Differences between the books and movies

Since the dawn of translating books into movies, there have been many people who have complained ‘that the book is not as good as the movie.’ While that may be true to some extent, there are many reasons why books and movies differ when one is adapted into another.  Some are due to personality and others are due to convenience.  The film I chose, the first Harry Potter, has a great many differences between the film and the book.

The first is pretty obvious. If all the material from the book was put into a movie, the resulting film would be much too long. And so the director chooses the most vital and the most exciting parts. Some characters and plot points may be deleted. For example, Peeves and Pierrs are present in the book, but not in the movies. Seeing as they are pretty minor characters and much of their interactions can be combined into another character, this is pretty necessary.  Not every character contributes the same to a story line and some contribute next to nothing.

Another reason is the appearance of the character. Not one person is going to look exactly like how they are portrayed in the book. Dudley and Petunia were supposed to be blond, but the characters portraying them have brown hair. Most directors would rather have a person who can portray the character well then look exactly like them. And even Harry, though he is described as having black hair, has dark brown hair in the movies. But the director liked the way he portrayed Harry Potter.

As with characters, some scenes are done away with. If you have two scenes that can be accomplished in one, then that one is the one you are going to use. For example, Hagrid, the gamekeeper, acquires a dragon that Harry, Ron and Hermione help him get rid of in the book. However, they end up getting caught. And their detention is to hunt for a unicorn in the Forbidden Forest. This can be shortened, as it was in the movie, they get caught out of their beds and then get sent down to the Forbidden Forest.  This shortened scene accomplishes the same goal, and since the dragon gets sent away with both, nothing is really lost.

A final difference between the book and the movie are the way scenes are carried out. Sometimes what sounds good in a book would look better with a little tweaking. In the book, the two houses, Gryffindor and Slytherin are grouped together for their classes. This was supposed to increase the rivalry between them and since we read plenty of the four houses, it worked. However, in the movie, because the director wanted all four houses to interact together and because the last two houses weren’t really explored, all four houses are present in the class.

And so, there are a great many differences between the book and the movie. Most revolve around condensing a full length novel into a two and a half hour film. While some directors may do it better, which can explain why some of these films are better than others, it is still an incredibly difficult thing to do.

Here are the two websites I used.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone(film), courtesy of a Harry Potter wiki

AngelFire website