movie thoughts: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)
I had no intention of watching Fantastic Beasts. I had fallen out of love with the HP fandom after the 7th book. When it was announced it would be a 5-film series, I decided I wasn't interested in committing to yet another story set in Rowling's magical world. But then rogueslayer452 linked to Pop Culture Detective and I started watching the videos on that
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Yep. I mean, I wasn't that interested in this but many wanted this to be something like Newt's adventures with finding magical creatures and educating people about them and fighting for their protection. It would have been educational and important about preserving wildlife in general which would've been far more interesting, but nah, apparently JKR/Warner Bros just wanted to do another "wizards vs dark wizards" and it being the next epic Harry Potter 2.0 or something.
Which I'm positive that's what they wanted this to be, since before it was announced this to be a singular movie, and then a trilogy, before adding two more to make it a five-movie franchise that nobody really asked for. And with how underdeveloped everything is so far, it's just further evidence that this is just another cash grab (along with the screenplays that have zero substance to them that JKR releases with each movie, like, is that even necessary?)
we have POC but they are all baddies, or at least not trustworthy. Yeah. And the Nagini problem.
We've kind of always known that JKR has had issues with writing POC, but the whole Nagini thing? That pissed me the fuck off when that was revealed. Not only is that offensive as hell (esp with JKR confusing different Asian cultures) but also with this retconning thing with the magical snake somehow being....an Asian woman, who later becomes the pet of Wizard Hitler and does his bidding. The audacity of this is just unbelievable. And the fact that Nagini in the movie doesn't seem to do anything other than being a circus freak (because somehow to wizards turning into animals is considered bizarre? like.....????) and just stand around being sad was so pointless. Ugh. This whole thing of JKR retroactively trying to be "progressive" is just failing, like no, we didn't ask for them. Just stop. You're making it worse.
I'll be honest, I think this franchise is gonna flop hard. Like, it'll still be made but it'll just be forgettable.
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Yup. This. The characters have no substance. These are SUPPOSED to be adults who are fully formed people but I know less about them than the kids in Harry Potter. She kept pulling new characters out of the wood work, these ridiculous nod-wink-wink moments to the fandom but to what end? She ignored all the people she created for the first movie. And then created some very problematic characters to boot! So we have an Asian woman that turns into a snake and a weird flashback of a black woman being raped by a really really white guy? WTF are you smoking JK! Because STOP!
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This is what really confuses me the most, and what it's infuriating because there is absolutely no building of these characters or their relationships with each other. Who is Newt Scamander outside of being a caretaker of magical creatures? What is Tina? Who is Queenie? Even Credence who is such a bland character imho that they're forcing this obvious red-herring of him being a Dumbledore without really giving us a reason why outside of the Obscurus thing. There is nothing learned about them, making it harder for the audience to really connect with their characters or even care what happens to them. Even Jacob who is just there as the Muggle sidekick who doesn't really do much of anything but essentially be the audience surrogate. We knew more about the characteristics and personalities of the kids in HP in Sorcerer's Stone than these main adults in two films. Hell, the adults in this franchise act incredibly immaturely and are so incompetent and are only useful when it's convenient for the plot. And that's just sad and really demonstrates that this franchise is prioritizing the (very weak) plot and action scenes over the characters and a good story.
You know how some nitpick and gripe about the HP movies not including everything in the books? The FB franchise feels like that except there are no books that it's adapting from, which makes it so much worse. There is nothing to fall back to in order to give context of what is going on, it's just a disappointingly underdeveloped story and continually retcons things from already established canon.
As much as I wasn't really that enthused about this franchise initially, it is still extremely disappointing the lack of care is being placed into it, y'know? For all the flaws the first movie had there was potential, there was a story worth exploring, but it was just neglected for this gimmicky nostalgic franchise that doesn't know what it wants to be. Just, a huge mess.
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I mean, I know the new Star Wars trilogy isn't perfect, but what I love about it is that they do challenge the status quo of the original stories. They play with the tropes, the cliches. It made the fanboys cry but it also made for a more interesting watch.
These movies feel like they are just going to be more of the same good vs evil with no real shade of gray. They want there to be gray, with the Queenie plot line, but - sorry - Grindlewald just murdered a whole lotta people for no reason so there is no gray. If they wanted to make him compelling first have him look like a NORMAL person and also don't have him act like a crazy bastard until the END. Lure the audience in too, make them wonder. Not to go back to Star Wars, but the scene in 'Last Jedi' when Kylo talks about starting over, getting rid of the old ways...there's a moment as a viewer I agreed with him, he sounded logical. But we don't have that moment with Grindelwald, he's just evil.
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