Harry Potter is 20 years old

[SeanR]

imagine, years from now, people talking about HP remakes "that do the books justice", on this very forum.

[Boothjan]

It's the first time I've re-read the novels, and I've probably enjoyed them even more this time around.  Also, I'd forgotten that Cedric Diggory and Cho Chang first appear in book 3.  I think the films are superb adaptations though, TBH - there's very little left out from the first 2 books but it just becomes much harder to condense them down enough from book 3 onwards.  They do a really good job of them IMO.

[Stig]

My daughter seems to be struggling to keep up I think. Last night she just kept asking me question after question. I say Sirius Black and get "who's that". We're half way through the book now, you'd think she'd know, lol. Then a sentence later Mcgonagall refered to him as just Black and my daughter asks "Who's Black?" even though she's just heard his name.

 

She really wants me to read them to her but maybe I started too young. I'm enjoying though.

[Stig]

So I've just got to the time travel part in POA and only just realised how stupid this part really is.

 

Spoiler

If you could travel back in time why would you do it use Buckbeak to help Sirius escape. Why not just stop Petigrew from escaping? I know Dumbeldore says they need to make sure they aren't seen, but if they hid near to Whomping Willow they could have let things play out but stopped Peter with a spell and avoided Sirius still being blamed.

 

[Stig]

Of course right and some of this is kind of explained the more I read on.

[Boothjan]

We finished the Goblet of Fire on Saturday morning, and watched the film on Saturday night.

 

My daughter LOVED it - I had forgotten just how much they had to cut out of the film version, some of it made sense and the whole Barty Crouch Jnr backstory is very well simplified in a way that works onscreen.  The book version would have been very difficult to do it justice.

 

But anyway - this is a thread about the books and not the films and the Goblet of Fire is as clever, charming and hard to put down as I remember.  It really is superb.

 

Order of the Phoenix next, and I have to admit that I'm not looking forward to reading that one again as it's SUCH a drag in places!

[dreamylittledream]

Goblet of Fire along with Half Blood Prince was really hacked to pieces for the film version.

 

Order of the Phoenix on the other hand made a much better film than the over indulgent book.

[Boothjan]

Completely agree with that.

[Sardan]

Any suggestions for what a 10/11 year old girl could read after reading all the Harry Potter books?

[dreamylittledream]

His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman?

[smac]

Some of the Terry Pratchett young adult books, in particular the Tiffany Aching series.

 

The Wee Free Men

A Hat Full of Sky

Wintersmith

I Shall Wear Midnight

The Shepherd's Crown

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiffany_Aching

[Boothjan]

Just checked in this thread and we started on The Order of the Phoenix in late March.  It's September now and we're still only halfway through!  I swear the number of pages still to get through seems to grow after every session.  It's so dull in comparison to the other books in the series.  It really could be trimmed down by more than half - I'd forgotten how much padding there is.  I think my daughter's interest in this one is waning but I've told her we've got to get through it because The Half Blood Prince is next which is fantastic.

 

6 months on one book - ridiculous!

[sandman]

On 23 September 2019 at 15:26, Boothjan said:

Just checked in this thread and we started on The Order of the Phoenix in late March.  It's September now and we're still only halfway through!  I swear the number of pages still to get through seems to grow after every session.  It's so dull in comparison to the other books in the series.  It really could be trimmed down by more than half - I'd forgotten how much padding there is.  I think my daughter's interest in this one is waning but I've told her we've got to get through it because The Half Blood Prince is next which is fantastic.

 

6 months on one book - ridiculous!

HBP is my favourite in the series

[Stig]

Tonight my daughter and I finished a 2 year journey and finished the final book. She cried when it was over because she didn't want it to be.

 

Tomorrow we watch the final film.

[PaB]

Went and  the cursed child the other week. Long day taking in the two parts in one day but my goodness me it’s good. Production values are off the charts and superbly acted. Only complaint really is that it could easily be squeezed in to one 3 hour show with a 30 min interval  rather than two 2 hour 40 shows both with 30 min intervals; there is a bit of bloat.

 

Some of the scenes really do make you wonder how on earth they managed it

[Mogster]

21 hours ago, PaB said:

Went and  the cursed child the other week. Long day taking in the two parts in one day but my goodness me it’s good. Production values are off the charts and superbly acted. Only complaint really is that it could easily be squeezed in to one 3 hour show with a 30 min interval  rather than two 2 hour 40 shows both with 30 min intervals; there is a bit of bloat.

 

Some of the scenes really do make you wonder how on earth they managed it

Why squeeze it into a single play when you can charge for two?

 

I saw this a few years ago, and yes it was amazing. I've yet to see any play manage special effects like this did. At the time I didn't mind the runtime at all, not least because we squeezed in an amazing meal at Masala Zone between the two plays.

 

This was before JK Rowling revealed herself to be an awful human being though. I'm not sure I'd be comfortable going to see it again knowing she'd be getting a cut.