The movie sets on display were numerous and amazing. My favorite was the Potions Class. It looked suitably dungeon-like, and exactly like the movies. I felt as if I had literally stepped into the films. What you can't see but makes this set even cooler, is the fact that the cauldrons were stirring themselves. Magic.
They also had the costumes of the different characters on display, here you can see Professor Slughorn, and behind him interesting and mysterious potion ingredients in glass jars.
Snape in his element.
The Griffindor Common room below where their beds were (in the second picture you can see the door leading up to where the bedroom is meant to be) here students did their homework, played gobstone and wizards chess, and talking to Sirius black in the fireplace. It's all decorated for Christmas as I came during the Christmas period, which was super cool as it looked so lovely and festive.
Dumbledore's office was another extremely cool set. I wish I could have gone closer to examine everything in more detail, but it was extremely busy, and parts were of course barred off to keep the items undamaged.
Hagrid's hut! And an extremely unrealistic copy of his dog Fang. Never mind, at least they tried! They amount of detail that went into these sets and the hundreds of objects that you would have only glanced for an instant in the films were so fascinating!
One of my favourite items, this was the door to the Chamber of Secrets. In the movie each snake head slides backwards allowing the vault to open. What's cool is it wasn't computer graphics, the snakes slide along slotted tracks and are powered by a hidden electric motor behind the door. Who knew!
Another cool quirk of the movie I never noticed was Umbridge's appalling pink dress, it in fact became more and more bright pink throughout the movie as she gained power. Clever. You can see different versions of it here.
I stopped for a brief respite at this point because I had already been wandering for a few hours. I had Butterbeer (I KNOW REAL BUTTERBEER) which was funnily enough nothing to do with beer and was more like a butterscotch soft drink. It was nice but rather too sickly, and I struggled to finish it. The foam however was like eating sweet clouds, it was awesome. The right-handed photo is in fact the Knight Bus - a secret mode of transportation helping out stranded witches or wizards, and best of all Muggles can't see it! Guess I must be a witch then.
The Dursley Home! Number 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey. Unfortunately you couldn't go inside or anything, but it was a real full sized house, not just a front or a set. Apparently it started off as simply filming a random street in the UK, however once they realized it would feature in future films, they recreated the entire street and house to keep reusing. The number 4 sign however has been replaced; the original was stolen by Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley).
This depressing little house is in fact the 'ruin' of the Potter's house Godric's Hollow, where Harry Potter's parents died. The level of detail is cool, as you can see where part of the roof has been destroyed from the 'explosion' where Harry Potter killed Voldemort and became the Boy-who-Lived.
One of the moving Chess pieces from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone, it was a lot larger than I expected in real life! The cool thing is not only are these the original sculptures, but many of them were rigged to move by radio control, and even explode!
No comments:
Post a Comment