Fantastic Beast: Secrets of Dumbledore Film Review

Welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding and I am an author but also I am the director of the Centre. Now in today's episode I thought I would take on the most recent of the Wizarding World films as a review but also take an opportunity to dip into the world of Harry Potter and the writings of JK Rowling because even though we are the Oxford Centre for Fantasy and these aren't strictly speaking and to do with Oxford other than providing a few locations at one time it's such a large part of the fantasy scene and the reason why many people go on to read fantasy as they grow older that I thought it'd be worth dipping into it and having a look at the whole Harry Potter phenomenon but let's start with a review of the most recent film. This is the third in the Fantastic Beasts and where to find them series called The Secrets of Dumbledore and it comes after two other instruments. The very first one is called Fantastic Beasts and where to find them. The second one is the Crimes of Grindelwald and now this one. Now I think it's fair to say that these films are not loved as much as the Harry Potter films so I'm going to first of all talk about this film on its own merits and how it fits in this series and then compare it to what's going on when you compare it to the Harry Potter sequence. Now I would say that if you haven't yet gone see the film that this particular instalment the third is not bad for one thing the plot is more coherent. The second film The Crimes of Grindelwald I think struggled under the weight of so many different storylines coming in it really got quite knotted and was hard to follow and lost a lot of its charm as a result. This one does have a storyline particularly in the second half of the film where it becomes quite an exciting kind of heist with something they need to achieve and a little bit of a bit like a sort of oceans 11 style thing of how they're going to achieve it but set in a wizarding world so I appreciated that but I think one of them for me one of the things about these films which I struggle with is comes down really to the color palette it is all quite dark and the actors are all adults so you're looking at quite a unmagical visual landscape except for the moments when they dip into Hogwarts or they have some wonderful beasts to enjoy. I think the first film in a sense was the most successful of this franchise because their underlying everything else was the plot line of there's this wonderful suitcase that falls open and then beasts are released in New York and that had so much fun in humour and just had lots of great moments. The second one as I've mentioned the strongest part of that for me was the thought of this macabre circus in Paris so there was elements in that work but this one it stays pretty dark it starts in a sort of Berlin and the themes are dark that fits the themes and the most brightest moment comes towards the end when you get this shift to Bhutan the quite sort of you know out of left field moment and when you're watching it I suppose I'm asking myself is this am I watching it because I've watched the Harry Potter films a sense of loyalty or does it stand up on its own right. Some things are worth you know worth the ticket price so I do enjoy sort of knowing more about Dumbledore I think it you know Jude Law as Dumbledore is a great choice he gives it that sort of mischief and gravitas he's very watchable and of course the the film hangs on him really and the new Gellert Grindelwald mad Smith Wilson I think is better than Johnny Depp's he looks as though he's someone that Professor Dumbledore might well have had a younger man's and fling with and he has a sort of wonderful aesthetic face I don't know the cheekbones maybe but in demeanor he does seem convincingly as though he's a man with a mission that has turned evil so yeah that works for me. Eddie Redmayne is cute but underused I think in these films he has sort of one sort of note that he strikes which is that awkwardness bit of a shuffle this is a guy of an Oscar you think you know maybe there's more that could be done with him and the other supporting cast well the favorite character I think for many people is Dan Fogler's Jacob Gowalski the the muggle amongst the the wizards and I think he's great fun they clear up the credence figure the Ezra Miller character I'm aware there've been issues about some cast members you know obviously Johnny Depp has stepped out and Ezra Miller has had his brushes with the law recently so there probably was a external pressure to clear up that character but if you want to find out what happens to that character storyline it does sort itself out which is quite a relief because that was part of the what was getting very tangled in the second film and also I think we're very surprising sort of new relationship which I really enjoyed is seeing more of the theses the brother to Newt Calum Turner that was some of the funniest moments in fact come with the two brothers together so again there are positive things in this film and I did enjoy it I did sit in the cinema enjoying it but there is a bout here what is it that is less attractive about the fantastic base to the Harry Potter films and I'm obviously going to be looking at this from a script writing point of view I had Marj K Rowling's plotting immensely she's very good at working out long overarching plots and I feel that this is happening in these films but not as successfully as it did in the Harry Potter one of the problems of course is that we already know the end right at the beginning of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone when they're having the the cards in the chocolate frogs we know that it's going to come to a battle with Dumbledore defeating Grindelwald so we know that's where we're going there's you know the plot spoiler happened many years ago so that removes some of the jeopardy but there are ways around that because you can sort of forget that whilst you're watching I think it comes down to the fact that it has lost some of the charm which having a younger person growing up and coming into the world provides almost all the characters except for Jacob are already part of the Wizarding world so for them magic is normal I think the magic of Harry Potter is discovering that actually outside the boring world of Suburbia the Dirty World you can then enter into this fantastic world and it's that journey that Harry goes on and we go with him that's not available so you're supposed to be already sold on the idea of Wizards when you reach Fantastic Beasts which of course most of the audience is but it loses that feeling of gosh how marvelous how spectacular which is really at the heart of the charm of the Harry Potter series and of course there is the vulnerable character Harry himself there isn't the same character with the same vulnerabilities in the Fantastic Beasts that you do get people who are exposed and and abused in some ways that's certainly the case with the Ezra Miller character but they're not the beating heart and I think for me this is why I would turn back to Harry Potter to enjoy in the way that I don't rewatch the Fantastic Beasts films and the locations don't work as well either so with Hogwarts you get in some ways when you think of the you know the economics of the Wizarding World which my family and I have discussed a great length during the 2000s you know when these books were coming out I had small children and that's we were enjoying them step by step it was hugely exciting but we did sort of wonder about how the economy works because the way wizards plug into the real world didn't feel quite right somehow but anyway it's fantasy let's not worry too much about that you sort of forgave it the fact that the most strategic place in the world was this school in Scotland that didn't matter it we all agreed because we all love tugworts that's fine in this one this the stakes are bigger it feels more like a Nazi takeover of the world so the scale is appropriate but somehow in Fantastic Beasts we lose our connection because we're not sure what's the stake it's not the teachers we know who are having to man the walls or the pupils manning up to go and you know protect the bridge like Neville does in the the last instalment so it it becomes a drift in a sense a drift so I think in terms of problems for keeping an audience I'm not sure who they're appealing to I wonder if we started with Fantastic Beasts if I as a parent would feel oh yeah here you are kids here's a really exciting wizarding story I think I probably wouldn't and then if it wasn't meant for kids but for older people the sort of YA audience upwards then is it really is it touching on the themes that fill adult I don't know I have a sort of I don't look forward to these films in the way I really remember looking forward to the Harry Potter films I think there was the aspect in the Harry Potter films of wanting to see the children growing up and flourish whereas this I don't know who I'm who I'm backing yeah I'm less secure as someone watching it so what are the lessons in terms of script writing well I think one of the things that come out for me is character is king when you've got a long-running series and in this series so far we've shifted characters three times so the first film we focused on Newt who I enjoyed and I like Newt a lot I could have spent more time with Newt you know the second film it kind of shifted lots of people were there possibly credence became a sort of breakout character but you know you just didn't feel very and then you've got the Queenie and Jacob romance it all felt a bit oh who am I following and then in the third film the title gives it away you were following Dumbledore which kind of works but Dumbledore is attentive his he knows what he's doing and he's keeping information back from other people which makes him it's not quite the right stance for somebody that you're wanting to follow go back to the Harry Potter films we're very clear who we're following we are seeing Harry stumble his way to a solution taking terrible choices and he has two really close defined friends plus a circle of people who stick with him these these ingredients I think really make a series hang together so when you're thinking of writing a script if you're interested in being a fantasy writer I think that comparing the two franchises is actually a really interesting way to work out what you like and what what is successful I think really to be honest I think the fantastic beasts movies are succeeding because they have a really strong cast and they've come on the back of a very successful first installment in the Harry Potter's and you know the special effects and everything are all great but I don't think they have within them a successful formula I would love to have seen the books first as well actually I know that JK Rowling's gone straight to writing the films without doing the books I think I'd really enjoy the books if there were was such a thing with all the fullness of that the world explained I think it's one of these these times when actually having a book series to rest on would have helped these films and would have made the the picking their way through whose whose whose story is this would have been easier because the writing a novel on this would have forced that realization into the writing process so let's go back to the whole phenomenon of Harry Potter I think that it was one of the wonders of my sort of parenting life is to have such an exciting book series coming out when my own children were growing up and reading there was a stage when at bedtime you couldn't go upstairs without hearing Stephen Fry churning his way through you know all the various parts of Harry Potter and he had so many lovely outcome you've got the novels and then you had the delayed gratification of waiting for the films it all came at a perfect moment and then the fun of going to the midnight openings it was books as rock stars and obviously JK Rowling has fallen into this controversial area at the moment which I'm not going to touch with a but I'm really grateful for the fact that that happened it was a combination of her imagination and the way the book sellers handled it and Bloomsbury the publisher it all had such a brilliant effect on readers for myself as a writer starting out in the early 2000s that phenomenon of the money frankly that she was bringing into the book trade really helped people who started their writing careers in childrens like I did there was an unrealistic expectation of everybody wanting the next Harry Potter which of course you don't have more than one Beatles you don't get more than one Harry Potter but still it did help sort of give serious attention to that area which I think probably is faded now but it was very live in the 2000s what are the strengths of the of those books turning into films well I personally feel that the plotting of book three is the best of all of them the I'm thinking about them as novels now and I think that also works out as a very good film the books get more and more less regulating they get bigger and bigger and in a sense a bit flabier if you're invested in the world you don't mind how long you spend in it of course but there was an element in the last book well the last two books which I found editorially less successful there's a lot of camping in the definitely Hallows and the half-blood prince has a lot of flashbacks so structurally I found those less successful than the earlier ones which I think were pure in the way they delivered their plot so I wasn't going to spend too much time on this podcast thinking about the books because I was really wanting to devote this episode to the films of the films I think the first one is good film but it suffers from the fact that the young actors are just hitting their stride as actors there's a little bit of oh I've got a line to deliver off I go you know there's an element of that there which makes them feel a bit stilted I think by the second one they're all getting much more natural as actors and the second one is of the younger era let's say the Chris Columbus era I think that's the better of the two and it's really sort of the films are hitting their stride by them number three the tonal shift was the change of director I think that's appropriate and it fits the sort of teenage years element and it was a real surprise to turn up in a cinema and think oh you could have the same series but done in such different ways so that that works and of course you've got fantastic performances there from people like David Thulis and others Gary Olman of course so going on of all the films possibly number four is the most enjoyable as a film in my view the reason why is because you've been building for a long time to the idea of the return of Voldemort and it has the structure of the games to keep it sort of like a pattern going so pushing you forward but the way they do the return of Voldemort which is taken from the books is you isolate your main character they do this again in the last film in the final confrontation when he walks out on his own and that image of the hero on his own facing the bad people is so powerful and so moving and the performances Daniel Radcliffe really does brilliant in that scene it's a terribly difficult sequence to to convey but he really does show grit conviction and a sense of love and power I mean it's just really well judged from him and he was obviously quite young when he did that and you've got ray finds being just you know who else could they have cast you know answers on a postcard I couldn't think of anyone else who could do that many better so I think of the films number four is probably the peak of the Harry Potter films though all of them I think have very enjoyable moments and they don't forget fun even the dark ones still and I think that comes from the friendship even though they get darker and darker there is the sort of rewards of having invested so much in characters so I'm never long bottom becoming the action hero in the last one it's definitely a cheer moment and you can only get that because you've set it up such a long time in advance way back in you know film four when he was giving the the gilly weed to help Harry the the trial with the mermaid egg anyway so I think those films manage to sustain a story by a having a memory you know remembering what it's like to appreciate magic and the wonderfulness of magic rather than having it as you know taken for granted part of the world and also having its band of brothers and sisters it's a little cast which carried it which is sort of muffed a bit well muffed quite a lot in the fantastic beasts do so going back to where I started do I think fantastic beasts will succeed in bringing this all together in the final parts of these films if they go on to make them I suppose that will depend on box office what I would like to see or what it's worth and I would like to see battling down on central characters so okay Jacob succeeds he's a good character new it's a good character thesis is a good character dumbledore's a good character it's a shame that the women aren't there's not a really standout woman I did enjoy Euler Lee Hicks I thought she was good but how she interacts with everybody else it was always a bit it doesn't just feel as though the the central group has got a good woman there really which is a shame and because Queenie obviously sort of flitted in and out by playing on the dark side yeah so something's not quite right there anyway I would like to see a central core of characters being focused on rather than trying to do a whole world each each film and remembering that it's called fantastic beasts why not really focus on a creature and a dilemma that involves one of these beasts to to remind us that this is where the magic is supposed to really exist in these films is that in the fantastic beast the kind of thing that they thought of more in the first film so if I was going to give a fantastic beast the secrets of dumbledore's star rating out of five I'd give it a three I not too bad watchable but still not quite hitting the the four and five stars of the Harry Potter films of before I always have in this podcaster wherein all the fantasy worlds is the best place to be something and because I've been talking about fantastic beasts obviously the thing to pick is wherein all the fantasy worlds is the best place to be a fantastic beast now I don't think it's a really good thing to be in the world of the rusting world because if I won't spoil it too much but there's quite a lot of animal abuse going on in the secrets of dumbledore I don't want to spoil that's a bit of a plot twist but something not nice happens to one poor little beast so you know not a good place I actually started my fantasy writing career creating a not dissimilar world of mythical creatures in the companion's quartet this was back in the 2000s long before this series came out which is a setting contemporary age but involves the secret society for the protection of mythical creatures and that is a pretty good place to be a mythical creature because you have companions like human companions who are your friends and they get up to lots of adventures together but I can't possibly choose my own world that would be a bit you know bit too much like naval gazing or whatever so I'm going to think across and I think the most wonderful place to be a fantastic beast must be somewhere like Narnia where you are a talking beast and you have rights and leadership and a wonderful world to move in a world of talking animals so I think that's what I would choose do leave any comments that you have on this question of where is the best place to be a fanatic fantastic beast in our social media or or contact us directly at the Oxford Centre for Fantasy thank you very much for listening we're going to be back having guests so I look forward to putting more of these podcasts together and talking to you as we week by week as we explore fantasy themes thank you very much and goodbye thanks for listening to myth makers podcast brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy visit Oxford Centre for Fantasy.org to join in the fun find out about our online courses in person stays in Oxford plus visit our shop for great gifts tell a friend and subscribe wherever you find your favorite podcasts worldwide