Harry Potter and the Boy Who Never Lived: Part 1

To begin with, I want to say that I am impressed that RollWave was able to produce such a grandiose project that removes the major character from a story. I also loved seeing the how it was done clips in the project thread. Though I cannot stand The Goblet of Fire, the possibilities of such a drastic narrative rearrangement was too much to resist.

A/V Quality: 9
The video and audio quality is exactly what it should be in this edit and for the format in which I watched it (MP4). The only A/V quality issues of concern for me will be addressed in the individual A/V editing sections.

Visual Editing: 5
Much of this rating is a product of the difficulties involved with removing the major character in the story. There are more than a few scenes where the background is noticeably moving where Harry is painted out. Incidental scenes are retained that require major re-framing and odd placements of characters e.g. when Mrs. Weasley is talking in the corridor and is far right and half seen. It would be better to have removed such scenes than to have such odd framing, imho. The scenes of Voldemort's rebirth are also a bit rough in terms to the rotoscoping and masking. The added scene from X-Men during the lake scene totally pulled me out. I think it would require extra color correction to make it at least fit with the preexisting color palette. Was that supposed to be Ron? Wasn't he later seen tied up in the water in his Wizard robes? There are inserted scenes that also don't feel like they flow in shots such as when Snape arrives in Dumbledore's chambers. Scenes felt visually rushed and squished throughout the edit.

Audio Editing: 5
There are a lot of abrupt audio transitions when Harry is removed from scenes. Instead of rebuilding the audio track, the audio sounds to have been simply spliced together which results in gaps. The scene where Ron is daydreaming in his room is particularly jarring as it goes from a lullaby type music which abruptly stops, to no music, and then to new music. The insertion of the Jim Dale segments sound a bit louder than they should and don't feel like they fit in the mix. Other lines that are inserted for other characters are likewise distracting. Perhaps they need some reverb and eq treatments to mimic the sound of the mix? Are the voice overs from the tub scene from the Crazy Russian Hacker YouTuber?

Narrative: 4
I'm not entirely sold on the new narrative in this edit. It feels very confusing and undefined. I just can't figure out what the story is here. The jumping back and forth between ages is odd as well. I can't tell if Ron and Hermione are in the tournament. They win contests, but they aren't seen as being a part. The Ron choking on the drink scene left me confused. I think the narrative goal was perhaps too lofty with this one.

Enjoyment: 4
I'll admit, the major source material for this story, The Goblet of Fire, is one of my least favorite movies period, so this is may have some effect on the enjoyment factor of this edit. The visual and audio editing felt really distracting throughout and just kept me from being able to take in the new narrative.

Overall Rating: 5
This is one of the most ambitious edits I've watched and I applaud RollWave's attempt at such an endeavor, but ultimately this edit feels more like a preview/workprint than a finished product to me. Still, I would recommend this edit to anyone who has any thought of drastically altering a narrative of a film. I know that I learned a ton about editing from watching this and the possibilities of editing narratives has been expanded.

Firstly I will just preface this review by saying my wife rather than I is the big Harry Potter fan and she enjoyed this edit. My review comes more from the angle of a first time /casual Harry Potter viewer, I have seen the first five movies in the series but I wouldn't pretend I am well versed in all the lore and history of the HP universe and its backstories etc.

I wouldn't normally pay too much interest to a HP edit but the premise of this was very intriguing to say the least. The amount of work that has gone into this is clearly evident and the editors skill with rotoscoping and some of the more advanced elements of top tier fan-edits was clearly there for all to see. For the premise to work the editor has used Goblet of Fire as the basis but used deleted scenes and footage from films 1-6 to make this new Potterless storyline work. My honest opinion is that I think that this really only works if the viewer is an avid Harry Potter fan and I don't think this edit was made to appeal to the first time/casual HP viewer. Far too many characters were introduced throughout for it to make much sense for those who don't already know how everything is connected in the original movies. I would only regard that as a criticism though if it WAS meant to appeal the first time viewer as a standlone film with no prior knowledge, I definitely think this is aimed more at Harry Potter fanatics. Technically very well put together for the most part, the editor is forced to pull a few stunts to make certain characters interact, audio is lifted from other HP movies (and other surprising sources!) and heads are sometimes cropped off intentionally so we can't see who is really there. This may be jarring for some and it was for me if I'm honest in bits but there is a gleeful 'mad professor' element to all the visual trickery on display to make this Potterless narrative work.

I did listen to some of the commentary too to see how and why the editor made some of his choices and this provides an interesting insight into the editing process. Overall one for avid Potter fans I'd say which isn't really me but definitely something worth checking out to see just how far you take this fanediting thing!!!

Mostly good AV quality, although it did drop when cropping took place.

Very impressive editing in some parts, especially the removal of Harry and the re-editing of scenes to flow better.
The construction of a new narrative is quite impressive, the first 15 minutes of the edit are amazing. I feel the edit suffers from focussing for quite a large part of the runtime on subplots and non-essential material, such as clunkily stitching together Ron & Hermione's scenes from Goblet of Fire & Half Blood Prince to give them character development. It would've been far more interesting for this edit to be more plot oriented and included plotlines from the Order of the Phoenix & the Deathly Hallows. It gets off to a great start with Voldemort, with the intercutting of the end & beginning of GOF being done superbly, but then spends an eternity on Ron & Hermione's romance subplots, as well as other seemingly unimportant plotlines, such as the liquid luck scenes, Ron joining the Quidditch team, the Triwizard Ball etc.

Editing Harry out of several scenes in which he is key but keeping the scenes made these scenes feel quite unnatural and disorientating, as it isn't clear who is interacting with the other characters. The use of the voice over sometimes worked, but often didn't.

Overall, this edit has a lot of potential as an idea, and has some very very impressive editing, but it feels a little wasted on the content that was chosen. I'd like to see a part 2 someday focussing on the films OFTP & DH.

Very clever and looking forward to the next chapter! The quality dips a bit but the narrative and curiosity of how you cut Harry out made it worth watching.

When I found this in one of the new releases posts I was very intrigued. A Harry Potter movie without Harry Potter. Now that must be a lot of work for sure. And yes, it is a lot of work but that work also shows!

Going into this movie I wasn't really sure what to expect but I was pleasantly surprised. If you know what happens in the movies it's fun to see how the editor removed Harry and how he changed the scenes to make them work without him. Most of the time this is done by cutting Harrys dialogue and cropping the image to remove him. The dialogue part is done very well. I rarely noticed it being done. On the other hand sometimes the quality of the film image will drop some due to the cropping but that is not the editors fault for what he intended to do with this edit.

There are some scenes where Harry was covered by something else to make him disappear. If you know where Harry should be it will be pretty obvious but it was done well nontheless. In some scenes this is done very cleverly.
In the beginning of the maze scene some people in the audience are blurred out pretty heavily and I'm not sure why. It was kind of distracting but I'm sure it was necessary to some extent.

The moments where Peeves was added weren't really for me. It was done ok but I feel like it didn't need to be in this movie. Same goes with the added lines for Krum since they weren't really of the best audio quality. But in that department the editor really surprised me with the addition of the audio tracks from the audio books.

All in all a very ambitious project and I really commend the creator of this edit for his hard work. With the goal he had in mind and the way he accomplished it, I would say he did a very good job. I recommend this edit to all hardcore Harry Potter fans who would like to experience these movies again in a very different way.