Harry Potter and the Boy Who Never Lived: Part 1

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.

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.

I would say this is one of the most ambitious edits I've seen, and it was mostly done pretty well.

AV quality was solid, a good quality image for most of the film, but cropped scenes are pretty blurry, as well as some deleted scenes. But they're overall not too bad.

A/V editing varies, sometimes the removal of Harry is barely noticeable, sometimes rotoscoping and masking doesn't work too well, as others have pointed out. Some cuts were slightly abrupt, but nothing you can't look past. The combination of movies makes the colour frequently change, and perhaps for part 2 could be added colour correction? The Jim Dale sections imo were very noticeable, it just felt like a dub or something. Mostly I didn't like the editing during the second trial, where you attempted to replace Harry with Krum, as it just feels off. His lines are odd, too loud, and does not blend with the tone/music of the scene. The addition of Snape in DA though was done better. Overall, it still is in my opinion a wonderful job in the technical area. I mean, I can barely do a small fraction of the effects that was put in.

Narrative was not bad, very creative. I kinda liked how you twisted the story without changing too much of the story of GoF, and I like that the characters can be very visibly seen here to grow, unlike when the focus was on Harry.

Enjoyment I put a high rating due to the fact that I really enjoyed it. I watched this first with my sister who is not a very avid HP fan and she really liked it. Her main complains were when the Jim Dale parts came out, especially the Sorting Hat song.

Overall, a great edit from an ambitious concept. I watched this twice about a few days apart and the second time I watched with the editor's commentary which makes me really appreciate this edit and the hard work put into it. Excellent job, RollWave!

I admittedly have a bad habit when it comes to fanedits: I love watching them but I feel little motivation in reviewing them due to my tendency to get long winded in my breakdown in what does and doesn’t work. However, given how this edit aims to do something so drastic,as well as being a massive fan of What If scenarios in my favorite stories (specifically Dragon Ball), I felt that there was a lot more to chew on here.

Harry Potter and the Boy Who Never Lived Part 1 is a technical marvel. RollWave went to great lengths to remove Harry Potter from the story of Voldemort’s return, and while some of it is done rather cheaply by merely cropping Daniel Radcliffe out of the frame, there are many other times where masking tools are used that effectively erase Harry while not outright gutting the scene altogether and, as he said in his commentary, greatly strengthens the other characters throughout the movie. The commentary also discusses how the audio has been reworked to remove Harry, further showing just how much effort went for the whole project.

That said, while I appreciate edit on a technical aspect, Narrative is a different story. In the first 10 or 15 minutes, I was confused as to how I should approach this edit. If it’s meant for new viewers, why do none of the characters get properly introduced to the point where people might confuse Hermione as just another member of the Weasley family until her surname gets stated later? If it’s for hardcore potter fans who know the story in and out, why does it include the Sorting Hat Song as an introduction to Hogwarts and how it works outside of fanservice that eats up time? Why doe Mad Eye get introduced twice, one somewhat neutral and the other dark and ominous? Does Umbridge show up near the end because Crouch Sr. has just been killed? If Goblet of Fire is the crux of your narrative with a bit of Dumbledore’s Army from Order of the Phoenix included, why then also include Voldemort’s resurrection if the latter never culminates with the former two in any meaningful way (i.e., why is there set up but no payoff)?

That last bit is really damning, too, since at least Deathly Hallows Part 1 had a somewhat climactic feel, with Dobby sacrificing himself to save Harry and Voldemort obtaining the Elder Wand. Here, though, aside from being a bad story dcision to give away all your cards about how Voldemort’s revival is different from the canon, the return is completely disconnected from anything outside the kids *eventually* reacting to the Ministry kidnappings, and Cedric Diggory dies because Hogwarts has no sense of safety when it comes to what’s supposed to be a tournament meant to build bonds of friendship between three different schools (I know that Hogwarts is the target of many “why would anyone ever go to this school” jokes based on all the dangers it houses, but this is just the grossest of negligence on the teacher’s parts).

Even the stuff about the narrative that I liked involving Ron and Hermione’s subplots (Quidditch and classes still happening independent of the tournament, the two of them falling for different people, etc) not only takes up a minor part of the runtime, but it also doesn’t do the narratives any great favors, simultaneously making Ron look like a user of women and Hermione a waif who can’t decide between Ron and Viktor (then again, I don’t know if the footage would have alloqwed for Ron to have gotten his girlfriend, and then have that spur Hermione into pursuing Viktor). The passage of time also feels a little unclear, since the first two tournament challenges seem to take place before Winter, and yet the last occurs when spring starts? There’s part of the commentary that also hurts the viewing experience, since the first time watching Ron go to Slughorn under the affects of love potion (which I don’t think Ron should've done since he’s intoxicated and just wants whoever vexed him, but okay), and I thought that his violent reaction to the serum was just a result of the antidote reacting with an improper version of the love potion, Slughorn said could be dangerous if made wrong. However, RollWave then said that Slughorn just gave Ron the wrong antidote, and he never gets called out on this, further confirming just how awful Hogwarts’ staff truly is.

Still, I overall liked Ron and Hermione’s new stories here (clothing and hairstyle continuity notwithstanding), and there are points where I can imagine where things should have gone had the footage had existed. For example, Mad Eye’s harassing of Crouch and interfering of the Tournament by offering Nevile, and by proxy, Ron, gillyweed would have driven him out of the school and replaced by Umbridge, which, since she’s imposing Ministry rule on the Beauxbatons and Drumstrangs, would help strengthen those bonds of friendship they supposedly built over the year. That really is the greatest flaw of the edit: ambition kneecapped due to the lack of footage. How different would Hermione and Snape’s be if he overcame his prejudice of non-magic parents, in addition to finding a witch who seems so much like the one he lost? Why didn’t Lucius Malfoy stow Riddle’s diary into Ginny’s book bag during her first year? Why is Lockheart suddenly legitimate?

There’s also small things that bug me due to the lack of footage. Aside from the fact that Ron should stick to one girlfriend, basic storytelling tenants tell me that Cedric should have been the one in competition with Ron in Quidditch, not whoever it actually was. Would have established him as a hard worker, taking on both Quidditch and doing the tournament. Also, if we’re free to alter canon here, I would’ve made him Snape’s nephew or something. Why? Because it would have given more credence to Voldemort’s revival. In this edit, it makes no sense that Voldemort’s followers wouldn’t immediately sought out to revive him. By making Cedric related to Snape, you then can use the “Lily’s love protected you from me, but since I was revived by your [relative’s] blood I can properly come after you” plot point from the original book. As far as changing things for an adaptation, it's not that out there.

As a product, this edit is kind of a mess, but as a thought exercise, it certainly succeeds at making me think outside the box.

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.