The second of five Fantastic Beasts films has hit theaters, filling in gaps and corners of J.K. Rowling’s rebranded Wizarding World. But while the first outing charmed a fair number of viewers with Eddie Redmayne’s endearing turn as magical zoologist Newt Scamander (a portrayal that remains endearing throughout the sequel), The Crimes of Grindelwald fails to reproduce the fun of the original—and fills Rowling’s Potterverse with a slew of gaping holes.
These are the crimes of The Crimes of Grindelwald.
[Below contains SPOILERS for the entirety of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.]
First, some spoiler space, because we’re going off on this immediately.
Little more.
Oh hey here’s Dobby becoming a free elf. That was a great moment.
Alright. Let’s review some crimes of The Crimes of Grindelwald.
Crime #1: Queenie Goldstein Joins Wizard Fascism Because Jacob Won’t Marry Her?
Tina Goldstein’s sister, Queenie, shows up at Newt Scamander’s place at the start of the film to announce that she and Jacob Kowalski are getting married. Newt immediately notes that Queenie has placed a love enchantment on Jacob to force him to accompany her to London and agree to their engagement. He takes the enchantment off of Jacob, who proceeds to tell Queenie that he doesn’t think they should get married, and this precipitates Queenie’s fall to wizard fascism.
Wait, what?
Here’s Queenie’s arc as far as the film feels like explaining it to us; Jacob doesn’t want to get married because in the U.S. Queenie will be thrown in jail for marrying a No Maj; Jacob thinks the words “you’re crazy,” hurting Queenie’s feelings (remember, she can read thoughts), and she leaves; Queenie goes to the French Ministry to find her sister, but Tina’s not there; Queenie seems to have an anxiety attack at not being able to find her sister and hearing people’s thoughts as they pass her on the sidewalk; an agent of Grindelwald finds Queenie and takes her to their HQ; Grindelwald tells Queenie that he won’t hurt her, he just wants magic people to be free to live as they please; Queenie goes to his big meeting in the catacombs and Jacob finds her; she tells Jacob that they should just hear what Grindelwald has to say; after Grindelwald tells his followers his plan, he dismisses them to spread the word, and creates a ring of fire for true believers to walk through and join him; Queenie tells Jacob that they should join Grindelwald, but he emphatically disagrees; Queenie is broken-hearted, but joins Grindelwald alone.
What.
Look, it reads as though there’s a subtle theme around gaslighting here, or that was the intention, at least—Jacob first thinks, then outright says to Queenie, “You’re crazy,” which is a common diatribe from abusers when they’re trying to discredit victims and gaslight them into believing that they can’t trust their own faculties. There’s just one (no, several, there are several) problems here; Queenie started this tale by drugging her boyfriend in order to force him to marry her against his will.
That’s not cute, or even forgivable because she meant well. (Intent isn’t magic, even in the wizarding world.) Queenie took Jacob’s autonomy away because she disagreed with his decision that they shouldn’t get married; since they could get caught and she could get jailed. The answer to this situation is to a) continue to try and talk it out, b) decide that you’ll stay with your partner even if they won’t marry you, c) break up with your partner because you want different things, or d) start work in earnest to change the laws in your country around marriage. Drugging your boyfriend with a love enchantment appears nowhere on this list because it’s fucking immoral. Jacob is right and Queenie is wrong, and the fact that this character, who has previously only been depicted as sweet and caring, takes this rejection as a good enough reason to throw her lot in with Grindelwald is neither believable, nor sympathetic.
It’s a discredit to a character who was easily one of the most lovable in the previous film, and smacks of Rowling simply trying to create conflict among all characters. If Queenie is with Grindelwald, that gives Tina a more potent, personal reason to join the fight. But there were better ways to do this, and without completely dismantling how subversive Queenie managed to be from the start.
Crime #2: Leta Lestrange’s Entire Plot Arc is Painful and Insulting to the Audience
Where to begin with this? Because this is the part of the film that breaks my heart, and it’s hurtful all the way around. We were introduced to Leta Lestrange in the last film, a black woman who—as we know from the Potter books—is part of a family of soon-to-be Death Eaters. Newt loved her, but she was engaged to his brother. There was drama here, and questions that needed answering. They were answered.
And the answer was to let the audience know that Leta Lestrange was the result of brainwashing and rape—her mother was literally Imperiused and kidnapped away from her black husband and son because a white man wanted her. Leta was bullied and abused at Hogwarts, never able to find a support system or feel any form of belonging. Leta then makes the choice to die for the Scamander brothers in order to save them from Grindelwald. Why? Why would you take your only black female lead and toss her into an abyss so that the Scamander brothers can feel sad? This film is content to let all of its women go so that the stories of men can be uplifted; Leta is gone, so Newt can bond again with his brother in shared grief; Queenie is gone, so Jacob is now available to aid Newt in every scheme and mission he has going forward.
There was a way to do this better, because the dynamics at work here could have served a larger scheme. Grindelwald believes that Leta will be eager to join him as an outcast, but to her, he’s just another white man who believes that he should possess anything he deems his own. She is too smart for that. She has suffered too much. In neglecting a larger part of Leta’s story, in refusing to show us more, and refusing to let her live, all of her potential is wasted. Here is a woman who has survived so much more than the majority of wizard-kind can fathom. And she disintegrated in magical fire because… because what? Because Theseus or Newt Scamander mattered more? Because they didn’t, frankly. Any woman who is keen to stand up to Albus Dumbledore’s willingness to turn a blind eye while students are tormented by their peers is a woman who I want to know better.
But for some unfathomable reason, Leta Lestrange was not deemed important enough to survive. And the movie is a wreck for her death. The only thing made less complex for her absence are Newt’s feelings for Tina Goldstein, as there’s no longer another person on earth who holds his heart. The filmmakers did wrong by their audience, and no amount of heroism going forward can fix the mistake.
Crime #3: Nagini’s Background is Ill-Considered and Underused
It was revealed in the lead up to the film that we would glean the background of Nagini, better known as Voldemort’s beloved snake pal and final horcrux of the Potter series. The reception of this piece of news was understandably negative overall, particularly for the realization that Nagini was not simply a powerful snake, but actually a Maledictus, a woman who is eventually trapped forever in a snake body. The problem is that the film is uninterested in answering any questions about Nagini, and what we do learn suggests that she would never be comfortable around someone like Voldemort (she is plainly nervous around pureblooded wizards, for one, which is a thing that Voldemort is super into). It is cruel to assign another woman of color to a position that guarantees her endless suffering, and that’s without ever even bringing Voldemort into the picture.
What’s worse is that Nagini only seems interested in the welfare of Credence Barebone throughout the film, as he’s the only person who ever seems to have been kind to her. As is, Nagini doesn’t belong in this narrative at all; she doesn’t contribute anything to the plot besides giving Credence someone to bounce off of. At the very least, she could have been given clear desires of her own, and a stake in the story, instead of trailing after someone else.
Crime #4: This Movie is So Damn Slow, Please, Please Just Make Something Happen
Very little actually happens in this film. It’s stuffed with things, with visuals and locations, to make you believe that things are happening. But they’re not. This movie never does in seconds what it can do in minutes. If you only considered the basic plot of the movie, it’s a miracle that it clocks in at more than 90 minutes. A film this long should be packed with so much more worldbuilding and character development. But it’s not. Even the dialogue pacing suffers for this. I found myself muttering at characters to talk faster, as all the obvious reveals were built up with unrelenting pauses that did nothing to increase tension so much as irritation.
Crime #5: Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald Suddenly Have a Blood Pact That Never Existed Before
Um, this is HUGE. And we really need to talk about how huge it is.
This alteration is a sizable retcon to the Potterverse that Rowling has seemingly chosen to ignore; at the end of the film, we find out that the commingled drops of Albus and Gellert’s blood that Grindelwald has been carrying around is a “blood pact” that they made in their youth to never fight each other. This pact is meant to be binding, as in, it’s the reason Dumbledore won’t fight his boyhood crush—he effectively can’t. There’s just a tiny problem with this:
Dumbledore and Grindelwald have already fought post-pact.
The last time Albus and Gellert saw one another was in the fight that resulted in the death of Ariana Dumbledore, Albus’s sister. There is no way that the two would have made a blood pact after that fight because Albus was completely distraught at the death of his sister, blaming himself for her loss for the rest of his life. This means that the blood pact occurred before Ariana’s death—but the fight that led to her demise was a three-way duel between Grindelwald, and Albus and Aberforth Dumbledore. So unless Rowling means to heavily retcon her own narrative (which she could disappointingly choose to do), Albus and Gellert have already dueled and this blood pact didn’t stop them.
Moreover, there’s only one reason to introduce this blood pact in the first place; it would seem that Rowling feels she needs to give a better reason as to why Albus avoided fighting Gellert for so many years. In the books, we know the reason why because he eventually tells Harry: He was afraid to face Grindelwald because it was a reminder of the death of his sister, a reminder that he might have dealt the killing blow, and fear that Grindelwald might be able to tell him if he’d truly done it. Subtextually, there’s another reason for Albus Dumbledore’s cowardice—he was in love with Grindelwald. Either of these reasons are not only understandable, they’re more compelling as character choices. The idea that Albus Dumbledore avoided his responsibility to stop one of the greatest fascists of the wizarding world out of fear and pain and love is far more interesting and frankly realistic than a ridiculous magical blood pact that never existed before.
But that’s what we’ve got to work with now. Hooray….
Crime #6: Albus Dumbledore Suddenly Has a Brother Who Never Existed Before
Credence Barebone has now been revealed as… Aurelius Dumbledore??? He has ostensibly been tending to the-phoenix-who-will-eventually-be-called-Fawkes for the entire film?
Folks, this is textbook bad retconning. Oh sure, there’s a secret Dumbledore brother that never existed before! That seems entirely plausible for us to never have heard about before even though a substantial portion of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows explores the history of Albus Dumbledore!
Of course, there’s every chance that Credence Barebone isn’t who Grindelwald says he is. (If nothing else, he seems far too young to be the brother of a nearly fifty-year-old Albus Dumbledore.) But if that turns out to be the case, he’s still probably related to someone else important in the series, and that reveal will only be more aggravating—oh, he’s Grindelwald’s son! He’s Newt lost twin! He’s a distant relative of the Potters! Just… stop. Please stop. All of these ideas are bad ideas. Credence has enough going for him on his own. We don’t need this.
Crime #7: Either Professor McGonagall Isn’t Professor McGonagall, or We Have a Huge Timeline Error
There are two moments in the film set at Hogwarts (one set in 1927, one in flashback when Newt Scamander was at school), when we see a teacher with a familiar Scottish accent who is named “Professor McGonagall” by Dumbledore. There’s just one problem; Minerva McGonagall—Transfiguration teacher, head of Gryffindor House, and eventually Hogwarts Headmistress—wasn’t born until 1935. She didn’t begin teaching at the school until the 1950s.
Oh, but it could be a relative! Yeah, but not likely. McGonagall gets her surname from her father, who was a Muggle. And her father was completely against Minerva’s mother using magic (this is part of Minerva’s tragic backstory, which is part of the explanation as to why she never married, I kid you not), so it’s extremely unlikely that she ever worked at Hogwarts under her married name. This is a gigantic, sloppy error that could easily have been rectified if anyone had cared to pay attention. Unless this turns out to be some weird time travel ploy—unlikely given its lack of importance in the plot—this is just a big gaping hole of “whoops, we didn’t double-check something that was really easy to double-check.”
Crime #8: Rowling Doesn’t Seem to Understand the Difference Between a Novel and a Film
Some writers can write both novels and screenplays—some cannot, or cannot reliably. And while J.K. Rowling has certain strengths that play into screenwriting (memorable dialogue, gorgeous visuals, strong sense of characters), there is one problem she has never been able to solve. And that’s—
—INFODUMPING THE ANSWER TO AN ENTIRE STORY’S WORTH OF MYSTERY IN THE SPACE OF THREE MINUTES WORTH OF DIALOGUE.
It works so well in the Prisoner of Azkaban novel. It works great in other Potter novels. It is unintelligible here. We get to the crypt and Leta Lestrange gets into her entire backstory and it’s way too much information to parse in the space of a few minutes. And then it gets cut off to bring the film to a hasty conclusion. In a book, the reader can pause. They can read sections over. They can write bullet journal entires that help them map out the plot. A movie is not a book. A movie requires slower exposition, and greater care toward how information is doled out. That is not what happens here, and the film suffers for it.
Crime #9: Nicolas Flamel Doesn’t Need to Be Here
I get the impetus to show us characters who will eventually be incredibly important to the Potter series because we know them, and it’s fun to see them. But Nicolas Flamel is the plot equivalent of a doorstop in this film. He’s just an elder statesman who helps other people figure out what to do and where to go, and not even in an interesting way. It’s disappointing.
Crime #10: Johnny Depp Needs to Stop
It’s aggravating having to get into this because every time you bring up what Depp’s situation is, you arouse vitriol from anyone who refuses to believe that the Hollywood former Golden Weird Boy is capable of making a mistake. But it doesn’t change the fact that he was accused of abuse by his ex-wife Amber Heard, had to settle the case, and that anyone can find evidence and accounts online that show that Depp continues to have an abuse problem. Warner Brothers, Yates, and Rowling stood by him nonetheless; they didn’t need to. They could have easily recast the part as they did for Dumbledore himself after Richard Harris passed away. Having to watch Depp manipulate people as Grindelwald into believing that he’s a good man was a pretty disgusting (and unintentional in the filmmaker’s minds) meta-commentary that no one should have to sit through.
Emmet Asher-Perrin also doesn’t understand why Grindelwald needed such an anachronistic haircut, but what can we do. You can bug him on Twitter and Tumblr, and read more of her work here and elsewhere.
“He’s a distant relative of the Potters! “
IIRC, there are so few Pureblood families that they are all at least distant relatives, and most are probably close-enough relatives that inbreeding could be a problem.
There are going to be 5 total? I thought it was only a trilogy. Ugh.
There was a line in Anne McCaffrey’s “Crystal Singer” to the effect of “No man is worth that, darlin’ ” that none of the female characters in this movie seem to have been told.
Thank you!
I really couldn’t believe it when “Written by J.K. Rowling” popped up in the end credits, the plot was such a mess. Even the cinematography was questionable, there are several times where conventions for following the action through a scene were broken you just totally cannot follow what is happening. Most notably for me: the scene where Queenie exits the French Ministry and ends up crying on the curb, halfway through that scene it is suddenly raining as if it had been for several minutes when it clearly wasn’t at the beginning!
You didn’t mention it, but the beginning of the movie where the emotional stakes of the first film were totally undone was just INFURIATING. Then they go on to retcon Newt’s whole motivation from the first film as well! WHY EVEN HAVE A FIRST FILM THEN?
This film does absolutely nothing to build on the story or character development of the first one, in fact it goes a long way to un-do most of the plot from the first one!
–Jacob’s Tragic memory erasure, undone
–Credence’s tragic death, undone
–Tina’s career, undone
–Newt’s love life, undone then re-done
WHY?
I haven’t seen the movie yet (but I just don’t have the inner strength to resist reading things like this), but it sounds like some of the missteps didn’t have to be:
Nagini:
The story could have shown us what Nagini and Credence have in common. Nagini is under a curse that turns her into a sort of monster and will eventually destroy her (although I’m still hoping for a plot twist in this or another film to save the day). Credence, in the last film, had a condition as bad as any curse that turned him into a monster and nearly destroyed him. The difference is that, even if she doesn’t have a cure for condition, Nagini has found a way to cope with her condition (maybe a bad one, maybe a good one, but she copes).
Nagini, although part of the wizarding world, is in a foreign country and dealing with some degree of outsider status. This could also have put her in a position to help Credence, who was raised outside the wizarding community and in an environment hostile to it.
What I would have expected to be the basis of their relationship is that Credence sees Nagini as having managed things he still needs to learn and Nagini sees a log of herself in Credence.
Leta Lestrange:
In the books race didn’t seem to be a factor in the wizarding world. Yes, they had plenty of prejudices built up around wizards and Muggles and around human wizards and other, magical beings. But, if you were a wizard with at least one parent from a wizarding family, you were an “us” and not a “them.” In fact, in the last movie, we saw that race didn’t seem to be a factor in becoming head of the US wizarding government.
Leta’s history, on the other hand, seems to shoot that down.
Dumbledore Brother:
Skipping the age difference, we’re supposed to believe Credence was dumped in an American orphanage instead of a British one?
Not skipping the age difference, shouldn’t Credence be a nephew or cousin or something?
And, getting to the heart of it, should Credence be Dumbledore’s relative?
On the one hand, this is an overdone cliche, and it doesn’t sound like it was built up in a way that toned down the soap opera elements.
On the other hand, having more than a few complaints about how Dumbledore has dealt with kids he was supposed to be responsible for, I’ve nothing against hitting him in the face with one of his epic fails in this area.
But, I don’t think it’s necessary to make Credence a relative to make it clear Dumbledore has had an epic fail.
First, if Credence was born in Hogwarts territory and his family later moved to the US (the understanding I had was that magical families in the US are under pressure to give up supposed squib children), Credence would have been on the list of magical children they have at Hogwarts that lets them send out letters. We saw what they did when Harry wasn’t replying to his Hogwarts letter. So, someone (I’m assuming Dumbledore) would have had Credence name come up on a list and didn’t bother to follow up.
Played properly, this gives us the Dumbledore-failed-this-kid angle. If Dumbledore had contact with Credence’ family and knew they had given a him up as a supposed squib (not unlikely in the relatively small wizarding world), then he really should have known something was up when Crudence came up on the list. I feel like that’s all we really need.
Queenie:
If you’re going to have someone join the other side, give a good reason to join the other side. Evil dictators have often had great sales pitches. While I could make some long speeches about what didn’t work for me in the last movie’s Macusa, let’s skip that and go with how Queenie lives in a country that will execute her if she pursues a relationship with Jacob. In fact, even a friendship puts her at risk. The supposed justification is that this is the necessary price of secrecy. That’s a reason for her to listen to someone who says the costs of secrecy are way too high and need to be done away with.
Of course, it would also help if that person hadn’t tried to murder her, her sister, the guy she’s in love with, and multiple other people in the last movie. But, maybe Queenie’s got worse long-term memory than I’ve realized.
I was so looking forward to this movie (despite the previous one being so clearly inferior to the Harry Potter saga) but now I’m like, “Why bother?” These post raises too many valid points.
I have something to say about the whole Johnny Depp debacle, however. This narrative that he is some kind of monstrous abuser of women, despite the paper-thin evidence brought forth by the Amber Heard case, or an equally monstrous abuser of men just because he allegedly got into a drunken fistfight with a crewmember, does not hold water. Yet we are supposed to buy into it hook, line and sinker, and follow it blindly? Sorry, no can do.
The real-world abuse that, to my eyes, is actually affecting Depp’s career, as well as his personal life, is substance abuse. His increasingly bloated face, slurred speech, wacky behavior and lackluster performances all bear those telltale signs. It’s a shame, and a waste of a great talent, yet critics seem to be oblivious to the whole thing. Not to mention that he keeps getting role after role, despite his not even being an actor anymore, just this latter-day-Brando caricature…
I just flat out didn’t understand some of the things going on in the movie, despite reading the books, and seeing all the other movies. The movie assumed the viewers were VERY well informed on Potter stuff.
Your review didn’t mention the parts with Newt and his animals, which were great as usual, and I especially liked how he created a relationship with the dragon creature. And the scene where he told Tina that he was NOT engaged to someone else was very sweet. In the next movie, I suppose they will deal with the fact that Tina has a new boyfriend. But other than the Newt parts, I thought most of this movie was a lot of overblown nonsense. I would prefer stand-alone Newt stories, more like the first movie, not Harry Potter prequels.
In no particular order:
– I’m sure that Grindelwald just lied to Credence. He’s way too young to be related to Albus. It’s not like Grindelwald is the poster boy for honesty.
– I saw Queenie’s enslavement of Jacob as foreshadowing for her turn later. She mentioned that she knew of a (admittedly more complex) solution to the “Can we or can’t we?” question: emigrate to Britain. She instead chose the selfish route.
– Flamel was there for cheap gags with Jacob, and McGonagall was there as just another name-drop. McLaggen was another one.
-JACOB, dear god, Jacob. He was clever, open-minded, and resourceful in Fantastic Beasts. Here he was reduced to comic relief and The Load.
-Was the duel the last time they saw each other? I would have figured that after, they decided “let’s not do that again”, which would suit both of them: Dumbledore will never fight the man he loves again, and Grindelwald is safe from Dumbledore. All this aside, don’t we have canon from the books that he stayed away from Britain out of fear?
– I laughed a little at some of the other names for Muggles. “Can’t-Spells”?
I was looking forward to seeing this movie because I just love Eddie Redmayne, but now I will probably give it a miss. It sounds like a big mess. Too bad. I do have to agree with the comment about Johnny Depp and his obvious substance abuse problem. As to he and Amber, well, she herself was arrested on domestic battery charges back a few years ago for abusing her then girlfriend, so I don’t even know what to say further about those two. But Johnny’s obvious slurring of speech and swollen face just get worse and worse and it’s kind of pitiful to see.
You nailed it. This movie is just full of weird stuff that doesn’t pay off in any good way, and honestly makes me wonder if Rowling turned in a four-hour script that was then hacked down very inelegantly into a merely 2 hours-ish movie.
It’s weird that Rowling even felt the need to explain why Dumbledore wouldn’t go out and immediately defeat Grindelwald. This is “young” Dumbledore – he’s just a school teacher. Why would the Ministry expect him to go out and beat Grindelwald, when he’s not really famous for anything? Maybe they just couldn’t fit Dumbledore in there except as a cameo unless they did this, and I have a sneaking suspicion that Rowling and Yates regret not making the whole five-film “Fantastic Beasts” series about Dumbledore to begin with.
Someone said in a review of this that she was getting tired of Jewish characters joining up with fantasy or SF stand-ins for Nazis. I can see why that would be aggravating, but I can’t think of any other examples.
Crime #1: The entire Fantastic Beasts series.
You’re missing the point here. All that is wrong with this film are mere refractions of the masturbatory nostalgia trip that this entire project could only ever be. The whole damn series is named after a textbook ffs. In a five part (!) series of films, supposedly designed to show us broader and more exotic aspects of the wizarding world, she could only get as far as the second before her shaking hands could no longer control themselves and EXT. HOGWARTS appeared on the page.
The rot was there from the start in the infamous epilogue; Ginny marries Harry and Hermione mawwies Won and Loopy marries Wickwack and everybody knows everybody else and everything’s connected to everything else and bla-de-bla-bla. What began as an admirable ability to create a realistic world had warped by the end into a fetishistic need to categorise every single thing. Flamel, why not? McGonagall wasn’t born? Who cares! Tune in next week to find out how Professor Sprout’s early career as a deodorant saleswoman is intimately connected with Creedance Clearwater Revival’s flirting with the dark arts.
We know what happened the last time a creator lacked the discipline to leave their world alone and engorged themselves on prequelitis. I’m looking at you George Lucas.
JK Rowling is now spending an inordinate amount of time writing fan fiction for her own creation. It was good, thanks for the ride. Now just leave it be.
@9 I’m still stuck on the fact that the only Jewish name Rowling appears to know is “Goldstein.”
I wasn’t expecting much but it’s really below even my expectations.
Come to think of it, they probably meant Magneto. You could explain the “Goldstein” thing as just the typical small-world problem in prequels, like Darth Vader building C-3PO. Two Jewish women in the 1920s? Obviously ancestors of the Jewish boy we see 70 years later.
I’ve read all the books, seen all the movies, caught the first Fantastic Beasts film once. And this is the first film I came out of feeling just as confused as my mother, who I keep dragging into ludicrously complicated blockbuster fare like Infinity War and Mission Impossible: Fallout.
After all the fuss about breaking the magical secrecy laws in the first movie, Grindelwald can wrap most of Paris in black gauze, and no-one notices?
Some kind of mucked-up family tree thing? Where does Bellatrix fit into that?
Random blue devils? From somewhere?
Long before the final credits, I’d checked out and decided just to enjoy the excellent costume design. The best part of the movie.
I must be the only person who thinks that since Professor McGonagall’s age is never given in the books, or indeed the films, there’s no “error” in her being around 70 or so years earlier. Even people who think everything in Rowling’s private Expanded Universe is automatically canon the moment she utters it admit that she often contradicts something she said earlier and so the latest one takes precedence.
I enjoyed the film, though it has issues.As there are 5 films, some under developement is understandable. Characters need to grow over the series and nagini still has time to become the serpent from the potter franchise, (I think that if the pull off he having some importance in this story, it goes a long way to showing why Voldemort needed her as an ally)
The best explination I have heard on Credence is that he is a Dumbledore, but the product of the assault that tramatized Albus and Aberforth’s sister. The age and everything could work, but that makes how many of the plot naratives here tied to Rape?
Bottom line is this is a dense movie, there is a lot to unpack. This is one of the best examples as to why the books are needed. I am not sure how much could have been edited out for the story, but we saw in the potter franchise a shift in the story to fit the medium. More of that needed to happen here.
1984 is classic, so naturally any film about really evil dudes had to include reference to that book.
@10: YES. Thank you. Eloquently put.
The whole thing is stillborn. The first movie gained some momentum mostly thanks to the actors (and I’m looking at you, Alison Sudol and Dan Fogler, who brought so much heart to the trite “can’t marry a Muggle” subplot), but apparently the whole thing is petering out already.
I feel for Rowling, but I guess she would greatly benefit from a sabbatical. She is a talented person, and could eventually come up on her own with something new, or a better prequel/sequel, not one mostly brought about by movie studio greed.
P.S. Speaking of actors. I was expecting a lot more from Carmen Ejogo, but they gave her nothing to do other than stand around and look majestic –they didn’t even gave her a wand, for chrissakes. I expect she got one for this movie. And Eddie Redmayne is just overhyped, IMHO.
@15: It is a very complex universe, so it’s understandable that she won’t remember minor details such as these. She does not seem to sweat the small stuff. On the other hand, the Potterverse is her universe, so I don’t see why she shouldn’t revise and change things as she sees fit.
It reminds me of Ursula Le Guin, who somehow (and to her own amusement) ended up with two completely unrelated planets named Werel.
I will also say that many have argued that the books and movies comprise 2 similar but different “universes” for lack of a better word. So that means mass confusion over what is and isn’t continuity. Are we playing off the movies/books either/neither/ or both.
McGonagall’s age isn’t given in the books, but she does tell Umbridge that she’s been teaching at Hogwarts for thirty-nine years in 1995. So even ignoring Pottermore, it’s a continuity error. Which really isn’t that big of a deal on its own, but it’s the pattern of sloppiness with plotting and continuity that’s a problem.
I think one source of the continuity issues is that I’m not sure whether Rowling has ever resolved whether the natural lifespan of a witch or wizard, if not killed by violence, is the same as that of a Muggle. There are many places where she seems to be implying a longer natural lifespan (above 100 on average), but it’s not clear. And we never see a character die peacefully of old age.
It’s too bad that so many people seem to have disliked this movie. I think it’s pretty good. This article raises some good points (for example, it really is too bad that the franchise’s first black female lead is taken out of the picture so soon, and seeing Johnny Depp is always unpleasant), but the rest sounds like Asher-Perrin is dismayed that she got the movie she got and not the one she’d built up in her head.
I take no issue with Queenie’s turn. It’s a pity, because I liked the character in the first Fantastic Beasts, but a likable character making a very bad decision for selfish reasons, and consequently becoming less likable, isn’t actually a flaw. It’s a choice that Rowling made in order to raise the stakes and make the audience uncomfortable, and I think it’s safe to say that she succeeded.
As for the retcons: to quote Terry Pratchett, “The author reserves the right to have a better idea.” It seems to me that people hate that there are changes, not necessarily that the changes are bad. (Of course, plenty of die-hard fans think they’re bad because they’re changes.) Besides, it isn’t like retcons are new to the Potterverse; the newer editions of the Fantastic Beasts book changed Newt’s birth year, formerly in the 1600s.
Wizard life spans are much longer than muggles. Dumbledore is well over a hundred and quite healthy (if obviously aged), and Order of the Phoenix had a witch who was so old that she had tested him for his O.W.L. examinations.
I vaguely remember Rowling saying that they tend to live on until something gets them, but they don’t appear to be immortal – otherwise it wouldn’t be a big deal that Nicholas Flamel is nearly 700 years old.
Interesting thoughts on the movie. I agree it was far too busy and trying to set up a series more than tell it’s own story. As for the Crimes, well:
#1 The Queenie arc was one the few arcs in the movie that I felt actually worked, or would have worked if given more care and time. Sure she is sweet and caring, but she is also naive and not the sharpest tool in the shed either. It is not out of bounds that she would enchant her boyfriend so they could be together. Is it a good or the right thing to do? No, certainly not, but the subtext of them not being allowed to marry was a powerful motivation and theme. Good people sometimes do bad things. It is understandable that she was emotionally distraught and more vulnerable to Grindy’s machinations, I just wish this was given more time.
And Grindy does not explain his ‘plan’, he merely gives a mostly false sales pitch about how things could be better and those darn Aurors are keeping us down, along with showing a little divination on WWII. “The Muggles are out to get us,” may have been an undertone to his speech, but it was hardly his true thoughts on the momage community. It was more against the current status quo than anything. I don’t think Queenie would have been swayed by a bunch of Pure Blood-muggles-are-animals type propaganda, being in love with a muggle and all.
#2 Well, I’ll agree that her story was rushed and forced, especially her final monologue about her childhood, but at the end of the day, this is Newt’s story, and Tina’s, Queenie’s and Jacob’s. All against the backdrop of Grindy, Dumbledore and the rise of fascism. It really should be about how the above characters interact, affect each other and grow, and–whatever affirmative action credentials the character may have–it should be secondary to those needs. This whole story arc felt a little forced.
#3 Yes, I agree. But it is part of this movie trying to do too many things.
#4 Good point.
#5 You know, I never really put it all together until this was pointed out. At first I was fine with the retcon, but now that you mention it, it would be impossible to have the falling out they did if they had made this blood pact.
#6 I thought it was clear that Grindy was playing Credence to point him at Dubmledore. If this turns out not to be the case, I will be in the “Worst retcon evar!” camp.
#7 Yes, this was just sloppy mistakes. Or maybe intentional sloppyness for fan service name dropping. Also, Wizards seem to have no problem dressing like and interacting with muggles here, but I guess that is an understandable and forgivable retcon. Also, I thought Dumbledore was the Transfiguration teacher, not Defense Against the Dark Arts. Sure, he could have later moved positions (indeed, in this movie he is summarily banned from teaching DADA), but it felt like that they really needed the ‘bogart’ training scenes and wanted Dumbledore in there as well.
#8 Good points
#9 I’m ambivalent. I don’t mind his appearance on principle, but it good have been done better. And what about his wife?
#10 I’m not very familiar with Depp’s off screen issues, and don’t much care. Though I do agree that substance abuse seems to be his main problem, but what do I know. However, I remember being disappointed when he appeared and Colin Farrel disappeared in the first film. I would have been so much happier with Colin, as I feel he is a better actor. But, it is what it is.
@26 Strongly agree, Colin Farrell was much scarier. Also. . .compared to the actor who was briefly seen as a Grindelwald in Deathly Hallows, the current incarnation of Johnny Depp just isn’t attractive enough. Depp’s swollen face and that white contact lens just aren’t working for me in terms of the subtext between him and Dumbledore.
I’m joining the “Yes, Queenie’s arc works” camp, though. Does it make logical sense? Not remotely. Does it make emotional sense that she would be driven over the edge by a law forbidding marriage, especially with the frankly terrifying depiction of the frequency of capital punishment in America in the previous film? For me, yes, it totally does. I wonder if forbidden marriage for straight people is becoming a difficult plot sell in the West because very few people have experienced it or know someone who has (while straight).
The attack on Ariana happened in 1892, which would make Credence 30 or so in the first movie. Granted, Rowling can’t do math to save her soul. But, Ariana was also six years old, so I’d vote on Gridelwald once again failing to be the most honest character in the films rather than Credence being Ariana’s son. I think it’s more likely (if Credence is a Dumbledore and assuming there are no cousins) that Aberforth is responsible.
And, while it is certainly possible for a gay man to father a son, I do not accept any storyline where Dumbledore says Obi-wan Kenobi lied and he is someone’s father.
If Aberforth is Credence’s father, it would also be a useful retcon to paper over Rowling’s somewhat off-color reference to his pet goat (probably funnier in Britain than America where it’s basically a variation of a tired Welsh joke).
@22: Maybe she had a long gap! (Well, hey, Slughorn did.)
I thought Grindelwald enchanted Queenie when they met in Paris, and that’s why she went to him in the end. I also thought that’s why Queenie enchanted Jacob in the beginning – not so much because it made sense for her to do, because it didn’t, but to put the idea of enchantment on the table.
But if Queenie is enchanted, her business-like attitude in the last scene with Credence and Grindelwald doesn’t quite fit.
I’m also puzzled by the idea that the Wizarding World needs to stop Grindelwald from stopping World War Two.
So.. if Leta was the last Lestrange.. Who were Bellatrix’s parents ?
Crime #8: Rowling Doesn’t Seem to Understand the Difference Between a Novel and a Film
there is it, right there, the core problem with this pretty, but crap film.
My 11 year old, a big Potter Fan, says he understood who everyone was, and their relationships, etc. and he still thought it was crap.
I am not a huge Potter Fan, but I know some of the mythology from listening to my family talk about it, seeing a few of the original 8 movies several times (see: young children who like HP, therefore I’ve endured the movies more times than I would choose. Also the reason I was in attendance opening weekend for this sad turd). But I am a movie fan (with education in Film and Video Production & Film Studies), and I was extremely frustrated by the poor writing, the overlong sidebar expository scenes, and the sheer tonedeafness of Rowling’s choices regarding characters of color and women.
Seek out Moviebob’s video review of the movie on youtube (okay, here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5uGp4dIoUc) he very handily takes this waste of time, effort, money & resources apart.
Suffice to say, short of making the next three movies entirely Newt- & Grindelwald-free, and focusing on interesting characters (who aren’t portrayed by alleged spouse abusers, for one thing), I’m out as far as this series goes.
Congrats, JK and WB, you’ve warned me off.
@9,13: Yeah, all those people joining Hydra is probably what they’re talking about. Not only Magneto, but Scarlet Witch, etc.
My problem with the Harry Potter series in general is the antisemitism. First, we had Snape, who Rowling seemed to want to describe as just an ugly, sinister-looking guy, but she managed to stumble upon an antisemitic stereotype. (I would bet money that this was accidental, but it’s telling that that’s where her mind went.) Then the plot of the later series was “Voldemort = Hitler” and this Holocaust narrative was shoehorned in, as a cheap way of hammering home the point that Voldemort is bad. Because Hitler and the Nuremberg Laws are shorthand for evil in our culture now. And then the only Jewish representation in the books is the last name of an extremely minor character. The combination of the lack of Jewish representation and the facile Holocaust comparison made it feel gross and appropriative to me.
Plus, if Literal Wizard Hitler really did show up, wouldn’t you expect that whatever Jewish wizards there are would go “this feels familiar, let’s stop it from happening again”?
It was an objectively bad movie, to be sure. The pacing is terrible, there’s random action scenes that pop up just because there hasn’t been one in the last 5 minutes, and all the characters’ arcs are pretty barren of actual agency and growth, partly due to the fact that there’s just too much going on and too many random action scenes filling up valuable screen time.
But I can’t help but be surprised at HP fans being surprised that Rowling can’t write, especially not for film, or being surprised at the ridiculous number of retcons and errors and retconning errors. I mean, port keys weren’t invented until book 4. There’s so much in the first 3 books that could have been solved more simply had they existed, but suddenly in book 4 they were a thing and no one bats an eye. And that’s just the first in a long list of obvious “I just made this up so now it’s a thing” that litter the HP books.
The books are enjoyable, they’re charming, but Rowling is not the most skilled or disciplined writer by any stretch of the imagination.
As for Credence, it’s very “Rowling” to invent a brother whose never been mentioned before and makes no sense to be there. Remember this is in the same film that has screwed up Dumbledore and Grindelwald’s history as well as McGonagall’s and so many others. I’d rather accept the nonsensical brother than be treated to some other even more ludicrous explanation for his existence. Also, he had the phoenix, so I think she was doubling down on that explanation.
I gave this movie a chance because the first was charming and I was a bit interested in seeing how Rowling played out the history of Dumbledore and Grindelwald. But I’m definitely done after this one. It just wasn’t enjoyable.
I’m in so much agreement here. I was incredibly mad with how Queenie got treated, changing her from a resourceful woman into a simpering fool. The film drags so much, it feels like 2+ hours of set up and little payoff. You could’ve streamlined it so the GrindleRally was a mid movie climax and the second half was Grindelwald v Dumbledore.
And I really liked part one! Liked the characters! And the beasts! (Oh yeah, for a movie subtitled Fantastic Beasts, CoG has barely any.)
This is the first potterverse movie since Sorcerer’s Stone that I didn’t completely enjoy. I’d much rather see a series where Newt goes and finds a new beast each episode than try and cram this into existing canon.
Oh my gosh, I needed this so badly. Thank you for validating my angst
Correct me if I’m wrong, but in this article you say that the last time Dumbledore and Grindelwald saw each other was when Arianna died. But from what I remember of reading Deathly Hallows- and it has been awhile, I admit- eventually Dumbledore gave in and is the one who confronted Grindelwald, defeating him, and seeing him locked in Nuremgard…
The problem with this movie is that it flip flops on ethics straight from the author herself.
Either thematically, for the purpose of this story and stories connected to it, themes and messages have to make sense.
Harry Potter was the heir from a famous bloodline, and would eventually go along to to save the world from an unspeakable evil. Every iconic character in Rowling’s work obsessives, is boosted by, worries about their genetic lineage, insofar as it affects their standing in the Wizarding World. As long as hereditary magical potential remains a thing —- and the novels and movies give very little indication against this, even with regards to the heroes of these stories —- this will be the foundation for storylines. Hell, Nagini’s story is sealed before it begins. We know about her special bond with Voldemort and her ultimate fate. She is living proof that bloodline and hereditary magical potential can eclipse good intentions. She was good in CoG, which makes her eventual fall into darkness all the more tragic, but serves to reemphasize a recurring element in Rowling’s work, that genetic legacies do matter and that society, however cruelly, structures itself around these strengths and weaknesses. The Purebloods and Weimar-tier Ministry of Magic wouldn’t exist if this was not the case.
Why, then, would many characters and protagonists (perhaps naively) argue that the nomaj and magical are equal when fundamentally, in universe, they’re not? And that they will continue to be for decades well into the original novels and well beyond? You can’t have your cake in eat it too! Either you’re in a grim, unideal society whose greatest flaw is how myopic and unchanging it is, or you’re in some wonderful paradise when the nomaj and magical citizens actually are equal?
You can’t tell a grim and depressing tale and have a happy ending, and you can’t write Grindlewald as sympathetic as he has been written and then kill him off and wash your hands of the matter.
In the third movie, the protagonists win, kill off the evil racist bad man whose has brought up completely legitimate criticisms about the status quo in-universe, and then eventually WW2 happens, millions upon millions of people perish, and the muggle prove Grindlewald retroactively right at every single point—that the Ministry and Magical Congress is as corrupt as it is inefficient, and that left to their own devices muggles will destroy the world in their lust for power.
Maybe that’s the joke and Rowling is secretly a cynical mastermind. She’s setting up Grindlewald to die a martyr and fundamentally, absolutely right about his convictions, and in the ruined, jaded, and cynical post-WW2 era Tom Riddle will capitalize on the reality that muggles almost destroyed this world and the legacy of Grindlewald to create his dark crusade.
Maybe Rowling is an edgy realist who knows exactly what she’s doing writing worlds they way she does, that Newt, Jacob, and co, are naively accelerating mankind’s destruction in war and are under the delusion that merely stopping Grindlewald will fix things, and that he isn’t a symptom of a much larger problem.
The problem is I don’t think Rowling is that writer, I think she wants to have her cake in eat it too, and the contrasting themes are destroying any narrative high ground she’s been trying to set up.
Real people can and do act ‘out of character’ all the time. Likewise fictional characters. And conflict is good in fiction, if not so much in reality.
And J. K. Rowling is a male chauvinist and/or anti-Semitic and/or racist? Absurd!. This is a tall tale for entertainment, not a political manifesto. Rowling is the sub-creator and therefore goddess of the Potterverse. And she’s entitled to forget things and change her mind. The real world has a lot more points-of-improbability and plot holes.
Speaking of flip-flopping–
OK, saw the movie. Maybe because my expectations were lowered, maybe because I’d been spoiled on a few plot points and therefore didn’t get too confused in them, I actually liked it.
The point with Grindelwald making legitimate complaints about the Wizarding World, I think, was to show how someone like Grindelwald comes to power. Sometimes, we look at some of the terrible dictators of history and wonder how they came to power. They didn’t stand up and say, “Hi, I’m a rabid dog who’s going to leave millions of people dead if you follow me so, please, follow me.” They did it by raising legitimate issues and promising solutions (also, assassinations, imprisoning people who threatened them, getting rid of laws that stood in their way, etc).
@42 Exactly. I didn’t actually feel that Queenie’s arc in this was as bad as a lot of people are saying, and I found that the much worse issue is how much sense it all made:
1. She knows Jacob loves her and does actually want to marry her. He’s keeping some distance out of a desire to protect her from the consequences of the laws of her society, which would destroy them if they were to get married.
2. Grindelwald goes and says “hey, look at how bigoted and ugly your society is. It won’t be like this when I’m in charge.” And he’s absolutely right: it is bigoted and ugly, and he does want to change that.
3. He’s got some sort of prophecy on his side, that he’s foretold the horrors of World War II, and he wants to make this not happen.
4. We’re told that this is the bad guy.
Wait, what?!? Heck, at this point I’m rooting for the guy myself, despite having the benefit of the perspective granted by looking back at World War II and knowing the problems with fascism! These characters don’t have that hindsight available to them, so it’s hard to blame anyone for wanting to join him.
It’s the same problem as we see in the latest season of Supergirl. The more we see, the more clear it becomes that the alien problems that the “evil racist villains” are warning about are absolutely legitimate, that aliens are objectively causing far more harm than good to Earth. (Especially when you realize just how many of the good things that Supergirl and J’onn and other benevolent aliens do consists of thwarting the plans of evil aliens trying to harm people!) They’re trying to tell a story about racism, but it fails miserably because real people of other races don’t have superpowers. Real people of other races are not inherently harmful to be around in the way that so, so, soooo many of the aliens legitimately are on the show. They have taken the fundamental false premise of racism–the lie that “those people” shouldn’t mix with “us people” because they’re different and it would harm us–and made it true! I don’t think the producers and writers realize that they’ve created a world in which the evil racists are right in their attempts to tell a story about why racism is wrong!
And now The Crimes of Grindelwald comes out and does essentially the same thing, just as ineptly. Having a morally gray universe with complex heroes and villains is cool and all, but when it’s clear that that’s not what the authors are going for, that some people are supposed to very clearly be The Good Guys and some people are supposed to very clearly be The Bad Guys but then The Bad Guys end up looking less bad than The Good Guys, that’s just inept storytelling.
Also, I agree that the Credence Dumbledore thing came totally out of nowhere and was really weird.
I can’t have been the only one who was totally expecting it to go a different way, was I? Someone please tell me they were also expecting, after all of the confusion, all of the searching for his real identity fruitlessly leading nowhere, that in the end he would just give up and decide that who he really was is an unknown, a cipher… a Riddle.
I think morally gray is part of what the movie is going for. Early on, we see Grindelwald arrange for the murders of a husband and wife because their apartment suits his needs. When he discovers their baby has been left behind, he has him killed (rather unlikely as the parents were just carried off in coffins. If wizards hadn’t killed the baby, were the Muggles just going to abandon him there till he starved to death?). We also saw him “kick the dog.” After befriending the guard animal to escape, he kills it when he no longer needs it.
So, we have no doubt Grindelwald is evil, but he talks a good talk. Although his intentions for Muggles are clearly genocidal–he doesn’t mean to leave more alive than are necessary for physical labor and that he can control–he makes sure none of his inner circle say things like that where potential followers can hear it.
Look, Robespierre used to say some good lines about liberty, fraternity, and equality. An aristocrat and commoner who wanted to cross class lines and marry might have seen a lot of stuff in the early days of the revolution to give them home. They also might have been among the first beheaded, suspected on all sides of not being truly loyal.
On Queenie and Jacob:
Since I went into that scene knowing Queenie had bespelled Jacob and that Newt was going to remove the spell, I missed the confusion and shock that I’m pretty sure would have been sidelining me otherwise. I think it needed lead-up and development it didn’t get. Most of the important points were passed of in rapid plot exposition, not a good way to introduce them.
However, listening to what they said, I can see this as something that would happen with Queenie and Jacob.
At this point, I’m assuming they’ve been seeing each other for several months. In the 1920’s, this would have been more than long enough to move onto an engagement. Queenie’s not out of line for wanting that. Given what amounts to her telepathy, she’s also aware that Jacob shares her feelings. I think she’s also very taken with the fact that Jacob seems to have never been scared or put off by her ability to read his mind.
However, Queenie’s also impulsive. While a lot of her good points in the last movie came from her ability to act quickly without being frightened of the consequences, now it’s a problem. She’s certain they can get past the problems in deciding to get married. Jacob, on the other hand, is the one thinking about the consequences, not just to Queenie but to her sister as well.
The wizarding world clearly has totalitarian governments in all the countries we’ve seen. The Ministry in the UK controls whether or not its subjects can leave the UK and foreign governments accept this as normal and return people who left without permission even if their being in those countries is legal and has violated no laws, even when extradition means lifetime imprisonment.
What this sounds like–and what is supported by the bits and pieces we get of why Jacob is afraid for Queenie and Tina–is that wizards remain at least nominally under their native lands laws even if they are in another land. Jacob can’t be certain Queenie would be safe in England.
His concern for Tina strongly suggests she could also face legal consequences. If befriending a No-Maj can potentially lead to the death penalty, even if they seem to ignore minor infractions on this point, being a No-Maj’s sister-in-law has got to be extremely dangerous, especially if the government feels it needs to make an example (see most of the first movie for examples on how bad that can get).
Even if Tina isn’t in danger for her life, her position as an Auror, which she just got back, would be in danger.
The thing is, I can believe Queenie thinking they can get past these problems or that Jacob is too focused on unlikely, worst-case scenarios. She’s impulsive and does seem to suffer a bit from thinking it will all work out. I can see her getting frustrated and deciding to force Jacob into going along with her, thinking he’ll be find once he sees she was right all along (the “It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission” mentality).
OK, I may be putting too much background into that. Maybe I’m rationalizing, but I bought it at that point.
Ongoing complaints:
Nagini was an interesting character. I really would have liked to have seen her as the focus of a story.
Leta got fridged. Whether she got fridged so the brothers had something to bond over or because she had tons more chemistry with Newt than Tina, who is destined to by Newt’s love interest no matter what, she was fridged.
I don’t know how I feel about Leta’s back story. I think, as an American, there’s a tendency to see things through a racial lens that isn’t always accurate, especially for other countries. But, it isn’t always inaccurate either.
I also read folklore. There are a lot of folktales about men and women being stolen away by magic that this reminded me of, including stories where this happens to highborn royals.
The major difference between these two lenses is that, in the first, I’m looking at a story of sexual exploitation in a context of major power imbalances within a society that would have aided and abetted that.
In the other, I’m looking at stories where the guy who steals the queen is an evil outsider and that society (as represented by the avenging son) strikes out to punish it, even if its punishment may spill over into harming innocents who occupy social between places the crime created (should her brother see her as his family or as the family of his mother’s attacker? And, regardless of should, can her brother see her as family? Even if he accepts her, can there ever be a place for her among his people?).
@47 – Mason Wheeler – You said:
Which, somewhat related, is why I can’t read X-Men comics anymore. Mutants are supposed to be an allegory for [insert group of ‘others’ here] but really… the government and the humans who oppose mutants have a point. It can’t be a straight allegory for, say, the plight of blacks in America, because no black woman in America can level a mountain if she’s having a bad day. No black man in America can reverse the planet’s polarity by manipulating magnetic fields with his mind.
While there is certainly no shortage of terrorists and generally bad humans in the world, they’re all on the same level as the good people. We can fight them on the same playing field. Not so with mutants. “We live in a world that fears and hates us!” – yeah, no kidding.
@34 I don’t think anyone has answered this yet. Lestrange is Bellatrix’s married name. She was originally a Black – along with her sisters, Andromeda Black Tonks and Narcissa Black Malfoy. That’s why Bellatrix is a cousin of Sirius Black and Nymphadora Tonks and the aunt of Draco Malfoy.
Bellatrix married Rodolphus Lestrange – and its anyone’s guess at this point how Rodolphus is related to Leta’s father.
Credence’s parentage problem kind of reminds me of Star Wars and Rey. Why shouldn’t Credence just be the child of a random unknown witch? Or a muggleborn who had the terrible luck to be adopted by a woman who hates magic? The universe isn’t so small that the Dumbledore family ‘needed’ to send a kid to America.
I think my problem with JKR changing cannon so frequently is that we as fans are’t able to keep up with it. Adding new details is one thing, but part of the fun of wondering what’s going to happen in a long series is combing through possibilities/outcomes and eliminating some of them based on what we already know. If “what we already know about the wizarding world” (or genealogy or Dumbledore’s family history or whatever) can be retconned at any moment, we can’t guess what’s going to happen. Even less fun, we can’t guess what’s going to happen and then be wrong because nothing is a surprise when everything is a surprise.
@47,48 Mason: Yes yes yes I could not agree more!
Grindelwald’s reasoning at the rally for justifying his plans for domination of the world, are actually amusing logic bomb, ‘we must control them or the muggles will use their weapons against wizardkind…except they don’t even know we exist, because..you know International Statute of Secrecy…that I wish to defy completely’ :), but hey wizards were never smart :).
The magic itself while it’s nice to see some new spells, in general Rowling seems to be playing fast and loose with it and she never really succeeded in making a magic system that would be working on some principles (though there are apparently ‘dos and don’ts’ when it comes to what magic can do), in other words magic is what the author intends it to be currently, even so that previously established spells can work somewhat differently even a simple lumos spell (of course some of that is mostly due to visuals, there are at least two versions of teleportation magic, one is this smoke thing and other swirl around itself :) probably due to previous Harry Potter movies playing with that), the Unbreakable Vows which kills when not fulfilled, a loophole perhaps when a vow really can’t be objectively fulfilled? So I guess that’s why Yusuf despite failing to fulfill still lives over those years? Of course it started with first Fantastic Beasts movie, various spells and magical things do work differently than established like legilimency in books it was a bit different, apparently it mostly worked on viewing memories, extracting information from mind through exploring parts of it, not hearing surface thoughts (which was viewed by Snape when Harry said so as gross oversimplification :) I guess Snape was wrong, not the first time hehe), it was also a spell one could learn but I guess Queenie is a sort of innate natural talent? Like a…metamorphomagus? There’s much more wandless magic being thrown around in this movie, though partly it might be justified due to mostly dealing with adults, still wandless magic was said to be really hard and mark of extremely powerful wizards, the underage magic of young wizards and witches was beyond their control (except for little Tom Riddle :)).
Also that dust Newt used to recall past events, come to think of it, it would have been extremely useful for all sorts of investigations, why the aurors don’t use that often? Wand can suddenly change into a sort of stethoscope of sorts? Revelio reveals the past? But logically how Newt knew to search in that specific place for signs of Tina? He just assumed that she would have been walking through that particular spot of the french version of Diagon Alley? And how does Credence even know how to reach the french magic places as he barely knew anything about wizarding world? Where did he get that phoenix hatchling in the first place, first we see him taking care of it in that house where they were staying with Nagini. He just…stumbled on it? As for Queenie I hope that maybe they simply drugged her, you know that tea? The damned teapot wouldn’t leave her alone :), but joking aside it’s a bit out of character for her no matter circumstances, she might seem a bit quirky, but she wasn’t stupid, I liked her character in first movie, hell she helped basically to fight against Grindelwald in first movie, indirectly, now she joins him? Besides in time she must understand that domination over muggles will mean their oppression. While Grindelwald probably uses occlumency against her she had a nice insight into people and she should have realized that he cares only about power and he thinks muggles are beneath him.
In general it would be interesting if Rowling ever explored parallels between Grindelwald and nazis, especially considering the nazi ties to occultism, belief in magic, rituals, ancient runes (which are taught at Hogwarts as one of the class subjects) as various sources have it (and that often slipped in into pop culture), and other such like german Thule society, (though it’s a bit too sensitive topic) it would seem to be fitting if say Grindelwald followers who already want to abolish International Statute of Secrecy to infiltrate or somewhat cooperate with muggle nazis, revealing themselves to them and promising to win the war with magic, with of course their own goals in mind, I mean controlling a totalitarian regime bend on world domination would be easier in the Grindelwald’s plans for world domination. One feeds the other so to speak, the wizards and nazis blood purity, taking an ancient symbol as their own (swastika and deathly hallow emblem), it’s ironic that in movie visions of the WW2 are used as justification for Grindelwald.
Speaking of which visions, suddenly divination became much more reliable branch of magic and much more common, Flamel can see real future in his crystal ball, Grindelwald has a magic skull thing to show the visions to others, gee and books established that true Seers were rare :), and they only spoke riddle prophecies that needed to be interpreted often in trance like state not even remembering it afterwards, also other wizards seems to have viewed the divination as part hoaxy and part very imprecise and cloudy pseudo branch of magic at best.
@46, 49
You are perfectly right. I’d also add in the historical context of the time for additional clarification on the Lestrange story. In the 1920s, at least according to my rudimentary scholarly efforts in the field, black women were still viewed through a lens of hyper sexuality, and the literary struggle against that had only just begun. I’d give kudos to J.K. Rowling for keying in on just how far this struggle has come in less than 100 years (and for hinting at how far we have to go, with some poignant parallels to current times), well before I’d start throwing stones.
And I thought the movie was brilliant. The only relevant critique I’ve heard, so far, is “So
.. when did Dumbledore trade in neat pin striped suits for velvet robes?”
Also, didn’t they hint that Dumbledore may have been lying about the circumstances surrounding his sister’s death?
Ohhhh I thought Credence was supposed to be Dumbledore’s NEPHEW.
In regards to Minerva McGonagall showing up in this movie, couldn’t it be possible that she used the time turner she had once loaned to Hermione?
So, we finally got around to seeing this, and I was chuckling/nodding throughout most of this review. Leta and Nagini were two of the more interesting characters and so under used. As for Queenie, I also really hated what they did, and it does seem rather implausible given that Grindelwald isn’t just about allowing wizards to live on their own terms/without secrecy, but actually exterminating Muggles (although one wonders if Grindelwald is able to obscure her ability to read thoughts). However, in some ways, it’s unpleasant in an all too realistic way.
The Honest Trailer for this was really funny.
I’m still waiting for some hint, etc that the prophecies somehow relate to Voldemort, etc – isn’t this around the year he is born? Or wondering – given that there is apparently some kind of prophecy about an Obscurus destroying Dumbledore – is that possibly end up referring to Snape? That would ALSO be a massive retcon (and I don’t know that we ever get any impression he had to suppress his magic) but as we’ve seen, she’s not above that…
@59 Maybe it’s an Obscurus (or part of one) that Riddle traps within Marvolo’s ring, and not a curse as such? *shrugs* Or maybe it’s simply that the seeds of Dumbledore’s destruction are laid by an Obscurus (which is true, since it’s his longing to see his Obscurial sister & family that leads him to abandon caution to put on the ring in canon). It’s all about the retcons now.
My overall feeling (apart from disappointment) is that Fantastic Beasts are film-franchise-canon, rather than book-canon, so I can happily disregard it from my beloved seven-book series. After all, there’s so much in film canon that differs from book canon so it makes sense to lump the over-powered magic of the films together.