I love Harry Potter, and anything associated. You could probably serve me a pile of Harry-Potter flavoured dog poop at this point and I’d at least give it a go, because I am that invested. So when I saw someone on Twitter a week or two ago complaining that JK should have just staaahhped after the last HP film, I was low-key incensed. Some of us happen to like Pottermore and Fantastic Beasts and all the additional paraphernalia, I shouted in my head for the approximately three seconds I cared to devote to being annoyed about Trivial Things On The Internet.
But then I went with my sisters to see The Crimes of Grindelwald earlier in the week.
I’m not going to say I wish I hadn’t, because again, investment, but ugg. Really? That was the best we could do? *sigh*.
Hold tight, SPOILERS SHALL NOW ABOUND. Also… this is a Really Long Post. O:)
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We open with Grindelwald in prison, because of course we do. This is fine. Dark, very dark, but Fine. I am okay with this so far.
But then… Grindelwald is carted away in a carriage drawn by thestrels after the obligatory warning from Seraphina Picquery (magical president of USA) about him not being easy to contain, they had to change the guards three times, he’s just so persuasive. And then of course it turns out that Grindelwald used polyjuice potion, and it wasn’t him in the prison cell at all, it was Abernathy, and oh dear, now we are into a chaotic and violent take-over scene where Grindelwald mercilessly kills off all the guards (except that one old guy that he throws down from the clouds to the lake, suddenly stopping his fall a couple of feet above the water, where the guy has miraculously not yet died of a heart attack, presumably so that someone is alive to let everybody know that GW* has escaped and spread fear and panic etc etc yay villain tropes), and there’s a thing with filling the cabin full of water and nearly drowning everyone, except Abernathy is there and catches the magical unexplained necklace in his mouth and oh wow do we really. not. care., because there’s been no empathetic connection established with any of these characters and it’s just meh carnage.
(*That’s it I’m now officially calling him GeeDub now and forever more.)
There’s a reason ‘start in the middle of things/in media res‘ is actually craptastic advice that 99% of still-publishing, best-selling, had-a-career-for-at-least-20-years authors don’t follow.
Not to mention – polyjuice potion to swap someone out of prison? 1) Abernathy’s clearly been committed to GW’s cause for a long while, because that ain’t an overnight potion m’love, and 2) Really? Did we REALLY need a rehash of Goblet of Fire like this? Sigh.
But anyway, then we move on, and we get a lovely scene with Newt, and I am okay again, because alright, the opening fight scene was meh but it was a prologue, really, so I can live with that. Now we are with Newt, and things will be Happy, and there will be Emotional Connections….
Except that instead we get this kind of weird scene/s where Leta is clearly still in love with him but Newt wants none of it (and instead is just sad and mopey?), his brother Theseus is actually really kind and big brotherly and is trying to look out for him, including brokering a pretty good deal with the Ministry to get his travel ban lifted – and Newt is having none of it. I mean, okay, the deal was ‘we’ll let you travel overseas again if you go hunt down Credence and kill him for us’ (which, Newt is all, BUT HE DIED WHUT) and Newt is having none of this killing innocence biz (which, yay, because Hero, right) except NEWT YOU DARLING LITTLE PRINCIPLED CHILD, SAY YES, GO TRAVEL, DO NOT KILL. You’d already be out of the country travelling. And we know you’re going to be inevitably drawn to finding Credence to protect him anyway, so YOU KNOW.
Anyway, fine, I can buy Newt not taking the deal, but his attitude toward his brother seems totally unfounded. Later on he tells Tina that his brother has sometimes tried to kill him, and yar, that would put a damper on the relationship, but the problem is we don’t *see* any of this on screen. On screen, Theseus is an imperfect but perfectly-caring older brother. If you want to sell me on the reason for Newt’s dislike, you have to show it to me. I’m not going to hate a character just because you told me so.
(Side note: see connected post.)
ETA: Oh, and Leta. Like, what the heck? The whole Tragic Backstory(TM) in Fantastic Beasts was supposed to be that Leta had chosen Theseus over Newt (which, parents, be consistent in the feel of your names, yo: Newt + Theseus do not a cohesive sense of family make), and yet here she is in Crimes, acting like Newt is the one who rejected her, and she had to go after Theseus as some sort of second-best consolation prize. WTH?
Okay. Then we move on and things are going along as normal… Oh, wait, no they’re not, because there’s a disembodied glove poking at Newt, and someone standing melodramatically on a rooftop, and plot twist, it’s Dumbledore and Newt’s kind of loosely been working for him all along. (I mean, at least there’s a degree of self awareness here, with Newt asking Dumbledore if he couldn’t find a more conspicuous rooftop, HA.) Turns out Dumbledore pointed Newt at the thunderbird we see in Fantastic Beasts, knowing that he’d be unable to resist trying to take it home? I mean, I guess this is classic vague-instructions Dumbledore form, really, because okay, probably Newt would go get the bird, and probably he’d go through New York because he’s coming from the UK and that’s the logical port (oh wait, is he though? where did he get the bird, I can’t remember where he’d traveled from most recently??), and heaven forbid we actually tell someone something outri– What’s that, Dumbledore? You want Newt to go to Paris and find Credence, and you actually asked Newt outright? The world must be ending.
Anyway, plot plot plot fine whatever, but what bugged me here a little, and quite a lot by the end of the film, and my sister and I had like a 20 min conversation about this on the way home, is that in the HP books there’s quite a large deal made out of the fact that Dumbledore (DD) WILL NOT go and fight GW because of their past relationship (which, relationship, or ‘relationship’, or what the hell even was it, Rowling? Commit, already! Commit! – P.S. Crimes of GW ambiguifies this relationship even further, *eyeroll*). DD knows that he is the stronger wizard; he knows that if anyone has a chance of stopping GW, it’s him. But a part of him is terrified of what that will involve. He’s still feeling guilt and regret over his sister Ariana, he’s not sure if he hates GW or himself more over that, and just generally, there is a Whole Buncha Angst(TM).
But in Crimes, DD is smooth and confident, a teaching god (freck I hate him because I want to be a teacher like that, but IRL a) students don’t go all weak at the knees for that kind of teacher automatically like they do in films, yes, I’m looking at you Dead Poets Society, and b) IRL there is this thing called stress, with deadlines, and scarcity of resources, and a genuine, perpetual lack of time gnuuuurgh I’m so jealous), charming, a little cheeky, and just generally an all-round Marty Stu (i.e. overly perfect character). There’s none of the uncertainty he’s supposed to have before confronting GW. Instead, he’s all swagger, like he learned nothing from Ariana–or, more, like he learned a lot, but a long time ago, and has had plenty of time to process what happened and forgive himself.
That’s the thing: he reads like he’s totally forgiven himself, slightly self-depreciating but Ultimately Quite Fine, and that just doesn’t ring true with what’s established in HP. And, tbh, I don’t really like it? IDK. Maybe if I hadn’t met the older, more flawed DD, I could buy it, because he *is* quite charming. But it’s simplifying, too, and I’m not sure, as a life-long hard-core fan, that I appreciate that.
In addition–and we’re skipping out of the timeline now–it turns out that that magical unexplained necklace thing? Yeah. It’s a Thing called a blood oath, and when Newt delivers it to DD at the end of the film, DD practically lights up with glee. OH YES, he says. *NOW* I might be able to fight GW.
…The only thing stopping you from fighting him before was a blood oath promise? Some sort of magical barrier? This Thing that means that it was never that you wouldn’t fight GW, but rather that you couldn’t?
Urgh. Again: it’s taking all this formerly-nuanced backstory and grossly over-simplifying it. #NotAFan
Okay, and while we’re out of timeline, some random annoyances: The gross exoticisation of Nagini (PLOT TWIST GAIZ, VOLDEMORT’S SNAKE IS AN IMPRISONED, CURSED ASIAN WOMAN *stabs self ded*), who speaks nary a line throughout the entire freaking film, except to act as Credence’s motivation (because we all know a man needs a woman to have any sense of motivation in life, and we all also know that a women’s first and foremost role in life is to be a freaking manic pixie dream girl URGH *more stabbing of the ded* She is the literal disposable woman, except she’s not disposable because PLOT TWIST SHE’S VOLDEMORT’S FREAKING SNAKE (oh, ow, death by innuendo *clutches chest*)). The ?unnamed Native American man in GW’s inner circle whom we know, from the very first time he speaks, that he’s there literally to die. The Magical (and vengeful) Negro, there to help Newt & Jacob & Tina on their quest and provide someone for Newt to contrast his Moral Compass against (because Newt is Moral, yo*) and reinforce stereotypes of Black violence, I guess? >.< And then there’s Leta, who ?still loves Newt even though she’s engaged to a ?fairly nice guy who seems to love her, and Newt ?clearly doesn’t love her, because he (actually) has a thing for Tina… It’s just ??? all round there. But no ?? necessary when it comes to her untimely demise, because that’s a classic refrigerator stuffing: Leta is killed off (melo)dramatically with the apparently sole purpose of galavanising the Scamander brothers into Working Together To Save The Day By Putting Their Differences Aside.
Okay, so that bit where they work together is kind of cute. But srsly, it’s like Hollywood doesn’t understand that having them work together the whole way through as brothers would have been even more cutererer.
* Which, yeah, okay, he actually pretty much is, but still. They didn’t need a ‘Magical Negro’ to prove that >.<
And speaking of Leta, and her Tragic Past… Well, it’s kind of a let down? This, I think, is one of those weird things that happen when you’re not quite sure who your audience is, because I think at this point JK can’t pin down whether she’s writing for us Millennials who grew up with her, or for the current crop of HP kid readers, or what, and so we get this weird narrative that’s full of moderately graphic violence and some innuendo and stuff that, just generally, I wouldn’t be comfortable showing at school until at least Year 9, and yet Leta is Motivated(tm) by the fact that she was ?randomly bullied by everyone at school. (I say randomly because appaz she’s the only currently living Lestrange, which, considering she DIES, means that……… the Blacks and the HP era Lestranges and so forth are all…. spontaneous miracles???? And also, delightfully, there’s a bit of a background Thing about us Slythies NOT being defaultedly Evil in this film, so there’s that, which yay, but also makes Leta’s bullying even more random???) Which, okay, yeah, that can totes function as a Tragic Backstory… except she has a fiancee who’s clearly devoted to her, she dresses like a woman with confidence, and frequently owns the room like a woman who commands respect, and honestly, she’s just kind of Hot Stuff (I said that unironically) – like, she even pulls a swifty on GeeDubs himself at the end (unsuccessfully, but…), which is NOT the move of a woman still ‘haunted’ by schoolyard bullying to the point of tearing up when she visits the school and sees her initials cut into a desk with Newt’s because was the only person who was ever nice to her in the whole seven years *swoon* something???? IDK.
I mean, if that’s your experience with bullying and you see it as legit for it to still define her as a successful adult, a) I’m sorry you lived that and b) then I guess it could happen, but c) if that’s the case, Crimes needed to work harder to sell it to us. See showing vs. telling above (the aside post I linked to).
Not to mention the fact that Nagini is frigging saved by someone literally apparating her out of there, come on boiz, get it together, one of you distract the villain and the other one can apparate your mutual darling out of there. I’m rolling my eyes so hard they might just fall out of my head.
Nearly done. Last Thing, which is the set-up of tension between Queenie and Jacob. Okay, on the one hand, this is a kind-of realistic relationship thing they have going on here. They love each other, she’s coping flak for wanting to marry a Muggle, he’s trying to protect her by saying they shouldn’t get married, she enchants him, Newt breaks the enchantment, Jacob is mad at her for enchanting him – not, let it be known, because it took away his free will, but because it was a dangerous decision that put Queenie closer to danger. I like this; Jacob’s an A++ solid guy. But then they have a fight, and he goes to call her crazy, but stops himself because he realises that something like that should never be said out loud, not when he doesn’t really mean it – again, props to him, he is thoughtful and self-aware and doing All The Right Things for this relationship, and I really, really like him – but of course, Queenie’s a telepath, so she hears the word he was going to say anyway, and is crushed, and runs, and that’s what makes her susceptible to GW’s influences. (Spoiler, she leaves Jacob in the end to be with GW, because GW argues that he’s fighting for the right for people to love whomever they choose – see below for more on his scarily accurate propaganda-ing.)
Okay. Okay okay. I get this. Superficially, it looks Right. It has all the requisite beats, the reactions make logical sense, it increases the tension both physically and emotionally… Only… Queenie is a telepath. And we know by now that she’s an extremely adept telepath. Which means that if Jacob was only calling her crazy in the heat of the moment, something he regrets literally before it’s out of his mouth, enough that he doesn’t even end up saying it – then surely, surely, with her high-level talents, she can sense that he doesn’t mean it. Which, okay, she still might flip out a little over it, but, just… for such an important plot point, it makes her seem both really immature and insecure in their relationship. Which, okay, in Fantastic Beasts she does come across as super naive – but that’s not the same as immature, right? Or insecure. So yeah. Yet another thing I Just Didn’t Buy.
Thing I did like, OTOH, was the moment where Queenie hears Jacob in Paris and tries to find him, but city and people and crowds and rain, and she falls to the ground, utterly overwhelmed by all the thoughts and voices around her–until GW’s henchwoman appears to offer timely comfort. That scene was dramatic irony Done Right.
I also got a bit of a chill when GW did his speechy-thing: his whole, We are not the enemy, we are not the ones being violent, I’m not saying we have to kill all Muggles, we’re saving them from themselves, because here, look: they are going to bring another World War, and I’m trying to prevent that. *cue seeing-the-future images of War, in all its stark and awful horror* –> Wow. That is some pants-wetting, A++, terrifying propaganda right there, because you can totally see why someone would fall for it. Why yes, left to their own devices, Muggles are going to ruin the world and kill themselves anyway. Why yes, you’re right, we are exactly the same as them, except we’re special. Wow yes, being special does give us rights and responsibilities! Why yes, we ARE just being responsible by taking our specialness seriously! WHY YES, YOU’RE RIGHT, WE SHOULD BE IN CHARGE OF THE WORLD, FOR EVERYBODY’S OWN SAFE GOOD.
If I may: Fuck. Yes. That’s exactly how real-world propaganda goes. That’s exactly how it’s going, right now, today, in so many parts of the world. It’s why a broad education and exposure to philosophy and a wide range of perspectives and cultures is so, so, so important; civility, real civility, the one where we all treat each other like dignified human beings, is so damn fragile.
So look. I will probably go see the final film in the cinemas, because see aforementioned comment about HP-flavoured dog poop. It’s sketchy and problematic as hell, and I kind of hate myself for spending money on it, but I’m here to be as authentic as possible, right? So I admit it. I’ll probably go see the third one, because that is a thing I will do.
And hey. At least it might be fun to low-key hate watch?????