My Favorite Changes in the Harry Potter Movies

Posted by tspofnutmeg on July 27, 2015 in Books, Movies, Opinion | Leave a comment

By: Meg Humphrey

I recently binge watched the Harry Potter movies before embarking on my boyfriend’s first journey to the written world of Hogwarts (he had seen the movies, but hasn’t read the books). Here are my happy-face thoughts about what the movies made their own.

Neville gave Harry the gillyweed for the second Triwizard Task. Dobby is fine in the books, but his movie outcome left me with only slightly more positive feelings about him than Jar Jar Binks. Plus, with taking SPEW out of storyline, it didn’t make much sense to have Dobby pop up to do just this one thing. Having Neville come up with the answer to Harry’s underwater problem was a smart switch as readers of the books know he is good at herbology.

Remus didn’t offer to come with Harry to hunt horcruxes. This part is too painful to bear. Harry wasn’t the only one hurting from Sirius’ death. You don’t see the depth of Remus and Sirius’ friendship as the movies leave out the background of Remus’ past and why the three friends became animagus in the first place. Coupled with Remus’ worries about his future son, he tries to run away from his problems and throw himself into harm’s way, like Sirius or James would have done. The scolding he gets from Harry is well deserved, but not something I wanted to see on screen.

SPEW didn’t exist. I like some of the things that come from Hermione’s SPEW campaign – seeing the magic of the kitchens and the lead up to Ron and Hermione’s first kiss, for example. But overall, it wasn’t that important to the plot line, especially considering that Winky the house elf did not appear in the movie and Barty Crouch Sr.’s actions in the events that take place during The Goblet of Fire were down played to almost nothing.

Professor McGonagall’s “I’ve always wanted to use that spell!” This is just such a wonderful added line for Minerva. The banter between herself and Neville about explosives is also a great dialogue to show how much she has paid attention to all of her students throughout the years. She’s truly shining as you see her first steps into taking up the role of Headmistress of Hogwarts.
Neville’s speech to Voldemort. Can you tell I love Neville? Although I’m not a huge fan of how they change the course of Nagini’s death in Deathly Hallows Part 2 (for a minute, I was convinced they were going to have Hermione kill Nagini and I would have been livid), I do like the changed dialogue. In the book, Neville’s actions are immensely brave, but he doesn’t have the moving words. They reverse it in the movie where the action is played down, but he’s given a line that chokes me up every time I hear it: “Harry’s heart did beat for us, for all of us.”

What were some changes from the books to the movies that you enjoyed?