Comments | deathtocapslock: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

sunnyskywalker in deathtocapslock

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

Jul 31, 2019 21:11

I finally caught up on the FB movies. There's some cool magic, a few other neat things (like Newt at least knowing what his monsters really want a lot of the time, unlike Hagrid), and lots of things that make you go, "But... but... wait...that doesn't... what?" Also the Nagini retcon makes Neville killing her in DH a lot less triumphant and a lot ( Read more... )

house-elves, grindelwald, movies, manipulation, fantastic beasts, albus dumbledore, author: sunnyskywalker

Comments 2

Fascinating! mary_j_59 August 26 2019, 15:38:26 UTC

I basically love this, though I haven't seen the movies and absolutely refuse to do so. Do you think, honestly, Rowling knows what she's saying? After DH, so many of us saw Dumbledore as an unrepentant, egoistic manipulator--and here Grindelwald is echoing him. And after DH, so many of us hated the epilogue--and Rowling came up with that play, which, by any reading, shows not all is well in Harry Potter's family. OTOH, she then comes up with perfectly loathsome ideas like Nagini's being an enslaved woman of color, which not only diminishes Neville's heroism at the end but also makes Nagini a cannibal.

A half-elf character! Yikes.

As I said, when Rowling takes steps to correct some things, she makes others worse. Far worse.

Thanks for reviewing these films for those of us who can't or won't see them!

Re: Fascinating! sunnyskywalker April 19 2020, 21:45:35 UTC

I won't even venture to guess what Rowling and the other people involved in these movies are thinking.

It's a visually gorgeous movie, and there are some neat bits... which makes the rest all the more disappointing. And horrifying.

Like, they also have Dumbledore giving the boggart lesson (he's DADA teacher at the time, because why not I guess). Now, this made sense when it was just Lupin as an inexperienced teacher with no training who hadn't thought through the consequences. But here, we see exactly why it's such a terrible idea. First, we see some Mean Girls talking openly about how they can't wait to see Leta Lestrange's boggart so they can bully her about it. And then we see that her boggart is her baby brother drowning. The movie shows Dumbledore looking at it... and then it cuts away, and we never see how he actually dealt with a student being forced to reveal such a serious fear in front of her bullies. But how are we supposed to fill in the gaps here? Dumbledore considers this experience, and decides, "Yes, this is a good ( ... )