How “Harry Potter” Became the Gold Standard of Film Series Adaptations
The magic of conscientious recreation
Maybe it’s hard not to be a little biased when the first Harry Potter film came out a few months after your fifth birthday, but there’s a magic to these films that extends well beyond the wizardry. Likely no movie series has done more justice to the fantastical world of its source material than the colossal Hogwarts castle and the hallowed grounds around it.
Author J.K. Rowling has attested that the world was brought to life in a way that lived up to her loftiest visions; the recreation of Diagon Alley was the spitting image of the written word. Not many sets are designed as thoughtfully as those that viewers got to know throughout the Harry Potter films.
The series represented a perfect coming together of cast, scenery, and score. It’s a challenge to even talk about Harry Potter without hearing that most famous melody begin to echo. And if you don’t know the one I’m referring to… there’s a good chance you’re not reading Harry Potter-related articles to begin with. By the release of the second movie, though, John Williams’ already enduring musical career would become indelibly intertwined with the family-friendly franchise.
From the whimsy that colored the early films to the measured darkness that slowly crept its way in by its climax, fans like myself got to grow up alongside the characters. We vicariously experienced their world through those books and movies. The release of each new novel in the series was the rare event that had kids lining up outside of book stores. Rabid potter fans feverishly shook where they stood, desperate to flip their way through Rowling’s latest installment. They peaked their heads into the store windows and watched the freshly minted copies get placed onto their proper shelves.
But the opening nights of each new movie were even more frenzied affairs.
Premieres across entire nations saw Potter-costume clad fanatics equipped with scars on foreheads parading through the neon facades of cinemas and into popcorn-scented lobbies. For the multitude of us children who weren’t yet avid readers, the films were escapes that were difficult to parallel.
With the personification of nearly any novel, there are bound to be changes and omissions. Subplots will be missing, characters left out, and narratives altered. But in the case of Harry Potter, the changes made were largely wise ones.
The Harry Potter universe is huge, but not too massive to be fairly encapsulated within the eight separate movies producers were given to work with. Both Tolkien and George R.R. Martin have crafted worlds that are far more unwieldy in nature. The sprawling realms of Middle-Earth and Westeros have both lent themselves to some of the gravest of omissions in being brought to the big screen. Many of those who read the source material for either never quite found pure justice to their beloved novels in the world of cinema.
Game of Thrones managed to capture the grandeur of its historied, Westerosi source material in its first four seasons, but faltered famously by the time it reached the finale. There’s hardly a fan of the books alive willing to speak in defense of the colossal missteps the show’s creators took in their mad dash to the nearest goal post.
It’s true that there’s plenty in the Harry Potter books that didn’t make it to the big screen. But maybe that’s a good thing.
The social controversies that would define so much of Rowling’s post-Potter career had begun poking its head through the surface of even the series’ earliest pages. Her questionable attitudes toward equality culminated in some of the series’ greatest pitfalls. Among the omissions made in adapting the series for film are some parts of her wizarding world that many might prefer to forget.
Throughout the written series, Harry and Ron make their attitudes toward slavery clearly known. And some might be disheartened to learn that this attitude is one of non-committal support at worst and shrugging indifference at best. Throughout the series, the horrible plight of the house elves is one that Harry pays little mind. As Hermione righteously champions their freedom, Harry and Ron can hardly be bothered to participate.
“If they’re happy in their enslavement, what’s the problem?” the two male protagonists more or less reason as they quietly remove their moral champion cloaks. Adapting that part of the plot for the big screen wouldn’t have made for very wholesome family viewing.
From the exclusion of Winky the house elf and the meandering subplots with Nearly Headless Nick and Peeves, there was little that was removed that truly took away from the overall feeling of wonder the franchise had originally instilled in its readers.
Of course, arguable antisemitism did linger in the movies’ depiction of certain creatures, and at least one change in moving between the books and movies wasn’t the most well-received by more religious Potterheads. But I would be inclined to give Rowling and the movie’s creators the benefit of the doubt and concede that there were no racial undertones at all in their portrayal of goblins.
By and large, the four directors that traded batons throughout Harry Potter’s decade long tenure in Hollywood were astute in the changes that they made. Each director brought something wonderful and different to the table in their approach to the blockbuster movies, and each pulled something new from the characters and the world they inhabited.
I can think of likely no more perfect casting in my lifetime than Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson as Harry, Ron and Hermione. Hardly less iconic were Richard Harris and Michael Gambon in the role of Dumbledore, and Alan Rickman, Robbie Coltrane, and Maggie Smith as Professor Snape, Hagrid, and Professor McGonagall—each of which have now tragically passed away.
Everyone involved with the movies have been forever stamped by their roles in them. Their careers have been colored in a way that only the most successful films can manage to do. Though all three of the main triumvirate have gone on to have prolific careers in acting that have stretched well beyond the confines of Rowling’s storied world, for so many of us, they’ll always continue on in our heads as that famed, magical trio.
In an era when film adaptations seem to release on a near-monthly basis, Harry Potter stands as a masterclass in translating the written word to visual spectacle. While films come and go, the Harry Potter series has left a legacy that seems to regain its magnetic appeal anew each passing autumn. And with the wistful arrival of the Hogwarts Express comes the warm blend of narrative, personality, wonder, and imagery that enthralled and enchanted a generation.
Funny, I didn’t see the slavery thing the way you did. Fantasy worlds are full of sub-races doing all the grunt work. It would be surprising if the world of Hogwarts had no such beings.
The interesting part is that it is Hermione who gets up and works toward liberation. Tell me, if there is a character in the books who is J K Rowling's avatar do you really think it is Harry or Ron or Neville?
The movies stripped that out entirely. A good decision in storytelling but a lost opportunity.
I see Rowling as standing up for the exploited, avoiding the fashionable dogma, getting to the real human problems. Her book “The Casual Vacancy” may not have the excitement and colour of Hogwarts or even the dangers and odd characters of her detective fiction, but it has her heart.