I’ve seen a number of Limited Edition box sets in my time and this one isn’t perfect, but is still among the best of them.
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My review of the Warner Bros. pricey and extravagant "Limited Edition Gift Set" of the first five years of the Harry Potter franchise is not going to look at the films themselves. John J. Puccio´s excellent reviews of the HD-DVD releases are a great way to read up about the films contained in the box set. I will be posting my own Harry Potter reviews for the Blu-ray releases within the next week. Unfortunately, I did not receive the individual films for review, but I did manage to get my hands on this $150 box set and will base my Blu-ray reviews from the films contained in this box set. Therefore, the purpose o f this review is not to look at the movies themselves, but the contents contained on the discs, the packaging and the bonus materials. Part of the reason for this decision is entirely to fit this review into the length limits of a review. I´ve exceeded the maximum size in the past and feel very confident that by including words about the films would easily pass that upper bounds.
Thankfully, this will result in absolutely no spoilers and we can get right down to the real meat and potatoes of the set. I will look at the bonus features contained on each Blu-ray and DVD disc and list the technical specifications under the Video and Sound segments of this review. Those scores will be generalized based upon all elements of the box set and that includes the "Bonus DVD" and "Interactive Game" that comes equipped in this attractive package. The Entertainment Value score will be solely based upon my decision as to whether or not this monstrosity is worth your hard earned dollar. I personally enjoy the Harry Potter films and have purchased the first four on DVD, but decided against adding the fifth to my collection in order to facilitate this feature-laden box set. This review will be broken down into sections based upon the Packaging, the video, the sound, bonus materials and contents of each individual disc and my final closing comments. Enjoy!
The Packaging:
I´m very mixed on my feelings towards the packaging of "Harry Potter Years 1-5 Limited Edition Gift Set." It is a rather attractive set and sets itself apart nicely from anything else on my entertainment center shelf. However, it is nearly as big as the entire series of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and the "M*A*S*H: The Martinis and Medicine Collection." The box set arrives in the form of Harry Potter´s suitcase that he uses each year when he attends Hogwarts. It is a durable cardboard stock and features exposed metal hinges and a latch. It is nicely build and attractive. However, instead of including the individual blue keepcases of the five films, the Gift Set includes cardboard CD style cases that are of two sizes. The first two films and the Bonus DVD come in CD sized casing, while the final three films and the interactive DVD are featured in cardboard cases the size of DVD cases. A plastic tray is contained inside the briefcase to keep them from sliding around, but this can be somewhat troublesome to remove and store the individual discs.
The limited edition set includes more than just the seven Blu-ray and DVD discs. The Harry Potter Bookmark Collection is contained within a cardboard box with a cardboard sleeve to help keep it snug in the suitcase, behind the discs. There are five high-quality metal bookmarks held in the box. A golden snitch is the least impressive of them. A Gryffindor seal, which doesn´t fit too nicely into its designated spot looks rather nice. The third bookmark is Harry Potter´s faithful owl carrying a letter. A very nicely done Slitheren crest with a marble globe is the fourth bookmark and the final bookmark is the broom sent to Harry by his godfather Sirius Black. I have listed them in the order in how nice they are, with the broom being the nicest. Fans will certainly enjoy them and the packaging lists that they should be only used by those ages thirteen and over. A collection of collectable cards is also included in a letter that appears to be from Harry Potter´s mum. Each plastic wrapped package contains four cards detailing a character from the film and there are sixteen cards in total. This is more geared towards those who aren´t old enough to play with the bookmarks and they are another nice touch to the Gift Set.
My personal feeling is that the packaging is a little too big for its contents and considering a third of the size is for the bookmarks and cards, it could have been build a little friendlier. I would have also liked to have seen the five full cases for each of the five films instead of the flimsy cardboard cases that do not even fold properly. It is big and takes a lot of room on a bookshelf and doesn´t exactly fit snug with other Blu-ray or DVD titles. It is stealthy, however, and only an "HP" printed on the top hints those that spot it on a bookshelf that it has something to do with Harry Potter. There is no marking on the ´spine´ and you can choose to display either the closing latch or the hinges. Thankfully, the individual discs hold securely in their cases, so you could conceivably rid yourself of the plastic innards and make it a little friendlier to deal with. It looks nice, but it is large and doesn´t use its size efficiently.
Video:
The films are presented in the following aspect ratios and with the following codecs:
Year One: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer´s Stone: 2.40:1 and mastered in VC-1 at 1080p
Year Two: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: 2.40:1 and mastered in VC-1 at 1080p
Year Three: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: 2.40:1 and mastered in VC-1 at 1080p
Year Four: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: 2.40:1 and mastered in VC-1 at 1080p
Year Five: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: 2.40:1 and mastered in VC-1 at 1080p
As you can see, the five feature films are each mastered identically and framed at the same aspect ratio. The films are generally of the same high quality. However, the first film looks a little muddied when compared to the others and this is a result of its age. The "Goblet of Fire" has a few murky sequences as well; such as when the underwater ship arrives. These darker scenes show some pixilation and color banding. The "Order of the Phoenix" is easily the best looking of the films and is nearly perfect. Averaging out the five films would result in a score of about 9/10.
The supplements for each of the five Blu-ray discs are all mastered in various incarnations of MPEG-2. Some of them are in 480i, while others are progressive scan. None of the supplements, with the exception of the final film, are mastered in high definition and each look their age. The high definition features contained on "Order of the Phoenix" are the best looking bonus materials of the entire set. The "Bonus DVD" contained in the box set is MPEG-2 mastered at 480i and 480p. Many of these EPK materials are pillarboxed and letterboxed, while some from the "Goblet of Fire" nicely fill the entire screen. The Harry Potter Interactive Game is essentially the same in visual splendor, but with its many animated menus, it looks quite sharp for a DVD release. The supplements are far from impressive looking and earn themselves a troublesome score of 4/10. When comparing these low resolution bonus materials to the high definition films, it is simply disappointing. I do admit that in putting the two DVDs in my Toshiba HD-A35 player, I was happier with the upconverting capabilities of that unit over that of the Samsung BD-1400.
Sound:
The films are presented with the following audio soundtrack selections:
Year One: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer´s Stone:
English PCM 5.1; English Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1
Year Two: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets:
English PCM 5.1; English Dolby Digital 5.1; Dutch Dolby Digital 5.1; French Dolby Digital 5.1; French (Quebec Dubbed) Dolby Digital 5.1; Italian Dolby Digital 5.1; German Dolby Digital 5.1; Japanese Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1; Swedish Dolby Digital 5.1
Year Three: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: 2.40:1 and mastered in VC-1 at 1080p
English PCM 5.1; English Dolby Digital 5.1; Danish Dolby Digital 5.1; Dutch Dolby Digital 5.1; Flemish Dolby Digital 5.1; French Dolby Digital 5.1; French (Quebec Dubbed) Dolby Digital 5.1; Italian Dolby Digital 5.1; German Dolby Digital 5.1; Japanese Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1; Swedish Dolby Digital 5.1
Year Four: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: 2.40:1 and mastered in VC-1 at 1080p
English PCM 5.1; English Dolby Digital 5.1; Danish Dolby Digital 5.1; Dutch Dolby Digital 5.1; Flemish Dolby Digital 5.1; French Dolby Digital 5.1; French (Quebec Dubbed) Dolby Digital 5.1; Italian Dolby Digital 5.1; German Dolby Digital 5.1; Japanese Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1; Swedish Dolby Digital 5.1
Year Five: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: 2.40:1 and mastered in VC-1 at 1080p
English PCM 5.1; English Dolby Digital 5.1; Danish Dolby Digital 5.1; Dutch Dolby Digital 5.1; Flemish Dolby Digital 5.1; French Dolby Digital 5.1; French (Quebec Dubbed) Dolby Digital 5.1; Italian Dolby Digital 5.1; German Dolby Digital 5.1; Japanese Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1; Swedish Dolby Digital 5.1
The final three films each include the same soundtracks as one another. The "Chamber of Secrets" isn´t quite as impressive with its foreign language support, but still contains more audio tracks than one is accustomed too. "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer´s Stone" is a more typical disc. The number of subtitle tracks is also impressive for all but the first film. Harry Potter is definitely loved around the world and these discs are a testament to that fact. The quality of audio of the excellent sounding PCM tracks is similar in pattern as the VC-1 video transfers. "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer´s Stone" is the least impressive sounding Uncompressed PCM tracks, but is still a quality sounding experience. The next three films are pretty close in quality to one another and the latest and greatest film is definitely a sonic experience. The PCM mix is definitely the way to go with these five aggressive and enveloping films and the sound quality of the films themselves averages out to about a 9/10. The supplements are a muddled Dolby Digital 2.0 mess when compared to the Blu-ray soundtracks and would score about a 6/10.
Extras:
Year One: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer´s Stone
The first Harry Potter disc contains a number of additional features. Some of the features will be familiar to those who own the original 2-Disc "Special Widescreen Edition" of the film on DVD. The interactive elements and PC DVD-ROM features have all been removed from this Blu-ray release. Of course, the features on the DVD tended to wear thin after visiting them once. However, some of the concept art that was part of "The Library" and other features found on the original DVD would have been nice additions on the DVD set with slightly better navigation. The Jellybean flavor selection wasn´t found on the Blu-ray either and I couldn´t find the tour of Hagrid´s hut. Fortunately, the "Behind the Story" sections on the Blu-ray were culled from elements on the original DVD and the "Capturing the Stone" bit made it intact. The additional deleted scenes more than make of for the missing elements.
Under the "Behind the Story" heading, five featurettes delve into aspects on the making of the first film. Capturing the Stone (16:24) finds the film´s producer, David Heyman and Director Chris Columbus discussing their efforts in transforming Harry Potter from the written word to the big screen. The short Ghosts of Hogwarts (:38) quickly names the ghost characters that appear in the film and doesn´t get too much into any details about any of them. The Yearbook Character Clips is an interactive yearbook that shows short clips of each of the students and teachers of Hogwarts from the film. Sixteen characters are detailed and this is a nice way to help remember the names of all the various characters. Quidditch Story (:44) replays a clip from the story that details the rules of the game. I still think Quidditch is a broken game and only the Golden Snitch really matters. Whoever gets it always seems to win. The final "Behind the Story" clip is called Dragon Egg Lesson (:31) and features narration over clips from the film to educate the viewer about raising a young dragon.
The supplements improve slightly after the "Behind the Story" bits. Under "Fun and Games" exists the Around the World Multilanguage Clip (8:33). This extra finds one scene from the film featuring Rubeus Hagrid talking about his pet dog Fluffy with eight different languages. The first language is English and you can select from seven other languages or let them play together. Dubbing can be fun! The "Trailers" section contains the film´s Teaser Trailer and the Theatrical Trailer. "Additional Footage" is a collection of seven Deleted Scenes (8:59). These excised nuggets of Potter are the nicest extras contained on the Year One Blu-ray disc. They can be played collectively or separately and the Blu-ray disc does a very nice job of providing a short synopsis for each of the seven scenes and I enjoyed the manner in which these scenes were provided. They were fun and worth checking out. The film was long enough without them, so I can understand why they were cut. I liked the owls. Warner Bros. touts their Online site as well.
Year Two: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
The second year of Harry Potter found another similar treatment when compared to the original 2-Disc "Widescreen Edition" DVD. The animated puzzles, screensavers, animated timeline and other playful parts from the PC DVD-ROM functionality are now absent from the Blu-ray release. Whereas the first film contained added deleted scenes, the second film had the advertised 19 Additional/Extended Scenes (16:25) on the DVD and now on the Blu-ray release. This time around, the nineteen scenes were only numbered and with no short synopsis about their contents. A "Play All" is also provided. This is another case where the scenes are entertaining, but the film didn´t need to be any longer than its already long length. The newly added Year One At Hogwarts (1:54) was a short reminder of the plot from the first film and feels very much like a long trailer, which the Theatrical Trailer for the second film is contained on the Blu-ray release. Only the interactive menu based materials from the second film seem to be missing from the Blu-ray such as the self-guided tours.
The difficult to read menu features a Conversation with J.K. Rowling and Steve Kloves (16:09) finds J.K. Rowling talking about her novel and how she and screenwriter Steve Kloves worked together to create the film adaptation of the second novel. They talk about changes made to deliver the story to the big screen and this was interesting to hear how things are altered from the book. The two are interviewed by a mediator and this is a nice little segment. The next segment, Lockhart´s Classroom (1:28) is split into two pieces, Certificates and Required Reading. This is a short feature that looks at the certificates and books created for the film to help build the Professor Gilderoy Lockhart character and helped add to the notoriety of the supposedly famous magician. This piece was all fluff, but the books were funny sounding. The Behind Hogwarts: Building a Scene (17:20) looked at the creation of Dumbledore´s office from beginning to end. This featured a number of talking heads interviews and I found this a nice little making of feature that showed a scene from script to film.
The "Interviews with Students, Professors and More" section is a slightly interactive section that allows the viewer to select questions and then hear characters from the film answer the question. The Students (8:13) found seven questions asked to the children who played the students of Hogwarts and the answers were given with short film clips and interviewed moments with the child actors. The best way to watch this supplement was to use the "Play All." The Professors and More (9:42) found twelve actors talking about their roles as mentors to the young magicians of Hogwarts. These vignettes too could be played collectively or separately, with my recommendation of using the "Play All" to enjoy them. These interview segments were a little easier to navigate the second time around on the Blu-ray than they were on the more convoluted menus of the DVD release.
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