Early Look At The Harry Potter Themepark

The Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince DVD has apparently streeted already in some countries though we'll have to wait in the UK until December 7th, in the US until the 8th. Some industrious Potterheads have been hard at work scouring the special features, and booting up their screen capture software while they're at it. One little video programme on the disc gives a preview of the upcoming Wizarding World of Harry Potter themepark attraction, which is still under construction in Orlando, Florida. We can reportedly expect the park to open next year around the time of the imminent 7th Potter film, the better to maximise publicity.

A lot of the images in the featurette show us little more than concept art or scale models, but even this confirms how Potter-y the architecture and layout will be. It really does look like the sets in the movies, for better or worse. I'll share some of the images after the break.

Here's just a sampling of the pics, which come courtesy of The Leaky Cauldron.

potter_shieldinside_a_woody_shacksnowy_window

There's fake snow? How's that going to work when there's an army of visitors tromping all over the place? I'd be disappointed for it all to be nothing more than solid surfaces.

butter_beerjayson

I wonder if the Butter Beer is going to be non-alcoholic or not? And will it have some kind of buttery taste? Jeez – sounds quite foul, when you think of it. Imagine some melted margarine slithering down your throat...

builderscobbled_together_cut_and_paste

The picture with the train in is apparently some kind of photoshopped cut and paste picture, so if they've built any of that area yet, they're keeping it secret.

little_modelflight_of_the_hippogriff

I don't like flying ride things at the best of times. Something that's going to assault me with fantasy creatures and teenagers on broomsticks is definitely out of the question.

This is probably the closest I am ever going to get to this particular themepark.