Oh, you were referencing the Black Spot incident. I think they do make at least a small reference to it in the movies.

I guess the major difference is that I feel like all of those stories, actually getting into them as much as we do in the books, is a strength of the book and part of what makes it not entirely cumbersome at its page count, it really drives home that this is not a new problem, but it's entirely too much to fit into a movie, or even two movies.