The Voldemort prequel Harry Potter fans have been waiting for has finally arrived
With the go-ahead from Warner Bros. Studios, Tryangle Films has finally released its Harry Potter prequel, Voldemort: Origins of the Heir.
In 2017, the trailer for a fan-made Voldemort film entitled Voldemort: Origins of the Heir left Harry Potter fans with something new to look forward to. This dark prequel seemed the perfect distraction from the long wait for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.
Due to the unofficial nature of the film, Tryangle Films had to jump through some hurdles before releasing it to the public. With copyright negotiations underway with Warner Bros. Studios, it became questionable as to whether the prequel would ever see the light of day.
Thankfully, Warner Bros. agreed to let the team move forward with the film. It was released on the Internet on January 13, 2018, and fans are racing to see if it was worth the wait. According to NME, the Facebook video already boasts over 30 million views, while YouTube is nearing 2 million.
Inspiration for a Voldemort backstory
Gianmarie Pezzato and Stefano Prestia, the founders of Tryangle Films, imagined this project as a way of answering their own questions about Voldemort’s rise to infamy:
"What made Tom Riddle become Voldemort? What happened in those years, and what really went down at Hogwarts when he came back? There are some clues in the books which have not been transposed at all in the movies, but a lot goes unspoken. This is the story we want to tell: the rise of the Dark Lord before Harry Potter and his first demise."
Voldemort: Origins of the Heir takes fans back in time, exploring Tom Riddle’s career at Hogwarts and his descent to becoming the Voldemort we know and love. It fills in the gaps from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, in which readers receive brief fragments of Voldemort’s past through Dumbledore’s Pensieve.
A new take on Tom Riddle
Voldemort: Origins of the Heir unravels Riddle’s past through the perspective of Grisha McLaggen, an heir of Gryffindor and a friend of Riddle’s from Hogwarts. McLaggen is on the hunt for Riddle’s Horcruxes when she’s captured by Soviet Aurors and forced into drinking Veritaserum. From there, she spills Riddle’s secrets from his days at Hogwarts and his years after.
Stefano Rossi, who plays Tom Riddle in the film, depicts him with the same unnerving combination of charm and ambition we see in J.K. Rowling’s books. And while the film is set many years prior to Harry’s story, it complements the original source material nicely.
In particular, many of the scenes allude to the memories explored by Harry and Dumbledore during Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The narrative takes us through Riddle’s discovery of the valuable heirlooms he later transforms into his horcruxes, as well as the crimes he commits to obtain them.
The movie ends with a surprising twist, leaving us at the beginning of Voldemort’s first rise to power. The ending, which draws parallels between Voldemort and Grindelwald, segways smoothly into the original films and the newer Fantastic Beasts installments.
To watch Voldemort: Origins of the Heir, you can head over to YouTube or Facebook.
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Though the feature is only 52 minutes long, it packs an impressive punch and is well worth the watch.