I saw the original movie the year it came out, on my first trans-Atlantic flight. I had never read the books but had heard it was very good. I enjoyed it but didn’t quite see what all the fuss was about. The ending particularly struck me as weak and a bit contrived. I’m sure it didn’t help that I had just gotten into Lord of the Rings; I’m not sure that anything could have been impressive to me at that time.

Let me begin by saying that your edit fixes my core issues with the end. By starting with the death of Harry’s parents and flashing back to it multiple times, then flashing back one last time as Dumbledor explains it, you keep those events in both their heaviness and their mystery in our minds far better than the original did. When Harry is told that his mother’s love protected him, it feels deeper and earned now. Thank you.

I may provide some more detailed feedback later, when I have time to watch more carefully and take notes, but I did have a couple of initial critiques.

While I really like opening on that flashback, I think it tells too much clearly. It also transitions very suddenly to those owls and letters, before going back and introducing the cupboard, the characters, etc for Dudley’s birthday.

My suggestion would be to cut the initial flashback and instead have the voiceover from Harry’s mom play over the nightmare flashback. It’s more cryptic and confusing, but it will be explained as the movie progresses. When Harry wakes up, then we introduce our characters. Have the first letter arrive after the zoo sequence, then segue into the rest of the letter scenes. I wish there was another more ordinary life scene you could intersperse there to start the letters off more slowly, but I don’t remember one existing.

I like the Chamber of Secrets music for the Sorcerers Stone vault, but I’m not sure it works for Harry’s vault too. Maybe experiment with a more subtle music blend between those two shots
Similarly, I really like how you use the Window on the Past music, but it isn’t always blended in and out organically, biggest example being when he’s shopping with Hagrid. I think that there are great opportunities in this movie for it, as a theme for Harry’s parents. Just be careful with it and maybe keep it subtle.
The last thing that stood out to me on an initial viewing was sadly the large number of pixel compression artifacts in the backgrounds, especially during some dark shots and when candlelit stonework is in the background. I struggle with this too in my edits, and I’m not sure what the best solution is. I just thought I’d mention it, as the effect is distracting.

All in all, thank you. Like I said, you’ve taken a movie that I never really cared about and made it something I enjoy. I’m excited to see it beside your other edits in the series and see how you have chosen to also adjust those.

EDIT

So, as is probably obvious to you at this point, I watched the old version. I have since found your Ultimate release and it’s much improved, some in the specific ways I was hoping for. Thank you for your excellent work. I can’t wait to watch the other Ultimate versions as you release them.