Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

It wasn't that great a reveal anyway. "The evil guy turns out to be... the OTHER evil guy!"

Wooohoo?

Not to mention that disguising someone has specific rules in this universe. Grindlewald being Graves raises more questions than the narrative cares to answer. As far as I remmeber, there's no rule to just remove a disguise. But... it works that was because its convenient to the narrative.

These films don't have much internal consistency as far as how the magic works. What would Grindlewald have done if NO ONE went through his secret door? Or Newt had comforted the upset and confused Credence and promised to help him? Its not like Grindlewald somehow led them down into the rally.

Or, if we REALLY want to get into 'what ifs?' What if the auror didn't use the killing curse (because WTF? Is this supposed to be political commentary? Like, wtf?), but used Petrificus Totalis or Stupify or Expeliarmus? ANYTHING to resolve the fight non-violently?

Edited by InkDagger on Nov 17th 2018 at 11:06:33 AM

If we're going in the gritty nitty of the details of shapeshifting, biggest complaint I'd make is that we never see Graves sipping potion, which was kind of a big thing when Moody was impersonated, that you had to take the potion on the hour. That the potion can be dispelled I can accept as something that just never came up in the original movies, since the one time someone was in the position to unmask someone else, the potion expired on its own.

The real issue with the reveal, as far as the first movie is concerned, is that Grindelwald is a non-entity. We're not told anything beyond "Dark Wizard". Even the books didn't give much beyond his relationship with Dumbledore. The books sort of go into the "He's also an anti-muggle wizard supremacist", but that's about it. Grindelwald's goals, motives and beliefs are mostly a big shrug.

So the movie's all "And Graves was Grindelwald!" and the viewer reaction is either "Who's that" coz he's not been mentioned in 2 hours, or "So what?" because we don't know enough about Grindelwald to see how becoming Graves furthered his goals beyond "He's a bad guy doing bad guy things."

Edited by Ghilz on Nov 17th 2018 at 2:34:37 PM

Now I'm reminded about how Dumbledore's course of action against someone using Polyjuice Potion was to... literally stand there for an hour waiting for it to wear off.

That

Also the heroes were shocked when the Thief's Downfall removed the effects of the potion. Which at least suggests to me that there's no way to remove it.

It also makes me wonder why people wouldn't use the removal spell more often, if not on almost every person you meet. If there's such a simple solution, it invalidates the original purpose of the spell/charm/potion, whatever.

Geez, the more I hear about this stuff, the more I'm convinced that Rowling has completely fallen victim to George Lucas syndrome.

As far as I know, while JK Rowling is credited as a writer, she is actually not the one who writes the screenplay, at least not alone. And I think that is part of the problem. Whoever is helping her with the screenplay, needs to step it up or replaced.

This was always an issue with the Harry Potter movies. None of them after the first two truly work as stand alone movies. They are kind of reliant on those who read the books filling the blanks. Now we have a situation in which JKR is trying to fit her typical twists and truly important backstory into a movie format, except the audience doesn't have books anymore to fill the blanks. But I am kind of able to imagine the book behind it, which might explain why I kind of like the movies. I see the building of a thematic structure I enjoy. But I understand why others don't.

...do you have any kind of source on someone else helping her write the screenplay?

Because she's the sole credited writer and if someone else was helping her in any official capacity (i.e. getting paid) then they would basically have to be credited.

There are different ways of doing this of course (sometimes you see a Screen play credit and a Story credit) but here it seems like she's doing it herself.

I dont doubt she got bits and pieces of input from others but someone else doing any real actual writing would surprise me.

All I can find about the writer is what Wikipedia says, which seems to solely be J.K. Rowling.

"In July 2016, Yates confirmed that J. K. Rowling had written the screenplay for the second film and had ideas for the third.[31] Yates talked to Entertainment Weekly about the second film, saying "we've seen the script for Part 2, for the second movie, which takes the story in a whole new direction – as you should, you don’t want to repeat yourself. The second movie introduces new characters as she builds this part of the Harry Potter universe further. It's a very interesting development from where we start out. The work is pouring out of her."[32] In October 2016, it was reported that the Fantastic Beasts film series would comprise five films, with the second film setting in another global capital city, and Eddie Redmayne would be returning to all films to play the lead role of Newt Scamander.[6] Yates would also return to direct the sequel with producers Rowling, David Heyman, Steve Kloves, and Lionel Wigram.[6]"

Maybe the inevitable novelization of the movie would explain things more.

Edited by lalalei2001 on Nov 18th 2018 at 1:40:46 PM

Rowling has had executive veto privilege on all the films. I doubt she has a significant screenwriting partner or is obligated to have one.

I remember her saying in before the first movie that she is very aware that she is not a screen-writer and that she was therefore glad about all the help she got. I took this as there being someone who guides her through the process one way or another, and her being credited as the sole writer being a marketing ploy. Yes, she has veto power, but she rarely used it for the first batch of adaptations, not even for stuff which she frankly should have vetoed (like pointlessly burning down the burrow).

So, no, you dont have a source.

Ok then.

For the first movie, the screenplay was Rowling's screenwriting debut because she didn't want to let anyone else handle it. https://deadline.com/2013/09/warner-bros-j-k-rowling-team-for-new-harry-potter-inspired-film-series-585122/

“It all started when Warner Bros. came to me with the suggestion of turning ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’ into a film. I thought it was a fun idea, but the idea of seeing Newt Scamander, the supposed author of ‘Fantastic Beasts,’ realized by another writer was difficult. Having lived for so long in my fictional universe, I feel very protective of it and I already knew a lot about Newt. As hard-core Harry Potter fans will know, I liked him so much that I even married his grandson, Rolf, to one of my favourite characters from the Harry Potter series, Luna Lovegood. As I considered Warners’ proposal, an idea took shape that I couldn’t dislodge. That is how I ended up pitching my own idea for a film to Warner Bros.

Although it will be set in the worldwide community of witches and wizards where I was so happy for seventeen years, ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’ is neither a prequel nor a sequel to the Harry Potter series, but an extension of the wizarding world. The laws and customs of the hidden magical society will be familiar to anyone who has read the Harry Potter books or seen the films, but Newt’s story will start in New York, seventy years before Harry’s gets underway. I particularly want to thank Kevin Tsujihara of Warner Bros. for his support in this project, which would not have happened without him. I always said that I would only revisit the wizarding world if I had an idea that I was really excited about and this is it.”"

Edited by lalalei2001 on Nov 18th 2018 at 2:25:10 PM

No, no source, just based on why she said on interviews in the past, and I really can't remember which ones.

If they haven't paired her with a professional screen-writer, they should do so now. She is putting too much story into one movie.

If there was another screenwriter doing anything on the final screenplay, they'd get credit too. WGA has rules for that. If no one else is listed, then the screenplay is hers alone.

Everybody knows that the uncredited script doctor is a long-standing Hollywood institution. The script is probably mostly hers.

Only if there is a certain percentage. And people don't get credited for the work at movies all the time, especially if they are slapped with the "advisor" role. Like, if there is someone who just makes suggestions (like: This is the moment where we need another action scene for the movie - because that is something really noticeable) and maybe polishes some dialogues, he or she would most likely not be listed.

Joss Whedon isn't listed for Thor The Dark World either, even though he apparently helped out with the writing of the movie. Edward Norton isn't credited for The Incredible Hulk because his contribution was deemed as too little for the end product.

I've known of folks who had to contribute plot/movie-saving material and gotten no credit for it. I haven't seen this movie, but it certainly sounds messy enough to have had a cook in the kitchen too many.

And as an inverse of what I just wrote, studios or the WGA will fudge on a writer's behalf if what they contributed was considered "essential" material.

Edited by Prowler on Nov 18th 2018 at 3:05:39 AM

No, I wouldn't say that...I would say that the script lacked an editing eye, which was then made worse by Yates tendency to put a lot of emphasis on effects and action scenes, and as little emphasis as possible on the emotional meat.

If there's too much story in the movie that certainly sounds like Rowling, except you can't overstuff a movie the way you can just let Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix get longer and longer and longer...

Well, the movie introduces a bunch of new characters, a convoluted backstory for one of the main characters and mixes it with an actually pretty simple but very drawn out plan for Grindlewald, and as cherry on top there is apparently a lot of stuff which happened between the last and this movie which the audience has to catch up to.

I mean, based on Rowlings tendencies in the last few years with her twitter fights with fans (usually over Snape), tendency to force a particular view on the work (Werewolves = AI Ds), and her various retcons and additions to something published ages ago (Nagini), I think all of these problems are par the course for her.

I'm also doubting a script doctor was involved either. Or, at the very least, if they were, their changes were either ignored or too minor to notice. The 'Locked in the sewers' -> 'Bowtruckle unlocks the door 30 seconds later' would have CERTAINLY be caught by any script doctor as simply irrelevant and worth cutting.

The scene fundementally wouldn't change if Yusuf simply had them at wand point before passing out.

Seems that like Lucas before her, when Rowling only listens to herself for advice on a screenplay with very minimal editing from others, everything falls apart. This is textbook Protection from Editors, something I am strongly against when it comes to a work of fiction.

In the case of lucas is more a textboot example of the "director do everything", people really overestimated how much was lucas input and how much was other so when they give him the rein to do everything it crash.

With rowling I get the feelig she was to expand the harry potter universe but she dosent want to do another novel so she is stuck half way between doing stuff and not doing stuff.

Well, the scene would be more boring and less funny.

I don't think so. The matter with Lucas is that he was never a particular good writers. The best star wars movie wasn't written by him after all. JKR is more a "problem to transition to the medium" case. I am also wondering if throwing in as many cameos as possible and having the first movie set in the US was her or the studios decision. To "Americanize" the franchise is an odd decision for someone who insisted hat the Harry Potter movies would be filmed in Britain with British actors.

Edited by Swanpride on Nov 19th 2018 at 5:29:02 AM