25 Years Ago, The First Harry Potter Movie Made A Magical Choice That Still Holds Up Today

The first “Harry Potter” movie, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” released on November 16, 2001 … meaning that we’re approaching the film’s 25th anniversary. (Considering that November 16, 2001 was my 11th birthday, this only freaks me out a little bit.) Now that we’ve seen the first trailer for HBO’s TV adaptation of “Harry Potter” — which has the stated objective of creating a “fuller” adaptation by devoting an entire season to each of the 7 books in the original series — it’s given me some insight into that first “Harry Potter” movie. Specifically, it gives me insight into what that movie did right: It created a sense of fantastical whimsy that seems completely absent from the TV show’s trailer.

It’s no secret that, across the board, franchise reboots have been aiming for darker tones over the past several years, literally and figuratively. Not only are reboots a lot “grittier” now, but you also can’t see a lot of the action because color grading in TV and film is getting so muted and dark. This impulse is all over the teaser trailer for the “Harry Potter” TV show.

So why is this approach categorically wrong?

There was a genuinely magical quality to the first “Harry Potter” film. One thing it had on its side, obviously, was timing; the book series written by J.K. Rowling was still being released, and fervor for any “Potter” content was at an all-time high. It was also, for lack of a better term, the vibes. “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” included some of the book’s darker elements, but it was also fun.

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Chris Columbus is far from a perfect director, but he nailed the tone of Harry Potter

I’m not going to sit here and pretend that Chris Columbus is some untouchable titan of a director, but he’s good at making movies for kids, and it’s also a fool’s errand to pretend that the first “Harry Potter” movie, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” isn’t a movie for kids. This also isn’t just because Columbus, who also directed “Home Alone,” changed the source material; the first “Harry Potter” book is also distinctly childlike, especially when you compare it to the rest of the series. (I’ll circle back to that.)

Columbus’ work on “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” — which he saw essentially replicated in some of the show’s first-look photos — is notable mainly because it finally gave fans of the “Harry Potter” books their first look at the wizarding world and Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. That look introduced said fans to a warm, welcoming, and honestly visually fascinating world stocked with magical artifacts, moving portraits, chocolate frogs that come to life, and classes where you can either cast an innocent charm or cause a full-fledged explosion. Even when Harry Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger — portrayed in these movies by Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson — come face-to-face with a three-headed dog named Fluffy who’s guarding a secret trap door, there’s a sense of wonder that manages to override any sense of serious fear.

It already looks, based on the trailer, like the “Harry Potter” series might not maintain that sense of wonder. Not only is this disappointing, but it raises a pretty important question: who’s the intended audience for the “Harry Potter” reboot if it’s not the whole family?

The Harry Potter TV series looks dour, dark, and gritty — so who is this for, exactly?

Let me be incredibly clear: as you get to the end of “Harry Potter,” it positions itself as a young-adult series that veers into some pretty serious darkness and becomes a little less friendly for kids of all ages. Still, the first book, at the very least, is a simple and joyful child’s story, despite the fact that a young Harry is orphaned in the first few pages after the series’ Big Bad kills his parents and tries to kill him too. Yes, there’s danger and darkness, but there’s also magical candy, Quidditch matches, and, again, whimsy.

Yeah, I know there are shots in the trailer of Dominic McLaughlin and Alastair Stout’s Harry Potter and Ron Weasley roasting marshmallows and doing cute kid stuff. I’ll also admit that Stout’s little “pew!” at the end when he sees Harry’s scar is very endearing. But let’s also consider that we seem to be in for a bunch of scenes where Harry gets bullied at his non-magical Muggle school and emotionally abused by his Aunt Petunia (Bel Powley). (Think “Adolescence” with magic wands.) It’s wild, to me, that we’re getting into the dark stuff so quickly when the original movies took their time and eased young audiences into it.

That’s why I can’t totally figure out who this show is for. It’s not for kids, so I guess it’s for millennials who grew up with the series … but we already have the movies, so that concept makes it feel even more like a soulless cash grab. And those movies, especially the first one? They’re filled with some sorely needed and, dare I say, magical whimsy. The first one still holds up after almost 25 years.

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Read the original article on SlashFilm.