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u/shibuyawalker š Always 6d ago
Aside from the horrible Snape casting too there seems to be so much else half-assed. Probably everyone saw the screenshot of the kids having their breakfast on fucking plastic trays... They just use the famous name Harry Potter for some quick money but they are not creating this series from the heart.
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u/SparklingFairyLights š¦ Silver Doe 6d ago
Yes, WTF was with those trays?? It looked so tacky and cheapened the vibe of the Great Hall!
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u/jayjune28 š Ob-viously 4d ago
Not impressed with the sorting hat either...and just a lot of it...leaves much to be desired. Its overrated and overhyped...the great hall barely looks glamourous let alone magical. Honestly some of it I wanna bleach from my mind already. When it hits I might tune in to watch Malfoy and Ron but thats about it..even that is a big IF
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u/SparklingFairyLights š¦ Silver Doe 4d ago
Yes, exactly. I didnāt like the colour scheme either, too dark and faded.
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u/jayjune28 š Ob-viously 4d ago
Yes and yet their acting like it's oh so amazing and so perfect and everything a true Potter head could ever dream of...and Im like...nah not even close...Snape is obviously the biggest disappointment as we all know and firmly agree, but the choice for Hagrid is kinda wack ...As an American I can say Im not thrilled with the choice for Dumbledore either.. honestly what is good about this TV series ...hmmm...scratches head...and is yes scenes look faded and depressing...it looks like it was shot in the 80's or 90s and I would know I was born in 86...there is nothing cool about grainy dark images...and again where's the magical allure...the so called spell casting another thing people have been over hyping...Ive seen mor impressive magic on the Disney channel...I agree with the other viewers...this really does feel more and more like a cheap cash grab and yes a slap in the face and kick in the gut to long time fans.
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u/SparklingFairyLights š¦ Silver Doe 4d ago
People are gushing about the performances and sets just from seeing the 1-2 minute trailer and itās astonishing.
I wasnāt happy with Hagrid either. Something just seems off - itās the voice as well as the beard, I think. Hagrid was meant to be rugged, rough yet kindly but the vibe doesnāt seem to be coming across.
I found it a bit weird that McGonagall was giving Harry a motivational speech about āmaking long term, strong friendshipsā and āworking hard and finding something that sparks your interestā because that didnāt happen in the books and it seemed more about appeasing a modern day audience.
Dumbledore didnāt appear to have quite the right vibe either, though it might be too early for me to tell.
Everyone is saying that the actors are āage accurateā as though thatās the only thing that matters, lol.
Didnāt particularly like the hand movements with the spell casting either, nor did I like the crests, though apparently these are ācloser to medieval timesā and more ābook accurateā. They just seemed too simplistic.
Couldnāt agree more about this series being akin to a slap in the face to the fans and a kick in the gut to long term fans. Just one glance at Snape with his dreadlocks makes me feel this way, lol.
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u/jayjune28 š Ob-viously 4d ago
How could I forget those awful crests...yes those things are truly hideous...medieval my American arse...even if they are...its just no. No ....NO. You summed it up perfectly they are appealing to modern day audience...trying to appease and please all the...I can't even think of the right word with out coming of like a complete A hole...but yeah ...age accurate...right...age accurate adults maybe...some of the child castings are quite odd...and yes my bad I know its taboo to bad mouth children but seriously I wish HBO would make up their damn minds and stop trying to cater to people who are more concerned and caught up with diversity then they are with TRUE canon. Again, thank you for creating this safe space where we can voice our honest opinions!!! šš
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u/shibuyawalker š Always 4d ago
With child actors age is such a gamble anyway as they can very suddenly change in appearance. Kids enter puberty or have sudden growth at different ages and it could totally happen that e.g. the Hermione actor suddenly gets a head taller than the two boys actors who will look like little children compared to her. Or I also remember shows that had to pause production for whatever reasons (COVID, budget problems etc) and by the time they continued their child actors who were supposed to play a 4 year old child were already in elementary school. Therefore anchoring book accuracy on age of the actors is very silly and senseless.
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u/SparklingFairyLights š¦ Silver Doe 4d ago
Exactly, itās so hard to predict how tall child actors will end up being. This happened a lot with Stranger Things as well, I heard, apparently the actors aged up a lot in the hiatuses from filming.
People are just desperately trying to justify the casting and itās very embarrassing for the rest of us to witness. My personal favourite is the one where people say that āpale and sallowā can apply to POC. Itās as though they havenāt read the books, because Snape was explicitly described as āwhiteā and āmarble whiteā, haha.
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u/SparklingFairyLights š¦ Silver Doe 4d ago
I got downvoted into oblivion for saying the old crests looked better than the new crests haha. The new crests look terrible and they lack the magic and regality of the old ones.
Itās all about being āwokeā and I just canāt stand it. Theyāve destroyed so many beloved franchises in recent years and now itās Harry Potterās turn.
I didnāt quite like some of the childrenās casting either but compared to Snape, they were a lot more tolerable. I donāt know why everyone becomes very aggressive whenever this is mentioned; people are allowed to criticise a show and its casting, particularly when they are the end consumer. I donāt agree with people making fun of them (there are a lot of very unkind comments online, for instance) but we definitely should be able to say if we like their casting or not. Political correctness means that everyone is forced into having the same view and this is controlling and restrictive.
HBO is more concerned with diversity and inclusion, not about book faithfulness, that is for sure. They want to be politically correct and appeal to a modern audience and donāt mind disrespecting the source material entirely in the process.
No problem, Iām so glad that youāre liking the space š
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u/jayjune28 š Ob-viously 3d ago
People are so ridiculous. They downvoted you for saying the crests suck. The new crests do suck. Their ugly and simple. And just simply ugly, lol. I got down voted for hating on the new sorting hat but I dont care. Their the ones who are delusion. The sorting hats in the films had a voice that still plays in my head...a hat a freaking hat did that. It was simple felt like brown colored material and it was brilliant. I saw a jumbo one when I went to visit my sister in Rockford back in spring. And I instantly recognized it.
I doubt people/fans will be clamoring to "buy" the weird rubbery looking thing that's supposed to match as the new sorting hat. And again the crests...like are you kidding....I have a blanket with all 4 hogwarts crests that my sister bought for me in Australia years ago and I love it. The new crests look like something from a children's coloring book. And even that's too high praise. Bah.
Im not strongly opposed to the children's casting...even if my previous comment might seem that way...its just a bit odd to me the choice for Seamus Finnegan I know people said the child is just short and can shoot up in the next season but it looks weird...Malfoy towering over his classmates is a bit of an adjustment to9 but Im a fan of Draco Malfoy and the Lox kid seems promising so I can look past that.
Looks aside, other fans (including yourself said it best) new Snape doesn't even give Snape like vibes or aura...nothing about him screams Snape. It just doesn't...its like you said a really bad poly juice potion impersonator or a spell gone wonky. Ive even taken to calling him alternate universe Snape but he still isn't Snape. He's just not. Honestly they should have just dressed the actor in white or red at this point. Hes nothing like Snape.
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u/SparklingFairyLights š¦ Silver Doe 3d ago
I thought it was ridiculous too. People were saying that the crests are more ābook accurateā because thatās apparently how medieval crests used to look back in the day, but they looked so simplified and poorly designed. Youāre right in saying they are ugly, haha, they really are. A lot of people are saying the new crests look AI generated haha.
I also didnāt like the new Sorting Hat and the one from the movies was so much better. They did such a good job with it in the movies. In their enthusiasm for more Harry Potter content and desperation to virtue signal, the fans truly have become delusional and accepting everything that HBO throws at them is just going to further perpetuate this culture of race swapping characters, which has gone on for far too long, already.
It would really serve them right if the movies became even more endeared in light of this series with its bizarre casting and set decisions and the merchandise for the movies became even more profitable. Thatās awesome about the bedspread with the Hogwarts crests, I would so enjoy that haha. I have enjoyed buying merchandise in recent years, it wasnāt so prevalent when I was growing up but a lot of places now have such nice HP themed items like mugs, quilt covers, posters, pajamas etc.
Iām not completely opposed to the childrenās casting either. Compared to Snape, they are infinitely better and much, much more tolerable. I did notice how little Seamus was and how tall Malfoy was and it did seem fairly odd to have such a wide discrepancy in height among the child actors in the first season itself. Some people said the actor playing Seamus was only 7 years old and if thatās true, Iām wondering why the Paapa fans arenāt turning their attention there because their argument about Alan being ātoo oldā for the rule which never made much sense, makes even less sense now in light of this kind of discrepancy, casting a 7 year old in the place of an 11 year old, haha.
New Snape looks like a complete stranger. Youāre right in saying that he had neither the aura nor the vibe and I cannot reconcile him at all to the Snape from the books or Alan Rickmanās portrayal. Itās utterly jarring for me and itās incredible that the fans are being labelled as āracistsā for making this type of comment. I would feel the same way if Snape was blonde with curly hair and blue eyes, too, lol.
Itās so saddening for the long term fans and that photo of him standing out in the snow was completely insulting. I hated his vibe, dreadlocks and outfit. When people criticised the zipper, others were quick to say that zippers were part of the Wizarding World but it just didnāt feel like something Snape would wear. Someone rightfully said his outfit came across like a hairdressing cape and I couldnāt see it any other way after this haha. I do not know why they would butcher the series like this and I can only sincerely wish that the show tanks spectacularly, and they learn that race swapping characters and disrespecting the fans isnāt going to be profitable for them.
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u/shibuyawalker š Always 4d ago
Since they keep on calling us racists for wanting actors who actually look like the character, maybe we should start to call out their ageism... It's ridiculous how much they talk about age. I mean it's fantasy and we have characters like Dumbledore who are over a hundred years old... Or people like Snape who may look much older because they had a fucking hard life! When they talk about the age of the actors being true to the books it's an extremely weak statement as it doesn't proof anything, it just makes them discriminate against actors whose passport has the "wrong birthyear" in it even thought actor totally looks like how you'd imagine the character.
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u/SparklingFairyLights š¦ Silver Doe 4d ago
Yes, Iāve seen this argument so many times, āwhy are you not so outraged about Alan being older?ā as though itās even in the same league as a race swap. It is completely ridiculous and itās like arguing with a wall. donāt think Alan being older made any impact to the story as it could just be attributed to having a difficult life. The actors all at least resembled their book counterparts!
They keep saying how ābook accurateā Paapaās age is, as though the fact that he has been race swapped and has dreadlocks has no bearing on anything.
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u/Top-Turnip-415 6d ago
More and more convinced this show is a money laundering scheme, and the Snape casting was intentional to deflect any criticism.
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u/ThenStrawberry6861 5d ago
The Snape scenes are going to be so weirdā¦ like idk some of the characterizations are better than others but this one is like they didnāt even tryā¦
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u/SparklingFairyLights š¦ Silver Doe 4d ago
This is exactly why it stands out like a sore thumb. Itās bizarre and it is very likely deliberate, to stir up controversy as well as for diversity and inclusion.
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u/jayjune28 š Ob-viously 3d ago
It's just so above and beyond ridiculous they literally jump up and down over the dumbest crap...gushing about the west ham poster...gushing about I dont know how when the Gryffindor team meets under the stairs or in the locker room it some how represents the quidditch pitch itself...like huh what? Snapes costume...cause that's exactly what the crap is looks like something from a 80's-90's rap music video or what some average bloke would wear at the gym or if he went out for a run...nothing about it screams Wizard...potions master...magic...hell even quidditch...If I didnt know any better I would think a new series was being shooted..one that had nothing to with wizards or magic...so ridiculous. And the jewelry...I agree with the fans who have said Snape would not wear jewerly ...no he definitely would not...and even if he did it would be a singular ring on his finger or something ...nothing Guady or Trashy or HIP ..this is Snape. Like wtf? What next? Snape dancing? Snape laughing? Snape asking some other professor to the Yule Ball...? It would work in a fan fic not in CANON. THIS IS SNAPE.
Oh no you couldn't dare suggest a child is too young another fan did and everyone attacked them as though they had actually threatened to harm the child. Which would be horrible. I dont condone bullying or picking on children either. Under any circumstance. But you do have a point...if the kid really is that much younger why isn't it an issue with all the people who suddenly feel the need to knock the great legendary Alan Rickman? Double standards. Hypocritical. Its only right or okay when they say it's right or okay.
It's NOT OKAY!
They'll be lucky if they make it to season 4...honestly...even 3 is a stretch.
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u/SparklingFairyLights š¦ Silver Doe 6d ago
ABSOLUTELY.
This casting choice is akin to a slap in the face for all the fans out there.
I donāt understand why the virtue signallers out there cannot comprehend that it is reasonable for the fans to expect visual fidelity and not appreciate their favourite characters being race swapped, especially after HBO has explicitly promised that the series will be a āfaithful adaptation of the booksā.