PoA DVD

patientx3 at aol.com patientx3 at aol.com
Wed Nov 17 09:23:45 UTC 2004


I work at Blockbuster Video and we got our copies of Prisoner of Azkaban in  
tonight (I was so happy, despite the fact that I had expected them *last*  
week). Anyway, I went through all the special features already (except for the  
kiddie ones). I'll describe them below, with a little spoiler space for those 
of  you who want to be surprised (with the deleted scenes at the end). 
 
First the case is a normal plastic one, instead of the cardboard ones that  
the first two had. It looks sort of strange in the three-pack. And the first  
disc (with the movie) has trailers on it, which is odd, since the first two  
didn't. Trailers feel sort of obtrusive on a fantasy movie.
 
Okay the rest is mild spoilers...
 
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The special features disc is a little annoying to navigate. Its not as bad  
as the first movie, but still I wish they'd just put "Deleted Scenes" on the  
menu instead of hiding it under something else. The deleted scenes, cast  
interviews, and JKR interview (in which she said she liked the shrunken heads  
thing, go figure), are under the "Divination Class" option. 
 
There are 7 separate interviews, all five or so minutes long. The  first is 
with Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, and Daniel Radcliffe, the second is  with the 
people that play Seamus, Neville and Fred and George (sorry, I'm too  lazy to 
look up their real names), third is with Tom Felton and the kids who  play 
Crabbe and Goyle, fourth is with Gary Oldman and David Thewlis, fifth is  with 
Robbie Coltrane and Michael Gambon, sixth is the people who play the  Dursleys 
(including Marge), and the final one is with Cuaron and two of the  production 
designers. All the interviews involve the shrunken head from the  Knight Bus as 
one of the interviewers, and it is EXTERMELY annoying, they are  going for 
some sort of comedy, although I don't know why (the questions are  already 
rather simple, ex. "What would your boggart be?"). Fortunately, the  shrunken head 
is left out of pretty much all of the adult interviews (except for  one 
comment at the end of each one), but he's pretty involved in the kid ones. 
 
In 'Hagrid's Hut' under the 'Grounds' menu option, there's a featurette on  
the animals in the film, which was pretty interesting, and there's a making  
of-ish featurette that talks about the makeup and CG and the dementors and all  
that. 
 
Then of course there's the deleted scenes.
 
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Most of them are fluff, and I can see why they were cut from the film.  
There's 5 in all. The first is just extra Knight Bus (which there was plenty of  in 
the movie), and there's a scene of that bird that got killed by the whomping  
willow bothering Hagrid as it was flying around (which was sort of funny), 
there  was the Sneakascope scene, which is just Ron bringing Harry one from 
Hogsmeade,  rather pointless since they don't show it lighting up or anything. The 
last two  were the most interesting. One was about Sir Cadagen being 
appointed as the new  portrait guard and him changing the passwords all the time, and 
the last scene  was the Sirius break-in scene (I cannot figure out why they 
cut it out). It  starts with the aftermath (no Gary Oldman, sadly), and has 
McGonagal finding out  Neville lost the passwords, and then warning all the 
children to be careful,  since Sirius Black might break in again. There's a brief 
moment of Ron/Hermione  arguing (which felt sort of awkward, maybe there was 
something else leading into  it that was cut), and then it has the Harry moment 
from the international  trailer where he says "He was right there, he was close 
enough to touch",  referring to Sirius. I wish it was in, because its a nice 
followup on the Harry  wanting to kill Sirius thing. 
 
The DVD will be out a week from now in the US and on Friday in the UK  
(although I'd guess there's at least on other retail store employee on this list  
who also has it early).
 
-Rebecca


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