the release of “fantastic beasts: the crimes of grindelwald” did not bring with it the magic of the previous installments in the world of “harry potter”, with a rating of 40 percent on rotten tomatoes and, more importantly, , confusing critics and fans alike. , with a convoluted narrative that includes too many twists and turns in a supposed character-driven adventure.
And there’s no question who the person responsible for those story choices is, because she’s the same person who created the universe in the first place. As the first film in the franchise, author and screenwriter j.k. Rowling wrote the screenplay for “The Crimes of Grindelwald,” maintaining his authority over the wizarding world he created decades ago.
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If the “Fantastic Beasts” movies captured the same spark that made “Harry Potter” a worldwide sensation, there would be no doubt that Rowling’s continued control over this narrative world was the right choice. However, much of what “The Crimes of Grindelwald” prioritizes makes it seem like Rowling has lost his focus on what made people fall in love with these stories. and that could be bad news for the future of this franchise. indiewire’s liz shannon miller and kate erbland shared notes on the matter.
liz: “Fantastic Beasts” is not the first time that the person responsible for creating a franchise has compromised the quality of future installments. The most infamous example is George Lucas: While he wrote and directed the first “Star Wars” movie, “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi” were directed by others (albeit with him as producer). so when it was first revealed that lucas would be writing and directing the prequel movies, it was seen as a return to form for the franchise… right down to “midi-chlorians” and “i hate sand” and other endlessly ridiculous moments. /p>
Most importantly, the prequels may not be as bad as our memories suggest, but they missed the kinds of characters and narratives that engaged the imagination in the first place. In the new “Star Wars” era spearheaded by Kathleen Kennedy, following Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm, opinions vary as to whether the new movies are genuine “Star Wars” entries. But there’s no denying that when Lucas gave up control, he brought a new life. to a galaxy far, far away.
kate, how close do you think “fantastic beasts” is to reaching that level?
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kate: after enduring “the crimes of grindelwald” and spending the aftermath trying to untangle its many narrative threads, many of them unnecessary! — while also obsessing over the spare stuff I enjoyed (baby nifflers!), I’m willing to suggest that “fantastic beasts” is in danger of going down the “star wars” prequel route. all the things that made “harry potter” so genuinely magical are so lacking in this new series, and while the first movie was able to fool some of its viewers into thinking it was a return to form, most of it the joy seems to have sprung from the basic pleasure of seeing this world on the big screen again. I get it, I felt that way too, and the very promise of the show, that it will literally expand a world we love so much, sounded like a must-see idea.
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but it’s been lost, and this latest movie makes it obvious. Of course, no one knows this world better than J.K. rowling, but whereas the “harry potter” movies benefited from a meticulously plotted series of books to frame them, “fantastic beasts” is a hodgepodge, using different bogus textbooks, sparse references to myths, and other tidbits of world trivia magical to justify creation. from a series of five films. five! And all of that would be understandable, if that hodgepodge really focused on the good stuff: indelible characters, a richly imagined world, a sense that it was all headed toward something meaningful, and yes, maybe even more baby nifflers.
none of it is here, or when it is, it’s in a small package, stripped away to make more room for a bloated, incomprehensible story outfitted with skinny characters, while the good ones languish on the sidelines. And, Liz, with three movies left, I can only imagine it’s going to get a lot worse.
liz: the question is how bad would it have to be for warner bros. to disconnect future deliveries. Another recent example of a creator’s continual scrutiny compromising the quality of a franchise is The X-Files, whose 11th season just wrapped on Fox earlier this year. Chris Carter worked with several producers from the beginning of the series, and many of them stayed (with the exception of Vince Gilligan, who created his own little narrative world in Albuquerque).
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but it was always the carter show, and his love of absurd cliffhangers and complicated mythological storytelling, as well as his insistence that only he really knew what was good for the show, led to a season of television that really compromised the durability of the program. legacy. (Gillian Anderson has been pretty adamant about never wanting to return to the series, and her recent social media posts make it pretty clear Carter is the reason.)
That said, while the “x-files” season 12 seems unlikely due to a lack of external factors, the low ratings for season 11 are probably the most important indicator. Meanwhile, “Fantastic Beasts” had a pretty solid opening weekend. How bad would the next movie have to be for the franchise to go off the rails?
kate: as is the case with hollywood and many of our best rap songs, the rules of cash. the next movie wouldn’t have to be bad to turn things around, it would have to make bad money. while “the crimes of grindelwald” made relatively good money, it underperformed when it came to studio expectations and historical box offices, but especially in the united states, as its overseas numbers are solid, many of them even break records. Audiences want to spend time in this world, and it will take more than a bad movie to break that desire, one instilled in them after years of great movies.
what I think is most revealing beyond the money made, is how many of the reviews point out the same problems with the new movie. It’s not just a few prickly critics, it’s a critical body, including many people who loved the Harry Potter movies, baffled to see such basic elements as coherent narratives and understandable motivations completely fall apart in a series. I used to rely on those same hallmarks regularly. Much like Carter and the X-Files, Rowling’s desire to keep the story in the family—that is, she, director David Yates, and producer David Heyman—seems to have blinded them to what really works in this world. and that sounds crazy! she did it! but she has lost sight of him.
liz: It’s really sad to see this kind of success going on, especially when there are so many counterexamples of franchises regularly injecting new blood and reaping the benefits. “Star Trek” wouldn’t have lasted more than 50 years without new takes on established universe tropes. James Bond is all about reinvention on a regular basis. The “fast and furious” movies became box office hits after Justin Lin took the reins.
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another example is that “game of thrones” has reached a difficult turning point: near the end of the original series, hbo began to develop a series of possible spin-offs that attracted writers relatively new to the franchise, working on development with george r.r. martin to expand the original universe that martin created and d.b. Weiss and David Benioff brought to television. The first greenlit, “The Long Night,” is set to star none other than Naomi Watts and will have “X-Men” and “Kingsman” writer Jane Goldman as showrunner. If it’s a success, it could ensure that the world of Westeros lasts years longer than expected.
Story universes like these owe everything to their original creators, of course. But sometimes, the best thing a creator can do for the story world he’s created is recognize when he needs help.
kate: this brings us to another element of the franchise that we have managed to dance so far: that some of the decisions that rowling has made speak to a greater sense that she knows better than anyone. like the casting of johnny depp, which sparked such a severe outcry from fans that she spawned multiple petitions calling for her to be fired. Rowling was not deterred, however, and she defended her casting on her own website, where she referred to the domestic abuse legal claims against Depp as a matter she was simply done with.
And that’s not even mentioning the ups and downs regarding dumbledore’s sexuality and his treatment in this new movie. announcing that dumbledore was gay was a huge and constructive move that could only come from rowling, but his latest script covers it, hoping that a single handshake and off the cuff line about being “closer than brothers” will suffice when it comes to unpack her and grindelwald’s backstory. it’s a cheap, old-fashioned stunt made even worse because it comes from the creator herself.
liz – those are all important factors, especially the part where rowling stays in the center. there’s a difference between this scenario and, say, “star trek” fans who complain that the show isn’t the same since gene roddenberry’s death, or that rian johnson’s “the last jedi” isn’t really “the star Wars”. everything here goes back to his decisions, all of which are literally tearing apart the “harry potter” fandom when it comes to issues of canon and continuity.
although there may be a silver lining to this: all these problems come from rowling, which means she still has the power to fix them.
“Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” is out in theaters now.
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