From Empire:

Not groundbreaking in any way, but a mildly interesting read, and weird realising that things I'd known by default as a fan of the books are lost on the millions of non-readers who watch them.

 

JKRowling also had quite a few cut/obsolete plot-lines and ideas for the books, too.

http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Articles_derived_from_cut_content

Although I guess that it's common knowledge that Hermione was supposed to have a sister, a few of the ideas that she had whilst writing the series (like the Potters originally being on a island and betrayed by a muggle) are completely different to the 'end results'.

 

http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Ghost_Court

Ghost Court: :awesome

 

Seriously? That would have been so much better than the Sorting Hat.

 

I dunno. I can imagine it looking like a playground moment.


The Fat Friar looked over the collection of firsties. "So, which one of us is taking Longbottom?"

The Grey Ghost nudged him and pointed to where Sir Nicholas was blustering at Peeves about his ruff being period-accurate.

"Ah! Thank you for volunteering, Sir Nicholas."

"Eh, what?"

 

Not the only nixed Sorting: The Hogwarts Selection Committee and a Magical Gateway.

I don't see how the Selection Committee would have worked out with the students if the Heads of Houses were involved. Harry certainly wouldn't have almost gone to Slytherin... unless he'd been born a redhead.

 

In the movies, the most important things cut out are the various bits about the school years of the Marauders, Snape, and Lily. It started in PoA, and also included the missing "Snape's Worst Memory" bit of OotP. They're going to have to work overtime to cover some of those details in DH part 2, with Snape's memories. I don't imagine they'll do a perfect job of it.

Ichor's link to the missing content in Rowling's books is interesting too. For those budding professional writers here, it's a good example of how things need to be cut out when they don't fit, even when the author is fond of them.

But I think that ultimately the books lost something by not including that Mafalda character. She could have been a nice window into Slytherin, and a character with a Luna-like level of importance in her own way. Rowling's problem was that she wanted to make her a 1st year when everyone else was in 4th year - if she had Mafalda enter the school back in CoS, things might have worked well. CoS was the least interesting of the books anyway.

 

I always thought the least interesting one (more accurately, most boring one) was either OOTP or HBP. Though CoS being less than 300 pages I agree it would have been perfect to introduce that character.

From what the wiki says the character would have an unpleasant personality but work for the good guys, that has a lot of room for growth over the books and help Hermione's character out as well.

 

I myself have not watched passed the 3rd movie in the HP series simply because I hated the idea that they changed around the fucking scenes in the movies than the books had them. Take for instance that Harry got the Firebolt near the middle of the book (or was it near the beginning? I don't remember), but in the movie, they changed it to the very end, which I thought was utterly fucking stupid. And I don't have an interest in watching the other movies either.

 

The seventh is awesome so far and you need to watch it.
Just saying.