Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts | Official Teaser | HBO Max

[queenursula]

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Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson join filmmaker Chris Columbus and other esteemed cast members across all eight Harry Potter films as they travel back to Hogwarts for the first time to celebrate the anniversary of the franchise’s first film, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, which premiered 20 years ago today. The retrospective

Comments

[ellie_andrews]

i didn't read Harry Potter until i was in my early 30s and only then because Jim Dale read the audio books lol. I guess it shows my age that Molly Weasley was my favorite character. under appreciated queen!

i tried watching the first movie w my bonus boy after i read all the books but i fell asleep. so idek if i can say i've actually seen a HP movie.

[martymcfly85]

I still haven't read them. Probably never will.

[ahkna]

They're really only good if they were the first books you read. I was 12 in 1997 when they came out and had already read so many books like it. The fandom was fun and nothing really compares to its insanity, but I've always been surprised by the staying power of the books because they're just so aggressively average.

It genuinely makes me sad

[the_pinkdress]

I was a voracious reader as a child, like would get through one small novel per day in the summertime type of reader, and I loved HP. My BFF was the same and she was a big fan.

Recently as an adult I re-read them and was actually surprised how skilled they were… just my opinion but I just really don’t think you can call them average in any way. Now, the last 2 or 3 in the series, sure I’ll give you that lol. But books 1-4 were little masterpieces. This is subjective of course but there’s also a tendency to conflate the popular with bad, like if HP remained a little undiscovered cult series one might feel differently.

[steph313]

She fired her editor for the last few books, which explains why they weren't as tight. What someone could have done with those tomes...

HP didn't even exist until I was 14 and I picked it up around GoF to see what the fuss was about; I still loved it. Like George Lucas, JKR is an excellent world builder. She not the best technical writer by far (sooo many dialogue tags and unnecessary adverbs), and it's got its issues with plot holes, but it's honestly a great read with relatable themes and characters.

My nine year old tested well above average in reading specifically; kid burns through novels in a day and no one since Kindergarten has been able to touch her AR scores, but her favorite for the last four years--after countless others--is still Harry Potter.

[nutellawhore]

idk man I really like book 6.

book 7 took us away from the final year at Hogwarts tho. That I can't forgive

[figgypud]

Yeah I read a TON of books as a kid, and not just YA or kids books. HP were far from my first books. I still fell in love with them and I reread them every year or so and still think it’s perfectly fine writing.

[pepsi_twist9]

What's funny is if Twilight hadn't come out I wouldn't have been more of a HP fan. I was never a hardcore fan but young me was more invested in reading the series and reading more of the world building as a fuck you to people who thought it was on par with Twilight

[kjesta]

Yes, this. My dad read them to me as a kid and I liked them, but he also read all sorts of other stuff to me, including The Never-Ending Story, which from what I remember is easily on a similar level in terms of emotional complexity, once you boil it down. (Can't speak for the film, never saw it, kid me was affronted that they apparently moved the MC to America?? Boo.) So I liked HP but I was never that impressed with it.

[acidosaur]

I really don't get ONTD's need to downplay popular works of literature lol.

I had read a huge amount of books by age 12 and I thought they were great ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[rainstormraider]

I read the Lord of the Rings series as a kid and then read HP and HP was better imo.

[malarkiness]

I've always liked Molly, but the older I've gotten, the more I've appreciated how often she looks out for Harry the way a normal parent would.

And while I have a lot of nostalgia for the movies, now I mostly enjoy them as background noise during the fall/winter months more than anything else, lol.

[gloeden2]

Never read it. Never will. The movies were okay. I totally get the popularity of it all. It's cute and comfy even in its serious moments. People one grew up with.

[bsfan]

Molly became one of my least favorite characters after my reread lol.

Never forgave her for giving Hermione a smaller chocolate because of a rumor she read.

[dadeepish]

Molly was a shrew. It’s interesting that Rowling has come and said that she and Arthur split after the Deathly Hallows, and not because they lost a child but instead because he finally left her after decades of resentment.

[lozbabie]

What when was this said?