Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (film)

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is the 2004 film adaptation of the 1999 novel of the same name by J. K. Rowling, directed by Alfonso Cuarón. Like the other films in the series, it features Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter, with Rupert Grint and Emma Watson as Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, as well as an All-Star Cast.

Harry and his friends return to Hogwarts for their third year, this time under the threat of escaped convicted murderer Sirius Black, who is targeting Harry for death. To protect Harry, the Ministry dispatches the wraithlike soul-sucking guards of the wizarding prison Azkaban to surround Hogwarts. When Harry discovers he reacts poorly to their proximity, he asks new Defense professor Remus Lupin for help in learning how to drive them off. Secrets are discovered and revealed, and Harry learns more of his family's history when Black succeeds at drawing the Trio out of Hogwarts and traps them in the most-haunted house in all of Britain.

Tropes used in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (film) include:

The tropes listed below are those specific to this film or altered from those found in the original book. Please see that page for those tropes common to both versions.

  • Adaptation-Induced Plothole:
    • After Harry falls off his broom in the Quidditch match. In the book (and the video game), Harry sees a black dog that he believes to be the Grim watching him from some empty seats. In the film, Harry instead sees the outlines of the Grim appear in the sky. This would theoretically make sense if the Grim he had been spotting before was really a mystical omen of death and not the Animagus form of Sirius Black, as we later find out. Could actually be Adapation Induced Fridge Brilliance, as Harry is destined to die in four books.
    • The movie never mentions who Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs are. This caused confusion among some audience members during the fifth movie when Harry wrote a letter to "Padfoot" without mentioning his given name.
      • Plus Pettigrew being referred to exclusively as "Wormtail" in film four. And it's now a mystery how Lupin knows how the map works.
  • Adaptational Jerkass: In the book, Hermione kept trying to make peace between Crookshanks and Scabbers, but her justifications that Crookshanks is a cat giving into instinct kept falling short as Ron aptly noticed that the cat is gunning for his rat. While she keeps going Never My Fault after it seems that Crookshanks has eaten Scabbers, she eventually apologizes to Ron when he helps her with Hagrid's trial notes. Hermione keeps saying in the film that "Ronald has lost his rat" and doesn't even consider the possibility that Crookshanks has eaten Scabbers. (She's right, but that's not the point.)
  • Big "Shut Up!": Harry to Aunt Marge.
  • Compressed Adaptation: Can't really be helped, though: there's just too much plot to stuff into a movie.
  • Creative Closing Credits
  • Flat What: Harry does this when Hagrid tells him that he can ride Buckbeak.
  • Fly At the Camera Ending: Harry, on his Firebolt.
  • Foreshadowing: A blink-and-you-miss-it one: near the beginning of the film, a wizard in the Leaky Cauldron is seen reading A Brief History of Time. The last act is based heavily around time travel.
  • Glass-Shattering Sound: The Fat Lady attempts this but has to resort to breaking the glass on her frame.
  • Holier Than Thou: Draco certainly cops this attitude throughout the film.
  • "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Sirius invokes this to stave off Remus's transformation. It doesn't work.
  • Iris Out: Used frequently.
  • Keep Reading: When the Marauder's Map insults Snape.
  • Scenery Porn: So much of the film, especially the outdoor scenes and the shots of the spiral staircase. (Maybe not so much scenery porn per se as cinematography porn -- but as that isn't yet a recognized trope, this trope comes closest.)
  • Scooby Stack: The trio do this on their way out of Hagrid's hut when Fudge, Dumbledore, and the executioner arrive.
  • Sphere of Power: The maximized version of the Patronus charm, as cast by Harry to ward off mass quantities of Dementors, also has this visual effect.
  • Wolf Man: In contrast to the book, where he is large if otherwise normal wolf, Lupin's transformation here turns him into a bipedal humanoid with digitigrade legs, bald, and extremely underfed.


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