Will There Ever Be a "Harry Potter" Again?

It seems that ever since the "Harry Potter" series of books ended, people have been looking furiously for the next series that will fill the gap. This has led to good things and bad, and actually, the good things and the bad things kind of coincide.

In looking for the series to fill their gap, people have uncovered some pretty marvelous series to read and have brought them to fame. However, in that same respect, those books are tarnished because they did not live up to what people wanted out of them, it was not the book they were looking for.

Bouncing off of that Star Wars joke, I'll ask if anyone has found the next Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark in cinema? I wouldn't say so. It's tough to capture the true magic that those movies brought. The best people can do is try to copy what they've done.

In respect to Star Wars, I mean, it's pretty easy to replicate what it is. It's a young man's journey where he encounters a magical power greater than he and to defeat an evil empire, he has to master this power. We've seen it many, many times since. Heck, even many times before. But there was just something about Star Wars that made it so awesome, so worthy of it's Academy Award nomination.

But with Raiders of the Lost Ark, you had a lot of different, unique elements in it to create such an awesome movie that to see something of its caliber again would be difficult. What other movie, besides Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade, obviously, has an archaeology teacher fighting Nazis trying to find a holy item? I can't think of any off the top of my head.

The only thing that closely resembles what Raiders was able to do is in the form of the "Uncharted" video game series, which is why it is very good. Sure, Nathan Drake isn't an archaeology teacher, to my knowledge, but he is an adventurer going on daring quests around the world.

The two fall into the same genre and that is why they are often related. It's an adventure story.

The "Harry Potter" series, if it is to be categorized, is a teen fantasy story. I'm well aware that several adults have read the series and that it rapidly matured over the course of the series, but, really, I think it can be best classified as a teen fantasy series. A little dark, but, that's never a bad thing.

Now, you've got several series that people have tried to pin as the next "Harry Potter," including the "Percy Jackson" books (I'd say more the first saga than the second one), the "Twilight" saga, "The Hunger Games" trilogy, and new to the list, the "Divergent" series of books.

All of these things have elements in common and the latter four books have all been tested as the "next-generation Harry Potter."

I won't compare all of the series, but I will instead say that none of those will ever be Harry Potter. Does that mean they are bad? No, well...at least three of them aren't too bad. But they can never be Harry Potter because that's already been done. You can't do something that's over. I mean, you can, but that's copying. Plus, I don't think the writers consciously thought to themselves, "I will be J.K. Rowling, ME! HA!" I've never talked to any of them, but, it's a good chance they've never thought that.

It's also not a matter of 'growing up' as some people would put it. I was, am?, a part of the generation that read "Harry Potter" when it came out here in the States in the early 2000s, and read it as I grew up, so I essentially grew with the characters. I think that some people looking for that element are going to have a tough time calling this the new "Harry Potter." Out of all of these series, the only one that takes place over a long amount of time is the "Percy Jackson & the Olympians" series, as it goes from Percy being 12 through his 16th birthday by the end of the fifth book, The Last Olympian. So, in a way, you can grow with Percy, but, going from 12 to 16 isn't nearly as drastic as going through 6 years of school.

In the pursuit of the new Harry Potter, I think that people and even creators are overlooking the potential of the series in front of them. If you compare your work or your reading to something, you'll never really come to appreciate it as it is. You'll come to appreciate it like something. "Oh it's like this" or "yeah, it's just like this." Stories are stories. No two stories are the same just like no two people are the same. Even twins are different, just like stories.

The "Harry Potter" film franchise is one of the most successful that has ever come about. It was the one that started the whole "split the final book into two parts" trend that is so evident now...and is kind of worn out. I think another thing that drags down these series is that many filmmakers are probably trying to make their book adaptation the "next Harry Potter," which is where they most differ from the books.

A writer sits down to tell their story, regardless of inspirations. They have a plot, they have their characters, and they write their story. A filmmaker, though, has a better chance of seeing the competition and seeing what works. If something is trending, why not make a movie like it? That's where the fault lies. In making movies that are so similar to the "Harry Potter" franchise, you can't help but hurt your own chances for a successful movie.

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief and the first two Harry Potter movies had the same director, or producer, in Christopher Columbus. So why is it that the former film was not as good as the latter two? Was it that Chris Columbus was trying to replicate the formula from the first two films? He was pretty good to the books in the latter two films, but in the former, man, it was brutal. They pretty much got the names right and maybe a couple of scenes were good, but, besides that, it was not even a good movie.

I've never seen Divergent, but, I've heard that there is sort of like a "sorting-hat"-ish scenario that places you in your...Faction? I mean, that sounds pretty similar to the "Harry Potter" formula to me, but, if it's from the book, I can't fault inspiration, regardless of how similar to the Sorting Hat it really is. Does it talk? Does this machine or thing or whatever ask you questions? Does it sit in Dumbledore's office? No? Then they are only similar in use, it's not a directly copy of the Sorting Hat.

There was a time, maybe this feud is going on, where the "Twilight" fans and the "Harry Potter" fans were at odds over which series was better, whether it be book or film. I always thought this was a stupid argument. You can't compare things over two almost completely separate genres. "Twilight" is a love story, "Harry Potter" is an adventure story. While both delve into the supernatural, actually both having werewolves in their plots, that is not enough to spark a conflict. Both are written for the frame or universe that their stories are set in. Now if "Twilight" were considered an adventure story and then all of that happened, then yeah, we'd have an issue. But I've never heard of "Twilight" considered that...I mean I've never heard it as anything good, but, not the point.

People have come to accept that "Harry Potter" is gone and that is what fuels this search, even a wait it feels, for the next series to come and sweep us off our feet like "Harry Potter" did. That, though, is the killer. You can stare at a dead end all you want, but unless you start looking for a way out, you'll never get anywhere. That's kind of what it's like for the "Harry Potter" series. It's over, it's done, we claim to have moved on but we haven't because we still hold onto it. We need to let go, let the memories we had remain and look for something else. Maybe not to fill the gap, that's what the memories are for, but to create a new place in our hearts. Maybe we've already found the series, but we killed it because we compared it to something that is essentially incomparable.

"The Lord of the Rings," "Harry Potter," the original "Star Wars" trilogy. These are things that have come and gone, they aren't coming back. To look for something else, that would be folly. Maybe if we examined series with a fresh lens, like we did with those, then we can find the beauty in them.