Harry Potter Spin-off: Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them

This movie takes a long time to get going, just around the first time they go into Newt's briefcase. It really shows how much of an impact the score brings to the Harry Potter movies because when there's no music in the earlier part, this movie is dying. There's also a lot of awkward silence and staring because all of our protagonists are so charmingly awkward. Especially Redmayne doing his best impression of if the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors did the fusion dance. And it takes so long to get invested in our protagonists, because it takes so long to learn anything about them. Hell, I've already forgotten the female lead's name.

That being said, there are a lot of things I liked. I liked the worldbuilding, I liked how different Magical New York is, I liked the beasts, they all looked amazing. I loved Jacob, because, holy shit, a non-wizard who isn't treated like a fucking house pet. He actually contributes and is helpful. This is the only Harry Potter anything that's tried to make me give a single fuck about a Muggle and it worked.

Just saw the movie for a second time, its still as good. The reveal stuff is really heavily foreshadowed though once you know what to look for.

There's a moment where someone is talking about how Grindelwald escaped Europe, and also mentions the first site of the Obscurias attack. The answer? "I was there." refers to both situations and is kinda clever. There are lots of little Traitor Shots and these sly smiles on the villain's face when people are talking about him.

I think both Tina and Queenie are great characters but I feel like Queenie is a little too good-she's beautiful, outgoing, can read minds, brave, quick-witted. She basically has all of Tina's strengths and more, and none of her flaws. Her biggest flaw seems to be lack of ambition. She comes across like a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, only Jacob doesn't need one since he's an outgoing nice guy himself.

Also, I feel Newt comes off as somewhat odd, almost to the point of Ambigious Disorder but that this was by design. Its very clear he has no real friends outside of his creatures but he shines when he's with them.

I wish Newt's ex-girlfriend wasn't a Lestrange girl, because now my mom is convinced that the Lestrange family is somehow special, and I keep having to tell her "No, they're just an old family, like the Malfoys or the Blacks or the Weaselys."

All four of those families are special-they're part of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, the last 'true' pure-blood families in Britain by the 30s.

Plus, Leta will doubtless appear in the sequel-while Zoey Kravitz just doing a cameo for all of two seconds isn't outside the realm of plausibility (like Bradley Cooper in 10 Cloverfield Lane), no doubt we haven't seen the last of Leta Lestrange.

How much of the Lestrange family is black though? Because Leta Lestrange is played by Zoe Kravitz.

So like, is the Lestrange an all-black family? Or is her mother black?? Was Bellatrix's husband Rodolphus black?

Huh. I didn't realize that was Zoe Kravitz but I had thought that the person in the photo didn't look white. Because of what seemed like foreshadowing coupled with the photo being of a famous person, the character will almost certainly be in sequels.

Also have to admit, I had forgotten that Bellatrix was married (in fairness, so did she) and had been thinking of Lestrange as her/Narcissa's maiden name. Now I recall they are in the Black family and related to Sirius.

Random guess- Although I know this is sort of assuming that "all black characters are related", it could make some sense if the Lestranges were related to Draco's buddy Blaise Zabini.

Also, although wizards in general tend to have weird first names, Leta Lestrange has one of those astrological first names that the Malfoys go for, which makes me think that one of those families started that trend.

Funnily enough, my friend is convinced that Leta is illegitimate because she's black. After all, all the British Pureblood families are white, and Newt mentions that she was an "outsider" like him. His theory is that her mother had an affair, either with a black muggle or some African Pureblood.

Not sure if that's true, but I think it's an interesting way of looking at it.

The mentions of Leta Lestrange gave me the impression that Newt was involved in a gender-flipped version of the Lily-Snape dynamic.

Who says that all the Pureblood families in England are white? Parvati Patil (and her sister) are Indian and they're Pureblood, IIRC.

And, as very quickly shown in this movie alone, the wizarding world doesn't seem to be that racially prejudiced. We have a black female wizard president and long before the real world got close to either of those traits in our president and hasn't come close to both at the same time.

I really, really enjoyed the movie. I think the film started off a bit slowly, but a lot of that is just setup for the later parts of the film.

The female lead was a bit weak, but Queenie was solid all around. The worldbuilding (imo Rowling's true specialty) was brilliant, and the set design was really really solid. I hope they do more interesting things with magic next time around, I feel like this film didn't tread any new ground in that direction. EDIT: Still think that magic is better in this film than in Doctor Strange, sans Dormammu scene. While Strange has way more elaborate magic that looks better on the big screen, I like the comfy, whimsical fancy of Harry Potter's magic. It seems far more, well, it seems more like something you could build a society off, rather than a superhero.

In general though, I think I trust JK with the series. I can tell that she really put her heart into this, and it works way better as an expansion of the universe than Cursed Child. She is clearly still very new to screenwriting, but for a first time it really is very good.

I wasn't disappointed by the twist, mainly because I don't think we saw enough of Depp to make a good judgement of how he'll do as the Big Bad of these films, but I am sad that Colin Farrell is seemingly done already, his character was absolutely fantastic.

As far as specific issues... Okay, so was Graves being extrajudicial in that execution scene? Because that scene offended every single MURICA bone in my body. While I wouldn't put it past America to use extremely fucked up forms of execution, or to be incredibly corrupt, or to hastily gun down a teenager at the slightest sign of danger, straight up ignoring due process is a step too far. I think it'd be a bit better if it was more clear that Graves was breaking the rules here to tie up these loose ends as quickly as possible, rather than imply that the MACUSA just detain and execute prisoners with little more than a sloppily done investigation.

Speaking of MACUSA, how is there an official name that uses "united states of america" that exists a century before we even considered "united states in america" an actual concept. The usual "the wizards invented the no-maj namesake" doesn't work here, because the wizard community was too underground and spread out to consider their communities states onto themselves, nevermind united. Maybe it was just "Magical Congress of the British American Colonies", and became mahcooza (god I love that pronunciation, it just sounds so noir) after the revolution.

edited 5th Dec '16 7:12:46 AM by InAnOdderWay

I liked it, but it was extremely slow.

I kinda wish that Newt had been less Ten-eleven-y and more like a magical Steve Irwin. Granted that would have probably made him less Tumblretic but it would have been more fun.

"Tumblretic"?

Like toyetic, but based on a character's appeal to tumblr rather than likelihood for merchandise.

I agree. His excessiveness Tumblereticness was excessive to me in particular.

I found the movie generally dull and aimless, trying to cram too many plotlines into one thing, and choosing to focus on the weakest half (the magical creatures are fucking boring).

The speakeasy sequence though will always have a place in my heart.

I did like how they played those aspects of his personality off as a character flaw rather than something to wear as a badge of pride. Newt's eccentricity gets him in a ton of trouble throughout the film, and while he never quite progresses past it he still has to deal with it.

That being said, I agree that the Fantastic Beasts part was really, really underwhelming. Maybe the Niffler and the Obscurus were interesting but the other sequences felt sort of.... obligatory.

If I were to improve the story I would have cut out the Grindelwald plotline entirely. It just straight up doesn't really fit in with the story itself, and comes off as a hamfisted tie in to the rest of a franchise that we were already going to watch anyways, thank you very much. Also just make better use of the setting. Outside of the USA worldbuilding (which was genuinely spot on), there isn't nearly enough creativity in the film. I really hope later installments amp up the imagination.

It also could have been helped with a quicker pace to start off with and protagonists whose default setting wasn't "awkwardly look off to the side and avoid all possible human interaction", which is part of what made it drag.

Well, this movie had its flaws, but goddamn, it had tiny feathery dragons, I CAN"T not like it.

More seriously, I think this movie captured the 'wonder' aspect of the universe a lot better than the last few main movies. Just, sheer glittery handwaved wish fulfillment wonder. But then again I'm the kind of person who will view a suitcase with a pocket dimension zoo as wish fulfilment.

That said, the other plotline with Credence and the Salemers was actually probably the most compelling. They just... didn't do a great job tying the two together.

It kind of bothered me that the only real link between the two is the obscurial, and in order for that to work Newt and the rest of the cast has to view it as a 'magical beast', and therefore part of Newt's expertise. Including the part about being misunderstood and worthy of life and protection for its own sake.

When as far as I can see it's not! It's none of those things. It's a parasitic magical force of destruction! It's not a creature or a beast or something that would happily live peacefully in its native environment if you let it. You have a better claim to calling it a person than you do an animal.

edited 7th Dec '16 3:52:16 AM by LoniJay

With how Newt talks about Muggles, I suspect he deals with people much as he does with animals, which is likely his biggest advantage and disadvantage.

Newt never treated it as that. He's the one who first described it as a murderous parasite. I think it's more that he thought it might be what you said, a normal magical beast, and tried to use his broad knowledge to save the girl. He failed, and he realized that he was wrong. Presumably he was keeping it in an attempt to study it and perhaps save similar children later.

This movie gets a thumbs up from Indirect Active Transport.

My biggest problem with the film was character interaction. It takes awhile before it starts to become compelling. But it eventually starts to improve when the fantastic beasts themselves start to come on screen in force.

The title of the movie is a bit of a misnomer, but that was intentional and brilliant in its application. There are two plots going, one at first seems like a minor side gag to the other but turns out to be of equal importance and cleverly tied together. Coincidentally tied together, one could even argue in a contrived manner as far as in story events go, but as far as playing with audience expectations, I can't see how it could have been done better. From the in theater previews to the televisions spots one got the impression that magical beasts were causing havoc that threatened to expose the wizarding world, and when the movie starts out we see a mysterious force that can't possibly be human, not even if that human was the dread Grindlewald. But it turns out the beasts really are not that destructive relative to their abilities. They're just animals that don't particularly care for humans one way or the other. The most destructive beast is human, and not in a metaphorical way, not as a comment on humanity in general, but a literal human. A human who puts a new perspective on everything Harry Potter. One who makes the wizarding society that much easier to relate with, while at the same time a lot less awe inspiring(magic or not, these guys are just as disorganized as us)

My advantage here is only being three books into the Harry Potter series, so Grindlewald being here only ticks off my "that definitely couldn't be polyjuice potion" box. I know people are very angry about that but all I knew about him beforehand was that he was a bad guy Dumbledoor is famous for beating. I thought those women were a little too enthusiastic about executing people, and suddenly, it made sense.

It's certainly good enough, now let's hope it's successful enough to let Warner shove the DC superheroes aside, leave them to the Lego project. By all means give us more Harry Potter inspired stuff. Didn't know there would be a sequel until I clicked on this thread today but right now Harry Potter stuff is a change I welcome.

Actually please don't. I don't want WB to make this their main thing if the treatment the DCU gets is any hint. I'd rather they use this as more their Star Wars in the sense that it more or less operates mostly independently from the main guys, with large scale big budget productions that, while calculated and planned out ahead of time, aren't rife with the same degree of executive meddling that we see in Marvel Studios and especially in DC's current efforts.

Come to think of it, Grindlewald probably was using polyjuice potion, if, perhaps, a variety of it he could safely conceal. I imagine it being in the best coffee mug the 20th century had at the time, charmed to obscure any obvious signs to observers of course. Did someone say obscure?

That would explain why his disguise suddenly failed. He knew it was about to fail. That, with the realization the president had just screwed up his plans and paranoia that she might be on to him lead him into a motive rant, a minor Villainous Breakdown, if you will. He probably didn't expect to be so wrong about which child, or for it to play tag with him halfway across the city, and definitely didn't expect the interference of the two people he ordered executed along with MACUSA, much less for them to execute a minor outright. He got one little detail wrong, his whole plan fell apart, and forgot to bring more potion to drink on top of it. And he probably still would have gotten out if not for Newt springing a beast on him.

Two problems with that.

One, as an Auror, wouldn't he be USED to work scheduling having rapid and often time consuming changes at the drop of a hat? It seems illogical that he suddenly would be unprepared for that?

As far as I'm aware, there's no spell to correct Polly-juice Potion and I'd imagine it would have been mentioned a lot earlier if there were one.