CMU School of Drama


Thursday, March 25, 2010

Harry Potter park adds new characters

Reuters: "'Harry Potter' creator J.K. Rowling helped flesh out four new characters who will appear exclusively at Universal Orlando's theme park version of her mythical Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, park designers said on Thursday."

5 comments:

Bryce Cutler said...

This is awesome. It is the creation of the environment from a book to movie to realized world, guests can travel through. By making choices, like removing the three main characters, and adding others, will not only help improve the world, but make it stronger, and better.

My friend's father is working on the visual technology, as the lead optical engineer, and when talking with him he said the projections and ability to make one feel as if flying is incredibly life like and beyond anything done before.

Living in florida, I cannot wait for this to open. I saw it under construction over break and was blown away, without ever entering the actual "island" it occupies. I cannot wait!

Hjohnson said...

I really admire how much Rowling clearly loves her characters and the world she has created. Even though she has stopped writing the series, she's so involved in everything related to the Harry Potter world. One of the reason I enjoyed the books so much is that it's so obvious how much Rowling cares for her characters and cares about good story-telling. The creation of extra characters for an amusement park ride is another manifestation of this care.

Brooke M said...

Reading this article, all I could think about was that there is definitely going to be a group of hardcore Harry Potter Fanatics that are probably going to be more than a little upset about added characters into this theme park. Actually, there will be a group of people that will be upset every time the park differs from the original stories, but I feel that with the attention to detail that park designers are paying, along with J.K Rowling, this park will end up pleasing many people who are looking forward to it.

Brian Alderman said...

I sure hope they do this world in as much magical detail as they can. I personally am excited to see it, as I love the way I imagine Hogwarts. It is impressive that Universal went to the effort to get Rowling to sign off on everything, and attempt to stay as true to the storyline and the world as possible (not like the movies... but that's a different rant). Once the park opens, I am also looking forward to hearing about the new technologies that they are working with. Bryce, as you find out more about those, i would love to hear!

SParker said...

I'm still not sure what I think of this theme park. It really seems to just be a marketing device, with little to offer guests in the way of entertainment. It seems like buying Harry Potter merchandise is one of the main attractions. I do like the fact that the four characters are being added, but that seems like a bare minimum. This park could really be used to give guests something new. Although for hardcore fans of the series, the opportunity to "live" the world must be wonderful. Perhaps a better opinion of this can be made after it actually opens.