of my few fond memories of the series

https://www.thetrevorproject.org/2020/06/08/daniel-radcliffe-responds-to-j-k-rowlings-tweets-on-gender-identity/

Daniel Radcliffe: Classic

yeah that was a very decent response from radcliffe

Feels like a surprisingly hard divide with these - they weren't a thing at all when I was in school, never saw or heard of them until the movies started coming out, but friends 2-3 years younger the books were their adolescence.

same here, I was managing a group of teachers who were 5-12 years younger than me and they were always referring to it

In fact, one of the biggest (small) problems we had as parents was finding a series for the kids to follow Harry Potter, as in our opinion the next in line (Percy Jackson et al.) were several steps down in quality. Like, if Harry Potter is bad, what are the *good* ones?

Diana Wynne Jones' Chrestomanci series, about, er, a boy who goes to wizard school.
Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea series, about, er, well you get the picture.

The Worst Witch is also way better, though probably for a younger readership

Yeah I was a bit too old for these when they came out and remain so, I did read the first three and thought they were bad and quite unmagical.

I was the right age, ppl I knew loved them, but I was never remotely intrigued for some reason. Never seen any of the movies either. Some younger and some slightly older ppl I know worship them.

i was at the exact right age for these and could never finish the first book

FORTUNATIS

I tried to read these to my kids and they're interminable: endless exposition with the odd spell attached.

Good to see Daniel Radcliffe has turned out to be a decent fellow.

I always figured that the key to HP's popular appeal is its evocation of the familiar by hitting every single cliched magical trope with a sledgehammer over and over and over.

The movies are fun, the few books I read were fine, it's all utter froth and possibly not worthy of the attention its received or the lofty space it occupies in the popular consciousness.

my roommate is finally moving out in may, which means I no longer have to live in a house decorated with an ever-increasing amount of terf shit

I'm finding that at age 31, Harry Potter is still pretty present in my life, mostly because of the sheer amount of HP merch I still have. I haven't watched any of the Fantastic Beasts movies, but people still remember me as the Harry Potter chick.

Who is still even buying merch? I love the series proper, but all the merch is starting to get repetitive. I can get a house logo shirt now on a crop top instead of a regular t-shirt? Come on.

I re-read the books a few years ago, and it really solidified this, perhaps, unpopular opinion of mine: the writing is not great, but some of the characters are. But...they're meant for kids, so what can we really expect? My opinions of the movies have softened over time, since I care much less about exactly replicating the books and an more nostalgic for when I first read them with wonder as a kid.

The JKR terf-ness is disappointing, and honestly, shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did, but I never really cared about anything she said that wasn't related to a Weasley, so...

my kids got wands for Xmas (top of their present lists) so guess I technically I am a recent buyer of HP merch

not really "merch" per se, more like:

me: (complaining about the live love laugh-esque quote prints that have scabbed over the walls)
complainee: it's even worse than you think, those are harry potter quotes

Were those wands specifically Harry Potter trademarked? Then fair enough. I always forget that there are still kids discovering it for the first time and enjoying them. If it brings them joy, then that is awesome! The wand I got from the theme park broke, but the wands that I made or that were made for me by friends have all survived, though.

And please tell me that one of the quotes is the Dumbledore "happiness can be found..." one. That's some quintessential HP stuff that can at least feasibly pass for general. Though, if I were going with HP decoration, I would pick the most ridiculous, obnoxious stuff. Gotta go hard.

I was too old for the books but my girls are into them now - older one has read all the books already, and I'm slowly making my way through the books out loud with the other (into the fourth one now). They've also seen all the movies and I've watched all with them but 7 part 2.

I can't say that I *love* them but they are miles better than anything else my kids have ever asked me to read/watch with them. I thought the films were mostly quite well done. The second one felt a little strained plot-wise, and also the whole search-for-horcrux thing got a bit repetitive and video-game-like.

Visually the films are often excellent and have some of the best CGI effects I've ever seen. Found it interesting how much they loved the dark parts even at ages 9 and 5, and both named Bellatrix as their favorite character and said she was "cool," (which I find funny because I think she has a bit of a 90s alt-rock vibe). The fourth movie has some very sharp and realistic portrayals of adolescence imo.

The fourth book has been a bit of a slog. There are definitely times when I find the film handles things better than the books.

the first three books are acceptable, it's the last four which are a complete slog, you can pinpoint the exact moment she got too big for an editor to tell her to cut anything. The films are fine, the only one I actively liked was the third one.

Just for example, the world cup segment of the fourth book feels interminable. In the film it was almost given too short shrift but it's still preferable that way. Films are helped a lot by largely being done by workhorse hollywood directors and having great casts -- Snape especially is a great character onscreen while not particularly memorable in print.

I'm sure this has been said in a million internet discussions already, but Quidditch is a maddeningly poorly designed sport and it bothers me every time there's a Quidditch segment.

I’m pretty sure i skimmed every quidditch segment in the books after the first one.

Finally got through book 4 - I found that one to be rough going. Got better from the maze through the graveyard scene, and the graveyard scene itself is one of the best scenes in the books so far I think. At the same time, the plot is positively tortured - the whole thing about entering harry into the tournament just so he can do the third task just so he can touch a portkey to a graveyard which doesn't even seem like it should work at Hogwarts and in spite of how tortured the plan is it doesn't even work out the way it's supposed to because cedric comes along (and the whole thing relies on Harry winning but they fail to actually guarantee he wins). And the whole circumstances of Harry's entry in the first place. There's a lot of annoying stuff in the writing where the book just sidesteps having any rules about magic whatsoever and winds up breaking them even when it half-heartedly tries to set them up.

(tbc, finally got through reading it aloud a little at a time to a six-year-old, wouldn't have taken since the spring otherwise).

reading these for the 1st time

i liked the 1st book quite a bit & its probably insufferable to whine about world-building & narrative arcs & w/e but theres a real sense of diminishing returns by the end of the fourth. the biggest problem is that the first book is really funny & each book is less so, until long streches of the 4th are this sort of dour slog.

― Kabutt (Lamp), Wednesday, February 16, 2011 1:29 PM (ten years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Also this is completely OTM. The first one is legit laugh out loud funny and hooked me. By the end of the fourth it's the rise of Nazi Germany. I found starting the 800-plus-page 5th book depressing, especially thinking about how many more bedtimes it's going to take us to finish that one, let alone three more doorstops. Even Uncle Vernon--one of the comic highlights of the first couple books--falls flat at the beginning of 5 (hahaha he is getting the name of dementors wrong for the seventeenth time hoho)

yeah by the final book it’s like she’s punishing you for ever enjoying the characters, it’s so grim

You can do a funny-and-light to dark plot arc in the course of a book or movie. It's very hard to sustain in a series of 8 long novels where the dark part takes up thousands of pages without much relief.

Oh boy, can't wait to hear your thoughts on OotP, which is the longest in the series, and the most frustrating.

I've always thought that the oversight on Cedric was reflective of how many of the Hufflepuff characters are disregarded. Cedric, especially, is made to seem kind of dopey (though we are meant to see him as a romantic rival for Harry when it comes to his crush on Cho).

I appreciate, though, how it really starts to shift focus away from Hogwarts, and gives more of a picture of the Wizarding World outside of school, which I think is kind of the right age for the "students" to start to look outward at the world around them. The introduction of The Order of the Phoenix, the OWL Exams, and their exploration of the Ministry are nice bits of world-building and perspective broadening.

*seven long novels - forgot that only the 7th movie is split into two

I appreciate, though, how it really starts to shift focus away from Hogwarts, and gives more of a picture of the Wizarding World outside of school, which I think is kind of the right age for the "students" to start to look outward at the world around them. The introduction of The Order of the Phoenix, the OWL Exams, and their exploration of the Ministry are nice bits of world-building and perspective broadening.

― hourspass, Sunday, November 28, 2021 6:07 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

I did find this aspect of it interesting in the movies -- the way it kind of mirrors development from childhood to adolescence to young adulthood. I thought that was pretty effective in the films and not something I've seen done a lot. But in the books it takes so freaking long to go through that process.

i became aware of this series in seventh grade, and it should've been catnip for me—i was a huge roald dahl fan and the matilda-esque framing of the first book immediately pulled me in—but as soon as the scene shifted to hogwarts i lost interest and never finished it, and thus never read the rest of the series, even though my peers swarmed bookstores on every release date

my girlfriend is making me watch the movies (bc i made her watch all of the resident evil movies, turnabout's fair play) and we just finished the third; the first two movies were exceedingly fine, boring in a comforting way, and definitely the only chris columbus movies i rate on any level at all bc they successfully instill a basic visual astonishment at this world of wonders. but cuarón's film is in a league of its own, a marvel of sustained atmosphere and camera movement, and between it and a little princess i kind of long for more children's book adaptations from him

two things though:

1. the spell names are like almost marvelously stupid, like "oculus repairo," lmfao
2. for a guy who wasn't born a werewolf "remus lupin" is the most werewolf-ass name of all time

cuaron’s is the one i most enjoy rewatching, it’s so goddamn beautiful

i love the first movie because the kids are SO little! i read somewhere that onset all three of them were shitscared of Rickman because they thought he was ~actually~ Snape irl <3

another thing i love about the third movie is hermione does dope shit and is allowed to be dope as hell

second movie suffers greatly from her being petrified for almost half of it

two things though:

1. the spell names are like almost marvelously stupid, like "oculus repairo," lmfao
2. for a guy who wasn't born a werewolf "remus lupin" is the most werewolf-ass name of all time

feel like i’m the only person on earth who likes movie 5, ice blue filter and all

goblet of fire however, more like gob(let of )shite

the tournament sucks and a homecoming dance for magic people should be way fucking cooler

btw i’m sure it’s an entirely unintended misreading of the character according to the author but: tonks is trans

3rd movie has head and shoulders the best film score of the series as well

a homecoming dance

sorry for folding down my american high school experience down over british boarding school

still it's like stiff group dancing and then teens sniping at each other while jarvis cocker "sings"

I'm still mired in the fifth book with my 6yo - she's been slow to get ready for bed so we haven't had much time to read before lights out. It's rough going. I find Umbridge to be one of the most memorable characters from either the movies or the books, and handled in a different way in each. The Umbridge abuse stuff is handled with less pathos in the books than in the films and felt in a way more real to me as a result, like closer to the way a child who had already been through abuse and neglect would endure it.

Meanwhile, just returned from Harry Potter "Wizarding World" at Universal Studios. Some of it was impressively well done - the hogsmeade and diagon alley villages are fairly convincing, beautiful attention to detail in the shop windows, hogwarts castle was incredibly impressive. The rides make an absolutely incoherent hash of things as you might expect, and weren't v enjoyable either. The hybrid real/vr broom flying stuff was nauseating and more or less traumatized my 10yo. Also, predictably, you can't twitch without brushing against something overpriced to buy. We were sports and let our kids buy Harry Potter candy at what must be a 10x markup vs its non-branded equivalent. Some of the experience is just seeing full grown adults excitedly cosplaying the characters.

uhhhh deathly hallows part 1 is an astonishing film? replace the wizard main characters and it's a travelogue art film where nothing happens, include the wizard main characters and every frame aches with a longing for what's been lost. the dance sequence and the unbelievable dramatic tension beneath the surface of it absolutely ruined my life, they're trying to access a shared childhood happiness that is gone forever

(me being mean: of course that shit isn't in the books bc it's way too emotionally complex!!!!)

easily my second favorite after 3, deserves to be as fondly thought of

Interesting. At the time I kind of had the opposite reaction for the same reasons -- i.e. that it's a plotless travelogue built on a thin and repetitive premise. I guess it would be worth rewatching with that lens.