Something's wrong, I can feel it...
See now this is what I was talking about! I have been keeping up with the Last of Us as it's ticked along in episodes, I and several million others if those generous viewing figures are anything to go by, and as good as the show is (if slightly rushed in events) I've always found myself disquiet about the precedent it's success will set upon the 'marketplace of ideas' that is modern Hollywood. And yes, I do use 'Hollywood' as a shorthand for all modern day media, even though I know that is factually a bit spotty; if only I cared enough to stop. Because the modern media machine is like a shark swimming around in the deep blue, all it needs is to catch the slightest whiff of chum from half an ocean away and that predator launches all over it's the prey like rats on a carcass. And The Last of Us has been no small success. If numbers are to be trusted, that show has to be one of the biggest hits of this year and last year too. All while being one of the most faithful video game adaptations we've ever had; copycats were an inevitability.
That being said, I do find myself of two minds upon learning that the Hogwarts Legacy team are in talks to produce their own TV show based on the world they constructed. On the one hand that sounds like yet another one of those hair-trigger adaptations shoot out from the barrel directly after the world's honeymoon phase with the game, whilst the bedsheet are still warm. Yes, Hogwarts Legacy has done gangbuster numbers, but that doesn't mean it's the greatest thing since sliced bread! And it's narrative isn't a touch on The Last of Us' story, in the slightest! On the otherhand, I can see the connection in name and setting as more of a case of happenstance, because at the end of the day there's not really any reason why a Hogwarts Legacy TV show would be an adaptation of the game; it would really just be a Harry Potter TV Show.
Surely the Warner Bros team have been thinking of making one for a while now. Ever since it became clear that J.K. Rowling would not step back from writing bad scripts for the Fantastic Beasts movies, it was clear that the Harry Potter franchise needed a new avenue if it wanted to relight itself for the new age. 'The Cursed Child' is rumoured to be getting an adaptation featuring the returned cast from the movies, but considering the general consensus around the actual quality of that story, such a promise sounds more like a threat. (I just hope that an adaptation will give us a full blow animated rendition of the supposed story where Astoria Greengrass jumps back in time to 'do the dirty' with no-nose. I need that insanity visualised.) Further rumours of a general Harry Potter reboot are met with universal retching noises from the supposed target demographic. And after the box office performance of 'Secrets of Dumbledore', or lack thereof, it's clear that the story of Newt Scamander will end as unfinished as it... actually, his story really wrapped itself up at the end of the first movie. He's been pretty much sleeping his way through the rest of the 'Fantastic Beasts' movies anyway.
Hogwarts Legacy in setting presents something of a fresh start and clean break away from all that happened in the 1990's. (The time period of Harry Potter.) The basic ties of familiarity are there, but the 1800's are full of their own concerns, with poachers hunting magical beasts, Goblins waging war against Wizards and Ancient Magic dripping off of every curtain. For the first time since 'Philosophers Stone', a new TV show set in this time would present a totally fresh opportunity for newcomers to jump into the franchise of Harry Potter, which would be the mounting point for newly minted millennial parents to introduce their bratty kids to the world they used to read about in school. (Look at me, I'm talking like a marketing stooge now. These courses are really starting to get the better of how I think, aren't they?)
The actual narrative of Hogwarts Legacy is surprisingly light and doesn't carry all that many personable characters behind it's script when it comes to the protagonist or their school friends, which makes it more than likely that any TV show set in this time would, by share necessity, have to construct it's own guiding narrative. Which suits me just fine because the game I played left more than enough room for any such story to slide on in around the events of that game without causing any ruckus whatsoever. In many ways, the only point of this game was to conjure a world for the Harry Potter mythos that could exist without the glasses kid or his painfully extended lore, and everything else the game delivered was just a bonus ribbon on the package. A TV show could happily exist within that newly minted world, doubling down on it's affirmation by bringing actual characters and complex narratives into the framework, which is the one thing holding back the game from being truly legendary in my eyes. There could actually be a world were both the TV show and this game series exist without treading on each other's shoes at all.
Being put to TV, Hogwarts Legacy could benefit from telling a wider story that covers a wider breadth of the wizarding world. For example, and keeping to the narrative of the game, we could follow a bevy of characters from across the wizarding world that all have conflicting perspectives on the Goblin rebellion, with supporters and dissenters all being given their breadth of humanity and purpose to pack some extra layer of nuance behind the somewhat important movement at the heart of the world's story. Maybe we could have one character be a Goblin who is outspoken about improving the lot of his folk but whom doesn't resort to crude tactics of his more brutish brethren at the beginning of the series. Then we might witnesses as throughout the series that Goblin is subjected to injustice after injustice, a beating here to a protest turning into a massacre there, until by the end of the series his taking to arms against the wizarding kind feels almost just and necessary, at least given his situation. That's the kind of muti-layered characters that can't be built in a fixed-perspective world like the one Hogwarts Legacy presents in it's game form.
Of course, I refer to any future with a Hogwarts TV series as a package deal with an upcoming game sequel, because at this point it's pretty much a done deal that we're getting more Legacy games. Although nothing has been written in the stones as of yet, Hogwarts Legacy made around 850 million within the space of two weeks and the team didn't have any DLC plans ready to capitalize on that flurry of fans. So making a sequel is just basic business sense. Plus, Warner Bros. have been needing a win for the Harry Potter franchise for a while now, so investing into more games in this series seems like a no brainer. Plus, there's plenty of wanting features that the Legacy team are coyly teasing might worm their way into a sequel, proving the idea is definitely buzzing around the studio. (Such as playable Quidditch!) We could feasibly have a climate where the future Hogwarts Legacy 2 releases alongside a future series of this supposed TV show for some of that sweet cross promotional marketing all the kids are raving about these days.
As far as news could go for upcoming video game to TV adaptations; this is by far the worst idea I've ever heard of. In fact, I'm almost happy to welcome any expanded Harry Potter media that doesn't have Ezra Miller in it, because that actor's entire deal just makes my stomach churn. I just hope that whatever happens the key-most rules of adaptation are adhered to- don't try to overwrite the legitimacy of the game's narrative with a new one unless the new narrative is objectively better, don't overwrite the custom character of the game (thus robbing fans of their place in the universe) and don't mention Zootopia porn. Because after Resident Evil, you just never know what these rapid show executives are going to come up with next.
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