If you’re going to remake something, it needs to be for a reason. For the Harry Potter franchise, it makes sense to create a series that offers more time to flesh out the story to emulate the books better.
Here are 21 storylines and elements the movies didn’t include that I hope make it into the new series:
1. While the movies do a great job showcasing the Quidditch World Cup, the actual match is cut. As a kid who grew up loving sports, this was one of my favorite moments, especially Crum’s too-early catch of the golden snitch. Important to the plot? Not really. But it shows Crum isn’t a mistake-free athlete.
2. The movies definitely skimped out on Tom Riddle’s backstory, specifically The Half-Blood Prince. It’s one thing to make a villain sympathetic, but it’s another thing not to show his rise to evil as the book does in the orphanage that Riddle grew up in.
3. Remember the Marauders? The movies didn’t. They really walked around everything interesting about Prongs (James Potter), Padfoot (Sirius Black), Moony (Remus Lupin), and Wormtail (Peter Pettigrew). The map plays a huge role in The Prisoner of Azkaban, but we should 100% get more of the friend group in a series.
4. It’s really more of a character trait than a plot point, but all of teen-angst Harry should be more upfront from the start. It’s a coming-of-age story, so it makes sense to show Harry and other characters handling (and not handling) their emotions. How sassy will HBO make Harry? We’ll see.
5. In the Goblet of Fire, the maze plays a significant role, encompassing the competitors’ first-time sighting of the maze and the challenges inside, including a sphinx. The film kind of drops us into the final game without the same build-up as the underwater game. Hopefully, the show gives it more time.
6. Dobby needs to be sprinkled throughout the series more to make his death have more impact. He was featured in books 4, 5, and 6, but the movies don’t bring him back until the same book where he meets his demise.
7. They actually trim a lot of Mrs. Weasley’s (Molly’s) storylines from the movies. She is a lot more of an imperfect character in the books, so her growth on-screen will make the Bellatrix kill bigger and more meaningful than just a “go mom” moment.
8. Have mercy, it’s Percy! Speaking of the Weasleys, what happened to their eldest in the films? Percy had a larger presence in the books, so expect him and the Weasleys to be more prominent in the show. Again, another flawed character that would be interesting to see progress over the years.
9. One of the most notable changes the movies made was to make Harry’s final fight with Voldemort more intimate, a one-on-one encounter. In the book, it happens in the grand hall with everyone looking on as witnesses. This feels important for both the good and bad characters to see the final outcome of He Who Must Not Be Named versus the Boy Who Lived.
10. Will Peeves finally make his Harry Potter debut in visual media (besides the video games)? The pesky poltergeist was a significant character and was featured in ALL SEVEN books.
11. In “The Chamber of Secrets,” Harry attends Nearly Headless Nick’s Deathday Party, which is not featured in the film. A Deathday Party is simply a celebration thrown by ghosts to commemorate the anniversary of their death.
12. There is no love for house elves in the films. S.P.E.W. got cut entirely. A subplot in “The Goblet of Fire” features the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare (S.P.E.W.), founded by Hermione Granger. The organization was meant to advocate for the rights of house elves.
13. The Longbottoms as a whole really don’t get a ton of attention in the films, although I think they did a decent job sprinkling it in there. Still, it would be nice to see more time spent on Neville’s story.
14. In the films, RAB (Regulus Arcturus Black) is seen only in a photo. The books, however, feature him in flashbacks. It would be a nice added plotline to flesh out the Black family more.
15. For the highly anticipated first season of the show, the moment I look forward to most is the potion riddle, which never appeared in the movie. It’s not only a stolen moment for Hermione’s heroics, but also for Snape, who created the riddle.
16. Harry’s “two-way” magical mirror, used to communicate with Sirius, gets almost entirely cut until the end of the series. It’d be nice to see it introduced in “The Goblet of Fire” and survive until it is shattered in “The Deathly Hallows.”
17. Snape’s backstory gets the movie treatment: too many characters, not enough time. More Snape plotline, please.
18. Apparition lessons at Hogwarts were cut from “The Half-Blood Prince.” Although we see the characters perform it, “splinching” and its explanations are entirely absent from the films. It was something many pages focused on in the book, and it was relevant to later plot points, but perhaps there will be enough time in the series to explain the dangers of going from Point A to Point Where-Am-I!
19. Winky the house elf never appears in the “The Goblet of Fire” film, but she is a crucial character to the Crouch family. She is blamed and subsequently fired for the Dark Mark’s first appearance. Again, I imagine runtime was the reason for the cut of this character, but there is a lot of “Crouch plot” left to be explored.
