Harry Potter Rox 2002

MOVIE MISTAKES

In the movie, Hagrid tells Harry and Ron that he bought Fluffy from an Irish fellow but in the book Hagrid says that he bought him from a GREEK fellow. Surely it wouldn't have been hard to say that in the movie or would it have ?

At the end of the movie Hagrid gives Harry the photo album. After Harry looks at it and tells Hagrid goodbye, he walks back to the train with his hands at his side and there is no sign of the album in either hand.

In the beginning of the movie when the students are first sorted, a little red headed girl is sorted into Hufflepuff house before Harry. Later in the movie, she is seated at dinner at the same table as Harry, meaning she would have to be in his house, which is Gryffindor. How did she switch houses?

At the end of the movie, when the train is leaving Hogwarts, where is the big lake that they crossed in boats in the beginning of the movie? If you look at Hogwarts there is clearly no lake around it.

When Malfoy first talks, the window behind him is bright blue. He talks about "it's true then, what they are saying on the train, Harry Potter has come to Hogwarts." Everyone says "Harry Potter" and when it cuts back to Malfoy, the window is much much darker. Both a mistake in terms of continuity between windows, and also a mistake because we'd seen everyone turn up in total darkness earlier, so the window shouldn't have been light in the first place.

When Harry and Ron are sat on the train, Ron's hair begins with a centre parting, but soon changes to a side parting.

After Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) is knocked unconscious in the chess scene he moves/twitches three times (his body when flying debris hits him, his leg when the camera pulls away, and his mouth when Harry and Hermione are running towards his body).

When Mc. McGonnagall is talking to the children before their sorting, you can tell when the camera is on her that the lighting is candle-like(note the flicker). When the camera cuts to the children, there is no flicker (check out Hermione).

At the end of the movie when Dumbledore announces Slytherin is in first place, they show Malfoy and we can see his hair under his hat. They switch to Hermionie, Snape and back again to Malfoy, and his hair is now entirely covered by the hat.

In the sorting ceremony, we see Susan Bones, the girl with long curly hair, was sorted into Hufflepuff House. Later, in Professor Snape's Potion class, we see Susan was sitting behind Harry when Snape questions him. Only Gryffindor and Slytherin are attending in that class together - Susan was in the wrong class!

When Harry is in the hospital wing, and he's been sleeping there for a while (time not known) as soon as he wakes up, before even lifting his head, he reaches over to the right side of his bed, picks up his glasses, and puts them on. But eairler in the movie his nightstand was on the left side of his bed, when he slept in the dormitory. It's odd how automatic Harry knew where his glasses were, even when they changed sides - he was presumably unconscious when they put him in bed, so he can't have noticed then.

When Harry, Ron, and Hermoine get off the stairs (which have just moved) onto the third floor, the stairs bounce, clearly illustrating that they are not made of the hard stone they appear to be.

Well - when Harry is sitting in the window with Hedwig, first shot his ankles are crossed - close up, they are not.

When Ron is playing chess on top of the knight, why does he not just get off it when the other side's piece comes to destroy it? I could not understand why he clung on. It took an age for the other piece to arrive to destroy his knight, he had all the time in the world!

After Harry, Ron and Hermonie have completed the chess game challenge, Harry instructs the other two to "go back and get help". So, are they just supposed to waltz back through the previous challenges, somehow climb up through that Devil's Snare, and out the trapdoor guarded by Fluffy, who is very awake now (and hopefully not standing on the door)?

At the start of term feast, after Harry is sorted into Gryffindor, he sits down on the right side of the table next to Ron. When the feast appears, Harry is on the other side of the table, next to Hermione.

When the three children get past Fluffy because the harp is playing, as Fluffy wakes he dribbles on Ron's shoulder. However, when they fall down into the Devil's Snare, his shirt is completely dry.

Near the start, Percy says "Boys upstairs and down on your left, girls the same on your right". However, after the three heroes have been to investigate Fluffy and they go back to the dorms, when they reach the top of the stairs Hermione goes to the left and the boys head right.

In the scene when Harry, Ron, and Hermione visit Hagrid, Malfoy is visible through the window. He appears to be eye level with the window and is shown turning and running away. When the camera zooms out later in the film, the same window that Malfoy is supposedly looking through is far too high for anybody to see through without a ladder. He obviously didn't have a ladder or he would have fallen off it when he turned to run away.

After the final confrontation Harry has scratches on his face, particularly one on his chin. When visited by Prof Dumbledore the chin scratch is barely there but in the scene in the refectory it is back and appears larger than before.

In the scene in Diagon alley when Harry first enters there are some witches on the left hand side of the screen looking at what appears to be large lollypops and Harry walks past them. The camera angle changes and Harry walks past them again.

When Harry, Ron, and Hermione are telling Hagrid that Snape is trying to steal the stone, he tells them that Snape helped protect the stone, and 'he's not about to steal it'. So far so good, sticks to the book. However when they actually try to save the stone, Snape's challenge, the logic one with potions, is missing!

When Harry is in the potions class he is caught writing notes down, we see his neat writing in close up ... but when the camera angle changes we can see that the writing has changed in size to very large letters and quite messy writing.

When Hermione is battling the Troll in the girls' bathroom, the Troll uses his club to smash one of the basins that Hermione is hiding under, but the next shot of Hermione under the sink shows that particular sink intact and unharmed.

When the troll is about to swing at Harry for the third time with his club, Ron levitates his club in mid-air. When the club falls, it hits the trolls head with a loud thunk, then falls to the ground. But you never hear any sound of the club hitting the ground.

Sitting at the table in the hall Harry has a bandage on his left hand. Waving goodbye from the train at the end, the bandage is on his right hand.

In the scene when Harry is in the restricted section of the library he walks in in the dark with only a lantern. He puts the lantern down in front of himself and begins to read. If you look at the bookshelf, his shadow is cast on the other side of the lantern as though the light is behind him.

When professor turns from a cat back into a human she isn't wearing her glasses, but in the next shot she is wearing them!

In the snow scene, Hedwig is tethered to Harry's arm. When she flies away, there is no sign of the strap around her leg or Harry's arm.

When Harry sees the cut/gash on Snape's leg while in the girl's bathroom in the movie, it shows that the cut/gash was on his right leg. But after Snape wishes Harry good luck in the upcoming Quidditch game, he walks away limping as though his left leg was hurt.

This must always be a risk when working with child actors and filming out of sequence, but Daniel Radcliffe's voice obviously started to break during filming. It was most noticeable during the scene in the forest when his voice went from high to low to high again (and again, and again...)

Harry's eyes are sometimes green, sometimes blue. Maybe due to lighting?

Ron tells Professor McGonnagal that her tranformation was "bloody brilliant" and she doesn't bat an eye. This is rather obscene language for an eleven-year old to use in school. Americans don't realize how inappropriate this language would be in a formal British school.

It the beginning of Harry Potter, there is a sequence when Harry's mother is being killed. When we see Harry, he is wearing a Blue's Clues romper suit - I do not recall Blue's Clues being around 12 or so years ago.

At the end of the film when Harry recieves the photo album, the child in the photo is clearly older than 1, but his parents died when he was just 1.

How did Hermione know it was Harry Potter when on Hogwarts Express his scar was covered by his fringe?

More trivia than anything else, but the only major character to be cut out of the books was Peeves the poltergeist - he was due to be played by Rik Mayall (people in the US might not know him, but he's big over here - been in various TV shows and films). He filmed all of his parts, but then got cut due to an over-long running time.

A plot hole about Quirrell getting through the puzzles with no lingering effects was corrected by saying that they probably reset themselves afterwards, which makes sense. However, this itself creates a mistake - if the challenges to get to the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone reset themselves after each person, how is it that the winged key is injured?

Often in the film we hear owls flapping in flight, but everyone knows that the whole point is that owls fly completely silently so they can hunt efficiently at night.

When Harry is looking at the snake in the zoo, it winks at him. This could not have happened since snakes do not have eyelids.

Misconceptions -

When Ron, Hermione, and Harry are looking at James Potter's seeker plaque in the trophy case, a similar crest next to his says that McGonnagall was on the same Gryffindor Quidditch team - the movie leads you to believe she was pretty old. That means, by my reasoning, that she would have been at least 20 years old when she started playing for the Gryffindors in the 1970s. [This might be a different McGonagall, or a child of Professor McGonagall, for there's no evidence that this is the McGonagall currently teaching at the time.]

The promotional photos show Harry Potter with a scar on his forehead over his right eye. On the covers of all the books, the scar is clearly shown to be over his left eye. This is to correct the mistake about the scar being in the wrong location on Harry's head. [JK Rowling has commented on this and said that in the text of the books, the scar's location is never indicated (only that it's on his forehead somewhere) and it was the novel's artist who decided that it should be centered (see the 4th book cover for the best view). The movie people decided to make it off-centre, and Rowling was fine with that.]

When the troll is in the girls toilets, it looks like there's only one line of cubicles, and he smashes the top half off twice. [he only smashed a few of the stalls the first swing, then the rest of them the second time. There is still only one row of stalls.]

Harry Potter has lovely green eyes. When Voldemort is about to kill baby Harry during the flashback, Harry's eyes are blue. [All babies have blue eyes - they only change colour as the child gets older, so even though Harry aged 11 has green eyes, he would have still had blue eyes when he was 1 year old.]

When Harry first finds the mirror of Erised, he walks through the door and the mirror is on his right. This is the same when he takes Ron to see it, but when Dumbledore finds him in front of the mirror, if you look where the door should be, there is just wall. [It took a close look to resolve this one. The room's laid out such that the door is between the outer wall and a shorter inner wall - Harry has to run around it to get to the mirror. As such, when we see the room it looks like the door's disappeared, whereas actually it's just behind a short wall.]

During the Quidditch match, someone falls from their broomstick, landing in a pile of sand. But when we first saw the pitch it was all neat grass - where did the sand come from? [There's sand visible under the goalposts in the first shot of the field.]

How come Hermione is so confindent that she'll get into Gryffindor? On the Hogwart Express Train, she is already wearing a Gryffindor tie (red and yellow) before arriving at Hogwarts or being sorted into houses. [She is wearing a black tie with the Hogwarts' crest.

If Harry, Ron and Hermione can walk undetected under the invisibility cloak, why can't Harry walk with the lamp underneath it when he is going to the restricted section of the library? Surely he wouldn't have to hide the light if he did so, reducing the risk of being spotted? [Two thoughts - one is that he might worry about it catching fire, the other is that it might work on a "one way" system. Light can go into the cloak, so he can see through it, but light can't escape out, so no-one can see him, and similarly the light from the lamp can't escape. If anyone has an official description of how the cloak works, I'll gladly hear it!]

Harry had to pass the key and chess challenges, which caused damage to the door (all the keys flying into it) and the chess set (all smashed up), but when he arrived Prof. Quirrell was already at the mirror. How did he get past them without causing all that chaos? [Given the magical nature of Hogwarts, it's perfectly possible that once someone has passed a challenge, it's automatically reset].

At the battle with the professor, the profesor was perfectly fine when he tried to strangle Harry. It's only when he was touched by Harry's hands did he start to melt. But later Dumbledore said that the power was in Harry's skin (But apparently not at the neck). [The power is in his touch, ie. when Harry uses his hands - it doesn't necessarily apply to any part of his body.]

When Harry first views the golden snitch, and it begins to fly in the air, both characters are apparently watching it, but are looking in different directions. [When the snitch is released Harry and Oliver are looking in different directions because only Harry can see it, Oliver is trying to see where it went.]

In the scene where Harry is talking to Hermione and Ron about Hagrid's dragon, he says "Hagrid's always wanted a dragon, he told me so the first time I ever met him," but in the movie Hagrid never tells this to Harry. [Assumes the only conversations between Harry and Hagrid are in the film, which can't be the case, as we never saw Harry taking money out of his vault, yet he has done so.]

When Harry buys all the sweets from the cart on the train he places them on the chair beside him. But there are clearly more sweets on the chair then there were on the trolley. [He simply gave the woman a handful of money. If he had more money than there was candy, the lady could simply get (or magic) more.]