Book to Film - Hey, Where did that Scene Go? A Love Note to Disappointed Potter Fans

The Book and Movie Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix are Not the Same

Angelina Rodriguez
Angelina Rodriguez, Yahoo! Contributor Network
Jul 23, 2007 "Share your voice on Yahoo! websites. Start Here."
The book Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix and the film Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix should not be considered as one and the same. Like many Potter fans, I have been disappointed by the reduced primary and secondary character storylines in the film that very much help to make the tale of Potter a magical one. In film, as literary fans have learned, the length and girth of a written story very often must be sacrificed in it's transformation to the silver screen. If a director is any good at his art, however, this will not mean that the fundamental idea of the story will suffer. In fact, it may very well be augmented through his or her film. Case in point: The Lord of the Rings trilogy. As a devoted J.R.R. Tolkien fan, many cut parts and two character alterations bothered me, but I grew to recognize that Peter Jackson's films are a beautiful and successful testimony to the alchemy that can occur when one artist aspires to interpret another artist's work through a different medium. In this way, Jackson's work becomes a meaningful tribute to Tolkien's work.

It is arguable that were the missed scenes and storylines not cut and were they integrated into the film, the end result may still be cohesive and fascinating, although insanely long. However, we must judge whether the inherent idea of the book itself survives unscathed in the film as a whole, and not merely concentrate on what material has been omitted.

Stephen King, among others, is a writer whose books to film have been hit and miss with fans. It's safe to consider that The Green Mile, Apt Pupil, Stand By Me, and The Shawshank Redemption are a few from his oeuvre that made the successful transition into film. Then we have the misses: The Shining (King himself wasn't pleased with the choppy interpretation), Pet Sematary, the Children of the Corn films, etc. Currently there is talk that J.J. Abrams will bring King's prized The Dark Tower books to film; an endeavor which I am hoping will be an inspired re-imagining.

In the end, there will always be a disappointed fan who may not accept that a film and a book are two separate pieces of work; the one an artistic reinterpretation of the other and not a carbon copy. To those fans, after you're done with the inevitable scene by scene film/book dissection, I beseech you to look at these films with a critical cinematic eye. In short, treat them as films. And, if you are in a comparative analysis class that focuses on books that have been made into films, then, by all means, compare away; academically, it can be quite enjoyable to deconstruct for deconstruction's sake.

Published by Angelina Rodriguez

A student of life, I am currently working an 8 to 5 job while I pursue my true interests on the side. I write, I'm a student of dramaturgy, and I love the cinema.  View profile

In an interview Rowling stated, "For the very obvious reason that books and films are such different media, to do a very literal adaptation maybe wouldn't serve the material best..."

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  • Alex Diaz-Granados10/27/2007

    The book-vs.-film version issue is definitely obvious in the Harry Potter series, especially as Rowling's novels get more complex and the volumes become, um, heftier. As you point out in your well-written piece, it's hardly unique, as any reader of the four Tom Clancy novels that Mace Neufeld and Paramount Pictures adapted into film can tell you. They're all good as films, but they take so many liberties with the characters and the chronology that I fail to see how there will be any more Jack Ryan films after 2002's The Sum of All Fears.

    Great piece!

  • robynA911859/19/2007

    I love the Harry Potter films, however, I bought one of them, I think it was the Goblet of Fire at a goodwill for 25 cents, but i tried to sit a read it, but I found it ultimaltely boring. I actually fell asleep a couple of pages in!

  • Kimberly Watson8/9/2007

    I am a rare creature, I think, in that I can treat a book and a film as separate entities, since I LOVE books and strive to have a career in film, both are my world. However, I was unable to really do this well with the current Harry Potter movie. It's not that it wasn't entertaining; it certainly was! It's more that it felt like a very long montage and the filmmakers were just throwing in the best parts of the book to kill time until the battle. I swear, if I hadn't read the book, I'd probably have been a bit lost. Still a nice film, but not terribly cohesive and I don't think it did the book any justice at all. (Except for Umbridge, of course...Imelda Staunton scared the bejesus out of me!)

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