The Harry Potter movies take on a tall task. Each film attempts to adapt a book several hundred pages long, yet it has only a couple of hours of runtime to do so. Plenty of significant moments and characters end up on the cutting room floor, which is a hard pill to swallow for book readers. However, that’s just the cost of bringing a story as vast as Harry Potter‘s to live-action. The franchise works with what it has and delivers a solid beginning, middle, and end, showing the arduous journey the Chosen One and his friends must undertake to bring peace to the Wizarding World.
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Despite pulling off the impossible, the Harry Potter movie franchise isn’t infallible. There are cracks everywhere, and some are only getting worse as the days go by. Here are five Harry Potter movie scenes that have aged terribly.
5) Dumbledore Making Assumptions
Harry Potter is over the moon when Hogwarts’ headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, takes him under his wing in the first couple of films. However, when the walls start to close in, Dumbledore starts to show his true colors, keeping Harry at arm’s length while he decides what to do about the young wizard’s future. In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the headmaster confronts the titular character about his name being chosen for the Triwizard Tournament, and it isn’t a good look. Harry is always on the right side of history, so Dumbledore should think twice about questioning his integrity.
4) Harry & Hermione’s Dance
Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger feel like endgame from the beginning of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. As they grow up, the vibe changes, with Ron continuing to be a slacker and Hermione applying herself to her studies in a major way. The straw that breaks the camel’s back, though, is when Ron leaves his friends behind at the start of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, and Hermione and Harry share an intimate dance. The scene makes it seem like something is brewing between the two, which is something many fans still get behind, but the rug gets pulled out in the next movie.
3) The Troll in the Dungeon
In most cases, it’s not fair to call out a movie for wonky CGI over 20 years after its release. But giving The Sorcerer’s Stone a pass is tough because the fight with the troll in the bathroom doesn’t hold up by any stretch of the imagination. There are moments when it’s incredibly obvious that the actors are standing in a room alone, acting against nothing. When the whole point is to transport viewers to a magical world, it’s never good when a moment takes them out.
2) Ron & Harry’s Actions at the Ball
The Harry Potter franchise is full of awkward moments that stem from the characters learning about love and life. Almost all of them are acceptable, as teenagers can rarely help themselves. However, the way Harry and Ron treat their dates at the Yule Ball isn’t redeemable. Just because they don’t have the night they want, they cast them aside and pout in the corner. The Goblet of Fire seems to forget that the audience still needs to root for Ron and Harry at the end of the day.
1) Harry Riding His New Broom
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is a dark movie. The movie’s plot revolves around Harry dealing with one of the men he blames for his parents’ deaths, who escapes from prison and causes trouble at Hogwarts. After the dust settles, everything is on the up and up, with Harry learning that Sirius Black is actually a friend, not a foe. Prisoner of Azkaban takes that oppurtunity and runs with it, having Harry ride his new broomstick into a freeze frame. Alfonso Cuarón puts on a clinic in his lone foray into the Wizarding World, but his final choice feels like something out of a bad ’80s rom-com.
The Harry Potter movies are streaming on Peacock.
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Courtesy of Netflix
