The first official trailer for the HBO Harry Potter remake drew complaints about its dull color-washing from some and praise from others.
In recent years, there has been a lot of backlash over the trend toward muted colors and blander scenery in film and TV, and the impact on the popular and whimsical franchise divided audiences.
Some don't think anyone should watch the trailer at all.
Depression-era Harry Potter
After the trailer dropped on Wednesday, discourse over its aesthetics followed almost immediately. Many missed the bright colors and magical whimsy of the original films, with some going as far as comparing the remake to AI slop.
"Looks really well produced, the sets and costumes are great… but I feel zero magic," said @MCUPerfectGifs on X. "It’s missing that little spark. Maybe I'm just too nostalgic for the color grading of the 2001 film."
"They copied and pasted the movie, used a digital tool that makes every actor look more bland, reduced brightness by 75% and replaced the iconic score with generic slop," wrote @TomZohar. "Brilliant work everyone."
"You know that beautiful, colorful, whimsical thing from 10-20 years ago you loved?" asked @cinemaxwell.
"Well do we have a treat for you! Here it is again, but this time it's ugly, bland sludge with absolutely no whimsy whatsoever! Slurp it up, morons!"
Not everyone hated the dimmer Harry Potter, however. Die-hard fans will always be there to defend anything.
"This looks really cute," said @DeadmanBostonB. "I hope the online community is nice to these kids, this is a dream come true for them and it’s exciting to see how this goes."
Why does the new Harry Potter look like that?
One X user proposed an answer to all those asking why every remake has to look duller and darker than the original these days. Anish Moonka pointed to a filmmaking trend that he says started in 2000 with O Brother, Where Art Thou?
"Muting colors hides bad CGI," he said. "If a computer-generated background doesn’t quite match the actors, draining the color smooths over the mismatch."
"The Lord of the Rings extended editions look flatter than the theatrical cuts for exactly this reason: the added scenes had less polished effects, so they were washed out to cover it."
He went on to say that streaming solidified this trend to compensate for compression issues as people watched on laptops and phones. This may be an easy way to hide visual issues, but the negative impacts are clear.
"When a studio drains color from a scene, they’re dampening the emotional signal the image sends to your brain," Moonka added.
"Don't give them attention"
A third camp around the Harry Potter series trailer is urging people to avoid watching it altogether. Trans people and allies continue to remind folks that supporting the IP means materially supporting author J.K. Rowling.
She's still using her Harry Potter wealth to fund efforts to strip trans people of their rights in the U.K.
The Onion writer @CantEverDie declared that "if you watch and support this you are funding trans genocide globally by the way."
"Don't even watch the Harry Potter HBO trailer," said @rubigb.bsky.social on Bluesky. "Don't give them attention."
"I respect trans people, so it's such a little thing for me to not watch the Harry Potter trailer or show," wrote author Maureen Johnson. "The proceeds from that property go directly to funding anti-trans work. It's a straight line from HP to destroying lives."
"I can actually SAVE TIME by not supporting this. It requires NOTHING."
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