Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: Revisited

I've always been a Potter fan, but nothing too hardcore. I saw all the films in the theater, read all the books, etc etc. I haven't watched "Sorcerer's Stone" in a while because it can't hold a candle to some of the later films (especially "Prisoner" and "Deathly Hallows"), although it's nowhere near as cringe-worthy as "Chamber". So now, Andreas has set out to bring "Sorcerer's Stone" more in line with the later films, primarily by way of rescoring and color grading, along with some nips and tucks, and beefing things up with a nice flashback sequence.

A/V quality - 8
There's a lot of compression artifacts in this 8 GB MP4, and I suspect some of it is due to the color grading. It's not terrible, but image quality could have been much better.

Visual editing - 9
Not a lot of footage has been cut, mainly the visual editing is the color grading, which for the most part looked fantastic. There were a couple of crossfades that were decidedly un-epic and drew attention to themselves, but aside from those the cuts were seamless.

Audio editing - 10
Absolutely wonderful. If you showed this to a Potter newb, or even somebody who hasn't watched the flick in years, they wouldn't know this was rescored. Only one or two musical cues felt out of place, but the rest was flawless.

Narrative/Improvement - 9
Overall, Andreas keeps the story and characterizations intact, and strengthens the overall mood with the improved music. The biggest narrative change was the new Potters/Voldemort flashback, which was fricking excellent the first time we saw it, but by the fifth time it showed up, it felt repetitive. (And no, I didn't need a tissue for flashback #5.)

Enjoyment - 9
A refreshing way to revisit HP1, highly recommended for Potter-heads. Jolly good show chap!

Andreas has put a lot of love into this, and his edits are great. The re-coloration is excellent, and he's truly achieved his goal of aligning the tone of the film with later entries in the series. If you want a darker, more mature version of this film, look no further. That said, I must say the original carried a family friendly charm which was in line with the tone of the book, and suited the film as well. So at least for me, I'm not sure this edit can replace the original, but rather stands as a great alternative way to experience the story.

Technically it holds up well. Audio editing in particular is impressive, seamlessly integrating new pieces from later films which add more appropriate tension or emotion to scenes. In a couple cases however the track choices felt a little jarring, due to their intensity. The boat scene for instance, one of Ron's lines was overpowered by the new track.

Andreas has also updated the sequence where Harry's parents are murdered, and uses this well several times throughout the film. The new prologue is cool, and Harry's nightmare is an excellent touch. I felt this sequence was used one or two many times too often however. And its final appearance during the conversation between Harry and Dumbledore felt shoehorned and the transitions sloppy, which made for a unique instance of an edit which I felt just didn't work.

I appreciated the streamlined run-time, but felt cutting the potions class diminished Snape's character, and cutting Norbert led to an abrupt transition between the Forest scene, and the trio rushing to ask to speak with Dumbledore.

Overall though, well worth watching. Looking forward to watching Andreas' other edits in the series.

Terrific job of capturing the feeling of the middle films. Perhaps just a bit too much visual repetition, but this is a very minor complaint. Great work!

Andreas did it. He fixed The Sorceror's Stone. The first two films in the Harry Potter series have this problem of feeling far too cheery and child-like compared to the darker, more cinematic franchise initiated from Azkaban, and by simply changing the music, re-colouring the movie and making some minor cuts for pacing, Sorceror's Stone: Revisited brings the first entry MUCH closer in line tonally to the rest. The film itself still suffers from being overlong and somewhat dull when compared to the later entries, thanks to Chris Columbus' direction and the far too book-centric screenplay, but Andreas did the best he could, and the best he could should be applauded, with the changes he made fitting perfectly into the rest of the film. This is definitely my preferred version of the first movie now, though I personally miss the scenes featuring Snape that sets him up as the untrustworthy ally for the rest of the series, and though I still see it as one of the weakest entries of the HP movies. Good job!

When I first heard you were attempting to bring the tone of the film more in line with the others in the series I had mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, Philosopher’s Stone is my 2nd least favorite movie, but I was worried that you might possibly go too far in the attempt to darken the movie. I’m glad to say that my fears were completely unfounded. This is quite a brilliant edit, and though it has it’s problems, it’s so well done that those complaints don’t amount to much. Reworking the first few scenes of the film was an inspired choice and it works really well in changing the tone of the film. I also really loved the insertion of exterior shots from later movies in order to help make the changes between the 2nd and 3rd film less jarring. The musical score changes and additions are welcome. Most of the time it’s done seamlessly enough that if I hadn’t seen the movie over a hundred times (not exaggerating here) I wouldn’t have noticed.

That being said there were a few sections where I could hear the original track underneath the new music, and several times the new music would only play for a few seconds before disappearing which left me confused as to why the soundtrack changed there. The only music choice that I felt was bad was when they see Hogwarts from the boats. Mostly because the tone of the music doesn’t gel with the visuals at all. The school is lit up all nice and warm and you can see the smiles of joy and wonder on the kid's faces as they approach the school. If you were going to change it I think using a less foreboding theme would have been best.

I thought the removal of Norbert was an interesting choice. I’ve never even thought of removing that scene, but it works really well. There were also a few narrative decisions that didn’t quite work. The last act suffers a bit from the removals that were made. Removing the scene of Hagrid telling them how to get past Fluffy makes the pace moves a bit to fast and makes the trio look like complete idiots for trying to get past Fluffy with no idea how to do so, but the removal of Norbert, as well as the fact that Hagrid’s hut is in a different location from later films, necessitates this. Also, the flashback was used a bit too often.

The only other complaint I have is really minor and doesn’t affect my rating at all but I just thought I’d mention it. I wish you had used the Philosopher’s Stone edit instead of Sorcerer’s Stone but again that’s more of a personal preference than anything else. I still prefer the extended cut of the original movie, and this is mostly because a few important scenes for both the pacing and narrative structure were removed, making the film feel a bit too fast. That being said I’d still give this edit an 8/10 and would highly recommend it to anyone who’d like a different take on the film. I can’t wait to watch Chamber of Secrets Revisited and take a look at both Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix Revisited.