Cinematical Seven: Reasons Harry Potter is overrated

And thank goodness Jo Rowling is no Tolkien or Lewis; her books don't contain a single plot coupon on which to hang a trilogy's worth of world building one is hard pressed to call "story," or a thinly disguised allegory designed only to shove the tenets of Christianity down one's throat.
Tolkien and Lewis were great linguists and theists, respectively, but their writings left much to be desired.

"I don't like Harry because he's not a superhero" is one of the most ridiculous statements I've ever heard. It's like saying "I don't like ice cream because it's not a vegetable." Ice cream isn't -meant- to be a vegetable, and Harry isn't -meant- to be a superhero? And if you seriously think he has no flaws, you haven't read all (any?) of the books.

Not "literature"? Last time I checked, literature is books. Anyone with an advanced degree should know that. Perhaps it's not part of the respected "canon," but that's not what you said. I know, you were just being a "snob," and you disclaim that, so I guess that's okay.

Polarities? You mean like the whole "homo sapien" v. "homo superior" thing X-Men has been doing for a thousand years? Those kinds of polarities? Because it's human nature to be phobic about what's different (and the same, oddly)?

I know this is one of those troll posts designed to raise hackles, but it just bothers me when guys with pieces of paper from some institution to whom they paid thousands of dollars take it upon themselves to rip into and denigrate stuff they don't like because the stuff they -do- like doesn't get the attention they think it should. Jo Rowling is an amazing storyteller (though not perfect, and yes, book 5 needed an editor in the worst way. So did Tolkien), and her books deserve every bit of the praise they receive.

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"...the kid is so going through puberty simultaneous with the story-lines being continually innocent and child like. " All I can say is, you obviously have not read a single one of these books. The characters have continued to grow and age throughout the series with the problems brought on by puberty and impending adulthood becoming more and more prominent throughout.

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This guy is incredibly boring.
Seriously.
What an un-shiny soul.
Almost sucks the energy out you to read his stifling lack of excitement.
Great. Now I’m tired.
That is not what an education is supposed to do someone.
I suggest he get laid.
Immediately!!!!! Hurry! Run!!
Unfortunately, he may chatter a hooker into becoming celibate.
So, good luck.

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"...the kid is so going through puberty simultaneous with the story-lines being continually innocent and child like. " All I can say is, you obviously have not read a single one of these books. The characters have continued to grow and age throughout the series with the problems brought on by puberty and impending adulthood becoming more and more prominent throughout.

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I agree whole heartedly with many of your points. Rowling is not original - the books have the same plot over and over. Tolkien was a genius; Rowling was lucky.

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Please don't judge the books based on the movies.

That being said...

1. Has it ever occured to you that maybe Rowling isn't trying to be like Lewis or Tolkein? That maybe, JUST MAYBE, she's trying to write entertaining little novels for everybody? You're using the "they went to college so they're better than her" style of argument, which is extraoridnarily insulting.

2. He ages in the books. Radcliffe ages in real life.

3. Ooh, there's a "Middle-Earth". And someone has created a magical ring! Oh, no, I hope that magical ring doesn't fall into the wrong hands! Here, three foot tall thing, take it to Mt. Doom! Listen, I'm a fan of LotR. I know that there's more to it. Same with HP.

4. Well, let's see you do some magic, then. Your arguments are baseless, terrible and insulting to any HP fans.

5. Part of the appeal of everything is that Rowling has created a world where this could all logically exist. Wait, I'm sorry, I think we lost all logic when you wanted Harry Potter to be a superhero.

6. Again, you're judging the books based on the films. Your ignorance is astounding.

7. Tolkein what?

A post that is this ignorant and silly almost makes me want to stop reading both Cinematical and TUAW, both of which used to be two of my favorite blogs. I'm just confused as to why you would use films to judge novels. It doesn't make any sense.

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Yikes! You've got my total agreement and sympathy, C.K. Also, I'd like to thank everybody who jumped into this thread to splash vitriolic abuse around for proving point number seven. Ah, you just can't talk to Potterites without stirring up intense fury and ad hominem attacks.

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I'm usually quite fond cinematical, but this post was both boring and stupid. The arguments were immature and childish -- and I'm not even a Harry Potter fan.

You're a Doctoral student in Literature?! You can barely write (and by the way, nice way to start a post...overcompensate much? insecure often?).

Cinematical, please kick this annoying guy off the staff and let the other writers contribute in his place.

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Do you realize how much you're contradicting yourself, C.K.? You open your response post with "I'm using well-written [sic] novel vs. formula novel argument," and then 6 points later you say "This is Cinematical. Not Bookamatical. I'm talking about the movies. Maybe I shouldn't have said "Rowling" does it, but it is marqueed as J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, yes?" I know, I know, you're responding point by point to someone else's post...

On what marquee is the movie listed as "J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire"? I don't think Rowling is a "brand-name" author, not yet; so far, she's merely created a brand-name character. There is a big difference. There are instances in which it carries over ("Dean Koontz's Phantoms," "Stephen King's The Langoliers" [neither of which are really any good, book-wise, author-wise, or movie-wise]), but this isn't one of them. I'm not saying you can divorce Harry Potter from Jo Rowling, no, but I am saying that people are lining up for Harry Potter. Not Rowling. To make a literary equivalent, people were not lining up for Arthur Conan Doyle; they just wanted their Sherlock Holmes.

"Delusional"? Now who's using ad hominem arguments?

Look, I'll be the first to admit both that I'm a fan of the series of books in which Harry Potter appears and that they are flawed. I mentioned before that 5 suffers from a bad lack of editing. To say something is overrated because it's flawed, however, is to make another bad argument. Take "The Great Gatsby" as a for instance. Part of the respected canon of modern American literature, I'd argue. Taught in schools.
Deeply flawed. For many reasons, not the least of which is that Fitzgerald badly messed up the chronology in several places.
Does that make it any less a good book? I don't think so.

The Potter movies -aren't- perfect, by any stretch. I didn't like the first two at all (and I enjoyed the first two books more than any others in the series so far). I thought the third was brilliant, and Cuaron succeeded in bringing the magic and spirit of the story to the screen. No, it didn't translate completely, and rather large points of the plot were excised for temporal restrictions. But I still think that "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" is a great movie.

Concerning Radcliffe's aging, I know what you mean to say, but you should probably phrase it more clearly. Radcliffe most certainly *is* aging at the same pace as the Harry in the books: one year at a time. What you mean is, because of scheduling, the actor playing Harry Potter is older than the character is supposed to be.
But again, this is a silly argument. Firstly because Hollywood does this kind of thing all the time. "Saved by the Bell," "The Wonder Years," "Beverly Hills 90210"; how often do actors portray characters their own age?
Of course, it's not just Hollywood. Being so familiar with "literature", I'm sure you're taking into account that the first portrayal of Juliet in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" was not a teenage girl but rather a -gasp- prepubescent boy.

"When I asked some of the rabid super-fans of the books why certain bits happened, the answer was it's so much better in the books. Also, I may be a Mac guy, but rapid super-fans in my opinion are always a sign of problems with the object of idolization."
Funny: I get the same response when I mention my intense disliking of "LOTR" when talking to "rapid" [sic (but I think you mean, "rabid", no)] super-fans of Tolkien and all his medieval-linguist glory.

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C.K. Sample, its just a dumb post and not a very interesting or clever read. Most of your comments are negative....that should be a hint.

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C.K., You may be right about the marquee; I've never seen it occur, but I doubt discount the possibility.

I understand what you were trying to do, relating the movies to the books, etc. It is, however, a tricky endeavour to do such a thing, and too many different things come into play for it to be very simple. "The Shining" was a basic book about a haunted house. Simplistic formula, definitely. Which Kubrick turned into something remarkably different (for the record, I wasn't particularly fond of either, but thought the book was better, though that may be because I don't like Kubrick's work at all).

Turning a novel into a movie is a remarkably difficult and complicated thing; the two media accomplish similar goals using vastly different techniques, and what works in one may or may not work as well in the other. I've had experience writing both, and adaptation is often not just a transitioning but a word-one re-envisioning of the original story. There are times I've thought it's more akin to translating, which you may or may not agree with depending on whether you might acknowledge the "language" of movies and the "language" of books (the latter by which I don't simply mean the language in which it's written).

Anyway, I understand what you were going for in your original post, I think, just believe it could have been less condescending or contentious (and just so you know, your post 12 came off as incredibly condescending). There's nothing wrong with not liking something, and I think less wrong with articulating your reasons (um. I hope *this* doesn't come off as condescending; I'm not meaning it to be, like, granting permission, or something), especially should it provoke good discussion.

Like I said, re: these movies, I didn't like the first two, but loved the third. My sister has read only the first book (after she saw the movie, mind you), and she loved the first two but disliked the third. She thought it was a beautiful thing, but she also felt as if she were missing something (and, because of plot excisions, she was). I recently read book 6, whereas she stopped at 1; tomorrow night, we're going to see the 4th movie at an IMAX theater, and we're both very much looking forward to it. Probably for entirely disparate reasons.
Perhaps I'll comment about our reactions to it, if anyone's interested.

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You're missing the point. I'm not even a Harry Potter fan and I'm upset over this post. The reason this post is annoying isn't because you put down Harry Potter but because it has stupid, childish arguments and I think Cinematical is better than that.

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I completely agree, C.K. is a misinformed, misguided individual who is un-shiny and mean!

-Ben

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CK,

I read both blogs several times a day and I very rarely, if ever, comment. Part of the reason I think Weblogs Network works is because it allows me to get news and information from many different sources all on one page.

That being said, a certain understanding can be reached: Because these are blogs and not comphrehensive journalism, personal opinions are allowed to be expressed in an informal manner. I have no problem with this. However, when an opinion is presented with such an air of ignorance and silliness as your own in this post, it's just dumb.

I have absolutely no problem with Cinematical offering space to somebody to present what they think is wrong with the Potter films. This is a blog about movies, and discussing in an intelligent matter the problems with the films is not out of the realm of discourse for this blog. You're right, it's not Bookamatical, it's Cinematical.

Whether you understand it or not, your post makes it seem as if you are attacking books you admit to not having read. I especially find it odd that there is no mention at all in your post of Steve Kloves, Chris Colombus, Alfonso Cuaron, Mike Newell, David Heyman and/or any of the actors involved. These are the people responsible for the films, not Ms. Rowling. The films have her blessing, and they are based off of her material but they should not be used as a judgement of the books themselves.

Nobody is saying that you need to adore anything Potter-related. We're just asking that you not use the films as your sole basis for being critical about the books.

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Did anyone else notice that C.K.'s first point, "J.K. Rowling, despite the initials, is no C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkien," is absolutely hypocritical? The entire first point is attacking Ms. Rowling for using her initials for publication. Does anyone else see the flaw in this? How about you, C.K.?

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I've said this over and over again, time after time, and yet, these moronic people have to go out of their ways to ruin and deface something that has inspired a generation of children to begin reading. We (the public) do not need to hear, and most definitely do not care if you hate the popular series of CHILDREN'S books. I put an emphasis on the word childrens because that is the audience which is targeted. However, many, in fact, the majority of adults over the age of 19 have a superb imagination unrivaled by that of children, and are able to create just as colourful visions as kids can. However, the sad fact remains that there are a few people who weren't given this special gift, like the person who wrote the above review. In conclusion, and in defense of this brilliant series, I say this: Don't read the books if your imagination is as good as a dogs!

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Hahahahahaha, I love you, C.K.

I think you missed the main point of why the Harry Potter novels suck, though, which is that they're written by a writer of mediocre talent at a sixth-grade reading level. They're perfect pieces of marketing, designed for the ultimate in focus group appeal. They're not written as books or made as movies for the purpose of being GOOD -- they're made to be SUCCESSFUL. That would be where J.K. differentiates herself from C.S. and J.R.R.

Harry Potter's success is vastly disproportionate to its quality. Rowling deserves to experience the success of a Raymond E. Feist, who most of you nitwits have probably never heard of. Feist isn't exactly an outstanding writer (more specifically, he's a mediocre writer who has a bad editor), but at least the man knows how to tell a story and mix things up a bit rather than utilizing the formulaic plot tricks employed by Rowling. Feist is an unknown. I bought all his books at a used book store in Albany. Rowling is a billionaire. You can't turn around in a bookstore without ten of her books falling on your head. It's bloody disturbing to me that Rowling is a billionaire not because she created a good product, but because she created one of the most eminently marketable products in recent memory.

She is not in the elite of contemporary fantasy authors. In no world does J.K. Rowling write better or tell a story better than Robert Jordan, than George R.R. Martin, than Neil Gaiman, than Terry Pratchett, than David Simmons, than Terry Brooks, even than Terry Goodkind or David Eddings or Brian Jacques. Yet, she dwarfs them all, and it truly is one of the most depressing signs of our times.

And thank god I got a haircut so people can't bloody tell me I look like Harry fucking Potter anymore, since apparently a certain hair syle + glasses automatically qualifies you.

Harry Potter is just one of many things that embodies everything that is wrong with our world today.

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