Harry Potter Movie And Book Comparison Essay

The book that I read and the movie that I watched is Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The book was written by the British author, J.K Rowling, and the movie was directed by the English director and producer, Mike Newell. The main characters are Harry Potter (portrayed by Daniel Radcliffe), Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson). The book was first released in the United States of America and the United Kingdom on July 8, 2000 . The movie had its premiere in London on November 6, 2005. It is classified as a mystery/fantasy genre for both the movie and the book. The story starts with Harry returning to Hogwarts for his fourth year, where the Triwizard tournament between the three well-known schools of magic, Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang, is about to begin, wherein 1 champion aged 17 and above,

from each of these schools would be chosen by a magical object called, the Goblet of Fire. Surprisingly, Harry’s name who was then 14 years old at the time was also chosen as the Fourth champion. Harry must now survive through dragons, sea creatures, and a terrifying maze, all before coming face to face with the dark wizard, Voldemort. The question now is, “Will our young hero be able to defeat the dark magic once again?” Although there were a lot of eliminated characters and situations in the movie, it didn’t cause a major impact on the storyline. The similarities of the major plots of the story outweighs its differences. The book had more attention to finer details than what was projected in the movie, which I would say then, that the book is better than the movie.

The differences between the book and the movie that are significant to me are first, and of the least importance, Winky and Dobby were omitted from the movie. In the book, Winky was a house-elf who inspired Hermione Granger to form the organization, the Society for Promotion of Elfish Welfare (S.P.E.W.) in response to the gross injustice in the treatment of house elves and she was also accused of stealing Harry’s wand that might have caused the casting of the Dark Mark. But since Winky was omitted from the movie, there was no,”S.P.E.W.” Mentioned and the Dark mark was conjured, what is only to be explained to be as,”A mysterious man.” Dobby is a free house-elf who provided Harry Potter with Gillyweed to help him in his second task in the Triwizard tournament. Whereas in the movie, Neville Longbottom was the one who was in charge of this task. Secondly, in the book, Harry had lost his wand in the woods while trying to escape into the woods to avoid the Death Eaters who had attacked at the Quidditch World Cup. In the movie, Harry didn’t lose his wand, but had gotten separated from Ron and Hermione, and getting trampled by other witches and wizards trying to escape the Death Eaters. When Harry had woken up, he had witnessed a man conjure the Dark mark into the sky. This is a significant difference because a wizard could not function without his wand and Harry’s holly wand is one of the most powerful wand which is known as being brothers with Lord Voldemort’s. The Third and the most significant difference is Harry’s scar. It started hurting, but when he had woken up, he was at the Dursley’s house and as soon as the pain in his scar started to ease, he wrote a letter to Sirius Black, Harry’s godfather. However, in the movie, he had woken with his scar hurting in the Burrow, the Weasley’s house. But he didn’t write to Sirius right away, though, on the way to Hogwarts, he was persuaded by Hermione to write to Sirius about his scar hurting. He didn’t disclose this to anyone so not to scare as this means that Lord Voldemort is near.

The similarities between the book and the movie that are significant to me are firstly, and of the least importance to the main plot, is the same description of Voldemort’s physical appearance, his evil nature and hatred towards and obsession to kill Harry Potter.

Secondly, the story ended in a very similar way, with the resurrection of Voldemort, the death of Cedric Diggory and Harry escapes from the wrath of Lord Voldemort. For me, the most important similarity is the choosing of the Four champions for the Triwizard tournament from the Goblet of Fire. Originally, there should have been only Three Champions to be chosen, but Barty Crouch Jr., the Death Eater who was a servant of Voldemort secretly entered Harry’s name in the goblet by bewitching it so in the end could resurrect Lord Voldemort again by having the bone of who he used to be (Tom Riddle) and the blood of his enemy (Harry). This for me is important as the story centers on the Goblet of Fire and how Harry was chosen as the Fourth champion surpassing all the tasks and in the end was proclaimed the Triwizard Champion but also the instrument for Lord Voldemort’s

resurrection.

The changes that I had felt made the book more elaborate and intensifying are the special effects they added on the three tasks such as getting by past the Hungarian Horntail Dragon to secure the golden egg, jump into a lake to retrieve their friends/family, and going through a bewitched maze to obtain the Triwizard cup. The one that I liked best in the movie than in the book is instead of Lord Voldemort just stroking Harry’s cheek in the book, he touched his scar inflicting agonizing pain on Harry which was better portrayed in the movie.

The book version is a lot more detailed because the whole story is there instead of just what can only be fitted into a two and half hour movie. The characters were described and developed better and you could get into the character’s head, especially Harry’s. It would make the reader work on their imagination. The reader could develop the image of the characters and events and would come out flawlessly, but in the movie sometimes, the actors may not bring justice to the character they are portraying. There could be some facts or details that could be lost in transition from the book to the movies that could help develop the character of the story. What the movies are good at are basically adding all the special effects to pronounce the characters and events. I conclude then that reading a book is better than watching a movie.