So, lately, I have been re-reading the Harry Potter series that I finished in the seventh grade. I’m not too sure what, exactly, made me want to do so, but here we are.
I am currently on the seventh and final book – “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” – of the popular series, and I realized that I had nearly forgotten why I adored and enjoyed these books as much as I do. However, in comparison, I have come to dislike the movies because of my recent delve back into the Wizarding world; I understand that a movie’s budget can only go so far, but there are countless small details within the books that could have been incorporated into the films. For example, the main character, Harry Potter’s, cousin and uncle are blonde in the books, and in the movies, they both have very dark hair. It is miniscule differences in characteristics like this that cause me think to not ever watch the movies again, though I watched them all from the time I was in fourth grade.
In the books, a very crucial detail about the main character is that those that knew his mother, Lily, before she was killed when Harry was a year old, always told him that he “had Lily’s eyes” but looked just like his father, James, who was also murdered at the same time as his wife; he had the same face shape, messy, black hair and stature as James but had Lily’s green, almond-shaped eyes. In an interview with J.K. Rowling, the author of the series, she states that the actor, Daniel Radcliffe, that portrayed Harry Potter in the films’ eyes did not have to be green – the actor need not wear colored contacts every time he was on camera; she simply stated that it was very important that the actress portraying Harry Potter’s mother have the same-colored eyes as Radcliffe, whose eyes are blue, yet whenever Harry sees someone else’s memory that included his mother when she was 14 or 15 years old, the young girl that played her had dark brown eyes.
Personally, I am always a bigger fan of the original books, rather than their movie adaptations, because for as long as I can remember, I spent my free time laying in bed and reading a book. When I was younger, my parents never really let me watch the “Harry Potter” movies past the third one because it was a bit more violent, but I ended up watching the fourth one anyways and finishing the series around the time “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2” came out in theaters. I was always a huge fan of the series, but re-reading the books has really shined a light on the comparisons of them against the movies. And I can say for a fact that I still greatly prefer the books to the movies in this case – well, in most cases.
