I feel like I just waded through a horrific war. Oh wait, I just read from “The Sorcerer’s Stone” clear through to “The Deathly Hallows”!
That is what reading a good book is supposed to do.
It certainly isn’t like when Harry Potter “entered” Tom
Riddle’s diary and learned of the night Riddle accused Hagrid of killing Myrtle,
or rather Hagrid’s pet Arogog, though that manner was a fascinating idea, it
doesn’t quite work that way.
Sometimes I wish I could do that. Since I’m such a slow reader, I
wouldn’t mind being able to “watch” what happened instead. The only problem is
that movies do not follow the book very closely, and the later HP movies are quite
frankly horrendous in how far from the facts they deviate!
I have never actually finished watching the movies. It was
bad enough when they introduced those stupid talking shrunken heads in “Prisoner
of Azkaban,” and taking Dobby’s big part out “Goblet of Fire” and giving it to
Neville? (Outrageous!) But the beginning of . . . you know what, I can’t remember
which one it was but it started with that made up scene where Harry was
chatting up that waitress in that café and Dumbledore showed up? Where did that
idea come from?
All of the books at or near the beginning had Harry
either arriving at or leaving number 4 Privet Drive. All the movies should have
started there! And again, what’s with the stupid shrunken heads?
Yes, I do know that the books are way too detailed, especially
the later ones, not every detail can fit in the movies. I can understand taking Norbert
out, I can understand the all-out effort to shorten the script, what I can’t
understand is adding in stuff that’s not in the book!
Okay, so maybe it was easier to let Neville have the role
the fake Mad-Eye intended him to have in Harry getting through the second task just so Dobby doesn’t have to be there, but then you add in that frantic scene
where Neville thinks his idea didn’t work and Harry drowned! Why?
I don’t know, maybe it could have worked that way because
the fake Mad-Eye did give Neville that book with that intention in mind, but well,
think about it. Harry knew Neville, they slept in the same dorm room, but that
was all. The most you could say was that they were acquainted with each other.
And frankly, who confides in people they barely know? Certainly
not Harry, who only asked his closest friends.
Rowling may have had the fake Mad-Eye giving Neville that
book (And quite frankly I was sure the first time I read about it that there
was something important about that book, after all, why would a DADA teacher
give a student a herbology book?) but Harry would never have asked Neville for
help!
It was far more likely for Harry to get help from Dobby then
to ask Neville for it. Of course, he didn’t ask Dobby either. Dobby offered his
help! After being freed by Harry, Dobby was constantly asking what he could do
for him, while on the other hand, Neville would never have asked if he could
help, well anyone, at that point in the saga Neville thought he was all but
worthless.
Who with that low of self-esteem would have offered their
help to anyone? Especially someone at the top of their class, when they are closer
to the bottom?
All authors have to realistic. Rowling was being realistic. End of discussion.
Though, after seeing the very first movie (having read the
first several times by the date) I know for sure if I was an English teacher
and my class was reading that book, I would make sure you can only answer the test questions correctly
if you read the book. Even better I'd word it just so that if you only
watched the movie, you’d get the answer wrong!
And for any of you kids out there who still think they can just watch the movie, there are lots of details that are totally incorrect in the movies. I promise, and I’ve only compared a few movies to the books they are based on, not just HP. I wouldn’t count on that if I were you.
Actually, I’ve yet to watch a movie based on a book that was anywhere near as good as the book. The books were always ten times better than the movies. And frankly, I liked some of those movies.
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