When Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One was released earlier this year, it was met with very lukewarm reviews. The general consensus among most critics found the story lacking substance beyond a pandering to a base of nerd culture who will watch a 139 minute film full of pop culture references for the sake of having “Oh, I recognize that!” references. However, just seven years prior, Cline’s book received adulation for doing the exact same thing. In a short period of time, an escapist fantasy which was called “a guaranteed pleasure” had become a piece of fiction where people would say things like: “Is this what it’s like to watch a culture die?”
Why?
Most of the commentaries believe controversies over toxic fandoms have taken their toll within popular zeitgeist. Whether it be Gamergate, or Comicsgate, or toxic Star Wars fans, some of the fun has been taken out of immersing one’s self in pop culture by people who define their value by gatekeeping that culture. This has also gone hand in hand with a trend of communities across all aspects of society becoming more insular at the fringes, whether it be movies, television, music, or dare I say politics. Some of the most vocal members define their status not by what a thing is, but by defending the purity and sanctity of their precious against what they believe it is not. And this is true no matter if talking about what Star Wars shouldn’t include, all the way to what an American is not supposed to be. Add into this we’ve gone through a roughly two decade period where the major entertainment franchises of the past thirty years have had their bones picked through for reboot and prequel material, leading to endless lost hours of debate from troll and non-troll alike on what’s been changed, how things fit, and whether it all sucks. But a side-effect of this is a nerd culture which largely searches for a way to hold on to old magic, and make past memories great again, instead of creating new ones.
With David Yates’s Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, it is the tenth film in J.K. Rowling’s “Wizarding World” franchise and the second prequel to the main Harry Potter story. Telling the tale of major events which shape Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law), that also sets the stage for Lord Voldemort’s later rise, the magic community divides over the rules which keep them hidden from muggle life after the dark wizard Gellert Grendelwald (Johnny Depp) escapes and begins drawing more and more followers to his side. Magizoologist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) is forced to choose a side as he races against Grendelwald to find Credence Barebone (Ezra Miller), who seems to be a very important person in a very ancient prophecy. Rowling’s story uses the trappings of her wizarding world to warn about the dangers of being complacent while demagogues rant and spew bigotry, which is not a surprise given her very outspoken criticism of Trumpism.
The ending for this film, which was written by Rowling, has already been somewhat divisive among Rowling’s fans. However, there is a question of execution. Because, even though for fans of this universe it can be fun to return to it, there are moments where the film descends into references for reference sake.
Some of the most notable franchises in fantasy and science fiction have gone through long phases where they decided to look inward through prequels. Whether it was a money grab or an attempt to find new facets and dimensions to established characters, the results have usually been incredibly discordant among their fan bases and have resulted in some of them at least being pushed in the direction of going forward after trying to look back.
- Patrick Stewart is set to return to the role of Jean-Luc Picard for a new TV series. Details are scarce, but Star Trek: Discovery executive producer Alex Kurtzman, Stewart, and author Michael Chabon (The Yiddish Policemen’s Union) are among the creative team, and the new series will be the first Star Trek in almost 20 years to move the story of the franchise forward, since it is neither a reboot or prequel, and will be set after the events of Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and the TNG movies. This occurs after the Kelvin Timeline films have been very divisive among fans. And prequel series such as Enterprise and Discovery have been bogged down in similar arguments. Also, some of the Discovery shorts have been going in the forward direction (e.g., spoiler for “Calypso”: it’s set far in Star Trek’s future), and the documentary What We Left Behind has reunited Deep Space Nine’s writing staff to create a possible eighth season of the series set in a future of the main timeline.
- The Hobbit trilogy was very controversial among fans of Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. Originally intended to be two movies directed by Guillermo del Toro, lawsuits and production delays resulted in the expansion of the number of Hobbit movies to three and Jackson back in the director's chair. The decision to expand The Hobbit was met with a bit of befuddlement, and exacerbated already present gripes about Jackson’s addition to The Lord of the Rings, since J.R.R. Tolkein’s Hobbit novel is only a 384-page book. If The Lord of the Rings presented problems of how to create a cohesive narrative on screen with so much material, The Hobbit movies had to borrow from appendices, extrapolate situations hinted at by Tolkien, and wholesale invent new characters and connecting bits of story in order to fill out their running lengths. Amazon is currently working on a The Lord of the Rings TV series, which will reportedly run for five seasons and “explore storylines preceding The Fellowship of the Ring,“ including some reports pointing to the life of a young Aragorn. It’s also been widely rumored to boast a budget of $1 billion.
- Back in the late 1990’s, when it was first announced there would be new Star Wars films, it was a major cultural event. The original films had been re-released in 20th anniversary special editions to much acclaim, and the public seemed primed to return to the story. It’s actually the first time I can remember a movie trailer being a major news story after its release. And for many of the fans of Star Wars, even though there was some dissatisfaction with dancing Ewoks after Return of the Jedi, the feeling was how could they possibly screw this up? And then The Phantom Menace came out, bad reviews followed, and the fandom began questioning whether George Lucas actually understood his own creation, or if he was just trying to sell action figures, and four editions of the same movie? Disney’s decision to purchase the franchise and continue it past Return of the Jedi was met at least initially met with fan excitement which, in part, saw the new films washing the bad taste of the prequels away. However, the new films have created their own issues.
Set in the mid-1920’s, the initial Fantastic Beasts film ends with the reveal the villain Percival Graves, played for most of the film by Colin Farrell, is in fact Dumbledore nemesis Geller Grindelwald (Depp) in a story point worthy of Scooby Doo. Picking up six months after these events, Grindelwald escapes in an elaborate aerial sequence from the custody of the Magical Congress of the United States of America. Newt Scamander is asked by the British Ministry of Magic, and a personal appeal from Hogwarts professor Albus Dumbledore himself, to hunt Grindelwald, in order to restore Scamander’s right to travel. Grindelwald seems to be searching for the obscurial Credence in Paris, with Dumbledore possibly being in danger if Grindelwald captures Credence. And the same may be true for Grindelwald if Credence is found by Scamander first. But Scamander is reluctant to take up the search, since he does not want to take a side in the argument over the International Statute of Secrecy.
Newt’s love interest, Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston), is also chasing Credence, and close in tow is audience surrogagte Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler), who’s still crushing on Tina’s sister, Queenie (Alison Sudol), which is significant given the controversy with muggle-magical relationships. And this is just the tip of the iceberg of characters and a whole lot of subplots. A character having the surname “Lestrange” hints at a later Harry Potter connection. Dumbledore’s sexuality, which has only been officially recognized as being that of a gay man on Rowling’s Twitter page and never made explicit in any text or film, is only implied at here through flashbacks with Grindelwald and a vague statement. (i.e., “We were closer than brothers.”)
Crimes of Grindelwald is a movie which subsumes itself in the wizarding world, with Rowling seeming to believe fans love the details and connections of her worldbuilding. But that’s arguable.
The plot is at times confusing and disjointed, and at other times more considered with the set up of the Harry Potter universe than the tale it’s telling in the moment. Rowling has a lot of plates spinning in weaving a story that involves “baby-killings, cases of mistaken identity, mysterious characters with mysterious backgrounds, dramatic flashbacks, and several different moments that disrupt the established canonical timeline of the Harry Potter universe in ways that are sure to break the brains of Harry Potter fans across the internet.” Furthermore, some of the dialogue is clunky and the tension of the story is lacking precisely because this movie falls into some of the traps exhibited in the examples of prequels from other franchises above. Crimes of Grindelwald is more interested in exposition, references, and moving the chess pieces into place for what will happen.
The characterization of Redmayne’s Newt is not given a lot of depth, and the philosophy of Depp’s Grindelwald, beyond genocide and the saying “for the greater good,” is a bit muddled. A rally towards the end of the film will have many fascist flash points familiar for anyone who’s watched the turn in politics over the past three years, including the use of fear to cajole people into supporting awful things against the muggle “other.” For all intents and purposes Grindelwald is a magical Nazi, just like the magical Nazi that will come after him. And I guess like all Nazis the philosophy doesn’t have to make sense because Nazi ideology is inherently illogical and self-serving. And yet, some have seen in the Fantastic Beasts films that Grindelwald’s position is a gay liberation metaphor wherein to suppress one’s true nature is to live in the closet. This creates some uncomfortable implications when arguably the two (implied) gay characters in the story are a gay Nazi and a beloved character who may or may not still be in love with the gay Nazi.
All in all, this is a lot of table setting. If Rowling pulls it off in later films (and there are three more to come), maybe all the story threads will come together in an amazing way. But if it’s just the pieces falling into their places without standing on its own, the series will probably remembered as something closer to past prequel attempts.
- Domestic disappointment, global hit: The movie made only around $60 million in its debut weekend domestically. However, the film has already grossed nearly $300 million worldwide.
- The controversy over Dumbledore’s gayness: As mentioned above, the character of Albus Dumbledore has never explicitly been revealed as gay in any media. The only confirmation of this fact are pronouncements by Rowling and even acknowledgment from Jude Law about the characterization. However, after director David Yates gave an interview earlier this year stating the character’s sexuality would remain vague, there was some backlash, even towards Rowling.
- The decision to keep Johnny Depp as Grindelwald: In the era of #MeToo, the decision to retain Depp as Grindelwald has been controversial, given the claims levied against him by ex-wife Amber Heard, who accused Depp of being verbally and physically abusive. Heard provided images of physical abuse allegedly caused by Depp to People magazine and petitioned for a restraining order. However, the couple’s divorce was ultimately settled, the restraining order dismissed, and a statement issued which said their "relationship was intensely passionate and at times volatile, but always bound by love. Neither party has made false accusations for financial gain. There was never any intent of physical or emotional harm." Both J.K. Rowling and David Yates decided to stand by Depp, and for his part Depp maintains he was “falsely accused.”