Review Detail

First of all I would like to say thank you to Andreas for making such a worthy addition to the world of Harry Potter fan edits. I enjoyed his new take on the film, which I also felt was one of the weakest in the series. This edit successfully manages to bring the fourth film more in line both visually and aurally with the rest of the series. The narrative flows very well and the additional scenes really do help to give added weight to the overarching narrative, which of course is the return of Voldemort to the wizarding world. This edit is an ambitious and almost flawlessly executed fanedit, which I would heartily recommend to anyone interested in the series.

There were some issues I had with the edit, but these were almost entirely my own personal preference, rather than a problem with the edit itself. The one technical issue I have to raise concerns a continuity error which sees Madame Maxine sitting at the teachers table, before making an entrance into the Great Hall. This was slightly jarring and probably should have been cut from the final edit. It's not impossible that she left and then came back, but it did affect my immersion in the moment, so I include it as the one and only technical issue I had with the edit.

The other issues are all those of personal preference, so I'll just go into them briefly. I didn't really agree with many of the scenes which were cut. The one thing I felt the Newell did better than any other director was to tease a performance out of his young actors. I felt that he was the first director to really capture the spirit of the Weasley twins, as well as the camaraderie between the young protagonists of the film (such as the scene in the tent at the Quidditch World Cup where they chant "Krum! Krum" and start singing at a smitten Ron). Whilst this scenes was thankfully left in, many others I enjoyed were cut, such as a visibly distressed Ron giving Hermione a message to pass on to Harry down by the black lake. Ron was refusing to talk to Harry in the books, so this wasn't a cut that I could really understand, or agree with. I really feel that some of the best (child) acting in the series happens in this movie, which is let down by bizarre narrative and editing choices, more than anything. I also missed the scene where they pick the small dragons out of the felt bag. The purpose of this scene is to remind the viewer that Harry is getting a violent and bad tempered dragon, which builds suspense. I couldn't understand what merit there was in removing this scene at all. Lastly, I was hoping that there would be some sort of segway from the Hogwarts Express into the new school year. Probably the most jarring thing about the original film is the way the editing jumps straight from the train to the school year already underway and the students crowding around to watch the arrival of the Durmstrang ship and the Beauxbatons carriage. I would personally have cut this scene and have them go straight from the train to the Great Hall, because the time jump is so jarring and we're used to seeing them gather in the Hall at the start of the school year.

Overall this edit is a huge technical and artistic achievement. The issues I described are entirely down to my own personal preference and can do nothing to take away from Andreas' fine achievement in editing this film to be more consistent both in terms of narrative and in terms of fitting into the wider series.