Lower Decks

I’ve written about or mentioned Harry Potter in past columns, done reviews upon release on the last few books and films (yeah, that would be in prior incarnations of this site; in fact, when Lower Decks was first incorporated from the old Section 31 in 2002, that’s when I started doing so, which will help you with the timeline), and suggested the esteem I hold J.K. Rowling’s creation in, but it’s finally come time to devote my full attention to it. This year marks the ten-year anniversary of the release of ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’ (as well as ‘Chamber of Secrets’) the book that marked my noticing of the emerging saga (I wouldn’t read it until the fall of 2000, but had caught up with the first two books by the preceding winter), and the moment I noticed how invested I’d become.

‘Prisoner of Azkaban’ is still the book I’d consider my favorite in the book series, because it’s the easiest one to identify as the moment Rowling expanded the personal world of Harry with the official introduction of Sirius Black, Harry’s godfather and best friend of his late parents, a connection between the past and present that helped define the depth of the greater world around him.

It’s important to mention at this point that the film series takes a different path, because although widely praised as the best of the first three films (it’s funny, because after its release critics and audiences seemed to settle into accepting each new movie in stride, which wasn’t a given to that point, believe it or not), I’m not as continually enamored of ‘Prisoner of Azkaban;’ I love the adventure and drama of the next one, ‘Goblet of Fire,’ better.

That’s what’s most interesting to talk about today, Harry Potter as book and film phenomenon. The books have pretty much explained themselves at this point, so it’s more interesting to discuss the movies at this point. When ‘Sorcerer’s Stone’ was released in 2001, it was as much an occasion because of Harry as because of the excitement for the release of Peter Jackson’s ‘Fellowship of the Ring,’ and that was pretty much the same story the next year when ‘Chamber of Secrets’ and ‘The Two Towers’ were released. It was a perfect time to take in old and new fantasy franchises on the big screen. By 2003, ‘Return of the King’ was so big that the Lord of the Rings craze had basically taken over, so it was just as well that the questioning of Chris Columbus had caused a delay of the next Harry entry to the next year, because suddenly audiences weren’t so sure they could still support both franchises.

But Alfonso Cuarón took over, at least for ‘Prisoner of Azkaban,’ and critics felt safe again (they’d given Jackson so much praise by the end of his trilogy, they were just ready, I guess). Since the one-two punch of 2001, fantasy became the new exploit for Hollywood, but there’s never been another real success story. The Chronicles of Narnia certainly came close, but between excitement for an adaptation long in coming (Lord of the Rings) and the next big thing (Harry Potter), there didn’t seem to be room for another hugely popular franchise, and in fact, even Harry didn’t seem like a lock. The debate over the longevity of Rowling’s creation was going to be solved far sooner than anyone thought.

Except, the critical success of Harry Potter helped make it another box office win with the third film, and two films later, we’re ready for the sixth film. Let’s put that in perspective: Star Wars is the only other film series that will be able to offer a true comparison for the kind of success Harry has generated on the big screen for such an extended period of time. Clearly there have been other series with more entries, but none of them even begin to have the same amount of cache, not even James Bond, which would certainly come closest. It’s not just that Harry is popular, that the book series became such a big opening night story it’ll-save-reading hype machine, but that at this point, the character and his world have crossed the hump. The big question always seemed to be, will “Harry Potter” still be a name worth remembering in a hundred years?

The answer is yes. If Jackson and his Lord of the Rings trilogy was an event (because, let’s face it, by the end, everyone was pretty much taking it as one really long film, released over three years, which is itself unprecedented), then Harry is a journey, and that’s the real story of its success. Each entry famously encompasses a single school-year, but that’s not really what each book, each film represents (the final book will actually, if everything goes to plan, become two films) represents. Harry Potter is the rare child figure who is allowed to grow up, the Boy Who Lived who becomes the Boy We Came to Live With. It helps that the same cast has survived from film to film, that Daniel Radcliffe has become the face of Harry, so that audiences have been able to enjoy a complete line from film to film, the development easy to follow as Harry’s education and the return of Voldemort (sorry, He Who Must Not Be Named) unfolds not just gradually but methodically.

I don’t typically follow book series. I’ve gone on for some length in this column about Stephen King’s ‘The Stand,’ but I’ve only ever read ‘The Gunslinger’ out of the Dark Tower series. I read the Chronicles of Narnia cycle as a boy (but curiously, didn’t really care about the films that much). Last week I wrote about the Twilight saga. I stopped reading Star Trek and Star Wars books years ago, never even took seriously the possibility of getting into the Forgotten Realms book and their ilk, never read the Dune series, the Isaac Asimov robot books. Okay, so I read the Arthur C. Clarke 2001 cycle a few years back (kind of regretted it). I’ve found it easier to follow a franchise-type story visually; that’s why I’ve watched far more Star Trek and Star Wars religiously than read them, why I devoted column #6 to film franchises (which I’m still getting around to expanding into individual entries).

So when I say I fell in love with the Harry Potter books, it’s not because I was a little kid falling into the hype or a fantasy junkie hooking up with the next big thing (second time I’ve used that phrase; this column is basically the start of an argument for Harry being the big thing, period), but rather someone who recognized a great story and great writing, for seven books and five films (to date). I’m not one of those readers who worries about “losing the inner visualization” of a book when it’s adapted for the screen, so the films were more about expanding the experience, and brilliantly, for me, a way for affirming the impact and appeal of the books, and clearly, that’s worked.

To have consistently nailed her own story is something Rowling ought to be proud of, because that’s not actually something most creators can say, and to have nailed the ending (yeah, there is always going to be debate, but I don’t need to be a part of it) is an even greater achievement, especially for something of this length, not just of the last several books but over the course of seven books. That the films have consistently attracted the level of talent and retained its cast of actors (and recasting just as well when it was absolutely necessary) is another achievement altogether. Harry Potter has become an instant classic because Rowling and her subsequent collaborators have refused to compromise on the level of quality and have maintained a clear sense of the value the story ultimately has as a fantastical record of the times we live in, as any great story does.

Well, no doubt this won’t be the last time you hear from this Muggle about it.