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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

All this Harry Potter is p*ssing me off

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17:43 / 10.11.01

I've never read the books and I suspect if I did I would probably enjoy them. I would hate that.
As for all the marketing and stuff, well it is really horrible. Isn't it nice though that we can see straight through it. It is nice to see all the commercial stuff being thrown at us by companies wanting to make profit, and then just side stepping it and spending time and money on truly valuable things.

00:50 / 11.11.01

A thought came to me while I was watching the commercial for the movie. I dont find its being marketted any more than any other kids film lately. Could it be that its marketted a lot more in Britain because its a brittish book/character??? If so then Its no wonder why its being so hyped I mean really there hasnt been a brit. fantasy series this successfull since Lord of The Rings or perhaps the Narnia books...

02:25 / 11.11.01

kegboy, I noticed the same thing. I have seen barely any advertising for this film. I have yet to see one commercial, and I've only seen the trailer once. I think part of it may have to do with which channels they chose to air commercials on though. For instance, I must have seen the commercial for The One about 3 dozen times, and yet I haven't even seen a commercial for Monsters, Inc.

The Natural Way

08:19 / 12.11.01

Where's my damn Conan movie?

Wachowski's are working on it as we speak.

Oh yeah; and I went to see Harry Potter last night. Twas alright, [annoying] but not as gooood as the book..... [/annoying]

[ 12-11-2001: Message edited by: yunrunce ]

08:19 / 12.11.01

quote:Originally posted by Wize Dragon:
Obviously not, instead retreating to the 'liberal' safe view of 'it's good to get the kids reading'. Yeah read I say, but read something that is in fact written well, but that is beside the point.

Have you ever tried getting kids to read? Hell, even adults? Some people won't even read comic books, for fucks sake. (Though I find Watchmen usually works. Not that I'd feed Moore to children).

Face it, the time when a nation eagerly awaiting the latest chapter in a Charles Dickens work are over. These days, to be very big indeed, it has to be simple enough to catch everyone attention.

Rowling was the right writing style at the right time.
quote:
Know that I am tired of money making crap hitting the cinema, and selling Coca Cola to kids. 'Yeah read the book and rot ya body'

Well, it's going to happen. If its popular, expect lots of commercial bandwagon jumping, doubly so if its aimed at kids. Rowling's intention wasn't to become a billionaire, she didn't wake up and think "hmm, franchise."
Potter is this years fad. Stick you 'Burger King' Hermione next to your Batman and TMNT toys and forget about it.
quote:
For the person who dare say that Harry Potter readers are the new Invisbles, I am shocked.

Magic comes from belief. We have a pile of 10 year old who know about magic, and some even know about summoning (Pokemon).
It's all cultural programming. Some of these kids will go on to read Phillip Pullman (Yes, its another Kids book. It is very, very gnostic. Read the Dark Materials books when you need to kill time a long journey).

Some of these kids will pick up the invisibles or Promethea in 7 years time, and start walking down a rather entertaining path.

quote:(Didn't Grant lose his letters page due to commercial failings, share holder censorship)

Isn't this board a consequence? Whining about the "corporate circus" achieves nothing, it may be fun, but ultimately futile. Me? I'm interested in this Coca-Cola book scheme. No reason.

[ 12-11-2001: Message edited by: Formerly known as Mr E ]

[ 12-11-2001: Message edited by: Formerly known as Mr E ]

12:04 / 14.11.01

Use the NME, Dragon. They're sure as hell going to use you. And we're both protean, didn't you know? In time, we will become each other. And then it will all begin again. We are yin and yang cubed. We are fluid polarisation in a world without poles.

Cope, or die. Reaaaaal simple.

And get down offa that high horse, son. We got hungry dawgs ta feed.

11:11 / 16.11.01

Flyboy your words are acknowledged and respected. As for other more aggressive postings, it hasn't advanced anything, merely reactionary.
Yes the hype in Britain is much greater than that in America.

PEACE (s)

12:13 / 16.11.01

quote:Originally posted by Luke Wing:
Youngest daughter is now having Harry Potter as a bedtime story. At five she loves it. And I enjoy reading it, it reads aloud good, some books do, some books don't. 'The Hobbit' doesn't for instance.

Really? I just finished the first Potter book (it was a good story, and a very good read for the 7 year old ears), and was thinking about throwing some Hobbit at him next.
What're the stumbling blocks?

Oh, and I don't think I'd get him to get into the Hobbit if it wasn't for the Lord of the Rings movie coming out. He might not read much, but he sure as heck knows what's gonna be in the theaters.

19:08 / 16.11.01

Don't let me discourage you on the Hobbit.

Maybe from a listeners point of you it dwells to much on establishing the rural idyll on the first page. I've asked Freya why she didn't like it and she say's she 'just didn't'.

I used to read it aloud to twelve year old's when I was an English teacher, and it never really worked for them either, and I am a good reader.

Let me know how you get on though.

And back on subject, Grace, who is five asked me today why Harry Potter is everywhere. I told her because people have paid lots of money to make him famous. She asked if she spent lots of money could she be famous too.

So she's not to young to understand how hype works.

[ 16-11-2001: Message edited by: Ian Jones is not Luke Wing ]

20:58 / 16.11.01

Well i went to see Harry Potter this afternoon with my 10yr old boy....

LOVED IT!!!!
HE LOVED IT!!!

I hadn't read any of the books before though he'd read a couple...

I know this thread started off as a rant against the marketing of the whole thing (and to be honest i havent read the whole thread)...i know it's shit yeh yeh...i remember being a spoilt brat wanting every new Star Wars figure that came out...

Thats the evil that is marketing...(try weaning a 10yr old off fucking McDonalds toys )

But a very good film!

Haven't felt this wired up about the Dark Arts since Wizbit!

gentleman loser

15:51 / 18.11.01

$31.3 million in one day. Take that Jar Jar Binks!

"This is good for the industry," Dergarabedian said. "It gets people in the mood to go to the movies and exposes them to marketing for other upcoming films. It just creates more movie-going."

Saturation bombardment marketing aimed at kids works!

Hooray. . . or something!

[ 18-11-2001: Message edited by: gentleman loser ]

16:00 / 18.11.01

I will be amused to see James Cameron knocked down a peg- I've heard this movie is expected to blow Titanic out of the proverbial water.

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:45 / 19.11.01

Yeah...fun fun fun...but...

Is it me, or is Hogwarts an Aryan Nation training camp? One asian student, who appears in one shot, without lines, and an almost comically token black Griffindor pupil, who functions only outside the core narrative as commentator on the Quidditch match.

I mean, I know that magical ability is largely restricted to members of the white middle classes, but they could have made a bit more of an effort to encourage people from less culturally "magical" backgrounds - you know, Africans, the Chinese, like that.

09:45 / 19.11.01

Blame the books. They are written in a very WASP genre, in which it is almost a sign of progress that the asian character is called Parvati Patel rather than Hurree Jam Set Ram Singh.

09:45 / 19.11.01

quote:Originally posted by clive:
Haven't felt this wired up about the Dark Arts since Wizbit!

Oh dear God...

The Return Of Rothkoid

09:45 / 19.11.01

quote:Originally posted by Cherry Bomb:
I have no idea how someone can slag off on something that ENCOURAGES PEOPLE TO READ!!!
*stands on chair, applauding*

Yep. Isn't it a good thing that the books get more kids into reading? As will, undoubtedly, the release of the LOTR flicks over the next couple of years. More power to it. I understand people's disgust at the marketing, but it's not exactly a new thing, is it? I remember the Star Wars toys from my childhood more than the damn movie. I'm sure there'll be bigger attempts to snare kiddies' cash than this in times to come - who cares?

Haus: quote:and an almost comically token black Griffindor pupil, who functions only outside the core narrative as commentator on the Quidditch match.You're forgetting the kid at the end who's involved in a "Yeah! You go, Harry!" cheering match. It irked me a little, too. I saw the flick last night and thought it was fine - diverting, entertaining, though it looked a bit "done on the cheap" at times. I've not read the books because, like others've said, I've always felt there's something else more important to read. Given that they won't take long to look through (and my flatmate has them) I might just give them a whirl, because some of the stuff in the movie stuck me as worth checking out. I don't think that's a bad thing, personally.

And Scent? You rawk.

A query: was this film pushed forward to beat Jackson's film? Some of the CGI stuff looked really ropey, and I just wonder if they skimped on the post-production to get it out and to soak up some of the cash before the invasion of LOTR?

09:45 / 19.11.01

Phil Hogan in yesterday's Observer magazine: "Glad to see the Harry Potter merchandising machine is in full swing, to stop kids lazing about all day reading books."

Or words to that effect.

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:45 / 19.11.01

quote:Originally posted by Rothkoid:
You're forgetting the kid at the end who's involved in a "Yeah! You go, Harry!" cheering match. LOTR?

Nope. Same one.

The Natural Way

09:45 / 19.11.01

Yeah, it was rushed out. They only gave themselves a year. And it looks it. LOTR is gonna kick its arse in the special effects Dept. Actually, it's probably going to be a better film in every way - tighter script, great cast (inspite of every fucking Brit character actor infesting Potter, the kids just can't act. They have potential, but they're still a bit young), stronger source material....

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:45 / 19.11.01

Although, to extend the "Winter blockbusters and race" thread, whereas darkies are invisible in Harry Potter, in LotR they are actively evil.

Excellent.

09:45 / 19.11.01

All this LOTR stuff is pissing me off...sorry just getting ready

The Return Of Rothkoid

09:45 / 19.11.01

quote:Originally posted by The Haus of Penitents:
Although, to extend the "Winter blockbusters and race" thread, whereas darkies are invisible in Harry Potter, in LotR they are actively evil.

Excellent.Care to expand into a thread? I'm still reading the damn books, so I'm not exactly qualified to comment. Are fantasy films in production/due for release reinforcing racism? And should the filmmakers try to address this or not?

09:45 / 19.11.01

We did it in the books forum a while back - you may remember; the thread was about how reactionary fantasy is as a genre, and I think there were some spinoffs.

Might be worth asking whether the makers of the films ahould be obliged to alter the ethnic structure of such books in the interests of general niceness and intelligence, though.

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:45 / 19.11.01

Well, let's see. Lord of the Rings and politics.

Southrons are swarthy, slit-eyed and not to be trusted. The Haradrim are superstitious, cowardly and prone to elephant-riding. Saruman shows his corruption and evil by supervising the intermingling of different races. If it comes from the west, it's good. If it comes form the East, it's bad. The upholders of virtue are the aristocratic Elves and the Alglo-Saxon Rohirim and Gondorim. Which Gondorim have fallen from the heights of their civilisation since they stopped having a hereditary monarch. The Shire is people by happy rustics, and threatened by the industrial working classes.

Nah, can't see it myself.

[ 19-11-2001: Message edited by: The Haus of Penitents ]

09:45 / 19.11.01

mazarine, it's the biggest opening box office ever, reportedly. and according to this morning's metro (i know, hardly the most reliable source), they spent three times the amount on LOTR that they did on potter. so yeah, the cgi is gonna look better. to be honest, even in the places where the cgi was a little obvious, i didn't really fucking care. christ almighty, so do harryhausen (sp?) films, but that doesn't mean they're not fantastic. (the only reason that the the fx in the first star wars films don't look too dated is because practically every other sci-fi film that came after emulated them)

i myself noticed a few more than just "a couple" of non-white kids, and was more peturbed by trainee witches and wizards celebrating christmas.

quote:Are fantasy films in production/due for release reinforcing racism? And should the filmmakers try to address this or not?

not sure, but there;s a convention in sci-fi that the black guy always gets it...

16:41 / 19.11.01

Huh. I thought there was a pretty diverse crowd in the book, but haven't seen the movie. One of the recurrent secondary characters was a football fan who didn't get Quidditch - Dean something. I thought he was Caribbean, but it wasn't explicitly stated, if I recall.

The second book takes on racism pretty explicitly, but in an allegorical way - an ancient curse unleashes something that's attacking the kids born of non-magical parents, and the Slytherin baddies couldn't be happier to see the "Mudbloods" get what's coming to them.

Tolkien & racism, yeah - the "swarthy men" bit is always dodgy, but I always read the Elves as being, well, non-European. Perhaps not specifically Asian or Native American, but "from the West, across the Sea". I suppose the movie's just gonna make 'em white folks.
There was a Polish author who wrote one of those parody deconstructions of LOTR, from the viewpoint of Sauron, an enlightened, technocratic, Prometheus figure, trying to bring the benefits of modern living to an Iron Age people. I never read the thing cuz I don't think it got translated into English.

Ganesh

17:06 / 19.11.01

Haven't seen Harry Potter yet but I'll be interested to see how Robbie Coltrane's Hagrid compares with that other cravenly fawning, forelock-tugging working-class stereotype, LoTR's Sam "Moight oi rim thee, Young Maaaster?" Gamgee...

The Natural Way

17:30 / 19.11.01

Yeah, actually I hate LOTR! It's full of racism and gay luddites!!!

17:44 / 19.11.01

quote:Originally posted by Kooky is a bad scamp:
i myself noticed a few more than just "a couple" of non-white kids, and was more peturbed by trainee witches and wizards celebrating christmas.

Magic’s not a religion in Potter’s world. It’s a trade. My cynical side says this is because in his world, magic works like it says on the tin. You don’t have to have faith in something that works.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

17:54 / 19.11.01

quote:Well, let's see. Lord of the Rings and politics.

Next week on Thinking Too Hard:

Gender Dimorphism in 'Beowulf'; Race and Holocaust Revisionism in 'The Muppet Show'; 'Dr. Who' - studies oin nascent ageism; Zoophilia and Pre-adolscent sexuality in 'Flipper'...

Guys. Go outside and save the world, okay?

Ganesh

17:59 / 19.11.01

quote:Originally posted by Nick:
Guys. Go outside and save the world, okay?

Nick. Come to a fetish club with us, y'big leather-clad ponce. (See thread in 'Help'.)

Regrettable Juvenilia

18:50 / 19.11.01

quote:Originally posted by Nick:

Next week on Thinking Too Hard:

Gender Dimorphism in 'Beowulf'; Race and Holocaust Revisionism in 'The Muppet Show'; 'Dr. Who' - studies oin nascent ageism; Zoophilia and Pre-adolscent sexuality in 'Flipper'...

Guys. Go outside and save the world, okay?

And trying to do that without thinking will achieve precisely... what?

You've never struck me as the type to mock analysis, Nick. I really don't think seeing dubious racial connotations in LOTR is that way out and wacky - Haus is hardly the first person to point it out.

20:13 / 19.11.01

quote:Originally posted by The Haus of Penitents:
...whereas darkies are invisible in Harry Potter, in LotR they are actively evil.

I’ve got nothing against orks. Some of my best friends are orks. But tell me, would you want your sister to marry one? (Assuming you like your sister.)

The Natural Way

11:06 / 20.11.01

Exactly. Do we have to keep on going round and round it, though?

21:25 / 23.11.01

Found this article in the Gaurdian 23.11.01:

'So harry Potter blew them all away last weekend, with an almost obscene $93m magically disappearing over a weekend from pockets of America's youngsters - the highest ever by at least $20m. But if you'd sat near a TV set, ordered a Coke, used a PC, opened a magazine or just seen buses passing over the last six months, you couldn't have failed to feel the rising tide of the Potter marketing push. The campaign called on every one at AOL Time-Warner's corporate divisions to blanket us in coverage of the Warner Bros movie. How could it possibly have flopped?
Taking some leaves from the Star Wars playbook, Warners kept it very safe indeed. Firstly by giving us what can be marketed as a set of new guidance myths (as George Lucas did with the Genesis-meets-Paradise Lost story arc of Star Wars), and secondly an indispensable requirement for that most remunerative and self-perpetuating commodity, the movie franchise - by installing a pliable, efficient, colourless director at the helm. Chris Columbus is all of these and less. His hits - Home Alone, Mrs Doubtfire, etc _ all bear the signature of their corporate backers more strongly than they display his personality. His name itself is almost a corporate logo. This is intentional: remember that the Batman franchise made more money when the boring Joel Schumacher took over from the weird, interesting Tim Burton.
What this augurs for the other new franchise-starter, Peter Jackson's The Fellowship of teh Ring, is uncertain. Undoubtedly his multimillion-dollar filming of Tolkein's trilogy also has serious money backing it up, as was illustrated by the Middle Earth promo-village at Cannes last year; but will it be tripped up by the fact that Jackson, in contrast to Columbus, is a prodigiously talented and visually inventive director, whosr personal style is unmistakable?
Lets hope that his franchise isthe exception to the rule, which states that the director isn't in charge - the money is.'

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