As an avid reader, I am always excited when books I like are made into movies, but when I see them, I am inevitably at least a little disappointed. Producers always have to leave out or change a few things, which I never appreciate. In some cases, such as Eragon and the Percy Jackson films, my disappointment is so profound that I never want to watch the movie again. Thankfully, the Harry Potter movies do not fall into this category.
Overall, the filmmakers did a good job of adapting the Harry Potter books into movies. Sure, they had to leave out a lot of scenes I liked from the fourth, fifth, and sixth books due to time constraints, but given how long those books were, I find that understandable. However, the filmmakers made some changes to the story that don’t make any sense to me and that still make me cringe to this day. Since there are seven books, I’ve listed seven of them below.
1. My favorite scene in the sixth book happens in the chapter titled “A Very Frosty Christmas.” The current Minister of Magic, Rufus Scrimgeour, stops by the Burrow and tries to convince Harry “to be seen popping in and out of the Ministry” to show the public that he supports them. After everything the Ministry did to him the previous year, Harry wants no part of it and tells him so. A sixteen-year-old boy completely shuts down the Minister of Magic, and it is awesome. Sometimes, I go back and reread that scene just so I can enjoy it all over again. I was really looking forward to seeing in the movie…and then this happened.
2. One of the best parts of reading The Prisoner of Azkaban is learning about the friendship between Harry’s father, James Potter, and his three friends: Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew. When Remus first came to Hogwarts, he tried to keep his being a werewolf a secret, but after a few months, his friends found out about it. Instead of abandoning him as many wizards would have, James, Sirius, and Peter became animagi (wizards who can change into animals) so that Remus wouldn’t have to be alone when he transformed. They were true friends to him, so I found what Remus said in the movie rather…odd.
3. When I was reading The Goblet of Fire, the maze was my favorite task in the Triwizard Tournament. I enjoyed watching Harry overcome obstacles as he made his way through it. When I went to see the movie, I was looking forward to seeing how the filmmakers would portray the sphinx, blast-ended skrewt, and other creatures. But when Dumbledore explained the rules for the third task, I got a big surprise.
4. When I read the last chapter of The Deathly Hallows, I thought Harry’s decision not to keep the Elder Wand showed a lot of maturity. As an aspiring auror, it had to be tempting to keep such a powerful wand, but instead, he used it to mend his own wand and then returned it to Dumbledore’s grave. It would have been simple to include this in the movie. Instead, the filmmakers chose for Harry to snap the Elder Wand without using it to mend his first. It was almost like he was giving up magic for good. Granted, he could have gotten a new wand from Olivander later, but the movie gives no hint of him doing that. If you ask me, it’s a large plot hole, one that could have been easily avoided by following the book.
5. One thing that really annoyed me in the movies was the filmmakers’ habit of replacing Dobby with Neville. In Book 4, Dobby begins working at Hogwarts, and he is the one who suggests that Harry use gillyweed to breathe underwater during the Second Task. Since Dobby was completely left out of the fourth movie, the filmmakers had Neville suggest gillyweed instead. Similarly, Dobby tells Harry about the Room of Requirment in the fifth book, but Neville finds the room and tells Harry about it in the movie. I liked Dobby’s character in the book and felt like they should have had him in both of those movies, especially since his death was such an important part of The Deathly Hallows. It seemed very forced for the filmmakers to bring Dobby in at the beginning of Deathly Hallows Part 1 only to kill him at the end.
6. When reading The Goblet of Fire, it is clear that Dumbledore has no choice but to let Harry participate in the Triwizard Tournament. When he first explains how champions are selected, he says that putting one’s name in the Goblet “constitutes a binding, magical contract” and that champions have no choice but to see it through to the end. After Harry is chosen, the five judges discuss ways to remedy the situation, and it is clear that Harry cannot withdraw from the tournament. If that wasn’t the case, the Dumbledore from the books never would have allowed him to be in so much danger. The movies, however, tell a different story.
7. In The Sorcerer’s Stone, Hagrid tells Harry, Ron, and Hermione that Snape is “one of the teachers protecting the stone.” And in the book, this is true. Snape makes it so that black and purple flames trap anyone trying to get the stone in a room. To get out of the room, the person has to solve a riddle to determine which of the seven bottles on the table they should drink from, and if they choose wrong, they might end up drinking poison. In the book, Harry and Hermione come into this room after Ron is injured playing chess, and Hermione solves the riddle. In the movie, Hermione stays with Ron in the chess room and allows Harry to continue alone. He goes directly from the there into the room where Quirrell is staring into the Mirror of Erised. I feel like this is an important change because it leaves the viewer wondering what Snape did to protect the Stone. Was he involved with the Devil’s Snare, the flying keys, or the giant chess set? Why don’t any of those seem like his area of expertise?
Those are seven changes the Harry Potter filmmakers made that I will never figure out. Of course, there are a lot of others that I may post about at another time. What change in the movies made you cringe the most? Leave a comment and let me know. And if you like this post, please subscribe to see more like it.
