Release date: November 16, 2001
Synopsis:
Young Harry Potter has to lead a hard life: His parents
have died in a car crash when he was still a baby, and he is being brought
up by his Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia. For some reason unbeknownst to the
bespectacled ten-year-old, the Dursleys let him live in the small chamber
under the stairs, and treat him more like vermin than like a family member.
His fat cousin Dudley, the Dursley's real son, keeps bothering Harry all the
time. On his eleventh birthday, Harry Potter finally receives a mysterious
letter from a certain Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, telling
him that he is chosen as one of the future students of that supposedly renowned
school. Hagrid, the gigantic man who brought the letter, finally introduces
Harry into the real circumstances of his life: His parents were a wizard and
a witch, they were killed by the evil wizard Voldemort protecting him. Harry
still has a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead from that event. Since he
survived the attack as a baby, and also somehow deprived Voldemort from his
powers, he has been famous in the wizarding world ever since. The Dursleys,
strong disbelievers in that magical crap, never told Harry anything about
his true self. So, Harry is strongly surprised, yet absolutely happy to start
his training. At Hogwarts, Harry meets his teachers, and becomes friends with
Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. The three of them accidentally find out
that the potions master, Severus Snape, seems to plot on stealing something
that is guarded by a three-headed dog. Since nobody would believe some first
years to have found out such important things that even would incriminate
a Hogwarts teacher, they take it on themselves to find out what Snape is up
to. Their quest for the truth leads across many obstacles, from keeping up
the everyday school life, a bewitched Quidditch match (Quidditch is a popular
wizard sport), Fluffy, the three-headed monster dog and quite some tasks one
has to overcome to get to the guarded object.
Moive Mistakes
Crew or equipment visible: The mechanism which makes the Quidditch box shake can be seen when the box falls over.
Miscellaneous: As the three children run across the field to Hagrid's hut, Harry says a few lines ending with "... why didn't I see it before?" Hermione is mouthing Harry's lines with him.
Factual errors: The snake that Harry talks to blinks. Snakes don't have eyelids, making it impossible for them to blink. It is repeatedly pointed out that snakes can't talk, either, but in the context of the movie, this is acceptable while the snake's blink is a simple mistake.
Crew or equipment visible: When Harry, Ron, and Hermione are struggling in the Devil's Snare, a puppeteer can be seen on the left of the screen, working at least some of the masses of tendrils.
Continuity: During the train journey, Ron's hair is parted in several different places.
Continuity: Harry's glasses sometimes have lenses, and sometimes don't, as do Dumbledore's.
Continuity: On the train scene, the same hill as well as lake (as seen by the waves in the middle of the water) are seen multiple times
Audio/visual unsynchronized: Harry, Dudley, and Uncle Vernon during the flying letters sequence.
Continuity: When Harry, Ron, and Hermione escape from the Devil's Snare, they enter the next room (the flying keys) by going *up* a set of stairs. Yet when they arrive at the Flying Keys room, a set of stairs going up is behind them, implying that they came *down* from the previous room.
Revealing mistakes: When Uncle Vernon
looks at Harry's letter from
Hogwarts, he says, "Yours? Who'd be writing to you?" Dudley can
be
seen mouthing the words next to his father.
Revealing mistakes: At Halloween, Dumbledore announces for the teachers to follow him to the dungeon to find the troll. The next shot is of McGonagall and in front of her you can see the strings holding up the "floating" candles.
Miscellaneous: When Harry receives countless acceptance letters from Hogwarts, he fights with Uncle Vernon, saying the dialogue "They're my letters! Give it to me!" Harry's voice is far deeper than the Harry in the rest of the movie, indicating this line was re-dubbed long after main production when Daniel Radcliffe's voice had already begun to change.
Miscellaneous: When Harry receives his first letter, Uncle Vernon says "Your letter? Who would be writing to you?", Dudley is standing next to him and is seen mouthing Uncle Vernon's lines.
Continuity: When Hermione runs across the field her bag switches arms.
Revealing mistakes: In the scene with the flying keys, we can see the string holding up the broomstick just before Harry grabs it.
Continuity: When Harry goes looking for a book on Nicolas Flamel in the restricted section he opens up the screaming book to the first page. When the book starts to scream he is in the middle of the book.
Crew or equipment visible: When Harry, Ron, and Hermione just left Fluffy for the first time and walk into their dorm area, we see, under the painting, the feet of someone closing the painting.
Continuity: The note that Hagrid gives to the teller in the bank is wrinkled in one shot, neat and clean in the next, and then back to wrinkled.
Continuity: When Hagrid's cabin is shown the windows are so high up that even Hagrid can't see through them while standing on the ground. Later in the film, when Draco Malfoy spies on Hagrid through the window, the window appears to be at his eye level, and he turns and runs away, revealing that he wasn't standing on anything to make him tall enough to reach the window.
Continuity: When Harry and Hagrid are walking down Diagon Alley, the same group of people walk past them, in the opposite direction, twice.
Continuity: In Diagon Alley, Harry and Hagrid walk past the same cart and storefront three times. In the opening wide shot, they walk past the purple storefront with the yellow moving scissors and the cart of market goods in front of it. Three shots later, the storefront and cart are shown again in detail, as Harry and Hagrid pass. The next shot shows them passing the cart (with a stack of cauldrons in the background). Several shots later, after passing the store with the owls, they are seen once again passing the cart with the same stack of cauldrons in the background.
Continuity: Just after passing Madam Malkin's shop and before the owl emporium in Diagon Alley, a woman dressed all in black and a man with a burgandy top hat and mutton chops pass on Harry's right walking in the opposite direction. In the next shot, as Harry looks to his left, the same pair can be seen standing and chatting in the doorway of the owl emporium.
Continuity: In Diagon Alley, Harry and Hagrid pass many groups of people multiple times, though they appear to be walking continuously in one direction. Watch for the wizard with curly red hair, the man with a top hat and mutton chops, and the group of three girls who cross in the foreground of the opening shot.
Continuity: When Ron gets drooled on by Fluffy and gets wet, but two shots later he's completely dry.
Errors in geography: When Harry arrives at Hogwarts, Professor McGonagall announces that the Sorting Ceremony will begin "momentarily". In UK English, momentarily means "for a moment" (i.e. briefly), and a Scottish witch as pedantic and precise as McGonagall would never use the American meaning of the word ("in a moment" or "soon"), even though the American meaning might be well understood. Then again, given that the otherwise equally pedantic Snape says "less" when he means "fewer", it could just be that the teaching staff's use of English is just as sloppy as it is in schools all over the muggle world.
Continuity: When the first years climb the stairs and meet Professor McGonagall for the first time, Ron's robe is hanging partly open in one shot, but is closed in the next.
Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Harry and Ron are fighting the troll in the girl's toilet, they use a spell to lift the troll's club over its head and drop it. The club does hit the troll and makes an appropriate sound effect, but then the club falls to the floor, it makes no sound at all.
Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Many viewers believe that the infant Harry in the flashback is wearing anachronistic Blue's Clues pajamas. The design on the sleeve is actually a rabbit.
Crew or equipment visible: During the chess scene, the shadow of a figure can be seen covering a light shining on the chess board near the bottom of the screen.
Continuity: During the first flying lesson, Neville's robe is torn by the pointed rod of the statue as he falls down. The tear in his robe caused by the rod is not there anymore when he falls down.
Continuity: When Harry, wearing his cloak of invisibility, spies on Professor Quirrell being bullied by Professor Snape, the shots filmed from Harry's point of view have him at eye level with the adults even though he is clearly shorter than they are.
Continuity: In the scene in the hut on the rock, where Hagrid comes to fetch Harry, Harry's T-shirt is hanging off his left shoulder at the beginning of the scene, however, for the rest of the scene, it is covering both his shoulders.
Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Wood states that catching the Golden Snitch will win you the game. All it does is score 150 points and end the game - it does not necessarily secure a win.
Audio/visual unsynchronized: In the scene following the defeat of the troll, Quirrel is shown speaking with the other professors, at which point they, and the trio, leave the girls' bathroom. Their footsteps are clearly heard as they move down the hall; however, in the next shot of the troll laying on the floor, the sound effects have ceased. In the last shot, of Quirrell jumping nervously in response to the troll grunting, the footsteps can again be heard.
Click here for cast info