Harry Potter is a beloved franchise that many millennials grew up with. As with most franchises, a lot of scenes and moments that happened in the books didn’t make it onto the big screen. The Harry Potter series is large, and many of the books are over 400 pages long, so it’s no wonder many things had to be cut when the Harry Potter movies were created. Whether you’re only a book fan, only a movie fan, or a fan of all things Harry Potter, it’s always interesting to see which important scenes, characters, and moments didn’t make it into the movies. Here are 10 times the Potterverse movies strayed from the book canon.
10. THE COLOR OF HARRY’S EYES
While the canon of Harry Potter keeps expanding with new information from J.K. Rowling, one thing that hasn’t changed or been modified in the book canon is the color of Harry Potter’s eyes. In the books, the fact that Harry’s eyes were the same color as his mother was referenced often by multiple characters such as Sirius Black and Hagrid. This all lead up to the dramatic moment between Snape and Harry as Snape died since Snape loved Lily. In the movies, however, Harry Potter doesn’t have those bright green eyes. Instead, Daniel Radcliffe’s natural blueish eye color was kept how it was. Plus, the actress who played Lily Potter had brown eyes, not blue.
9. DUMBLEDORE’S PERSONALITY
One thing that most Potterheads noticed right away when it came to the films was how different Michael Gambon’s Dumbledore was compared to the version in the books. It’s hard to forget that messy moment in the Goblet of Fire film when Dumbledore yelled, “Did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire?” while manhandling Harry. The book Dumbledore surely wasn’t without some major flaws, as we found out in the final book, but he definitely never acted like that. There wasn’t as much charisma or charm to Gambon’s version of Albus Dumbledore which is kind of a shame.
8. NO PEEVES THE POLTERGEIST
Another noticeable absentee from the movies was the iconic character of Peeves. From ‘Sorcerer’s Stone’ through to ‘Half-Blood Prince’, Peeves was always around to cause trouble and make things a little more difficult for Harry and his friends. His crude humor and love of pranking lead to him following an order from Hogwart’s students for the first time when the Fred and George Weasley told him to “Give her hell from us, Peeves” as they made their exit from Hogwarts in ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’. While the movies did have ghosts, they definitely missed out on showing such an integral part of Hogwarts by not including Peeves.
7. THE WINKY THE HOUSE-ELF STORYLINE WAS CUT
In ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’, we are introduced to Barty Crouch’s house-elf, Winky. This storyline leads to Hermione creating S.P.E.W. In the books, Winky’s existence is a key plot point to learning about how Barty Crouch helped his son escape and turn into Mad-Eye Moody using Polyjuice Potion. The movies cut all of this entirely. While it’s a shame we never got to see all of the house-elves in the kitchen or learn about Hermione’s social activism, it makes sense that this plot would have been expensive to create and taken up too much time.
6. RITA SKEETER’S ANIMAGUS STORY WAS CUT
‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’ is an extremely long book, and it’s also packed with a ton of storylines, characters, and details. As such, it makes sense many big moments in the book didn’t make it to the screen at all. Rita Skeeter is in the film version, but the fact she is an animagus that can turn into a beetle is never brought up or revealed. In the book, this fact allowed Skeeter to scoop so many stories and personal details about Harry and other Hogwarts students and also lead to Hagrid’s lineage as a half-giant being revealed. Without this information, Rita Skeeter comes off as annoying in the films, but nearly as conniving as she really was.
5. SIR CADOGAN FROM PRISONER OF AZKABAN
While this character wasn’t exactly central to the plot, he was a character that was cut from the movies completely. In ‘Hatty Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’, Sir Cadogan is introduced when the trio first goes to their Divination classes with Professor Trewlaney. Then, he briefly replaces the Fat Lady after she is attacked by Sirius Black. While he is in the film briefly, most of his scenes were cut. However, you can see a deleted scene where he features. This decision was likely made because he wasn’t a super important character to include. However, it would have been nice to see more magical Hogwarts moments and have the students interact with the moving portraits more than they did in the films.
4. THE OPENING SCENE OF GOBLET OF FIRE
‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’ seems to have been difficult to translate to film. There are a lot of noticeable differences between this book and its movie counterpart. While the Goblet of Fire movie did open with Frank Bryce being murdered by Wormtail and Voldemort, things in the movie played out very differently. In the book, Frank confronts the two of them before being killed, which doesn’t happen in the movie. The book also gives us much more dialogue between Wormtail and Voldemort, including hearing the name Bertha Jorkins. This character and her disappearance is never mentioned in the movie at all.
3. WE NEVER GET TO SEE THE VEELA
In the ‘Goblet of Fire’ book, we get to see a lot more of the Quidditch World Cup than we see in the movie. This makes sense, as there is no real reason to go into the details of the match in the film as it doesn’t necessarily add anything significant to the plot. However, all of the little details from the match in the book were pretty fun to read about. For one thing, we never get to see the Veela and never learn about them in the films at all. We also miss out on seeing more of the campsite where wizards and witches show off all of their Quidditch team pride.
2. WE DON’T LEARN AS MUCH ABOUT REGULUS BLACK
While Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 does include mention of Regulus Black (Sirius Black’s brother), Harry, Ron, and Hermione figure out the details on their own. In the book, however, Kreacher gives them Regulus’ story. There is very little of Kreacher in the movie compared to the book, so we don’t get to learn about his change of heart in the movie, either. Cutting down the Regulus Black backstory gives us less insight into him as a character. While it might not have been a completely essential detail for the movies, it’s definitely an interesting story and one that is noticeably lacking.
1. MANY DETAILS ABOUT THE MARAUDERS
The Marauders are arguably some of the most loved characters in the entire Harry Potter universe, minus Peter Pettigrew, of course. Fans always love learning more about Sirius, James, Lupin, and Lily and their time at Hogwarts. While the movies did include some of the backstories on Harry’s parents and the Marauders, a lot of moments were missing. For example, in the Order of the Phoenix movie, Snape’s worst memory doesn’t include anything about Lily Potter. In the books, this memory is an important piece of history that gives a lot of insight into Snape as well as Lily. Many details from conversations with characters like Lupin and Sirius that happened throughout the series are also missing in the movies.
