From book to movie to DVD to rubbish bin
Harry Potter. Bung old Harry Potter. Boring, bung old, bland Harry Potter with bad hair. How bad is this guy? How bad are the books? And how bad are the films?
You might have guessed it, but I'm in the mood for a rant.
Perhaps it's because I've just signed on to pay off a six-figure sum for the rest of my life, just so I can own a smallish three-bedroom home in West Auckland.
If you dare to call me a 'Westie', very bad things will happen to you.
So today's target is the boy wizard with the short shorts and the long wand. And he's going to get it.
Yeah, yeah, the books are a modern-day phenomenon, adored by squillions of squealing kids and a large proportion of adults too and blah blah blahdey blah blah. Bleargh.
Shut it. The books are boring. They're mediocre tales about magic that only succeed in providing David Copperfield something to aspire to. The movies are even worse, completely faithful renditions of books completely lacking in imagination made for younglings that fail to stand alone as movies.
I had the displeasure of sitting through the last one - Harry Potter Gets Stuck in the Pit of Eternal Stench, or something - and actually fell asleep. Despite the surround sound booming, the crisp packets crackling and infrequent outbursts of action, I dozed off.
That was the first time I've ever done that. I'm normally bouncing off the walls, especially after all that salt, sugar and ice cream. My wife had to wake me up because I was drooling on her shoulder. Sorry about that.
I have no doubt in my mind that there is a decent Harry Potter film to be made. If a visioneer like Guillermo del Toro had got on board and taken the books into their own fantastical world, they might just have been all right.
But they're not. The studio is too focused on not messing with a successful franchise to ever let something like that happen. So rest assured, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the first part of which is due this year, and the second in 2011, will be as missable as the rest of them.
To me, Harry Potter is in the same basket as Twilight, Miley Cyrus and bran muffins: Talk to the hand, because the face don't want to hear it.
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Someone's got their knickers in a twist.
My Grandma makes yummy bran muffins
"If a visioneer like Guillermo del Toro had got on board and taken the books into their own fantastical world, they might just have been all right."
Hang on, I thought the books were shite - boring, mediocre and lacking in imagination. Make your mind up.
I have the books. I enjoyed them the first time I read them, and every now and then will pick up one, read a few pages when I have nothing else to do, and then put it down again. Great for mindless nothingness, no work relaxation. I am getting bored of them now though, and the movies are not that great. I own the first couple because I was young enough to get away with it. I own the rest because they were cheap at the warehouse and I needed something I could watch with my eyes potentially closed if need be...
There is not enough in the last book for two movies. As a long-time "fan" (not deeply obsessed though), I still dont think I'm going to bother with either of them at the movies!
Hmm, pit of eternal stench... Labyrinth, now that's a cool movie.
@ T #1 - BRILLIANT!!! I've always wanted them to make a movie version of Samurai Pizza Cats... man I loved that show.
As for HP, I didn't mind the books when they came out. The movies are rubbish though.
I can't tell one movie from the others...they all look the same...they do nothing for me either.
Samurai Pizza Cats should definitely be made. Has someone called Samuel L Jackson for the lead?
Why do stuff writers always take cheap shot at easy targets???
I'm guessing before the first movie comes out stuff.co.nz will pay to have the exclusive NZ rights for the trailer, you know the one that has been on youtube for months.
You call the movies bland? I would never call the acting of Alan Rickman bland.
Anyway, it gives me a laugh that you would call it bland, yet as stuff's entertainment editor you always run the same type stories about the same bland boring brit pop artists as Robbie Williams or the spice girls.
Each to their own I guess.
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Wholeheartedly, unequivocally, definitely agree. Terrible, terrible series, in any medium. But in saying that, have plenty of friends (fully grown) who enjoy it. At least he doesn't sparkle like the twat of a vampire. And all the money they spend making the movies? For crying out loud. That's so much money that would have been better spent creating the movie version of Samurai Pizza Cats I've always dreamed of.