Round One: Harry Potter: An 8th Film?

Welcome to Round One.

The topic for debate is Harry Potter: An 8th film. Please do not get this confused with Deathly Hallows being split into 2 films, this is a debate on the possibility of an 8th film following on from Deathly Hallows parts 1 and 2.

The teams are listed below, check your name and which side of the debate you are.


Team One: "Yes, they'll make an 8th Film"
Raistlin Majere
FaerieOfDoom
LilyFlower

Team Two: "No, there's nothing left to the series."
stephy
amberg93

For those on Team One, to gain maximum points you will need to explain how an 8th film could be possible, the more detailed your arguments the higher your chances of receiving full marks.

For those in Team Two, to gain maximum points, you need to explain how an 8th film is not possible, the more detailed your arguments the higher your chances are of receiving full marks.

Remember this is a debate, you will need to remain polite and respectful of other members opinions and views, when disagreeing with an opponent please do so in a courteous manner, please site all sources which you may use, and label each of your posts with the Team you are on.

I was hoping someone would post first so I could tell them how wrong they are, but seems I must go first.

My first reason for why WILL there be another HP movie is:

ARE YOU FRIGGIN' KIDDIN ME??? HOW COULD THERE NOT BE???

Okay, maybe that wasn't the most eloquent of choices but still...

JK Rowling left too many lose ends that could be used to make an 8th film.

If you look at history of movies, every franchise that achieved huge success eventually got another movie coming out:

Exhibit A: Star Wars, the nerdy nerds got what they wanted years after the first Star Wars movie, with an awesome prequel.

Anyone here doubts that prequel with the marauders leading to the first War would be any less successful and awesome?

Exhibt B: Scream 4 is currently being produced, after the successful first trilogy another one is one the way, even after the lead actress Neve Campbell said she wouldn't even do another one.

This proves how eventually every big movie comes out again. Why? Every big boss out there won't miss a shot at making boat loads of money again!

So I truly believe that withing, 10 or 15 years another HP movie will come out, I'm crossing my fingers for a Dumbledore bio movie that'd be awesome! I'm pretty sure we haven't heard the end of JK's magical world yet.

Besides, with all the HP theme parks out there, when the newness dies there must be new stuff coming out to add to it and what better than a movie to promote it?

There's loads of reasons why another HP movie is a very likely "WILL HAPPEN"

Excuse me? A TV show? Let me express the correct amount of scorn for the idea. ( )

Not only is this a poor way for the Harry Potter franchise to continue, but your examples of long-running TV shows are irrelevant. The Harry Potter story is based on a series of books (I know that Sabrina was based on a comic, but comics come from completely different beginnings, and Sabrina was more famous as a show than a comic - Harry Potter was famous as a series of books first), and its translation into a TV series would not only take FOREVER to establish, but you'd have to recast the characters, if you want to use the existing canon characters (and no way would anyone accept completely different characters, do please be realistic). And this would be an impossible feat, in any case! For nearly a whole decade, the face of Harry Potter has been Daniel Radcliffe; one couldn't simply replace him so soon after the final movies (for now) have been filmed.

As well as this, why make a TV series when clearly there is room for an 8th movie? The transition from Deathly Hallows to a sequel would be much more seamless and much more accepted, and easier to do, than a TV series. The movies are well established, popular, and the final ones only now approaching the point of release. The time is ripe (and will be for a while yet, really) for one last run in the Harry Potterverse. TV would only uproot all the good done by the movies. TV would be like starting new.

I will however make one concession to the idea of a TV show - Sabrina and Buffy started with a movie initially didn't they? So with this in mind, would it not be logical to begin a HP TV show (IF we really must have one - a movie is just so much better) with an 8th movie to help the transition from the big screen?

An 8th movie would just be so much better.

My teammate Rai wisely pointed out the track record of sequels to well-established, well-loved and wildly popular movie franchises. This is the cold, hard, awesome truth of the matter: there can't not be a Harry Potter sequel. The fans love it too much, and Warner Brothers enjoy the cash in their coffers, I'm sure.

And don't even THINK about trying to tell me that you don't have some questions left unanswered, that you want to know more about the events that transpired, what happened immediately after the final battle. How else will you ever get the closure except from a sequel?

Finally... to quote A Very Potter Sequel (in and of itself an EXCELLENT point for my case):

“It’s not over yet!”

As you can see... and 8th film would just be so much better.

(P.S. Death Eater: “Lucius Malfoy why have you called us here!? Rah!”
Death Eater 2: “What do we do Lucius?”
Death Eater 3: “There’s nothing to do the Dark Lord is dead! Harry Potter wins! End of Story!”
Lucius Malfoy: “Yes I know, I know! He marries Ginny! They live Happily Ever After! There is literally no way to move forward after this point!”
*hisses*
Yaxley: “Then why are we all here?”
Lucius:“I was just getting to that!”
[... evil plans etc.]
“So it’s not over yet!”)

The idea of an eighth Harry Potter movie is borderline offensive. What makes a fan love an HP film? A lot of times it is loyalty to the book that it was biased on and when something isn't done the way that it was in the book... well you know that everyone is going to have a fit over it. Every single detail of an HP film is carefully analyzed by the readers of the series. To make a movie with no book behind it?! Well it would be insanity. No one would be sure if they could trust it or not, they'd have nothing to compare it to. I'm not saying that some people wouldn't go out and watch it, but most of the really loyal fans would likely be disappointed. JK tied up lots of lose ends with the series ending and the ones she didn't she's explained in interviews, people know what happened.

Which brings me to my next point, the fact that the HP craze is waning. It's taken such a long time to get all of the movies out and the books and people have moved onto the next newest fad (*cough*Twilight*cough*) already. To try and pull more material out is like beating a dead horse. Yes, as Rai pointed out Star Wars did fine when it made the prequels (that Lucas had always envisioned making, just saying) but the number of Star Wars fans that were disappointed with the first (and many also the second) Star Wars films doesn't paint it in a great light. Scream 4 is also coming out this year after a while but given that we aren't sure how it's done in theaters yet, we can't quite count that a victory. The movie could quite possibly bomb in the box office still.

And let's take a look at those numbers. Six and four films respectively. Technically given that the HP seventh book is being made into two movies there are already eight films bearing the HP name. Eight films that people have gone to see because they are rooting for those characters. People have grown attached to the boy who lived and his battles with the evil Lord Voldemort. Not nearly as many will care about the parents and certainly not the children living in a Voldemort-less world. The people watch because they want to know what happens in the battle and the action, no one is going to want to watch all the aftermath unless it happens to be so incredibly tragic that it's worth watching. Given that the entire golden trio lived... eh- I don't think I'd have much interest in watching even as a fan.

Adding an eighth (ninth) film is just overkill. Do we want our beloved fandom to become the Halloween series? Do we want HP compared the Saw movies? Are we looking to become the American Pie nonsense that came out of the direct-to-video movies for trying to keep it going on? No! We are proud fans! We love our series! We know when to call it quits and after DH wraps, we should call it quits proudly knowing that our series has had a great run without anything to be ashamed of.

I’m offended that you found it offensive, because really, it’s a brilliant idea.

Just THINK of what it’d do to rejuvenate the popularity of the Harry Potter franchise to make a movie that wasn’t based on the seven existing books in the series. You bemoan the fate of the Harry Potter ‘craze’ as you say – and yet what an amazing way to bring it back. Love it or hate it, Harry Potter fans will come out of the woodwork to give it a review, and rave about it wherever they possibly can. It would be like dumping ice-cold water over a sleeping cat – claws out, hackles raised, it’s going to attack – but it’s awake.

I’m not saying that we’re desperate for any sort of attention, but it’d be the beginning of the rest of the HP life: exposure is everything. There’s no such thing as bad publicity. And furthermore, what we want to do is invite a younger audience to Harry Potter. Why is it losing popularity? Its loyal fanbase of so many years is aging. All that extra time that we had is being eaten up with jobs and further education and LIFE – so what we need is the next generation, and an 8th movie is just the ticket. Draw in fresh blood, I say, and make Harry Potter great again.

A note on bringing in new content: as the previous generation, we have ties to the original tales, yes, but JK has left the building blocks of an amazing world that can support so much more. If you come up with something new, you’re giving it to the next generation, making a whole loyal fanbase to the new ideals. I compare this to the six Star Wars episodes, and consequent spin-offs. We have the old movies, the cult classics, we have the new movies made years later – a new generation, new love for the franchise. And finally we have the digital age. So many young kids know about Star Wars and love it because of the Clone Wars, and it’s an amazing thing. Harry Potter is a perfect candidate for this sort of comeback, it’s so rich in story and fantasy, that you’d be crazy not to try it.

Do you know what would be worse than some trifling small disappointment in the eighth film? Harry Potter becoming less popular (perhaps even forgotten) to usurper stories based on emo vampires and whatever else sells these days. That would be the ultimate insult to the HP franchise.

And I’m supremely offended that you even mentioned Twilight. Really. Twilight. Seriously? Four movies to Harry Potter’s eight (nine), and they’re not even particularly well acted, written, or based on books that have even a thimble of the imagination in its four-book entirety that JK pens with the magic of one sentence.

Finally... do not write off the idea of an eighth film as being an immediate disaster. You don’t know how you’re going to feel in the future, or who is going to write the script, who is going to act it, direct it, all of these things are variables which make a great movie when they’re put together in the right way – despite any misgivings you have. Personally, I reckon an eighth movie could rock nearly as much as the first seven. You’ve just got to have a little faith.

I did not mean to offend you but even the most hardcore fans have to be able to see that an 8th HP film is stretching a bit too far. You say that it would rejuvenate the HP series, what it would do is cast a negative light on the series instead. What do people think of series that tend to stretch out forever? Well they never think well of them, people roll their eyes and complain about how no one has any new ideas for films. That they've got to be so pathetic as to keep playing off the same things over and over again. Honestly, I don't want to be counted in that number. We love HP too much to have it changed into some silly, never-ending series. And trust me, when you get up to 8 films you've completely hit the never-ending mark.

However, your points about exposure being good attention slightly scare me. What are we? Some washed up celebrity or something? I'd rather we focus on getting good attention, let our series live on for its greatness and remember that it started as a book. After all, many people don't even like the films that much. They complain about the actors and the acting and the directing and all the details left out. I'd be in the front of the line complaining about an eight movie in reviews, not gonna lie. There are true fans to the series that won't even go see the movies and they would not paint a pretty picture of an eight movie. There are movie watchers who haven't even read the books! And we want to encourage these people? Please. If there's a film just for the sake of making more money, for getting the HP name out there again, it's just plain sad. I never thought I'd live to see the day when a *fan* would say that there isn't any kind of bad publicity.

And then, even if we get a new generation it wouldn't matter so much. It would be more likely to cause a lot of division between HP fans if anything. New fans vs old fans, true fans. You already see that happening as it is, with an eighth film it would be even worse. It's unavoidable that it would happen and personally, I find that pretty darn lame. With keeping the original things that we have, we allow people to love the series for what it is meant to be, not for what other people want it to be.

Also, whether you like Twilight or not (since everything you said about it is all opinion based, just as anything I say would be) you have to admit that it has made waves. More than 100 million copies of four books in only 5 years? There is something about them that people love and that's the point that I was trying to bring up. And it's only a matter of time before the next Twilight comes along and takes the world by storm.

I beg to differ about how I'll feel in the future. I do know, some people are stubborn and I am one of them. I write off the eight film being a disaster because I know how I think and I know how some people around me think. It's not about faith, it's about knowing that all good things have to come to an end. After part two of the 7th film, we need to accept that we should go on loving our series for the way that it is. Not trying to expand it anymore, but be happy with the amazing series that we've been lucky enough to have.

PLEASE PREPARE YOUR FINAL ARGUMENTS, DEBATE ROUND ONE WILL END WITHIN THE NEXT 72 HOURS.

While I still have the chance... I’d just like to recap a few things, and perhaps introduce a few final thoughts.

Both Stephy and Amber reacted badly to many of my points. They were adamant that an eighth film would be a definite down-shift for the integrity of the Harry Potter franchise. They believed that my claim of any publicity being good publicity is an affront to my claim as a Harry Potter fan. They said, how can there be another movie, when the main purpose driving the series was the shadow of Voldemort?

These things, they’re all subjective views, biased to each individual (as Amber previously alluded). When you look at the argument given (Yes they’ll make an eighth film) it's objective, and you can't argue with the simplistic brilliance of it. In the end, opinion just doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. It's not us, the fans who will decide whether or not it's a good idea (what does it matter if it's a good idea or not, anyway?).

Rai stated that “huge corporate businesses” with no interest in the story itself, who are only interested in money, would make the decision, and I can’t fault this argument. As fans, we’re a minority when it comes to actually getting these things done. We can make all the petitions we want, and complain all we want, it’s down to one thing: would an eighth film make money?

I think we all know the answer to that.

Stephy even admitted “Yes people will go and see, perhaps even me just to see if it's good or not” – even those opposed to the idea are fascinated by it. You can’t deny the power of such things.

So in conclusion... it comes down to this; Harry Potter is one of the most popular and lasting franchises to date. It has a fanbase of hundreds of thousands – millions of people. Most of whom will pay to see an eighth movie, who will buy merchandise, and who will spend their money to let the franchise last. The big co-operations would be silly not to make an eighth movie.

It’s just a matter of time.