The all purpose J.K. Rowling thread

we've been through this before... the parents' perspective is irrelevant to that of the child's due to the kid's medical autonomy. talk to your state and federal supreme courts if you don't like it.

point of order: you got a "pivot and insult" (his new favourite get out of a corner free card, apparently...).

Harry Potter series possibly coming to HBO Max

Let's set her politics aside on the back burner for a sec....

So...a series remake of the movies?
Do we need that?
I mean, I guess the movies started in the 00's, so two decades is more than enough these days for the reboot.
Still....why?
When it was the 80's remake of the 50's "The Fly" it was a tech upgrade thing, but tech from the 00's onward holds up fine.
I guess a series lets you cram more of the books in, but at what point do you stop holding people's hands, and make them read the fucking book?

...now, taking her politics back off the back burner.
Bitch, you're a billionaire, fuck off.

Channel 4 (UK TV) is remaking Four Weddings and a Funeral as a miniseries. Nothing that's within my lifespan should be alterable, unlike Quantum Leap, but NuQuantum Leap already undid the "leap outside your lifetime" thing even without being swiss-cheesed with Dean Stockwell.

Actually, I've always though there was too much story for a 2 hour movie - even the first3 smaller books. So, yea, a tv series would do the books better than a movie. I mean ... what was the point of leaving Harry at the train station when he's just going to meet up with him later that night? made no sense. and the second book, how anyone followed how/why Harry came to the conclusions he came to would be lost without having read the book. Even POA had important plot points left out of the movie.

With Rowling involved, mostly due to her remarks on twitter, I'd be worried she would not only allow, but encourage removing any of the ambiguity regarding the sexuality of several characters.

I guess if you're an obsessive Potter nerd there's a lot of stuff in each novel that got edited out of the films that you'd want to see onscreen? But I don't know how many non-autists are going to want to sit through all that when the movies already exist.

LotR got away with Extended Cuts, and those were already three hours long. We're not doing a deep dive into the Simarillion here.

LOTR extended editions (arguably) worked because it was still one book for each movie. The Hobbit, with three movies for one book, didn't exactly leave people clamouring for more.

Movies and tv shows get remade all the time. One doesn't have to be an obsessive Potter nerd to watch a favorite movie or tv show remade 20+ years later.

Agreed. But usually with a hook, like the characters are a different race now, or the special effects will be vastly improved, or the story will have a "modern" spin.

It's like Diacanu said upthread, what's the point of doing a remake right now other than as a cash grab, when the original versions are perfectly serviceable today?

To start, I think having the entire story told, rather than parts would vastly improve the experience for the viewer as well as give credibility to Rowling as a writer. Prior to the trans thing, most people's criticism of Rowling was that she was a hack usually said by people who have only seen the movies and hadn't read the books.

I watched the first movie after my nephew and a friend's son told me about the book and how much they loved it. I watched the movie and was so confused by so much of it, I had no choice but to read the book. If I hadn't read the second book before watching the movie, I would not have had any continued interest in the story at all.

You could argue that any studio movie is a cash grab That said I’m not a Potter fan so I really don’t care one way or the other.

Yeah, but usually those cash grabs come with a hook. I'm not considering "let's show everyone what a good writer Joanne really is" to be enough of a hook to justify a tv series.

The Harry Potter series has sold over 600 million copies worldwide which is the best in history. J.K Rowling doesn't need to prove to anyone how good of a writer she is.

That’s like saying because McDonald’s has sold more burgers than Ruth Chris’ has sold steaks, so it’s a better restaurant.

That comparison makes no sense. McDonald's is fast food and Ruth Chris is a steakhouse. A far better comparison would be McDonald's vs Burger King or Ruth Chris vs Berns.

The point is that being the author of the most successful book series in history means that said author doesn't need to prove that she is a good writer.

And a children’s book is far different than a play by Shakespeare. Would you say that Rowling is a better writer than old Will?

I really don't think that's the argument being made. I recall when Liberace was once criticized for being an entertainer instead of a serious musician and his response was "I cry all the way to the bank."Of course the irony is that old Will wasn't trying to become history's greatest playwright/poet, he was looking to write popular entertainment that would put butts in seats or feet on the ground (for the "groundlings"). Like Rowling he wasn't born into wealth, it was his talent that brought him wealth and fame. Again, that's not to be mistaken for saying that the two are in any way comparable as far as any sort of long-lasting impact. Will Rowling be renowned in four hundred years? I doubt it, but none of us will be around to know, so...

I'll still be here. I've been building a robot body to stave off the specter of death.

Putting JKR's personal shittiness aside, doing a series could work if it was something along the lines of the Netflix "Anne of Green Gables" reboot. I had no faith that a grimdark version of this of all books could work, but it really wasn't. It just took things that were always there like it's proto-femenism and criticism on classicism and took the old, familiar stories to more realistic and plausible conclusions. They're also the rare reboot that found a way to integrate diversity in an organic way that wasn't patronizing and didn't serve a white savior narrative, especially where they grappled with Canada' parochial school system in season three. This was a book that's been adapted literally since the beginning of cinema and I thought there was nothing new under the sun to be done with that and I was proven way wrong.

All of that being said, AoGG was...you know... actually *good* from it's source material and had 100 years removed from its publication to justify such an endeavor. Between JKR's vice grip on her property and the fact that the Rick Berman of Britain Steven Moffat is the showrunners for this, there is no possible way this will have one single original idea and/or one that won't piss off what's left of the HP fandom by the end of it's 7 yr run or cancellation before then.

Fun fact, but the 50 Shades series long dethroned HP as the highest selling book series on the Amazon UK website back in 2012

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.hu...ry/50-shades-outsells-harry-potter_n_1727334/

Absolutely no one, not even Rowling's critics, literary or otherwise, would argue E.L. James is anywhere near a good writer.

That said, there's no better definitive proof on how her writing is viewed than the fact that her adult detective series written under her 2nd pen name was an absolute flop until it was announced that Robert Galbraith--coincidentally, a name shared by the guy who popularized gay conversation "therapy" BTW--was her, then she saw some traction.

Joanne Rowling is to writing what Rick Berman was to Star Trek. Except Rick Berman knew to bow out gracefully, shut up and take his royalty checks without, say, defending the ENT finale.

I can't be bothered to be arsed about JKR's obvious bigotry enough to debate it but just as a point of order, it's not uncommon for shitty writers to sell a lot of books.

Never read them, never will, don't know or care - but sales don't necessarily prove skill (beyond worldbuilding, I'll give credit to any writer that creates an immersive universe in which their stories are set)

I wasn't interested in the Harry Potter books when they came out. I did see the first movie, which I thought was well done and beautiful to look at, but I didn't see any of the others. Finding out that JKR has unpleasant beliefs didn't outrage me and it won't have any impact on any future decisions about whether to watch or read any of the Harry Potter material. I really don't care enough to get outraged

Im no fan of Avatar yet I have no problem admitting I'm in the minority on that opinion.

What is considered good or bad entertainment is clearly in the eye of the beholder. But I'm not going to call James Cameron a hack director anymore than I would call J.K Rowling a bad writer because too many people love their works.

Many people also love Twilight, 50 Shades and Ayn Rand too.

Why dickride for Joanne so hard?

The Da Vinci Code has sold 60% more copies than Watership Down, despite being less than half as old, but Richard Adams is a brilliant storyteller while Dan Brown is a fucking hack.

Something, something, a certain Austrian paper-hanging son of a bitch wrote a book that outsold the Bible in his country.

I really enjoyed the Harry Potter books and own a complete set.

I was very entertained by the movie series and own it on Blu Ray.

I have less than zero interest in yet another version of the story. And have not watched a single Fantastic Beasts movie.

The series had a mostly satisfying conclusion and I don’t need to watch Rowling or WB try to milk it dry for even more money.

The Fantastic Beasts thing could've been fun if it just remained about the weird magical creatures and not as window dressing to prop up Dumbledore and Grisenwald's feud/bitter break up. HP was viable enough at the time to support both ideas as separate movie series.

Something that just occurred to me: One of the reasons the original movie series was able to attract top-tier talent was because of the cultural phenomena the books were at the time. Richard Harris was on some late night talkshow in the US and he said that the reason he agreed to play Dumbledore (I think that's who he was) is because of his granddaughter. He had mentioned to her (and I guess she was fairly young at the time) about being offered the role and not being certain if he should take it. According to him, her response was, "If you don't do it, then I shall never speak to you again." (No idea if she feels guilt over the fact that he died mid-way through the series.) But here's him in costume recounting the story:


Anyway, how can one expect to attract talent like the guy who sang this song:

If there's already a movie series and pop culture has moved on in many ways?