As a Potterhead, the Harry Potter movies occupy a very complicated place in my heart. I can watch Prisoner of Azkaban whenever it comes on, and the first two movies do certainly hold a certain amount of nostalgia over me. But my eyes truly glaze over at Half-Blood Prince and Order of the Phoenix, because they are drier than Merlin’s beard.
So when actor Daniel Radcliffe mentioned the idea of Harry Potter being rebooted my first thought was … yes, please.
During an interview with IGN where Radcliffe had to debunk rumors that he was playing Wolverine (which lol-wut? Clearly he is Iceman), Radcliffe said that he expects that he will see other Harry Potters in the future; in Radcliffe’s estimation, a TV series or movie reboot is likely inevitable one day.
“I’m sure there will be some other version of it; I know I’m not the last Harry Potter I’m gonna see in my lifetime – we’ve already got a few more,” he pointed out, since Jamie Parker and Gareth Reeves have already played the role on stage in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
“It will be interesting to see how long those films stay… it feels like there’s a sacredness around them at the moment, but that’ll go, the shine will wear off at some point,” he laughed. “It’ll be interesting if they reboot them and just do the films again or do a series; I’m fascinated to watch.”
I mean, I look forward to the day that Daniel Radcliffe plays Severus Snape or Dumbledore if it happens very far in the future. But I also think that despite how recently the series ended, it is so imperfect and inconsistent that a reboot—especially as a TV show—wouldn’t be as cringe-worthy a prospect as with some other franchises.
The Harry Potter movies did a disservice to a lot of characters, but especially to Ron Weasley, whose character was drained of every real moment of heroism by the screenwriter’s love of Hermione Granger, his admitted favorite character. Which, relatable, but also if you love Hermione, why do you feel the need to write the fanfiction self-insert version of her rather than the character on the page?
A reboot would also offer the opportunity to cast the adult characters a little bit closer to their canonical age. While it is great that we got so many elite actors in the Harry Potter films, but when you consider that Lucius Malfoy is supposed to be older than Snape, the series really dropped the ball on the ages of the characters, which also reflects their maturity levels.
Snape’s petty behavior is horrible, but in the books, he is 31 years old at the start of the series; his deplorable choice to assist Voldemort happened while he was 20. If aged up to Alan Rickman’s real age at the time he started playing the character, Snape is 54 years old. If we are being generous he’s in his early 40s.
More age-appropriate casting would better explain Sirius’s arrested development and childishness as someone who spent all of his 20s in a high-security prison. Just like in A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones, the decisions to age up a character, while still keeping their character traits from the age they are in-universe, can lead to them seeming a lot sillier than they are.
A rebooted television series would also allow the world to have more characters of color in major roles, in addition to supporting characters like Peeves and Winky who were cut from the books, and most importantly … we can have characters act the way they are supposed to.
Snape’s cruelty was toned down a lot in the movies and I think it really allows audiences to forget how abusive he was to everyone. Ron, for all the faults he has, did have moments of real nobility and had a true complex friendship with Harry, and showing Hermione as the genuinely flawed character she is would be a great boon to the series.
And considering the amount of money CW shows have for CGI, or that HBO spends on Game of Thrones, or that Netflix spends on anything, a Harry Potter TV show could finally give us a proper Quidditch World Cup with Veelas, or I’d be so nettled. We really deserve to see Quidditch in all of its glory.
I know a lot of people want a Marauders movie or show, but I would only agree if someone else wrote it. At least with a reboot of the original, we know what we are getting—and hopefully have room to improve on what we’ve had before.
What would you love to see in a Harry Potter reboot?
(via IGN, image: Warner Bros.)
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