Potterheads and moviegoers often clap Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban as one of the best films in the franchise. Much of the praise is due to the director Alphonse Cuaron, which brought captivating visuals and new emotional weight to the story, showcasing a darker side of the wizarding world in the third installment of the series. At the same time, no Potter movie is without flaws, and for all Cuarón’s masterful direction, Harry Potter and the prisoner of azkaban also remains tarnished by a storyline that omits crucial details from the books while relying a bit too much on the audience’s familiarity with JK Rowlingthe source material.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban sees the eponymous Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) returns to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for his third year. However, a suspected murderer named Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) stalks the wizarding world, looking for Harry to supposedly kill him and avenge Lord Voldemort. As the story progresses, Harry learns of Black’s close ties to his parents’ death, while continuing to mature and come of age alongside his friends at school.
Cuarón’s Distinguished Style in “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”
Cuarón brought this maturity to cinematic life with a distinct blend of lightness and darkness. An independent filmmaker at the time, fresh off the acclaimed 2001 release And your mother tooCuarón took the Harry Potter director’s reins of Chris Columbus in 2004. While Christopher Columbus led the first two Potter films with his signature innocence and kid-friendly joviality, Cuarón took a more artistic and atmospheric approach in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. He used bluish tones, less polished sets and costumes, and a dash of horror iconography to endow prisoner of azkaban with a slight scare and heightened realism. Ultimately, this slight darkness suits the movie’s overall place in the franchise, because Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban serves as a turning point between the fairy tale Sorcerer’s Stone and Chamber of Secretsand the most epic and fantastic Goblet of Fire ahead.
A deeply visual storyteller, Cuarón also fills Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban with more aesthetic nuances than the other films in the series. For example, it sprinkles in allusions to the motif of time, like shots of clocks and a moment of blinking and you’ll miss it where a wizard reads Stephen Hawking A brief history of time in The Leaky Cauldron. These little moments foreshadow the plot of the time travel that is taking shape towards Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban‘Sending in progress. He makes similarly subtle references to werewolves throughout the film, leading up to Professor Lupin (David Thewlis) transformation in the third act.
Steve Kloves’ To Azka The script omits essential details in the third act
However, it is the third act of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban where holes start to appear in the fabric of the story. While most of the film stays true to Rowling’s book, the climax leaves out key details, which aren’t necessarily the product of Cuarón’s direction, but rather a flawed script. While screenwriter Steve Kloves did a generally stellar job adapting the rest of the Potter novels for the cinema, with the exception of The order of the Phoenixwhich was written by Michael Goldenberg—Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban particularly lacking in background information and plot-crucial explanations.
In particular, one of the most important revelations of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is that Sirius Black is an innocent man, and that the real enemy who exposed Harry’s parents is Peter Pettigrew (Timothy Spall). The film Is reveal this, but it does so rather chaotically. In the book, Sirius and Lupine lay out the truth contemplatively, explaining their friendship with James Potter and how Pettigrew framed Sirius for his betrayal. In the film, by contrast, few of these details are provided, and most of them are simply glossed over in a stammering shouting match between Lupin, Sirius, and Harry. The movie never even makes the connection that the Marauders – Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs – are Lupin, Pettigrew, Sirius and James, respectively.
In fact, the movie doesn’t even reveal that James Potter is an animagus, let alone a deer animagus. While the animal transformations of Lupin, Pettigrew, and Sirius are shown in action, they leave out the important story behind why these friends decided to become Animagi together. This history and its complexities are not only relevant to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkabanbut are consistent in later Potter movies. Without understanding the connection between the Marauders, one cannot fully understand Harry’s perception of his late father. Likewise, without knowing that James turns into a deer, we don’t see the significance of Harry’s Patronus.
The patronus-animal connection is never noted in ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’
Furthermore, on the theme of Patronuses, the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban the script never explains that a full Patronus should take the form of an animal. Throughout the film, when Harry shouts “Expecto Patronum”, nothing more than silvery clouds of light emerge from his wand. While this is true to the book, the film omits the fact that these cloudy Patronuses are unfinished forms of the spell, and that once Harry perfects his Patronus, he will appear as a creature unique to him – in his case, a deer.
This, of course, makes the film’s emotional climax rather confusing for those who haven’t read the book. When the Dementors’ Kiss is moments away from taking away the souls of Harry and Sirius, Harry looks across the pond to see a glowing white stag. The stag then explodes into a ball of light, dispelling the Dementors before Harry passes out. When he wakes up in the infirmary, Harry’s first thought is that he has seen his deceased father reincarnated. Without James’ basic knowledge of the Animgus, or the simple fact that Patronuses should look like animals, it becomes utter nonsense.
Harry Potter Movies have to hold up with or without the books
Some may claim that the Harry Potter the movies are made for fans of the books, and everyone should read the books before seeing the movies. While that argument may have some merit, it still doesn’t excuse the film from telling a full narrative. Even though everyone in the audience has read the book, the movie still has to make sense. Consider some of the best book-to-movie adaptations of all time –The Lord of the Rings, Flight over a cuckoo’s nest, Kill a mockingbird. Although the books are revered, the movies still stand on their own, sharing the whole story through the fresh eyes of a new medium. They are deserved art forms in their own right, not incidental additions to their source material.
Again, most of Harry Potter movies To do manage to hold their own and audiences can usually enjoy them even if they don’t know the books. However, it seems a pity, or at least a strange paradox, that one of the weakest Potter scripts has been attached to one of the best directed Potter movies. Alfonso Cuarón, who will only direct this one Potter film, then returning to award-winning independent projects such as children of men, Gravityand Romeis in the same school as peter jackson and Christopher Nolan. He was an up-and-coming director at the turn of the millennium who was given the mantle of a successful franchise, and he delivered on that promise perfectly. He brought his unique talents and vision to the series, but never lost the spirit of the Potter universe. Unfortunately, this time the scenario of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban had just a little too much faith in public readership.
We would love to say thanks to the writer of this short article for this amazing material
Prisoner of Azkaban is the best-directed, but worst-written Harry Potter movie – CNET – ApparelGeek
Check out our social media profiles and other pages related to themhttps://nimblespirit.com/related-pages/