Harry Potter is one of the most famous and influential movies throughout the world. Harry potter has total eight series. First harry potter series, “The sorcerer’s stone” was released in 1997 and eighth one “the deathly hallow” was released in 2011. At that moment when the last movie came out, Harry Potter series became the second highest grossing film of all time. Totally, the movies grossed more than $7.7 billion worldwide as well as the books have made just as much.
Harry Potter films are very well known while the fact is that all eight series of the movies are based off the best selling novels by J.K.Rowling who has been named the world’s richest author, with a net worth of $1 billion. If you were to read and watch both the books and films, you would find a wide range of differences from small scenes to huge plot changes. Which is better? Let’s compare.
First of all, books Harry Potter characters’ appearances are somehow more humorous than they are in the movies. Books Harry had always been skinny and small for his age. Harry also has very messy hair rather than straight which the description gives audience an impression that main character Harry Potter is a boy who shares common with us, therefore, not so special at all. The major difference is the bright green eyes which Books Harry has inherited from his mother, Lily. However, movie harry played by Daniel Radcliffe has blue eyes. Books Ron is tall and thin guy with freckles and he has a long nose while Rupert Grint has neither. Books Hermione played by Emma Watson has bushy brown hair and large front teeth. On the other hand, the impression which Emma’s appearance gives audience is rheter too perfect due to her beauty and well balanced facial profile.
Differences in the characters’ appearance don’t affect much criticism on which (books or movies) are better to enjoy the Harry Potter world more. However, readers would noticed many scenes and details are left out in the movies which makes story vague and sometimes even makes no sense. I will introduce the best three most significant differences between books and movies. Which I suppose would probably make everybody think the books might be more enjoyable with a lot of details than the movies.
Number three, relationship between a house elf Dobby (first appears in Harry Potter and Secret Chamber) and Harry Potter is more detailed in books but not in movie. From 5:00 “10 Shocking Differences Between the Harry Potter Movies and Books”, the video points out that house elves play vital roles in books but they are mostly unscreened in movies. In fact, Dobby helps and protects Harry in many scenes that are entirely cut off in movies. For instance, Harry commands Dobby to chase Malfoy around Hogwarts because he doubted that Malfoy tries to commit something unethical to support Voldemort. Until Dobby was killed in the “Deathly Hallow”, he appeared in all books series except for “Prison of Azkaban” and it is very clear that Dobby had a deep relationship of trust with Harry like the image shows below. However, in the movies, Dobby never shows up since appearing in “the Secret Chamber” until “the Deathly Hallows Part 1”. Despite poor development of the character, Dobby’s death is taken up as a climax of “Deathly Hallows Part 1”. From those who have not read the original, there is a question remains why the death of Dobby was so necessary to Harry.
Number two, Voldemort is a descendant to Salazar Slytherin who is one of the founder of Hogwarts school. The important background information about Voldemort and his relationship to Slytherin was cut off entirely in “Harry Potter and Half Blood Prince.” Image shows left is Tom Riddle (young Voldemort) when he was a students in Hogwarts school. While the cause why Tom Riddle-Voldemort ran to the dark world was told in detail in the book, it seems a bit difficult to know who Tom Riddle was from the movie. Which makes the entire story very thin because the movie lacked to provide humanity to antagonist. Without those information, the story seems to make sense, but it turns out to be just a story about fighting between dark power (Voldemort) and Harry Potter who was referred to as the chosen one.
Number one, Nevil Longbottom could be a chosen one according to the prophery. From 1:50 “8 Harry Potter Moments that are so much better in the Books” one of the most shocking facts is that Neville Longbottom could be the chosen one instead of Harry Potter. Prophecy told, a boy who knocks down the emperor of the dark at the end of July will be born to his parents opposed against the Emperor three times. Harry Potter, in fact, is the chosen one but he was not the only one applicable to the prophecy. Harry’s classmate Neville also could be the chosen one. First part of prophecy explains how Harry was chosen. Second part was “Neither can live while the other survives….”, it gives a reason why Harry need to fight to Voldemort. The image below is from the scene Harry notices his secret regarding to his survival for the first time. While the character Nevil Longbottom is well developed as a cowardly boy who turns to stands up to Voldemort in the movie, there was simply no time to give explanation to the prophecy in the movie the order of phoenix.
By cutting a lot of scenes down, it sometimes makes the character’s emotion non visible. For example, in the Order of the Phoenix, not only did the film didn’t give enough time to process the death of Sirius Black, they cut the scene where Harry takes his frustration out on Dumbledore. Harry lost Sirius who was Harry’s step uncle and the person he trusted the most. Those deleted parts are important for audience to appeal to Harry’s emotion and get really into Harry’s mind.
The book is able to have a very profound way of keeping the reader entertained by having many exciting chapters, and the movie tries to keep the story exciting by deleting some chapters that the producer considered “not so important” to the story line. On the other hand, the movie is shortened in a way of learning all the basics of the story and in an exciting visual way. The fact is that all of the chapters and all of the parts of the chapters were important to the storyline because without that extra information the reader is left without a feeling of complete knowledge of the plot.
The image above is a data from research on most popular books and movies in different ages. In age of 18 to 29, harry potter movies are the most popular and the movies are still the third most popular one in age of 30 to 44. On the other hand, Harry Potter is ranked in as the second most popular book in age of 18 to 29. Moreover, based on the data from below images Which if the following books have you read and which of the following movies have you watched almost double, 54 % of population answered they have watched movies Harry Potter before while nearly half of the population only 26 % answered they have read books Harry Potter. It seems movies are more well supported by more population from wider generations.
The reason why movies are more popular than books in general is because movies are more accessible to the majority of population. For example, whenever people hang out with their friends, watching a movie is enjoyable and also doesn’t take as much time. After the movie, they can share opinions with friends easily and look back to specific scenes that they liked. Books make those communications harder. Watching a movie is an social opportunity while books can be very antisocial. Moreover, movies are more visually appealing and bring books to real life. In fact, there are more people who have watched one or more harry potter movies than who have read books. However, based on data that image below shows, 45 % of the people who watch the movies and read the books say that books are normally better than movies while only 5 % of them say they prefer watching movies over reading books. I believe the same trend can be applied to Harry Potter. Despite the fact of more popularness of Harry Potter Movies, people would say Harry Potter Books are better after they finish reading all eight series.
Not only those scenes that I picked, but there are a lot more details that people never realize from watching the movies. In other words, books are so detailed that it’s simply not possible to include everything in a movie which is understandable due to the time restrain and budget. Harry Potter is actually much deeper than what it is on the movies. Therefore, for people who have only seen the movies in the past and loved them, I highly recommend to read books too. The books are better than the movies because it lets me get more into the story and free my mind apart from the real world to the incredible magic world.