For those Harry Potter fans dying to catch a first look at The Deathly Hallows, Part 1 (set to hit theaters in November) it’s been a bizarre few days. Last week, a grainy teaser trailer leaked onto the internet. Warner Bros. quickly pounced and the footage was taken down. Then they released a new official cut, with an introduction by producer David Heyman and director David Yates.
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But Sunday afternoon, as I tried to search out this new and improved teaser, I couldn’t find it anywhere. The Vimeo embeds that had once played the trailer now all read “this video no longer exists.” The video had been removed from YouTube. And everywhere I looked, I saw frustrated comments from Potter fans, who all wanted a first glimpse.
After much hunting, I found this less-than-high-quality cut here, linked through Metacafe.
The good stuff starts at the 55-second mark – a mosaic of faces old and new, followed by Harry walking through graveyards, talk of immortality, and an urgent declaraction that Harry doesn’t stand a chance. Most notable – even through the grainy video here – is the darkening color palette, particularly as Harry sprints through a steely forest. When the trailer jumps all too briefly to the image of a few sun-lit green trees, it’s a startling burst of color in an otherwise drab collage.
Who knows how long the footage at the link above will stay live, but before the powers that be remove this video as well, we wanted to share with you the very first trailer of Harry Potter’s final chapter.
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