I would imagine there are very few people out there who don't at least have a basic knowledge of Harry and his amazing tale. Even if you haven't actually read the books or seen the movies, it has been such a phenomenon for the past decade that the series' basic premise is hard to avoid. Basically, little Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) is dropped off on his aunt and uncle's doorstep at the tender age of 1. For 10 years, he grows up in a very Cinderella-like environment essentially becoming his relatives' live-in servant.
All that changes as his 11th birthday approaches and letters start flooding into the house, all addressed to him. If the fact that letters arrive to Harry in the most unusual places isn't strange enough, Harry's Aunt Petunia (Fiona Shaw) and Uncle Vernon's (Richard Griffiths) reactions and obsession to keep Harry from reading the letter makes him even more curious. So imagine his surprise when he finds out that his parents didn't die in a car crash, but were actually killed by the worst dark wizard of all time, Lord Voldemort, and that Harry himself is a wizard and invited to the British wizarding school, Hogwarts.
Harry's re-introduction into the magical world is done by the half-giant Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane), but he soon finds the world overwhelming as he explores the market center called Diagon Alley, and of course the massive castle-school itself. This first year at Hogwarts does a lot to introduce the world and rules of Harry Potter, but it also forges several relationships that will carry over throughout the rest of the series. Harry quickly befriends a pure-blood wizard named Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and a muggle-born (which means her parents don't have any magic in them) witch, Hermione Granger (Emma Watson), as well as the rest of the first-years in Harry's slice of Hogwarts, Gryffindor House. Other characters include Harry's rival, Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) and several teachers like Severus Snape (Alan Rickman), Headmaster Albus Dumbledore (Richard Harris) and Professor McGonagall (Maggie Smith).
This particular year not only introduces the universe, but there is also a great mystery concerning an item hidden in Hogwarts, who is trying to steal it, and of course, the long-running mystery, what exactly happened 10 years ago when Harry's parents were killed and the young boy somehow survived the same killing curse and stopped Lord Voldemort.
I was amazed by how old the film felt. As far as visual effects are concerned, the movie didn't age all that well. Scenes I thought looked good at the time (like the fight with the Troll in the bathroom), come through a bit off by current standards, and even the feel of some of the movie's sets just feel a bit more fake than I remembered. I'm not sure if that's because of the increase in production quality of the series over the years, or not wanting to put more money into the original film in case the series didn't take off. Either way, I am glad the feel of the films get better as the years go on. It's also really interesting to see how much Radcliffe, Watson and Grint have grown as actors when you compare their abilities in Sorcerer's Stone to the latest film, Half-Blood Prince. In fact, that is a major portion of "Creating the World of Harry Potter 1: The Magic Begins", the aforementioned new documentary.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: Ultimate Edition comes with two versions of the film, the original Theatrical Edition and the new Extended Edition. Basically, the new version has a few deleted scenes added back into the mix. While none of them are really lengthy, big fans of the films/books will be able to see the changes (or you can just watch them back to back and find the extra few minutes sprinkled about). These added scenes include Dudley (Harry Melling) showing of his Smeltings uniform and Harry learning that his uniform will be old Dudley's clothes dyed gray, Petunia finding letters from Hogwarts in a bunch of eggs, Harry and Hagrid on a subway on the way to London, a discussion after the troll attack, Harry reading about Nicolas Flamel in an unlikely place and, one I really liked, an extended encounter between Harry and Snape in the student's first potions class. Since this was one of my favorite scenes in the book, I was always disappointed that the movie didn't go as long and show the full extent of Snapes' torment on Harry. Well, the Extended Version goes a good couple of minutes longer as Harry points out that Hermione apparently knows the answer, but Snape chides Harry anyway and tells him the answers to the questions he posed.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: Ultimate Edition's third disc is basically all of the special features found on the original DVD ... In fact, I'm pretty sure its the same DVD since it has the same tour-styled menu system that has you going into Diagon Alley and Hogwarts in order to find all of the features. This disc feels more like a simple DVD menu-based game where you can tour Gryffindor Tower, mix a potion or perform a spell with little things like interviews with the filmmakers or a photo gallery sprinkled in here and there. What I really enjoyed though was the new fourth disc that not only contains the hour-long first part of "Creating the World of Harry Potter," but also deleted scenes (the very same scenes added back into the Extended Version actually) and an introduction to the new documentary by Radcliffe that explains what fans can expect in the different releases.
As for the new documentary itself, it basically talks about the effort that went into creating the initial film. They discuss everything from finding Harry, Ron and Hermione, deciding on Chris Columbus as the director, interviews with the writer and producer, why Harry doesn't have green eyes and why Hermione doesn't have buck teeth. This documentary basically spans this first movie from early discussions to the music of John Williams to the film's premier. This is something that true Harry Potter fans will eat up.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, while not the best Harry Potter film, is very close to the book (with the exception of how Hagrid's dragon is gotten rid of, that is), and does exactly what it needed to do, which was to please both fans and non-fans enough to allow the series to continue. Like Columbus says in one of his interviews, "If it didn't work right, the rest of the franchise wouldn't go on," and if you don't believe me, just look at the Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events movie. Obviously that happened, since at the time of this writing, the first half of the last movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is in post-production and the crew is filming the second half.
So who should buy this DVD? I would say that it is either for really hard-core fans, or for those people who want the movies, but hadn't picked them up yet. As a person who likes collections of DVDs and wants everything to be kept the same, buying this first Ultimate Edition means I would want to get the other films as they come out as well, especially since the "Creating the World of Harry Potter" is going to be spread across all of the new releases. If the promise of these new special features is enough to get you to re-buy the entire series, then I say go for it. As for those people who already have the movies on DVD, but are still on the fence about the Ultimate Edition, you might want to look into the Blu-ray version of this release. Of course, you can also just hold off and wait for the inevitable monster collection that is bound to come out sometime after the last book's films are released.
