Me reading LOTR in a supermarket car park. Epic Win.

Disney Castle Vs Hogwarts Castle

I remember growing up as a child the ONLY holiday you wanted your parents to tell you that you were gong on was to Disneyland Florida. It was the pinacle of kids fantasy holidays, it was the one wish we made every Christmas, every Birthday. You imagined it to be the most magical place on the planet, it was the childhood pilgrimmage, we had a desire, and overwhelming urge to get to this place. To some of us that wish never came true, it was never meant to be.

However, i now imagine kids everywhere wishing, hoping, believing their parents will take them to the now ultimate kids fantasy holiday, The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter. I Know if i was anywhere between the ages of 5 to1626 i would be begging my parents to take me there. Kids now believe this to be the most magical place on the planet, the place they have to see, have to get too.

I love that the imagery of both places is symbolised in a castle, the above picture you immediately know both these places, they are now engraved into our sub-concious perception of culture.

However i also find it tragic that the imagery is of two castles, it feels like a battle, a battle which in recent times Disney has been loosing. As if you look a little deeper, this is the classic battle of Disney Vs Warner Bros.

In every walk of life there is a nemesis, an arch rival, competition. For years upon years Disney ruled the world, they ruled it with nothing more than mystique, magic and enchantment. You see i have always prefered Warner Bros films/cartoons over Disneys, i prefered the Warner Bros shop (as you inevitably found both of them in the same corner of a shopping centre), but in my mind Disney was always mightier. Disney always had a romance about it that never failed to captivate you, Warner Bros lacked this.

How Warner Bros managed to get the distribution rights to Harry Potter and in some small way seemed to infer some kind of partaking into creating this global brand is beyond me. Harry Potter is as English as English gets, boarding schools, steam trains, uniforms, London, cats, toads, owls, the names, the actors, the locations. Warner Bros pulled off a master stroke getting the distribution rights, now they have places to rival Disneyland (Wizarding World Of Harry Potter, Warner Bros Studio Tours). Warner Bros found its romance, its enchantment, Warner Bros found their magic.

There is however a huge hope for Disney, and that comes in the form of Pixar. Pixar make the best family films i have ever seen, every one is a master piece. If Pixar continue this trend then surely nothing can stop Disney staying at the top for years to come.

Personally even though i love Pixar films, nothing has infected me so much from a fiction point of view as Harry Potter has, the stories, the films, Pottermore, everything about it.

It is not a hard decision for me, i would forever choose to see Hogwarts castle over the Disney castle every time.

So yeah… Someone come with me and let the magic begin?