There is a point in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince when Ginny Weasley bends down to tie Harry Potter’s shoelace at The Burrow. While watching it in the movie theatre, I wanted to fling up my hands in despair and yell, “What! Why?!”
You will not find that stupid scene in the books. Not even if you were to use a Revealer (that bright red eraser that makes invisible writing visible). Ginny in the books wouldn’t tie anyone’s shoelaces, she may actually trip them instead.
Few movies can do justice to a book series, especially one as rich as JK Rowling’s Harry Potter novels. As a reader, I have definitive ideas of how Hogwarts and its moving staircases should look, whether Cedric Diggory resembles Edward Cullen (no, he does not), and how the Mandrakes cry when pulled out of the soil. A friend and I had a really long argument over the pronunciation of Sirius – she insisted it is Cyrus, and I couldn’t believe she was “serious”. (I won, in case you were wondering.)
All of us have versions of our beloved books in our heads. Some adaptations, such as the Game of Thrones series, come close to doing justice to their literary roots. This match is possible in a television show that stretches over several episodes instead of being scrunched up into 120-minute editions. Conversely, the Percy Jackson films were pretty much a disaster when compared to Rick Riordan’s funny and fantastic books.
For Potterheads, there’s always the tussle between endlessly discussing how the movies are not a patch on the books while devouring them just to get one more gulp of the wizarding world. The movies have been a means of remembering and revisiting the books that we all love. Without the movies, Alan Rickman would not have been seared in our collective memory as Severus Snape.
Movie adaptations of popular books tend to set the dominant visual cues for fans. The younger generation will always think of Daniel Radcliffe when they think about The Boy Who Lived, rather than Jim Kay or Mary GrandPré’s illustratations in the novels. Be it the figurines or the colouring books, they are all based on the movies. Even the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in America and Harry Potter World in London are tours organised by the producer, the Warner Bros studio.
Potterheads have their absolute favourite scenes from the books that have often been ruthlessly cut on the editing table. For instance, where is the wonderful story behind the Marauder’s Map, and how can Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire even proceed without telling us that the hack Rita Skeeter is an unregistered Animagus? Don’t even get me started on how easy the labyrinth was in the final task in the Triwizard Tournament.
One of my pet peeves has to be the fact that the filmmakers reduced Ron Weasley to a sidekick. In the books, he has all the funny lines and he is loyal to a fault. His insecurities, on the other hand, reveal his vulnerable side, something that is completely glossed over in the films. That is why we should never judge the book by its movie.
