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Region 4 Winners and Losers

Region 4 Winners and Losers

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Explanatory Notes
Additions or corrections (Please refer to the Explanatory Notes before emailing an addition or correction to this listing)
Title Best
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's StoneR2UK

    Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was released as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the US. I imagine that this was because the book had previously been released there with that amended title as well. The US version of the book had almost three hundred changes made to it, most of them very subtle. For example, 'car park' became 'parking lot' and 'football' became 'soccer'. This change in terminology has necessitated a number of scenes in the movie being shot twice, with different dialogue, one for each version of the movie. This is not that unusual for a big-release trans-Atlantic movie, but as there was a change in the title, it drew attention to itself. Quite a few movies, such as the James Bond movies, alter slang and other terminology, to produce two versions to better suit the US or UK audience. In regards to the language, Australians stand somewhere in between, as we use a combination of UK and US slang. To use some examples from Harry Potter, while we use the UK 'letter-box', as opposed to the US 'mail-slot', we also use the US 'sneakers', as opposed to the UK 'trainers'.

    The Region 4 DVD misses out on:

  • Widescreen (2.35:1, 16x9 enhanced) edition
  • Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 EX audio
  • Spanish subtitles

    The Region 1 DVD misses out on:

  • Arabic subtitles

    So, which version is the best -- R1 or R4? Neither. Currently the best version on DVD is the Widescreen R2 edition. This has all the extras, and most importantly, a widescreen (2.35:1, 16x9 enhanced) version of the movie in PAL, with English Dolby Digital 5.1 EX audio. This version also matches the book and movie that was released here, and it has all the English, rather than American dialogue.