Do the Harry Potter Movies Need a Remake?

Personally? I think yes. 

I didn't love the movies when they came out, and the older I get, the less I like them. I was baffled by some of the casting, I despised how the movies changed Ron's character (you know how in the third movie, when the kids first see Sirius and Hermione jumps in front of Harry and says, "If you want to kill Harry, you'll have to kill us to?" In the book, Ron said that as he hauled himself to his feet on a broken leg, in severe pain, because he was willing to protect Harry even when he was hurting), but most of all, it felt like the movies just missed the tone. 

The Harry Potter Books Are Mystery Novels, Not (Just) Action Novels

There are really two major elements of mystery novels that most of the Harry Potter books have. First, each of them has a mystery novel component that is critically important to the plot of the story. Here are the main mysteries in the books:

1. Sorcerer's Stone--what is the bad guy trying to steal?
2. Chamber of Secrets--who is the Heir of Slytherin, and where is the Chamber of Secrets?
3. Prisoner of Azkaban--how did Sirius escape? (Well, and some more, too...) 
4. Goblet of Fire--who put Harry's name in the Goblet of Fire, and why?
5. Order of the Phoenix--what is that door, and what's hidden behind it?
6. Half-Blood Prince--what is Malfoy's plan? 
7. Deathly Hallows--where are the Horcruxes? (To be honest, I think this one is the least mystery novel of them all, so you could probably point to all kinds of reasons why this one roughs up my argument. True. But the others are clearly strong mystery novels.)

Solving those mysteries is essential to ending the conflict in each of the books--the characters spend time puzzling over these questions, and the answers to them are essential. I won't write the answers here because they'll be spoilers, but the answers play a huge role in the conflicts of each. I suppose a mystery novel is a mystery novel because the mystery is the conflict, and in the Harry Potter books the mystery is part of the conflict, but it is nonetheless an essential part of the conflict. 

Contrast that with a pure mystery novel like the Boxcar Children books (my mom appears to have donated all my copies, because I can't find any, but those are the books I was predominately obsessed with before I accidentally wandered into a room where The Two Towers was playing on the TV and I was bound to the world of fantasy forever, so I'll go off my memory of reading those books). For the sake of choosing one, let's go with Mystery of the Hidden Beach. The main conflict of the story is Who destroyed the coral reef? And through the book, the characters come up with a list of suspects, including some photographer named Katherine Kelly (? memory), a... ship captain?... name Nick Simmons... Nick Simpson... something that has the same initials as North Star... and some dude who ended up stealing something from someone but was actually just a red herring. Then the plot of the book is the four kids trying to figure out who cut away at the coral, and they find clues--I'm sure there were more, but the ones I remember are the chisel found near the coral with the letters NS on it, and the photograph of the water over the destroyed coral taken by the photographer. 

Now contrast that with something like the Redwall books. I'll talk about Marlfox, but if we're being honest, most of them are about the same. The main conflict of Marlfox is a) going on a quest to take back the tapestry and then destroy the Marlfox castle, and b) defending Redwall against the Marlfox armies. Now, there is a puzzle in the book--the riddle that explains how to get to the Marlfox castle. But that isn't really a mystery because there aren't really clues to be solved. The characters solve one part of the riddle, go forward, and usually just accidentally stumble across the next part. Here's an example of what I mean:

Song glanced up from the scroll that contained Friar Butty's rhyme, which she had been studying carefully. "You could be right, Burb, the river might be a dangerous place for us. You say we weren't far off some rapids when your tribe were chasing us, is that correct?"

"Oh yiss yiss, missie, the ould rapids are fast an' fierce. 'Tis a good job we never had t'face them so 'tis, yiss yiss."

Song tapped the parchment thoughtfully. "Hmm, it doesn't say anything in this rhyme about going over rapids on the river this early. All it says is:

"Just follow as I run away. 
Discover the speechless hidden mouth,
Alas, my friends, our ways part there,
Go down green tunnel, bounden south,
Through trees with blossoms in their hair."

Dann poured them the last of the dandelion and burdock cordial. "So, what does that tell us, Song?" 

"Think on it a bit, Dann. While we were following that river, did we see any streams or creeks running south before this one?"

"No, I'm sure we didn't. There wasn't a break in the bank until I saw this sidestream when they were chasing us. What are you getting at, Song?"

"Well, 'tis just an idea, but I think this is the speechless hidden mouth we were looking for..." (Marlfox, 2000, page192)

 Do you see what I mean about them not needing to solve anything? They just sort of stumbled on it. This is different from a book where the central plot revolves around finding clues, interpreting them, and so on. 

Actually--here's another example from that absolute garbage Rings on Prime show (and yes, I have a long list of blog posts about that, don't worry). Spoilers for this, I don't care. The season opens up with Where is Sauron?--a question that needs to be answered. There's even kind of a clue, in that "mark of Sauron" symbol thing. The first two episodes, the main character occasionally wonders what it could be; in the third episode, she goes to some Hall of Law (Hall of Lore?), accidentally tosses the symbol onto some map right over Mordor, and realizes that the symbol was a map of Mordor. See how, instead of following clues, deciphering them, and piecing them together, she just stumbles across the answer? See how that is different from the mystery examples? 

The Harry Potter novels have elements of both; they have a big bad guy that needs to be defeated in some kind of conflict, and they have a mystery that needs to be solved, with clues and red herrings and suspects and all. In some of the books, solving the mystery leads to the big bad guy's defeat, and in some of them the mystery is just to understand the bad guy's motives, but the mystery is still essential to the plot. 

Which brings me to the next element of most mystery novels: the big reveal scene. This is scene where in a Scooby Doo episode, they unmask the monster; in every Poirot episode, Poirot gathers all people even loosely involved in the mystery and explains to them all what happened; in the aforementioned Mystery of the Hidden Beach, all the suspects converge and confess their roles in the action and Nick Simmons explains that the NS actually stands for North Star, a chisel-making company. You get the idea. There's a scene where one or two characters just explain everything--the whole mystery, all the clues, etc. The Harry Potter books have something similar, too: 

1. Sorcerer's Stone--the scene in front of the Mirror of Erised after getting through the obstacle course
2. Chamber of Secrets--the scene in the Chamber when Riddle explains everything to Harry
3. Prisoner of Azkaban--the scene in the Shrieking Shack (which, for the record, goes from pages 338-377 in the book--that's about 40 pages in a book with 435 pages. That means it took up about 9% of the book. How long was that scene in the movie? Like, four minutes out of a 142-minute movie?)
4. Goblet of Fire--there are really two in this one: the graveyard scene and the scene with the one Death Eater after the graveyard scene
5. Order of the Phoenix--the scene in Dumbledore's office right after the fight at the Ministry
6. Half-Blood Prince--the scene between Malfoy and Dumbledore on the tower
7. Deathly Hallows--this one doesn't really have one, which is one reason I think it's the least mystery-like novel of the series. (Unless you want to get really critical and say that Voldemort was trying to solve the mystery, and Harry gave him the big reveal scene at the end... and the plot depended on Harry keeping Voldemort from solving the mystery... thoughts, anyone?)

The reason I'm bringing both these reasons up is that in the first six books at least, the mystery element is important, but only the first two movies really keep that element. All the later movies downplay it. That "big reveal" scene, which is climactic in any good mystery movie, is cut short to some quick dialogue, and usually with some distracting nonsense because the directors or whomever wanted to have a loud noisy scene instead of making a scene that relies on tense pauses, actors' presence, and quiet and sinister atmosphere. 

Which brings me to...

The Prisoner of Azkaban Movie (a few spoilers ahead)

I cannot think of a better example of a movie that just missed the mystery than the Prisoner of Azkaban. 

First off, what is the mystery? That's one of my favorite parts of the book--the first time you read the book, the mystery is how did Sirius escape Azkaban? But, interestingly, none of the clues lead you to answer that mystery. All the clues in the book--the newspaper, the fact that Sirius didn't kill Harry when Hagrid had him, the fact that the Firebolt wasn't jinxed, and Sirius not murdering Ron when he had no problem killing twelve innocent people--all help to answer a different mystery: what does Sirius want, or possibly why did he betray his friends? 

Speaking of those clues--those clues were completely forgotten by the movie makers. The movie included some elements that were important to the story--the newspaper photograph of Ron's family, Crookshanks trying to chase a very ill Scabbers, and Trelawney's Grim omens--but what was the purpose of those things being there? All of those things are clues, but they never work like clues in the movie. The newspaper is mentioned at the very beginning, there's a quick scene of Crookshanks chasing Scabbers, and the Grim... well. 

In the book (chapter 9), Harry is playing Quidditch, and he looks down into the stands, where all the people are sitting, and in one of the stands, he sees the Grim. But in the movie--I guess to make it more dramatic! thrilling! exciting! CGI!--he sees the shape of the Grim in the clouds. This might be creepier, but it massively undercut the point of the Grim. 

(Minor spoiler here)

In the book, he thinks he's seeing the Grim because Trelawney says she saw the Grim; it's actually a black dog--a solid, tangible, corporeal black dog. It isn't an omen--and therefore, it cannot be in the clouds. The point of the motif was completely lost because it had to be more dramatic!

Which brings me to my next point...

The Movies Got the Atmospheres All Wrong

The movies are very loud, flashy, actiony spectacles, but the books are a bit different. Of course, action movies rely on being spectacles--the point is the action. Do you remember how popular Captain America: Civil War was? I remember people talking about that absolute masterpiece of a fight scene in the middle of the movie. As far as the story was concerned, the movie had no stakes at all, because really nothing changed, but that didn't matter because the fighting was amazing and we got to see cool action heroes doing cool action things. It was loud, spectacular, and dramatic, because that was what it was supposed to be. It's an action movie. 

Mysteries are different. They tend to rely on tense, sinister, quiet threats. Generally speaking, you know someone extremely dangerous is very near you, but they're hiding behind a safe facade. They may pounce when you aren't looking, maybe to kill again, and maybe even kill you. In a good mystery, you won't see the threat until the very end, but you will feel its presence.

Think about Hound of the Baskervilles, one of the classic Sherlock Holmes stories. In that book, you hear about how the murder victim walked out alone at night, ran away from something, and then apparently died of heart attack or fright. There are whispers of a curse. But you don't see anything. You know something is there, but you don't know what it is. 

The various Harry Potter books--again, except the 7th--operate the same way. You know something dangerous is inside the castle (the person after the Sorcerer's Stone, the mysterious heir of Slytherin's monster, whoever messed with the Goblet of Fire, etc.) or, if not in the castle itself, inside one of the character's heads. Again, it's a sinister, lurking threat that needs to be exposed by following the clues, not by beating the truth out of something. It's supposed to be quiet, tense, and suspenseful. 

The first two movies did a perfectly fine job of that, but the later ones... not so much. Once again, Prisoner of Azkaban has the best example of this: that scene in the Shrieking Shack. 

In the book, the Shrieking Shack scene takes up a good chunk of the book, involves some fighting but also a lot of questions, suspicions of a betrayal, and very little yelling--at least at first. Here's a crucial part of it that, I think, captures the voice of the scene:

The door of the room burst open in a shower of red sparks and Harry wheeled around as Professor Lupin came hurtling into the room, his face bloodless, his wand raised and ready. His eyes flickered over Ron, lying on the floor, over Hermione, cowering next to the door, to Harry, standing there with his wand covering Black, and then to Black himself, crumpled and bleeding at Harry's feet. 

"Expelliarmus!" Lupin shouted. 

Harry's wand flew once more out of his hand; so did the two Hermione was holding. Lupin caught them all deftly, then moved into the room, staring at Black, who still had Crookshaks lying protectively across his chest. 

Harry stood there, feeling suddenly empty. He hadn't done it. His nerve had failed him. Black was going to be handed back to the dementors. 

Then Lupin spoke, in a very tense voice. 

"Where is he, Sirius?" 

Harry looked quickly at Lupin. He didn't understand what Lupin meant. Who was Lupin talking about? He turned to look at Black again. 

Black's face was quite expressionless. For a few seconds, he didn't move at all. Then, very slowly, he raised his empty hand and pointed... (343-344, 1999).  

 Notice how the tension of the scene changes? It does start with a shower of sparks and someone bursting into a room, but then that's quickly gotten under control and the scene settles down. Harry is left thinking he knows what will happen and feeling like he failed. But then, the scene sharply changes--and when it does, it does with a quiet, mysterious question that makes no sense to the reader, although the use of the word "tense" shakes the sudden feeling of letdown and makes the place feel more dangerous. The answer from the antagonist is extremely minimal; there is no more energy than is necessary to answer the question. Minimalist, quiet, subtle, tense. 

In the movie, in contrast, Black was laughing like a maniac, then Lupin and Black have a weird cryptic back-and-forth, Lupin lowers his wand and both of them start chuckling. Then, multiple chapters of explanation are cut into something like fifteen lines, soon followed by a ridiculous chase scene with spells going flash-bang and even something running over a piano to get that iconic piano note. The movie scene dispensed with much of the subtle, nuanced tension in favor of a loud scene. Great. 

Now that I've written all that out, it occurs to me that there is a better example, which is how the movie portrays the dementors. The first scene with the dementors was perfect--quiet, creepy, sneaky, dark, sinister. But the next scene was that aforementioned Quidditch match, and now the dementors are flying everywhere and there's a whole weird scene as Harry tries to dodge them. The movie went for an action tone and cool shots instead of the sinister fear of the dementors. 

None of this is to say that there's no action in the books, but rather that the filmmakers inserted action when the books had suspense. 

In Conclusion

This is all to say that I think there is a market to remake the movies - especially as a TV show. I wouldn't describe the movies as unrecognizable from the books, but I definitely feel that missing tension and stronger action tone, and I would like to see the small clues and the details that were dropped from the movies. If the show makers remember to play up all those elements, I think we could, at the very least, have an adaptation that can justify its existence and give book readers a genuinely different experience.