[HPFGU-Movie] New Guy and hi...and a few questions

[GulPlum]

Welcome aboard, Joe!

jmgarciaiii <jmgarciaiii at yahoo.com> wrote:

>After rummaging through eBay, I saw that there are some (Canadian)
>Region 1 DVDs of "Harry Potter & The Philosopher's Stone." What
>differences (if any) exist between the DVD releases of PS & SS?

None, beyond all references to "Sorcerer's Stone" in dialogue and visuals, 
both in the film and throughout the DVD menu system appearing as 
"Philosopher's Stone" (each mention was filmed twice).

>What differences exist (BESIDES aspect ratio) between the 4:3 &
>(nominally?) 16:9 PS/SS releases?

None. To see a comparison of some sequences to see how they look visually, 
see a web page which has been mentioned several times on this group, and 
quite recently as well: http://plum.cream.org/HP/dvd.htm (as it happens, I 
am the author of that page, but that's irrelevant). :-)

>Lastly, I had read about the possibility (probability?) of a more
>thorough release of PS/SS on DVD, w. more deleted scenes, etc.

This has been rumoured ("hoped for" would probably be closer to the mark) 
ever since it was released, but to my knowledge, nobody involved in the 
production has ever expressed any intention of releasing a special edition. 
This means that it probably won't happen. My own view is that if the 
production team ever *do* decide to release any kind of expanded edition, 
it probably won't be until all seven movies have been released, as part of 
a boxed set.

In fact, I doubt that there's much material available that we've not seen 
yet in one form or another. I suspect that we've seen all the deleted 
scenes we're ever going to see, so the only biggie would be a blooper reel 
- however, as blooper reels are generally rarer than gold-dust as a DVD 
extra (actors VERY rarely give permission to be shown at anything but their 
best and I know of only a tiny number of DVDs which have ever offered 
out-takes), that's unlikely as well. A further extra might be some kind of 
featurette on the SFX, but again I suspect that we won't see anything like 
that for a long, long time. Columbus is on record as saying that he doesn't 
want to "dispel all the magic".

The only really plausible extra to come is a director's/actors' commentary. 
I'd certainly appreciate one. Actually, the one I'd really like is a 
scriptwriter's commentary as I'd like to hear Kloves justify some of his 
lame changes (anyone who's read my contributions on this list over the last 
year or so will know that overall, I DON'T LIKE WHAT KLOVES HAS DONE). :-)

In other words, my advice is don't hold your breath waiting for a special 
edition of PS/SS, or indeed CoS. :-)

 > P.S. We have a widescreen TV in our home theater so 4:3 movies
>REALLY bug my kids. :-)

 From what I understand, that's quite untypical. :-)