Long Book, Short Movie

Blog 8

Interestingly, Order of the Phoenix is the longest book in the Harry Potter series, yet it is the shortest movie. The Chamber of Secrets movie is 22 minutes longer, even though the book is 515 pages shorter than Order! Clearly, some decisions had to be made when creating the movie for Order in order (lol) to meet certain time constraints, budgets, as well as other things. I’ve decided to go through three major scenes in the movies, discuss the differences from the book, and decide where the scene is better, the book or the movie.

SCENE ONE: DUMBLEDORE’S ESCAPE

In the book, this scene in Dumbledore’s office spans across 12 pages when in the movie it is less than a minute and thirty seconds. The major difference in this scene is that Dumbledore does not stun everyone to escape like he does in the book. By the lack of stunning, the movie also loses the quick second after when Dumbledore speaks to Harry telling him how urgent it is to study Occlumency.

Cutting out that moment does not ruin the overall scene, however I find that not having Dumbledore stun 2 aurors, Umbridge, and the Minister of Magic makes him lose his badass credibility. In the book, this scene is the first time we see Dumbledore take on other wizards and he still wins even though he’s heavily outnumbered. Dumbledore is literally the greatest wizard of all time and all we get to see in the movie is him just running away. Adding in him stunning the other wizards would add maybe thirty seconds to the film and personally I think it’s worth it. The special effect with Fawkes is nicely done though, if I may say so.

Overall, I think the book does a better job with this scene entirely because I want to see Dumbledore being a rule-breaking badass who can take on 4 wizards at once. However, the man’s still got style.

SCENE TWO: OCCLUMENCY AND SNAPE’S WORST MEMORY

In the movie as a whole, Occlumency takes way less precedence than it does in the book. All of Harry’s lessons are combined into one scene in the movie while in the book, there are several scenes dedicated to Harry’s Occlumency lessons. In the movie, Snape’s memory is much more toned down than it is in the book. In the book, his memory lasts nine pages when in the movie it’s 20 seconds. They cut out the part of them taking their O.W.L and Lily is not in the scene at all. Snape’s memory is much less drastic in the film, cutting out James showing off, using several spells on Snape, as well as clearing Snape’s mouth out with soap.

I think they had to make this scene less aggressive because as we’ve discussed several times in class, actually seeing something like that on film makes it appear much worse than just reading it. They still get the point across that James was a major bully and everything that Snape’s ever said about him has actually been true, however by cutting out Lily, it makes Snape seem much more innocent since you don’t see him call her a Mudblood.

In the movie, they also make Harry seem much more innocent. He accidentally sees this memory through the Protego charm instead of purposefully looking into the Pensieve. Snape has purposefully been getting this memory out of his head so Harry can’t access it. That makes this scene much more powerful in the book because this is the one thing he never wanted Harry to see which Harry knows, but instead Harry becomes nosey and dives in anyways.

I’m unsure where I think this scene is “better”. The book simply has more detail which could perhaps make it seem better, but the book is also redundant. The movie very easily combined several scenes into one which Rowling easily could have done in the book. Had Order gone through more editing, I believe some of the Occlumency lessons would’ve been cut out anyways. Overall, I’d say the book is better but not necessarily by much.

SCENE THREE: DUMBLEDORE’S ARMY DISCOVERED

In the book, Dobby comes to warn Harry Potter that Umbridge is coming and most of the members have a chance to runaway. In the movie, Umbridge breaks down the wall into the Room of Requirement and catches them red handed.

Either way, both scenes cause chaos and ultimately ends in Umbridge catching Harry. However, I don’t understand why the other students don’t get in trouble when Umbridge busts the wall down in the movie because they’re all still there. In the book, they runaway and she can’t catch them.

Another subtle difference is that Marietta turns the D.A in in the book while in the movie it’s Cho. This isn’t a major deal breaker as in the movie it explained Harry and Cho’s break up without an entire extra scene, but I do miss the humor of having “SNEAK” spelled out in pimples across Marietta’s face.

The book is better for this scene in my opinion just because I like the idea of Dobby coming to save them and them all scattering throughout the castle, but I don’t think the movie did a horrible job of portraying the scene.

RESULTS

Overall, the book is better (no surprise there) but many of the cuts/changes the film made was not horrible. It didn’t ruin the story or change any major plot lines entirely. I understand that most of the changes were made in respect to time, but if a book that was 515 pages shorter could be 22 minutes longer, I don’t think as many cuts needed to be made. And lets be real, I’d totally sit through a 4 hour extended edition if it meant nothing would be excluded...