Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (movie)

[captainmoch]

This piece on the current state of the Harry Potter fandom was a great read and pretty damn accurate to how most that I know (and from what it seems, the people who have read the article) feel about the franchise expanding: The Harry Potter Fandom Is At A Crossroads

Wow, this pretty much completely summed up my thoughts. I love Harry Potter, and part of me wishes it wasn't so dangerously close to over-saturation. Especially with us getting five Fantastic Beasts movies now, I feel like they're trying to make Harry Potter into another MCU-esque cinematic universe; which isn't a terrible idea, but is extremely risky and I'm not sure it will pay off.

 

[twebber55]

$75M is a nice opening weekend for something that people went to see pretty much solely because it was connected to HP and JK Rowling wrote the screenplay.

They do need to focus on the franchise itself and build it to be it's own entity so as to not rely on Potter as much. While $75M is great, it's also $13-15M less than the lowest grossing HP opening weekend when adjusted for inflation, and most Harry Potter films tended to gobble up the vast majority of their domestic gross in the first 2 weeks or so, much like other book-based movie franchises like Twilight, The Hunger Games, etc.

i actually expected more TBH

 

[Nick]

i actually expected more TBH

I did too, but for a franchise that people don't really know much about going in other than it being a Potter spin-off, it's still good. The interesting part is gonna be finding out how well the sequels do.

 

[Joel]

Spoiler

The Obscurus is interesting because there are a number of times we are introduced to repressed wizards in the original storyline. Though again it's a new story and some things will obviously just be let go, I found it interesting that Harry Potter might have had this issue as a child. It typically affects young repressed witches or wizards.

Spoiler

Not so much harry potter.. he never really tried to keep in his magic. Obscurus try to keep in their magic when the magic is trying to "escape" them (for lack of a better term). Where we HAVE seen the closest to an Obscurus in previous storylines, without it actually being called an Obscurus, is with Kendra Dumbledore. For those that have read the books, Kendra Dumbledore was the sibling that was always hidden inside by the Dumbledore family. We find out this was because a few muggle kids saw her do magic through a hedge in their yard. When they asked her to reproduce the "trick" and she couldn't, they then attacked her which left her traumatized. Check the part I highlighted in the picture below, it's basically the description of an Obscurus without actually mentioning the name:

 

[zbob1992]

Spoiler

Not so much harry potter.. he never really tried to keep in his magic. Obscurus try to keep in their magic when the magic is trying to "escape" them (for lack of a better term). Where we HAVE seen the closest to an Obscurus in previous storylines, without it actually being called an Obscurus, is with Kendra Dumbledore. For those that have read the books, Kendra Dumbledore was the sibling that was always hidden inside by the Dumbledore family. We find out this was because a few muggle kids saw her do magic through a hedge in their yard. When they asked her to reproduce the "trick" and she couldn't, they then attacked her which left her traumatized. Check the part I highlighted in the picture below, it's basically the description of an Obscurus without actually mentioning the name:

View attachment 3365

Spoiler

It's worth noting too that Grindelwald was present at the event leading to Kendra's death which Fantastic Beasts now throws even more mystery into. Up until this point it was always kind of assumed that Grindelwald or Dumbledore killed her but as Newt references the 8 year old who died in Africa it makes more sense that being an Obscurus is actually what killed Kendra, This also may have been Grindelwald's first experience with an Obscurus which explains why he knew how powerful the one he was looking for in NYC could be.

 

[Joel]

Spoiler

It's worth noting too that Grindelwald was present at the event leading to Kendra's death which Fantastic Beasts now throws even more mystery into. Up until this point it was always kind of assumed that Grindelwald or Dumbledore killed her but as Newt references the 8 year old who died in Africa it makes more sense that being an Obscurus is actually what killed Kendra, This also may have been Grindelwald's first experience with an Obscurus which explains why he knew how powerful the one he was looking for in NYC could be.

welp, i think we just figured this whole thing out. cheers opcorn:

 

[Joel]

Minor correction, I meant Ariana* dumbledore, not Kendra

 

[Frogki]

So apparently Nifflers are real and the Australia zoo just got a hold of some...

 

[epcyclopedia]

So what happens to the "beasts" depicted in the Wizarding World attractions that are no longer accurate to their depictions in the franchise?

Nifflers are the most prominent, but Bowtruckles and Billwigs look different too.

 

[Frogki]

So what happens to the "beasts" depicted in the Wizarding World attractions that are no longer accurate to their depictions in the franchise?

Nifflers are the most prominent, but Bowtruckles and Billwigs look different too.

Well, I don't recall seeing Bowtruckles in the attractions but there could easily be a camaflouge explanation for the dramatic change in color. Nifflers are actually almost identical to the book description and I've never seen them in the parks either.
The Fwooper is identical to the one in the parks, which made me giggle in the theater...

 

[epcyclopedia]

There's a bowtruckle in the closet with the gryffindor robes once you enter the common room in Forbidden Journey.

Nifflers are sold as plastic toys in various shops, and look nothing like the movie depiction.

Billiwigs are the topic of discussion of the professor in portrait at the end of the Oxford corridor.

 

[Frogki]

There's a bowtruckle in the closet with the gryffindor robes once you enter the common room in Forbidden Journey.

Nifflers are sold as plastic toys in various shops, and look nothing like the movie depiction.

Billiwigs are the topic of discussion of the professor in portrait at the end of the Oxford corridor.

The "nifflers" were never advertised as such, I've always seen them and at first I thought they were too so I asked. They are actually not nifflers as far as I was told, nor did they really fit nifflers to begin with... I believe they are something of a gag gift but I can't recall what they were actually called.
EDIT: Maybe I'm wrong, I could have sworn I was told they're something else...

As for the others, I haven't seen them but I believe you. I'm not sure what, if anything, will be done about it aside from new merchandise being released and perhaps employees referring to it as something different.
Amazing how there are still these tiny details I haven't seen...

 

[deathcab4cutie]

this movie pretty much changed a lot in the potter universe.

 

[brianlo]

Right, he's a guy who bonds with animals more than other human beings. I just wish we'd gotten greater insight as to why that is and how it's affected his life up to this point. His symbiotic with the creatures gets him out of plenty of scraps, to be sure, and he has an innate trust in animals - but what about humans specifically bug him too much? Isn't he a little similar to Grindelwald in some of his overarching ideas? I have faith future films will address this in more detail.

Eddie Redmayne played the character as autistic. Yes, he meets DSM-V criteria as far as I could observe. Which bothered me.

It bothers me because that was clearly not how JK Rowling wrote the role and he ultimately came off too flat and lacked personality.

As a character, if he had been written as autistic, it could have been a fantastically interesting narrative point. From an improper social interaction at Hogwarts that lead to his expulsion, his obsession with animals to perhaps a deeper understanding of magic suppression as he himself could have very struggled with repetitive behaviours as a magical child. That would add an interesting extra layer of danger to his underlying power and psyche. It would have made him far more compelling and worked well with the story points of this movie that I won't delve into. It would have made his character a social advocate and could have given a very progressive story writer another misunderstood minority to champion.

But JK Rowling didn't write that, which is totally fine. Instead, Eddie Redmayne played the role that way anyways, which I didn't connect with as a result. He played the Danish Girl again.

The story was fairly good and certainly original, but I could ditch the director and the leads going forward.

It's kind of the opposite problem of The Force Awakens, which had a great director and fantastic leads that I connected with. The story was much more reductive.

In the end I'm more excited to return to the Star Wars movie Universe than the Potter one, and I'm a far bigger Potter-head. The side-kicks not-withstanding. But the leads were throwaways in Fantastic Beasts.

 

[AlexanderMBush]

Fantastic Beasts 2 adds Jude Law as Dumbledore.

 

[Nico]

I mean...he does have damn dreamy eyes.

 

[Joel]

Fantastic Beasts 2 adds Jude Law as Dumbledore.

Love this.

I mean...he does have damn dreamy eyes.

 

[UNIrd]

I wasn't 100% sure if this would get a sequel as it ranks dead last out of the Wizarding World films in domestic box office. But I just watched it again yesterday and really enjoy it.

 

[Scott W.]

:look:

 

[Mad Dog]

I wasn't 100% sure if this would get a sequel as it ranks dead last out of the Wizarding World films in domestic box office. But I just watched it again yesterday and really enjoy it.

It did well worldwide though.