Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #304, Fantastically Spoiler Free
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Andrew Sims: This is MuggleCast, your Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts podcast covering everything about J.K. Rowling’s wizarding world. Welcome to MuggleCast Episode 304. Micah, Eric, and I are here. Not just here; we are here.
Eric Scull: We’re really here.
Andrew: We are present together in New York City.
Eric: We are holding hands.
Andrew: We are not doing that.
Micah Tannenbaum: No, we’re not.
Andrew: Yes, Micah would like to clarify that right off the bat.
Micah: Hey, look.
Eric: There we go. Yeah, we held hands there just for a moment. [laughs]
Andrew: That was weird. And I’m the gay one.
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Andrew: So we’re here in my hotel room. We saw Fantastic Beasts last night. This is going to be our spoiler-free installment of MuggleCast.
Eric: Yes, yes.
Andrew: We are doing a spoiler episode as well. Sorry, J.K. Rowling. Sorry, #Wormtaily supporters.
Micah: But not until the movie comes out.
Eric: Not until the… yeah.
Andrew: Oh, right. Well, yeah, I guess. Yeah, all right. Yes, you’re right. Okay. Never mind.
Eric: But this one will be safe to listen to in your earholes as soon as it comes out.
Micah: I’m surprised you could be in the same city as J.K. Rowling.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, and not get kicked out? Yeah, no. I don’t think she’s mad at me. We’re not going to get into this.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: I did wear my #KeepTheSecrets button last night.
Eric: Oh, a silent protest? [laughs]
Andrew: I tweeted her. She didn’t reply back.
News
Andrew: So we’re going to start with some news – it’s Fantastic Beasts news, of course – and then we’re going to talk about this event, and then we’re going to get into our spoiler-free Fantastic Beasts thoughts.
Eric: Yes.
Andrew: So first of all, the big news is that Johnny Depp has been cast as Grindelwald for the Fantastic Beasts series. This surprised everyone for multiple reasons. First of all, he’s an American actor playing an Eastern European guy, so that’s kind of weird by Harry Potter movie standards. Two, people have mixed feelings on Johnny Depp for a couple of reasons, one of them being that he just went through a messy divorce with his wife because she alleged that he beat her up.
Eric: Well, during which she alleged that there was domestic abuse.
Andrew: Yes, yeah. And so many people are very uncomfortable that Warner Bros. and J.K. Rowling would do this, and then J.K. Rowling and the movie crew were trying to explain why they cast him, and they were like, “Oh, he’s a great actor. That’s all that matters.”
Eric: Yeah, yeah. Here’s Yates’s quote, David Yates: “Johnny Depp is a real artist.” I’m going to try and do this in my David Yates voice. [imitating David Yates] “He’s created several characters who have really resonated in a popular culture. He’s a really brilliant, brilliant actor. We were excited about seeing what he would do with this guy, the character. He’s fearless; he’s imaginative; he’s ambitious. We thought he would do something fun and special. So we went for him, purely on that selfish basis. We don’t care if he’s famous or not famous. We just know he’s interesting.” So it really seems like they’ve beelined away from the controversy, or come in the angle of “It doesn’t matter to us.”
Andrew: Well, and he also later in that… I don’t think you just said the part.
Eric: Oh.
Andrew: He said, “You know, sometimes people say weird things about you one week.”
Eric: Oh, God.
Andrew: That was such a bad response to that.
Micah: Well, I mean, if Trump can be president, then Grindelwald can be played by Johnny Depp.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Well, I don’t think either should be happening, but I would like to speak to…
Micah: Trump?
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: … the controversy, because I think that it’s important that the fandom come together and hold Warner Bros. accountable, and essentially do what they’ve been doing, which is reaching out, tweets, articles about if this does or does not represent a dramatic shift in good taste from what we’re used to from J.K. Rowling, things like that. And it’s important, first of all, that the allegations are just that. The domestic abuse case was actually settled without… he hasn’t been taken off to jail. So it’s really a question of, what do we want out of Harry Potter? And what do we want out of our movies? Are we really saying they can’t cast him because he’s an abuser? Are we saying they shouldn’t cast him because we don’t like him?
Andrew: Well, here’s why they cast him, in my opinion; this is what struck me originally. He is a big movie star who can bring people to the box office. I think this was a total box office move. It wasn’t necessarily, “Oh, he’s the perfect Grindelwald,” like they’re saying. They want to increase the chances for box office success in the sequels, where he’s going to have a big role.
Micah: Right.
Andrew: We know he does kind of appear in Fantastic Beasts 1. We’ve confirmed this already. You see the back of his head; we saw it on the trailer. But in the future movies, when they can really market him, put him in the promotional material, that’s going to draw people in. People love him for Pirates of the Caribbean. I’ve seen people very excited by this news.
Micah: Right. Well, speaking of Pirates of the Caribbean, though, the first trailer, I believe, did not include him in any way. He was completely omitted from the trailer.
Eric: Well, they were worried he would be too raunchy. [laughs]
Andrew: Oh, right. Yeah, you’re talking about for the upcoming Pirates movie?
Micah: Right, and so my question would be how early on was he cast? Was this news already public at the time, or had they already cast him? Had they done some filming? I mean, I don’t really know, but I feel like maybe once he had already signed on the dotted line, there was no going back, and so there’s that aspect of it. And I agree with you about the star power factor. Fantastic Beasts… and we’ll get into this, but the actors who are in this movie, I really enjoyed, but I do still think in order for it to sustain over five movies, it’s going to need some big names in there, and it’s not carrying… sure, it is carrying some Potter, right, in terms of its allure and people wanting to come in and see it, but Potter was based on books that we all loved, and that’s why we went to see it. It didn’t matter who was in the films. I feel like now it matters, at least to some people, who’s going to be in the movie.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s a good point. Why this also worries me is because if they want a big name for Grindelwald, they’re probably going to want a big name for Dumbledore.
Eric: Yeah, and that’s not something that I’m interested in at all.
Andrew: Right, and that is a character you have to take extreme care with, because that is a legendary character. People already know somebody… two people who played Dumbledore, so they’re kind of replacing Dumbledore, sort of like with Star Wars. They cast the young Han Solo and the young Lando.
Eric: Lando.
Andrew: J.K. Rowling, by the way, did say she has somebody in mind she’d really like to play Dumbledore. She wouldn’t reveal it in case they don’t get him, but…
Eric: I hope it’s Jared Harris, honestly. I think I’ve said this before. I mean, Jared Harris is only two years older than Johnny Depp, actually. They’re 55 and 53. Can you believe Johnny Depp is only 53, by the way? It just seems like he’s been making movies and he’s been everywhere forever.
Andrew: I’m going to say something really rude: He has not aged well at all. Dude is ugly.
Eric: [laughs] Well, he plays these characters that are so… you never tell what’s real, right?
Andrew: Yeah, I guess.
Eric: I mean, crazy faces, crazy eyes… you know his eyes aren’t really yellow, right? But no, the whole Johnny Depp thing for me… getting butts into seats, I get it but I don’t, because on one hand, I really thought that this movie would… while it’s true that the main cast, the four characters… although one of them is Oscar-winning Eddie Redmayne, the other three are lesser known, much lesser known. And I think that… I was looking to this film as like, “Oh, it’s going to prop up…. these actors are going to gain in fame, and then by the next movie or the one after that, they’re going to really be the draw, the box office draw.”
Andrew: Right, right.
Eric: And this film had so much going for it – screenwritten by J.K. Rowling, the same creative team is back – that I didn’t think they’d go the route of, “Oh, we need a big name actor to tease so that people come,” but they went that way. And it’s like, “Well, what can we do?”
Micah: I think because they can now too. That’s not to say that they couldn’t before, but I feel like they had a very strict set of guidelines that they were operating by with the Potter films, right? Only casting British actors. Now I feel like there is more of that star power. And you mentioned Eddie Redmayne, but you also have Colin Farrell…
Eric: Oh, and Colin Farrell.
Micah: … who’s very well known. Jon Voight, who’s very well known, makes an appearance in the movie. So this is not lacking for star power.
Andrew: Right.
Micah: And like you said, now I’m interested to see, heading into Movie 2, once we get that casting news on Dumbledore, what the response is going to be.
Eric: So who would be a Johnny Depp type that they could cast as Dumbledore?
Andrew: Ew, no! Oh, you mean just big?
Eric: What? Yeah, I just meant big.
Andrew: I thought you meant… I don’t know what you meant.
Eric: No, okay, okay.
Andrew: Like a terrible person. I don’t know. And here’s the problem for me: We know that Dumbledore has feelings towards Grindelwald, and they are going to kiss, I think, at some point, right?
Eric: Yeah, I think it’s conceivable.
Andrew: My head cannot accept Johnny Depp kissing Dumbledore.
Eric: In a romantic role at all?
Andrew: In a homosexual, romantic way. [laughs] It’s just so weird to me. It kind of turns me off. But on the other hand, J.K. Rowling will be introducing at least one gay character in a major way in a major film, something we haven’t seen in Star Wars yet, Lord of the Rings, these other major franchises. Yet – Star Wars could go there with the trilogy. So I applaud them for that; I think that’s great. And maybe this transitions into our next subject, which is that the five movies… if you guys are okay with moving on. Do you have any picks for Dumbledore?
Eric: Besides Jared Harris, yeah, no. I think Jared Harris would do it really well. He’s on The Crown now; he plays King George. But really, he’s Richard Harris’s son, Richard Harris being my favorite Dumbledore, and he looks and sounds just like Richard did when Richard was younger. And I don’t know; I think it would be a nice way to pay tribute to that character, too, because… or to that actor, to that portrayal. I know it was pre-Yates, but it wasn’t pre-Heyman, and I really think if Jared were comfortable filling his father’s shoes, it would be a really, really nice way for… especially for continuity as well, tying the worlds together and tying the films together visually without much trying.
Andrew: Okay, so J.K. Rowling did reveal that the five Fantastic Beasts movies are going to span 19 years, which does confirm that this is going to end with…
Eric: I didn’t see this news!
Andrew: Really?
Eric: Yeah, I missed it.
Andrew: Yeah, so 1926 plus 19 equals…
Eric: 1945.
Andrew: So yeah, it’ll end in Dumbledore and Grindelwald’s duel, ending that global wizarding war, which I learned doesn’t actually have a name. Other people just refer to it as the global wizarding war.
Eric: It will have a name. She’ll come up with something.
Andrew: Yeah, for sure.
Eric: That news is so interesting… well, even just the idea that these Beasts films were a lead-in to the greater conflict with Grindelwald – which has been revealed through everything that Yates and Heyman have been saying the last three weeks – is really an interesting thing to me, because I’m trying to decide if it steps on the toes of Harry Potter, of like, was Voldemort really that badass of a villain? Because now we’re seeing… we’re going to learn all about how badass Grindelwald was, and if he has powers that Voldemort doesn’t, if he shoots out cooler spells – which they’re no doubt going to want to make him do, with new CGI and new techniques – then really, what does that…? Does it make Voldemort less scary as a villain if they end up spending more time making Grindelwald look cooler? And Dumbledore couldn’t defeat Voldemort, but was it because he was just worn out from defeating an even scarier wizard in Grindelwald? What does it say about Voldemort that Grindelwald is going to be the new big bad?
Andrew: Yeah. Well, the other thing is that – and J.K. Rowling admitted this herself – it’s really ambitious to tell a 19-year story over just five movies. [laughs]
Eric: That’s true too. Now it kind of worries me that, again, they’ll be summarizing or montaging or something in future films, which fortunately… I don’t want to spoil anybody, but I didn’t seem to catch any of that in this film, so it felt good.
Andrew: Maybe there will be two- or three-year time jumps in between the movies.
Eric: That would make… yeah.
Andrew: Because things are fixed, things are calm for a while, and then Grindelwald stirs shit up.
Eric: Makes an appearance, yeah.
Andrew: Excuse my French.
Micah: Yeah. And one thing I think they can do is take us back in time a little bit to learn more about the Dumbledores.
Andrew: Yes.
Micah: Information that was left out of Deathly Hallows that we obviously read in the book, but now we get the opportunity to see on screen. We get to meet maybe Kendra, we get to meet Ariana…
Andrew: Yes.
Eric: Aberforth! They’re going to recast Aberforth!
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: And his goat.
Eric: And his goat!
Micah: It’ll be a baby goat.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Who do you want to play the goat? Enough of Dumbledore. Who do you want to play the goat? You don’t have to answer that.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Eric: Well, Micah knows a goat named Rocky, who he’s very close with.
Andrew: He’s very, very clean.
Micah: And also the quest for the Deathly Hallows.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Eric: That’s huge. Oh, wow, that’s huge. They’re going to clearly have to come into play.
Andrew: Yeah, so I’m very excited about that. I think J.K. Rowling said that… when they announced it was a trilogy, she said calling it a trilogy was a placeholder, because they wanted to let people know that it is going to be multiple films, but she didn’t know at the time how many films it would be. And then as she started writing, she saw an arc to five, and so yeah, now to be told over 19 years. Kind of funny that we’re seeing that number 19 again. 19 years later, the Epilogue, Cursed Child, the eighth story, 19 years later… and here we are with another 19 year. I wonder if that was intentional.
Micah: She feels comfortable with that number.
Eric: Yeah, right?
Andrew: Evidently so. I mean, this isn’t a spoiler, I don’t think; in Fantastic Beasts, there’s at least one reference to the number 12. That got me giddy.
Eric: I must have missed it.
Andrew: Oh, really?
Eric: We’ll talk about it later.
Andrew: A family of 12. There is a family of 12.
Eric: Oh, that’s right. There is, isn’t it?
Andrew: Yeah. I loved that, because that brought me back to the original series real quick.
Eric: Yeah, yeah.
Andrew: No references to seven, though. Spoiler alert.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: Who said this was spoiler-free?
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. So I think that’s all we wanted to talk about news-wise.
Lumos Charity Event
Andrew: We’ll get in now to last night, November 12. So this screening, we bought tickets for; it was a charity event to benefit Lumos, J.K. Rowling’s foundation helping institutionalized children around the world. It was really interesting. It started with Eddie Redmayne interviewing J.K. Rowling about Lumos, and it was really interesting to hear J.K. Rowling in her own words speaking about how she became so passionate about helping these children, and then why she decided to fund or start up Lumos.
Eric: Yeah, to hear her tell it, she was just… was she at home? Was she on a train? She was reading the paper and came across this horrifying photograph of a child in a cage, she said, essentially in a cage, and she was made not comfortable and moved to turn the page, but had sort of a stroke of… she just had a heavy feeling that, well, actually, if she was that disturbed by the image, she should read the article. And she said the article was worse, and it talked about this cause, and she decided that it was something that she needed to actually actively work to fix.
Andrew: Right.
Micah: She was pregnant at the time, which I think probably influenced her decision to not just turn the page and read the article. But yeah, I think all of us now have heard a number of times her speak very passionately about this cause, and I think that it was a great event to benefit. To hear her talking that passionately about it with Eddie Redmayne was just… I think a lot of people will walk out of there and take the action items that she gave, in terms of either donating, if it’s a cause that you feel passionate about, or just educating other people on orphanages and the damage that they do to young children and their development.
Andrew: One of the key things she said was, “Don’t donate to orphanages, even though that’s super thoughtful. You’re trying. You mean well by it. Don’t donate to the orphanages; donate to…” And she used the difference…
Eric: Community…
Micah: NGOs.
Andrew: But what is that?
Micah: Non-governmental organization.
Andrew: Okay, yeah. But she said community-based organization.
Eric: Yeah, the problem is… so there’s something in the system of orphanages across the world that is corrupt, and actually donating to orphanages, they misuse the funds, and it ends up being a for-profit child trafficking operation.
Andrew: Right. There’s corruption within these orphanages.
Eric: Yeah, and so what Lumos is – and there are others – she said they’re boots-on-the-ground experts dealing with how to stop the corruption. So you’re helping these children, you’re putting these children back with their families, you’re doing all sorts of that, but also, they are making sure that the money is going to where it… because what did she say? There was some form in the hundreds of millions of dollars that people are donating, and there’s a percentage of that people donate to orphanages because they want to help children, but it’s actually working against the good, because these orphanages are corrupt. And so places like Lumos…
Andrew: Right.
Micah: And if you noticed – well, we can jump back and talk about the Potter series – it’s no coincidence that Tom Riddle grew up in an orphanage, and there’s also a bit of that in Fantastic Beasts. Won’t give anything away, but…
Eric: Not about Tom Riddle, though, just to be clear.
Micah: No, not about Tom Riddle, but about orphanages and treatment of children. And when you go see the movie, you’ll know what we’re talking about.
Eric: I just love to see J.K. Rowling… and Eddie too. Eddie had the right weight and gravitas to be talking with her. He’s got a young child himself. Hearing him sort of be… he was very reflective and very… he was a great counterpoint to her point, just being there, asking her, relating with her. I really loved Eddie. But hearing her talk about just the idea that she changed all our lives as children, and wrote the bestselling children’s book series of all time, and is now still dedicating all of this time and energy and creating this foundation that works and helps children, actually helps, that it’s a life’s pursuit of sorts for J.K.
Andrew: So then we moved into talking about Fantastic Beasts. And by the way, Eddie Redmayne did a really great job moderating this. How lucky were they to have a lead star who also spoke very passionately about Lumos alongside J.K. Rowling? She said a couple interesting things. So weirdly, the discussion about Fantastic Beasts, they had before the movie, so they weren’t able to spoil us. That was a little disappointing.
Eric: Yeah, a little bit.
Andrew: Although she did come out again at the end and asked everybody what they thought of the movie, so that was cool.
Eric: Standing ovation.
Andrew: Yeah. She did say that her script, when she wrote the script – it was her first screenplay, as we all know – it was very detailed, way more detailed than a normal script.
Eric: Surprise, surprise.
Andrew: Well, yeah, right. She said she wrote… she was joking, but she said she wanted to write nine pages on a building or something like that. And I hope all this detail carries over into the script book that they are releasing alongside the movie this Friday, because if they cut that out, that’ll be a major disappointment.
Eric: Oh, there’s no reason to cut it out, right? It’s like, so long as it was the final draft of the script, they have no reason to cut any of that.
Andrew: Right.
Eric: I think it’ll provide all of that extra insight that we’re looking for.
Andrew: Yeah, this is going to help us discuss on the podcast.
Eric: Oh, 100%.
Andrew: So I’m really excited to get my hands on that script book. What else did she say? Oh, she also talked about… she said, “I’m quite interested in normality, because I don’t think such things exist.”
Eric: That was really interesting, right? She quoted her own… the first lines of the Harry Potter series, which I was like, “I’m glad you… I’m surprised you remember that.”
Andrew: I know, I’m surprised she remembers it too.
Eric: [laughs] That’s true.
Andrew: How much of the books does she have memorized, I wonder?
Eric: Probably a lot. Yeah, but it starts with “Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.” And she’s talking about outsiders, because Eddie asked her the question; he was like, “Your heroes, your characters, they’re all outsiders. Why are you drawn to outsiders? Why do you think that is?” And that was her response; it was just, “I think we’re all…”
Andrew: Because nobody’s normal.
Eric: Nobody’s normal.
Andrew: And you see that in the movie. There’s a line, I think, with Jacob and Queenie, and Queenie says something along the lines of… or no, no, Jacob says, “There’s tons of guys like me out there,” and Queenie says, “No, there’s not,” and that reminded me of that.
Eric: Yeah, that was a great moment.
Micah: I mean, given everything that’s happened here in the US in the last week or so, I thought that that was a very powerful statement for her to make in terms of…
Eric: Yeah, it was super subtle and very effective.
Fantastic Beasts spoiler-free review
Andrew: So I guess let’s get into the movie then.
Micah: All right.
Andrew: So this is going to be spoiler-free, so we have to figure out what we’re going to say.
Micah: The beasts were fantastic. [laughs]
Eric: The beasts were fantastic!
Andrew: I think everybody going into this is a little hesitant, because this is a freaking Harry Potter spinoff. It’s weird to say. It’s a Harry Potter prequel, but J.K. Rowling is writing it. I was very pleased by it. I need to see it again before making final judgment, but it was fun. There’s a lot of cool magic. J.K. Rowling introduces several new elements into canon that people are going to be talking about for a while. There are at least… I think I’ve said on the show that people were trying to… asking me if I wanted to hear the big spoiler, because it did get out there, the big twist. And I said no, and I’m glad I didn’t, because everybody in the theater was like, “Aughhh!”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: And then they cheered, which we’ll talk about.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Andrew: We’ll talk about that on the spoiler episode, because there’s a lot to talk about there. It was Madison, one of our listeners, who was there, and patron. Hey, Madison. Finally getting her shout-out that she wanted. She said to me last night she liked it better than any of the eight Harry Potter movies, and I was like, [gasps] “Why?”
Eric: Well, do you not?
Andrew: Do I like it better than any of the eight Potter movies?
Eric: Yeah, no, that’s a serious question.
Andrew: Well, she said she liked it better than the eight Potter movies because there’s nothing to compare it to.
Eric: That’s exactly how I felt after watching it. Well, while watching it. I was just like, “You know, there’s something wholly freeing about not…” As much as we want to retain objectivity when going into these movies, and we try not to constantly think in the back of our minds, “This is right, this is wrong, this is a good version of this character, this is a terrible choice that they made,” we almost can’t get away with it if you’ve read the books and you’re passionate about them, and it’s hard to do. This one, with no book to go on, we could really… I think for the first time, I felt that I could enjoy a film or not enjoy a film based solely on its merit, solely on the film itself. And so when I came out of it, and there’s scenes that I love and there’s elements that I love, I feel like I own that love more because it’s not constantly being ebbed at or etched away by how well it is of an adaptation.
Micah: I agree. I agree with Madison, and I agree with Eric. There’s no preconceived notion coming into the film other than it’s part of the larger wizarding world, but there’s no expectations either, and I think that’s what makes it so easy to sit there and actually enjoy the movie for what it is. You’re not putting your mind into analysis mode like you would if you were going in and seeing any of the eight Potter films, and like you said, it was refreshing not to do that because… and it’s the case for any book series. Look at Game of Thrones. When you go in and you watch a television show, you’re analyzing it, comparing it back to the books.
Andrew: Right.
Micah: And I definitely agree with what was said, though. I really enjoyed it. I thought it was entertaining from start to finish; I thought the story was awesome. And I’m interested where it’s going to go now, because I feel like there’s so many things that she’s going to be able to tie together between the story that she’s telling now and, I believe, Harry’s story, and there are going to be those moments, like what you were saying in the theater, where people just do that collective intake. I feel like there’s probably a lot more of those moments to come.
Andrew: Yeah. I thought, actually, the beasts were the least interesting part…
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: … because there was such… because, like you say, there’s things coming in the future movies that were so interesting to me, the beasts kind of fell by the wayside. And I don’t mean that necessarily in a bad way, but it was interesting how Newt – I don’t think this is a spoiler – would use the beasts to his advantage to fight, sort of. And I thought that was very interesting, and that kind of explains how Newt will remain relevant in the films to come, to fight, maybe, Grindelwald.
Eric: Yeah, that element, for sure, of it. I think… what I liked about it is… you know how you get in a Potter story, you have the average, “This is the year of school that we’re in; this is the challenges that this year faces”?
Andrew: Right.
Eric: And then you have whatever Voldemort is doing as a counterpoint. So in this film, you have what’s going on with the larger wizarding world in 1926 – which is most of the movie – and then you have Newt dealing with his beasts, learning more about his character and his relationship to them, learning how much he loves them, and him finding them as well when they escape. And so I thought that… I liked how many beasts there were, and how much screen time they all got, considering how ridiculously expensive it must be to put any of the beasts on screen with all that CGI. I thought it was a good balance.
Micah: I think you raised a good point, though, that this is more of an adult movie. It is not… and yeah, the Potter films progressed, they got more mature as time went on, and the characters aged, the actors aged, but this felt right from the start. I mean, you’re in a speakeasy at one point, and there’s just much more mature content, and you get the sense of foreboding literally right off the bat, right? That there’s a darkness to the story that’s about to be told. Whereas if you start off Sorcerer’s Stone, as you progress through the movie, it’s a little bit happy-go-lucky, right? It’s Christmas at Hogwarts; it’s like, “Hey, you’re being introduced to the wizarding world.”
Andrew: Right, there’s a stark difference.
Micah: Whereas this…
Eric: Yeah, America is a dark place.
Andrew: Well, and they… yeah, at the beginning there’s this newspaper montage to introduce you to what’s going on in the world, and there’s cool references. That alone… first of all, the WB logo. Seeing that, it was like, “Oh, crap. This is happening.” [laughs]
Eric: “Oh, this again. This thing.”
Andrew: Yeah, people cheered during that part.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: That was one of the big applause lines.
Eric: Couldn’t even hear the music. [laughs]
Andrew: Yeah. And then you see the newspapers, and you see a Hogwarts headline. You even see the Ilvermorny crest in one of the newspapers…
Eric: I missed that.
Andrew: … and I can’t wait to see if it’s the original or the new version.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Because at first glance, it looked like the original to me, but I have to think that they updated it with the non-plagiarized version of the crest. [laughs]
Eric: Geez. But all of the characters… this film was incredibly well cast, I felt. It just seemed like they got the right actors to play the roles that they needed, and no two characters are alike, which I guess that’s true of Potter too, but in this film in particular – again, because it’s not an adaptation – I was really noticing how unique each of the actors were in their characters, how unique in the different purposes that each of the characters are serving to the plot. It’s all… J.K. Rowling managed to come up with seven or eight or nine really strong characters that are all in this interweaving tale of what’s happening in New York.
Micah: Yeah, you could tell why, at the very beginning, she was so passionate about these characters. She talked at length about wanting to tell Newt’s story, and as she created these characters, I guess it formulated in her mind that she wanted to do more.
Eric: Well, those were her closing remarks too, right? Like, [imitating J.K. Rowling] “I think you know now why it’s going to be five films.” This is not my best J.K. Rowling impression, but she said, “Because I love these characters, don’t you?” Or she said something like that, and everybody clapped.
Andrew: Yeah. I went to the bathroom as soon as it ended.
Eric: Oh, yeah. [laughs] Yeah, she asked the crowd… she was like, “Well, now you see why I want more films…”
Andrew: You’ve got to do five.
Eric: “… because I love these characters that you’ve just met.”
Andrew: Yeah, she said that before the event, too, that she fell in love with these characters. And by the end, I got more emotional than I thought I would.
Micah: Did you like the ending? I mean, without giving anything away?
Andrew: Yeah, I loved the ending. Well, except for one element, which we’ll talk about in the spoiler episode.
Eric: Yeah, yeah.
Andrew: But I loved the ending of those four, of the core four. I think my favorite character might be Jacob; he was definitely the funniest. He’s the Muggle, played by Dan Fogler. Very funny. He has very touching scenes at the end that made me kind of tear up. I was getting emotional. I had to lean on Micah’s shoulder and dry my eyes.
[Micah laughs]
Eric: Yeah, he definitely brought the emotional weight. And I love – again, without spoiling – that Newt Scamander… I was looking forward to it for a long time, because he’s a Hufflepuff, and Hufflepuff finally gets its due, finally gets its day in a lead actor. And he’s just so oddball-y and quirky the entire film that they had to separate the emotional weight and put it into Jacob. It’s like, you have two characters that are these great, strong leads, but it’s like, for the emotional stuff you go to Jacob, and then for the quirk, you go to Newt.
Andrew: Right, right.
Eric: I don’t know.
Andrew: Newt was very quirky. I liked the character that Eddie and J.K. Rowling developed.
Eric: It had to be hard to capture. Were there limits to his quirkiness? When will he directly answer a question? When will he not?
Andrew: Yeah. There’s this one scene where he’s dealing with a beast. I can’t imagine what filming that was like.
Eric: Oh, God. I can see the gifs right now.
Andrew: Yeah, it was ridiculous. That must have been a fun day on set.
Eric: Yeah, yeah.
Andrew: Yeah, and Newt’s suitcase was very cool. We spoke about this before; we figured it out with the trailers. You can go inside Newt’s suitcase. Very funny.
Eric: So cool.
Andrew: And I was counting on J.K. Rowling to remind us of why we love the magic, the quirky side of the magic, and she does introduce several new elements that are quirky, that are surprising. In the bar, there’s a certain drink. That was fun. Gigglewater. Just even seeing Jacob go down in the suitcase, stuff like that. And the suitcase surprises you too.
Eric: That was what I liked, the stuff that built on magic we knew about, like the bigger-on-the-inside type stuff. And there were some callbacks. There was some continuity with magic from the earlier films.
Andrew: Or call-forwards.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: The film does take some risks – I said this on Twitter – I was surprised by. There are, to put it in a spoiler-free way, permanent changes that I thought… I mean, some characters die, and I was surprised that they would die in the first movie, because they could have developed the characters more, but they decided not to. And I think most studios… if you look at a Marvel movie, they don’t kill the Avengers. They keep them all around.
Eric: Well, now you’re worrying people. Like, “Which one of the four main good guys is going to die?”
Andrew: Oh, no, no. It’s nothing like that.
Eric: I’m not sure that whoever you think is dead might be dead.
Andrew: Maybe. So my point is, with Marvel, they don’t kill any of these characters, but then it’s like, “Where’s the stakes? If nobody’s dying, where’s the stakes?” Whereas with this, there are stakes, I think. Yeah, so I was pleased by that, because I don’t think most studios… I think we heard very early on – I assume this was true – that J.K. Rowling had the final word on every element of the screenplay. The studio couldn’t go to her and be like, “F you, we don’t like this.”
Eric: “Here are our notes,” yeah.
Andrew: Like is how normally it happens. I’m sure the studio sent her notes, but it was up to her to actually implement those or not. I’m sure that was her deal with them, because she doesn’t have to do this for them.
Eric: She called them and said… well, what was it about the option? They were excising the option, or they…? Because they bought the movie rights to Fantastic Beasts and to Quidditch Through the Ages ages and ages and ages ago, but they had laid dormant. And they called her up… she told the story about they said they want to exercise the option, or excise the…
Andrew: Yeah, they want to adapt it.
Eric: They want to make the film, because they can. And so they asked… she decided she wanted to be involved, and she decided, as she went on writing the story… what did she say? She wrote a few pages, then she wrote a script, then she wrote five scripts…
Andrew: Right. Her initial thought after she heard that they wanted to adapt it was, “Oh, I’d better get some notes down, because I want them to know what I think of this character.” I can’t imagine she was curious what WB would have done with it if she wasn’t on board.
Eric: I can’t imagine.
Andrew: It probably would have sucked.
Eric: Which, this didn’t.
Andrew: Right, and it probably wouldn’t lead towards Grindelwald, etc., etc. So she had to be involved.
Micah: Well, and she said as much. I mean, this was another story that she really, really, really wanted to tell, and so, I mean, I can’t imagine that her and Warner Bros. wouldn’t have come to some sort of agreement. But I think you can tell that it’s written by J.K. Rowling…
Andrew: You can.
Micah: … and it definitely has a different feel from the Potter films, even though you have Heyman and Yates at the helm again. I will say, I do like sort of the Easter eggs, we can call them, and I’m sure going back and watching the movie again, having all the context, there’s more there than we realize. Dumbledore is not the only name or surname that gets dropped in this movie.
Eric: Oooh.
Andrew: Right. And not including Grindelwald either.
Micah: So definitely be on the lookout for that when you go and see the movie. And I’m sure we’ll discuss that at length during our spoiler episode.
Andrew: Yeah. Well, this is what I tweeted regarding that: We know that Zoë Kravitz was cast, but you don’t really… well, I thought I didn’t see her, but then somebody said… oh, you guys said you saw her in the credits and who she plays.
Eric: I did see her in the credits.
Andrew: It’s a blink and you’ll miss it part, so keep a close eye out.
Eric: That is a blink and you’ll miss it… much more than Aberforth Dumbledore.
Andrew: [laughs] Or Grindelwald, to that matter.
Eric: Yeah, I still don’t know why Ciarán Hinds said that.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: In that interview a long time ago, he was like, “Oh, blink and you’ll miss it.”
Andrew: I love that you’re bringing that up.
Micah: He was probably drunk.
Andrew: [laughs] I cannot wait to see her, because that was super interesting to me, maybe one of the most interesting things. So you leave this movie, I think, really looking forward to what’s to come, and it’s almost painful to think that it’s going to take five movies total to play out, because there’s a lot of stuff you want to know, and if the next movie is not coming out till 2018, and then 2020, and then maybe 2022, 2024, it’s a long time to wait.
Eric: Yeah, but you give me hope with the script book, too, would leave more details and allow us to analyze properly, like we’re back in the season of… this feels like the old days, where we can look at some content and just speculate and pull the pros and cons and weigh the options and really get back into… because she is adding to this world that we knew about, and in big ways, in daring ways.
Micah: And I think it’s fair to say that you get closure at the end of this movie, at least as it relates to the geographic location, but I have a feeling that that doesn’t mean that the characters that we’ve met here are gone from future movies.
Eric: Yeah, I think it will be…
Andrew: It’ll be interesting to see how they work them all into the future.
Eric: I agree.
Andrew: But on your point about discussing, we were talking with a bunch of people last night, because I wanted to get as many opinions as possible to make sure that everybody else liked it, or maybe didn’t like it. Everybody seemed very pleased by it, and it was fun to dive in to discuss, like this was a new Harry Potter book, all the different new elements, because she does, like I said, introduce us to new elements of magic that are worth discussing, and of course, these references to characters that we’ll see play in the future. But did you guys talk to anybody who didn’t like the movie?
Eric and Micah: No.
Andrew: My one complaint I heard was that something at the end was a little too convenient. That we’ll talk about – I have a note – in the spoiler episode.
Eric: Sure.
Andrew: Other than that, though, everybody seemed to like it. I think everyone’s a little cautious, because we have to see it again.
Eric: Yeah. Oh, yeah. 100%.
Andrew: But actually, reading the critic reviews, I read EW’s and Variety’s last night.
Eric: Did they like it?
Andrew: They weren’t very positive.
Eric: Really!
Eric: Yeah, and actually, EW was a lot harder on it than I thought they would be, especially because WB is always hooking them up with exclusive crap.
Eric: Yeah, not anymore.
Micah: I was going to say, they’ve lost their press credential.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, exactly. Right. They gave it a B-minus, but the way they wrote the review… it was only two paragraphs. I don’t understand EW. They write these short reviews; that’s not a… that’s so lazy. Can I write two paragraphs and get away with it? I don’t think so.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Anyway, yeah, they were just pretty critical. They were saying it didn’t feel like a Harry Potter movie. Variety went a little…
Eric: I disagree right there. I disagree completely right there.
Micah: Well, I disagree, but at the same time, does it have to feel like a Harry Potter movie? I think that’s the big problem with saying something like that, is because going in, we all had the expectation that there were going to be elements of the wizarding world that we have come to know and love over the eight Potter films, right? So to immediately have that be one of your lines in your two paragraphs of reporting, that it doesn’t have that feel, I don’t think is fair. But I will say, with that said, there were definitely moments where you felt like you were in a Potter movie. J.K. Rowling did an amazing job, I thought, writing this, and… what did you think?
Eric: Yeah, that’s exactly right. It felt like a Potter film in every way that I wanted it to feel like a Potter film, and didn’t feel like a Potter film in the ways I didn’t want it to feel like a Potter film. It’s free, it’s new, it’s exciting, it’s different, the characters are odd, you wouldn’t expect, it’s not predictable, it’s not altogether too convenient, the film allows itself to go on these tangents with these characters, and you can just tell everyone involved in making this film just had a blast doing it.
Andrew: Right. Here’s one part of the review: “So why does Fantastic Beasts feel so oddly lifeless? Why doesn’t it cast more of a spell? First, there are the performances, which aside from Redmayne’s are surprisingly flat. And second, the thinness of the source material gives the whole film a slightly padded feeling.”
Eric: This person didn’t actually see the movie; they just read the book.
Andrew: Or he’s not a Harry Potter fan. The point was never to pad the small Fantastic Beasts book.
Eric: No, “the thinness of the material”? What?
Andrew: Right. And then they say, “Rowling, who also wrote the script, nimbly lays out her world, but that world isn’t nearly as rich as the world of Hogwarts.”
Eric: Completely disagree.
Andrew: Yeah. I mean, I don’t know if it’s really fair to compare the two worlds, especially since we’re only on the first.
Eric: I just don’t think it’s accurate.
Andrew: Somebody did bring up a good point; I don’t know if it was in this review or the Variety one. We actually don’t get much of Newt’s backstory, which is kind of surprising for a first movie.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. We get his character. We get lots of… we learn sort of what his motivations are, but the actual backstory is told in dialogue maybe two or three times, and it’s quick. And it’s accented, so if you heard it the first time, I’m surprised.
Andrew: Right.
Micah: I thought it was meant to be vague, though, because you have more movies in order to be able to tell his story, and he’s not in his home setting, right? He’s in New York.
Eric: He’s a fish out of water.
Micah: And yeah, there are those moments in the film. They’re very brief, but there is dialogue between him and another character that gives you a little bit of insight into his background. But I think we’ll learn more about him, and – as we mentioned, I think, on the last episode – where this next movie is headed, but I’m assuming eventually we will be at Hogwarts, and we will – or at least, maybe through flashbacks or conversations – learn more about Newt and who he is. But I don’t know that that was needed in the first film.
Eric: No, yeah. Like in Indiana Jones, right? Any Indiana Jones film, they’re not talking for hours and hours about what he’s done since the last Indiana Jones movie. He’s Indiana Jones! He’s the famed archeologist. As long as somebody in the first 15 minutes says, “Ah, Dr. Jones, the most famous archeologist,” that’s all you need for backstory for the character, and then you can just have fun.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s fair. Anything else we want to talk about in the spoiler…?
Eric: Did the music stand out? James Newton Howard. Were there any points where you were just during the film…? I loved Jacob’s theme, in the lighter moments.
Micah: I didn’t honestly pay enough attention to that in the movie. I did really like when they were inside the speakeasy. I thought that was very much a feeling from… a throwback 1920s, or if you’ve been to a speakeasy, it’s very much like that, so I thought that was really well done. But truthfully, I didn’t pay enough attention to the score.
Andrew: I tried to. Matt Patches from Thrillist, he tweeted me last night when somebody asked me that question. He called it serviceable; I think that’s a good way to put it. It’s fine. It aids the film. It’s not a John Williams. Who did it? James Newton Howard? Yeah, it was fine. I did like the opening. What you hear on the soundtrack is what is there at the very beginning, and yeah, I thought that was fine.
Micah: I will say, though, I didn’t think the traditional “Hedwig’s Theme” was…
Andrew: Obtrusive?
Micah: No, no, it wasn’t there, basically.
Eric: It wasn’t reused, yeah.
Andrew: Well, it was at the very beginning, but that was it.
Micah: Right, and I felt… talking about it, maybe that’s what EW meant when they said it didn’t feel like a Potter film, because…
Eric: They’re just listening for the…
Micah: Yeah, but it shouldn’t. And we spent I don’t even know how many of our episodes, different points of discussion, saying, “Do you use ‘Hedwig’s Theme’? Do you not use it?” But it was very subtle in the beginning, and throughout, I didn’t feel like they were trying to throw it back to Potter, or throw it forward.
Eric: Here’s a question I’ll ask again on our spoiler episode, but for spoiler-free: What did you guys think about the time period? Do you think they set it well? Did you believe it was 1920s?
Andrew: Yeah. I need to… I’m eager to see it again, in part because I was sitting high up, and they brought in a projector into Carnegie Hall to show it, and for these reasons, it didn’t look great to me. I was looking at some of the special CGI and being like, “They could have done better there.” But I think it was just the projector and the angle I was at. But yeah, I think it looked good. It seemed like a lot of it was CGI, because they weren’t filming in New York. I think a lot of it was green screen.
Eric: Well, no, but they built downtown. J.K. Rowling at one point said there’s no CGI environments.
Andrew: Oh, she did?
Eric: Or that there were, yeah, very few. That they built everything. Because Newt was… or Eddie was talking about how amazing it was to walk around in these places. I feel like really high ceilings and stuff were definitely CGI; they throw a tarp out and it’s like… but the actual environments, homes, apartments, buildings, train stations, whatever…
Andrew: I was thinking the outdoor stuff, like on the New York City streets…
Eric: They built a downtown. They built a couple of shopfronts at Leavesden, I think.
Andrew: Okay. Yeah, I believe it. I’m just…
Eric: Yeah, need to rewatch.
Andrew: And when you go in Newt’s suitcase, there’s certain things… I get why they weren’t supposed to look realistic, and I won’t explain why here. Just where he keeps his beasts, how he has them set up, is really interesting. I would love to learn more about that.
Eric: Yeah, I want to know about that magic.
Andrew: And by the way, maybe we’ll be learning… I mentioned no info on Newt’s backstory. They are republishing Fantastic Beasts with new info early next year, so maybe that will be where we learn all this new stuff.
Eric: Yeah, I’m really looking forward to that as being… because apart from the script book, that’ll be the next book that we get that has concrete Newt stuff.
Andrew: Right, yeah.
Micah: I mean, as a early 20th century historian, I will say that…
[Eric laughs]
Micah: … I thought everything looked fine. I agree with you; it was a little hard to see everything from where we were. When you’re not front-facing the screen, it’s a little difficult. I feel like they could have maybe put additional monitors on either side of the main projection screen, but I’m sure we’re all going to go see the movie anyway, so it’s not as big of a deal. But I thought it was really cool to be in… the New York City skyline obviously looks completely different back then; it looked like they were in the process of assembling the Empire State Building. I don’t know if that… from some of the… well, we can talk more about that.
Eric: Sure, sure.
Micah: I hate saying that, but we’ll talk more about that on the spoiler episode.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: You see the Statue of Liberty as Newt is coming into New York, the City Hall. MACUSA looked really good. There’s a point you’re inside of a subway station. We mentioned the speakeasy. There’s a lot of different places around New York. Obviously, Central Park plays a role.
Andrew: The Woolworth Building.
Micah: Yes, the Woolworth Building. Now, you know, if you go… I happened to be looking at my phone this morning. If you are on Google Maps and you’re down at the Woolworth Building, it says MACUSA on it.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: On Google Maps?
Micah: On Google Maps.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s cool. That’s a cool tie-in. Now, something else that is interesting… and one of our listeners, Madison’s friend – who I brought up earlier – Chloe, they went down to the Woolworth Building, and there’s actually an owl on the front of the Woolworth Building.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: And as J.K. Rowling explains on Pottermore, they were building MACUSA and the Woolworth Building at the same time, or something like that. Anyway, it’s really cool that this building actually has an owl on the front of it, because if you go there, it kind of feels like MACUSA really is there. And then I was saying to Chloe and Madison last night, how did she find that building? Did she Google “New York City buildings with owls on it” and found the Woolworth?
Eric: Because it’s a lone owl. It’s out of place otherwise, and it’s like, “Oh, why is that there?”
Andrew: Right, it’s a subtle reference to the wizarding world that no No-Maj would see otherwise, notice otherwise.
Eric: Yeah, it’s pretty cool. That’s pretty cool.
Andrew: Yeah, so I appreciated that. Yeah, well, I don’t know… is there anything else we should say in this installment?
Eric: Go and see this movie!
Andrew: Yeah, I am going to go see it again. [laughs]
Eric: Oh, I was going to say that to listeners.
Andrew: I know. I can’t wait for the script book. I think everybody’s going to really want to read the script book after seeing the movie.
Eric: That’s actually going to be really cool.
Andrew: It’s going to benefit us a lot, because we can sit here with it and do Chapter by Chapter.
Eric: [laughs] Scene by Scene?
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. And go through J.K. Rowling’s additional descriptions that she added into the script. It was funny; she said she didn’t like writing a script until she was finished. She was not enjoying it, and then she finished it and she was like, “Okay, I can do another one of this.”
Eric: [laughs] Another four.
Andrew: We also learned, by the way, that David Yates is going to be directing all five movies.
Eric: Oh, really? Okay.
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: He said that in an interview. Yeah, that doesn’t make me feel good. One of the things Variety criticized was that – or EW – was that it is David Yates again on Fantastic Beasts. It would have been nice to get a fresh perspective on this world.
Eric: I like that it was him in this one. I think the last thing I heard was that he would be working on at least the second one too. But I remember us talking about, when the film was first pitched, we would love to get other directors, not just ones we’ve had before, like Alfonso Cuarón, to do his own thing in the world with the beasts – he would have made it really cool – but just more directors in general, to diversify how the world looks and add their own style.
Andrew: Right.
Eric: You’ve sort of gotten to the point where clearly the producers are comfortable with Yates. Because he did the majority of the Potter films, the last four, our eyes are trained now, as fans, to see the world through his lens. But it would have been a nice sort of shaking-up, I still think. The movie is totally competent; the directing is totally competent. I actually loved it. He did new things in this film that he didn’t do before, so I’m excited about it, and I like him a lot. But again, the whole variety thing. It’s like, why not spice it up? Why not give it an opportunity to be a little…?
Andrew: Right.
Eric: But maybe they’re tied into quality control. Maybe that’s why they’re…
Micah: That’s what I was going to say. I mean, just the pre-existing relationship… and maybe J.K. Rowling has more to do there than we know, in wanting somebody like Yates, who has worked on Potter for so long at this point, and I think you at least know that it’s in trusting hands, and so I see both sides of the argument. If you say you want a different director to come in, because, of course, they’re going to have a different take on what these beasts should look like and how the story should be told, but I don’t have a big issue with it. I don’t look at this film and say, “It’s David Yates again.”
Eric: “Augh, Yates.”
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: It’s Linus from Snoopy.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: No, every film he does, he does a little differently.
Andrew: Does he? I guess.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. Because there were no montages after Order of the Phoenix.
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah, because everybody criticized them.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: But no, he had a lot of material to squeeze into that. It’s just surprising to me. Why does he want to do all five? I don’t know. It seems like… I guess maybe on one hand, if they are doing them two years apart, there’s more breathing room in between. But like I’ve said before, he was exhausted after finishing those four Harry Potter moves. And think about it this way: He’s going to have directed nine Wizarding World movies.
Eric: Amazing. Unbelievable. He loves it! He just loves it. This is why you do something, because you’re passionate about it, right?
Andrew: [laughs] Or maybe he’s getting paid some really nice coin.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. I was just thinking… so I’m double checking…
Andrew: Look towards the mic.
Eric: Yeah, Yates directed the Legend of Tarzan movie. Have you guys seen this?
Andrew: No.
Eric: I know, I know. The look that Sims is making right now, I made the same look. I mean, Tarzan, right? We’ve heard the story. We know the story. We’ve seen the Disney movie a hundred times; don’t need to watch the movie. The movie is great. It’s good directing, it’s good casting, it’s good acting, and it really reminded me, or renewed my confidence in Yates’s directing prior to seeing this movie. I would recommend you both see it. I think it’ll excite you.
Andrew: [laughs] Well, and that was a Warner Bros. movie.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. So that’s Warner Bros.’s David Yates. But it’s shot differently because it’s allowed to. You’re not following around schoolchildren, so you’re able to do different things with the way you’re pointing cameras and stuff.
Andrew: Oh, by the way, speaking of, I keep meaning to bring this up: There’s a lot of Apparating in this movie, and I guess that goes into the being an adult wizard. They’re Apparating everywhere, all the time, and it was almost a little too convenient.
Eric: I would agree with… if you were to say that something in this film was convenient, okay, yeah, the Apparating. Sure.
Andrew: Yeah. But then again, it wasn’t… it was good; it helped. It wasn’t… it didn’t hurt the plot; I just noticed a lot of it.
Eric: Well, then again, that’s also the difference between following adults and children, because…
Andrew: Exactly.
Eric: Well, but also for Harry, it’s painful, right? It’s the squeezing through the thing; you always hear about how awful it is and how dangerous Splinching is.
Andrew: Right. These characters do it no problem.
Eric: For a competent wizard, yeah, they don’t even wince. It’s not even…
Andrew: Right.
Eric: It’s an afterthought. So it’s cool to see, at least, that the magic of this world isn’t completely limited to Harry’s perspective of it.
Andrew: Yeah, I agree.
Eric: That competent wizards can do it without any kind of pain or second thought.
Andrew: I agree. Wrap it up here?
Eric: Yeah, man.
Andrew: This is fun to record all together.
Eric: We should do this more often.
Andrew: Yeah. I need more coffee.
Eric: I got you a large! I got you a large!
Micah: Oh, wow.
Andrew: I’ve been drinking extra large Dunkin’ the past week. It’s really bad.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Geez.
Andrew: I’m glad you got me a large.
Listener meetup and Halloween contest
Micah: But I think just… you mentioned it briefly earlier, but to thank all the listeners that showed up yesterday?
Andrew: Oh, right, I forgot to mention that. Yeah, so we did a meetup, and I don’t know. How many? 10 people showed up, I think?
Eric: 10 or 12.
Andrew: Yeah, thanks to everybody who did. We appreciate that. If you’re curious, there’s a photo on our Facebook page from the meetup at the end. It was really nice meeting everybody, and it’s always good to put faces to the listeners, and just to say hi. And everybody’s always excited. There were some people there who have listened to us for a really long time, so it was cool to finally meet them.
Eric: Yeah, they came all the way from Florida, a group of them, to say hello. And there was somebody, actually, at the event that was there from Georgia who’d flown in, so people came from all over to see this with this audience for this cause, and that really renewed my faith in this fandom, that we’re all still passionate and excited about this type of stuff.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah.
Eric: It was just a good evening. A good event.
Andrew: Yeah, it was. So thanks to those of you who came to our meetup there in the park. It was cold. Okay, so…
Micah: Oh, and one more thing.
Andrew: Yeah?
Micah: Sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off. I can do it in person now.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: I can punch you.
Micah: But I just… if you don’t mind pulling up real quick our contest winners?
Andrew: Oh, yeah. Where can I find those?
Micah: Over on Patreon.
Eric: I got it.
Micah: So as mentioned on the last episode, we were doing a Halloween costume and pumpkin-carving contest, and we did this exclusively over on Patreon.com/MuggleCast. The top two in each category would win a copy of the illustrated edition of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, recently released.
Andrew: Yes.
Micah: So those will be on their way.
Andrew: Yay!
Micah: So we just wanted to shout out… I don’t know why I said it that way. [laughs]
Andrew: We just wanted to shout out…
Eric: Shout forward. Shout forward, everybody.
Micah: Helen, Molly, Lindsay, and Loralyn. Helen and Molly for their pumpkins, and then Lindsay and Loralyn for their costumes. Always great to see the creativity that our listeners have; it knows no bounds, and I really recommend people head on over to the MuggleCast website and check them out. All the submissions, they were really well done, and thanks for submitting. We’ll definitely be doing more things like that over on Patreon, so if you’d like to, head on over there and support the show.
Andrew: Yeah, absolutely. All right, everybody, thank you. And so we will be releasing… we’re recording our spoiler episode right now, and that’ll be Episode 305, and we’ll release that, I guess, after the movie comes out, or maybe Thursday when midnight showings start…
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Andrew: … so that way it will be ready for everybody to download and listen to.
Micah: 12:01 drop.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: Then J.K. Rowling will reach back out to you.
Andrew: Yeah, that’ll be fun. No, I’m going to write some spoiler stuff on Hypable and really annoy her. “You’ll never guess!”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: “Guess who Zoë Kravitz is playing!”
Eric: Oh, God.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: Hashtag #KeepTheSecrets, hashtag #Wormtaily, hashtag #NotMyBook8.
Micah: Oooh.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: I will say – and this is no spoilers – I feel with this film, the release of this film, that Harry Potter is back on track as a fandom.
Andrew: Yeah, it’ll be a lot better received than Cursed Child was.
Eric: Yeah, for good reasons, not because we’re all hoodwinked. I think this is truly a great film.
Micah: Or maybe we are.
Eric: Maybe we are.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: She put a spell on us; that was why we had to see her in person.
Andrew: Exactly. All right, everybody, bye.
Eric and Micah: Bye.