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Brief thoughts on the movie of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban during my lunch

Tuesday, 29 June, 2004

The great and lovely George treated me and a friend to go see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban last Friday night. It was a nice end to a tiring day (had to go into work on my day off for a meeting, met up with a friend and then spent six hours helping Ben and Pete do transport and letters for Mid Year Conference). Though I had to agree that Harry Potter 3 is definitely better than 1 and 2 (Ben has 1 and 2 on his list of Top 5 Worst Movies of All Time—the others being Inspector Gadget, Center Stage and I think the third one was Charlie's Angels)—sorry, I should start that sentence again—though I had to agree that Harry Potter 3 is definitely better than 1 and 2, I still thought the movie had problems and there were definitely things that could have been done better. Not that I'm a stickler for detail; I would rather that directors preserved the “spirit” of the books—telling the stories through the language of film—like Peter Jackson does in Lord of the Rings. But no. 3 is my favourite Harry Potter book—it's the one with the best and most well-integrated plot—and I think, with just a little bit of tweaking, they could have improved it:

Warning: Spoilers follow.

• Lupin: Remus Lupin is one of my favourite characters. The actor who played him, David Thewlis, wasn't bad but wasn't heaps good either. I don't think he should have yelled when he was rebuking Harry; that scene would have worked much better and would have been much more devastating for Harry if he had maintained a mild but firm tone and then left the room (cut to close-up shot of Harry looking ashamed). I guess I've always pictured Lupin to be a lot like Greg in manner—friendly, kind, wise, a mentor-figure, etc. The relationship between Lupin and Harry needed more work in terms of development. I know that there were time restrictions (the film is already two hours and twenty minutes long) but it could have been done with a small piece of dialogue here, a shot here, etc. Lupin, in many ways, becomes like a father-figure to Harry; a little bit of time invested in bringing that out would have enhanced the film a lot. Rowling does it so beautifully in the novel so that you really feel very sad when Lupin is forced to resign at the end. In the movie, you're just left thinking, “Great, another Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher gone. Let's move on.”
• The story of what happened to Harry's parents: Book 3, more than any other in the series so far, is so strongly about Harry's family that it makes me wonder why they didn't include more of it. I can sort of understand that they didn't want to scare the kids with the sound of Harry's mother screaming as she's being killed (the sound that Harry hears whenever the Dementors are near) but I do think that a bit of that situation should have been highlighted in some way. Harry is not a normal kid; he's an orphan, his parents were murdered and that affects everything he does—especially in the later books. Apart from the beginning where he glances at the moving photo of his parents dancing, there isn't much of a link established between them and there should have been. Because there wasn't, Sirius' supposed betrayal was not as much of a horrifying revelation as it should have been.
• Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs: I can't believe they left this out! It wouldn't have taken much to explain and it would have just enhanced the film so much. I know it was just a little bit of incidental detail but I still think it would have been really cool for the audience to know that Lupin was Moony, Pettigrew was Wormtail, Sirius was Padfoot and James Potter, Harry's father, was Prongs. Those four names really encapsulate the entire plot. Without that linkage, the map really doesn't mean much.
• Out after hours with the maurader's map: This scene was profoundly stupid—not because it didn't match up to the book (which it didn't) but because it was so obviously setting up Harry to be caught. He goes out without his invisibility cloak, for heaven's sake! Harry is much smarter than that. It's also a scene which doesn't really get picked up much later and it feels jarringly out of context. I reckon the writers should have left things as they were instead of trying to take shortcuts.
• Dementors don't fly
• Patronus: What's with the stupid white shield thing??? A patronus is supposed to take a form a the form of Harry's patronus is extremely significant because it's Prongs—Harry's father—protecting him from his fears. It's a powerful image but you don't get to see Prongs until the very end by the lake and it's not explained why there's a stag there at all.

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