Emma Watson Empire

Errors in the film: Film 1

Errors:

• Quirrell flies twice – Granted he’s inhabited by a really powerful Dark Wizard, but according to QA, no spell will allow a Wizard to fly, and that includes the Dark Lord. It’s a nice visual effect, I suppose, but it goes against the rules of Rowling’s world.
• ”Greek chappie” becomes “Irish chappie” – This is sad, really. This just shows how the folks creating the films don’t read much below the surface of the books. Why does it matter what nationality the fellow was who sold Fluffy to Hagrid? Because Fluffy is a three-headed dog, which is straight out of Greek mythology. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to change it, but they did. Steve Kloves said in a Q&A session that he wrote it as “Greek” but it just was spoken differently on the set, but the script says “Irish.”
• Hermione uses a spell which doesn’t fit the rules for spells in the books – That lumos solarum spell, shining light as bright as the sun, just doesn’t fit. If there was a spell to create light that bright, and simple enough that for a Muggle-born first year to cast besides, what’s everyone running around doing pathetic little Lumos spells for all the time? There are plenty of times when a blazingly bright light would have come in real handy, but nope, it’s Lumos, which casts about as much light as a flashlight. Even Dumbledore, when searching frantically for Barty Crouch in edge of the Forest, only manages a Lumos spell, and his isn’t any brighter than anyone else’s. That spell was created for the film because the special effects were cool (and they were!). But it doesn’t fit into the real Harry Potter universe.
• Incorrect pronunciations of Voldemort and Firenze – Rowling herself pronounces Voldemort without sounding the final ’t.’ It’s from French, for goodness sakes. How did this slip through? Now everyone is pronouncing it incorrectly, and we’re going to be stuck with it. But it’s wrong. That is just plain frustrating. Firenze’s name isn’t quite so important, that’s true, but that final ‘e’ is supposed to be pronounced and there’s no reason why they couldn’t have done it right. The word is Italian—it’s the Italian name for the city we English-speakers call Florence—and it’s pronounced fir-EN-ze, not fir-ENZ. Now would it have killed them to have simply done their homework and pronounced those two names correctly?

Film Contamination:

• In the book, Quirrell shakes hands with Harry when they meet in the Leaky Cauldron, but he doesn’t in the film. The reason this is confusing is that in the book, Quirrell isn’t wearing his turban yet at that point, so Voldemort isn’t inhabiting the back of Quirrell’s head. In the film, he is. So people can’t figure out why, in the book, Quirrell is able to touch Harry without experiencing pain. By the way, in the books, Quirrell’s hands don’t turn to stone when he touched Harry, they are burned.
• Harry sees Quirrell die in the film, but in the book he doesn’t. The confusion comes with book five, when Harry first can see the Thestrals because he’s seen Cedric die. Folks assume that he has also seen Quirrell die so he should have seen the Thestrals before book five, but that isn’t the case. This error in the films could create an inconsistency when they film book five.
• Neville goes into the forest for detention in the book. In the film, it’s Ron. For some reason I get a lot of email about this one, pointing out my “error” in the Lexicon.
• The film shows James to be a Seeker from Gryffindor. The books do not give his position on the Quidditch team, although he is refered to as a Gryffindor Quidditch player in book five. Rowling in an interview has stated that James was a Chaser. I think it’s quite possible that in the future, Rowling will change her mind and make James a Seeker (or maybe say that he played both positions at one time or another.) But for now, he’s a Chaser. This is probably the error I get the most email about.
• Most classes consist of one house only, but in the film we see all the students of Harry’s year in every class. Slytherins are potting Mandrakes right alongside the Gryffindors in the film, even though it’s supposed to be Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors, no one else. We see this in every class in the films, but that’s not the way it happens in the books.