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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: Its five biggest discrepancies
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Since midnight Tuesday, Harry Potter fans have braved long theatre lines, screaming children (note to parents: movies where evil wizards attempt genocide may not be acceptable choices for 5-year-olds) and of course, fear that the movie version wouldn’t fulfill expectations.
While the film’s overall adaptation is perfectly decent, the books' fans are undoubtedly nitpicking the director and screenwriter’s choices in paring 652 pages into a 2 ½ hour movie.Of course, while cuts are necessary in all screenplays, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, like all book-to-movie translations, lost a few vital scenes. The five most jarring exclusions (warning: spoilers!):
- Dumbledore visits the Dursleys: What’s a Harry Potter book, or movie, without his horrible relatives? Dumbledore’s visit marks the only time the headmaster comes face-to-face with any of the Muggles, and also gives him a chance to browbeat Harry’s aunt and uncle for 15 years of neglect.
- Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour: Moviemakers have excluded the Weasley’s eldest brother since Goblet of Fire, but in doing so, they deny fans a popular hero. Also, Fleur’s appearances always highlight Harry and Ron’s burgeoning adolescence, and without either character, there can’t be a Bill-Fleur wedding to kick off Deathly Hallows.
- The Gaunts: Nothing rounds out Voldemort’s character quite like his apish, bigoted, violent and (seemingly) inbred relatives. The Gaunts also represent the unsightly underbelly of the wizarding world, one which the movie versions never show.
- "My mother can’t have been magic, or else she wouldn’t have died:” By leaving out this one line, Voldemort loses one of the cruxes of his motivation. The line, said to Dumbledore during the orphanage visit, simultaneously evokes his fear of death and distaste for Muggles, all in a simple, ten-word sentence.
- Voldemort’s trophies: While the memory with Hepzibah would require an additional 10 minutes of screen time, viewers (who haven’t read the book) need to see the cup and locket. Now, when Harry uncovers the artifacts in Deathly Hallows, filmmakers run the risk of incorporating extra exposition.
Of course, exclusions are an inevitable part of adaptation, and each fan has his or her own opinion on what needed to be included. Did the filmmakers make the right choices? Or did they cut too much out of the beloved book?
Photo: Warner Brothers
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