Emma Watson Empire

Changes from the book: Film 1

Deletrius!
major characters and events from the book not included in the movie:

• Vernon Dursley’s Day, as the wizarding world is more apparent in their celebration of the disappearance of Voldemort.
• Mention of Mrs. Figg.
• Piers Polkiss’ presence during the trip to the zoo and appearance as a character at all.
• Parts of Uncle Dursley’s madness. Major snippets of his attempts to avoid the letters have been left out, including a jaunt to an inn and to the middle of a forest.
• Harry and Draco’s first meeting, in Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions. The trip to the robe shop is itself left out.
• The details of James’ and Lily’s wands. Somewhat minor but nice facts about their size and composition.
• Peeves the Poltergeist! (Reportedly was filmed, and a voice actor hired, but was cut for time.)
• The Sorting Hat’s song.
• Draco’s challenge to a duel and Ron and Harry’s attempt to meet with him at night.
• The “secret” arrival of Harry’s Nimbus 2000. McGonagall covers up the broomstick that is delivered to Harry in the book, to keep his Quidditch playing a secret until the first game, but it is quite obvious and dramatically done in the movie.
• The rest of Harry’s family, aside from his mother and father, in the Mirror of Erised.
• Nicholas Flamel. Mentioned in a scene that later appeared on the DVD, he is hardly mentioned in the theatrical version, and his Chocolate Frogs card doesn’t get its proper place, even in the cut scene.
• The centaurs Bane and Ronan.
• The unconscious troll in the chambers of the stone.
• ”Hermione’s Task:” the potion riddle Hermione solves to get Harry to the stone was cut, perhaps because it is not nearly as cinematic as Ron’s chess task.

Serpensortia!
plotlines that were twisted in the transition to the screen:

• Norbert’s removal, and the subsequent detentions into the Forbidden Forest. Though Harry and Hermione go to great lengths in the book to get Norbert sent off with Charlie Weasley, Dumbledore simplifies matters in the film and sends him himself. (In fact, the entire Norbert sequence in the film is compressed so that the kids are caught out of bounds on the night of the hatching, rather than later. Consequently, Ron in the film is never bitten by Norbert and isn’t sent to the Hospital Wing.)
• The fourth person to get detention with Draco, Harry, and Hermione changes from Neville in the book to Ron in the movie, to suit this alteration.
• McGonagall makes an Animagus transformation for her class in the first film, but in the books, the students first see it in their third year.

Switching Spells

• The snake is from Brazil in the book, but bred in captivity but native to Burma in the movie. (However, the appearance of the snake in the film seems consistent with the variety that would be found in Brazil.)
• Dudley and Aunt Petunia are described in the books as blonde, but are dark-haired in the movie.
• Draco’s initial offer of friendship to Harry takes place on the Hogwarts Express in the book – an encounter during which Scabbers’ great moment of biting Goyle’s finger occurs – but occurs outside the Great Hall before the Sorting in the film, sans Scabbers.
• Harry’s parents look quite a bit older than they should. They were about 22 when they died, but in the film they look like they’re in their mid-thirties at least.
• Firenze is white-blond with a palomino body in the book, but appears to be dark-haired in the film.

Conjuring spells
additions to the movie without direct canon backing:

• The full-out depiction of Voldemort’s attack on Harry and Lily Potter is only in the book in Hagrid’s dialogue, but becomes a first-hand depiction of the flashback in the film.
• The first-year Gryffindors do not share Transfiguration lessons with any other House in the books, as far as we can tell, but both Hufflepuffs (e.g. Susan Bones) and Slytherins (e.g. Draco Malfoy) share Harry’s Transfiguration lesson in the film.
• The plaque which proclaims James Potter as a Quidditch seeker.
• Though there is no real desciption of the Hogwarts uniforms or obvious differentiation in house appearances in the books, the films have added house crests, ties, and prep-school-inspired clothing under the cloaks.