BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website

Subject: Harry Potter, official website
From: Greyeyes
Date: 19 Feb 01 - 03:52 PM

Warner Bros launched the official Harry Potter Movie website last Thursday in the UK. I think they've made a pretty good job of it, tho' it takes quite a long time to load (you can skip the intro, but it's worth a look) and there's virtually no information about the movie at all, apart from the official poster, but it's great fun for kids (that's my story), loads of interactive stuff, and presumably it will be added to regularly as the release date approaches.

The chat forum is difficult IMO, but then I'm used to this one. Pity they didn't take some tips from Max.

The sorting hat has put me in Gryffindor.

Blicky

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Hollowfox
Date: 19 Feb 01 - 04:32 PM

You might want to check out http://filmforce.ign.com (someday I'll have time to learn how to make a blue clicky thing, and, no there's no "www." in the address.) Filmforce is a site that I check regularly for news about upcoming movies. Their information is good, their graphics are good, they name their sources and they distinguish between confirmed fact and rumor. Take a look at the picture of Hagrid's house. I wouldn't mind moving in, myself.

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Sorcha
Date: 19 Feb 01 - 04:46 PM

I just want info on the next book # 5--when will it be out? I don't want to ruin my mind pics with a movie (just like Tolkein). I want the next book!! When will it be out?

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Hollowfox
Date: 19 Feb 01 - 04:48 PM

J.K Rowling is taking a year off, so we have to wait until 2002. Me, I'd rather have it done right than done quickly.

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Sorcha
Date: 19 Feb 01 - 04:55 PM

Well, I guess she could and should. (I wouldn't want her trubbles just now), but I anxiously await Book 5.

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Jeri
Date: 19 Feb 01 - 04:57 PM

I haven't read any Harry Potter - must do. I did (on a friend's tip) manage to purchase some of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. I really like the horseradish ones, and black pepper wasn't bad. The booger ones don't taste much like boogers unless you snort sugar (not that I know what boogers should taste like), and I don't like the sardine ones at all. Future flavors include dirt, mustard and vomit...what - no worms?

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: mousethief
Date: 19 Feb 01 - 05:08 PM

Yes I'm far more interested in the next book than the merchandising.

Isn't it Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans?

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Sorcha
Date: 19 Feb 01 - 05:11 PM

Alex, it is indeed, and I am sure there is Worm Flavour. Jeri just missed it in that batch!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Hollowfox
Date: 19 Feb 01 - 05:15 PM

We can tide ourselves over with the two books coming out March 2001 that she wrote for the charity Comedy Relief. (They'll be published in the USA by Scholastic, in the UK by whoever publishes her there, and the rest of the world will have to look it up.) Depending on what company your bookstore uses, the titles might be under her name, or under the pseudonyms. The books are Quidditch Through the Ages by Kennilworthy Whisp and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scarmander.

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Sorcha
Date: 19 Feb 01 - 05:17 PM

Sounds like an Anne McCaffery type out to me...........when all else fails, sell the name.

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: mousethief
Date: 19 Feb 01 - 05:19 PM

I'm still waiting for Toenail Clippers of Pern. It's just a matter of time.

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Jeri
Date: 19 Feb 01 - 05:21 PM

The ones I bought were U-less. (For the US market, probably.) They have little pictures of beans with the flavors listed. It would be fun to put some in a dish on your desk and watch the boss as he pops a sardine one in his mouth.

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Morticia
Date: 19 Feb 01 - 05:22 PM

I'm Gryffindor too.....phew! Would hate to be Slitherin!

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: mousethief
Date: 19 Feb 01 - 05:44 PM

Hmm. If they were u-less, they would be for the S market, I should think. I've seen them; my daughter had a bag. Outrageously expensive, if I recall?

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Penny S.
Date: 19 Feb 01 - 05:47 PM

I just am not signing myself in there! But my young friend with Asperger's has, and got himself into Slytherin first,and then Gryffindor (I think, maybe Hufflepuff). From the way he grinned, he quite deliberately made choices to get the reults he wanted, but as I haven't been there, I don't know how.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: John Hardly
Date: 19 Feb 01 - 06:21 PM

Oh...


"Harry"


...not "hairy"


sorry

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Giac
Date: 19 Feb 01 - 06:22 PM

I'm in Ravenclaw -- probably because I responded that if I found a sack of coins I'd spend 'em. ~:o)

Entertaining site, I like the Howler messages.

Waiting for book 3 to come out in paperback, but can't find any info on that.

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Jeri
Date: 19 Feb 01 - 06:33 PM

Yes, hideously expensive ($4.99), but you get a cute little cloth bag too. It would be almost .05 per bean if you didn't figure in the bag. Marked down from $7.00 - what a deal!

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: mousethief
Date: 19 Feb 01 - 06:44 PM

Ah yes, the bag makes it all worthwhile. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Morticia
Date: 19 Feb 01 - 07:18 PM

book 3 is out, we're waiting on four..........

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Penny S.
Date: 19 Feb 01 - 07:20 PM

Which will need to be in two volumes.judging by the existing pattern of increase in thickness.

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Hollowfox
Date: 20 Feb 01 - 01:45 PM

Actually, Sorcha, Rowling sounds pretty classy, from what I've heard. There was a little piece in my loocal newspaper that said she was scheduled to receive an award from Queen Elizabeth (OBE, I think), and Rowling cancelled because her daughter was sick that day. The ceremony was re-scheduled, I believe. So I think she's really doing these books for charity. And who better to make sure that they fit into the Harry Potter corpus properly?

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Linda Kelly
Date: 20 Feb 01 - 06:44 PM

Please, someone read Alan Garner (Weirdstone of Brisingamen, Elidor, The Owl Service) - they knock Harry Potter into the proverbial cocked hat.

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Nancy King
Date: 20 Feb 01 - 10:33 PM

Just want to commend to everyone the Harry Potter books on tape, read by Jim Dale. I'm halfway through "Chamber of Secrets" and having a ball. Check 'em out at your public library!

Cheers, Nancy

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: GUEST,Greyeyes
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 08:31 AM

There are many children's writers around at present who knock Rowling into a cocked hat. In terms of quality of writing I would rate Rowling alongside Enid Blyton. Nevertheless children who have hardly picked up a book in their lives are becoming compulsive readers because of her.

Also try Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy, outstanding. Interestingly both Pullman and Rowling have editions published in the UK to look like adult books, so grown-ups don't get embarassed reading them on public transport.

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Lady McMoo
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 01:46 PM

I personally think they are well written and Jean Rowling is to be congratulated for getting children away from the awful square box and back into their imaginations.

I passed the site details on to the mcmooette who though it was quite good. She is, however, as a Harry Potter fan who has read each of the four books at least 8 times not so happy with some of the liberties Warner Brothers are reportedly taking with the forthcoming film, e.g. the Hogwarts Express now apparently arrives and leaves from platform 4 rather than its usual platform 9 and a half!

mcmoo (Griffindor and honourary keeper)

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: mousethief
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 01:54 PM

If there are all these books around that knock HP into a cocked hat, why don't they? Why aren't THEY at the top of the bestseller list? Kids books are often a matter of word-of-mouth, so if something is really good, it will get bought whether or not it's marketed well.

HP is at the top of the bestseller list because it's a good read. It's not Dostoyevsky or anything, but it's a fun read.

People can be sooooo jealous of success.

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Greyeyes
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 02:59 PM

I certainly don't bedrudge her success, as a librarian anything that gets kids reading is to be applauded. Professionally, however, I have to make judgements on the grounds of literary merit as well as popularity, and in literary terms Rowling is not a particularly good writer, compared, for instance, with C.S.Lewis, Tolkien, or Philip Pullman. Popularity is not the same as quality, although both can be admired. Dickens was a better novelist than Tom Clancy, or Terry Pratchett, although I admire and read all of them.

To say other writers knock Rowling into a cocked hat doesn't deride Rowling, it merely indicates how inexplicable popular opinion can be. I've read all the HP books, I loved them, I can't wait for the next one, I can't wait for the film, nevertheless Rowling is not as good a writer as Philip Pullman, although he will never be as popular, or encourage as many children to pick up a book and read.

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: harpmolly
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 04:39 PM

I am absolutely addicted to both His Dark Materials (I have never spent so much time alternately crying, laughing and screaming in rage at the author of one book) and the Harry Potter series, and I can understand why both of them are popular--and why both appeal in different ways.

Let's face it--HDM is an incredibly richly conceived, deep philosophical work (based on Milton, for gods' sake!), while HP is an entertaining and compelling read about a group of characters that many of us can identify with.

It must be faced that, despite all the great literature out there, a lot of people don't read to illumine their intellects or challenge themselves--they read to lose themselves in a different world. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that! That's no moral judgment on anyone; it's just a fact. I get really frustrated when my "intellectual" acquaintances turn their noses up at my favorite authors (Rowling/Pratchett for example) because they are more popular than Pullman or . Just because Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels aren't going to be nominated for a Pulitzer any day soon doesn't mean they don't make me laugh and cry and question and think deeply (he actually faces a lot of serious issues in his own deliciously sarcastic way). He doesn't write classic literature, but he's incredibly clever in getting his message across. Joanne Rowling probably won't win a Pulitzer either, but she is very skilled at writing such fun, likeable (and hateable ;)) characters that half the civilized world seems to have become addicted to them. There's something to be said for that.

P.S. This post isn't meant to disagree with or challenge anyone else on this thread--I think everyone here has expressed themselves quite well, and I know no one has really attacked J.K.R. or anyone else. This is just one of my pet subjects. Snobbery is snobbery, and I'm as guilty of it as anyone else, but just because great literature exists doesn't mean that works of "lesser intellectual merit" shouldn't. Of course, truly bad writing also exists (and I'm the first to make fun of it *grin*), but I generally don't rate truly bad writing by comparison with anything except other truly bad writing. :)

Molly

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Greyeyes
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 05:18 PM

Great post Molly, I'm 1/2 way through the latest Pratchett ("The Truth") at the moment. It is accepted in the UK that he will never win any major literary awards, but he is the writer whose new publications I most look forward to. Wise, intelligent, screamingly funny, and he makes people think. More power to his elbow, and J.K.Rowling's.

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 05:23 PM

Please. let's not laud Dickens, the man more responsibel than any other apart from Shakespeare for turning a generation or two of UK kids into compulsive non- readers.

Dull? He makes Peake look like Lara Croft.

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Firecat
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 05:25 PM

I'm in Hufflepuff. I was originally in there, then I resorted and went into Slytherin, but I didn't want to mix with Draco Malfoy, so I resorted again and went back into Hufflepuff! I get to mix with the GORGEOUS Cedric Diggory!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: MMario
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 05:30 PM

Shakespeare is pretty interesting - as long as you find out what the meanings of some of his phrases meant then. He really did write for the masses...I suspect if he were alive he would be doing soap operas and "reality" TV

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Greyeyes
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 05:49 PM

Bit harsh to refuse plaudits to Dickens and Shakespeare because children don't like them. As MMario says WS wrote for the populist market of his day. Dickens novels were frequently written in episodic form for popular magazines of the day. He made a fortune travelling the world reading his work in public. The criticism should lie with educational systems that force feed children unsuitable literature. Pratchett is stuffed full of literary and classical allusions. Why don't we see his works on school curriculums? Might make some of the kids want to explore his source material.

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: harpmolly
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 05:50 PM

I'll bet if fewer teachers tried to handle Shakespeare with kid gloves, they'd get along a lot better with their students. The Man was brilliant--and he was a hack, writing as much for the groundlings and the ha'penny seats as for the boxes. Having been born the day after his birthday (give or take 400 years or so ;)), I've always had a soft spot for him. Whoever he was. *grin*

er...I suppose I should mention Harry Potter somewhere in this post. Go Gryffindor! (I can't wait to see Alan Rickman as Professor Snape. I didn't think anyone could make me lust after the head of Slytherin House...never say never, I suppose...)

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Sorcha
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 05:54 PM

Of course, but Shakespeare didn't write novels....he wrote plays. It is difficult to get the impact of a play without seeing and hearing it, whereas a novel is designed to be read.

Rowling IS fun, easy, and identifiable.....which of us has not known a bully or two? or a School Hero, either? Part of Rowling's attraction is the very simplicity of the writing......one does not need a 7 syllable vocabulary or weird words to understand the story. Robert Parker is the same way with the Spenser novels......I love 'em, and Hawk is super, but literature, it ain't.

Sometimes I just want to read what I call "Garbage for the Mind". Sometimes I want literature. Sometimes I want Classics. Every day, each of us is a different person that is the sum total of all our yesterdays.......and some days I need Harry Potter type stuff.

Lately, I haven't wanted or been able to Think about what I am reading......I just want to have a little fun! Tolkein is the Master, but he does require thinking. Rowling doesn't. I just picked up Alan Garner's "Owl Service" from the Library. I'll let you know what I think.

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 05:58 PM

"If there are all these books around that knock HP into a cocked hat, why don't they? Why aren't THEY at the top of the bestseller list? "

And why doesn't Norma Waterson sell as many records as the Spice Girls?

God knows how these things work. Like Enid Blyton, J.K.Rowling gets kids (and their adults) reading who wouldn't read otherwise, and she's a lot better than Enid Blyton anyway. That is something to be very grateful for indeed. Most of the time they are great fun to read, and that's more than you can say about most books.

And after children (and adults) have raced through the Harry Potter series,it's great that there are in fact so many far more exciting and engrossing books waiting for them to move on to. Some of these have been mentioned already.

Here is a page about another series that will repay attention, the first part of which has been recently republished - Uncle Stories. I don't think I'd much want to know any child who didn't enjoy these, if they had a chance to hear and read them. Or adult for that matter. (They'd definitely be naturals for Slytherin.)

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Sorcha
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 06:02 PM

After-thought: I'll bet if Speilberg made a movie of "Beowulf" starring Mel Gibson it would be a smash hit........it's got everything. Can't you just see Sean Connery as Charlemange in the Song of Roland? A lot of it is just a matter of presentation.

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: harpmolly
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 06:08 PM

Greyeyes...not to go on and on about Pratchett, but I like your idea. I think it would be quite funny to have students read Pratchett's novels back to back with the works they satirize, i.e. Wyrd Sisters/Macbeth, Lords & Ladies/Midsummer Night's Dream (amazing!), or read a collection of fairy tales alongside Witches Abroad (can you tell the Witches books are my favorite? ;)). Have an extra-credit assignment to see how many of P's allusions and in-jokes the students can track down. Rather makes me wish I was an English teacher. *grin*

Molly

P.S. Potter For President!

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Lady McMoo
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 06:19 PM

"Rowling doesn't." (require thinking)

Agreed perhaps not on the same intellectual level as some authors but there are certainly numerous riddles, word games and other entertaining diversions either obvious or hidden in the text. These and the way one can obviously identify with many of the characters are just a couple of reason why the HP series so entertaining. I cannot see the comparison with Enid Blyton at all!

mcmoo (suitable chastened and creeping back in disgrace to his Isiah Berlin)

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Greyeyes
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 06:31 PM

Okay, Enid Blyton was a bit harsh, and I happily withdraw the comparison; at least it sparked a debate.

Molly, I love the witches too, but my favourite of all is "Small Gods". Many of TP's points in that are being echoed as we speak in the "Religion/Homophobia" thread. To paraphrase TP "Why can't we do things because we believe they're right, not because some priest tells us we ought to". There is, so far, no God in Harry Potter, and he does exactly that. Acts because of what he believes is right. If a generation of kids grow up taking note of Pratchett & Rowling, maybe there's some hope for the world.

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Sorcha
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 06:36 PM

Very true, mcmoo, but that stuff is FUN!! I really meant thinking as in trying to read Doestevsky, or Camus, or Bertie Russell.......you know, THINK thinking.......

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Lady McMoo
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 07:02 PM

You mean you don't find Bertrand, Albert, Fyodor or Lev FUN Sorcha? What is the world coming too...?

mcmoo (;>))

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: harpmolly
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 07:06 PM

"If a generation of kids grow up taking note of Pratchett & Rowling, maybe there's some hope for the world." --Greyeyes

Bravo! I too love Small Gods. Great political/religious satire, especially for myself, having been raised Catholic. *grin* And you're right--Harry Potter does not promote any religion or belief system, despite what the Moral Majority would have us think. It's all about good old-fashioned conscience and personal responsibility. What a concept!

Molly

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Feb 01 - 07:44 PM

Two wizard/witch schools which carry a lot more conviction I feel are the ones in Jill Murphy's Worst Witch series, and Ursula Leguin's Wizard of Earthsea. Both of whom to my mind avoid falling into J.K.Rowling's trick of over-egging the this-is-ever-so-funny pudding.

A lot of it feels like cranking it out to a formula - and she can't be blamed for that. When you've struck gold on your first effort, it must be hard to not to try to repeat again and again.

That sounds crabby, and I'm not crabby. I'm reading the Goblet of Gold at the moment, and look forward to teh next chapter. But I still think it could have been so much better, and I don't mean more literary.

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Hollowfox
Date: 22 Feb 01 - 03:41 PM

Sorcha, for the movie, you'll have to settle for Antonio Banderas and Omar Sharif. *g* (13th Warrior. It wasn't half bad.) BTW, you reminded me of one of my favorite essays: "In Defense of Rubbish" by Peter Dickenson. He points out the value of the stuff kids read/watch that has little or no obvious value to an adult (he used football comics as an example, today he'd probably include trading cards and Japanimation). What you call garbage for the mind, he called roughage of the mind. I find that it's better for my mental health to nibble my way along the smorgasbord than to limit myself to the stuff that's "good for me", and I suspect most of us are that way.
I remember listening to a discussion that was aired during an intermission of the Metropolitan opera radio broadcast. The question came before the panel of opera lovers/experts as to whether they listened to anything else. Every one of them did. One man said that opera was wonderful, but for pure relaxation, you couldn't beat Herb Alpert. (shows how long ago it was)

Nancy King, Jim Dale's reading of Goblet of Fire won a Grammy last night. Greyeyes, I can't imagine anything much more horrible than an attempt to make a movie out of Pullman's trilogy, except perhaps to do it to anything by Garner. (shudder)

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Feb 01 - 05:55 PM

While we're here, is there any consensus of how to pronounce Hogwarts?

I rather assume it's "Hoggarts" rather than "Hog-warts", since that's the way that words like that normally get pronounced in England. (cf "Co'burn" for Cockburn, "Bewley" for Beaulieu, "Durrum" for Durham and so forth.)

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Firecat
Date: 23 Feb 01 - 12:09 PM

More resorting!! I ended up in Gryffindor this time! It tried keeping me in Hufflepuff, then put me in Ravenclaw twice but I'm not that clever so it gave up and put me in Gryffindor!! I'll have to go get changed now cos I'm weearing hufflepuff colours (yellow & black - mmm tastelful!!!)

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: Sorcha
Date: 23 Feb 01 - 01:52 PM

OK, I just finished Alan Garner's "Owl Service". It is a great book, but I am not sure the younger Harry Potter set would understand it. It is deliberatly obscure, and very spooky. I only understood it because I have read the Mabinigon, and I doubt very much if most 10-14 yr olds even know the Mab exists.

There was no need for Garner to be so obscure, the entire story could have been told in a much more straight forward manner and still been just as spooky.

Also, there is lots of Welsh and British slang and Welsh mythology references that American kids are just not going to understand. It's even possible that a lot of British kids would not understand the Welsh references.

Subject: RE: BS: Harry Potter, Official WB Website
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Feb 01 - 03:35 PM

The Owl Service isn't the Alan Garner book to start with, esopecially for children (and it's not really a children's book maybe). The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and its sequel The Moon of Gomrath are much more accessible. They don't require any prior knowledge about folklore or legend, but are liable to arouse an appetite for it.