Nowadays, more and more films are being made based on the books’ plots. The trend to make movies according to popular books has developed tremendously with the launch of such film projects as The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. It is known that if the viewer first watches a movie and then reads the book it is based on, it will be very difficult to eliminate the images that the director, according to his vision, reflected in the film. One’s imagination ceases to work, and reading is reduced to the reproduction in the mind of already assimilated images. At the same time, one of the most important tasks of literature is to develop the imagination. The reader must do the work of visually recreating the images the author describes. For my essay, I chose the movie and the book Harry Potter, which differ in many aspects, such as the plot, the details of the narrative, and the representation of the main characters.
The movie Harry Potter is a great illustration of the book. All the actors are perfectly chosen, and the main characters have the same characteristics as the author of the book wrote about. The plot twists and turns are mostly consistent with the source material. The boy’s story, life journey, and experiences are described in the original version. He also goes to a wizarding school and finds friends and enemies. Harry develops his abilities, gets into difficult situations, and gets out of them with agility. Furthermore, the author and director of the book describe him as a brave, kind, and courageous boy.
Although the idea and the main points are the same, there was much controversy. Readers and viewers had a completely different understanding of the story because “Harry Potter” is full of screaming inconsistencies. The first difference in the plot is that the movie omits the entire first chapter of the book when wizards around the world meet and raise their glasses to the surviving boy. Instead, the movie shows Professor Albus Dumbledore and Professor Minerva McGonagall meeting, and then the events of Harry’s hapless relatives begin to unfold.
The next difference concerning this aspect is that the movie omitted important details about the creation of the Marauder’s Map. However, the book does say that Tail (Peter Pettigrew), working for the Dark Lord, was the Keeper of the Potter Mystery (Kostelej and Bagić 19). After all, he was one of those who had a hand in creating the magical thing. It was through him that Voldemort found James and Lily that ill-fated night and Sirius had nothing to do with it. Another difference is that the professor effortlessly shakes his hand when Harry meets Professor Quirrell in Diagon Alley in the first book (Kostelej and Bagić 19). However, he politely refuses to make contact with Harry in the movie. This is troubling, for he could only burn his palms if Voldemort had already taken possession of his flesh (Kostelej and Bagić 28). Furthermore, that happened after the Philosopher’s Stone was discovered.
The next aspect of comparison are the details of the narrative. Harry’s farewell to Dudley looks dramatic in the book, and the reader even begins to feel compassion for the boy raised by such stingy and arrogant parents. On the other hand, the film deprived the audience of this emotion, thus distorting the relationship between the boys. The next difference is that the books explore the story of Tom Riddle becoming the ruthless Voldemort in much greater depth. According to the movie version, the dark lord is just an orphan with a penchant for evil.
Nevertheless, the novels show that his fate is incredibly complicated and creepy. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Albus Dumbledore showed Harry a memory of the Mrax family. In the flashback, Potter saw the home of Marvolo Mrax, Voldemort’s grandfather (Kostelej and Bagić 25). The Mraxes lived poor, having used up their wealth over several generations. However, the most important detail readers learned was that Tom Riddle’s father was under the influence of a love potion, so the future dark lord lost his capacity for love at birth. Marvolo Mrax’s hut later became where Voldemort hid one of his Horcruxes, which Dumbledore found a few years later (Kostelej and Bagić 20). These details change the villain’s perception, which is impossible to achieve based on the movie.
The third aspect of comparison is the representation of the characters. Several times in the film, the audience hears phrases indicating incredible heredity; it is claimed that Harry has his mother’s eyes. Rowling rewarded Lily with a green shade of eyes if we believed the manuscripts. However, the screen shows Harry as a blue-eyed boy, which may mislead people who have read the book. Another difference is that some of Dobby’s merits were attributed to Neville in the movie. For example, the house elf was the one who got the gill for Harry during the Tournament of Three Wizards. However, the film’s writer let his classmate do it, and the same thing happened with the Room of Requirement.
Thus, the book “Harry Potter” and its film adaptation have many differences, but there are also similarities. This can be frustrating and misleading for people who read the story in the book version first and then watch the movie. However, given that the book’s author and the film’s director are two different people, it can be understood that it is impossible to achieve a complete identity. People have different views and can implement ideas differently, which is a significant factor when comparing these narrative versions.
Work Cited
Kostelej, Martin, and Marina Bagić Babac. “Text Analysis Of The Harry Potter Book Series.” South Eastern European Journal of Communication 4.1 (2022): 17-30.