People have spotted the one major problem with HBO’s new Harry Potter, as the trailer releases

The new Harry Potter trailer has finally landed, and there’s one thing people seem to be struggling to get over.

And no, it’s not the fact that JK Rowling is, once again, a raging transphobe.

Via HBO

Instead, if you grew up watching the original Harry Potter films, there’s a pretty strong chance you’ll experience a weird sense of déjà vu while watching HBO’s new take on the franchise. While this is supposed to be a fresh adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s seven-book series, an awful lot of what we’ve seen so far looks… extremely familiar.

Groundbreaking. pic.twitter.com/0IvUbxRbm1

— Ethan Anderton (@Ethan_Anderton) September 2, 2026

The trailer includes plenty of moments that immediately bring the original films to mind. That’s not necessarily surprising; the books haven’t changed, after all, and some of these scenes are pretty difficult to adapt without them looking recognisable.

But the new series has another issue: It sometimes feels less like a new interpretation of Harry Potter and more like someone has recreated the films with a different cast.

For nearly 25 years, the original Harry Potter became the default image of what Harry Potter was supposed to look like. Now HBO is attempting to change that.

The network has made the controversial decision to reboot the franchise for television, with the promise of a more detailed adaptation of Rowling’s books. The idea is that the series will have the time to explore parts of the story that the films had to leave out.

Harry Potter fans are going to try to convince you that losing the pretty colors and making every scene look the same was worth it because Peeves shows up in one badly paced episode halfway through the season https://t.co/K2V11eDJRU

— total cliche🇲🇽 (@total_cliche) September 2, 2026

But based on this first proper look, people are questioning whether it actually looks different enough. Rather than feeling like a completely new version of the wizarding world, a lot of the trailer appears to recreate scenes and visuals we’ve already watched countless times.

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One criticism is that the new actors appear to be taking cues from the performances of the original cast, rather than completely reinventing the characters themselves.

Nick Frost’s Hagrid has inevitably been compared to the late Robbie Coltrane’s version, while Janet McTeer’s Professor McGonagall has already drawn comparisons to Maggie Smith’s iconic performance.

Via HBO

It’s not that the new series looks badly made. In fact, it looks pretty polished. The problem is that some of the shots and imagery look so close to the films that it can feel like you’re watching a slightly altered version of something you’ve already seen.

As one reaction on X put it, it “feels like nothing so much as a carbon copy of what has already come before.”

as expected, the new Harry Potter series looks like a Poundland knockoff of the movies, hopelessly trying to recreate magic which evaporated fifteen years ago.

— 🌈 PureSlime 📺🫟 (@pure_slime) September 2, 2026

Another summed up the feeling as: “This feels like I woke up in an alternate reality where the series all looks and sounds the same, but the characters have different faces.”

And perhaps the most important criticism is that it simply looks too much like what has already come before.

Which leaves one fairly obvious question hanging over the whole reboot: What’s the point?

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Featured image via HBO