Zealots of Nerd Entertainment
Zealots of Nerd Entertainment
Fantastic Beasts (Trilogy): A Wild and Untamable Decline in the Wizarding World
Ever felt like a beloved story was pushed too far for the sake of expansion? That's exactly how I felt diving into the Fantastic Beasts trilogy. Join me on the Zone Podcast as I, Jet Black Xtreme (J.B.), share my unfiltered take on this magical universe's unnecessary stretch, drawing comparisons to the Hobbit trilogy. Despite being a die-hard Harry Potter fan, the Fantastic Beasts series missed the mark, with convoluted plots in "Crimes of Grindelwald" and "Secrets of Dumbledore" that drifted away from the enchanting charm of Newt Scamander and into the realm of bewilderment.
Curious about what went wrong? Let’s unpack J.K. Rowling's storytelling shifts, from retroactive attempts at diversity to the perplexing timelines that left fans scratching their heads. The intricate dance between Dumbledore and Grindelwald, blood pacts, and Nagini's baffling backstory are all on the table, not to mention the struggles of crafting prequels without a crystal-clear vision. We'll also touch on how these narratives compare to other franchises like Star Wars, where planning was key to success—or failure.
The magic, or lack thereof, in Fantastic Beasts’ battle scenes left much to be desired, unlike the thrilling duels from the Harry Potter days. While the actors gave it their all, the series stumbled over complex narratives and character inconsistencies, especially with Credence, played by Ezra Miller. As an aspiring writer, I find myself questioning Rowling’s choices and reflecting on my personal disappointment with the trilogy. But fear not, there’s a silver lining—my quest for entertainment is far from over, as I pivot towards more rewarding pursuits like gaming, where joy trumps confusion.
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DISCLAIMER: The thoughts and opinions shared within are those of the speaker. We encourage everyone to do their own research and to experience the content mentioned at your own volition. We try not to reveal spoilers to those who are not up to speed, but in case some slips out, please be sure to check out the source material before you continue listening!
Stay nerdy and stay faithful,
- J.B.
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welcome back to the zone podcast, the show for nerdy news and reviews. I'm jeff black extreme, but feel free to call me jb and today let's go ahead and talk about the fantastic beast trilogy. He did the harry potter extreme review a while ago and I was meaning to talk about Fantastic Beasts last year but a bunch of things got in the way. So let's go ahead and do it now and I'm gonna be real with y'all. We spent six hours watching these movies, trying to get caught up, trying to understand, because the thing was I wasn't all that interested in watching the Fantastic Beasts movie. It didn't appeal to me that much, despite the fact that I love the Harry Potter films. But the Fantastic Beasts films I'm like, why, like, why do we need this? Like crazy thing is. It reminds me of the hobbit trilogy, to where you have this one move.
Speaker 1:The first movie was actually decent, it's not bad, but then why did we need all these other films? That was convoluting the plot or just making things worse straight up. Like, seriously, crimes of Grindelwald and Secrets of Dumbledore felt like they could have been entirely different stories that had nothing to do with News Commander, but for some reason they just have to have new in for everything. Like, oh, we need you, bro, we can't do this without you, bro. Like bro I am, I am the wizard equivalent of a zookeeper. You don't need me that bad. Like no, that ain't true, bro. I see something in you, bro, you got the potential. Bro, whatever you see, you need to get your glasses checked because I ain't built for what you're asking for. Like no, no, you got it. I would believe you can't do this value though.
Speaker 1:And then jacob, he's funny, jacob's funny, but he's a non-mad or you know funny thing this was what they called muggles before. The word muggle was a thing in the harry potter films and, excuse me, books, so it was no match in these films. And if you thought newt's commander had no reason to be a part of the narrative, jacob definitely had no reason to be a part of it, even though he's like the comic relief character and I appreciate the role that he had. I even appreciate the actor for his performance. Same thing with Eddie Redmayne for doing Newt Scamander. Like the actors did well, like the actors did a fairly good job, and I want to say the characters in the first film was fairly likable, even queenie.
Speaker 1:But then crimes of grindelwald and secrets of domidor ruined her character. Like check this out. So queenie is like this fairly attractive telepathic person whose sister is tina, one of the main. Like tina was this like or former, or who got demoted for reasons. And back on queenie. The whole thing was she was like immediately in love with jacob and vice versa.
Speaker 1:But the thing was american wizards can't marry muggles and that's kind of funny because it feels like a whole segregation thing going on here. And newt was even saying, oh yeah, from the uk. He's like that is weird, like y'all got some weird customs here. But Queenie wants to marry Jacob. But Jacob's like oh well, you know, that's not allowed, I'll fuck the rules. Like you know, we're good for each other. But no, no, no, no, no. But in the second film that's when it got worse to where she wanted to marry this dude, so bad that she enchanted him into trying to get a marriage, but that got prevented. And Jacob's like whoa, whoa, you didn't have to go that far, you know. And then in the third film he dies with Grindelwald, just to denounce him in the last minute and then get back with Jacob.
Speaker 1:And the funny thing is Jacob knew Tina, tina, all of them. They're like acting like nothing happened, like oh, we're just gonna pretend that she wasn't working for the enemy for a little while. Like I wanted to like Queenie, but I guess you could say I only like Queenie in the first film. Uh, tina knew everybody else. They were aight like well, not, okay, let's talk about grindelwald. Like okay, I like johnny depp. But like okay, check this out.
Speaker 1:In the harry potter films there was like an older version of grindelwald and there's a younger version of grindel world. Both of them were like normal people and these trilogies and this trilogy dude looking really weird, like he was just going through a phase, I guess, and the whole thing was like he was impersonating this dude played by colin Farrell and the whole thing was his whole thing is he thinks that wizards are so much better than non-wizards and he wants to exterminate the non-wizards before they start World War 2. But in the third film, where Johnny Depp got replaced by Matt Miskelson because of the whole Amber Heard thing, and Matt did pretty good as grendel wall too, by the way ah, I guess you could say I like grendel wall in the third film better. Nothing is johnny, just to be fair.
Speaker 1:I think for the most part, the whole narrative, the whole storytelling was just fucked up from the beginning and I would be less critical about this if it was some writer that warner brothers just scooped up to do all this. But guess who wrote for all these films? You guessed correctly jk rowling herself. So I'm like this is not even surprising coming from jk, because, like I said before in a harry potter extreme review, my main problem with her was, well, you know, y'all already know about the whole anti-trans thing she had going on on twitter. But I guess you can say, as someone who wants to write his own stories and put out something to where, at least I'm about something.
Speaker 1:This woman, like she, put out the Harry Potter books and the films came after that and it was great and all. But there was some plot holes. That, yeah, plot holes, but we can gloss over. For the most part it's still pretty good franchise for the most part right. But the thing was after deathly hallows it was like she was doing cursed child and a whole bunch of things, like trying to do a whole bunch of retroactive woke agenda type things where oh, hermione is black and there was supposed to be a jewish wizard and all that stuff.
Speaker 1:But and she swore to god that she planned this out like 20 years prior, almost like there was part of the plan the whole time, but she just didn't go through it for some reason and honestly, I, it's one of those things where I didn't really care too much about having representation. That's weird. As a black man, you would think, oh yeah, black guys in Harry Potter, yeah, and they're more like here and there, yeah. But I guess you can say that I didn't care too much, even if I had to say that I had fantasies of, or what if I went to hogwarts and I had like adventures and all that? Even then I'm like I can accept it for what it was if the characters were actually good characters, you know, but it was more like one of those books or movies, whatever the case may be to, where it just feels like, even as an amateur at best, I'm like I could probably write a better story than this. You know, it's just one of those things where I didn't care too much about having all that in there and yet she's making it sound like, oh, that was all part of the plan the whole time, but no, no, it's more like you wanted that to be part of the plan at the last minute. That's why I also not surprised how a lot of the elements and the harry potter franchise as a whole kind of screams.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you kind of been paying attention to Star Wars and Lord of the Rings and thought, okay, hold on, let me take notes. I didn't even really get into the secrets of Dumbledore yet and, honestly, the whole thing with Dumbledore, grindelwald having a gay relationship, okay, I mean okay, I'm not tripping over that, but gay relationship Okay, I mean. Okay, I'm not tripping over that. But what I am tripping over is the whole blood pack thing, to where, first of all, there was like no way they could even make that blood pack with the whole timeline of things, where the whole reason why they were beefing and the girl died and keep in mind that when this happened, when the girl died, she shit, like I'm sorry, I'm kind of all over the place with this, but the thing was there was just no way they could have made that blood pact if domidor and grindelwald didn't even see each other again until after that. Like it wasn't until the second movie that they saw each other for the first time, and I'm like, so when y'all did this whole blood pact thing.
Speaker 1:Like it kind of felt like an excuse to where, oh, we can't have domidor um dusting grindelwald too soon. Like that would just be the purpose of having like a trilogy. It was really supposed to be five films but with the way the third film flopped, it's like it's kind of like in development hell or there's like no talks about it anymore. But it felt like one of those things to where Fantastic Beasts would have worked better, either as just one movie and then you just make other spin-offs where it had nothing to do with news hell. The way the first film ended would have been fine, because the way it made it sound is like, okay, it is what it is, but it's like a bittersweet thing, especially with Jacob, but it is what it is. Like magical people can't marry non-magical people in America. I don't like it, but that's just kind of how it is. And it's like the same thing, like I'm trying to think of another example of how they're trying to whatever doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:I felt like with Fantastic Beasts it could have ended with either just that one movie and then you could get other spin off moves that nothing to do with Newt. Maybe he could show up here and there, but not like in a major role because, as they made it pretty obvious, man, even in the third film he was just pretty much standing around, like mainly barely. Queenie was barely doing shit and like, see, that's another thing. Like you have characters that just barely did anything. I'm surprised that we get backstory on nagini the snake that voldemort have the pet snake turned out to be a human being that was in a circus.
Speaker 1:I'm like what the fuck is going on with this timeline? Like this is why I dare say that if you're going to do prequel shit, like give backstory on things that happens in your story, that should have been part of the plan from the very beginning a TV show where there's going to be multiple seasons and at some point there's going to be a backstory episode or multiple backstory episodes that will piece together. What the hell is going on with the storyline? It's like you make something and it did pretty well and then you're like, well, hold on. We need to give more context to how all this led up to this chunk of the franchise that people know the best. You know, like with star wars where, okay, we had new hope. Uh, bench of the sith um, jedi um returning and all that and then and it was cool. But then the prequel shows up to say like, okay, we need backstory on how anakin became vader and whatnot.
Speaker 1:And then it obviously people did not like the prequels and it took the sequels to make people realize, okay, the prequels aren't that bad compared to the sequels. And then I'm standing here like one of those things where I felt like if you're gonna go down this route, it could have been a part of the plan the whole time. But I guess it's one of those things like, oh well, we didn't know it was gonna pop off like this. So, uh, y'all want to keep going, y'all want to make like a prequel or a sequel. You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1:I really tried to sit through Six hours of these movies and that's the Best impression that I got for y'all that essentially they trying to Rope people that have no business being part of this war into stopping this magic terrorist guy from waging war on the non-magical folks, like he's the harry potter equivalent of magneto. I'm like I barely can take this trilogy seriously. Like it went from simple story where it's like, okay, the magical creatures and that's cute and all that, and it could have been like an anthology series too, like just teaching us about all the different animals that's in the Harry Potter universe, like just teaching us about all the different Animals that's in the Harry Potter Universe and maybe like Some interesting facts or you know, kind of make it A little intriguing, like, say, for instance, like maybe there's something dangerous About certain creatures and it's one of those things where you fuck around and find Out and, alright, we learned Our lesson for the week. You know, it could have went Like that, but no, apparently not. They had to make it on the big screen and apparently thrown like a billion dollars or so at this trilogy just for it to not do so well. So you gotta love it when you see a whole lot of money like that, just burn.
Speaker 1:Ah man, like oh yeah, let's talk about Corvus Creedence, whoever the hell Ezra Miller was playing as Dude at first, like he reminds me of that one dude, you know, with that one haircut. You know like that bowl cut haircut, but not like Justin Bieber, but you know I have to. You know that type of haircut. I'm trying to think of that one guy from that one animated movie that had that haircut. You know, with a jumpsuit, the orange jumpsuit. Y'all probably know what I'm talking about. But essentially he had the haircut going on and, dude, looking like that creepy kid in the classroom that I'm kind of afraid to ask him how his day was Because he might tell me something to where I just feel like I'm now stuck in this.
Speaker 1:You ever felt like you just held hostage in a conversation to where it's almost like hey, man, I just asked for the time of day. Like you know, I'm just like you said steam down. I'm like man, you doing all right. I was like you, man, I just asked for the time of day. You know, I'm just like you said steam down. I'm like man, you doing all right. I was like you know what was me? Blah, blah, blah and all that type shit, kind of like creepy positive type shit. And you're just like. I really didn't ask for all this. I don't want to be rude, it's just crazy how his thing was.
Speaker 1:Oh, he have a tendency to explode when he's really upset, almost like temper tantrum type shit. And in the first film that was like the whole plot point. It's like making sure that he doesn't blow up and whatnot. But then the second film he not only well keep in mind, he does blow up in the first film, but in the second film he comes back and he no longer has that problem blowing up. But they don't explain that either. That's another thing that this trilogy, another problem that this trilogy have. It doesn't explain things very well. Like man, even in the third film, like straight up, the plan was to defeat Grindelwald, was let's confuse him. I feel like they're not even trying anymore. And then on top of that, with the whole blood path thing, again check this out. How about he got defeated? Not similar in the way every part of it defeated Voldemort, definitely how it was too. You know the whole beam struggle type thing, except it was more like okay, it was the blood pack that was like in the air and I guess Grindelwald was trying to shoot somebody. And then Dumbledore was like no, I gotta save him. And then they kind of beam clash and I guess that broke the blood pack pact. But wait a minute. So hold on With the blood pact.
Speaker 1:Y'all are not allowed To fight each other. But the only way to break the blood pact Is to fight each other and y'all don't die, because that was the long side effect. If y'all fight each other, y'all both die. But the only way to break the blood pact Isall fight each other. Y'all both die. But the only way to break the blood pact is to fight each other. It's one thing if it's like one of those things where a plot holds where, okay, yeah, that part doesn't make sense but it doesn't hurt the overall narrative, but that is a very major plot point in the story and you're pretty much saying that the only way to break it is through, like a paradox or you know, kind of like a inconsistency, and the logic, the established logic with the blood pact.
Speaker 1:I'm like what's the point of even doing that other than? Oh well, you know, we can't have Dumbledore coming to defeat Grindelwald way too soon, and if that was the case, I'm like you could have just contained all this shit in one movie. Like shit. Like, say, for instance, the Batman three hour movie did not feel slow at all, but at the same time they had plenty of time to air everything out. That's just the thing. Like I would rather sat through a three-hour cut of Fantastic Beasts where you throw in Dumbledore and you have this whole thing with the blood path and you resolve all this other shit and I'm like you know what? It was a lot, but it wasn't that bad. That would have been the best thing I would have told y'all.
Speaker 1:Y'all splitting this up into three films, and two of these films feel very unnecessary. I'm kind of glad I didn't give y'all juice when these were brand new, because I'm kind of getting really fucking sick of how all these beloved franchises are being treated like zombie cows where these people are trying to milk these ips for everything that they're worth. And it just feels worse and worse the more you put more shit out. I mean, sometimes some things do get better, and we dragon ball diamond. You know how some people are saying how they feel about dragon ball gt, dragon ball super blah, blah, blah. But dragon ball diamond, I haven't heard anybody said shit about it ever since it aired and they were trying to say shit about it from the beginning, talking about oh well, they turned them all into kids. It's going to be lame as fuck. And I'm like oh, where are they at now? What y'all got to say now? They're probably out there still.
Speaker 1:Whatever, people are going to disagree regardless, like that's the wild thing about people. It's like every time somebody have one thing to say about something, there's always gonna be someone else that disagrees with it. And I'm like it is what it is. But it's too much time arguing with people like I don't get. I don't understand why people even like arguing for fun, like if I want to have fun, I'll play like video games and some shit, like I don't going for fun, like if I want to have fun, I'll play like video games and some shit, like I don't. Are you with people for a sport? What anyways? Uh, what was I saying?
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, with the trilogy, how feels like they're just milking it or what it's worth. And I'm like, even then I'm like the first two, no, the second two movies, just that first. And I'm like, even then I'm like the first two, no, the second two movies, just that first one. I'm like all right, all right, it was not bad. But at the same time, another thing how they tried to balance the whole thing with the whole whimsy and dark shit that the Harry Potter flimsy and dark shit that the harry potter run had, and it just felt imbalanced in that sense. It's like the tone just felt inconsistent to where do y'all want to be whimsical and campy or do y'all want to be dark and gritty and serious and just like what y'all want to do. And on top of that, it was lacking that mystery factor to where, okay, I'm kind of curious how this all gonna play out.
Speaker 1:Like, even with the harry potter franchise, like with the seven movies, like we're trying to figure out what the hell is going on within that narrative. Like, namely, chamber of secrets, where, okay, somebody's killing these kids, something is like lurking within the walls of the school and somebody opened the chamber of secrets. What the hell is going on? So that's what I'm saying. Like with fantastic beasts, there's none of that there. It's where pretty much anything you need to know they'll tell you up front and then next thing you know it happens exactly how they said it was gonna happen. I'm like two hours each just to be jones shit that was already told about.
Speaker 1:It's almost like you're spoiling the movie and it's like the movie is spoiling itself. And even then it's like the payoff doesn't even feel like much of a payoff, like no swerve, like not really spectacle. I mean, the magic fights was like mainly because there was more magic fights in this one, because you know by now with harry potter, like they were playing a little slave in the first half of the harry potter films. But uh, second half they're like, okay, straight up, magic fights it is. And then now with fantastic beast, yeah, we're gonna have more magic fights, but even then like it didn't have that sauce, like dumbador versus voldemort and or the Phoenix, where it's like these high level spells being hurled at each other. I'm like that's the main reason why I like Order of the Phoenix, where that one scene along to where I'm like, oh, yeah, that scene had that sauce also with Half-Blood Prince, way Dumbledore helped Harry and all that. But yeah, like Half-Blood Prince, way On Dumbledore helped Harry and all that. But yeah, like that's just another thing.
Speaker 1:Like Fantastic Beasts just feels Like uncooked beef, like If the Harry Potter movies was Beef Wellington, it's almost like the Fantastic Beasts Was like undercooked, like y'all, I'll give y'all credit for having likable actors. I, I was kind of surprised. Grindelwald, he was cool, what can I say? Fantastic beasts? If I were to rate it, I probably would have one like six, maybe seven, and then crimes of grindelwald and secrets of dumb door. Honestly, I'll just rate both of them, probably like uh, yeah, I wasn't feeling this First one was the best one because it was the simplest one, but then, in JK fashion, it's almost like trying to get more convoluted as it goes and I'm like I'm just not here for all that.
Speaker 1:It's like you need to calm down with all this shit. So, with that being said, you know what I'm running out of steam and I'm kind of done talking about this trilogy. So, with that being said, you know what I'm running out of steam and I'm kind of done talking about this trilogy. So take it as you will. I'm gonna go ahead and zone out of here. So have yourself a good morning, good afternoon and good night and, most importantly, take it easy.
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