Like both! Maggie is wonderful as McGonagall!!!

I love her in the books, but she's also really amazing in the movies
she's the perfect actress for that part!!

Maggie is great, but as most of my favourite moments with her didn't make it into the movie, I have to go for book Minerva.

true....they left her most glorious moments out of the movies....very sad!!

i agree...maggie smith IS Minerva McGonagall....but she gets to do so little :(

yes, very sad! The movies transport only one side of her I think

yes they highlight only the emotional parts.....McGonagall's dry sense of humor which is why i love her so much is totally left out

there are quite a few humorous Minerva-moments in the movies I'd say, sadly enough not all of them(for example her quarrels with Umbridge and Trelawney)

I had the impression that they also left out some of her most emotional moments.....for example in OOTP when she offers Harry the biscuits and tells him to be careful, when she nearly starts crying when Ron and Harry tell her they want to go to visit the petrified Hermione in COS or when she claims with pride that Harry belongs to her house in DH or when she gets hit by four stunners while trying to protect Hagrid in OOTP or when she shouts at Minister Fudge who refuses to accept "You-know-who"s return in GOF....well,you get the impression...there should have been more of her in the movies!!

i know :( i love all those moments you mentioned...also there were harry's career advice,then the debate after the dumbledore's army got caught....

in the movies her role is reduced to miniscule...i thought in OOTP at least they wouldn't be able to cut her out that much.but they did!!!there was perhaps one silly confrontation with umbridge that wasn't even in the book and just wasn't good enough.we got photos of her sitting on a wheelchair which means they filmed the scenes where she is stunned but maybe they cut it while editing :(

yes I thought so too...they cut MANY things in OOTP anyway as for example the duel of Sirius and Bellatrix(which is quite important for the plots as it results in him dying)

why did they have to cut the stunner-attack out? And the whole Umbridge-Minerva-conflict...they simply ignored it! A little chat about disloyalty and that's all...
and yes, I loved the scene in the book where she wanted to help Dumbledore fighting the aurors. Aaah, they left all the grat moments out of the movies!!
From the very first scene of the first movie onwards...she doesn't show any emotion there when they leave Harry on the doorstep while in the book she expresses her concern more than once and even cries over the loss of James and Lily.

Sad how they reduced her to a minor character in the movies....well she was a minor character in the books too but not THAT unimportant!!

it makes me go "WHY OH WHY!!!!" whenever one of my favorite moments do not make it to the movie...and in McGonagall's case it is the worst as the makers always seemed determined to completely cut her scenes or improvise them which took away the magic...
i haven't watched DH-2(and i can't as of now as HP movies don't get released in my country)but you wrote somewhere that in the last film they altered her the wrong way,right?? :(

1. is there a country where Harry Potter is NOT released? I didn't know...

2. Well...they changed some things, she was still awesome and appeared a lot more often than in the previous movies. But in my opinion they didn't capture the "powerful leader"-part of her that well....but we got some fun moments instead, which was nice too.

1.yes there is...you can take my word for it :P
2.hmm..i know what you mean.more of "I've always wanted to use that spell" kind of things

yes, right! But I still like it...it's just another interpretation of her character but a nice one

and it seems to have done the trick too...people are just loving her...readers and non-readers alike :)

It's hard for me to seperate the two. I saw the first movie before reading the books so when I read them I always picture Maggie Smith. I wish they didn't leave so much out but their the same person in my mind.

^^I'm with you. I have trouble separating them as well. McGonagall has pretty much been my favorite HP character for a long time. I've been reading the books since i was 7, but I don't really remember much before the movies came out (I was 10). So...did McGonagall become my favorite because of Maggie Smith or was she before that? I don't remember lol.

I like both, Maggie Smith played her really well, but the writers left WAY to much out.

She's a great actress and looks exactly how I imagined her!

They didn't explore too much Minerva in the movie. Which is so sad. I rather love her in the books, but I love her scenes in the movies although not much appearance, but still.. Maggie Smith looks very cute on the HP films. :)))

Maggie Smith is brilliant, but JK Rowling made her a far more complex, and real character. Maggie played her well, but she didn't have the time the book gave.