Harry Potter 1 - US - UK Versions

[jstxanothrxstory]

"Sorcerer's Stone" isn't the proper version...

[Jutty]

You need to grab the UK version.

[MrHT]

Originally Posted by jstxanothrxstory

"Sorcerer's Stone" isn't the proper version...

How do you figure?

[BozQ]

US is about the only major country in the world that uses "Sorcerer's Stone"
Considering this is largely a British Production to begin with, I'd say the "Philosopher's Stone" is the original one.
I honestly wouldn't bother to hunt for the US version so intentionally. The differences are very minimal, affecting about three insignificant scenes in the whole movie. The integrity of the film remains the same. Hardly affecting the rest of the seven movies.

[Morsoth]

Originally Posted by BozQ

US is about the only major country in the world that uses "Sorcerer's Stone"
Considering this is largely a British Production to begin with, I'd say the "Philosopher's Stone" is the original one.
I honestly wouldn't bother to hunt for the US version so intentionally. The differences are very minimal, affecting about three insignificant scenes in the whole movie. The integrity of the film remains the same. Hardly affecting the rest of the seven movies.

Exact! J.K. Rowling wrote "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", she never wrote the story with Sorcerer's stone in mind. Anyway, the Philosopher's stone is a well known legendary alchemical substance. I don't know why they changed the title of the book. "Sorcerer" has more appeal to young reader? Maybe, but the change was useless IMO. I'm glad we have the original title/scenes here in Canada.

[master gandhi]

Yeah, I'm glad I have the UK version as well. "Philosopher's Stone" is the original title, so it feels more British, and I like that. Heh

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by MrHT

How do you figure?

Sorcerer is essentially the "dumbed-down" word used in place of Philosopher. The original title is Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. It was only switched for America, because they thought Americans would be confused by the use of the word Philosopher. Certainly we do think of philosophy as something completely unrelated to alchemy, so I can see where they're coming from.

[rodrigo_ca]

When the auction came to sell the rights to publish the first Harry Potter book in the USA and Scholastic won, they thought that kids wouldn't want to read a book with the word "philosopher". So they asked J. K. Rowling to change to "Sorcerer's Stone", and many years later, being interviewed, she said she was so grateful that someone actually bought her book to publish that she said yes and she would have said yes to anything they asked. However, she says she regret it very much.
The USA is the only country that uses this titles on the book and on the movie. But I have my doubts about India.
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I have the DVDs and the Wizard's Collection, all of them with Philosopher's Stone. However, I'm such a fan that I managed to get a free copy of the Ultimate Edition of the first movie imported from the USA, so I would have all versions.