This little bit of news might seem like a minor thing, but it represents a bigger issue with the future of the Harry Potter movies.
When Harry Potter tricked Lucius Malfoy into freeing his house elf, Dobby, at the end of “Chamber of Secrets,” he might have inadvertently magicked the helpful servant right out of the series. Dobby hasn’t appeared in any Potter films since and won’t be appearing in the upcoming Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix either, according to Toby Jones, the actor who voiced him in the series’ second installment.
Perhaps they didnt want another house elf to share the spotlight with Kreacher, the reluctant house elf that minds after the secret headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. But this does present some plot holes.
They have already glossed over and forgotten Hermoine’s edgy political movement to free the house elves from their role of servitude. But Dobby’s unwaivering loyalty to Harry is quite important in the 5th book. These are plot points that they may expose in different ways, and the help that Dobby offers might simply come from a nameless student or the pages of a book Hermoine digs up at the library.
As with any book to movie adaptation, much is left out, replaced, reworked to make it work on screen. With the first couple books, they were very short and it was not difficult for them to produce a page by page presentation of the story. However with the growing volumes of the books, more and more has to be left out or reworked to keep the movie under 6 hours.
Removing Dobby is unfortunate, but a neccessary step to squish the 766 page book in under 120 mins of movie. I just wonder what else is being cut out, and how this will affect the strong connection between the books and movies. The sixth book, the Half Blood Prince is just as long. We can only expect the seventh and final book of the series to follow.
