Harry Potter fans: would you call yourself primarily a book or a movie fan?

[Skald the Rhymer]

And, whichever your answer, why?

[Tangent]

I like the books far, far more. I don't think the movies are all that good--they all feel kind of lackluster in comparison to the books. Especially starting with book 4, the corresponding movies had to exclude so much material that they lose a lot of the richness of detail and characterization that the books have.

[sachertorte]

I very much enjoyed the books and movies. My only problem with the movies is that my own image of Harry, Hermione, Hagrid and all the rest are utterly destroyed now. I know that I pictured each one differently, but I can't remember what those thoughts were anymore. Now if I re-read the books all I see are the movie characters - except Charlie, Charlie doesn't appear in the movies so he still rocks.

[Snowboarder Bo]

Originally Posted by Tangent

I like the books far, far more. I don't think the movies are all that good--they all feel kind of lackluster in comparison to the books. Especially starting with book 4, the corresponding movies had to exclude so much material that they lose a lot of the richness of detail and characterization that the books have.

Aye.

The first book is comparatively short, and so it was a good fit as a movie; ditto for the 2nd.

But by the 3rd book, it was difficult to cram it all into a 100-120 minute film, and by the 4th book (734 pages for the US hardcover), there was just no way to make that into a film of less than 4-5 hours without trimming a lot of things. Unfortunately, that meant whole characters, plot points, etc.

By the 5th book, I thought the film version had to leave so much out that it was a waste of my money and time and so I stopped watching them.

[BigT]

I'm entirely a fanfic fan. The books never appealed to me, but HP:MOR definitely does. I'm still trying to force myself to finish the books if only so I'll get all the little references.

[kaylasdad99]

Primarily the books was my answer (although I also wanted to inquire about the cheesecake rumor -- CURSE YOU, SKALD THE RHYMER, FOR NOT GIVING US THE ABILITY TO MAKE MULTIPLE SELECTIONS!) and my reasons are manifold.

I began reading and enjoying the world of Harry Potter several years before the first movie came out.

Although the movies do provide several very fine translations of many characters to the screen, there are also quite a few performances that diverge so widely from the ones that I made up in my head that they detract from my enjoyment of the films. Most notably, Dumbledore, who strikes me as far more frail (even in Gambon's performances) than I imagined him to be while reading the books. I was also not impressed with the way the films handled the centaurs.

This is not to say that I did not enjoy the movies immensely; I did. However, even if I might have been inclined to call myself equally a fan of both, Voldemort's

SPOILER:

death

as handled in the last film would have disqualified the movies from that distinction. It was an extraordinary effect that they gave us, and that extra-ordinariness, IMNSHO, totally undermined the message that the author wished to convey with the event. To be honest, I'm rather disappointed in Ms. Rowling did not insist that her message remain intact, if only for the benefit of people who chose to limit themselves to the cinematic versions of the stories.

[Lazlo]

Originally Posted by kaylasdad99

This is not to say that I did not enjoy the movies immensely; I did. However, even if I might have been inclined to call myself equally a fan of both, Voldemort's

SPOILER:

death

as handled in the last film would have disqualified the movies from that distinction. It was an extraordinary effect that they gave us, and that extra-ordinariness, IMNSHO, totally undermined the message that the author wished to convey with the event. To be honest, I'm rather disappointed in Ms. Rowling did not insist that her message remain intact, if only for the benefit of people who chose to limit themselves to the cinematic versions of the stories.

This. Prior to the last film, I genuinely enjoyed both formats equally. The ending retroactively messed up all of the films for me.

[Inner Stickler]

Well, I haven't seen the last 3 films so I guess by default I'm primarily a fan of the books.

[Skald the Rhymer]

Originally Posted by kaylasdad99

Primarily the books was my answer (although I also wanted to inquire about the cheesecake rumor

It is a fact.

[Anaamika]

Movies. The books got way too long-winded and way too much teeny-bopper stuff that I really didn't care about. Plus there were lots of plot points I was happy that were dropped in the movies since they were just added in the books to establish tension and never really got any satisfactory resolution (Percy's story being one of them).

[Jman]

Both. I love the books and have read most of them multiple times. As I wasn't a kid when they started coming out, I prefer the later books as they are written for an older audience, but I like all the books, though I haven't read the first two or three in a long time.

I also love the movies, though I much prefer the films from Askaban on, and really love the last four films.

Yes, I'd have preferred the final scene was a little closer to the books in the finality, but the actual battle I found much more satisfying.

They are different works with very similar storylines, but I like both quite a lot.

[Rhaegar]

I would think that only people who have never read the books would be primarily fans of the movies. The first few movies by Chris Columbus were pretty good, but as the books got longer and longer, the movies had to take more and more liberties with the plot to fit them into the time frame of a normal movie. I will say that splitting the last book up into two movies was the right thing to do, and the last two movies did make up for the liberties taken with the Half Blood Prince and Order of the Phoenix. But overall, the movies left out a great many things which made the books great in the first place. And the pacing of some of the movies felt too fast and forced, as if the director was just trying to cram as many things from the books into the movies as quickly as possible.

[expectopatronum]

i enjoy both the books and the movies. i guess, like with many avid potter fans, i lean towards the books, but i love the movies too. i watched the first few movies before i ever read past the first book, so i don't really mind that my mental image of most of the book characters are the movie actors.

of course the books are more detailed and make a lot more sense plot wise than the movies. as we know, books don't have the time constraints that movies have to adhere to, and considering that, and the fact that there were several different directors, i think the movies we got are about the best we could hope for. are they flawed? sure. are there things i wish had been handled differently? definitely. but i'm glad they exist; they're just another facet of the HP-verse to enjoy.

[salinqmind]

I haven't read the books, so I only have the movies for reference, but I adore the movies (mainly the later ones). I think they're so beautiful to look at, and I often have them on as background while doing something else, stopping to watch my favorite awesome scenes (like flying down the Thames at night on their broomsticks - how cool would that be IRL?)

[Chimera]

Originally Posted by Skald the Rhymer

It is a fact.

I think your project planning leaves something to be desired if you are allocating an entire week to making a cheesecake.

[Gagundathar]

I agree with Snowboarder Bo.
The novels became much too unwieldy to become movies.
I was reminded recently that movies are 'short stories'.
Novels are much too complex to be compressed effectively into movies.
There are exceptions, of course, but in general the analogy fits.

That having been said, I enjoyed the books a great deal.
The movies, somewhat less so, although watching the primary characters actually age as the years went by was quite entertaining.

Perhaps I shall watch the entire series again after this coming weekend.

[SpoilerVirgin]

I'm solely a movie fan. I went to see the first movie without having read any of the books, and I enjoyed it so much that I decided to read the first book. I disliked the writing style of the book so much that I struggled to finish it, but I continued to watch the entire series of movies. I know that my experience of the Potterworld is limited because I've only seen the movies, but I have no real desire to read any more of the books. I have looked at them in stores (I remember reading the end of the final book in the store when it first came out, just to see what the fuss was about), but have not been tempted to read any further.

I'm not a fan of fantasy books in general, although I do enjoy some movies, so that may have influenced my perceptions. I had the identical experience with Stardust -- loved the movie enough to check out the book; hated the book.

[TruCelt]

The books, definitely. The movies have never really goteen Dumbledore right, and he's the key to so much about his whole society. His insistence upon fairness, his grim good manners in the face of enemies, his lighthearted enjoyment of the children's spirit and the terrible figure he cuts when he truly gets angry. It's all missing from the movies.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

I'm not a giant Harry Potter fan in comparison to a lot of people, but I figure I qualify, since my wife and I read every book out loud with one another as they were released, and this summer I attended some lectures with a doctoral student writing her thesis on the sociological and literary implications of Harry Potter. I came away from the lectures, and especially from a second reading of Deathly Hallows, with some new appreciation for Rowling's work.

Some good things about the movies:
-Cuaron's movie was pretty good.
-In the seventh movie (?), the animated sequence was mad genius, and it was worth watching the movie for by itself.
-In the eighth movie, the Harry/Hermione dance was a lovely, lilting touch, exactly the sort of thing a good director adds to an interpretation of a book.

...and I think that's about it. The Columbus movies were horrible, in my opinion, and the last two movies were a waste of time except for the two bits I described above. The three lead child actors were mediocre at best, coming across as line-readers most of the time, and the director didn't know how to film an intimate conversation to make it seem like an intimate conversation or to emphasize power differentials or to create tension or anything else. The final fight, a high-noon showdown, was turned into a lightsaber battle, for no apparent reason--for God's sake, people, high noon showdowns are cinematic! The deaths of allies in the final movie were glossed over far too quickly to allow any sort of emotional impact, in order to provide more time to show CGI effects.

So yeah, more of a book fan.

[Ethilrist]

Movies. Hands down, no holds barred. I watched the first four movies, and everybody kept telling me the books were WAY better. So I read the first four books and was really not impressed with them. They seemed sloppily and sketchily written and the extra bits that were in them were left out of the movies for good reason. I read the fifth book and it totally spoiled the ending of the movie for me without being more enjoyable than the movie, so I stopped reading them at that point.

[expectopatronum]

i do agree with you 100% TruCelt. the funny thing is, i think most of the hogwarts staff was cast perfectly, with the exception of dumbledore. richard harris had a little of the whimsical thing going, but that's about the most i can say about his portrayal. gambon's dumbledore is a big eh. one scene that really sticks out to me as being off is towards the end of GoF when crouch jr. is revealed to be masquerading as mad eye. in the book dumbledore is so angry that it's terrible to behold, and harry finally gets why everyone says he's the only wizard voldemort ever feared. in the movie dumbledore just pushes him against a wall and feeds him veritaserum. not intimidating at all.

[GuanoLad]

The first few movies aren't very good at all. And the last few are very good but felt like something was missing.

I do think the actors portray the characters really well, and it's now impossible to read the books without imagining their faces and portrayals, but the books have a lot of funny and sweet character moments and story beats that I really like, which play out in my imagination a lot better than in the movies, if they're even in the movies at all.

[Superhal]

Actually I'm a fan of "the book," the first book.

It was aimed at teens but interesting for adults; well written; suspenseful, etc.. Everything that came after was barely a step above Twilight.

[Tangent]

By the by, the best way I've found to consume the Harry Potter stories is listening to the audiobooks performed by Jim Dale. And I do mean performed. I've listened to a good number of audiobooks, and these are hands down my favorite.

[Chronos]

The books mostly ranged from decent to excellent (though I'm not a big fan of Deathly Hallows). The movies, though... The first two movies were relatively faithful adaptations. And the third one had to cut a fair bit, but the cuts were made skillfully, in such a way that it still held together. By the fourth one, though, they had to cut so agressively that nothing was left but a contextless jump from one action sequence to the next, and so I had no interest in seeing any of the further movies.

And do you really expect those cheesecakes to last a week each, now that you've told all of us of their existence?

[Leiko]

I started reading the books when there was just one book and hardly any fandom at all- I know it had already won the Smarties Prize, whatever that is, and of course it had been big enough to get published in the US and get sold at Costco, but it was still a feeling of having found something none of the other kids knew about that. My other classmates all got their Harry Potter books about 4 months after me, and didn't even realize I'd already read it. Between that ego-stroking feeling and the books just being richer worlds than the movies from a character standpoint, I'm primarily a book fan. Some of the movies I've never even rewatched, or only rewatched through the lens of Rifftrax.

On the other hand: I'd watch the animated Deathly Hallows bit eighty gajillion times if allowed, and Matthew Lewis, Evanna Lynch, Robbie Coltrane, and Dame Maggie Smith are the most perfect casting I've ever seen in book-to-film adaptations. (Not to say any of the other casting choices were necessarily bad, just that those four were spot-on, Evanna most of all).

[Chimera]

I had never read any of the books before I went to an empty theater to see the first movie more than a month after it came out. I really enjoyed it and I think a lot of it was precisely because I hadn't been spoiled by the book and thought Snape was the bad guy.

It was after that I started reading the books.

Now when I look back on the first movie, it is one of my least favorite and pretty much only exists to set up the universe.

I have no issues with movies (HP, LotR, etc) deviating from the books. Well, for the most part. The last two HP movies bothered me in how they needlessly deviated from the whole master wand thing. But for the most part, I view the books and the movies as two separate interpretations of the same universe.

[Leiko]

Chimera, could you expand on what you mean by deviating from the master wand thing? I'm curious.

[Eureka]

I've never bothered to see the last 2 or 3 movies. I've read all the books at least once.

Although, arguably, I'm more a fan of the fandom than either the books or movies--between reading fanfic, and hanging out online with a group of fans of varying intensities who have other things in common . . .

[Princhester]

Like, I notice, a lot of others I haven't watched all the movies, only the first three and a half (I didn't make it all the way through GoF before I lost interest).

The books are full of wonderful detail, and the plotting is very carefully thought through, as is the touchy feely growing up emotional stuff. As others have said, so much gets cut out of the movies that they become just action movie/cartoons.

Personally I can't stand 90% of Hollywood style movie combat/action scenes of the last twenty years or more because they have become stylised, cliched and exaggerated to the point that I find them ridiculous, cartoonish and laughable, and they take me out of the movie. When I read the book I can imagine the scenes occurring in a way that bears some resemblance to reality* but when I watch the movies, not so much.

*Except for all the, yanno, magic and stuff

[rocking chair]

the movie adaptations of 4,5,6, and 7 spoiled the movieverse. it is one thing to have things adapted to the big screen, it is another thing when you change the core of the main characters.

most especially dumbledore and harry, they even messed a bit with voldemort. the endings of 5,6,and 7 could and should have stuck closer to the books.

[Enuma Elish]

I saw the movies first and after OOTP, decided to read the books. I enjoy the movies, but there is just so much more in the books, so I'd say 75% fan of the books and 25% fan of the movies.

[Anaamika]

Originally Posted by Rhaegar

I would think that only people who have never read the books would be primarily fans of the movies. The first few movies by Chris Columbus were pretty good, but as the books got longer and longer, the movies had to take more and more liberties with the plot to fit them into the time frame of a normal movie. I will say that splitting the last book up into two movies was the right thing to do, and the last two movies did make up for the liberties taken with the Half Blood Prince and Order of the Phoenix. But overall, the movies left out a great many things which made the books great in the first place. And the pacing of some of the movies felt too fast and forced, as if the director was just trying to cram as many things from the books into the movies as quickly as possible.

I've done both. I really didn't think the later books were all that good. I also almost never say a book is better than a movie. The camping trip alone was way too boring; also the Quidditch and the hogwarts cup match was really really boring to read about.

[Phèdre nó Delaunay]

Books for sure. The movies are so shallow and insipid while the books bring the world to life. The movies cut out so much, the plot becomes almost non-existent and what little there is left is almost impossible to follow for people who haven't read. The characters of the books are changed so much for the movies that the whole thing just rings hollow.

[Loach]

I watched and enjoyed the movies. Never read the books. I've told myself I'd get around to reading them but hasn't happened yet.

And I don't like cheesecake.

[RandMcnally]

Movies. I forced myself to read the first book and didn't care for it at all. I've seen all the movies.

[thirdwarning]

The books, the books, the books. The first movie was pretty good, the second was not very, the third was awful. It wasn't even a movie as much as a series of unrelated vignettes.
Somehow the GoF movie was better, but still it left out so much that if I hadn't read the book I'm not sure I would have been able to follow it. I haven't watched the other four, other than a few minutes here and there in OOTF.
I'm okay with most of the casting, and the movies look great, but I'll stick with the books.

[Jragon]

Originally Posted by thirdwarning

The books, the books, the books. The first movie was pretty good, the second was not very, the third was awful. It wasn't even a movie as much as a series of unrelated vignettes.
Somehow the GoF movie was better, but still it left out so much that if I hadn't read the book I'm not sure I would have been able to follow it. I haven't watched the other four, other than a few minutes here and there in OOTF.
I'm okay with most of the casting, and the movies look great, but I'll stick with the books.

I love tournament arcs in stories, but Goblet of Fire is by far my least favorite book. I agree that, somehow, the movie did it better.

I'm also mainly a book fan, I haven't seen a movie since OOTP, though (I wasn't disgusted at them or anything, I was just so meh about it I didn't bother).

ETA: I think part of what made the GOF book so bad was that they tried to make it an "intellectual tournament" of sorts, where they relied on their wits. That's a great premise for a story, but unfortunately Harry isn't exactly the kind of main character you want to do that with. It was nice seeing the expertise and comradarie of various other students like Neville were really explored for the first time, but it mostly just made Harry come off as inept, I think. The movie, placing more focus on the action, struck a better balance between Harry's flaws (the planning) and his heroism (the action).

[ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies]

Movies. Haven't read a word of the books.

[Sir T-Cups]

Books.

Lots of my reasons have already been said upthread, but there are two big reasons I love the books more.

First is because JKRs writing style very closely mirrors my own. Very informal, lots of little asides and tons of parenthetical statements of comedy.

Second reason, and the biggest one, is that I got the first three HP books when I was ten(ish) and started reading from there. I was at the perfect age that as I grew up, Harry grew with me. So I could relate to the story and the emotions more because I just pretended it was me in the book. I think a lot of that relatability is lost on some of the readers if they started reading it while already in their 20s 30s 40s etc.

[VunderBob]

Books, definitely. I also like the movies.

Books in general play better in my mind than the directors and producers can replicate.