Each successive movie makes me feel more like I'm wasting my time. Not because they are bad, but because the source material seems to be good.
I know my way around fantasy serials, and one of their pleasures can be the gradual accumulation and indexing of lore. This is especially true of Potter, even more so than Tolkien. The history of Middle Earth is so vast that you do not hope to comprehend it all (let us peasants leave the Silmarillion safely in the hands of illuminati) but rather to be drawn along like a wide-eyed hobbit amidst Bigger Things. The Potter books, on the other hand, are designed to give you total access. You expect and are expected to understand every little detail, by the end. The fun is in wrapping your arms all the way around that density of references to thumdigglers and slugwockles and cries of ovis tenebris! No medium but the written word can provide the fullness of that experience.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I have very similar feelings about those movies. I still refuse to watch any of the Potter movies that go to books I haven't read (that is, all but the first two). On the other hand, my experiences with the first two novels weren't positive enough to really inspire me to keep reading, so I seem to be at an impasse.
ReplyDelete