Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: Revisited

First off, I'd like to say that this is a great replacement for the original movie. Andreas has masterfully rescored and regraded this movie masterfully making it fit in much more with the rest of the series. Although not staying 100% faithful to the book, making it a surprisingly darker movie.

Although this is just my opinion, I feel that sometimes Andreas went a little bit overboard with the scoring, sometimes the music is trying to make you more emotionally involved when you really shouldn't be, I'm not saying that the scoring was done poorly however, it was just sometimes a little bit too much.

Overall, Andreas is an amazing editor and deserves much credit for turning a dull children's movie into a worthy installation of the Harry Potter franchise.

This fanedit was a fantastic experience. Firstly, Andreas worked wonders with the score, which has reshaped this movie into the suspenseful, thrilling experience it could have been. Melancholy, dread, danger: all expertly created now in places that they did not exist before. Secondly, the recoloration work Andreas has done really has changed the feel of this film: he's come as close as I think possible to making this film look like the films that follow it. Lastly, his judicious cuts make for a much improved narrative experience, adding mystery where it should have been, removing exposition where it wasn't needed, and trimming unnecessary humor so that what was left was actually funny. I thought the abbreviated ending is perfect. Wham, bam, done.

My only three, and very minor, suggestions would have been 1) trimming Dobby jumping up and down on the bed on his first appearance, 2) making it slightly clearer that Harry is serving detention as a result of the Whomping Willow/ flying car incident, and 3) leaving the Hagrid/ Riddle flashback before we see Aragog fleeing the box. #1 and #3 I think would have added a dash more mystery to each of their respective scenes, by removing a little whimsy from Dobby, and by casting a bit mored doubt on what exactly Hagrid was up to. #2 just felt slightly disconnected, partly I think due to the detention being a few scenes removed from the car crash and Snape's berating. Whether or not that disconnect is worth the much improved pace in this case, I can't say.

What I can say, again, is well done, Andreas. I'm planning on having a backyard double screening of these sometime this summer for a few friends, so they too can see what could have/ should have been. As far as I'm concerned now, these ARE how the Harry Potter series begins.

Having been a big fan of Andreas first edit, I was really looking forward to this one and I wasn't disappointed. This is such an upgrade over the theatrical version. I hadn't watched that since my daughter was five. It's the worst one in the series in my opinion. The audio and visual editing was superbly done. I didn't remember the theatrical cut very well and there was so much that was just "better" without me being able to tell what's changed. That's the goal. I really liked the color grading. It's not the ideal way I'd want a movie to look but it ties in really well with the later entries in the series.

Some random things I liked:
The polyjuice potion transformation looks better than I remember. Not sure if that's my memory or some fx touch-ups.
The inclusion of Azkaban as a hellish nightmare of a place. Huge improvement.
The overall tone of everything. The music did wonders.
Highlights of the score for me: when Ernie et al are talking about Harry after the parseltongue scene, the cue after McGonagall says "it's out of my hands, Potter," Phoenix scene, use of Voldemort theme, the Gilderoy confrontation, how it stops for Harry's line in that scene, when Tom Riddle's true identity is revealed, the music over Dumbledore speaking at the end that takes us into Azkaban

Nitpicks:
Dobby was still sliiiightly too pink for me compared to later movies (this is pretty subjective)
Cut to Hagrid's hut does feel slightly abrupt. Like it feels like we should definitely see them in the exterior hut. BUT the tradeoff is getting the hut from later films and I do think that is worth it.
The really strange wipe between the gorgeous sweeping snow shot and the scene where Gryffindor is giving Harry grief. I'm not sure if that's in the original or not.

Overall, this was great. Those nitpicks are extremely minor. I will watch Andreas' edits and then pick up with PoA from now on.

Andreas returns with a new fanedit of Harry Potter Part Deux, and it's on par with his first fanedit. Quality was so-so, there was a lot of compression artifacts. Editing was seamless, but I wasn't a huge fan of the color grading. Too green for my tastes. The moments of new score were well done and very subtly handled. I couldn't really tell what was cut since I haven't seen this film in awhile, which goes to show how well the editing was. I just wish a little bit more had been cut down, such as Malfoy's over-the-top "I'm gonna get you POTTAH!" attitude too often. Recommended.