 I got a lot of questions about this after rewatching. I don't know what sort of magics involved or the logistics of it all. It just doesn't make a lick of sense. Does the chessboard reset every time someone enters a room? Does the magic somehow know how many people are going to be playing the game? Why is there one blank space on the board? Why does Hermione even have to partake in this at all? Why does Ron have to be on top of the horse the night? How does the chessboard know that Ron's the one that's issuing the commands? Did he have to be on the night to issue commands? There's just so much. So many questions. Welcome to the second episode of the Adam Does Movies podcast. You join me for a good 30 to 45 minutes or however long it takes to go through an entire film, talk about the pros and cons, and really just go on a journey together. There's no ad breaks. There's no selling you on anything. I am going to ask you to just bear with me for about 30 seconds to maybe a minute while I do a little bit of a, I guess, plean with you. It's nothing major, I promise. And then we're going to get right into it. So sales pitch. I've been running my YouTube channel, Adam Does Movies, for almost a decade, maybe a decade off and on. And I think you should subscribe there if you aren't. I have a second channel, which is just Adam Olinger. Please subscribe there too. That one's not movie related. It's just a lot of fun nonsense. I post rant videos. I post some video game playthroughs from Twitch. And that brings me to my last point. Please subscribe to me on Twitch if you haven't. If you have a free Amazon Prime membership thing, you get a free Twitch subscription every month. That goes right to Jeff Bezos. So go ahead and throw it at me. I stream a couple times a week now. I just got back into it. Oh my gosh, I have a notification flying at me. I didn't shut those off. I don't know if you can hear that, but I'm going to go ahead and exit Trello. Anyway, that's really that. If you are looking to throw a couple dollars my way, please check me out on Patreon at patreon.com slash Adam Does Movies. It would be really awesome. It would mean a lot. And this does require a bit of work on my part. I take throw notes. I do the two-camera shot. I edit. I put in movie clips. So this isn't a quick turnaround by any means, but I think it's something that has value. My voice really needs to be heard at the end of the day. And especially my thoughts on Harry Potter, which is what we're getting into today right now. That was it. That was the whole painful thing you had to sit through. Now the rest of this is just straight up pure uncut Potter action. Okay, so before we really dive in, I should let you know that this isn't going to be a comparison between the books to the film. I have read all the books several times. I still, you know, I retain almost nothing from them because my brain only can hold so much information. And I guess the Harry Potter franchise in their book form just got tossed out every time I finished, which is a shame because I have bits and pieces that I can compare, but for the most part, I want to take the films on their own merit. I'm a big fan of the franchise as a whole. That's why I'm really excited to do this. I collect the Legos. We have a ton of those kind of propped up around the library area of my house. Maybe I'll cut to some of those shots, just sprinkle them in so you can see some of my Lego builds that I've done. And I played through the Lego Harry Potter games. Those are fantastic. I always have a fun time doing that. Okay, now we're started. We kick things off with the WB logo flying up center stage. It's very much a standard WB logo right now. It's not telling the story like the further installments do. They really have fun with those logos later on. We are now at Privet Drive. You see the sign, you see the street. And Income's Dumby. Dumbledore out of the shadows. It's very atmospheric. It's very kind of eerie. It's a foggy day out. He's got the Deluminator, which we don't find out is the name of that device. I don't believe until much later in the series. I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't say anything about it here. He flips it open and they really milk this out. They make the Deluminator seem like it's really the item to have. As he takes the street lights away, it makes it very dark outside. I have to point out, I took a lot of notes here and the first thing that I really see sticking out is the music. It is stunning to open things up. Very good. John Williams hasn't missed a beat in the decades and decades he's been doing this for. This is a very Star Wars-esque soundtrack. There's even some, I think, some like nods to the prequels in this, which I don't like the Star Wars prequels, but the music topped here. Okay, Hagrid is crying. We should note that. This big guy comes down from his motorcycle. He's very distraught. He's very sad. There's a cat that turns into a witch. That's Miss McGonigal, Minerva McGonigal, if you must. They, you know, they're skulking around in the dead of night. They have a child in their possession, something bad has happened, and they're leaving it at the doorstep of these strangers, the Dursleys. They converse with each other about how this boy is incredibly special. Everyone will know him, and I guess just a very tragic event has taken place. The audience doesn't know. Book readers do. Book readers do. And I do remember the book very well here, because the first chapter is all about Vernon Dursley and how lame his life is, and how boring and basic it is. You get hints of that in this first film as well, in a different way. All right, we're now at the Dursley house. It's a new day, pounding on the steps, as Dudley is just being a dick. He's jumping up and down on the floorboards. It's disrupting Harry's sleep, which is his room directly underneath in a cupboard. He has this, I don't know, three by three space. That might be generous. It's very small. It's very miserable, and that's where they keep the boy who lived. We get the introduction to Daniel Radcliffe, the star of Harry Potter. Man, of all the things Harry Potter does right, which is pretty much everything in my mind, Daniel Radcliffe, what a perfect casting decision he was. I mean, they all are. Honestly, there's only one casting choice that I'm not a fan of, we'll get to it. But Daniel Radcliffe, the whole main cast, wow, they, I'd say lucked out, but can you luck out with that many characters? At some point, it's just skill, right? He's, um, okay. Dudley is very upset. He's pissed because he only got a count of 36 presents. The mom promises they'll make it up and they'll get him some more on the way to the zoo, which is where they're headed. And I have to point out that a lot happens in this book, and the movie is two and a half hours long, but man, everything is so rushed over. They have so much to get to. They just have no time to breathe in really any scene. And I say if there is one major criticism for this entire franchise is that the heart and soul of the books, it's a little bit limited in these films. They don't give anything enough time to settle. And that's a shame because the heart in the stories is so good. It's what JK Rowling did really well. She really needed an editor because man, those books get really, really repetitive. But I'm not going to knock them too much. They're one of my favorite book series, even if JK Rowling has turned into kind of a troll on Twitter. All right, and that's an understatement, I guess. There's a great, I noticed a great touch here that I guess I never really bothered to pay attention to the last 30 times I've seen this film, which is that all the cars in the neighboring lots, the four houses, have the same exact vehicle model, just different colors. Just a nice showcase that Dursley really is a basic bitch. He's keeping up with the Joneses. That's his lot in life, is to get some sort of pedigree for his, I guess, just pretty boring, standard life that he lives. We're off to the zoo now. Harry converses with a snake. That's kind of a big takeaway in this scene. I will note that I believe Dursley had a friend in the book that joined along with him. He wasn't alone. I get the distinction here. Dudley sucks. I kind of appreciate that they didn't give him a friend, because no one in the right mind would really hang out with this kid. He's just garbage all around. Harry is sad. He's been dealt a raw hand in life so far. He's talking to a snake, and he's very surprised to find out the snake, in fact, talks back to him. It's mostly done through just nods and gestures. I noted that the CG is fantastic on this creature, which, for a movie that came out in, hang on. I didn't note the year that Harry Potter came out, the first one. 2001. For 2001, we got some really good special effects here. Those are inconsistent throughout this movie, but for now, looking really good. As the snake slithers away, it says thanks to Harry. It overextends that S, even in snake language that the S's really are pronounced. The actress playing Petunia, don't know her name. I should have looked that up as well. On Petunia gives a fantastic scream reaction here when the snake gets out, and Dudley falls into the snake pit, and the glass is sealed up again. Harry did this, of course. He didn't know how to do it. This will be an ongoing thing with him throughout the books and movies, where he will just do things without really any knowledge of how. All right, we're moving on. Find a little bit of a cold, I think. I don't know, I got little sniffles. We are back at the Dursley house. Harry starts getting letters from Hogwarts, sent via carrier owls, of course, as one would expect from a magician's school, a wizarding school. Dudley, I noted, is wearing a dumbass hat at the breakfast table. That's a big takeaway here. And Vernon Dursley starts to lose his mind as more owls and letters arrive. This is a great, great scene. One of my favorite moments of the film, there are several, but I have a lot of favorites. Vernon is knelt over, and the actor just is terrific. R.I.P., I believe, he's passed. He's burning letters in the fireplace, and he has this demented happy look about him as he looks over at Harry. It's just so perfect. The owls look terrific, too, because they're real. They were trained by handlers, hundreds of owls flying around. You can see some of the green screen, but it's not bad. It's not bad at all. And Christopher Columbus, who directed the film, gives us some great shaky cam, which is rare from his movies. He's typically, you know, he moves the camera, often in a wondrous fashion, but it's never so visceral as it is here. It was a great thing to do because you really get that sense of hectic chaos that's going on in the household as letters are flying in from every direction. Regardless of what Vernon does, the owls thwart him, even though he's boarding windows and doors up, and even though it's Sunday and the mail isn't supposed to arrive, that doesn't stop them. So we are now rushed off to the lighthouse. We see Vernon and family camped out in this old-ass lighthouse, out in the middle of nowhere. It's storming out. The waves are crashing. It's really cool looking. We get our first, I guess we've already had a couple, you're going to hear the word iconic a lot because there are so many iconic shots in this movie. It's nuts. We have Harry blowing out his fake birthday candles on the ground via dirt, which is what he drew them in. And everybody's just kind of having a miserable time except for Vernon, who's finally sleeping comfortably away from the owls. Unfortunately for him, something much worse has come along, and that's Hagrid. Rubius Hagrid, to be exact, he smashes down the door this giant of a man. He's a half-giant, I believe technically. His mother was a giant. His father was a mortal man, which is... I don't even want to get into the complexities of that whole thing. Maybe the... I think the dad was a wizard. I digress. Anyway, this leads to a couple of my favorite lines from Hagrid throughout the series. He says the classic, you're a wizard, Harry! And he also gets very upset when Harry tells him his parents died in a car crash. That's an absolute outrage, a scandal to say, to hinder, to hurt, to tarnish the reputation of the Potters like that with a mere pathetic car crash? No, no, no, no. The Potters don't go out like that, they go out like ballers. They go out like gods. Hagrid gives Dudley a pig's tail as well for eating the butt cake that Hagrid brought over. I mean, I don't think I'd touch that cake if I were Harry anyways. Hagrid sat on it, it was smushed. I just, I can't imagine it. I just can't imagine it smelling the best. We're now with the leaky cauldron for a 20-second scene. It is amazing going back and watching this. How many scenes don't even make it to a minute? There's just so much to see, so much to build in this world, and not a lot of time to get there. I said to my wife as we were watching, this nowadays could work really well as a TV series because of the budget that these shows are getting now, it could work. Immediately after I said that, I said no way in hell I want them to do that with this property. These characters are Harry Potter, this world is Harry Potter. Do something new in the Wizarding World, that's fine, but do not touch these originals. That's sacrilegious. All right, we really only get outside of the atmosphere. Professor Quirrell shows up. The stuttering fool that we will find out later in the movie is not all that he seems. He's not this pathetic weakling. Well, I mean, yes and no, yes and no. He did allow, he did allow himself to be taken over by the Dark Lord. All right, after a quick scene there, we're at Diagon Alley. This is what I noted the first bad CG looks like as the bricks are pulling away from the wall. It's not good. It's pretty rough. And I didn't think it needed to be fake either. Things like that you could have done with some real world practical effects. We get our great first look at the Wizarding World here. The shops, the hustle and bustle, the outfits, the set design is flawless here. It's such a sight to behold and I cannot wait to someday get to Universal Studios to see the real thing. I mean, not the real thing, but the the real thing based on the real thing that was was fake sets in a movie. Okay, we get a Nimbus 2000 tease, which will come back later as the kids are ooing and eyeing over the beautiful broom, the sleekest fastest broom on the market right now. We now enter Gringotts Bank. Grip Hook, the bank teller, played by actor Warwick Davis. You'll know him as Willow, some of you. He also plays Professor Flitwick in this. He gets double duty. I think he does the voice of another character as well, but I don't recall right now. Gringotts also a sight to behold. Once again, iconic, iconic locations. Gonna keep using that word. There's nothing, nothing more powerful of a word that I could use than iconic. We are whisked away in an Indiana Jones-esque ride to Bank Vault 713. Hagrid has to pick up a small package. It's the only thing in the vault, which as I said, it's very reminiscent of that opening scene in the first indie film where the light is perfectly dropped down on the mantle place, and you see that little sack, that item inside that rare powerful piece that they're gonna collect. They also walk over to Harry's Vault. It's chock-full of money. Rupees, golden blooms, things of that nature that Harry's parents had left him. They didn't leave the kid high and dry. He's got a good amount of money to his name. Unfortunately for Harry, he would definitely trade all the money in the world to see his family again and not have to live with the God-awful Dursleys. The Dursleys, of course. Petunia being the sister of Harry's mom, Lily. Okay, we're at Ollivander's Wand Shop. Very important moment where Harry has to pick out his wand. Ollivander's been there for a long time. This isn't his first foray into wizard wand collaboration. The wand chooses the wizard as he dutifully notes to Harry, and it takes a while. Some of the wands are pretty wildly in Harry's hands, shooting all over the place, causing several outbursts. Until, very curiously, Ollivander gives Harry a wand that he never expected to pair with him. But pair it does, like an Ace Chardonnay. We learn that it has a brother wand, and it belonged to one who shall not be named. He who shall not be named, to be more exact. We get a great line here. We should expect great things from you, Ollivander says. And then he notes that he who shall not be named did great things as well. Terrible things, but nevertheless great. And we get a really quick glimpse outside the window as Hagrid's standing there, a big grin on his face as he holds up Harry's birthday present, Hedwig the Owl. We are now at the Leaky Cauldron again. Harry learns of Voldemort, see how he didn't say the T, because J.K. Rowling confirmed on Twitter after all the movies were done, that the T is in fact silent. While it's a good thing, she worked closely with every team involved in all of these movies over the decade to not let them know that Voldemort doesn't have a pronounced T in his name. I might go back and forth, sometimes calling in Voldemort, sometimes calling in Voldemort, I don't really care. The movies put the T on there, so we're going off the movies, right? This is the first scene that I don't really care for where Hagrid is talking about what happened to his family and we get this flashback moment. It's got the worst slow motion. It's the kind that Peter Jackson often uses. I can't stand it. It's that really shuddery, stuttery, herky jerky garbage. Doesn't work. Never liked it. Never will. Moving right along here, we're now at the train station. Hagrid drops Harry off at the platform without letting him know how to get to nine and three quarters entrance. Pretty useful. I'd say if it was anybody else, it would be pretty douchey, but Hagrid's kind of an aloof goof. He doesn't really think about his consequences or that Harry doesn't know shit about the wizarding world, so he just drops him off and bounces. Thankfully, the Weasley family's there. This is including a very young Fred and George and Ginny, Ron, and we get a glimpse of Percy just running through the pillar full bore. Harry is informed that that's how you get through. You have to run straight into a brick wall, and you come out clean on the other side, much like Andy Dufresne crawling through a tunnel of shit. It's nothing like that, but for some reason that popped in my head. They aboard the Hogwarts Express, and we get our first really good introduction to Ron, played by Rupert Grint. He's another great casting choice. He's just perfect. He's just a walking disaster. He's loyal. You know, he's kind of dim-witted, but he's a good kid. He's a good chum. I don't know if you can hear that. He's just pounding upstairs, chaos going on above me. Harry buys the lot, as he states, of candy because Ron is shortchanged. We see Scabbers, his pet mouse, climbing all over his crotch area, which is fun. It's a cute, ugly little rat, cute and ugly at the same time. It's a little wrong because we learn later that that is in fact a grown adult man using transfiguration to hide as a mouse. The things that mouse has seen over the years with Ron I couldn't possibly imagine. The horror that Peter Pettigrew has witnessed from a teenage boy later in life. Yikes. Hermione, Hermione enters the picture. Again, perfect casting of Emma Watson. Holy God was this casting perfect. She's awesome right out of the gates, dropping knowledge, fixes Harry's glasses, makes fun of Ron. Did you know you got dirt there, just there? Did you know? So good. They're off the train and now on to the boats. It's planes, trains and automobiles in the Harry Potter universe. Here's an incredibly, incredibly iconic shot of the boats leading to Hogwarts. We get this bird's eye view that slowly creeps up to reveal this glorious, mountain-esque castle off in the distance, dead of night, candles ablaze, music pumping, kids rowing. This shit is awesome. There's a quick shot of Seamus Finnegan in one of the boats as well I noted. There's probably others, but that was a quick takeaway for me. Once they disembowel, that can't be a word, disembowel. Once they get off the boats, that's better. Once they get out of the boats, I was trying to be all fancy with words that I clearly don't know, they get to the Hogwarts entrance. Crab, Goyle and Draco show up. Draco, just so good. I love how he overpronounces everything and that goes with most of the actors here. The bad guys always overpronounce Harry's last name. Oh, is that right, Mr. Potter? Mr. Potter? It's just really sharp on those T's, really got a lot of edge to it. Not a lot happens there. McGonagall's talking, she's dropping some knowledge, she's dropping some threats, as Minerva does from time to time. I think I have a sneeze coming on. Hang on, hang on. Take a deep breath. Is it going to pass? I'd prefer if it didn't pass. I'd prefer if I could just turn it loose. Okay, I guess it's going to come back with a vengeance later. Buckle up. Again, this scene's like 35 seconds long. We're now at the dinner hall slash the pavilion slash the Great Hall, as it's really known as. All aboard for a nostalgic explosion. There's floating candles. There's a sorting hat. Later we have a buffet of amazing foods. Dumbledore sounds old as shit. He looks old as dirt. It's not disrespectful to the actor. Who is great, we'll talk about him a little bit more later, but I guess I should point out that this is the only casting choice that I was not on board with. He's not like the Dumbledore in the books. He's far too old. He's not loosey-goosey. He's not playful. He's just kind of the sweet. I mean, I don't even know if I'd say sweet. He looks sweet, but he doesn't really do anything sweet. You know, he's just kind of an old dude. Nothing much going on. And that's not to say the other Dumbledore is any closer to the books. He's actually maybe further away, although I like him more. Well, again, we'll get to them in a little bit. Okay, we see pretty much the rest of the cast here. A lot of the students, a lot of the teachers are present. This is just a great scene. So we're going over the sorting hat. There's four houses in Harry Potter, of course. The Slytherins, which is a garbage class all around. The Gryffindor is the best. Hufflepuff, America's joke. I guess British Europe's joke, really. England's joke. And Ravenclaw, the poor man's Slytherin. Not quite evil enough to get in. Not nice enough to be a Hufflepuff or a Gryffindor. So the hat's going around. It's being placed on kids' heads. It's telling them where they need to stay. The hat senses where you want to go at the end of the day. It's like the illusion of, I guess... I don't even know how to describe it. Because the hat tells Harry straight up, like, listen, at the end of the day, dude, you're in charge. I'm just kind of feeding off your brainwaves, but you're telling your own story at the end of the day here. We get the first cool shot of Snape looking sketchy AF. Alan Rickman is just not having it with this kid. He sees Harry. He doesn't know what to think. Now that I'm talking about Harry Potter, it's amazing how many people have already gone from this franchise and from this world. Alan Rickman, RIP, poor one out. As we move through these movies, more and more people, it seems, are going to be dropping off the radar, which is a goddamn tragedy. It's a damn shame. All right, I did note a really funny shot that makes me laugh every time. It's not supposed to be funny, but Dumbledore peps up a bit when Harry's name is called. It's just this great shot of old Dumbie, just like, oh, oh my. He's just very interested in where Harry's going to be put. Sorting hat, I noted, looks pretty good. It's a nice combination of practical and CG effects, so no complaints there. Harry gets in an argument with the hat, but eventually he gets put in Gryffindor, like his father before him. The Fantastic Feast begins. John Cleese shows up as nearly headless Nick. The ghosts kind of suck in this outside of Cleese. They have a kind of a very Ghostbusters-esque look, so it's dated in comparison to the rest of the film, and they're pretty much gone after the second movie is completed. You really just don't see the ghosts at all, until, you know, the final film, when they have to have a ghost again for the plot. And I don't have a problem with that. Again, they just don't really do much. I'm really glad that Peeves isn't in the movies. I never liked him in the books, couldn't stand the douchey ghost. It was a good call in my mind to not have him. We're now at the, we see the moving staircase as the kids go up. This is another just awesome, awesome moment in the film franchise, where they built out these amazing sets of moving staircases, moving pictures, talking, having a good time. There's so much eye candy here, it's hard to take it all in. The kids go up to the Gryffindor common room, where old lady painting is creepy as shit. They replace her in later films as well. And we get the four poster beds shot of the commons room. We get a nice, nice view of everything going on. And then it's straight off to transfiguration class with Miss McGonigal. This scene seriously is 20 seconds long. The boys run in late. McGonigal jumps from being a cat to a person, which we've already seen prior. And she spouts a couple good one liners and class is dismissed. Then we go to Potion's class, where Snape is once again being awesome. Alan Rickman soaks in every single word he gets. He's so good. He's so good in this. He treats Harry like a total punk bitch when he asks a few basic questions. Harry is too scared and timid to speak up and say, listen, Professor Ass, I was taking notes about what you were talking about. I wasn't, like, wandering off in my own dreams. Draco, meanwhile, is just eating it up. He loves this. He loves every part of it. Back in the Great Hall, Seamus blows himself up for the first of many times in the books and in the movies. The mail comes, where the owls drop off a couple items, a couple gifts, a couple letters for people. Neville gets a remember all. And we learn via newspaper, moving pictures and all, that Gringot 713, Vault was broken into. But it was too late. Whatever was in there was already taken out. So someone's looking for something, but they didn't find it in time. We're now off to Broom Practice with Madame Hooch, where the kids are going to learn how to fly. Or some of them will. Harry's a natural. This is the first thing he's really excelled at. He's turning some heads with his impressive Broom Handling work. Broom Handling, you get a little pun there. Ron gets hit in the face. Neville Longbottom's just out of control here. He cannot keep this thing from staying on the ground. He's all over the place. Some pretty comical CG. This is my favorite kind of CG in the early 2000s where they know it's not very good, especially with humans. So what they do to mask it is they give them these really quick movements, where the camera's moving around a ton. The characters are wildly moving out of control, so you can't make out faces and stuff. They do this a lot in the first couple Harry Potter movies. I eat it up. I think it's great. And they also do the thing where I really like, where it'll be a CG model and it'll quickly transition to a human. So Neville's falling off the side of the castle of the school. And he's clearly CG, but he drops behind some kids, so that the camera Columbus can take us over past the kids to the real Neville actor who's clearly just been laying on the ground the whole time, ready for his cue. Good stuff. All right, Draco steals the remember all. Just being his typical Draco dickish self. Harry knows how to stand up to bullies though. He's been living with one for a decade now. He gets on a broom, takes off straight away. Draco chucks the ball, which Harry seeks and catches in front of the window of McGonagall's office. She almost gives the impression that she's mad. But no, no, no, no, no. It turns out McGonagall is a huge, huge Quidditch fan and loves nothing more than her team house winning. So she announces to a very young Oliver Wood, who's the captain of the Quidditch team, that Harry is the seeker they've been looking for. This comes as a surprise to Harry that he's so naturally gifted, but it shouldn't. Harry Hermione points out as she takes him to a trophy case and points to his dad's name, who was also the seeker for Gryffindor. It's a good moment. All right, the stairs then go kind of out of control. I don't know if they explain why the stairs do this even in the movie. Maybe they do and I missed it, or maybe it's just coincidental happenstance or just one of those things. I don't know. Anyway, the stairs lead them to the third floor, which is forbidden, as Dumbledore noted. Filchus Cat gets an appearance. Mrs. Norris, she's not having it. She doesn't want these kids up here. This leads them to the dated CG dog, which is guarding a trap door. The three-headed dog does not look good. It's pretty bad. It's Scooby-Doo levels of bad, the live-action Scooby-Doo. Hermione gives her best quote of the film, before either of you comes up with another plan to get us killed, or worse, expelled. So good. I probably should have led into that quote, because it was kind of taken out of context, I apologize. Essentially, she's not having it with the boys, and they're shenanigans. She wants to get back to school work. That's what's important. Okay, we're moving down our notes. We're moving through this at a decent clip, but this is such a long, meaty movie. All right, now we have one of the greatest scenes in the movie. Oh no, I'm sorry. I misspoke. This is just training. So we have training with Oliver Wood. He teaches Harry what the golden snitch is, how Quidditch is played. It's kind of weird, lopsided rules. Basically, if you catch the snitch, you win the game every time. Otherwise, it's just scoring points and hoping that it's all for something. I can't remember how many points you need. It's like 150. I think it's well over 100. I know that. But if you catch the snitch, you win the game automatically. Yeah. Charms class with Flitwick. When Guardian Leviosa is uttered for the first time, Hermione, of course, gifted as all hell with this. Seamus blows his face off again. Ron, kind of a dick. They're walking away from class and Ron makes fun of Hermione for being a know-it-all. She kind of is, Ron, but yeah, I get it. I get how that can be annoying. She overheard though, she's sad, and she'll be spending the remainder of the night in the bathroom crying. Which reminds me of... You know, that's just like a Tuesday for me, but I digress. It's now Halloween. This is that same night. I mean, this is that whole day as Halloween, apparently. We have an amazing spread laid out in front of us. It's got candy apples. There's pastries. Floating pumpkins overhead. You know what? They really go all out for their holidays here at Hogwarts, and I respect that. Coral subtly lets everybody know that there's a troll in the dungeon. And by subtle, I mean, he throws open the doors in a panic sweat, runs down the hallway, and just screams it to the top of his lungs like the little bitch that Coral is. The boys split off from the group as they're getting ushered back to their dormitories because they know that Hermione's crying in the lavatory nearby. We are back to some more Scooby-Doo level stuff here as the troll enters the fray. Ugh, it's not good, but we do get some more of my herky jerky CG work, and I eat that up, so it's kind of a win. Hermione kind of takes, catches the boys off guard, taking the blame for what happened as the teachers walk in. McGonagall also taken aback by this information. She takes some points away from Gryffindor, but she awards some points for Harry and Ron and their bravery in taking down a mountain troll. Harry catches a glimpse of a gash on Snape's leg. This is the first time Harry's really kind of sus about Snape. Great haul back. Snape stops by to give Harry some well wishes on the match, which he's really just low-key insulting him because he's playing against Slytherin, which is Snape's team. Harry suspects Snape is after whatever the dog is guarding, and the Hedwig shows up delivering a Nimbus 2000 wrapped, brand new, gifted by McGonagall. Harry looks over, nice little moment where he smiles and she's petting the owl, and she acknowledges she's awesome as she is. He's one of the best teachers there. We're now finally at the moment I just spoke about earlier, the Quidditch match. This is the pod racing of the prequels. This is the stuff I live for. Wood gives a terrible pregame pep talk to Harry about his first match, and now he basically blacked out during the game. We have a timeless rivalry. It's the Gryffindors versus the Slytherins. Lee Jordan is doing the commentary? I don't know if they ever call him Lee Jordan, honestly. I don't think they say his name, but it's a pretty safe bet, considering he's like one of three black kids in the entire school. Star Wars style music kicks in. There's this kind of this... I'm sorry, I'm probably gonna get... This video will be flagged now because of my perfect recreation of the Harry Potter music. It's hard to describe, but there's these little background elements in this music that reminds me of the prequels, the best part of those movies, and it's really good here. This whole scene still looks great, and I just have to note the storyboarding is on point. How this was produced and just displayed is just perfection. I love everything about it, and I just couldn't stop and think, you know what? A Quidditch movie, like a spin-off movie, would really work in this. You know, you do kind of a rocky thing where there's training montages and they're going after the big world cup. I think it could just be really good. Hermione spots Snape, jinxing the broom, or so she thinks, because of Harry's garbage take on Snape so far. Harry's all over the place in the air. He almost falls several times, but Hermione puts a stop to it by lighting a small fire under Snape from the bleachers below. Harry wins the game, along with the... I mean, the Gryffindor's win the game, but thanks to Harry, who swallows the snitch after riding the broom on his feet. The kid's a natural. The kid's got a gift. He could really go all the way, I think. He really could. This whole sequence, as I've stated, so well done. The blend of CG actors with, you know, their live counterparts is just... It's a work of... It's a work of... Hollywood magic. This is the kind of stuff that I eat up in Hollywood films. So good. All right, we get a walk-and-talk with Hagrid. There's a lot of walk-and-talks in this movie. I live for those. We learn that the dog is Hagrid's and his name is Fluffy. So the three-headed dog guarding the trap door... That's, of course, one of Hagrid's things. Hagrid cannot keep his mouth shut. He defends Snape, though, and he name-drops Nicholas Flamel. That's a big player in this film, who we never see. It's now Christmas time. These holidays are jumping... Jumping wild. Hey, we just can't sit still for more than 10 minutes. There's a massive tree. We have caroling ghosts. We have boys playing chess. It's a very quiet time at the school, with many heading home for the holiday. We get another bit of Star Wars-infused inspiration with the wizarding chess. The pieces come to life. They attack each other. It's good stuff. Ron name-drops Charlie, who is studying dragons abroad in Romania. That's another one of the brothers, Charlie. The boys each... I noted this. The boys each say Happy Christmas to each other, which I've never heard in my entire existence, but I'm going to start saying it more from now on. Happy Christmas. I like it. I like it a lot. Maybe it's a... Is it a British thing? Harry opens a mysterious gift by the foyer. We will not find out in this film who this gift is from, but it is the cloak of invisibility. Giving him the power that when worn to go invisible, to be unseen. A little bit of an inconsistency here, I noted. Ron seems to know exactly what this is, which is odd since it's one of a kind, but he says that it's really rare, which is an understatement considering it's one of the Deathly Hollows. Maybe Ron is thinking about the Deathly Hollows subconsciously. He doesn't realize it. I don't know. He knows the story. Here's the most abrupt jump in the film, which is a trip to the Restriction... Wow, I can't talk. Let me take a break. Let me take a drink. Let me take a pause for a second, a beat. Got my Noss Energy drink here. Really bad for me, but we're doing a drink in a movie, I guess. Okay, let me catch my bearings. We are at the restricted section of the library. There is no segue to this at all. We're just there. We're not really sure why we're there even. I know why, but I can't imagine the audience really does. This is a pretty intense scene. It needed some buildup. It's, you know, it's at night. Harry, I believe, is looking for information about Nicholas Flamel. Hermione thought that the book would be in the forbidden section of the library. We have, you know, there's people in the next-door hallway. He finds out... He overhears Snape talking to Coral up against the wall. He's very angry with him, but this leads to another great moment where Snape can sense Harry's presence and he reaches out. He's just like... And then he looks at his hands afterwards, which is so good. Snape, so good in this. Harry stumbles into another room with a very peculiar mirror. It shows his parents in it, and I gotta say props for keeping the same actors throughout the series as the parents. They get very little screen time, and so I'm amazing that we kept them for eight movies. I think the dad's the same. I know the mom is. Harry shows Ron the mirror later, and Ron sees something completely different. He sees himself as a quitted star, as head boy. So it's clear this mirror shows you exactly what you want to see, which can be a very dangerous thing as Dumbledore will later point out to Harry on their first one-on-one interaction. It's not a very warm one, I noted. And here's where I really point out that that's a misstep for me. Dumbledore and Harry have a very good... They have a very good relationship in the book. I think Harry and Hagrid are much better in the films. They do a good job of that, but that's really it. Harry's relationship with most of the adults in this movie series is really understated. McGonagall doesn't get, I think, the props she's deserved, and Dumbledore, as stated. Richard Harris is an incredible actor, but he's just too old here for the job. We will get to Michael Gambon once we talk about the prisoner of Azkaban after Harris unfortunately dies after filming the secondary Potter film. He's replaced with Michael Gambon, and although I prefer his take, it's still not book accurate, and he's definitely a harsher Dumbledore. Winter's already over. We were at Winter for maybe 10 minutes, and it's back to... It looks like spring or summer. Hermione slams down a massive book, and she finds out that Nicholas Flamel is the only known maker of the Philosopher's Stone, a legendary substance that can turn any metal into pure gold and give the drinker immortality. It does two different things. What a very diverse object or element or whatever. Flamel is also 600 years old, so it looks like he's been sucking on a bit of his own cough syrup over the years. He's been drinking his own Kool-Aid from Fountain of Youth. Fluffy, they determine, is clearly guarding this prize. Now at Hagrid's hut, the kids still think his Snape is the culprit after... And he's going after this Fountain of Youth. Hagrid's cooking up a dragon egg. Dragon egg, I apologize. He got it. He won it from a stranger at a pub. Nothing suss about that, right? They should have gone with an... Hang on. It's tough doing a podcast alone. Patreons right around the corner, guys. They should have gone with an animatronic puppet because the dragon is really bad looking here, I noted. Draco snitches on the kids for wandering out at night, and they each get docked 50 points. Whoa, that means nothing to the audience. It's a big deal in the books, but in the film, you know, bless its soul, it tries in the first one. It's never... I don't think they ever do the points again after this first movie. It's something about winning a... You get the cup at the end of the year, the house cup. I never really liked it in the books, to be honest. It was one of those things I just... I was like, okay. And they keep going with that every year in the books for the first four or five. Draco gets saddled with detention too because he was all wandering as well at night, and he wasn't supposed to be. So the punishment is to go into the Forbidden Forest with Hagrid. Their rule... The rules in this school are just inconsistent as all hell. How can you go somewhere where you're Forbidden to go? Especially if you were a troublemaker. You know, those should be the last people to go there. Hagrid is very sad. He's grieving that his pet Norbert, the new dragon that we just saw, was sent off to Romania. This is where the movie can kind of... Because it's so fast moving and we don't have time to sit with anything for more than like 20 seconds. We just saw Norbert the Dragon. I think it was literally four minutes back. So we don't have no attachment to this creature, and I can't feel any sort of sympathy for Hagrid here. Now off into the Forbidden Forest, there's a big tonal shift I noted. This scene is dark. You got ominous lighting. Very cool foggy woods. We got creepy imagery. There's a dude sucking a unicorn for blood. It's dead. It's just a very... You know, this is haunting stuff for a kid. So if you got little ones watching, they might want to veer away here. Because Hagrid's full of genius ideas, he has the kids split up. Draco, Harry, and Fang, his dog, Hagrid's dog, go together while Hagrid, Hermione, and Ron part to the other way. Brilliant, Hagrid. Nothing could go wrong here. So Harry is the one that stumbles upon this mysterious creature, this hooded figure, drinking the blood of a dead unicorn, and he's about to get taken out, too, when a big centaur shows up and stops it. I believe Frenzy Ferenz, F-I-R-E-N-Z-E I put down. I'm not sure how to say his name. He jumped in, saves the day. He informs Harry that he's very fortunate, because this creature obviously doesn't have any care in the world. It drank the blood of a unicorn, which is one of the most pure creatures ever, because the blood of a unicorn will sustain someone, even who's on the brink of death. But to do something so heinous is just, it's soul-shattering. Well, we'll find out much later that we don't need, that Voldemort doesn't need to worry too much about his soul being shattered, as it already has been several times. Another walk-and-talk. Harry mentions his scar has been hurting lately. This is something that'll play off in later books as well in films. Harry figures out that Hagrid gave up valuable information about how to get past Fluffy to that stranger that he got the dragon egg from. To do this, you have to play a song to the dogs, and it'll fall asleep. Harry name drops the philosopher's stone to McGonagall and learns that Dumbie is out of town, so Dumbledore can't help out. I'm not sure what McGonagall's doing with the information. She's very taken aback that the kids know about the stone. I don't really know, you would think that she would have just as much power as Dumbledore, but she doesn't really seem to give a shit. Harry still suspects Snape, who then shows up for one of my favorite line deliveries in the entire franchise. He looks over at Hermione, then shifts gaze to Harry and says, be careful. People might think you're up to something. I butchered it really badly, but maybe I can play that clip. I don't think I'll get up to something. I don't think I'll get docked by YouTube. Maybe I can play the clip there. Everything from his mannerisms to his eye shifting, it's just all perfectly balanced, as all things should be. Now it's night time. Neville and Trevor the Frog are standing guard in the room, Griffin common room that is. Hermione doesn't hesitate though to freeze him with Petrificus Totalis, another one of the many spells she's already learned at Hogwarts. I don't know if Harry and Ron know any at this point. They enter Fluffy's room only to find that he's already been put to sleep via a harp in the corner. Things move really fast now. We're already at the climax of the movie. They're going to go through a series of different rooms that are oddly specifically designed for the children, even though that wasn't their purpose. It just, I guess, conveniently happens to play to their strengths. The kids land in Devil's Snare after going down the hatch. The guard dog was, in fact, guarding. Hermione, per usual, knows how to relax this shit and they sink to the bottom, except for Ron, who just can't stop moving and squirming. So she then throws out Loomis Solum and takes the vines off of Ronald, who falls down. She saved these kids so many times in this first movie, I can't even keep count. At least three. There, I guess I could count. They are now in the key room. A lot of keys flying around and Harry spots one that's got a broken wing. So he's like, you know what? That's the guy. That's the one I have to get to. It's nice that there's some rooms there, ready to be flown. So Harry takes flight. This room's over in like 45 seconds. He's in and out. He's not messing around. We're now on to my least favorite of the rooms and least favorite part of the film, the chess sequence. I got a lot of questions about this after rewatching. I don't know what sort of magics involved or the logistics of it all. It just doesn't make a lick of sense. Does the chessboard reset every time someone enters a room? Does the magic somehow know how many people are going to be playing the game? Why is there one blank space on the board? Why does Hermione even have to partake in this at all? Why does Ron have to be on top of the horse the night? How does the chessboard know that Ron's the one that's issuing the commands? Did he have to be on the night to issue commands? There's just so much, so many questions. It's also not shot very well. I don't like the angled shots in films. Hardly ever works for me. It's more of a montage of things blowing up and then Ron's self-sacrifices to get Harry into checkmate. Again, why he doesn't jump off the night before it gets hit. I'll never know. But he gets rendered unconscious. Harry tells Hermione to take Ron to the infirmary and to send an owl for Dumbledore. Harry's going on alone. He's going on solo. Hermione has no qualms about it. She's like, okay, yeah, go on. Take on Snape, who probably is a very powerful wizard for all we know. I would assume at this point at the school year, they've seen him do some impressive things. But nevertheless, Harry's going on alone. All right. Harry sees Quirrell in front of the mirror. And he turns around to monologue to Harry and to the audience about what's really been going on. How he's the one that jinxed Harry's broom to fall. How he's the one that released the cave into the school. And how Severus Snape was actually trying to help Harry by countering the curse on the broom. It's, uh, yeah, he had Snape wrong this whole time. Snape's been on his side. And I think that that's something that's going to continue to happen between these two guys. They're always going to be on the wrong side of each other. Okay. Harry gets the stone from the mirror. What is that mirror called? I don't think they say the name of the mirror in the movie. Mirror name from Harry Potter. Mirror of... No, they definitely don't say the name and I can't even pronounce it. Mirror of E-R-I-S-T-E-R-I-S-T E-R-I-S-E-D Mirror of E-R-I-S-T, we're gonna say. Hmm. Yeah. No wonder they don't say the name of it. Okay. He, uh, he looks in the mirror, he gets the stone placed in his pocket as he looks at his reflection who winked at him and he's like, I got you, dog. I got you right here. He, uh, he then gets the reveal that Quirrell is not all that he's cracked up to be as he turns around, un-tethers, unwraps, unspools his headgear and there's the face of Voldemort on the backside. Except for anybody that's seen the films that follow. No, this doesn't look like the Voldemort will come to, come to love. This isn't our, uh, this isn't our Ralph Fiennes Voldemort. This is a very kind of generic looking bad guy. I don't know what actor plays him in this. Again, I could look it up, but we're just too far in now. We're too deep in this. He then sets a wall of fire around the area, encasing Harry within. And then Voldemort says, you know what? Harry's a lying piece of shit. He's got the stone in his pocket. Get him. Quirrell tries and fails because once reaching out to touch Harry, his hand is instantaneously burned, which gives Harry the idea, up on a little fire scarecrow, throws the hands on his face, burns the living crap out of him, and the guy turns to stone, shattering instantaneously. Voldemort's furious, but there's nothing he can do as he's not powerful enough to have a human body or any body of that matter. So he floats away in a gaseous state, goes through Harry's body, which renders Harry unconscious. And he awakens sometime later, presumably the next morning, in a hospital bed where Dumbledore is already there to greet him. He's surrounded by gifts from the school as Dumbledore playfully points out were given because they all heard of Harry's courageous undertakings, even though this was supposed to remain a secret. But because it's Hogwarts, nothing stays secret here. Except for plot points, of course, that need to stay secret. Okay, he tells Harry that Nicholas Flamel and Dumbledore have decided together that the stone needed to be destroyed. Flamel's work will live on no longer, which means Nicholas Flamel himself will live on no longer, as he doesn't have. The sustenance needed to continue on. Without that fountain of youth, there's nothing keeping him alive any longer. It's a shame, but that's sometimes the sacrifice you have to make when you're 600 years old. He informs Harry that the magical mirror was kind of enticed by Dumbledore to only allow those that seek the stone to take it, and not those that use the stone. It's a very specific spell to put on a mirror like that. That's why Dumbledore is great. It's just a shame that he left at the most inconvenient of times. He also informs Harry that some leftover magic from his mother was what gave him the ability to keep from getting hurt, from getting harmed by Quirrell, who when trying to touch him was burned. Harry is like the human torch for this one movie only and never again after. I guess it's just some leftover remains of a spell that put a protective barrier around Harry. That barrier I guess is gone now. This is never brought up or mentioned again. Back at the Great Hall, we are getting the announce, the announcing of the winner of the House Cup. The moment everyone's been waiting for. Slytherin currently has the banners already down, set in green, icons everywhere. This isn't going to last long though. As Dumbledore throws out some last minute winner points awarded to our favorite trio, Harry, Hermione, and Ron. But it's still not quite enough points to push these guys over the edge from last to first until Neville comes in clutch with an additional 20 points I believe giving them the edge. Gryffindor takes the House Cup. It's all led to this moment right here. It's an absolute upset. Hufflepuff is still a complete joke to the entire magical community. Ravenclaw's just a poor man Slytherin in my eyes, not quite evil enough to get there. And Draco is once again pissed. So everything is, everything is right where it should be. We get the final moments of the film on the Hogwarts Express, or I should say outside the Hogwarts Express as everybody's getting ready to load on. Sessions over, kids are going home. Harry has to go back to his terrible Dursley family. We do get a nice touching moment to end things between Hagrid and Harry. The, you know, they started their journey together. They're going to end their journey together here. Hagrid gives Harry one more parting gift which is a magical photo album of Harry's family. It's, it's a nice touching moment. It's one of the nicer kinder moments of the film, and it's a great way to cap the movie off. So as Harry's leaving, he waves goodbye. Hagrid waves back as the train goes off into the sunset. That amazing John Williams score fires up and Harry's leaving what he considers his real home, but only for a short while. Because then he's back again for the second movie, Chamber of Secrets. Wow, what a run. What a podcast. This was, this was longer than I thought it was going to be, but there was a lot to cover. The movie had a lot to build. Okay, um, I like this movie a lot still. It brings the, brings the feels, brings the nostalgia, brings the emotions. It definitely moves really quick. Two and a half hours, there's a lot packed in here. I said, I think previously that I was going to rank these movies as they were going, so on the fly. So since we only have one movie under the belt, this is the number one movie so far in the Harry Potter series. Let's see if Chamber of Secrets next week can overthrow that, or if it's going to be the number two spot. All right, I have nothing more to add. Thank you for watching this very long video podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. My throat is really dry. It's really parched. Hopefully I was better this week than last week. My goal is to improve every time. I think it was, I think it was kind of a success. Anyway, I'm not going to ramble any longer. That's it. I'll see you next week. Hopefully same time or same day, Thursdays is when I'm trying to put them up Thursday afternoon. So look for it then. Take care.