10 Harry Potter Movie Changes That Went Too Far
From sidelined love interests to Ron's ruined role, what were the worst changes from book to film?
Every film adaptation requires hard decisions on the part of the creators, since even the biggest budget movie has a limited runtime in which to turn a novel into a cinematic experience and thus must cut at least a few subplots in order to avoid hitting the four-hour mark.
As a result, favourite minor characters are often relegated to the ignominy of single scene cameos, if not cut entirely, whilst complex plots are cut down for the sake of clarity.
Perhaps one of the most famously controversial cases of this is the Harry Potter novels (calm down Game of Thrones fans, we said “one of”).
Author/ much-maligned Twitter scourge JK Rowlings’s mega-successful young adult franchise was always guaranteed to do big business at the box office, but the films which realized the writer’s work varied wildly in style and tone, and many fans were annoyed by even the necessary divergences these movies made from the source material.
Some fans were simply victims of their own outsized expectations, but some were right to be annoyed as the changes made by the films were not only unnecessary to the films but went way too far in rewriting the series. With that in mind, here are ten changes in the Harry Potter movies which fans were right to hate.
10. An Angrier Dumbledore
Veteran actor Richard Harris’ critically acclaimed depiction of Hogwarts principal professor Dumbledore won over both book fans and film viewers with its warm-hearted charm, but unfortunately the actor’s untimely passing meant the role was recast after Home Alone director Chris Columbus’ first two instalments.
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover villain Michael Gambon may have seemed like an odd casting choice, but the more gruff and taciturn iteration of the character soon developed an identity of his own.
Despite this, there were a few infamous incidents in which Gambon’s portrayal took too many liberties. Chief amongst these was Dumbledore’s calm questioning of Harry after the Goblet of Fire produces his name becoming a barnstorming interrogation.