[Featurette] Harry Potter Years 1 - 5

Very Cool Box Set
I know many people want to wait for the box that will come out after the 7th movie, but as I want to watch the movies again prior to 2010, this made for an excellent hold over until then.

The box itself looks and feels like an old piece of luggage and there are lots of fun things inside. Each movie comes as a two disc set enclosed in a case resembling a text book. There are two extra "books", the interactive DVD game and an disc full of Harry Potter extras (various short documentaries for each film).

In addition to the DVDs, the box also contains trading cards and bookmarks. The cards are very cool, but the bookmarks are the highlight of the extras. They are of metal construction and are very detailed. There are bookmarks of Hedwig, Harry's Broom, a Golden Snitch, Gryffindor Shield, and Voldemort's Prophecy.

If you don't want to wait until after The Deathly Hallows or you just want a really impressive set to collect, I highly recommend you pick this...

Special Features
I just received this today, and I wanted to post the Special Features listed on the back of this set in hopes that I can help others wishing to buy this.

The special features are listed by movie, so here goes:

*Year 1: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Additional Scenes . Capturing the Stone: Casting and Bringing the Novel to Life . Around the world multilanguage Clip . Ghosts of Hogwarts . Yearbook Character Clips . Lessons in Quidditch and What it takes to hatch a Dragon Egg

*Year 2: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Additional Scenes . Conversation with Author J.K. Rowling and Screenwriter Steve Kloves . Building a Scene: Moviemaking Magic . Visit Lockhart's Classroom to view his Certificates and Required Reading . Interviews with Students, Professors and More

*Year 3: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkapan

Additional Scenes . Creating the Vision: Director Alfonso Cuar'on, Author J.K. Rowling...

Picked up the set today
While I'm new to HD DVD's, from the few I've seen, I'm very impressed with this set. Going from the first 2 movies seen so far, the graphics are VERY crisp and clear, so much though that sometimes you can see the difference between live actors and the CGI sets, something more blurred out from the less sharp DVD's.

The sound is great, after watching 'Phantom of the Opera' by ALW, I was a little disappointed in its sound, and was hoping that the HP set was not as bad, and I was happy to find that the sound was great!

Extras, the three plus hours of extras on the bonus DVD is nice, there's a card set that's like the cards in the 'Chocolate Frogs' which comes in the envelope invitation to Hogwarts in the first movie. A very impressive bookmarker set within with a flying broom letter opener, three bookmarker in the shape of a owl, seeker ball and the snake symbol from the second movie as well as a Gryffindor badge. All in steel and would I think cost a bit if sold...

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