Reaction to HBO Harry Potter Trailer

     

            
The new trailer for “Harry Potter and Philosopher’s Stone” on HBO Max has been shared. These are my thoughts about it. My first reaction is, “Wait, why are they remaking the Harry Potter Series? It’s only been out for like 5 years!” And then I have to look back and remember that the first movie came out when I was a freshman in high school and like it or not, that was 25 years ago. Boy, time can surely fly by can’t it?  There have been plenty of franchises that have done reboots in less time than 25 years.

I love the Harry Potter books. My wife and I listen to them regularly. Jim Dale remains one of the best narrators of audiobooks, in my opinion, and I will forever be comparing his voice to the characters in film. Speaking of comparisons, I think that is what is going to inevitably happen with this series. It is going to be compared to the books and to the movies, both of which have had 25+ years to be read, viewed, listened to, discussed, and dissected by fans of the Wizard world. That doesn’t make it good, bad, or otherwise, it is just the nature of how things work. 

        I admit that I watched the trailer at first without sound so I was able to take in the visual aspect of things and I will say that I look forward to the details that are going to be available with a tv series compared to a movie. The fact that the haircut scene is in the trailer is telling of that. It’s also weird to see how young the actors and actress are, but then again, Harry turns 11 in the book before going to Hogwarts. 

I also have no idea who any of the actors and actresses are in the trailer. That was somewhat the case with the movies, but there were also some known faces (Maggie Smith and Alan Rickman to name a couple), where I feel like there is no one that I recognize in this trailer. It is very likely that they will become very well known over the next few years. Going back and watching the trailer with sound was also interesting because everyone sounds different than how Jim Dale portrays them or how they were portrayed in the original movies. 

Overall, I am excited to see what the series will add to the Harry Potter experience and see if it sparks a new generation’s interest in the boy who lived.