The thing about the
Harry Potter movies is this: by every account they were a staggering success. The fact all seven (or eight) films even got made, with largely the same cast all the way through, is a miracle in and of itself. But to be made to the level of quality they were made, to have been such triumphs both artistically and financially… there’s nothing to say to Warner Bros. about the
Harry Potter films, really, aside from, “Good lookin’ out, WB. Good lookin’ out.”
But I am a very big fan of the Harry Potter books. And because I’m a big stupid fan, I CLEARLY HAVE SOME PROBLEMS WITH THESE VERY SUCCESSFUL AND WELL-DONE MOVIES! Because that’s what big stupid fans do: complain about stuff that was made ENTIRELY FOR US, no matter how good or bad that stuff is.
My problems are not the usual problems; at least TWO of my problems are in actuality the opposite of problems and will likely make other Harry Potter fans think I’m big and stupid but not necessarily a fan. So consider yourself warned, and here we go!
PROBLEM 1.) The Plots Stick Too Damn Close to the Books
I know, I know. If anything, the biggest fans of the novels complain that the films leave out several key story elements from the books: several of the trips into Dumbledore’s Pensieve that make up a large chunk of Half-Blood Prince are naught to be found in the film, the literary version of Hermione solves a potion challenge in the climatic moments of Sorcerer’s Stone that the cinematic version never gets a crack at, the house-elf rights movement S.P.E.W. from Goblet of Fire doesn’t get its proper due on celluloid… okay, so maybe not all the omissions were bad.
Look, JK Rowling does many things very well, and one of them is this: she sure can weave the stuffing out of a plot. The
Harry Potter books are mystery novels in fantasy clothing; the plots are as intricate as any you’ll find in “children’s” literature, turning back and folding in on themselves over and over again. And she didn’t restrict her twists to playing in their individual books: there were things she quietly set-up in
Sorcerer’s Stone that didn’t pay off until
Deathly Hallows. That must have been one hell of an outline she was working from.
So you’ll see why so much of that extraneous stuff was cut from the films: the central plot of each book, even when trimmed, would take at least two-and-a-half hours to unspool. Here, though, is the problem: the books aren’t popular because of the plots.
There are other things Rowling does even better than plot. (Rest assured, film-but-not-book Potter fans, the reason Harry was ultimately able to survive against Voldemort, i.e. “his mother really really loved him”, is just as pause-inducing in the books as it is in the movies.) She creates fully three-dimensional characters that her readers fall in love with; her supporting cast is rivaled only by that of The Simpsons in terms of breadth and nuance. She world-builds as well as most any contemporary author in fantasy or science-fiction. And finally, as she has said in regards to the inevitable comparisons between she and J.R.R. Tolkien, “I think I have better jokes.” Humor. There is a remarkable lightness and sense of humor in the Harry Potter novels.
These are the things that got pushed out of the way to make room for the plots.
The books are worldwide phenomenons not because of the magic or the adventure or the good vs. evil, but because more than anything else Rowling crafted a fully-realized world full of people her readers dearly loved and wanted to spend as much time with as they could. The comforts of that world, the everyday appeals, were the things the films left out because the plots were so all-encompassing. The legions of Potter fans don’t necessarily want to fight Voldemort or solve riddles (pun intended). They want, more than anything else, simply to go to Hogwarts and hang out with Harry, Ron, Hermione, and all the rest of them. And by impractically crafting a succession of plots that began in late summer and ended in early spring, that’s exactly what JKR allowed her readers to do, in every book, for one full school year.
Except for in Deathly Hallows, where a year at Hogwarts was replaced with hundreds and hundreds of pages worth of lonely camping in the Scottish countryside.
Whee.
PROBLEM 2.) Man, That’s A Scary-Looking Candy Shoppe
One of the great things about the Harry Potter novels is that it casts Harry, particularly in the early tomes, in the great fantasy archetype of the everyman. He’s Arthur Dent, only being thrust into a hidden society of magic instead of into a galaxy of illogical logic. What makes that read all the more enjoyable is that while he is overwhelmed by the amazing things around him, the rest of the wizarding world takes as normal what he experiences as magical. So that’s why the production design of the films, particularly from Prisoner of Azkaban on, riles me right up!
I get it. You’re an art designer, you’re given a chance to unleash your talent on one of the most popular brands in the world, to design new realms of magic and adventure and shopping (there’s a lot of stores in the world of Harry Potter), and you go right on and tap into your inner Tim Burton; the weirder the better. But let’s imagine, for a moment, that you are a wizard who has to live in this world. Acclimated to your surroundings or not, this place is going to scare the leaving bejeesus out of you. Basic human psychology tells us that we, as a species, react in very primal ways to external stimuli. We like bright places and rounded edges; they make us feel safe. The world of the Harry Potter films is angular, dark, and twisted, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis meets Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. It destroys the illusion that any human being, magical or not, could ever live a normal life that didn’t involve them curled up in a fetal position in the corner of the room sobbing in uncontrollable fits, at least twice a day, and once more at tea-time. I mean, they ARE British, after all.
So these first two very picky and very debatable points are somewhat related: the movies veered too much on the side of the dark and the dreary and failed to give us the brightness of the novels, leaving out the juxtaposition that left the dark moments all the more powerful. That’s a taste and style thing. This third point, I’m going to give you fair warning, is really pretty douchey and I apologize in advance for that.
PROBLEM 3.) Nothing Says “One True Love” Like a Borderline Emotionless Automaton
Ginny Weasley, youngest of the Weasley children, eventual love of Harry Potter’s life. Ginny is short changed in the books: appearing for a few lines in Sorcerer, getting possessed by Voldemort in Chamber of Secrets, pretty much sitting out the entirety of Azkaban and Goblet, re-emerging as a spitfire in Order of the Phoenix, serving very little purpose in Prince other than giving Harry someone to moon over and eventually swap spit with, and then sharing Harry some PG birthday lovin’ in Deathly Hallows before being stuck in the background while Harry, Ron, and Hermione go on the most irritating literary camping trip of all time. JKR wasn’t writing romance novels, we get it. But Ginny is the love of the hero’s life. She’s the motivation that keeps him from going off with Dumbledore the White for a ride on the cloud train to beyond. Can’t we get to know her a little bit? Besides to be shown repeatedly that she’s “feisty”? It’s practically the only time JKR fails to give a character the treatment they deserve. Hell, Cornelius Fudge gets more page-time than Ginny.
BUT… if book Ginny gets handed the short end of the stick, movie Ginny gets beaten over the head with it. And who’s fault is it? Two words: Bonnie Wright, the actress who portrayed Ginny with all the emotional intensity of a Swiffer. A Dry Swiffer.
It’s not cool to dump on a teenage actress (now in her 20’s, but a teen at the time) who was cast as small child seemingly because she had red hair and precocious big eyes. How was Sorcerer director Chris Columbus to know that this girl would grow up to shack up with Harry “I Totally Broke the Bro Code My Bad Ron” Potter? But I’ve worked with teenage actresses on many occasions who could act the crap out of Ginny, take a character like that and go to town with it, and instead we got Bonnie Wright, graduate with honors from “The Natalie Portman Star Wars School of Disinterested Acting.” Ginny is the rare character in the HP films that doesn’t get the “my God they got that casting absolutely right!” treatment. Instead, she gets the “I’m supposed to believe Harry fell in love with HER instead of with Emma Watson? Magic I’m cool with, buy my suspension of disbelief can only be stretched so far!” treatment. I mean, c’mon. We got a new Dumbledore when Richard Harris passed. We couldn’t get a new Ginny when Bonnie Wright never showed up?
Okay, that was me being super harsh to a teenage girl, which is probably a sign I should take off my fan hat now and call this column quits. So I’ll end with this: no matter what I or anybody else says in criticism of the Harry Potter films, the fact remains they are loved by millions and have made gazillions. In spite of any perceived flaws, if they make as many people as happy as they have than they quite obviously they work just fines. It’s just like the Twilight novels which, for all their critics and criticisms, clearly struck a societal chord and were also a massively successful film and literary phenomenon.
The difference here being that Harry Potter is hella awesome, and Twilight absolutely one-hundred percent sucks.
Tom Hoefner is a playwright, theatre director, college professor, and “maybe someday I’ll get published someday” novelist living in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter. He promises that next week’s column will be about superheroes. Seriously. You have his word.
The thing about the Harry Potter movies is this: by every account they were a staggering success. The fact all seven (or eight) films even got made, with largely the same cast all the way through, is a miracle in and of itself. But to be made to the level of quality they were made, to have been such triumphs both artistically and financially… there’s nothing to say to Warner Bros. about the Harry Potter films, really, aside from, “Good lookin’ out, WB. Good lookin’ out.”
