The original first year of sets were truly unique, as they didn't emulate the movies, instead grabbing inspirations from the books, even having some doll house  elements with the individual golden trio sets.

I didn't grow up with the books or the movie but I did have the lego catalogs. For me, the depiction of the world through the sets is how I saw Harry Potter. As an adult, me and friends had a movie marathon where we watched all the films. We got to the 3rd film when I finally asked if Snape ever glows in the dark

Snape was described in the book as extremely pale. There might have been one or two lines about his skin "glowing in the moonlight" or something to that effect. That is probably where LEGO got the inspiration to make his head glow.

Peeves and Ron teaming up to kill Snape will never not be funny to me 😂

The early Lego HP sets have a simple and elegant charm to them. The new ones are probably better in terms of objectivity but the old ones have a magical feel to them

The magical elements such as the printed tiles, golblets, owls, bats and spiders create a wonderful ambiance within these early years.

This is one of the best LEGO videos I’ve seen in a while. Seeing these funky sets broken down with Cheesey’s excellent production quality is such a treat.

I love the early licensed themes because they have that delightful classic LEGO look and design, but often had consistent support with big waves, and an unmatched set variety for the time. The language of old with the scope of new. The best of both worlds.

These sets are genuinely so nostalgic and full of personality. The transparent spiders and unique printed pieces make everything feel so original and i wish we got more of that with newer lego sets

What I find really interesting is how the use of double-printed minifigure heads has changed. Professor Quirrell needed a double-printed head because Voldemort’s face was quite literally stuck on the back of his noggin, so that had to be represented as an almost alien growth from the back of the wizard’s head. It’s since evolved so that the rear face print is an alternate expression of the same character, and the expectation is that the head is rotated to suit whatever situation the character is in. I just think it’s fascinating how LEGO was able to take advantage of a feature designed for one character and managed to apply it to nearly every minifigure since

yo you know you're deep in the lego community when they do a collab and you recognize everyone
love it when the lego youtubers collab together, always so fun!
would be kinda interesting to see caleb and just2good collab on something...

You know, many thing in the first year was based on books rather on the movie itself. There's few examples of it:
- Dumbledore has weird chest and violet robes
- Voldemort has red eyes
- Harry uses a flute
- Fluffy is totally a diffrent breed
- Hogwarts look weird
- Ron has a bowl cute as a poor boy

And more. To be honest I feel like Goblet of Fire started to be film accurate. YES. Three first films lego was doing first time looked innacurate at some point

Didn't know I was gonna sit down and watch a 1:14:28 long video today, but this has been one of the most captivating videos I've seen in a long while. Great description of the sets, great showcase and a great interaction with other Lego YouTubers. I had completely forgotten about the 2x1 with the molded ball piece if it wasn't for this video! And I completely agree that Lego should bring back alternative builds in more than their Lego Creative theme. And the craziest thing if I might add, is that I've ever only owned a single Harry Potter set! And it was that flying sport tournament (please don't attack me for not knowing what it's called) from (I think) 2011. Even though I've only ever owned one set, I grew up seeing all of the films and playing the Lego Harry Potter videogames, and I still admire the theme. The only reason I have never gotten more into it, is because I think it's too late and that I can't catch up to the theme, with all of the sets that've already released and gone off shelves the past years. And if anyone made it this far in my comment, then I thank you and appreciate your time to read my rambling lol
Have a great day!

I remember when I got the original castle on Christmas in 2001. Ironically I found a picture some days ago my parents made of me with the sets in my arms and a huge smile in my face. The sets from the first three movies have such a huge nostalgic point in my heart and I lovely think about being a kid at the time watching the movies and play with those sets during Christmas holidays in 2001 to 2004. Thanks for this flashback and I´m looking forward to see part 2...

I don’t even know Harry Potter but I love the looks of these sets. So classic, and the old colours are just so good. Same with the early Star Wars sets.

Those printed books are what made me obsessed with them. My first HP set was that one with Lucius and Dobby, from 2012, but they are not even CLOSE to the charm of the accessories and beauty of the original wave. I love these dollhouse sets with the paper backgrounds that simulated a random room for Rony, Harry and Hermione. The specialized old pieces borrowed from other themes, the new colours; I can't even describe the wonder they all bring to my adult brain.

I want to say, I'm so glad to see some attention drawn between classic and modern Lego creatures.  While Lego is clearly putting in effort to the modern designs, they lose so much character and feel so less like Lego than they used to.  That old version of Fluffy, the Adventurers dinos, and other creatures from that era just evoke such a succinct feel for what Lego animals should be.

I really hope we see videos about Lego Lord of the Rings and Lego Hobbit. Middle-Earth was always my favourite Lego theme, as it is my favourite franchise ever. Really like this format of video: summarising history of whole theme

Something that I really love about the original 2001/2002 wave of Hogwarts sets compared to the more recent remakes is the sense of scale. The older castle modules are just so much larger/taller compared to the remakes, and I think it makes a huge difference in presentation. The Great Hall is a good example, but so many of the other sets are just much taller.

Also, there's a lot more variation in the color in the original sets. While the remakes are mostly just tan and sand green, the originals have splashes of grey, dark grey, and black mixed in with the tan and sand green. Take the Potions Class for example, the grey and black really help to sell it as a dark and gloomy part of the dungeons.

These sets are so nostalgic for me! I never had any of the original wave, but as a kid I loved browsing the Lego site and looking through them. Is secondhand nostalgia a thing?

I never owned any of the classic harry potter sets (yellow era) but i am so nostalgic for them because my pre-school had nearly the entire wave of sets for the kids to play with. Those figs bring back so many memories for me!