Harry Potter Ultimate Editions Coming

[DisneyLuver]

And how do people know it's 4-discs?!

The German site I linked to earlier on this page says that the DVDs will be 4-disc sets while the BDs will be 2-discs. Obviously, for the moment, this only applies to the European releases, but I doubt there'll be much difference between that and the American ones. Since both packages look awfully thick for 4 (and especially 2)-disc sets, that's why I'm predicting some sort of physical goodies will be included, like little hardcover books.

Oh my gosh, this is amazing.
According to that site, not only are the "Ultimate Collector's Edition" Extended but also 4-discs.
Omg, I'm beyond excited now!

[Escapay]

It also mentions a November release coinciding with Half-Blood Prince's debut (which falls in line with Albert's proposed schedule)

Ahh! I'm psychic! Yay!!!

It's weird that the main bonus on the bottom of each over both state, "Creating the World of Harry Potter." It's weird because the first set of covers stated "Creating the World" and "Creating the Characters" respectively for films one and two.

I think maybe "Creating the..." is a series of documentaries that are spread across each movie, each one focusing on a specific aspect of production common for all the films, in addition to each film having their own making-of materials.

Example:
Sorcerer's Stone - Creating the World (Set Design)
Chamber of Secrets - Creating the Characters (Casting, Costuming)
Prisoner of Azkaban - Creating the Creatures (Make-Up, Effects)
Goblet of Fire - Creating the Stunts (Stunts)
Order of the Phoenix - Creating the Visual Effects (Effects)
Half-Blood Prince - Creating the Music (Music)
Deathly Hallows - Creating the...Trailers? (Couldn't think of anything else, lol)

and that they'll be about 15 minutes longer a piece, which sounds about right.

I thought Sorcerer's Stone had 20 minutes of cut material? Then again, the film was fine in its theatrical form, so an extended edition by either 15 or 20 minutes would simply be icing on the cake for me. Of course, I know I'd probably rather want Order of the Phoenix in a fully extended form with all of its deleted material re-instated to make it less choppy.

I hope Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix get much more extended

Me too.

And I hope that they keep all the original supplements for Goblet of Fire in addition to whatever new stuff they have, as GoF had (IMO) the best supplements in all the DVDs.

AND I WANT ALL THE TRAILERS! ALL OF THEM!

albert

[magicalwands]

Example:
Sorcerer's Stone - Creating the World (Set Design)
Chamber of Secrets - Creating the Characters (Casting, Costuming)
Prisoner of Azkaban - Creating the Creatures (Make-Up, Effects)
Goblet of Fire - Creating the Stunts (Stunts)
Order of the Phoenix - Creating the Visual Effects (Effects)
Half-Blood Prince - Creating the Music (Music)
Deathly Hallows - Creating the...Trailers? (Couldn't think of anything else, lol)

Enlighten me. I hope each documentary focuses on the series and not just of the movie it has been placed in.

AND I WANT ALL THE TRAILERS! ALL OF THEM!

LOL, ALBERT!

Regarding Deathly Hallows on DVD, I really would like for them to sew both halves together into one. With two different movies, each will have its own title and end credits. I'd rather them get rid of the first half's credits and the title sequence of the second half and mush it together!

[Escapay]

Example:
Sorcerer's Stone - Creating the World (Set Design)
Chamber of Secrets - Creating the Characters (Casting, Costuming)
Prisoner of Azkaban - Creating the Creatures (Make-Up, Effects)
Goblet of Fire - Creating the Stunts (Stunts)
Order of the Phoenix - Creating the Visual Effects (Effects)
Half-Blood Prince - Creating the Music (Music)
Deathly Hallows - Creating the...Trailers? (Couldn't think of anything else, lol)

Enlighten me. I hope each documentary focuses on the series and not just of the movie it has been placed in.

Just read the sentence I had above it:

I think maybe "Creating the..." is a series of documentaries that are spread across each movie, each one focusing on a specific aspect of production common for all the films, in addition to each film having their own making-of materials.

Basically, I think/hope that in addition to regular making-of material that's focused on the movie at hand, each "Creating the..." will focus on that aspect of production in all the films. So "Creating the World" would focus on set design in all eight (preferable seven) films, and "Creating the Characters" is a documentary that looks at casting and costume design in all the films.

Of course, beyond the first two, the rest are all just speculation on my part. I mean, as much as I'd love a featurette about how trailers are made, I doubt we'd get it.

AND I WANT ALL THE TRAILERS! ALL OF THEM!

LOL, ALBERT!

Regarding Deathly Hallows on DVD, I really would like for them to sew both halves together into one.

The theatrical purist in me wants the theatrical editions of Deathly Hallows to be intact, but I also would prefer having it as one film. I doubt it'd fit on one DVD, so that's a caveat right there. But I'm sure it'd easily fit on Blu-Ray

albert

[Disneykid]

...and that they'll be about 15 minutes longer a piece, which sounds about right.

I thought Sorcerer's Stone had 20 minutes of cut material? Then again, the film was fine in its theatrical form, so an extended edition by either 15 or 20 minutes would simply be icing on the cake for me. Of course, I know I'd probably rather want Order of the Phoenix in a fully extended form with all of its deleted material re-instated to make it less choppy.

I estimated on the 20 minutes for Sorcerer's Stone based on what we knew was cut. The DVD cut scenes total about 7 mintues (if you lop off the overlap from the Potions scene), so eight minutes can still work for bits like the points hourglass and Peeves (Rik Mayall said he only filmed for three weeks, so he was probably only in a scene or two). Now that I think about it, eight extra minutes does make more sense than the 13 I was thinking of. Besides, 15 minutes may just be an estimate on WB's part. Perhaps it's more like 17 or 18, allowing them to say "over 15 minutes of new footage."

I agree that Order of the Phoenix is the extended cut I want the most. The editing in that film is rather annoying, and I'm not just talking about transitons from scene to scene. Even the way shots are edited together within a scene are kind of haphazard. Often times it looks like Yates takes, say, a 30 second shot of someone walking across a room, edits out the middle 15 seconds, and suddenly you see the person shift from one end of the room to the other with the camera remaining the same distance and angle. I'm probably asking way too much, but I'd love for the individual scenes to be re-edited as well so that they flow as well as the ones in HBP. If not, I'll just settle for new scenes.

The "Creating the..." features could very well be multi-part documentaries that focus on the series as a whole. Of course, if they do that, that means the Deathly Hallows set(s?) will have to contain lots of supplements that pertain directly to it (unless they miraculously include DH behind-the scenes-footage and interviews in the 1-6 documentaries).

Oh, and a "Creating the Trailers" feature would rock. Hard. I think I've only ever seen one behind-the-scenes piece in my life that showed how trailers are done, and that was a Movie Surfers interstitial on The Princess Diaries, of all things.

[magicalwands]

I'm probably asking way too much, but I'd love for the individual scenes to be re-edited as well so that they flow as well as the ones in HBP. If not, I'll just settle for new scenes.

There was no reason for WB to cut OOTP down 45 minutes to make it be under an hour and a half because they allowed HBP to be 2 1/2! So, it's not asking too much to want Yates' "original vision" of the film.

Several locations were used which do not appear in the final cut of the film. In Virginia Water, scenes were shot where Professor McGonagall recovers from Stunning Spells, and Burnham Beeches was used for filming the scene where Hagrid introduces his fifth-year Care of Magical Creatures class to Thestrals. Harry skips stones in front of Bonnie Prince Charlie's Monument in Glenfinnan in another cut scene.

I guess they filmed Umbridge attacking Hagrid, thus resulting with McGonagall leaving. As much as it pains me to say this, Luna introducing Harry to the Thestrals has to be cut to allow Hagrid's scene to be in.

"The reason he was cut is that none of us were happy with the design. David [Heyman] and I looked at the design of Peeves and thought, We can get it better. So we shot the sequence but we won't have it ready for the initial release of the DVD. We'll try and get it out for maybe a year and a half, two years, from now."
—Chris Columbus on the cut scene with Peeves.

http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Rik_Mayall

It seems if they really wanted him to be in the first movie, they would have worked hard to find a design and send it straight to special effects.

Not sure how dependable you guys find wikipedia, but it seems like legit information.[/quote]

[Disneykid]

There was no reason for WB to cut OOTP down 45 minutes to make it be under an hour and a half because they allowed HBP to be 2 1/2! So, it's not asking too much to want Yates' "original vision" of the film.

Yeah, but here's the thing: David Yates said from the beginning that his goal was to make Order of the Phoenix the shortest Harry Potter film, yet. He said he felt 1-4 were too long. I think that's a really stupid thought to have when walking into a film production. You can't just say off the bat that you want it the shortest one, yet, and then do everything you can to make that a reality. You have to think about what services the story first, and it seemed he learned his lesson once Half-Blood Prince rolled around. WB's been known to press time limits on the films (Mike Newell was ticked off that he was given a 2.5 hour window for Goblet of Fire when it originally ran about 3 hours), but I doubt WB would've pushed for 2 hours and 18 minutes. Then again, maybe they did and Yates just said all of the above so they wouldn't look bad.

Yeah, I've known about the McGonnagall attack one. There's a promo image of her sitting in a wheelchair reading the Daily Prophet.

Thanks for linking to the Hagrid/Thestral bit from Wikipedia. People have been referencing that for a while, now, and I was wondering where they got that from since there are no stills or trailer shots that indicate such a scene exists.

The Harry/Luna scene works perfectly in the final film and also transitions nicely to the scene where Harry makes up with Ron and Hermione. In fact, it works too well to be a last-minute addition that covers up a hole left by the cut Hagrid scene. So I'm going to assume that Luna was present in the original clasroom scene and gave her pep talk to Harry there, perhaps noticing that Harry is distancing himself from the other students during the lesson. If not, then I'm really wondering what was originally in the film to link Harry's snappiness towards Ron and Hermione in the common room and the reconciliation in the Great Hall.

And while we're on the subject of cut OotP material, I'm pretty sure the scene where the D.A. distracts Umbridge while the trio breaks into her office was filmed. In the final film, we cut from the trio being caught by Umbridge to the whole D.A. suddenly there with them. Malfoy drags in Neville and says, "We caught this one trying to help the Weasley girl." That line makes absolutely no sense in context unless you have the scene with the D.A. distracting her.

[ajmrowland]

These "Extended Editions" might only include the deleted scenes from the theatrical cuts in their original place. Yes, the broadcast versions.

I also thought "Creating the Characters" was movie one, and "World" was 2. Also, I think there would be a "Creating the props of Harry Potter". I just saw the exhibition and the amount of props was AMAZING. far beyond what you'd actually catch on film.

And the last time I saw a behind-the-scenes of how trailers are made was the Movie Surfers interstitial on Sky High.

[Disneykid]

Chamber of Secrets' extended version has now been classified, too, by the MPAA. Official press releases should be coming pretty soon...

[SpringHeelJack]

I hope this time around "Order of the Phoenix" actually has legitimate special features as opposed to, like, a digital copy, a trip around the set with Tonks, and a now-very-irrelevant sneak peek of "Half-Blood Prince".

[magicalwands]

I wonder if WB will release a single and double disc for HBP, or if they will go straight to an Ultimate Edition for it. I'm guessing it's the former.

[azul017]

A 4-disc set for the first two movies seem rather... redundant. A three-disc set (or a better-done 2-disc set) would be more preferrable.

I want Warners to give all eight movies the Batman Anthology treatment. Have a spiffed-up digital transfer, DTS sound, commentaries, and solid bonus material for these movies -- not puff pieces or EPK. I guess we'll get those in 2012 after Warner releases the final movie on Blu-ray/DVD.

And I doubt Warners will "re-thread" the final 2-parter into a big 4-5 hour opus. Even though David Yates, the cast, and all the crew (including the cinematographer) are the same -- the two films will be stylistically different, both in theme and feel. And even if they do, a Blu-ray release would be the only way to get 4-5 hours of video onto one disc.

[Escapay]

A 4-disc set for the first two movies seem rather... redundant. A three-disc set (or a better-done 2-disc set) would be more preferrable.

It all really depends on how much talking-head material they can put together.

The first two discs will likely be the theatrical version on one and the extended version on the other unless Warner does seamless branching, but they probably won't simply so they can up the disc count.

The third disc is hopefully a longform documentary for each film a la "Dangerous Days" on Blade Runner.

Then the fourth disc can be archival materials. Specialized features on certain aspects of filming (The "Creating the..." series for example), trailers, gag reels, art and photo galleries, deleted scenes, EPK featurettes, tv appearances (if they're clearable), ABC interstitials, etc.

And I doubt Warners will "re-thread" the final 2-parter into a big 4-5 hour opus. Even though David Yates, the cast, and all the crew (including the cinematographer) are the same -- the two films will be stylistically different, both in theme and feel. And even if they do, a Blu-ray release would be the only way to get 4-5 hours of video onto one disc.

Now I'm imagining all eight films strung together as one movie and in order to make it fit, they author it on Blu-Ray in standard definition.

albert

[SpringHeelJack]

The first two discs will likely be the theatrical version on one and the extended version on the other unless Warner does seamless branching, but they probably won't simply so they can up the disc count.

The third disc is hopefully a longform documentary for each film a la "Dangerous Days" on Blade Runner.

Then the fourth disc can be archival materials. Specialized features on certain aspects of filming (The "Creating the..." series for example), trailers, gag reels, art and photo galleries, deleted scenes, EPK featurettes, tv appearances (if they're clearable), ABC interstitials, etc.

Oh, darling, don't get my hopes up.

[azul017]

I'm sure Warners will do a spectacular release of all these movies -- after repackaging them a few dozen times. In fact, I sold off my copies of the first three movies when I heard about these extended editions.

[ajmrowland]

the only two I'd really get are PoA and OOTP, because those are the ones that really need the extensions. The others I'm okay with, unless there's a lot more Behind the Scenes information concerning the first two.

In fact, there should be a featurette on the moving portraits. I'd like to see some raw footage from those shoots, and the ghosts as well.

[azul017]

And while we're on the subject of cut OotP material, I'm pretty sure the scene where the D.A. distracts Umbridge while the trio breaks into her office was filmed. In the final film, we cut from the trio being caught by Umbridge to the whole D.A. suddenly there with them. Malfoy drags in Neville and says, "We caught this one trying to help the Weasley girl." That line makes absolutely no sense in context unless you have the scene with the D.A. distracting her.

I'm more interested in seeing more of the Department of Mysteries battles. Helena Bonham Carter and Gary Oldman shot a much longer wand duel which ended up being sadly truncated in the theatrical cut (there was one unused instance in the first teaser trailer for OOTP where she was waving her wand directly at the camera).

[Escapay]

I don't feel like looking up the Half-Blood Prince thread, but these were passed by BBFC and I'm surprised no one's posted about it yet:

JK ROWLING - A YEAR IN THE LIFE
Video Feature
Classified 09 September, 2009 .
Run Time 47m 30s

Category
CLOSE UP WITH THE CAST OF HARRY POTTER
Video Feature
Classified 09 September, 2009 .
Run Time 28m 32s

HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE - DELETED SCENES
Video Feature
Classified 04 September, 2009 .
Run Time 6m 31s

00:00:26:17 ("HARRY AND HERMIONE WALK THROUGH HOGWARTS HALL" (SC. 85))
00:01:00:01 ("HARRY AND HERMIONE DISCUSS MARAUDER'S MAP" (SC. 95))
00:01:04:08 ("HARRY
RON & HERMIONE DISCUSS THE VANISHING CABINET" (SC. 118-119))
00:00:38:07 ("HARRY AND DUMBLEDORE ARRIVE AT CAVE ENTRANCE" (SC. 122))
00:00:19:07 ("HARRY AND DUMBLEDORE LEAVE CAVE" (SC. 124))
00:01:39:22 ("CLOUDS GATHER OVER HOGWARTS AS FLITWICK CONDUCTS CHOIR" (SC. 125-129))
00:00:40:08 ("HARRY JOINS RON
HERMIONE AND GINNY IN THE COMMON ROOM" (SC. 140))
00:00:42:16 ("HARRY AND HERMIONE DISCUSS RON AT ASTRONOMY TOWER" (SC. 142))

ONE MINUTE DRILLS
Video Feature
Classified 04 September, 2009 .
Run Time 6m 43s

Category
WHAT'S ON YOUR MIND?
Video Feature
Classified 03 September, 2009 .
Run Time 6m 41s

THE WIZARDING WORLD OF HARRY POTTER - AT UNIVERSAL ORLANDO RESORT
Video Feature
Classified 04 September, 2009 .
Run Time 11m 38s


albert

[PeterPanfan]

Wow, I expected a LOT more (Well, not really...) but the ones they have seem pretty substantial!

Is the JK Rowling documentary the one that aired on TV near Christmas?

[Mason_Ireton]

So far I like Half Blodd Prince's bounus feat.... And I agree with a few posters bout havin a Ultimate edition of the HP franchise...Personaly I'd settle for either 2-4 discs. I hope all 7 films will have commentaries by the cast/director/JK Rowling/Producers.