I picked up the dvd on Wednesday. The kids and I have been enjoying all of the extras on the second disc.
We especially like the feature on how they trained the real animals. I had not known that they had used actual bats in some of the scenes (I had thought that the bats were computer generated). I had not known that you could train a bat!
We also liked the bit with the Weasley twins in the candy shop in Hogsmeade.
I love the twins!!!
We got this too. I wish they would have kept the deleted scenes in the movie. It really did leave alot out, especailly concerning the backstory of Sirius, Lupin, James and Peter. Why the Whomping Willow was planted in the first place...who Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs really were...why they all became secret Animaguses. Stuff like that. I have a couple friends who haven't read the books (shocking I know, I too am appalled by this but have forgiven them their failings). And they had no clue about any of this when they saw the movie until I told them.
I fear for GOF...if it's only going to be two hours, they are going to chop the book to bits.
For Myles-- When evening shadows and the stars appear
And there is no one to dry your tears
I could hold you for a million years
To make you feel my love
For Mom-- Did you ever know that you're my hero,
and everything I would like to be?
I can fly higher than an eagle,
for you are the wind beneath my wings.
Fly...fly high against the sky...
Thank you, thank you, thank God for you
The wind beneath my wings
GOF is such a long book, it might actually be better as a tv miniseries than as a movie...it would be very hard to compress it into one 2-3 hour long film and still have it make sense.
I have often wished there is a way to watch dvd's with the extra scenes incorporated into the movie (well, in director's cuts/extended editions they usually are -- I mean just regular dvd's)...
I love the extra features, especially the interviews and the whole process of making the film (like the Hippogriff! Love the Hippogriff!)
If you have a VCR built into your television, as I do, it isn't too hard to tape and edit your own version of any film, putting deleted or alternate scenes where you believe they belong.
Wait another five years and you'll be able to do it easily enough on your laptop.
But I must say--while I genuinely miss several details from the books--films are a very different medium. Stories must be told in different ways. Having said that, the mind boggles over what GOF will look like simply because there's so much in it! My guess is that the whole thing will begin at the World Quidditch Match. But that's just a guess.
"O let my name be in the Book of Love!
It be there, I care not of the other great book Above.
Strike it out! Or, write it in anew. But
Let my name be in the Book of Love!" --Omar Khayam
I had not known that you could train a bat! 
