Harry Potter and the goblet of burnout: Reboots, endless spinoffs and a franchise that just won't quit

Gulf News

26-04-2025

It was 2001, and we were waiting impatiently for the fifth Harry Potter book, which would only release in 2003.
Millennials wouldn't ever forgive that wait.
And so as we waited, formulating bizarre theories about the elusive fifth book and embroidered our own tales, the first Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone film released. Little was known about the main actors—Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson at the time; the older generation was just impressed that the film featured stars like Maggie Smith and Alan Rickman.
The messy but lovable films
The first film retained the fresh innocence and charm of the novel, which still centered around eleven-year-olds stumbling through the complexities of magic, a magical castle, unraveling past secrets, and a professor who seemed intent on their destruction. However, for those who closely followed the book's details, it was frustrating to see so many plot points omitted. This sense of disappointment only grew as the films continued, with each subsequent release leaving more of the book's essence behind.
The second followed, maintaining more or less the same storyline, while the third decided to absolve itself of the most fun parts of the novel, which included the fraying friendships between the trio, Ron, Hermione and Harry, over a cat trying to eat a rat that really wasn't a rat, but in fact, a dangerous traitor disguised as a rat.
By the fourth film, you would have to forget most of the plot points too of the novel, if you wanted to watch the film: Hermione, walking down like a princess in a pink gown, unlike the colours of periwinkle blue described in the book, sure, why not.
Crucial characters being omitted from the storyline at whim, such as Winky, the house elf, a key element in the unfolding of the events in the fourth book, sigh, alright, then.
The fifth tried its best to keep to the plot points, while the sixth Half Blood Prince decided to rewrite the book entirely: Feisty Ginny Weasley becomes subservient in Bonnie Wright's docile view—she is even tying Harry's shoelaces. The Weasley's house was suddenly set on fire.
The second part of the seventh film perhaps, was another disappointment—the final straw being Harry and Tom Riddle punching each other, and abandoning their wands. Nevertheless, we ploughed on, holding back the disappointment, because that was the magnetic power of Harry Potter, at that time.
The last book came out in 2007—and the final film released in 2011—with many sharing edits, videos, posts, letters on how an entire era had ended. But the truth is in all the criticism—the films are symbolic of that era, imperfect and chaotic as they were. They brought to life how we chose to visualise the characters, castles, the owls, the shops in Diagon Alley. We saw Daniel Radcliffe as Harry, Robbie Coltrane as the blustering Hagrid, and Hermione as Emma Watson. It all felt like a fitting end to something that we had watched, read, absorbed for over a decade.
The books had been written, the films—however messy—had been made. It was childhood, adolescence and adulthood—we had watched the trio of Daniel, Rupert and Emma grow up in front of us, while waiting for each book, some of us huddled outside bookstores at 5 am in the morning after booking our copies a month in advance.
A memory that wasn't allowed to stay a memory
Some memories should be like books themselves: You read it, treasure it, remember the feeling and put it back on the bookshelf, only to revisit it later.
A feeling of peace.
But with Harry Potter, there's never been a feeling of peace. We never really had time to just sit back and relax about it—because there has been a desperate surge to hold on to the magic. But the magic, itself fizzled out long ago—it had an expiry date. The stage play Cursed Child released in 2016, which felt like bad fan fiction altogether. Then, came the relentless splurge of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, each one more tedious, prolonged and controversial than the other, despite the comforting presence of Eddie Redmayne.
A fatigue, is what it is. Every day, new theories emerged about the books, revelations that you didn't need. We never got far enough from Harry Potter to truly miss it—the wonder of childhood had quietly morphed into exhaustion.
And now, the new web series. The cast is being announced—creating much controversy and havoc along the way. All said and done, it might be good too, let's be fair. But, this is from an era that's long gone—without the charm of the original books—the wait, the cliffhangers that broke us, and it's bereft joy of watching child stars grow into their roles, playing each other's love interest, none of it.