Movie Monday: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Movie Monday is a new feature at Cover2CoverBlog where I talk about Book-Movie Adaptations. If you have any recommendations let me know in the comments. 

This feature may contain SPOILERS to both the books AND the movies so read carefully.

Today's comparison is...

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

 

THE BOOK Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling Publisher: Scholastic Publication Date: 1999

THE MOVIE Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Directed by Alfonso Cuaron/ Warner Bros Release Date: 2004

Another Warning: SPOILERS AHEAD

 

I re-watched this movie the other day and I have one HUGE pet-peeve about it that I wanted to share.

First of all, I loved these books - all of them. I love Sirius Black and his presence from here on out in the series was spectacular for so many reasons. I also really enjoyed the Harry Potter movies and I loved when Cuaron came on board to direct Prisoner of Azkaban. He made it darker and the series was getting darker and after this is when the movies even started becoming PG-13... a good move for lovers of the series, I think.

 Anywho, aside from the fact that this movie kind of skirts over Sirius Black's importance in the series, my biggest pet-peeve of this film adaptation is that they never explain the significance of the Marauder's Map and who came up with it.

If you have only seen the movies - here is the backstory.  Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs are the nicknames of Lupin, Pettigrew, Black, and James Potter who created the map. The nicknames were given because of Animagus forms and in Lupin's case, his werewolf form.

My issue with the movie not explaining this information is that the map shows everyone- regardless of shifting abilities and if you knew that Peter Pettigrew had the Animagus form of a rat (Wormtail) you would know why this is SO important. Pettigrew shows up on the map to Harry.

The movie completely disregards all of this beautifully written book information and chalks it up to Black recognizing Wormtail. I can understand why you would need to cut some things out, but the map is SO cool... I think it should have been included.

End rant...