Our resident Harry Potter fanatics have pulled the tentacles out of their eyes; followed the feather; and gone middle head—just like Newt would want—to figure out what to make of the Fantastic Beasts franchise’s second installment, a Kelpie-sized conundrum that confounds as often as it delights.
1. What is your tweet-length review of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald?
Jason Concepcion: Fun film that also, unfortunately, threatens to overturn nearly two decades of canonical understanding of this story.
Zach Kram: Was this how people felt leaving the theater after watching The Phantom Menace?
Mallory Rubin: Newt: Safe house? Why would I need a safe house in Paris? Me: One hopes you won’t, but should things at some point go terribly wrong, it’s good to have a place to go. You know, for a cup of tea. Or to talk yourself into “King’s Cross” remaining a perfect gem untouched by time.
Claire McNear: Too dark, too serious, too scattered. All the people and beasts are beautiful, however.
Isaac Lee: Besides the alarming vacuum of fleshed-out exposition, it was an effective display of bombarding the audience with one presumably significant event after another—like Mad Max: Fury Road, except it actually needs the explanation.
Jason Gallagher: It’s probably the most disappointing Harry Potter movie to date. Other than that though ...
Kate Halliwell: Fantastic Beasts 2: Not Canon.
2. What was the best part of the film?
Kram: Dumbledore in the books is all mystery and twinkle, the latter in particular an omnipresent part of his personality that went largely missing through the core eight movies. Jude Law, conversely, twinkles and dazzles and shines in his first turn as Albus, easily making him the best Dumbledore portrayer yet.
Rubin: Yumbledore, who embodies everything that book readers cherish about this brilliant, complex, quirky, nuanced, wise, fallible, charming creation—and happens to do so while expertly wearing tweed.
Lee: The scene with Newt in his basement with all his beasts … and Bunty. Truly delightful to see all the various beasts as well as Newt’s complete and utter obliviousness to Bunty’s horniness toward him.
Yoo: While there weren’t many highlights in this movie, the majority of the scenes involving Dumbledore stood out above the rest. Specifically, the scene in which Newt and Albus first chat. It reminded me of when a spy gets the details for his new mission from the suave yet mysterious head of operations. Dumbledore and Newt go from the rooftops of St. Paul’s through the city in a slightly scared and anxious mood that is highlighted by Jude Law’s signature charm and Eddie Redmayne’s general shy awkwardness. More Dumbledore please.
McNear: I loved seeing J.K. Rowling build out the international architecture of the wizarding world. The American Ministry of Magic! The French Ministry of Magic! In the original Harry Potter books, it sometimes felt as though the whole magical universe was confined to about 200 people—just three prep schools, graduating to jobs at the Ministry or nowhere, etc.—and it’s a delight to see her start to fill in the rest (in a venue more public and/or canonical than Pottermore and Twitter, anyway).
Concepcion: Our introduction to Jude Law’s Young Dumbledore, atop St. Paul’s Cathedral.
Halliwell: Jude Law’s 15 minutes of screen time, no question. Also Leta’s fabulous purple dress.
Gallagher: I’ll let my colleague, Kate Halliwell, take this one.
3. What was your least favorite part of the movie?
Gallagher: Let me start by saying that many babies look alike. I get it. But if you’re a halfway decent parent, nanny, relative, or whatever, you would notice within seconds if someone handed you the wrong LIGHT OF YOUR GD LIFE. For both guardians in this scenario to fail to notice that someone has handed them something other than THE MOST PRECIOUS THING IN THEIR POSSESSION, is more unbelievable than all of Leta’s character choices combined. It’s more unbelievable than Hot Dumbledore being in love with what appears to be a middle-aged Hot Topic model. It’s more unbelievable than a giant dragon made of blue fire showing up at a real-life political rally.
As a parent, the swapping babies thing is honestly insulting to my intelligence—and I haven’t even talked about how Leta killed a baby because it cried too damn much.
Concepcion: Wow, unfortunately there are several things to choose from here. I’m going to say (simply because there’s no good explanation for it): Minerva McGonagall appearing as a teacher at Hogwarts despite it being well established that she was born in 1935, eight years before the events of the film. Tough one.
Kram: If Rowling messes up Dumbledore’s familial backstory via Credence, she doesn’t just risk ruining the prequel series; she risks compromising the integrity of the “King’s Cross” chapter in Deathly Hallows, one of the most beloved in the entire Potter series. The movie itself was confounding enough on its own; that it might generate much fiercer ripples in the Potter canon is far, far worse.
Lee: The timeline math. Minerva McGonagall—if the one who appears in this film is indeed the same McGalleon we know and love—was born in 1935. This movie takes place in 1927, and the flashback sequences in which she also appears occur 17 years previously. That means that in this film McGonagall is NEGATIVE 8 and NEGATIVE 25 YEARS OLD, respectively.
Also, the ship that Leta, Corvus V (a.k.a. crying baby), and Credence are on is supposed to have sailed in 1901. That means Credence is AT LEAST 27 YEARS OLD! WHAT?????
I’ll take my answer off the air, thank you.
McNear: That there was no room left for silliness. The original books (and movies) proved that you (or, well, Rowling) can tell a very serious story about this world and still have room for whimsy; it was a shame there was almost none here, especially when that’s what made the first Fantastic Beasts movie so delightful.
Yoo: There were so many things that disappointed me in this film: the frantic pacing, the underdeveloped character motives, and the severe lack of Dumbledore. But the last five minutes of the film are what will stick with me the most—and that’s mainly because they left me in a state of pure confusion. The only relief I felt was seeing the same look on the faces of Isaac Lee and Zach Kram, two Harry Potter megafans, who were probably more shook by the events that occured than I was.
Halliwell: Hard to pick just one, but I’ll go with the baffling undermining of Queenie’s character and her endless relationship drama with Jacob.
Rubin: The prospect of the Credence reveal upending established canon, but since I can’t allow myself to believe that might occur, I’ll instead go with the failure to explain the Elder Wand’s return. That kind of shortcut story mechanic feels as out of place in a J.K. Rowling tale as Vernon Dursley in Flourish and Blotts; it undercuts the significance that understanding wandlore and examining the subtle nature of wand mastership plays in the original series; and it makes the film’s Hallows-centric marketing campaign feel like a bait-and-switch. In Deathly Hallows, Xenophilius says that “the bloody trail of the Elder Wand is splattered across the pages of wizarding history.” I’m sure we’ll get more Elder Wand action in future Beasts films, but I wish the Deathstick’s bloody trail had been splattered across the pages of this script, too.
4. Finish this sentence: Jude Law’s Albus Dumbledore is …
Halliwell: … stupid hot and the only hope for this increasingly doomed franchise.
Concepcion: The best screen Dumbledore. Neither of the two actors who previously played Dumbledore—the legendary old British lion Richard Harris and Michael Gambon—managed to convey Dumbledore as he exists on the page: brilliant and powerful but mistrustful of power; weighted down with regrets, and yet buoyant; his eyes as likely to be twinkling with tears as mirth. Law nails the nuances of this highly nuanced man.
Yoo: The best cinematic portrayal of the character that we’ve ever seen and also a fall-style icon.
Kram: … transcendently great to the point that he better have been every respondent’s answer to question no. 2.
Rubin: The best on-screen Dumbledore we’ve ever had. Warm, wise, and winning—and definitely not someone who would grab a terrified 14-year-old and throw him into a trophy case while asking, with the rage of a dragon, DIDYOUPUTYOURNAMEINTHEGOBLETOFFIYAH?
Lee: Extremely fashionable! I thought wizards were terrible at dressing in Muggle clothing, but I guess Dumbledore transcends even that convention.
Gallagher: Pretty perfect.
McNear: Not my real dad. This is unfair, and knee-jerk, and a sentimental failure of imagination, but I just don’t buy Judeledore yet. It’s strange, of course, to see someone we previously knew as wise while he’s still in the process of gathering wisdom. I think it’s also that we haven’t really seen much of the Dumbledore humor or off-the-wall weirdness that made him so singular in the books. I hope we will in the future!
5. OK, let’s talk about that reveal: Do you believe that Credence is really Dumbledore’s secret brother?
Lee: [Deep inhale]
WHY THE FUCK YOU LYIN’
WHY YOU ALWAYS LYIN’
MMMMM OH MA GAWD
STOP FUCKIN’ LYIN’
Kram: [Deep breath] Do I think Credence is actually Dumbledore’s secret brother? Unfortunately yes, because despite Credence looking no older than 18 in the first movie, and despite actor Ezra Miller saying as much, and despite multiple characters calling him “boy,” the Crimes screenplay apparently reveals that the fateful shipwreck occurred in 1901, meaning he’s in his mid-to-late 20s (???) and therefore the right age to be the final child of Kendra Dumbledore, Albus’s mother, before her death in 1899.
Do I think he should be Dumbledore’s secret brother, however? That’s a different question entirely—and one that I answer with a resounding no. The best possible interpretation of the final scene is that Credence is just a random boy who somehow became attached to the surviving Obscurus after the death of Ariana, Dumbledore’s sister. This is the best answer, but I’m not confident it’s the right one at this point.
Yoo: I feel really good about saying Grindelwald is lying to Credence. He’s not Dumbledore’s secret brother, he’s actually a long lost Targaryen …
Concepcion: I’m speaking, now, of my hopes, more than anything else. I do not believe that Credence is Albus’s brother. I just can’t get there right now. The theory I subscribe to—which has the advantage of being compelling and preserving existing canon—is that Credence’s Obscurus, not him, is Dumbledore’s brother. Under this hypothesis, the Obscurus was previously attached to Dumbledore’s sister Ariana, who died in the infamous three-way duel between Albus, his brother Aberforth Dumbledore, and Grindelwald. Recall that, in Crimes, Dumbledore describes an Obscurus as “a dark twin, an only friend,” which “grows in the absence of love.” I think this dark twin, the parasitical sibling, is the entity Grindelwald is referring to.
To support this, I would point to Grindelwald’s interest in Queenie. I think it’s pretty clear—from the way Vinda Rosier finds her on the street and how close Queenie seems to be to Grindelwald at Nurmengard—that the dark wizard purposefully targeted Queenie. Why would he need a Legilimens, an empath, after all? Credence is all too happy to talk about his feelings, his desire to know who he is and where he comes from. Want to know what he’s thinking about? Just ask him. That, obviously, is not the case with an Obscurus. The only way for Grindelwald to communicate with it would be through Queenie.
McNear: As the great Michael Scott once said: No! God! No! God! Please! No! No! No! NOOOOOOO! If it’s true, it’s totally at odds with everything we know about Dumbledore; if it’s not, it’s a pretty vicious pump fake by J.K.
Gallagher: Yes, if only because they changed his identity approximately 500 times in the final 30 minutes of the movie. I did read something interesting about this, though. Now, according to canon, one more character identity twist for Credence means he’s something far more significant than a Dumbledore or a Lestrange—it would mean he’s officially … (omg) ... a bit.
Halliwell: Yes, because J.K. Rowling will do anything in order to stay relevant, including blowing up everything I loved about her books. (Sorry, Mal.)
Rubin: I forgive you, Kate, just like I’m ready to forgive this twist! My faith in the Harry Potter saga has yet to go unrewarded, and as distressed as I am by the possibility that this reveal could be true—and thus forever alter Dumbledore’s soul-bearing in “King’s Cross,” a chapter I love more than I love most people—I believe there are highly compelling cases for at least two other theories that would leave established canon blissfully intact: 1. that Grindelwald is lying and 2. that Albus is the brother not to Credence, but to Ariana Dumbledore’s Obscurus, which attached itself to Credence’s life form after separating from her, à la Voldemort’s soul shard latching onto Harry. To hear approximately 900 more hours of talk about these theories (and others!), please listen to and watch Binge Mode. There’s a story in our podcast studio that a phoenix will come to any listener who is in desperate need.
6. Who are you shipping in these love triangles? (And which Scamander brother was Leta saying “I love you” to?)
Rubin: Leta was saying “I love you” to Newt—or at least that’s what I’ll tell Theseus when I tuck him into our bed at night. Also, please protect Bunty—preferably with ointment—at all costs. And please give Newt, who clearly has a foot fetish, a shoe catalogue to look at—as long as it’s not part of Spellbound, which cock-blocked him and his Salamander-eye talk and is clearly fact-checked by the same people who let Dogbreath Doge’s obit run.
Halliwell: I ship Dumbledore with every single person in this movie, and also Colin Farrell.
Concepcion: Newt Scamander and Leta Lestrange. Listen—no shots at Tina, who is firmly a middle head and very accomplished. But Leta is next level. Hopefully we’ll eventually get to see how she ended up with Theseus instead of Newt.
McNear: Color me cynical, but it seems like Leta and Theseus had a loving and fulfilling relationship (that tender kiss and request that he be careful? C’mon!), and the Newt weirdness was mostly her trying to be careful of his feelings. You can have fond memories of teenage relationships and also very much not wish you were still in them. Also, he seems to be very into Tina, so.
Gallagher: I think Leta was in love with Newt and not his brother, a.k.a. “Hotter Scamander.” Otherwise, what was the point of Leta’s Hogwarts flashback? Plus, I desperately want to live in a world where both Katherine Waterston and Zoë Kravitz fall in love with someone that socially uncomfortable.
Yoo: No offense to our good pal Newt, but Leta deserves someone who can at least hold a conversation. My vote is for Theseus. But I also want to believe that Leta said “I love you” to Newt, who was her first love, and the one who cared for her when literally no one else did.
Lee: Well—spoiler warning, if you haven’t read the textbook Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them—we know that Tina and Newt end up getting married, but even setting that aside, I did like the coupling of Leta and Theseus: They look like a power couple. And Leta was most definitely saying “I love you” to both, in different ways.
Kram: I’m rooting for Bunty.
7. Which beast (new or returning) was the most fantastic?
McNear: I was already in the tank for Nifflers, but now they’re out here pickpocketing megapowerful dark warlocks in the name of justice? Come to my home, little buddy. I’ll take you to Forever 21 and buy you all the rhinestones you could ever want.
Kram: Pickett matches Marvel’s Groot branch for branch in the surprisingly competitive “fictional tree in popular IP” power rankings. Secondary plaudits go to the sewer dragon parasite that invades Kama’s eyeball, which is a fun phrase to write about a mass-marketed movie for children.
Lee: The Kelpie! Besides it causing the most overt display of thirst in the history of cinema, when Bunty asks Newt to take off his shirt, it looked like a fascinating creature that perhaps might come into play again in later installments—for a beast that had an entire CGI sequence dedicated to it, it was largely inconsequential in this film.
Yoo: Got mad love for my day-one homie Pickett, but the Zouwu, the majestic lion that can travel 1,000 miles in a day, was extremely dope. Not only was it a beautiful creature and eventual companion to Newt, but it also kicked major ass against those creepy big-eyed French Ministry cats. I did not like those cats.
Rubin: I think I’d commit an actual crime to protect Pickett (both because I love him and because I know that he’d then break me out of jail).
Halliwell: The Nifflers stay undefeated!
Concepcion: Shouts to the Zouwu, the magical beast that can travel a 1,000 miles day and has a certain fondness for cat toys!
Gallagher: This is the last time I’ll point to Kate’s article. I swear.
8. Which character deserved more screen time?
Gallagher: [Sees this question.]
My brain:
don’t do it
don’t do it
don’t do it
(X10)
I’m sorry. Take it away, Kate.
Concepcion: Nagini! We just discovered that Voldemort’s loyal pet snake is … A PERSON. A Maledictus, who, by the time of the Harry Potter books, has changed permanently into her beast form. AND SHE HAS, LIKE, THREE LINES! I need much more information. Starting with—does this mean that in the books, Dumbledore knew who Nagini was?
McNear: I hate that Nagini was just left to be a damsel in distress. What little we know about her past is fascinating; we also know how her story ends, and her journey from blood cursee to captive circus performer to agent (and Horcrux) of Voldemort must be a fascinating one. She could—and, hopefully in future installments, will—be a rich and illuminating character, and the sort of lost and lonely figure Rowling has proved so adept at giving life to, but we were given very little to work with here. What a bummer for a figure we know will have great importance just a bit down the road.
Halliwell: Dumbledore, obviously!
Yoo: Nagini. I’m sure there will be plenty of Claudia Kim in Beasts 3-5, but I wanted more from the character here, especially since the trailers made it seem like she would have a larger role in the movie.
Kram: Which is greater: the number of lines Nagini speaks in this movie, or the number of characters she kills in snake form in the core Potter series?
Rubin: Considering that 11 years of Hallows canon now rests on his mountain-crushing shoulders, I’d like to spend a little more time with Credence! And I’d really like to learn more about Nagini. The idea that two people made to feel like freaks and tormented by the idea of not knowing who they are or what they might become would find each other in a way station for lost souls is so perfectly Rowlingian that I can’t help but long for a deeper exploration of their bond. “He knows what you were born,” Nagini tells Credence, “not who you are.” I want to know both of those things about both of them.
Lee: Leta (RIP). Her character was not established enough to warrant the emotional weight of her confession scene or her sacrifice. Hopefully she comes back via flashback in the next installment!
9. Were the number of connections to the original canon not enough, too much, or just right? And does the film change your opinion of the Potterverse at large?
Rubin: In “King’s Cross,” the chapter that you’ve heard so much about here today and will continue to hear so much about from Potterheads worldwide, Harry wakes facedown and alone, and realizes that he’s naked. He thinks to himself: “He wondered whether, as he could feel, he would be able to see. In opening them, he discovered that he had eyes. He lay in a bright mist, though it was not like mist he had ever experienced before. His surroundings were not hidden by cloudy vapor; rather the cloudy vapor had not yet formed into surroundings.” This is how I’m choosing to think about Crimes’ connections to established canon. Sure, I’m harping on what some of this film’s choices could mean once they come into focus, but I’m also confident that if I decide not to board the train before I’m ready, J.K. will take me back, as she always has and I hope always will, to where the vapor has cleared and my surroundings are as familiar as the freckles on Ron’s nose and the curls of Hermione’s hair.
It’s my choice to believe that, just as it was Harry’s. I spent much of the run-up to Beasts 1 and the time between films craving more Dumbledore backstory; I’m a rational enough person to acknowledge that I can’t say I want that and then complain about what I get. And I liked a lot of what I got! I’m beginning to worry that there might be an unsolvable dissonance at play for fans like me who want to learn everything we can about the universe we adore and the characters who inhabit it, then bristle when Madam Malkin’s plot pins pierce our skin unexpectedly, but I’m also not ready to stop trusting in my queen’s ability to make me say, time and again, “All was well.”
Kram: Two years ago, before the first Beasts film, I wrote about my desire to see as little of the known Potter-centric wizarding world as possible in the new franchise. Seeing known characters would yield “narrative somersaults,” I worried at the time—and given the absurdity of Professor Minerva McGonagall’s appearance in Crimes in both the 1910s and 1920s, despite existing canon showing she wasn’t born until the 1930s and didn’t start teaching at Hogwarts until the 1950s, is proof that my fear has already materialized. That doesn’t change my opinion of the core seven books, which remain my favorite fictional series ever put to paper, but Rowling is flirting with danger regarding the internal logical consistency of her broader invented universe.
McNear: I’m bummed. I’m not nearly as much of a Potterhead as some of my colleagues, but I consider myself reasonably invested/indoctrinated—and yet I couldn’t fathom, for example, why we were supposed to care so much about the bloodline of the Lestrange family, other than that the Lestranges lay some bad (and significant) eggs down the road. I think Fantastic Beasts is strongest when its lore connections are more Easter egg than grand reveal, and we got far too much of the latter here.
Halliwell: Both not enough (tell us more about the Elder Wand!) and too much (don’t fuck with the Dumbledore canon!).
Gallagher: With all the Deathly Hallows teasing we got in the marketing campaign, I thought we’d be flooded with answers and connections to original canon. Instead we got more questions and debates about whether the Titanic was in the film or not.
Spoiler: It wasn’t 😞.
Lee: It’s less a matter of quantity than quality; many of the connections are disappointingly brief for a superfan such as myself, or poorly constructed—as in the case of Minerva McGonagall. And of course, the massive reveal at the end may alter so much of what we know about one of the series’ central figures. Still, my affection for the Potterverse remains intact; I just wish we had answers for these additions to canon.
Concepcion: In terms of quantity, there are the right number of connections. In terms of quality—to be determined. I’m not going to say I’m not distressed, or vexed, or troubled. (Negative-8-Year-Old Minerva McGalleon McGonagall appears in this movie!) But, in the end, I’m quite confident that nothing could change my overall opinion of the Potterverse, specifically the original seven books. Canonical Protego!
10. What needs to happen in Beasts 3 to win you back, or keep you loyal?
Yoo: Some answers would be nice …
Kram: Is it too much to ask for a charming, well-written, intricately plotted movie populated with balanced, well-rounded, and relatable characters, which also appeals to both the hard-core and casual fans, solves some of the canonical riddles put forth in Crimes, and stands on its own as an entertaining product while also setting up similar entertainment in the rest of the Beasts series? I mean, for almost every other writer in the world, yes, but this is J.K. Rowling; she can still pull this off.
Rubin: I loved Beasts 1, so I know this franchise is capable of presenting more than this—capable of introducing us to new people and places and ideas and then marrying that seamlessly with connections to the magic we already know and love. If that stops being true, what am I going to do, hurl myself into Newt’s Kelpie cage or the black lake and wail until the end of days with Moaning Myrtle? No! I had Harry then. I have him now. I’ll have him forever. Always.
Concepcion: More Elder Wand. Many, many more Deathly Hallows tie-ins. And satisfying answers to the myriad plot questions which threaten to upend established canon. That’s all!
Lee: Nothing, I will stay loyal to the franchise as long as J.K. Rowling keeps adding to the story of the Wizarding World.
McNear: Have some fun again. The beauty of anchoring these prequels on Newt was that he made it possible to tell a smaller story that tied into something greater; here, it seems like they just tried to tell the big story outright, and lost a lot of the magic along the way.
Gallagher: I’m easy. Give me a fun movie in which things happen that make sense to the story and to the existing characters you’ve introduced, and I’m good. And a side of Hot Dumbledore. But easy on the baby swapping.
Halliwell: If we don’t get a Dumbledore makeout scene, I walk.
