A quick disclaimer before we dive right into this list: I love JK Rowling. I think she’s a brilliant person and a brilliant writer. The Fantastic Beasts movies to date, however (that being number one and two), have been a little beneath what we know the writer is capable of. Maybe hopes were just set unattainably high following the Harry Potter series, I don’t know. That being said, I do believe there is a lot of fun to be had with these two movies, but I believe that there are a few possible fixes that could’ve improved these movies no end. Right, let’s begin.
10. The Casting Of Albus Dumbledore.
Don’t get me wrong here, I like Jude Law. I think he’s a good enough actor, he just isn’t Dumbledore to me. I can’t imagine this man growing up to be the Dumbledore we know and love from the Harry Potter series. Jared Harris, however, also expressed interest in the role and, seeing as Jared is around the same age as Johnny Depp to match him for Grindelwald, he is also the son of Richard Harris, a.k.a an actual Dumbledore. For me, this was a no brainer.
9. Tidy Up The Plot Of The Crimes Of Grindelwald.
The Crimes plot was a bit of a mess from the beginning. We have Newt, Grindelwald, some guy named Kama and some guy named Grimmson all looking for Credence; we have Credence and Nagini looking for his mother; we have people looking for Grindelwald even Ministry folk looking for Newt. A simple chase through Paris would likely have been a far cleaner and more enjoyable story. That’s not even mentioning the huge expositional dump at the end, but we’ll get to that later.
8. Focus On What This Series Is About.
I understand that, for fans, this was the ultimate twist at the end of Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find It, to go into the cinema and come out realising that you’re watching a prequel to Harry Potter. Because that’s exactly what it is now, in my opinion; for me and a lot of fans the story is about Dumbledore and Grindelwald. Not Newt (although he is a welcome addition to the Potterverse), and certainly not Queenie and Jacob. It was a great way to subvert the expectations, putting the story under the banner Fantastic Beasts, but now the title’s stuck and I fear that we will drift further and further away from the titular beasts. If this story was laid out from the beginning, we could have a far tighter, focused story on the first wizarding war.
7. Remove Nagini (Or At Least Give Her Something To Do).
The redundancy of Nagini in Crimes cannot be ignored. Who is she to Credence? A love interest? A friend? Why is she here? It’s hard to escape the feeling that she was only included in this story as an easter egg to fans, which is fine when executed correctly, but just seems forced in this instance. She might have been better saved for a later reveal in a later movie, and that would have had far more impact.
6. Remove The Convoluted Exposition.
Maybe I should be a little clearer on this one; it’s not that I think the exposition should be removed entirely from Crimes, it’s just that I believe it could be presented in a cleaner way. Rowling employs a double bluff to reveal to her audience that Credence is not, in actual fact, a LeStrange but a Dumbledore. She does this by including the occasional whispering between characters and then giving a true explanation at the end mere seconds before the real story is revealed by Leta. In my opinion, it’d have been far more effective to present the LeStrange theory to the audience from the very beginning, have us focusing on this tale and then turn it on its head at the end with Leta’s guilty explanation. A quick reshuffling would have turned a clumsy plot into an intriguing one.
5. Where Are The Crimes?
If a movie is called Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald, I’d like to think that we’d be following Grindelwald through his most heinous crimes. The movie does this wonderfully to start with, opening with a brilliant escape scene and then a defining sequence wherein we see Grindelwald’s true and despicable nature. But then, nothing. Nothing for quite some time. Unlike a lot of the critics, I enjoyed seeing Depp as Grindelwald, and I’m certainly looking forward to seeing more of him, but to call it The Crimes Of Grindelwald is a tad misleading as, predominantly, this is Credence’s story, not Grindelwald’s.
4. The Dumbledore Twist.
Back to that infamous Dumbledore twist. Unlike the other spots on this list, this is an improvement that could be made in future movies. The simple fact of this one is that it makes for a very unsatisfying ending, particularly for fans who are now scratching their heads as to how this could possibly be the case. Something just doesn’t add up. While this is undoubtedly intriguing and can, I think, be saved if Rowling pulls something clever out of the bag, it still leaves a sour taste in our mouth. We’ll just have to wait and see.
3. Remove The Queenie Romance Subplot.
Queenie has to be one of the most annoying characters I have ever come across in a movie, and she brings little to nothing to the table in this latest outing. Not only does the romance between Queenie and Jacob feel forced and unnatural, but she makes some very questionable decisions that are rather hard to believe as the story progresses. Their story just seems to get in the way of the meat of Fantastic Beasts saga.
Strangely, I didn’t find her too annoying in the first outing; maybe because she was more of a side character there, I don’t know…
2. Include More Familiar Magic.
An easy fix this one. Include more expelliarmus, more Diagon Alley, more bizarre wizarding shops and interesting little gizmos. The whole place just feels a lot warmer when wands are used as more than a gun or a missile launcher, don’t you think? Take a moment to smell the roses and enjoy the wizarding world, rather than running from scene to scene, throwing unknown spells here and there.
1. Hollow Easter Eggs.
First of all, saving the easter eggs for the actual movie rather than spoiling them in the trailer would go a helluva long way. But more than that, if you’re going to drop a name for the sake of the Harry Potter fans, have it mean something. The two big ones here (Nagini and Nicholas Flamel) could have both been cut from the movie and the plot would not have been harmed whatsoever. A casual nod to Flamel would have even sufficed (maybe a few characters are talking about a philosopher who was living a surprisingly long time, or maybe Newt runs past a shop and the camera focuses on Flamel’s sign). Characters don’t need to be shoehorned in to be effective; sometimes less is more.
I know it seems like I’m tearing this movie apart, but I really do love Rowling’s work. Crimes was a little disappointing – even as a fan, I can’t ignore it – but it could be saved with the later movies. And, honestly, as much as I didn’t like the Dumbledore twist it does make me want to watch more, even if it’s just to see how Rowling retcons this massive plot hole.
The Writer's Block 