HTF REVIEW: "Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone" (with screenshots) (1 Viewer)

[ScottR]

No hassles at Best Buy for me...in fact, they already knew what I wanted when I walked up to the register with ad in hand. The cashier looked at me and said "CompUSA?" Great deal..thanks guys for the heads up!

 

[Ron-P]

$9.27 at Best Buy. Price match +10%.
I have not seen this movie. Is it entertaining for adults as well as the kiddies?
Peace Out~

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I enjoyed the hell out of it. I don't know if you will, though. It's not your average cloying kids film, if that's what you mean.

 

[Ron-P]

Just wanted to make sure it's not like a Barney or Teletubbies sci-fi movie or something along those lines.
Peace Out~

 

[Dan Brecher]

Ron, I think (and hope) you will be genuinely surprised at the overall tone of the movie. It is in no way patronising, it honours the book well (er, if you have the canadian version ) and is appealing to kids and adults alike.
Enjoy,
Dan

 

[Qui-Gon John]

Well I had a bad experience this afternoon.

CompUSA out of stock.

Went to CC to price match, no W/S.

Went to BlockBuster to price match. They would not do it as they looked at the ad and said the 10.00 instant savings is like a rebate promotion and they'd only match on the price, not the rebate.

Went to Best Buy and they said they would not do it b/c CompUSA was out of stock. I mean what's the point of price matching with that requirement that the other guy be in stock. Then you'd just buy it there.

But thank God for K-Mart, they price matched for me, no problems. Manager had to come over and approve, didn't even look at the ad.

 

[David Stone]

To be honest, I just don't feel like working this hard to have to watch Special Edition content that is not readily available.

AMEN! Not very well thought out and Warner also completely missed a golden opportunity to include an option to branch to the deleted scenes and view them while watching the film.

Also, you didn't mention it, but we found the menus to be difficult to use in respect to selections being highlighted, especially on disc 2. When an selectable "item" on the screen becomes selected (i.e. owl, key, bean, etc.), it is indicated by being overlaid with a very subtle magic dust effect.

At one point while trying to select the correct "item" on a fairly crowded screen, my wife had to ask "How can you SEE what you are doing??" My Father, who suffers from vision problems, will never be able to navigate these menus.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

One optimistic note:
In Randy A. Salas's article, the following:

He added that WHV stayed away from behind-the-scenes footage that might spoil the illusion for younger viewers -- traditional DVD supplements that older viewers seek, such as filmmakers' commentary tracks and special-effects features.
"There'll be a time for that," Hemstreet said, hinting at revisiting the movies with a DVD boxed set or a separately released companion disc devoted to supplements, as WHV did with "The Matrix Revisited."

I'd personally pick that up in an instant.

 

[Oscar]

I won´t buy the DVD until the box set that P.H. promised.

Warner Bros. will be a great studio if it wasn´t for the FOOL SCREEN situation.

 

[Oscar]

But if there is a thing that depressed me about the article is saying that families (maybe people with an I.Q. of 0.0) prefer the Full Screen version.:frowning:
smiley finger .gif_______________________

 

[David Barteaux]

I must say I was a bit disappointed with the sound of this DVD. I feel that the dialog was ok but the low end was not there for a movie of this type.

 

[Chris Sypal]

I have not seen this movie. Is it entertaining for adults as well as the kiddies?

As cheezy as it sounds: "It's for the kid in everybody."

 

[Dean DeMass]

Ron,

Harry Potter is far from being a "kids only" movie. It is a great film for everyone.

I had no isues with the transfer, it looked exactly like I saw it at the theater. The DD 5.1 track was pretty good. It isn't reference quality, but it is good. I haven't even made an attempt at the extras yet.

-Dean-

 

[John Berggren]

Not that it hasn't been said before: But after actually viewing it, I was VERY dissapointed in Harry Potter's DVD debut. The second disc was terribly frustrating. I didn't find it intuitive at all. I spent forever getting to the deleted scenes. A lot of the potion crap was random choice for me.
I think the annoying bells and whistles are meant to hide the fact that there is very little Special Edition content here. Watching the mini-doc on the making of the film, I felt they missed the boat in not including a teaser or trailer for Chamber of Secrets. I also felt they gave more than enough away in that doc to "diffuse the magic" leading me to question the line that they couldn't do a commentary or behind the scenes because children would lose the magic of the film.
However, for $10, I have the film on Disc 1 with a teaser and a trailer. Thank god for CompUSA forcing Walmart/Circuit City to sell me a copy on the cheap.

 

[Ron-P]

You guys were right, very enjoyable movie. My wife and I watched it last night. Fun and entertaining. The transfer was good and the 5.1 will not disappoint.
Peace Out~

 

[Steven L]

My wife and I watched it last night to pre-screen the movie before letting our 6 yr old watch it. With neither of us knowing anything about the books other than that they're popular (and yes, we do live under a rock ), we were very pleasantly suprised. It was very entertaining. I found it a little slow in the beginning (my wife didn't), but thought it picked up nicely once he got to Hogwart's.
I'm in two minds as to whether to let my daughter watch it though because a few scenes may upset her, specifically:
the three headed dog (Fluffy?), the scene with the dead unicorn, and the end with Professor Quirrell/Lord Voldemort.
Anyone with young children who have seen the movie, how did your kids react to it?

 

[Todd Schnell]

Steven,
I let my 5 year old son watch it with my wife & I last night.
IMO it really depends on the individual child.
I found the movie quite charming, & fun.
My son also told me the movie was cool.
He is not scared very easily.
Of the scenes you mention:
He thought the dog was cool, but the latter 2 you mention were creepy. The last scene you mention was the only time in the movie he felt the need to come & sit closer to me. I think overall he was fine with it though.
Perhaps let her watch it but have her take a break during those scenes you mention?
As one who has not read any of the books (I may now) I rather enjoyed this movie (though my player locked-up a few times).
I didn't find the transfer that bad at all on my Mits HD 55807.
The audio didn't knock me off my feet, but was solid imo as well.
Todd
Just had to add this:
My wife & son just walked in the door, first words out of my son's mouth are "dad can we please watch Harry Potter again?"

 

[David James]

What's the trick to get to the deleted scenes, I'll save everyone my normal rant of hard to use, way cool, menus

 

[Oscar]

OH NO! STOP IT YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE ME BUY THE DVD!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Sean Bryan]

What's the trick to get to the deleted scenes

The pain in the ass is as follows:

From the second disc;

go to Diagon alley

select the Gringot's banner, but make sure you have the "key" on the bottom of the banner highlighted

get your money, leave gringot's

select the Olivander's wands banner

randomly choose wands until you find one for you

leave olivanders, leave diagon alley

select classrooms

there are "double owls" on the pillar; highlight the owls and hit enter TWICE

Then there are 3 challanges:

choose the flute to get past fluffy

choose the key with the bent wing (looks small and is towards the back on the first try...the wing is bent)

choose the round yellow potion

There are the deleted scenes!!

I hope they release a less frustrating DVD in the not too distant future. I also hope they have an extended cut editing the scenes back in. Some of them should absolutely not have been cut (it's obvious they were trimmed for the sake of time over story cohesiveness) and the others worked well too.

The extened scene in Snape's potion class should absolutely NOT have been trimmed, and the scene when they saw Nicholas Flammel's name on the back of Dumbeldore's card should also not have been removed (it showed more of how they made the Flammel connection and it also showed them talking about finals and studying, which was nice since the film had so little of them in classes/studying like you get in the books; in the movie it's almost like a "throw away line" that they even had FINALS). These would have made the movie like only 3 minutes longer and I can't see why they were cut except that it seems they were hung up on needing the film to be under 2½ hours.