I will admit I was planning on saving this post until we got closer to this movie’s release but since it’s been like five days since I’ve uploaded something on this blog and I’m currently in the middle of at least two other big pieces that will be published soon, I’ve decided to do get this one out the way now.
It’s no secret that both J.K. Rowling and the Fantastic Beasts franchise are in some hot water right now and deservedly so. J.K. Rowling for being an absolutely unlikeable person and Fantastic Beasts for having two very subpar movies thus far. Where to Find Them was mediocre at best that did admittedly have potential and some enjoyable side characters but it was ultimately underwhelming with the movie spending the majority of it’s run time just explaining the rules/lore of the universe, being a table setter for the next four or so movies, and focusing too much on the lesser interesting characters than the one that might be enough to carry the entire picture. I remember watching it in theaters and being rather bored/disappointed by it as I was eager to see a new side to the world of Harry Potter. Unfortunately, it left me with a rather “meh” feeling that I could care less of seeing what happens next in this universe. Then came The Crimes of Grindelwald, which took everything wrong with the first movie and cranked it up to 11. With even more endless exposition, convoluted back stories, messy plotting, added lore that don’t make much sense, focus on the wrong characters, and also trying to set up the next three or so movies all at the exact same time, it was nothing sort of a disaster. It was perhaps the worst prequel movie that I had ever seen. It was so bad that it will make you want to write an apology letter to George Lucas, Peter Jackson, and Ridley Scott telling them how sorry you are for all the nasty things you said about the Star Wars prequels, the Hobbit Trilogy, and Prometheus/Alien Covenant. You will not know what a bad prequel truly is until you have watched The Crimes of Grindelwald.
I’m not the only one to have opinions similar to this. Although Where To Find Them was a decent enough financial hit and did have it’s fans, most would agree it couldn’t quite capture the magic of the Harry Potter movies. Crimes of Grindelward, on the other hand, underperformed at the box office and was panned hard by both fans and critics alike. So much so that there are legit questions as to whether or not this series will be able to actually continue on after the third one or if it will suffer the same fate as the Divergent series (Remember how the last film bombed so hard that they couldn’t even finish the series?). This brings the third (and possibly final) installment in the Fantastic Beast series titled, The Secrets of Dumbledore, a movie which not only have I seen a single trailer for but I have no plans to watch it or even give it a full review. My reasons for not wanting to see the next one comes down to two reasons, 1.) J.K. Rowling and 2.) my overall feelings on the Harry Potter/Fantastic Beasts franchise as a whole.
I don’t really have much to say about J.K. Rowling herself that hasn’t been said by everyone else. Suffice to say, she’s been yet another example, of “don’t meet your heroes” (assuming she was ever viewed as a hero to begin with) and has somehow manage to go full George Lucas even more so than George Lucas did himself with the prequels. She has managed to be the worst kind of famous celebrity. One that is smug, stuck up, and think their opinions matter more than others. She is someone that has claimed to be an ally to the lgbt community despite the fact that her history shows she has been anything but especially with trans people. Even whenever she adds that kind of representation to her material by claiming things like Dumbledore and Grindelwald are gay despite there never being any sort of evidence in her material itself along with even stating that she always imagine the readers of the books as being gay (Yes, really!) , it comes across as not showing respect to the lgbtq+ community but more of like she is just insulting him. She’s just not a good person as a whole and is everything that can go wrong with someone who has become famous and successful with what they do.
As for the movies itself, the one thing that these two Fantastic Beasts have shown me is that I’m not really that big of a Harry Potter fan. Harry Potter isn’t necessarily something I’ve held in high regard despite watching every single movie of it and it being a very big thing when I was growing up. The world and lore itself is pretty neat but I’ve just found the majority of the characters to be quite bland. Not that any of them are bad characters per say but I just didn’t find them interesting enough to be able to carry eight movies worth. It was basically a franchise that relied strictly on it’s world building and lore to be able to carry the whole thing. That might be enough for most people but just not for me. The only Harry Potter features that left a big impact on me in a positive way is The Prisoner of Azkaban and *maybe*, Deathly Hallows Part 2 (that’s probably because it was the last one though). The rest I couldn’t tell you much about. These movies always gave me the sense that I could watch them all completely drunk out of mind and I wouldn’t miss much of anything. While I do respect the franchise for what it is, the idea of seeing young child actors grow up on screen before our very eyes, and it’s overall impact on cinema, Harry Potter has just been something that has never been my cup of tea.
That was honestly why I was originally looking forward to the Fantastic Beasts series. I thought that perhaps a new take on the material and focusing on other characters might be able to get me to connect to this universe than with Harry Potter. After all, this is a universe that has always had unlimited amount of potential. Instead, it pretty much did the exact opposite. Not only did it not get me into this series but it made me realize that Harry Potter is just not really my thing. These two Fantastic Beasts movies are just an example of everything that can possibly go wrong with big franchise movies. The kind of movies that I’m sure made even the most hardcore fans of the series question how they even got into Harry Potter to begin with.
That’s basically where I’m at when it comes to this franchise. Even taking out with what’s gone on from behind the scenes with J.K. Rowling, I have no desire to watch the third one of these. There’s not a single character, setting, lore, or even a magic trick that I have any interest in seeing on the big screen or even comfortably in my own home. Even if it ends up being as bad as the last one, I don’t think there’s anything I could say that would make for an interesting review because I imagine it would just be all the problems that I had with the first two. Even if it’s better than I would have expected, I feel like it would still make for a rather lukewarm review because of how lukewarm I’ve been on the Harry Potter series as a whole. I just don’t think there would be anything interesting enough in the third movie that can make for either an interesting review or even an interesting enough watch. Even Mobius (which earlier reports are claiming is kind of a s*it show) will be probably be at least a fascinating train wreck. Fascinating in the sense that I get to watch Sony continue to try to laughably build a Spider-Man universe without actually having Spider-Man in it. (Only this time, they won’t have Tom Hardy or a Spidey villain that most mainstream audience are actually aware of.) Fantastic Beasts, on the other hand, lacks any of these fascinating critiques that I can only imagine trying to write a review for it will be just as hard as it will be to watch the actual film.
Recently, I’ve become more distance with films than I’ve had for a long time. Not just because of the Covid-19 pandemic that caused multiple big tentpoles movies to be delayed until further notice but because I’ve spent the majority of my time salvaging my way through mediocre or downright bad movies. Until I get an actual job that requires me to stomach those movies and write about them (I still have yet to get paid for ads from this site), I have been limiting my choices for which movies to watch. I’ll only watch movies if I either believe that I will enjoy them or will at least be able to write a fascinating piece about them that I would love to share with others. However, when it comes to movies I have no investment in and coming from a franchise I have no investment in, why should I bother giving up my time and money for something I know there’s a good chance I will not have anything nice or interesting to say about it. It just feels pointless.
For those that plan to see Fantastic Beasts 3 (I already forgot what the subtitle is suppose to be), I hope you all enjoy yourselves and it meets your expectations. However, if you’re expecting a movie review for me, you’re better off finding someone else to review/critique it once it comes out because I just don’t have the time or patience to do so. As I get older, I’ve come to realize that time moves too fast and life is just too damn short. I would rather be spending those two and a half hours of my life on something that will be actually more worthwhile than watching poor Mads Mikkelsen having his talent and charisma wasted on the big screen yet again (I’m still not over Marvel wasting him in Doctor Strange.) It’s just not worth it.
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