Book to Movie: Harry Potter – What’s The Difference?

I guess it was only a matter of time. CineFix have finally gotten around to comparing the Harry Potter series of books to the movies. This is part 1 of 3. Grab a butterbeer and enjoy.

Truth be told, I had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the Harry Potter series. I disliked the first film – it was clearly made for children – and could not be convinced that this phenomenon was anything more than overhyped rubbish.

Yeah, I was wrong.

It was after the movie series took on the darker and more adult tone that I became interested. I decided to see what all the fuss was about and began reading; an easy thing to do since my wife had the books in our collection. I loved the books, reading the final two on our honeymoon.

With the fandom surrounding the books, this was always going to be a series that was as faithful to the source material as possible. Last thing you want to do is piss off a bunch of kids you’re planning to milk for the next decade with film, merchandise, and costume sales. Even though the CineFix guys talk about the first three films being largely faithful adaptations, I can think of a few minor points that were glossed over in the movies, such as the Phoenix tears healing all wounds. That moment in the film seemed to smack of deux ex machina, unless you had read the books. And that is a liberty you aren’t meant to be able to take with adaptations, as the reading audience is always smaller than the movie audience… usually.

I’m looking forward to the other instalments in this book versus movie comparison, as they may explain why the movies made some of the changes they did.