Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 2 (November 16, 2018)

[Silenka]

On the other side of that, I don't think there needs to be evidence for a person's sexual orientation in a book.

Pretty much this. It's not necessary to be broadcast if it has no bearing on the plot. But it could be argued that the Dumbledore/Grindelwald part of the backstory the book gives does kind of hint at it, if you put on the kind of goggles degenerate slash fangirls like me wear.

[Souj]

I'm not that much into Harry Potter but my fiance is, but doesn't Rowling constantly post random unrelated bits of trivia about the books on her website and social media all the time?

[Guyverarmor]

Yeah, via her website Pottermore. She throws stuff on there all the time. In the past she has stated any "new" HP stuff would be done on there.

[Gredival]

I mean there's a pretty well-founded school of literary scholarship that holds we should only look at the text when interpret books; the author's take, and even their statements regarding their intentions are pretty irrelevant, if the text supports something different.

That being said, you can always bypass this by jamming things into a sequel or side-story to make things canonical. So it's not really much different from author statements on official channels. The nature of serialized fiction is far different these days.

But canon or not isn't the issue here as much as Rowling trying her best to give a George Lucas impression with some of her retcons or even her statements about what she wished she did differently.

[Zetanio]

Saw this last night.

It was decent.

As a huge Harry Potter fan, it was fun to see more of the world. As a movie fan, it was terrible.

Spoilers below, mostly for non-story stuff but you've been warned.

Spoiler: show

Suffers from the Superman movie syndrome, especially with Dumbledore. They use a shitty trope to do it and I don't like it. Jude Law acts circles around everyone when he's onscreen and the rest of the movie suffers when he's off.

Bad pacing, some questionable casting, a lot of "Why are they even there?", and a whole mess of "Let's let everyone talk instead of killing them like we talked about for the last 90+ minutes".

The first movie at least had a ton of whimsy and fun and HUMOR to back things up and animate the world. This movie suffers terribly from a lack of both and Middle Movie Syndrome as well. I think when and if all the movie are out, this will probably slot in somewhere well but until then it's the worst movie in the Harry Potter universe. The last 15 minutes of actual magic being used can't save this thing although it tries really hard.

5/10 if you're not a Harry Potter fan
7/10 if you are because there are some great easter eggs that you'll find.

[AvidLoki]

Wow this movie was ass lol

[Eurell]

You mean like this-

JK Rowling: ...

Us:
dont say it
dont say it
dont say it
dont say it
dont say it
dont say it
dont say it

JK Rowling: "well actually, in the books, Harry was a Black Jew, Hermione was a lesbian, & Ron was a disabled person of color of color. they were in a polyam relationship."

Christ this is a terrible post

[Tyrath]

Movie was pretty damn meh

BIG TWIST SPOILER

Spoiler: show

Entire thing was just a damn long winded road to reveal the Flash to be a Dumbledore and set up the next movies

[Cantih]

Spoiler: show

Thing is though, it's either a blatant lie, or one of the worst fucking retcons ever. There are 3 Dumbledore
children, the daughter was attacked, the father died getting revenge, and the mother was killed in an episode of the daughter's magic raging. There can't BE a younger sibling. And the dude obviously isn't an older sibling.

[Tyrath]

Spoiler: show

Thing is though, it's either a blatant lie, or one of the worst fucking retcons ever. There are 3 Dumbledore
children, the daughter was attacked, the father died getting revenge, and the mother was killed in an episode of the daughter's magic raging. There can't BE a younger sibling. And the dude obviously isn't an older sibling.

Spoiler: show

There's always the possibility Depp meant brother as in kin and not a direct brother. But either way, yeah, it's stupid.

[Souj]

I watch quite a few writing/film stuff on youtube and this popped up on my suggested feed.

Related more directly to Rowling as a whole than this specific movie, though it does go into the conversation just a few posts down about how she's just constantly throwing out random made-up facts about characters.

[Zetanio]

Yes it’s bs

[silverdragontyr]

Good video. I was obviously aware of the "Dumbledore is gay" but I had no idea of "Werewolves are HIV" lol. Just wow, I thought it was a joke at first in the video.

I am saddened that this movie is so bad and the ending is... what it is. Trailers made it look legitimately good and my best friend is a huge Harry Potter fan.

[Greedouw]

My gf is a huge Potter fan and while walking out of this movie, she summed it up pretty well: "So, what actually happened?"

I'm really not sure. Visually, it was great, but man, the story was a mess. I thought these movies were supposed to be about Newt?

[Souj]

I like the Newt character. I think he's acted really well and the character's fun and enjoyable. I'd like to see more of him in random adventures.

The creatures are neat and I'd like to see more interactions with them.

The story and the characters that they wrap around all that is terrible. Even after two movies that could have been used to flesh out the main antagonist, Grindelwald is boring, uninteresting, and knowing his ultimate downfall just utterly works against him. All his plans in movie 2 revolve around completely unexplained and unforeshadowed devices and spells that do just exactly what he needs to a perfect degree. I liked Collin Ferrel's character, but that ended in the trash fire of the completely unsurprising twist that he was Grindelwald the whole time!

This whole Credence thing in this movie was just a waste of time, and the black guy's involvement in the story was just so utterly pointless.

Needlessly Convoluted. This movie- and the one before it- should have been about fun and wonderment, with Newt actually motivated by his own goals to do something in the movie- like needing to get the Thunderbird home, or freeing some mistreated creatures from a circus that mistreats them, running into danger presented while trying to complete said tasks, not drawn into the fray of a conflict he has no care for by a series of complicated coincidences and "because-the-plot-requires-it-isms.

The story this movie wants to tell should have had Dumbledore as the protagonist. He's the one with the mysterious past we want to learn more about. He's the one with the personal and emotional stakes tied to the conflict. He's the one who's pushing the plot forward.

As a whole, I did not hate this movie, I was more disappointed by it. If I could go back in time and decide to pay the $6 to watch it or not and erase my memory of it forever, I would still pay the $6 to see it, though maybe make sure I didnt sit near the person who was chuckling every thing seconds at anything that happened on the screen.

And for the record I'll state that I'm not an avid harry potter fan. I read the 7 books in two nights a few years back while I worked overnight at a dunkin donuts and caught the movies on t.v. whenever I was bored enough to watch them. I have since rewatched all the movies because my fiancee is ultra into HP. (She liked this movie and the last one well enough, but the fact we waited so long to see it may say something about just how much she was actually looking forward to watching it.)

[Abandon]

damn nigga you sound salty

[Tyrath]

I read the 7 books in two nights

[Zetanio]

two days for the first 4 books is ezpz, those last 3 are tomes.

i agree with your review. not sure why tf it's called fantastic beasts if 95% of it is just grindlewald/dumbledore relationship goalz

[Souj]

damn nigga you sound salty

Eh, I didnt think so. Like I said, they're not really my fandom to begin with.

As for 7 books in two nights, a person with a kindle and two 10p-6am shifts when I only helped 2 to four people a night can read a lot of childeen's books. Though I will admit being fired to tears of Order of the Phoenix and doing my fair share of skimming in the worst of parts.
(P.s. they decided not to keep the store open 24hours after a month of the trial)

I also managed to watch the first 6 or so seasons of Supernatural then

[Tyrath]

3500 pages. 16 hours. 3.64 pages/min non stop the entire time. Children's books or not, that's a lot of skimming/skipping.