They could always do a series from well before the Marauders or when the kids of the Harry and the others have already left Hogwarts and such...
The thing about Harry Potter is that it's about a magic school and an awesome castle. The minute you try and move out of that setting and expand it, there's not a lot to explore.
Fantastic Beasts is a failure for that reason. It's not set in the magic school or any magic school and instead it's floating across a series of threadbare settings without any real emotional connection to the audience or any attempt to build that. The world-building, the "lore" of the HP books, was never really deep enough or substantial enough to really flourish without Hogwarts. Fantastic Beasts also had the issue in that it wasn't based on anything written down by Rowling. It's based on elaborating the backstory of a charity textbook that wasn't supposed to be what it is.
Whereas I think a prequel series set in Hogwarts would avoid the issues.
-- You go back to the castle that everyone loves and can't get enough of.
-- You have the emotional connection.
-- Likewise, the lore in the HP books that really work, is everything centered around Hogwarts you know the previous history of students, professors, paintings, ghosts, secret passages and so on.
-- A lot of the earlier students and their time at Hogwarts is fairly well known and shown in detail -- Tom Riddle, James Potter, Severus Snape -- so you have material to work with.
I think a Marauders prequel would work best as a TV show. One is you have a big cast all of whom have their own unique personal drama, so you can serialize the show with a big cast and that offers variety. You can do all the stuff people like in the HP stories -- classes, quidditch, secret passage exploration, and goofy magical gags and jokes.
And you have a lot of serial narrative there -- they become animal shapeshifters, they find out pal is a werewolf, you have a love story and romance, you have moral complexity and grayness since Harry's dad is not a typical goody two-shoes.
And the cool part is that once you do the Marauders at Hogwarts you can follow them in the Order of the Phoenix as a sequel.
Last edited by Revolutionary_Jack; 01-26-2021 at 12:32 AM.
The reason why fantastic beast is a failure is very simply cause of its awful writing. The setting or that it's a prequel have very little to do with that.
Rowling is a competent book writer but à very pour movie or play one.
I disagree with that, I liken the world of harry potter more to the x-men universe. it's like saying xmen cannot exist outside of the x-mansion. in the books and other external material there is more to the world. the harry potter universe is a world within a world, the movie just made everything so British that is why it feels small. one of the reasons goblet of fire was a fan movie favourite was because this was the only movie that explored the larger world beyond England. The harry potter universe wiki is pretty detailed and has one of the largest entries of material of book fantasy series.
fantastic beast is a failure because they chose the wrong story to explore. the Newt character does not need a big budget movie, he can get his own streaming shows.
Marauders will be in my top 3 story to explore but my number 1 has to be about the Hogwarts founders, from the books and even movies, that aspect of the universe is arguably the richest story and right now that is what the series needs to avoid another fantastic beasts.
I won't say the writing is awful, the writing is however problematic because JK Rowling is writing the screenplay. she should not be doing that. she should set the story in and lay it out to experienced professional film writers.
She was not the writer of the movies, the writers of the movies were written by professional film writers. all we see in the cast is story by JK Rowling books, not screenplay by jk Rowling
fantastic beasts is also meh because the series does not know what it wants to be.
it's sad that johnny depp is gone. Johnny Depp at his acting best could have brought so much to the movies.
The school setting for sure, but aside from that it's not the same thing at all.
-- The X-Men stories always had Xavier send X-Men on missions via X-Jet and other stuff across the world to conduct operations, save people, and do stuff.
-- Whereas the HP books have the kids confined inside the castle, with curfew and other rules imposed, areas forbidden for students to explore after a certain time. You have entire pages and stuff dedicated to classes, homework, and grades and careers.
The HP books are fundamentally about being at school, and being kids at school. The entire concept of the books of kids sneaking around and exploring stuff and going where they aren't supposed to, which is the substance of the entire series, doesn't work outside the school setting.
But again all that larger world-stuff is peripheral to the POV of the school setting, unlike X-Men. In the X-Men stories, the mansion is just a base to explore a wide and cool series of settings across the Marvel Universe, but in the Harry Potter books, the wider world exists to heighten stakes inside Hogwarts.in the books and other external material there is more to the world. the harry potter universe is a world within a world, the movie just made everything so British that is why it feels small.
The Founding of Hogwarts is more something you can do as a streaming one-shot in my view. There's not much material to work with them.Marauders will be in my top 3 story to explore but my number 1 has to be about the Hogwarts founders, from the books and even movies, that aspect of the universe is arguably the richest story and right now that is what the series needs to avoid another fantastic beasts.
I agree with some of what you said. Not because I believe the lore doesn't work outside Hogwarts, but because of name recognition.
The easiest way to make this show trend is by putting Harry Potter on the title, then even those not closely keeping tabs on pop cultural news will know what is about, but if they do that they will have to put Harry on it, and it would, imo, limit the stories they can tell.
The second best way of letting audiences know what they are talking about is putting Hogwarts on the title. Everyone that knows Harry Potter also know Hogwarts, and setting the show on school allow them to tell stories preciding the book series.
Basically, just steal the idea from Hogwarts Legacy, specially if the game is sucessful.
Last edited by Ra-El; 01-26-2021 at 11:15 AM.
Not sure about "name recognition". After all Fantastic Beasts made sizable profits (the first one at least) and it didn't really have name recognition going for it.
It's just that Fantastic Beasts doesn't really work. It was promoted as a standalone story about a dude hunting magical creatures, which okay can work as a charm but then it gets transformed into a story about the previous Dark Lord, only now you have the story of this Dark Wizard narrated from the perspective of a supporting character in that since obviously Dumbledore is the main protagonist in this battle against Grindelwald and not Scamander so you have woozy dark wizards stuff that's both peripheral and central and that's bad serial storytelling.
Right.The second best way of letting audiences know what they are talking about is putting Hogwarts on the title. Everyone that knows Harry Potter also know Hogwarts, and setting the show on school allow them to tell stories preciding the book series.
Basically, just steal the idea from Hogwarts Legaxy, specially if the game is sucessful.
Ultimately the way forward is to make HP like James Bond. Give Rowling money, and a private island and write her annual checks, and then basically commission an Expanded Universe for the HP series to mint material for future use.
Ian Fleming and his estate after all did that, they eventually commissioned and approved other writers from working and adding to James Bond and so on.
Last edited by Revolutionary_Jack; 01-26-2021 at 09:27 AM.
They should make a trans character to spite J.K Rowling.
#InGunnITrust, #ZackSnyderistheBlueprint, #ReleasetheAyerCut
Not being at Hogwarts isn't the problem.
HARRY POTTER AND THE BLAKITY BLANK. Vs. FANTASTIC BEASTS... One series is about a person. You know who it's about. You also know what it's about, roughly, because it's in the title. Harry Potter and something something. It's set up. The **** are fantastic beasts? Where to find them? I don't even know what they are yet. Is this a safari? A globe trotting adventure? A class on Cryptozoology? What is it? It's an amorphous nothing followed by another mystery. The title is a two part mystery. There's nothing to grab on to.
Then the movies were just boring. Or the half of the first one I tried to watch, anyway.
This series, if it gets made, needs to be about someone specific.
There was a mock trailer for an Auror centric TV show. I actually liked the idea and wouldn't mind if they actually did it.
It's a cop show with Wizards.
Last edited by the illustrious mr. kenway; 01-26-2021 at 10:46 AM.
Hence why either James and Lilly or Dumbledore are the best picks if they want to have something set in Hogwarts. Everyone pretty much knows who those are, even outside the die hards. James and Lilly provides a iconic love triangle with the younger Snape that the Reylo types will no doubt pawn over, and you also get to develop characters like Sirius, Peter, Remus and the like further. Whilst Dumbledore gives you the origin of one of the most powerful wizards in history with a firm LBGT lead.
That saying, I don't believe shows in the Wizarding World should remain confined to Hogwarts and Britain, but it would make sense to start with one, perhaps setting stuff up that can go further afield in other spin off shows, ala The Mandalorian.