Ever since the third Harry Potter movie came out in 2003, I have been longing for an HBO Harry Potter series. The first two movie adaptations while not perfect, were faithful enough that I was still pleased (You can read some of my thoughts on the movies here, where I ranked the movies from worst to best adaptations.) It’s with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban that I thought the movies started to go off the rails, even if it’s the best of the adaptations in many other ways. This feeling has only grown through the butchering of Goblet of Fire, Order of the Phoenix, and Half-Blood Prince. The amount of times me and my fellow book reader friends would yearn for a faithful version of the books that is longer and well done must have been in the hundreds. And now our moment as long time book readers comes at last. Finally, we are promised a worthy and faithful adaptation of the books! But will HBO deliver? Here are my top ten (but by no means only) things I want to see fixed in the new series.
- More “Magic:” The earlier movies excelled at this. The moment when we see the Leaky Cauldron’s brick wall turn into Diagon Alley is spectacular. The first shots of Hogwarts and Platform 9 and 3/4 are amazing. The magical classes are spooky looking and also fun. But we see less and less of the actual “magic” in the books in the movies. Our characters increasingly wear Muggle clothes. We barely see magical classes in movies 4 and on. I want to see Apparition lessons! I want to see magical classes and magical fighting and Quidditch.
2. Book Accurate Characterizations: this is one of my biggest issue with the movies. Some characters (Hagrid, Lucius Malfoy, McGonagall, Movie 1-2 Dumbledore) are perfect representations of the characters I love so much on screen. But many of the characters were not adapted correctly. Sassy!Harry is one of my favorite aspects of Harry himself, and we get little flavors of him once in a while, but generally Harry is boring and beige. Give me “there’s no need to call me sir, Professor” and inject it into my veins! Then there’s Hermione, who is too perfect, almost a Mary Sue, when book Hermione is flawed in wonderful ways. Ron is a way cleverer character who is ride-or-die for Harry, not solely comic relief. Dumbledore should be a wise, mostly serene, and enigmatic figure that comforts and vaguely scares us. Snape should be Rickman-esque, yes, but Snape also is a bully, petty, and mean to innocent people like Neville, not a wronged hero. The complexity is what makes Snape amazing as a character, and that complexity was mostly removed in the movies. Then we get to the absolute disasters that were movie Ginny and Movie Sirius. I’ll save the Sirius rant to my next point, but I think almost everyone agrees that Movie Ginny was done dirty (and Ginny is one my least favorite characters, so I can only imagine how awful the movies were for Ginny stans.)
3. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs The reason I can’t rank Prisoner of Azkaban as the best in the movie series is for change number 3 that I’m begging for. I LOVE the Marauders. I love their backstory. I find all four of them (yes even Peter) to be so intriguing and complex as characters. And they were reduced to half assed explanations, Grima Wormtongue makeup, bully James, and boring ass Sirius. Remus is the only character that is done right, and that’s mainly in the third movie, where he’s adapted with respect and care, and not sidelined. I need the explanation of Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs. I need the Animagus/werewolf explanations. I need the map explained. I need to see and hear about James’s good side, not just his moments of youthful jerkitude. I NEED SNAPE’S WORST MEMORY. GIVE IT TO ME! And above all, I need to see how interesting, layered, and complex Book Sirius is. Not a boring, smart guy who can’t tell Harry and James apart. (And Sirius better be hot. It’s canon!)
4.Weasley Family Antics I do think the movies did a decent job overall with the Weasleys, apart from Charlie, Percy, and Bill being almost erased from the narrative and the “bleh” of movie Ginny. (In retrospect, that’s a lot of ‘buts.’) However, I don’t want Charlie erasure! I want the Percy fight and makeup with his family! I want Bill to pop up being interesting from time to time. I want a fiery Ginny. Even more than that, I need more twins. Give me Arthur Weasley and Lucius Malfoy getting into a brawl. Rip out my heart with Fred’s death done properly. Give me more Weasleys!
5. Voldemort/Riddle Backstory One of the most egregious errors of Half Blood Prince was the butchering of Voldemort’s backstory/the Horcruxes. Show me that Tom Riddle was charming and manipulative but a monster underneath, like Chamber of Secrets did. The movie did a half hearted attempt at the flashbacks, but more were cut (and the ones they included were short and somewhat butchered.) I want Riddle to be interesting, charming, and terrifying. Give me him manipulating people and murdering and stealing. I want the Gaunt backstory, the origin stories, how and why he murdered his own father and grandparents.
6. S.P.E.W. Dobby, and the House Elves A controversial choice of mine, perhaps, but I always adored Dobby, and the movies did him so right that everyone was sobbing at his death after only two movies. Imagine if they adapted him properly this time, and he was in series 2, 4, 5, 6, and 7. The heartbreak! The laughter! The anguish! Instead of giving his plot to Neville, give his plot back to Dobby. I want to see Winky, and a proper redemption of Kreacher and Regulus Black. S.P.E.W. is controversial, but it reveals a lot of interesting character beats, particularly in Hermione. I loved the house elves, and I want them to get more moments to shine.
7. Colin Creevey Similarly to Dobby, Colin Creevey has a smaller role in the book series but a quietly devastating one. He pops up briefly in movie 2 and then is cut for the made up character of “Nigel” for inexplicable reasons. Imagine multiple seasons of Harry having a hilarious stalker following him around, and then being punched in the face with the horrible reality of his too soon death. Removing the house elves, much like removing Colin, sanitizes the last battle more than it should be. The stakes should be high, and sad, and Colin makes things fun and funny before he makes things tragic and devastating.
8. Ghosts and Poltergeists Much like Dobby, Colin, Snape/Riddle’s characterization, original Dumbledore, and many more, the early movies set up plotlines that the later movies drop like hot potatoes. Another one of these are the ghosts and poltergeists of Hogwarts. Early on we see Nearly Headless Nick, but never again. One of the most underrated and beautiful moments in the entire series to me is the conversation Harry and Nick have after Sirius dies, and that’s left out of the movies. We don’t get the payoff of the Bloody Baron and the Grey Lady, Myrtle is done well but is also played inexplicably by a grown ass woman, and Peeves is completely left out of the movies. Where is “it unscrews the other way?” Where is Peeves saluting after Fred and George insult Umbridge? I want Peeves!
9. Quidditch I know many beg for less Quidditch, but I personally beg for more. Oliver Wood is one of my favorite humorous characters, and he is sidelined in movies 1-2 and jettisoned entirely in movie 3. I want Oliver Wood trying to drown himself in the showers after a loss. Give me more of Katie, Angelina, and Alicia. Make the stakes as high for Quidditch as they are in the books, where you felt real tension for Harry winning the cup. I even want Ron getting bullied (it will be painful but I’m a masochist sometimes, what can I say.) Make me laugh with Luna’s commentary. The Quidditch plots always wildly entertained me, and I’ve been disappointed at their loss for decades.
10. More Dursleys I know I know, this sounds crazy. But I loved the juxtaposition we got every book with Harry’s terrible home life and the magical world. It made every single book satisfying, to see Harry escape that Roald Dahl esque mess of a house and go to a magical castle where he could fight back against his bullies. Even better, later on we get a well done and well thought out redemption arc for Dudley that I adore. Petunia gets more depth, if not redeemed, and Vernon is always a source of mingled fury and comic relief. The erasure of the Dursleys genuinely worsened the movies, and parallelled directly with the movies becoming less magical feeling. Were the two related? Maybe, maybe not, but I want to see Harry’s terrible family more. We can’t enjoy the highs of Hogwarts as much without the lows of Privet Drive.
Honorable Mention: Fix the Final Battle I’ve already touched on it previously, but the final battle is done so badly in the movies. Yes, it will be hard to adapt Harry and Voldemort monologuing at each other while hundreds of people watch, but surely it can be done better than the stupid cliff jump. There was moments of brilliance in the movies in the final battle and I think it can be done even better in the show. The redemption of the Malfoys, Fred’s death, Colin’s death, the sadness of seeing outmatched schoolchildren fight adults, Kreacher running out to lead the house elves in honor or Regulus, there’s so much to add to make a good scene with flaws into a masterpiece.
I have more than ten, of course, but here are my most desired changes. What are yours?
Check out my amazon storefront for all of my ideas on books, Harry Potter, Harry Potter Christmas, and more! This blog does contain affiliate links. If you want to read my personal rankings of all the Harry Potter films click here!
Subscribe to receive notices whenever I post a new blog. Follow me on instagram and pinterest for more content!