Great movie - poor DVD

As a long-time Harry Potter fan (of both the books and the movies) I saw this movie at the midnight premiere and it was absolutely stunning. I was very satisfied with how the book was edited for the movie - everything flowed smoothly from one scene to another, which is also says quite a lot about the cinematography itself, which was pure movie-making genius. The acting of the teenagers has also improved immensely, and it was a very wise decision to focus more on the character development of the teens, rather than flaunt the famous British adult actors, which seemed to be the focus of some of the earlier films. The soundtrack was breathtaking, and the only one of all the films that I actually purchased. I have no fights to pick with the movie at all. Everything from the brilliant special effects to the acting was top-notch.

But this "Special Edition" DVD is an entirely different matter. I put off purchasing the normal DVD just so I could buy the 2-disc version, expecting it to have plenty of insider looks at how the movie was actually filmed, and more about the movie-making process itself. I was completely and utterly disappointed. The only behind-the-scenes coverage they have follows the actress who plays Tonks as she skips from one part of the studio to another, spending at most a meager 2 minutes with each department, giving a totally inadequate introduction to what actually goes on there. Most of the segment involves her describing her personal life, and singing a song about Santa Claus (I'm not even joking). Although it was slightly funny, I did not pay for a DVD with such poor special features.

The other special features consisted of a segment that simply recapped the plot of the entire Harry Potter series so far, which everyone who actually purchases the special edition DVD would already be extremely familiar with. It showed dozens of 10 second clips of interviews, interspersed with typical "filming" montages of cameras moving, actors getting made up, and people chatting between takes. The little interview clips were nothing new - actors giving purely plot-based knowledge about their character. (example: "In this movie, Harry grows up.")

Another "special feature" talked about the editing of Harry Potter, which was so generic that they could have been talking about any other movie. "The music is very important. It sets the mood for the film." It had an interesting little "create your own scene" feature where the viewer can use the DVD remote to select different camera angles of a scene, the music to go along with it, and sound effects. The excitement value of this lasted about 10 seconds for me.