Do you think the Harry Potter series would been better served as a TV show with a seven-year arc or do you think it's fine as a movie series?
Harry Potter: Movies or TV show
- Thread starter Joe Washington
- Start date
Could work. Only problem is if the show is canceled midway through or so. That and casting issues. Also, with the adaptations, you could, in theory, read everything before the first season ended, thereby ruining the rest of the show. I know you could do the same with the movies, but somehow that seems different to me.
There was a cartoon series on BBC a few years ago which was quite clearly a Harry Potter rip off but I cant remember it's name.
I think you could tell the story better in a tv show, but overall the movies are fine and good.
Interesting question, Joe. I hadn't actually pondered HP's 'suitability' as a television property before, but, just from my immediate thoughts when I read the question, a TV series would definitely allow you to adapt more of JKR's world and focus on more of the novels' 'secondary' characters than the movies have.
BTW, I'm gonna do some thinking and see if I can't come up with a way to serialize the HP novels the way that one might if developing an adaptation of the series for TV, so expect me back here later.
BTW, I'm gonna do some thinking and see if I can't come up with a way to serialize the HP novels the way that one might if developing an adaptation of the series for TV, so expect me back here later.
Frankly, if I'd had the rights to play with, that's how I'd have done it. True, it wouldn't have been the bazillion dollar success that the movies have been and certainly later on would lose its child audience, but then so would the books have lost the younger readers as they went along - that was the whole point, grow up with Harry. And BSG showed that a mini series can produce the effects and scope a project like HP would need.
The big advantage of course would be the ability to do them, if not unabridged (that's a lot of material in books 4 and 5), at least with more of the text intact, and that would produce a better product at the end when taken on its own merits (the films as they stand are pretty unintelligible after Azkaban if you haven't read the books).
The way I approach the film series at the moment, especially GoF and HBP, is as a series of scenes from the book that have been filmed - 22 Short Films About Hogwarts if you like. The books' story is woefully absent in these two films, and OotP only really works as a coherent entity because it has Umbridge to use as an ever-present villain - you'd still be largely lost on the backstory and the final fight scenes without foreknowledge of the book.
I think approaching the project as a set of mini-series would have produced a result that better mapped to the story and could tell it successfully in their own right. If some of the production expenditure had to suffer, then so be it.
The big flaw in this plan is that filming that kind of length would take a long time - it would likely not be feasible with the largely minor cast for the early films. There's a reason underage actors are rarely the leads in full season TV shows - they are costly in time and money to use for that long.
I started out thinking a series of 5-7 hour miniseries would have been the way to go, but honestly, seeing how Rowling screwed the pooch from OOTP on, I don't really care. After the lackluster HBP, I may not see either DH in theaters, and the subsequent likelihood of my bothering to catch the dvds is less than overwhelming.
I may give the first two movies a second viewing sometime soon, but I really only definitely enjoy PoA and GoF. PoA's finale should have had ten or fifteen more minutes of talking it out in the shack, but apart from that, would I really want either to be longer? Nay, I'm afraid.
I may give the first two movies a second viewing sometime soon, but I really only definitely enjoy PoA and GoF. PoA's finale should have had ten or fifteen more minutes of talking it out in the shack, but apart from that, would I really want either to be longer? Nay, I'm afraid.
I fully expect to see an animated series produced on tv once the film series is done. There's a tremendous appetite for all things Harry, an animated series is cheap enough to produce, has no problems with aging actors, and allows for visuals not possible in live action - and I can't imagine Warner Bros. wanting to see the gravy train ending when it doesn't have to. I don't know what their specific rights are in terms of filmed adaptations though. If they don't have a fairly comprehensive contract I suppose Rowling could say no, but I'm not sure why she would.
That's how they should handle the Bond franchise; faithful adaptations of the novels set in the late 50s/60s.
Better as a series of movies. Aside from the profitability aspect, they were able to attract cast members a TV series probably wouldn't. It would have been more difficult to keep the cast intact (Emma Watson would have bailed, for certain; she nearly dropped out of the movies). But primarily, so many multi-year arc series have failed and been cancelled one or two years in. For every Lost there's a half-dozen Wonderfalls or Thresholds. Babylon 5 nearly failed in fulfilling its multi-year arc until a white knight cable network picked it up. Not saying movies are a guarantee (pigs will fly when His Dark Materials: The Subtle Knife ever gets made) but it does seem to increase the chances of a full arc being produced, as both Potter and, most likely, Twilight are proving.
Also, SF/F fandom is notoriously finicky. Just ask the guys behind Heroes. 7 movies, released a year or two apart, are less likely to fall victim to viewer boredom and apathy than a 7-year series made up of 50, 60 or more episodes. Heck, just look at Battlestar Galactica. It's one of the most acclaimed SF series ever made, yet by the time Season 4 rolled around you were starting to hear people say "just finish it already". In some respects I'd almost have preferred to see BSG produced as a tetralogy of movies than as a weekly series spread out over, really, 7 seasons (mini-series counts as one, season 2 and 4 were split in half with long gaps between, so effectively that makes 7). And while 7 years was touted for awhile as the ideal length for a Trek series, people are looking back with rose-colored glasses. TNG, DS9 and Voyager all saw lots of fans saying the shows had run a season or two too long.
Alex
And yet, at the rate studios, creativity, and legal rights drag out, it wouldn't see the light of day for at least another 15 years.
That seems like the one.
Yes, but none of those stories was based on the most popular young adult series in history, with a worldwide, broadly based audience built in.
Depends. If Warners already owns a broad range of rights, it could be in the works as we speak. Believe me, they're tryign to figure out some way to milk that cash cow a little more now that the movies are finishing up. And if they don't, I'm fairly sure they'd work on it for 15 years for the opportunity to produce it. Star Wars has shown that a gap in time only revs up the nostalgia factor.
Id love a 2d animated series, but these days its more likely to be made all cgi...unless maybe Princess and the Frog becomes really successful.
MY husband thinks I'm crazy for thinking Potter would have been better served as a long running series than movies. I'm not a super fan, and of course the popularity of the books warrants a big screen adaptation, but there's so many pieces left off the big screen, so much big name talent being shoved to the side. A long series that was able to fully explore each character, subplot, magic treat, and then some I think would have been far more appealing.
Sometimes I watch the movies, and think, what was accomplished? We spent a half hour watching Quidditch, now what? I'd rather know about this or that, maybe they'll add a piece to it next movie. I just saw Half Blood Prince, and um, yeah, what was accomplished? What was supposed to be the main storyline? It seemed so disjointed between the run and gun Death Eaters, here and there Dumbledore, Potter and Ginny love, Ron and Hermoine love, Draco and his issues. The Weasley's house gets blown up and it's never mentioned again!
I think a full season of 22 or 24 eps per book at least would have been far better. Readers just think that you would have, um, do the math umpteenth more hours of Potterness! Otherwise, I just think there isn't enough room for everybody and everything. In HBP, outside of Dumbledore (who's never had so much time before!) there were I swear only two scenes each for Maggie Smith, David Thewlis, Snape, Bellatrix. Is there a contract restriction on the adults or what?
Sometimes I watch the movies, and think, what was accomplished? We spent a half hour watching Quidditch, now what? I'd rather know about this or that, maybe they'll add a piece to it next movie. I just saw Half Blood Prince, and um, yeah, what was accomplished? What was supposed to be the main storyline? It seemed so disjointed between the run and gun Death Eaters, here and there Dumbledore, Potter and Ginny love, Ron and Hermoine love, Draco and his issues. The Weasley's house gets blown up and it's never mentioned again!
I think a full season of 22 or 24 eps per book at least would have been far better. Readers just think that you would have, um, do the math umpteenth more hours of Potterness! Otherwise, I just think there isn't enough room for everybody and everything. In HBP, outside of Dumbledore (who's never had so much time before!) there were I swear only two scenes each for Maggie Smith, David Thewlis, Snape, Bellatrix. Is there a contract restriction on the adults or what?
^^ The problem is that nothing really matters. In HP7, there's a good vs. evil showdown, and - spoiler! - good wins. Yeah, a few people die, but they're footnotes in the grand scheme of things. Harry wins not because of what Lupin, Moody or anyone else taught him, but because he happened to be wielding the right wand. Or something.
The series jumped the shark at the beginning of book/film 5, when few believed that Voldy was back. It was all downhill from there, and ultimately not worth the time.
The series jumped the shark at the beginning of book/film 5, when few believed that Voldy was back. It was all downhill from there, and ultimately not worth the time.
Since the Harry Potter books are hardly original - the notion of secret societies with magical powers and schools for "gifted" youngsters are both very old hat - it would make more sense to just create an original series about a school for young wizards. Or, license the name for PR purposes and just do as you please. But don't put the characters from the books in the story since that would be redundant. Invent new characters specifically for TV but inhabiting the same universe.
I'd love to see this topic done with more cultural variety to open up the story and character types (which you'd need just to provide the amount of material a TV series demands). We could have several schools all over the world. My first choice as a focus would be a voodoo-inspired school in New Orleans (maybe we could have a crossover with True Blood.)
Fans should not be obligated to watch shows they find too flawed to tolerate. The ratings should be a message to the creators of these shows that they need to do better. If Harry Potter: the TV Series is going to have a bad premise or be badly executed, then they shouldn't bother. I think this thread assumes that it will have a good premise and be executed well.
I'd love to see this topic done with more cultural variety to open up the story and character types (which you'd need just to provide the amount of material a TV series demands). We could have several schools all over the world. My first choice as a focus would be a voodoo-inspired school in New Orleans (maybe we could have a crossover with True Blood.)
Heroes and (to a lesser extent) BSG have earned their plummetting ratings. Heroes took a great premise and frakked it up to a degree I find astonishing. BSG's premise was unworkable to begin with; I give the writers/producers a lot of credit for making their bad premise work as well as they did, but why not spend the time to come up with a better premise rather than spend years trying desperately to paper over the cracks in your story? Waste of creative juices that could have been used for more positive efforts.
Fans should not be obligated to watch shows they find too flawed to tolerate. The ratings should be a message to the creators of these shows that they need to do better. If Harry Potter: the TV Series is going to have a bad premise or be badly executed, then they shouldn't bother. I think this thread assumes that it will have a good premise and be executed well.
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