Product Description

Based on Jim Butcher's best-selling novels The Dresden Files chronicles the cases of no ordinary detective. Harry Dresden (Paul Blackthorne) is a wizard the only one listed in the Chicago phone book. He's got a handle on the crimes that can't be solved by anyone else. Paranormal? No problem. Dresden deals in all matters of supernatural threats. If you need a little hocus pocus or some other worldly advice Dresden's your man.System Requirements:Running Time: 530 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 012236216889 Manufacturer No: 21688

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1232 in DVD
• Brand: LION'S GATE ENTERTAINMENT
• Released on: 2007-08-07
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 3
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 530 minutes

Amazon.com
The Dresden Files is about a wizard named Harry. "Good marketing," a cynical observer notes in one episode from the Sci-Fi Channel's one-season wonder based on the books by Jim Butcher. "Couldn't you come up with something a little more original?" Actually, this series manages to be plenty original despite echoes of The X-Files and the 1970s cult classic The Night Stalker. Paul Blackthorne stars as Harry Dresden, a scruffy Chicago private eye whose gift comes in handy for children menaced by skinwalkers, or for offering Lt. Murphy (Valerie Cruz) of the Chicago police "an unconventional point of view" concerning grisly, bizarre cases involving werewolves, vampires, and other decidedly unfriendly spirits. The Dresden Files is a paranormal noir (para-noir?) that deftly balances genuine scares, hard-boiled moxie, and tongue-in-cheek humor, delivered with panache by "Bob" (Terrance Mann), an ancient English spirit who resides in a skull and gives.Harry supernatural assistance. Harry's backstory--magician father, wizard mother, treacherous uncle--is revealed over the course of these 12 episodes. The eighth broadcast episode, "Things That Go Bump," was reportedly intended as the series pilot, and may be the best place to start. But Harry's world-weary voice-over in the classic tradition ("If you're a wizard and you fail, people can end up dead") keeps viewers oriented. Low ratings made The Dresden Files disappear, making this DVD set welcome for the series' hardcore fans who mounted the ultimately unsuccessful letter-writing campaign to save Dresden from the "Brilliant, but Cancelled" files. But even those who are unfamiliar with Butcher's books or are not on the Sci-Fi Channel's wavelength will be charmed. --Donald Liebenson

Customer Reviews

Dresden Files
Good fun!! I wish there'd been more episodes, I wanted more!!! I can't understand why this series was cancelled.

A Comment on Reviews
For any Dresden book fans who see the reviews here panning the T.V. show for its comparison to the books, just remember the impotent crybaby outrage over Peter Jackson's LOTR. The dozens of those folks vs. box office numbers. Seriously folks, it's just more Dresden, how could that be wrong.

A grim disappointment
First, let it be known that I own and have read ALL of the "Dresden Files" books. Now when I heard that quite possibly my favorite book series was being made into a TV show I was excited. Then I heard it was being made by Sci-Fi channel and I immediately had doubts. As it turns out those doubts were well founded. Sci-Fi channel took a great thing and turned it into another piece of primetime trash. But enough bashing Sci-Fi and their grave mistake that has made me lose what little confidence I had left in them.

The TV show of "Dresden Files" has an innumerable amount of glaring problems. First and foremost they're with Harry, the sarcastic and ever cynical wizard-protagonist.
First and foremost with Harry is that his wizarding gear has been dumbed down into the everyday. He carries a hockey stick with engraved runes as his staff and a drumstick as his blasting-rod. Seriously, how much worse can it get? Harry's trademark duster has been replaced by an almost mundane leather jacket. The unstoppable warhorse known by "real" fans of the "Dresden Files" as the Blue Beetle has been replaced by a 1940's era ARMY surplus Jeep.
Second, Bob. Bob has been a source for hilarity since the beginning of the "Storm Front" novel. You don't get much more comedic than a sex-addicted air spirit living in a skull trading refuge from one of the Queens of the Sidhe for a repository of knowledge. He's the wizardly equivalent of a computer. In the TV series, Bob has been replaced by a former human wizard who appears occasionally talking in his stuck up English accent and fancy duds. Not a shred of the Bob that Jim Butcher readers have come to love.
Third, some of the extra characters in the story. Murphy is completely different than who she is in the book. Not the short, cute, blone tough-chick cop we know and love. She's replaced by this brunette single mom trying to be tough in a man's world, with wizards. Anyone else see the problem? Morgan, Harry's would-be executioner and rival (for lack of a better term) in the novels is described as a man with an almost Will Riker-esque look. Now "Affirmative Action" replaced him with a minority-Morgan who makes people feel better about themselves by making Harry's life a living hell. Billy the Werewolf and the 'Alphas' are not to be heard of. Ancient Mai, who only makes 2 real appearences in the books, is the one who's trying to get Harry convicted of black magic and killed (and in coincidently a very unsavory character herself). That's just the tip of the iceberg.
Fourth, I could go on and on about how watered down and bad the story is. However that would take up too much time and could probably provoke me into a rant. They screwed the story and watered down the plot until it was almost quite well unrecognizable.

If you're a fan of the book series of the "Dresden Files" then do yourself a favor and don't even bother to think about watching this series. It's a horrible flop that Sci-Fi's fans who don't have half a brain seem to clamour over. For those of us with intelligence, skip it.