10 Reasons The Harry Potter Movies Were A Massive Waste Of Potential

There were allusions throughout the books to the time period they were set in, but it wasn't until The Deathly Hallows that J.K. Rowling confirmed in print when the events were taking place; Harry was born in 1980, placing the events of the books in 1990-97. The reason for this was rather simple; as she'd conceived of Harry Potter in '97, it meant that she was working in a known timeline and didn't have to worry about any outside, real world influences getting in the way of her story.

Whether this was made explicitly clear to the movie's directors or not hasn't been revealed, but there was, right from the first film, no attempt to place the films in the same era; each movie was set broadly in the year it was released, seen best in Dudley's raft of presents in The Philosopher's Stone and the destruction of the Millennium Bridge (which, as the name suggests, wasn't built until years after the book events are over) in The Half-Blood Prince.

It may seem a rather inconsequential decision; after all, most of Harry Potter is set in Hogwarts, which exists in some sort of idyllic 19th Century, so the only real effect is making the adults ten years older than they should be. However, reading the books armed with this knowledge, the story becomes incredibly reflective of period and culture (the Prime Minister Fudge visits at the start of Book 6 is clearly meant to be Blair), something the films ditch in favour of a generic Hollywood Britain.