Review
'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone' is the perfect beginning to a magical series
October 25, 2017
Here is a fact that I have memorized: Oct. 31, 1981 is when Lily and James Potter were slain by Voldemort.
Since this newspaper will be in stands on the day of their death, I have dedicated my existence to cramming as much Harry Potter in it as Zach Dwyer (our editor) will allow. This is my sole duty in life.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone came out when I was five years old and began a fever that has not gone down.
Here is what you know at the beginning of the story: Harry is a Precious Child™ who lives with his horrible aunt and uncle due to his parents being all murdered when he was a one-year-old. He has one exceptionally horrible cousin who enjoys stomping on the roof of his under-stair room.
Anyway, one day Harry gets his first ever piece of mail and probably hopes it's child protective services. Mr. Dursley basically says, “No one is ever allowed to talk to you ever and no one is ever allowed to know that you exist. This is law and I am your supreme court.”
But post does get to Harry, and Mr.Dursley decides that child abuse is the only solution, taking Harry and his Horrible Cousin to a stormy house in the middle of nowhere. He literally makes Harry go to a dusty fish shack in the middle of nowhere on his birthday and I am not about that.
Child Protection Services shows up in the form of the MVP of the series, Rubeus Hagrid.
Hagrid is all like, “It’s pretty screwed up that you’ve been straight up lying to and neglecting this poor precious cute baby.”
“Also, here’s a cake.”
So the Dursleys have to explain to Harry that his parents were magic and that Harry is also magic, therefore making the Advanced Restriction Christians go into the red zone about this movie series.
Just Harry, as he likes to be called, is now a magical god and has to go off to Magic School to be a magic magic man and make magic magic man friends.
Also he gets to leave the Dursleys if he wants.
He wants.
Hagrid takes Harry shopping and Harry discovers that Harry is incredibly rich and a god amongst men. All of the wizards in the streets are like, “Et’s ‘Arry Pottah.” Except this one really creepy turban man who’s like, “H-h-h-h-h-harry P-p-p-p-p-potter.” Harry doesn’t tend to dwell on this too much, deciding to go to the magic wizard Mall and get his supplies for Magic school.
There’s cute bats, cute owls, and shiny brooms.
Hagrid spends some time being dad of the year, explaining the circumstances around Harry’s parents' death very gently and buys him a present (an owl). Eventually, though, he’s gotta roll and ditches Harry at the train station.
Harry, being a trustful baby who looks for parents wherever he goes, sees a group of traveling red heads and decides that they can be close enough to family. He uses these people to find the entrance to platform nine and three quarters and also score some sweet friendships.
One of the people he scores a sweet friendship with is their son, Ron.
Ron, who is not yet the scum of the earth in this movie, is both poor and a precious baby. Ron needs someone to sit by on the train and goes to Harry’s cabin. He’s unaware that he’s among Wizarding Royalty but quickly shapes up to be as insensitive as we know he is.
Ron basically says, “Ay mate show me ya scar.” Takes a closer look and is like, “It’s a bit gnarly mate, damn cool.”
“Yeah, ‘e was a bit cheeky, that bugger, killed my parents and all.” Says Harry.
Then this bushy girl pops in and is all, “Oi, ‘ave you seen this toad? Me mate’s been lookin’ for ‘im. Also I noticed you did a spell but you did it wrong and I’m real good at spells and book reading.” She’s Hermione, she’s great.
She points out Ron’s dirty, which sucks for Ron because his house probably has like two bathrooms and he’s got six siblings. He likely has like a monthly shower if he’s lucky.
They get to Hogwarts and Harry meets the equivalent of a magic racist, a magicist. His name is Draco Malfoy, his defining traits are that he’s loud and can afford hair gel.
Also he’s super mean. He suggests that Ron is worthless because Ron is poor, but Harry has been close to poor his whole life and doesn’t care.
McGonagall, who is also able to turn into a cat, takes them to be sorted. Before they can be sorted though, Professor Dumbledore has to low-key remind them that people die here, but they go here now so there’s no choice left but to leave.
Everyone gets into Gryffindor, because it’s like the only house you can really be in if you are important. Draco gets into Slytherin because Gryffindor doesn’t take horrible people.
We then are introduced to Snape, who is a huge jerk and also enjoys staring at children. Snape remains a jerk throughout the series and is probably the closest to Satan that both the books and the movies got. He’s probably worse than Voldie to be honest.
We go to Snape’s class, which is basically an excuse for him to abuse students and be dramatic.
“I can teach you how to bewitch the mind, ensnare the senses. I can tell you how to bottle fame, brew glory, and even how to stopper death,” Snape announces. “Also there’s Harry Potter and I hate him, just so you all know.”
After this Harry goes to his flying lessons, where Draco Malfoy decides to be the worst person and bully the best character. Neville Longbottom, who looks like he might very well faint if you touch him, begins his seven-year-long career of being harassed by others. Harry won’t stand for bullying and decides to get back the ball Draco stole from Neville and score some awesome points.
McGonagall sees Harry flying on a broom and is like, “He would be really good at murder ball’s death seeker position.” Harry is honored.
Also, there’s something going on with a door they can’t go in? It’s guarded by a sad man and his cat.
Ron is talking trash about Hermione in a public area, which is a relatively weak thing to do. Hermione hears him talking trash and decides to go off and cry in a public restroom stall. This is cool and all, until there is a troll right outside that bathroom who is hungry for little girls and adventure.
Harry doesn’t stand for bullying and forces Ron to go save Hermione from troll-related death.
They save her.
Hermione becomes their friend solely because they saved her life, which is a pretty legit reason to be someone’s friend.
Harry has his first quidditch movie and gets shaking baby syndrome from a cursed broom. He still wins however, because Harry is very good at catching moving objects with his mouth.
Harry believes that Snape caused the shaking baby syndrome and tells Hagrid just as much.
Hagrid seems to respond with, “Hm, no? Check yourself?”
Christmas happens. Harry gets a sweater from his Red Headed Wonder Mama and an invisibility cloak from god. He promptly uses this cloak to get up in some messed up stuff. He goes into the restricted section of the library, then in a room that is Dumbledore’s personal mirror chamber. In the mirror in this chamber, Harry sees his awesome parents holding him. He tries to show Ron but Ron only sees himself, because Ron is selfish.
Dumbledore comes while Harry is depressingly looking at his dead parents in the mirror, explaining that is shows your heart’s greatest desire. Poor Harry is sad.
We learn about the Sorcerer’s Stone through Hermione, who is the only useful character in this series. She points out that the reason people would want this is to live forever or come back to life. This goes in one ear and out the other for Harry and Harry concludes that Snape wants it to be an evil Snapey.
He tells Hagrid this much and Hagrid informs him that Snape merely wishes to protect the stone.
Also, that he got a dragon.
Hagrid lives in a wooden hut.
“God bless ‘im, look! ‘E knows ‘is mummy,” Hargrid says about a fire-breathing dragon. Hagrid is a precious human being and should be protected.
Harry gets detention, gets nearly killed in the woods and spends some time thinking about Voldemort. He meets a few centaurs, sees a unicorn get slaughtered and chills.
Harry and the gang decide to go to the scary room behind the door that must never be opened. They use intelligence gathered from Hagrid to work their way through the many traps of the dungeon. There’s dogs, plants, board games, and many, many keys; all of which are things I enjoy.
Ron gets knocked out and Harry says they can’t leave this poor, dumb, dirty boy on his own. Hermione agrees and decides to hang with Ron for a bit.
Harry goes off into the room of certain death, where he sees who is evil and who is naw.
The evil man is the man with the turban, though he’s not stuttering anymore. Professor Quirrel, the man with the turban, reveals that he has a parasite on the back of his head.
Only the parasite is Voldemort and Voldemort is super freaking gross.
Voldemort says to take the magic rock of all life out of the magic mirror so I can touch you with my magic magic man hands and murder you for murdering me.
Voldie-Quirrel tries to straight up choke Harry for the magic rock and ends up burning his hands. This is revealed to have happened because of the power of love. Love is strong as heck, but can also burn.
Harry passes out from stress and wakes up in the hospital ward. Dumbledore is waiting for him to feed him sweets and tell him how popular hi is now that he has defeated the Dark Lord.
But the adventure is not over, because Voldemort has multiple routes he can take on the road to life. (But Harry will be okay, because he’s already defeated him once this year and if Voldemort is about anything it’s timeliness.)
They announce who wins their school tournament of good behavior and Dumbledore basically says, “Slytherin wins but I hate Slytherin. So I’m just gonna give a bunch of points to the house that DEFEATED THE DARK LORD TWICE.”
Which makes sense, to be honest.
Harry wins the school tournament and has to go back to his aunt and uncle’s. But don’t worry because Harry know that, “I’m not going home, not really.”
Harry Potter movies can only really be rated against other Harry Potter movies, in which case this is five lightning bolts out of five lightning bolts.
Good plot, good effects, good character development and just perfect all around.
This is the stuff Lily and James died for.