Review of Ultimate Editions!
Ice Cream Man was sent the ultimate editions of Sorcerer’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets for review. Below is the review which heavily focuses on the Rupert Grint parts.
The ultimate editions take you on a fantastic journey into the world of Harry Potter movies! In the regular DVD there are four discs – the blu-ray versions have three and contain picture-in-picture commentary by Chris Columbus – however for this review, we’ll stick with the regular DVDs. Disc one is the regular theatrical movie, the second is the extended version we’re treated to on ABC Family. The third disc has the extras found on the original DVDs. The forth disc is the gold you’re looking for. This of course is recommended to any major Harry Potter fan. I know that there has always been a lot of talk about how the movies aren’t perfect. However, I believe that viewing these DVDs will help you see the movies just a bit differently in a lot of ways.
Let’s start off with Sorcerer’s Stone. On this edition, we start with a fantastic introduction with Daniel Radcliffe. During his talk we see all kinds of behind-the-scenes footage from all six movies. However the focus seems to be solely on the first movie (whereas the footage on the Chamber of Secrets Ultimate Edition goes beyond just movie two). Which leeds into a hilarious Rupert moment. Chris Columbus talks about how Rupert was always smiling in every shot, even the serious ones. Rupert says Alan told him to just relax his face, and then says, “But obviously that didn’t work too well!” Chris also says Rupert’s strongest scene is the chess scene. He said by the time they shot this, the kids were getting more used to everything so they were able to do this scene really well without looking around, or smiling, or anything like that. (We see a bit of a possible deleted scene in this. Rupert says a line that wasn’t in the movie!) There’s a lot of great talk about casting the adult actors and the other child actors.
They continued to talk about each part of the process, picking different people such as Chis Columbus, Steve Kloves (some interesting information about his relationship with JKR too!), Stuart Craig (lots of information about different sets and how they were made), and John Williams and his contribution to the films including how his music and how it was put together with different scenes helped shaped the cut of the movie.
Something I loved was going from Sorcerer’s Stone/Philosopher’s Stone interviews to interviews on the set of DH. It really showed how far each of the young actors have come. There is also some quick shots of the first premiere and how that the Monday right after they started on Chamber of Secrets!
The forth disc also has an extra that only was on the gift set that came in the trunk when Order of the Phoenix came out. We also got the teaser trailer, two theatrical trailers and TV spots. The later of which is really nice if you’ve never seen them. I never had the pleasure having not gotten into the movies until Prisoner of Azkaban.
Chamber of Secrets continues with the new footage and interviews but all about characters that have been introduced throughout all the movies. We go from the first movie to the sixth movie. We actually get the actors reading their introductions in the books. Rupert’s is lovely! What’s funny is that he says he’s nothing like Ron’s description except the ginger hair! David Heyman reads a letter too from JKR praising the casting of the trio and we see the very first press conference! Or at least part of it. There is actually a moment when we see a different scene in CoS about the heir of slythern. It’s interesting to have seen it this way then the way it was played out on film.
Again all the characters are represented in this. One of my favorite moments is them discussing the differences between the Weasleys and the Malfoys and we get an interview from Mark Williams and Julie Walters! It’s amazing to watch how they decided on Voldemort, how he would look and such. We go through Cho Chang, the champions, etc. We get to see Luna’s screen test! This is great because you can really understand why Evanna Lynch got the part.
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