Matt Webb is a very clever chap, whose blog is worth following generally, but I wanted to capture a couple of his quotes here, so I don’t loose them.
On the HBO Harry Potter, and y’know, transphobia aside (which to be clear, is my top reason for not planning on watching), but:
My overwhelming feeling is that it is so absurdly redundant to make this. Not even reimagined but to cosplay the movies so slavishly… the sets look the same, that same teacher with the same hat and the same Scottish accent…
To make the series is a bonfire of human creative effort, think of what could have been done instead.
In the context of the way culture these days is a series a reboots and reboots, and what should be done about it.
Radically reduce copyright down to 10 years or something. More than that: invent a new super-anti-copyright which actively imposes costs on any content which is too close to any existing content in an AI-calculated vibes database or something.
i.e. tax unoriginality.
The past is a foreign country that we should impose tariffs on.