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Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them 5-film series


Bilbo

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The 5th movie will of course be split into 2 parts. Part 5 1 and Part 5 2.

 

And Part 5 1 will hit a billion and will end with a cliff-hanger. So that Part 5 2 will be split into 7 parts, one for each hour of the finale.

 

New characters introduced in Part 5 2 6 will span their own movie universe. The 4th movie in the franchise spawned from Part 5 2 6 will be spun off into a TV series. The new character in the Season 4 Episode 17 will then get there own spin-off. Rowling has all this figured out.

 

 

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9 hours ago, leeallen01 said:

 Supply and demand is the entire basis of the film industry.

This is true as far as it goes.

 

But just remember, for every 100+ million that a studio spends on some derivative rubbish that's 100+ million that won't be spent on something genuinely original.  And as long as we pay to go see rubbish that's what they'll keep giving us.

 

Think about the big franchises. Harry Potter? Got started as book. Middle Earth? Ditto. Star Wars? Marvel? Ditto. DC? Ditto. Game of Thrones? Ditto. Hunger Games? Ditto. Star Wars? Original cinema started 40 years ago. Star Trek? Original TV that started 50 years ago. Ditto for Aliens, Blade Runner, Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones...the list goes on and on and on.

 

So all that is great, but you keep pouring money into sequels and remakes and reboots and adaptations and there's very little left for original cinema. So the audience tells that studios that what they want is yet another version of superheroes being smashed into walls and cities being levelled so that's what they give us.

 

Say what you will about films like Gravity and Interstellar but at least they were genuine attempts to give us a wholly original cinematic experience.

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2 hours ago, Nick1066 said:

Thinks about the big franchises. Harry Potter? Got started as book. Middle Earth? Ditto. Star Wars? Marvel? Ditto. DC? Ditto. Game of Thrones? Ditto. Hunger Games? Ditto. Star Wars? Original cinema started 40 years ago. Star Trek? Original TV that started 50 years ago. Ditto for Aliens, Blade Runner, Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones...the list goes on and on and on.

 

I guess the "saving grace" here is Avatar...

 

I mean, I think Beasts is in a slightly greyer area because it's changing the setting, situation, and characters from anything in Potter. No Hogwarts, no Voldemort. At this point nobody could give a shit about Newt Scamander and Colin Farrell the Magical Policeman. If this first film wildly succeeds, it'll be off the back of hype and goodwill from HP and the initial promise of a great new story and characters in that universe, but if Rowling et al can make it to 5 films that maintain pop culture relevance with near-billion dollar grosses all the way, then it's fair to say that would be on its own esteem.

 

I get the gripes about the culture of adaptations, sequels, reboots etc and agree with these frustrations, but also have problems with blanket dismissals. It's nothing new in Hollywood, some of the greatest films ever made fall under this umbrella...the issue currently is that it's amplified in scale and at the expense of everything else. But at a certain point, when these things are actually good then it doesn't really matter where they came from. Does anybody really care that Mad Max: Fury Road was a sequel reboot?

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It's pretty obvious that the Fantastic Beasts films will eventually tie into the main Potter storyline, which is probably why they're already committing to 5 films. This article hints that Dumbledore and Grindelwald's pasts and struggles will be depicted, and it wouldn't surprise me if the films eventually gets all the way up to Voldemort's first rise to power.

 

Makes sense to me. I'm looking forward to them.

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3 minutes ago, BloodBoal said:

Exclusive preview of a scene from the fifth Fantastic Beasts film:

 

25ChanduTheMagician.gif

 

"He who shall not be named has returned!"

 

Hard cut to:

fin.jpg

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12 hours ago, Docteur Qui said:

It's pretty obvious that the Fantastic Beasts films will eventually tie into the main Potter storyline, which is probably why they're already committing to 5 films. This article hints that Dumbledore and Grindelwald's pasts and struggles will be depicted, and it wouldn't surprise me if the films eventually gets all the way up to Voldemort's first rise to power.

 

Makes sense to me. I'm looking forward to them.

I tend to agree with this, and by the time they get to film five (assuming they actually get there) the story will essentially be a Potter prequel.

 

Like with the new Star Wars films, the big test will be the second one. The first one is going to do well at the box office no matter what because it's new "Harry Potter" (so to speak). After that we'll see how interested in audience is. Five films is a 10-15 year project.

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Wait, this is going to be five films long?! I thought there were only three planned. 

 

EDIT: Oh, this was just announced.

 

Hmmm... I'm sure these will be entertaining films. But five more stories... Geez. Crazy they can come up with so many ideas. Now, Voldemort's rise could be interesting...

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I mean, I'd rather she know where she was actually going with it if they're really going to go all-in. I don't see how it's a bad thing that she has an idea what films 3-5 would be while writing film 2. It'd be embarrassing if the whole thing got canned after this year but at least this announcement came from the person who's writing everything and she doesn't make it sound like 5 is some arbitrary number...if anything it seems like it was more vague when it was only 3.  That's when I tend to cringe, when buzzwords like "trilogy" and "cinematic universe" are just thrown around with absolutely no indication that there are actual stories in mind. "We'll figure it out later."

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1 hour ago, BloodBoal said:

Do you honestly believe she has the story outline for all 4 sequels? It's more like probable she just has some main idea, with some random secondary ones, and plans to develop the story as they go along. That's probably all she has right now:

 

Fantastic Beasts 2: Scamander vs. The Mandicosaurus Rex. Newt meets a young wizard named Albus. They go on an adventure together to capture the famous Mandicosaurus Rex, that will lead them all the way to South America, and will help them learn more about the Maya Wizards.

 

Fantastic Beasts 3: Scamander vs. The Fire-Breathing Acothep. Newt goes in Egypt to capture the famous Fire-Breathing Acothep. During his adventure, he crosses path with Porpentina Goldstein, and finally asks for her hand in marriage.

 

Fantastic Beasts 4: Scamander vs. The Angry Wife. Newt is about to get married, but his old friend Albus arrives just in time to warn him about his wife: she's under the Imperio curse. A young wizard named Tom Riddle is behind all that, as he wants her for himself.

 

Fantastic Beasts 5: Scamander vs. The Greatest Wizard Of All Time. This is the final showdown between Newt Scamander and Tom Riddle. Scamander plans to lock Riddle in his magical briefcase, after the evil wizard killed his beloved wife. Will he manage to do that before Riddle gets to kill a mysterious young boy and his family?

 

 

Its not like she has previous with long arcing storings like a beloved seven book series behind her. 

 

Long ranging plots over over multiple stories is just something JK Rowling doesn't have any experience in. 

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5 hours ago, BloodBoal said:

And if she has, there are chances the final scripts will be vastly different in the end (because the director, the studio will want to change stuff, because an actor won't want to return, etc.), so why bother? 

 

I think that's kind of a weak argument and I don't think that's how a writer would see it. I'm just not sure she can even help herself from plotting an outline given the reams of random crap she's spewed out about Potter online since the books ended. 

 

It's all speculation at any rate, but it seems like your situation would only really make sense if she secretly couldn't give two shits about this project. And I don't think that's a given, or even really that likely.

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Oh yeah, I'm not saying it'll be any good! 

 

I also would say that it depends on what you mean by "vague." I definitely wouldn't be naive enough to think that she has all five movies perfectly and intricately outlined right now and that's how it'll stay forever. Film 3 ideas are going to end up in Film 5, Film 4 ideas will get thrown into Film 2, a lot of stuff will come much later while stuff she thinks is important at the moment will turn out to be unnecessary when she starts writing. That's how it works, and it's how it worked on Potter. But she finished the first screenplay more than a year ago and is apparently starting to show Yates the second one now, so I'm thinking she would have gathered a chunk of material at this point to where they're more than just synopses. She probably has a lot of notes which have been summarized into a general bulleted outline for 3-5 with major story beats, maybe like a page or two per movie -- perhaps they look like this -- or just one big one that she knows she's going to break up. Probably varying amounts of detail and "concreteness" in her head...the biggest things will stay the way they are, while the rest will inevitably change a little or entirely and it's all gonna be rearranged backwards and forwards. And I would think she has some idea where and how a couple film events might tie into Potter (bound to be some things that she had already had as backstory while developing the books) and I would guess that she probably knows what she wants out of the major characters, everything subject to change.

 

Also she already concocted a little backstory for Newt that she put into the Comic Relief book, and there's a reference to his wife who is featured in this movie. Knowing her she probably had like 5000 word essays about each of their favorite colors on her computer, so it's not like she was starting entirely from scratch.

 

12 hours ago, alextrombone94 said:

Do we know if they're definitely going to be "Fantastic Beasts" films or simply more films set around that time?

 

Curious about that too. I actually just realized that this movie takes place AFTER Newt has already done his globe-trotting ("Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them opens in 1926 as Newt Scamander has just completed a global excursion to find and document an extraordinary array of magical creatures.")

 

So I don't know, presumably they're all going to have him as the lead but to what end if he's already found the beasties? Yates also said that the second one takes place in "a different capital city" from NYC. Who knows if that means still in the US or elsewhere. Also in HP the Dumbledore/Grindelwald fight was in 1945 so I'm guessing she's building to that....20 year timespan? Will Newt haphazardly find himself playing a role in the Stock Market Crash, the Hindenburg Disaster, and WWII like a magical Forrest Gump?

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3 hours ago, BloodBoal said:

 

True.

 

Anyway, in the end, the real question should be: "Will the stories be any good, or is Rowling a one trick-pony?"

Her detective novels are supposed to be quite good (though I haven't read them).

 

That said, I tend to agree with you and I can't say I'm entirely optimistic about these films. I just think a huge part of the "Wizarding World's" charm are those characters, and I'm not convinced you can just plug other characters and situations into it and assume it will work. And the trailers just sort of look like a mess to me.

 

Rowling is prolific, however, and apparently does spend a lot of time thinking about this world, so I would not be surprised if she doesn't have at least of rough outline of where each of these films will go.

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3 hours ago, BloodBoal said:

Well, then we more or less agree. As I see it, it's more or less how I described it above, but a bit more detailed.

 

Right yeah, I can agree with all that haha. I think we were just a little confused at first between each other's ideas of what she might actually have at this point.

 

Basically for now, having not seen any of these films and hoping for something entertaining if not totally engrossing, I'm satisfied enough by her "properly plotted" claims and that she's got whatever she's got, apparently telling the actors developments about their characters in the sequels and things like that. I mean, on one hand it is definitely worrying to me that they did make this first one telling everybody "FANTASTIC BEASTS TRILOGY BITCHES!!!!" when there was apparently no story to begin with, but if they're going to try and commit to four sequels for an unreleased movie, then I feel like they damn well better have a plan now.

 

But I think it's obviously pretty hubristic for her to actually announce it before the thing is even a success. At least Cameron had the biggest movie in the world before planning his sequels, not sure if it's better or worse that he's got his four written all at once by different writers with shooting to occur simultaneously. I guess it'll be interesting to see how creatively successful either of these are.

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Well said.  And as indicated earlier, it all goes back those characters, their friendships, etc. The magic was important, of course, but there are a million books about magic. It's the characters that made that series, which is why I remain unconvinced about the new films. The whole thing feels a bit soulless to me. But we'll see, I don't want to pre-judge it (though admittedly I already have).

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One of the main things I appreciate in the Harry Potter books is their sense of humour.

Such a sense of good fun, in addition to, a more serious tone at times makes for tremendous contrast.

You get to care about the characters during the fun bits so that you still care about them when the not-so-fun hits.

 

I've found that really makes a world of difference. Make it just doom and gloom and I zone out and don't care about what happens.

But bring the occasional doom and gloom into something that is not like that at all and that does the trick quite nicely.

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4 hours ago, mrbellamy said:

Yeah, the worry I have with Beasts is that I liked the characters less in Yates's films than I did in the early ones and the books. For all the talk of "character development," these people were pretty glum and boring and nearly always cracked jokes without smiling...a smirk at most or a chuckle, or forced laughter like when Hermione topples over when Ron guesses Dumbledore is 150. Less and less they seemed to genuinely enjoy each other. It felt like Yates et al were so concerned with giving the films dramatic weight and making people really buy into the threat at all times that it was hard to get much joy or catharsis out of the thing. Even the happiest moments felt emotionally repressed, like the Harry/Hermione dance and Ron's return in Hallows 1.

 

David Yates is not an untalented filmmaker but it was that whole approach, especially in the last three. Lots of awkward tension between the characters, long holds on silent awkward moments, lighting and scoring a morose scene morosely and doing it all over and over again. Even when it was very effective, I'd periodically just think "Alright, enough of this." Last time I watched his movies I noticed that there are very few real acts of kindness from the characters in his movies. Or I should say "kind-feeling." When Harry rescues Draco in the Room of Requirement, it really means something in the book. In the film, it feels perfunctory because of how briskly it's staged and edited and how, frankly, Desplat just keeps on plowing right through it as an action beat. They didn't express a strong character moment IMO. When Harry asks Hermione to dance, there's a sense that he might be coming on to her. When Ron returns and saves Harry, Harry seems annoyed. Stuff like that.

 

So I don't know, we'll see about this one. I'm getting an overcast feeling from a lot of those clips in the trailers, especially from Colin Farrell and Katharine Waterston, but Newt seems appealing and the blonde girl looks like she's having a good time? So long as she doesn't exist for us and everybody onscreen to be constantly irritated with her presence.

This is really an excellent comment. Very perceptive. 

 

I agree that Yate's deliberate move to add weight and tension to the films, in increasing doses, robbed them of much of their joy, wonder and mirth. To a certain extent this was necessary, after all the stakes are getting higher and these kids are getting older. And as you point out what Yates does do, he does effectively. In point of fact I like his Potter films, all of them. But would we care about it all, or any of these people, if we hadn't gotten to know them already? These films exist as a supplement to the books, and even people who haven't read the books, I believe, allow for that and forgive certain story lapses they might not in another film. And since people are more concerned with what Harry, Ron and Hermione are doing than how many Horcruxes have been destroyed and who Babbling Bathlida Prunebottom is, they just sort of go with it.

 

But now instead of fresh faced Harry, Ron and Hermione being our eyes to this new magical world we see already odd looking Eddie Raymer entering a world we already know and have certain expectations of. So the question is, what will the overriding feeling be?  Excitement at what's new, or missing what's not there?  Why should we care about any of those fantastic beasts in his suitcase when we only cared about the Hippogriff because Harry was flying it.

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2 hours ago, Nick1066 said:

I agree that Yate's deliberate move to add weight and tension to the films, in increasing doses, robbed them of much of their joy, wonder and mirth. To a certain extent this was necessary, after all the stakes are getting higher and these kids are getting older. And as you point out what Yates does do, he does effectively. In point of fact I like his Potter films, all of them. But would we care about it all, or any of these people, if we hadn't gotten to know them already? 

 

Yeah, it's quite a subtle thing but there was just something about the tone or performances or something that made me start to feel like I was resisting the characters after 2.5 hours. Something would start to come between me and them.

 

I've been doing these John Williams rescorings for fun and I found this one kind of interesting for the change I feel it gives to Lupin's character. Wonder what you make of this.

 

 

 

To me without the music, obviously very appropriate for the situation but he's extremely intense here and always felt quite harsh, distant, remote to me. Quite powerful but I can't say I identify with him because you have no idea what he's doing, the scene feels like it's communicating more about the shock of watching this unexpected outburst, really you're watching it from the others' point of view, which is a valid choice.

 

With the War Horse music, obviously it's going to soften the atmosphere but in terms of character and performance, I'm not sure if I can put my finger on what it is but I feel like it draws me into Lupin's state of mind more, he appears less paranoid and more just frightened, perhaps, and a little warmer to Harry after the outburst. Is that fair to say?

 

I'm not saying music would have necessarily been the better choice in this instance overall, there are plenty of other factors, but I just think it is a cumulative effect where if you spend too much time in that kind of cold, raw state you can lose subjective identification with the characters, (if the writing, performances, and visuals aren't always connecting) whereas if the strings are brought out too often, you could also just as easily lose any semblance of reality. And I think Yates did tend to lean toward a more objective POV in his filmmaking -- whether it was through the score, performances, framing (no over-the-shoulders in this scene) etc. -- which I'm not sure was always successful or the right choice for this material.

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1 hour ago, mrbellamy said:

 

Yeah, it's quite a subtle thing but there was just something about the tone or performances or something that made me start to feel like I was resisting the characters after 2.5 hours. Something would start to come between me and them.

 

I've been doing these John Williams rescorings for fun and I found this one kind of interesting for the change I feel it gives to Lupin's character. Wonder what you make of this.

 

 

 

The Lupin scene is my favorite of your re-scores.  It really helps to ease that scene's awkward sourness (you could argue that the sourness was intentional but it just doesn't work).  

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3 minutes ago, Not Mr. Big said:

That scene's omission was a major missed opportunity.  Probably Yates' decision.  

They literally had to omit it with the torture scene that was heavily edited the first cut they submitted received an R rating. He discussed that at the press conference. 

 

Light and fluffy, Jesus Christ. 

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50 minutes ago, Dcasey98 said:

This sounds like it comes from someone who hasn't a clue what the Wizarding world is about, and I doubt you know a lot about it. 

 

JK Rowling, in the first book alone, included an 11 year old boy burning a man to death with his bare hands, a double murder, tales of war and torture, a man being possessed by another, his head grafted onto the back of his head, the consumption of animals for power...the books are dark. The source material is certainly darker than any entertainment brand today. Star Wars and Marvel are both "fluffy and light" in comparison to Potter. 

 

Again, I really can't lay a finger on what exactly you mean by "how little was actually there" when they turned dark. They were dark from the beginning, and it was apparent she was building up to something. You keep on inventing your own weird names and mentioning organizations of Quidditch leagues, except...since when has that been the limits of Rowling's political relevancy when she's literally written about war crimes, geonocide, mass murder, mudblood death camps, kangaroo courts, torture, assassinations, human trafficking, prohibition, the murder of children...like, at least try to care. Your justification for calling it "light and fluffy" seems like a mindless attempt to trivialize the series. This woman wrote an 8 installment series about a boy coming to terms with the increasingly violent world around him and the losses he had to go through to mirror her own experience with the death of her mother, suicidal thoughts, and depression and it's told really quite excellently. The fact that an entire generation clung to it more voraciously than any generation has before to a story, and have come to Rowling to tell her how her books got them out of depression, gave them the strength to confront abusers, accompany their child as they died from cancer...to say it has no substance and is light and fluffy is an insulting, patronizing, bald faced lie, and it flies in the face of everything the books stood for. 

 

The books never attempted to be "light and fluffy" outside of a few irrelevant world building details. They were dark books. No ones claiming it's the greatest piece of literature ever, but for highly commercial fantasy, it's really quite mature, and lying about its tone and patronizing it to disclude it from the creative conscious is really disrespectful. This is the forum that will praise Star Wars and Jurrassic Park, both of which are much lighter and fluffier than JK Rowling's Wizarding World, (particularly the former: Ewoks, Jar Jar Binks, farting aliens, come on people,) so I don't really understand the voracious hatred and dismissal of her work. 

 

Basically, the Potter stories are dark and tragic. They're not light and fluffy in any significant way, and you're not going to find many people who will agree. The "heart of the story" as Jo claims, is the scene where Harry walks into the forest and uses the resurrection stone to confront the murdered loved ones he's lost, and use them to comfort him will he died for the community that took him in and gave him a family. Cursed Child sees him bonding tearfully with his son at the gravesites of everyone he lost. And at the end, he built a family. Something that was ripped away from him at age 1. For something so commercial, that really is quite mature and tragic. 

 

Cultural elitism doesn't get people anywhere. Sorry.

 

 

Ok dude, I'm sitting here in an Irish Quidditch tshirt. I will be wearing a full screen accurate Ravenclaw costume to a work fancy dress on Friday. I spent this morning in the cinema watching DH1. I own a stupidly large number of copies of each of the books and films. 

 

And I'm telling you that you need to relax a bit. 

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