DVDizzy Forum

DVD Times reveals the full breakdown of the extras for the R2 edition of HBP (which will be the same on the R1 version):

■Close-Up With The Cast of Harry Potter (trt: 28:30) (Hosts Matthew Lewis (“Neville Longbottom”) and Alfred Enoch (“Dean Thomas”) lead us on an entertaining look at the cast of Harry Potter as they explore their interests away from acting and spend a day on set with the production team.)
■Editing with Daniel Radcliffe: Daniel and editor Mark Day have a light-hearted conversation about film editing and how to get the right shot for a scene
■Special Effects with Matthew Lewis, Oliver Phelps and Tom Felton: The guys get a "science lesson" from Special Effects Supervisor John Richardson and technician Matthew Harlow.
■Owl Training with Jessie Cave: Jessie heads outside for training tips with “hootie” and owl trainer Guillaume Grange.
■Stunt Training with Rupert Grint: Rupert shows off his thrill for danger with the stunt department.
■Costume Designs with Evanna Lynch: Evanna shares her jewelry designs with Costume Designer Jany Temime.
■Art with Bonnie Wright: Bonnie and graphic designer Eduardo Lima show off the fun props, products and set designs.
■Behind the Camera with James Phelps: In his debut performance in the assistant director department, James actually becomes a crew member on set.
■Make-Up with Emma Watson: Emma and designer Amanda Knight talk about the biggest challenges on this year’s film.
■J.K. Rowling: A Year In The Life (trt: 49:32) (A fascinating and intimate look into the life of J.K. Rowling over the last year of writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.)
■One-Minute Drills (trt: 6:43) (The cast has :60 seconds to describe their character’s personality, history, relationships and other traits before time runs out.)
■What’s On Your Mind (trt: 6:41) (Hosted by Tom Felton, the cast is put on the spot when asked a series of rapid-fire questions on their likes and dislikes.)
■The Wizarding World of Harry Potter™ - Sneak Peek (11:38) (Get an “inside look” at the amazing world of magic and excitement being created at Universal Orlando® Resort in Florida.)
■Additional Scenes (trt: 6:31)

Additionally, SnitchSeeker says that the DVD and Blu-ray versions will be available for pre-order online at retailers like Amazon on October 13th (this coming Tuesday). I hope it's available online at WBShop.com, too.

Interesting how each cast member is hosting a bonus segment.

Oh, there's another unlisted extra (at least going by what the back cover of the 2-disc DVD for HBP says): "be the first to see footage from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."

I pray that this means an early teaser for Part 1. They've been shooting the films since February (and the visual effects companies had already begun work on completed scenes since early spring). I really don't want something like the OOTP DVD sneak peek where we essentially got talking heads and B-roll BTS footage.

azul017 wrote:I pray that this means an early teaser for Part 1. They've been shooting the films since February (and the visual effects companies had already begun work on completed scenes since early spring). I really don't want something like the OOTP DVD sneak peek where we essentially got talking heads and B-roll BTS footage.

It does note footage which might mean a scene being filmed or already filmed. I don't think they can get away with the designer showing the costumes they've concocted. Unfortunately, footage doesn't sound much like a trailer to me.

I think for them to make as big a deal as they are, it's got to be actual film footage. Why? Because the documentaries on the UEs for movies 1 and 2 cover all 8 films. That means we (should) be seeing lots of behind-the-scenes footage from DH in those along with cast reflections. Having more of that on the HBP release won't seem as big a deal. Let's see what happens.

Oh, and Amazon.com and Wal-Mart are heatedly marking down the prices for upcoming late November/early December DVDs. Wal-Mart originally had the single-disc edition of HBP on pre-order (and free shipping) for $10, which they marked down to $9.99 after Amazon pricematched them.

And while the Blu-ray/DVD combo isn't at that terrific price, Amazon also has it for preorder at $16.99 (and Wal-Mart has it for $16.86). You know the recession is hitting retailers hard when they're marking down the prices of preorders significantly, but that spells GREAT news for us consumers.

Two clips from the UEs have been released. the first being a video from Sorcerer's Stone on the casting process, and the other being a deleted scene from Chamber of Secrets seen in its proper context.

The first clip is very cute, and I like how they juxtapose interviews with the kids both then and now. Rupert has told the story of his audition tape hundreds of times, and I'm really hoping we get to finally see it.

As for the second clip, I'm officially worried. The ABC family cut of Chamber of Secrets bridged the final film footage of the kids in Snape's office and the deleted footage of the Kwikspell scene with an additional line from Dumbledore about rejoining the feast. That line isn't shown here, and without it, the scene plays a bit awkwardly. It was one of only two non-DVD bits put back into the film, so I'm now wondering if we'll get that linking shot of Harry coming out of the coffin in Borgin and Burkes that bridges the Malfoy scene with the one of Borgin cornering Harry. It seems my hope of the "crowing of the rooster can kill it" line being restored would seem in vain, since it appears these extended cuts are being done with just the deleted scenes available and without director participation. That would explain why SS has additional deleted scenes in addition to the 7 minutes reinserted (I, like Albert, was hoping that this was done as a direct request from Chris Columbus and not from laziness. I guess we were wrong...).

I hope these cuts aren't a sign of things to come for the future films. I want explanations of the Marauder's Map, Priori Incantantem, and the Prophecy, dang it.

I searched for these on the UK Amazon but couldn't find them, are they exclusive to the US? I certainly hope not!

I couldn't find them too and was very surprised as they are already available in Germany. I've seen them today for the first time, it's the same content included as in the US-Set.

The Leaky Cauldron has posted screencaps and scans from the German Ultimate Edition DVDs.

The interior of the DVDs actually list what the future installments of the "Creating the World of Harry Potter" documentary are going to be:

Chapter 1: The Magic Begins
Chapter 2: The Characters
Chapter 3: Magical Creatures
Chapter 4: The Music of Harry Potter
Chapter 5: The Development of Harry Potter
Chapter 6: The Special Effects
Chapter 7: Harry Potter Grows Up
Chapter 8: The Harry Potter Phenomenon

Something that worries me is that the additional deleted scenes for Sorcerer's Stone aren't anywhere to be found on the German edition. That better not be an indicator of what's to come for the US, but I'm starting to believe otherwise.

On the plus side, the documentaries look really informative and substantial. Those, coupled with the Maximum Movie Mode from the BDs, will definitely be satisfy me in terms of behind-the-scenes material. I just wish more efforts were taken in regards to deleted footage...

Disneykid wrote: The interior of the DVDs actually list what the future installments of the "Creating the World of Harry Potter" documentary are going to be:

Chapter 1: The Magic Begins
Chapter 2: The Characters
Chapter 3: Magical Creatures
Chapter 4: The Music of Harry Potter
Chapter 5: The Development of Harry Potter
Chapter 6: The Special Effects
Chapter 7: Harry Potter Grows Up
Chapter 8: The Harry Potter Phenomenon

Chapter 4 and 7 sound really interesting. They better have new interviews with John Williams, Patrick Doyle, and Nicholas Hooper about the scores. Some scoring session footage would be nice too.

DVD Movie Guide has a review of Sorcerer's Stone UE up:

http://dvdmg.com/harrypottersorcerersstoneue.shtml

Seems like the new documentary is the most substantive extra on the set, but there are also pics from shooting on DH part 1 & 2 (Leaky has a scan of Rhys Ifans on set with Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint, and probably more too from the books).

Doesn't sound like were getting the real Director's Cut that was supposed to have Peeves reinserted. Oh well, I'll just wait even longer.

I will be majorly ticked if the GOF and OOTP UEs don't have that touted deleted footage that wasn't included in the first DVD releases. Hopefully by the time those are announced, David Yates will have culled together a UE cut of OOTP with the Bellatrix/Sirius duel. (I don't know if Newell is big on extended cuts, but who knows.)

The minor deleted footage from SS/PS and COS doesn't annoy me. They're as faithful as they can be to the source novel, but I really don't miss Peeves' omission from the movies.

That really ticks me off that the so-called "additional deleted scenes" are nothing more than the original seven made more easily available. I'll admit that I hate Peeves, but I still would like to see Rik Mayall's performance. I realize Columbus didn't like the look of the character, and I'm cool with him leaving that off if he feels it'll weaken the film, but I still want to see it via supplements. Where is it? Where's the house hourglass scene? The extended Transfiguration class? Mirror of Erised? Chess challenge?

I won't consider these editions ultimate until they give us ALL the cut scenes. I'll still ask for them for Christmas just for the novelty of having the existing deleted scenes re-inserted, the new bonus material, and the upgrade to HD (I still only have the series on DVD). But it saddens me that this isn't the definitive edition I had hoped for.

If the extended cuts get more substantial from PoA onward, though, then I'll be more forgiving of SS (and CoS, too, which is only missing two lines of dialogue). I know Newell was upset over cutting 20 minutes from GoF, though I can't find that blasted interview anywhere, anymore, and no one believes me.

On a better note, the SS set contains a whopping 15 TV spots and three trailers. That's a mighty impressive collection, and it also means they're including the third trailer that's similar to the second but contain a few differences, especially towards the end. I figured they'd just use the teaser and second trailer (which has the unfinished effects). Very nice touch. At least this means I can revisit those deleted lines and shots in good quality and maybe screencap them for archival purposes.

I just noticed this post now:

Disneykid wrote:The interior of the DVDs actually list what the future installments of the "Creating the World of Harry Potter" documentary are going to be:

Chapter 1: The Magic Begins
Chapter 2: The Characters
Chapter 3: Magical Creatures
Chapter 4: The Music of Harry Potter
Chapter 5: The Development of Harry Potter
Chapter 6: The Special Effects
Chapter 7: Harry Potter Grows Up
Chapter 8: The Harry Potter Phenomenon

So I guess we won't get a "Creating the Trailers of Harry Potter" documentary.

albert

I found Colin Jacobson's review of the COS UE (which supposedly doesn't go live until tomorrow):

http://dvdmg.com/harrypotterchamberofsecretsue.shtml

Pooh, I was hoping to see Evanna Lynch's screen test with Daniel Radcliffe on this set.

That's weird Evanna's screen test isn't shown when there was a glimpse of it in the DVD trailer. Wasn't Jessie Cave's Lavender screen test with Rupert Grint supposed to be included, as well? Perhaps both are embedded into the "Characters" documentary.

And yay for 17 CoS TV spots!

I wish WB would've sent Colin the BD versions of both, though. I want to know more about the in-movie experience for each and how long the focus points segments last.

When did Peeves ever strengthen the story? I'm not happy it's the original seven, but I'm not pissed. There are things that will remain cut, and you don't want the movie to get boring, do you? No? Then quit complaining!

I'll be happy when an Extended Cut of Azkaban is announced with more than the deleted scenes that were aired.

Disneykid wrote:I wish WB would've sent Colin the BD versions of both, though. I want to know more about the in-movie experience for each and how long the focus points segments last.

Well, I got "Half Blood Prince" today, which claims to have a "Maxiumum Movie Experience", but really its not. It's a slight (only very slight) evolution of Warners old IME (In Movie Experience) from their old HD DVD days (and a few of their later "catch-up" blu-ray releases). It's nothing like the super-slick presentation on the Watchmen and Terminator:Salvation discs.

From the trailers, it looks like the Ultimate Potters will be the same. I wouldn't be surprised if when Goblet of Fire and Order of Phoenix come out, they don't recycle most of the IME content from the HD DVDs.