20 Biggest Things The Harry Potter Movies Left Out
9. The Sphinx And The Acromantula In The Maze
In The Book
The third task of the Tri-Wizard Tournament was no mere maze, it featured a significant number of threats and potential pitfalls as one would expect from a tournament that had previously unleashed dragons on children. First, the competitors encountered a Blast-Ended Skrewt, which almost did Harry and Cedric in, then Harry meets a Boggart and encounters a golden mist that turns things inside out.
Only at that point does he reach the Sphinx, a mythical beast stopping his progress, which asks him a riddle:
First think of the person who lives in disguise,Who deals in secrets and tells naught but lies. Next, tell me what's always the last thing to mend, The middle of middle and end of the end? And finally give me the sound often heard, During the search for a hard-to-find word. Now string them together and answer me this, Which creature would you be unwilling to kiss?
The answer is a spider, foreshadowing that the final creature in the maze is a spider - or an Acromantula, specifically.
In The Film
Pretty much none of this happens in the film sadly - there's some Devil's Snare, which Harry rescues Cedric from, but the perils are strangely underplayed.
Was It A Positive Cut?
Not at all. The maze in the book sounded amazing, and lived up to the billing of the final task (plus it gave Not Mad-Eye a chance to manipulate the maze to Harry's advantage). The removal of the final two parts of the maze - and particularly the Sphinx - was just wholly unnecessary.
Perhaps it was for budgetary reasons, but this was supposed to be the grand finale of the maze, and Harry and Cedric were supposed to build a rapport surviving that made the latter's death even more cutting.