Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #305, Fantastic Beasts Movie Review (SPOILERS!)
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 305, our Fantastic Beasts spoiler episode, now featuring better audio. [laughs]
Eric Scull: Isn’t that always the case? We learn from our past mistakes.
Andrew: Yeah, the spoiler-free episode, I sounded a little distant. Then Eric told us how this mic works. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, it has no problem picking up every tiny bug in all corners of the room, but as far as closeness, people, if we’re sitting around the table, the left side is optimal.
Andrew: Anyway, we’re more balanced now, and we’re here to talk about Fantastic Beasts, everything about it. We’re going to go into the details, so stop listening now.
Micah Tannenbaum: Yes.
Eric: All the gritty details.
Micah: Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert!
Andrew: [makes buzzing alarm sound] You should do… remember in the early MuggleCast days, the intro was like, “If you haven’t read Half-Blood Prince…”
Eric: [laughs] “Stop listening.”
Andrew: “… stop listening now.” I think I did that too.
Micah: You did it at the beginning; it was a Half-Blood Prince warning. So if you haven’t seen Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, please stop listening now.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: How was that?
Andrew: Yeah, that’s great. But please support us on Patreon. Okay, bye.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Micah: But we are in the same room. I think that’s important to say for those people who may not have listened to the previous episode…
Andrew: Yes.
Micah: … which was spoiler-free. We are not holding hands, much like we did during the last episode.
Eric: That actually happened.
Micah: That actually did happen for a brief moment. And yeah, we’re all here in New York.
Andrew: Yeah, and maybe for new listeners who are listening for the first time, I’m Andrew.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Eric: And I’m Eric.
Andrew: And we’ve been doing this for 11 years. [laughs] And we talk about… what’s it called? Harry Potter, and now, Fantastic Beasts.
Eric: Which we saw last night at a event held at Carnegie Hall in New York City, where J.K. Rowling and lead star Eddie Redmayne – actually, all of the main principal cast were there – for where they did a pre-screening, so we saw it a couple days before it comes out nationwide, for charity.
Andrew: Yes. And in between the two episodes, Eric just ran out and got us more caffeine, so we’re ready.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: So what are we starting with? [laughs]
Eric: How about the time when Dumbledore killed all those children?
Micah: Oh, wow.
Andrew: Excuse me?
[Micah laughs]
Eric: In the opening scenes.
Andrew: That’s not the movie I saw.
Eric: Sorry, that was a test for any of you still listening who haven’t… who don’t want to be spoiled.
Micah: That did really happen.
Andrew: Should we just talk about the Grindelwald twist first?
Eric: Yeah, let’s lead…
Micah: Well, yeah, let’s start there, because there were moments in the movie where I wanted to turn to you and say, “Is Graves Grindelwald?” And I think that there were a lot of clues, and they started literally right off the bat because the movie opens with Grindelwald, you see the back of his head, and then there’s a very similar shot – Eric, you and I talked about this, I think – literally within minutes later on the back of Graves’s head, and they look very much the same.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: And the opening montage – which I’ll have to go back and watch many times because there’s a lot of great stuff in there – is literally a number of headlines that say, “Where’s Grindelwald?”
Eric: Yeah, “Grindelwald terrorizes Europe.” “Where is Grindelwald?” “Grindelwald disappeared.” And it sets up the mystery, which is the main mystery of this movie, which is “Where is Grindelwald?” Which you don’t know, and it’s kind of shooting at the end, like, “Oh, there was Grindelwald.”
Andrew: Right. And when we found out that Johnny Depp was in it and we saw that shot in the trailer, we were all like, “Is that Johnny Depp? But that also looks like the back of Graves’s head. What’s going on?” So now it kind of all makes sense. What struck me about it, in one way, was first of all, I did not feel comfortable with Johnny Depp as Grindelwald. That scene at the end where you see him, he was doing an Eastern European accent. He just didn’t look good; he was all blonde, right? His eyebrows were blonde, I think, and any facial hair was blonde, and of course, his hair was blonde. I don’t know. It was just so weird to me to see Johnny Depp. Somebody said it almost didn’t look like Johnny Depp; did you hear that?
Eric: Face-wise, yeah, I could tell it was Johnny Depp. What I’m glad about is that they didn’t make it worse; like, they could have taken out his pupils, right? Or done something very weird, the way that Voldemort doesn’t have a nose. The fact that this was just a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, Aryan race blonde dude was actually comforting.
Andrew: Yeah. Well, and so one of the parallels that I found interesting was that Johnny, that he was hiding in Graves’s body somehow that whole time…
Eric: Somehow.
Andrew: … and it reminds you of Movie 1 and Book 1 with Voldemort hiding within Quirrell in a way.
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Andrew: Right? I mean…
Eric: Yeah, because it’s not clear exactly how that’s taking place. It doesn’t appear to be Polyjuice Potion.
Micah: No.
Andrew: Yeah, so J.K. Rowling will have to explain this.
Micah: Brendan Gleeson wasn’t slugging back…
Eric: You mean Colin Farrell?
Micah: Yeah, Colin Farrell, sorry.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Well, I was alluding to Moody, but…
Eric: Yeah, which actually works because they were in the same movie together, In Bruges.
Micah: They were, yeah.
Andrew: Oh, right, of course. So yeah, that’s another parallel. I mean, it was just interesting because we always spoke about parallels in the Harry Potter books…
Eric: That’s a really cool… yeah.
Andrew: … how 1 relates to 7, 2 to 6, 3 to 5; so it’s interesting how you’re seeing that same surprising element play out.
Eric: I like that a lot.
Micah: Well, I think in Goblet of Fire, it was way overdone. It was way overdone. There was something about it that just made me pick up on it, and I think other people did, but for most people, I think it’s going to be subtle. I don’t think it’s going to be like you’ll figure it out immediately.
Eric: Even that Graves is bad, right? Because at first he starts as this government guy who’s just trying to do his job kind of thing. He’s investigating this big beast attack…
Micah: But he did spend time in Europe; that was also mentioned in the movie.
Eric: Oh, I missed that. Yeah, the hints are all there. For me, it comes out when Newt realizes it, really, when he has that line about “a useless Obscurus”; like, “It’s kept up, it’s so useless.” He’s like, “What would you use it for?”
Andrew: [laughs] Right.
Eric: And Graves is just… so his inner evil is revealed slowly throughout the film.
Andrew: Yeah, one reason I was so surprised by the Depp twist at the end – this was the big one that people kept hinting at – was that in Jeanna’s test screening, Johnny Depp does not appear at the end there.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: Colin Farrell says those lines that Johnny Depp says, and it makes sense because maybe they hadn’t shot Depp yet, or they wanted to keep it a secret from the…
Eric: From even the test screenings, because that’s huge news. That’s absolutely…
Micah: That would’ve leaked.
Eric: We speculated about why they would have done it, cast him to begin with, on our last episode, but I can see that they’d want to make it….
Andrew: But you know what frustrates me? Why couldn’t they have held this secret in for another two more weeks?
Eric: Yeah, absolutely, 100%.
Andrew: It would have been a shocker.
Eric: “Is that Johnny Depp?! What?!”
Andrew: Right, right, to see him. Now, there’s a couple things here maybe. Maybe they wanted to boost box office early to…
Eric: Get people to come out and see it, because it’s controversial.
Andrew: Right, well, yeah, and they wanted to get that Johnny Depp draw early to boost box office, because we’ve seen the projections. They’re at like, $75 million, and that would be at the low end of the Harry Potter movies.
Eric: Oh.
Andrew: Remember on Episode 303, I was saying projections are going to come out soon? They came out a day or two after we released the episode. [laughs]
Eric: And they were poor?
Andrew: Well, they were saying $75 million, and that’s how two of the “worst” performing Harry Potter movies were, so not that great. I’m sure they were expecting bigger. But we’ll see; maybe the box office will do really well. So my guess is maybe they released that; they leaked it so… but on the other hand, I would have loved to have had that surprise. But on the other hand, maybe they thought if you saw Johnny Depp, you would have been so shocked that it almost took you out of the movie.
Micah: At the beginning.
Andrew: No, at the end.
Micah: No, no, but you’re saying if you saw it at the beginning, it would have just… at the end…
Andrew: No, no, I mean if you didn’t know Johnny Depp was going to be in this movie at all or was even cast. That’s what I mean.
Micah: See, I didn’t go in knowing that he was going to be in this movie; I just knew that he was cast as Grindelwald, so I didn’t think he was going to appear until the second movie.
Eric: And it’s still shocking what way Grindelwald shows up, which… what is it, Deadline? Where it’s like, “Look for him in a small turn,” because he turns into Johnny Depp.
Andrew: Right, right. Well, when they wrote that, I thought they were only referring to that shot at the very beginning, because what somebody had told me who was involved in the production was that that was the only shot he was in at the very beginning.
Eric: So back to the movie. So Newt casts Revelio, which is what causes Graves to change, which is interesting because we’ve never seen… they didn’t try that on Moody; Moody’s Polyjuice just ran out to become Barty Crouch. It’s specifically… in fact, I think we’ve seen that spell before, but it never really does anything. Snape tries it on the Marauder’s Map but it doesn’t work on the Marauder’s Map. “Revelio. Give me your secrets.” And it somehow works on Grindelwald, which seems like an oversight on Grindelwald’s part. But Newt, as it turns out, is a very accomplished wizard, and I want to talk about Newt’s prowess with you guys here because early in the film, it’s established – again, through a Dumbledore shout-out – that Dumbledore thinks very fond of Newt. And his competence in his knowledge of the beasts, sure, we have already guessed that; he’s able to catch them, he’s able to woo them. But we mentioned all the Apparating and just his street smart kind of way of being in battle. It just seems like he’s really quite agile. And now that we know that these films are going to be about Grindelwald, it just seems like Newt will actually become some kind of agent for Dumbledore against Grindelwald, and maybe more in the middle of this battle than we thought at first.
Micah: Well, clearly he started off on the wrong foot with Grindelwald.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: I mean, he just arrested him at the end of the movie.
Eric: He peed in his cereal! [laughs]
Andrew: “I would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you meddling kids!”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Somebody said that last night at dinner.
Micah: Oh, really?
Eric: Oh my God, that’s amazing.
Micah: Going back, though, to your point, the mention of Dumbledore – and we talked a little bit about this at the bar or the restaurant afterwards – was that that’s Grindelwald talking about Dumbledore. So there’s an extra level of the conversation that’s taking place here when he’s mentioning, and could really have influenced why Graves made the decision to try and kill both Tina and Newt in that moment…
Eric: Oh!
Micah: … knowing the closeness that Newt shares with Dumbledore. And I think there’s probably more moments like that in the movie that if you go back and pay attention to what Graves is saying in the lines that he has…
Andrew: There’s a double meaning.
Micah: Double meaning, yeah. And what really sold it for me was when he gives Credence the pendant of the Deathly Hallows, and I forget exactly where that happens in the movie, but it’s one of the back alley scenes where he’s comforting, and you see it.
Eric: And later on, he says, “Touch this and I’ll know.” It’s such a Dark Mark type…
Micah: Such a Voldemort type of…
Eric: … Lord Voldemort type magic.
Micah: Because yeah, I think that there was a lot of talk of, “Oh, we just thought that he was somebody working on behalf of Grindelwald; he was one of his followers,” but you had to have had that kind of reveal at the end. It just couldn’t be that he was just one of the followers; that wouldn’t be a big enough…
Eric: “For Grindelwald and valor!”
Andrew: Well, I was kind of expecting… at first, I thought the big twist was going to be Newt is the bad guy.
Eric: Ooh.
Andrew: Because there’s a scene, remember… I’m trying to remember what exactly happens, but he’s set up to be like, “You’re the enemy here.” Do you know what I’m talking about? I’m forgetting.
Eric: Okay.
Andrew: But actually, so getting back to Newt’s involvement in future films and his character, he is a Nervous Nellie, but he is very skilled. And he’s particularly skilled working with the beasts, so in fighting Grindelwald in future movies, he could be using his beasts to his advantage, to their advantage.
Eric: That raises certain concerns too. I liked when you mentioned this in the previous episode, because you were talking about how Newt uses the Swooping Evil, which is like the world’s coolest yo-yo.
Andrew: Yes, a yo-yo, that’s what I thought of as well.
Eric: It’s the world’s coolest yo-yo. But is it right to use these creatures who could be harmed?
Andrew: Right, that’s a good point.
Eric: And I think that’ll be a… that’s something I wondered about during this movie, but I’m sure in future movies you’ll wonder about it more.
Andrew: Right. Maybe Newt has a medical ward in his case where he takes care of these…
Eric: [laughs] A little…
Micah: Well, he kind of does. I mean, he nursed… was it Frank? The Thunderbird.
Eric: Oh, the Thunderbird.
Andrew: Was his name Frank?
Eric and Micah: Yeah.
Andrew: I missed that. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, it’s Frank.
Micah: … back to health. He was going to set him free.
Andrew: In Arizona! Okay, so Thunderbird, a name of one of the Ilvermorny houses, and weren’t we talking about how the Ilvermorny houses may each represent a quadrant of the US? Is Thunderbird southwest?
Eric: Oh, I don’t know.
Andrew: Anyway, as somebody who loves the desert, I was super into the fact that J.K. Rowling chose Arizona as the place where the Thunderbird goes.
Eric: I love Arizona too.
Micah: But I see that, to your point, it’s almost a conflict of interest, because he is trying to nurse and care for all of these creatures. So to put them in harm’s way and to get them involved in a war, try and use them against Grindelwald and his followers, would be challenging for him.
Eric: I mean, you have the Erumpent, which is… I don’t want to say indestructible, but it would take a lot to hurt it. And we actually got to see it burrow its tusk into the tree and cause the tree to melt and blow up, which was pretty cool, so you get the idea…
Micah: And try and hump Jacob too.
Eric: And try and hump Jacob.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Eric: There were so many… it was very horny, what can you say?
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Micah: Improv.
Eric: Is it still going? I was checking because the cable… yeah, so there were more beasts than I was expecting, and I love that about this. And there were different beasts; we weren’t just… I mean, there were ones we had heard of and some that we hadn’t, and I think that that trend should continue. But yeah, I worry about the role that the beasts will play because I still want this to be about Newt and his beasts. I love the screen time that Newt got just doing weird ass shit, nurturing them and talking with them and relating to them. I love that part of this movie. I think it was… I wanted to say it was the movie’s heart, but Jacob was really the movie’s heart. But Newt as a character, I really enjoy, and just seeing him very deftly maneuver all of these spells that are shot at him. It doesn’t make much sense because we don’t have that backstory of Newt, how he got to be just so good. And he was expelled from Hogwarts; he’s a dropout. He’s a school dropout, and yet, these world leaders know him. He’s able to save all these beasts from around the world, but why? I wanted more.
Andrew: Getting back to Graves for a second, was it ever established how long he had been working with MACUSA?
Eric: No, but Pottermore wrote about the… he’s descended from one of the original 12 wizards that started the…
Micah: Aurors.
Eric: Yeah, one of the original 12 Aurors, thank you. So Graves is just some bureaucrat, whatever, Auror guy. I don’t think it’s established how long he works there.
Micah: Who clearly went on business to Europe…
Eric: Yeah, that’s exactly…
Micah: … and was killed by Grindelwald or something else happened. I don’t know.
Eric: Oh, because you said they mentioned he went to Europe.
Micah: They do, yeah.
Eric: Oh, then it’s clearly… that’s the Albania trick that Jo pulled with Quirrell. Goes to Albania, comes back with the turban, and is all stuttery.
Andrew: Right, right. Aw, poor Graves. I mean, or is Graves’s spirit somewhere? Or soul?
Eric: Yeah. Well, it depends, right? I want to believe that Colin Farrell will be in this movie, because I like Colin Farrell a lot. If he’s just in this first movie, “Oh, he did an amazing job,” and then I was like, “Oh, it’s sad I won’t see him anymore.” But I think it’s likely that Grindelwald killed Graves. No loose ends. If he didn’t need him to still be alive for Polyjuice reasons or for anything like that, it makes sense that he would just dispatch his enemies.
Andrew: Right. Speaking of deaths, the Second Salemers. So Credence was the adopted son of Mary Lou, who’s leading this Second Salemer movement. They both die in this movie.
Eric: Presumably.
Andrew: Presumably. Some people aren’t so convinced that Credence is dead.
Eric: The only reason I say that is because Yates has said in one of the press interviews this week that Credence is in the sequel. It’s weird the way he talks about Credence’s plot; he says… who was the girl? Modesty?
Andrew: Yeah.
Eric: But he talks about Credence’s future and he’s vague about it, but it’s weird. So the only indicator in the film that I saw is there’s that little sliver of black smoke that Newt notices, which indicates that maybe the Obscurus wasn’t completely destroyed.
Andrew: Yeah. Well, I did like his character; I think there’s a lot more there to dive into. And we need to get into this Obscurus stuff, because this is a very interesting new element that J.K. Rowling introduced. I like that they took risks by killing big characters – Credence, Mary Lou, Graves – because there’s a lot more you could dive into with these characters in future movies, but the fact that J.K. Rowling got rid of them now – let’s just say they are dead for now – I think that is a risk that pays off, because then there’s stakes. I was talking about this in the spoiler-free episode: Marvel doesn’t kill off their heroes, and it’s like, where are the stakes if these guys aren’t dying?
Eric: Can’t die, yeah.
Andrew: If they’re killing people… I mean, maybe in these next five films, one of the four are going to… Queenie, Tina could…
Eric: It’s realistic, yeah,
Andrew: Actually, I guess Tina won’t, because Newt eventually ends up marrying her.
Eric: Well, you mentioned stakes; witches are literally being burned at the stake. [laughs]
Andrew: Oh, and the guy who was running for president, Shaw. He dies in this. Very sudden, very… [snaps fingers]
Eric: Yeah, his soul is… do you remember that? They were looking up at him, just sort of… when they’re at MACUSA after he’s murdered?
Andrew: Oh, yeah.
Eric: They have like, a body version of him.
Andrew: Oh yeah, it was kind of like a camera.
Eric: Yeah, that was weird.
Andrew: It was weird.
Eric: Unexplained. Add that to the list of questions for Jo.
Andrew: But so this Obscurus… and it took a lot of us time to finally remember this name; I only remember because I have it written down here. An Obscurial. So this is the new element that J.K. Rowling introduces. This Obscurus develops if you’re trying to suppress your magic like Credence was, and it creates this thing that’s you, I guess, that you transform into, and you can cause terror. You can kill people.
Eric: Yeah, it’s like the innate magic that’s in any wizard, if not allowed to flourish or not nurtured, turns against the host, almost, and becomes this. Well, what I love about it, it becomes this beast, essentially. This is the beast within us. This is the beast that… and Newt has to contend with it. It becomes such a beast that Newt is the only one who has, but was able to separate it from its host without killing the host, but that’s never been done before, according to the film. And so I like that the film Fantastic Beasts, you get all these other animals, these creatures that are running around, and then you have the animal within us to contend with as the main villain. So I like that. But yeah, the question was whether or not Newt could save, I guess at the end, Credence from his own demise. But the whole time, Graves is trying to use him.
Andrew: Right, and Graves thought he was a Squib, but he wasn’t.
Micah: The exact opposite.
Eric: Graves saw a vision of a child… they’re talking about this in the alleyway. Grindelwald is already more powerful than Voldemort; I mentioned this a little bit before, but you see Graves doing a lot of wandless magic.
Andrew: Yes.
Eric: He heals Credence’s wounds with just a wave of his hand.
Andrew: Yeah, he’s very good.
Eric: And Graves keeps going on and on and on about this vision that he had of a child who will save us all, right? Which means will wipe out the entire… will serve our means. And there was some sort of divination or prophecy – but not divination or prophecy – that Graves is acting on; that’s why he’s in America, apparently, is because he’s had this vision of what ends up being this Obscurus.
Andrew: Right.
Eric: But it was just that Credence hid it well, and that Modesty chick was just young and creepy, because children are scary in horror films; children are just creepy. They behave weird. So everybody thought it was Modesty, but it was a nice reveal that it’s actually Credence. But he’s older than any other… the tension between this creature and its host kills the host by age 10, usually, I think, or usually by age 8, but Newt said the one that he got was a 10-year-old. But that sets it up for Credence to… Credence is much older; he’s in his 20s.
Andrew: This is all still a little confusing to me; I need to see it again. [laughs]
Micah: I mean, I have two questions about… or the Obscurus plays into my mind in two different areas. One, when we learn about Lestrange…
Eric: Another bomb drop.
Micah: And I’m forgetting about her first name.
Andrew and Eric: Leta.
Micah: Leta Lestrange. Seems to me that she was an Obscurus as well, right? Or am I making that up?
Eric: She was just a girl at school, but I think there was some kind of… it was a star-crossed lovers sort of thing, because I got the feeling she was just into Dark stuff that he didn’t…
Andrew: Well, because either Tina or Queenie says at one point, “Lestrange? That’s a…” and then she trails off.
Eric: “Aren’t they usually…?”
Micah: It was Queenie. It was the conversation that Newt and Queenie had where he said, “Don’t read my mind.”
Andrew: Yeah. An interesting little fact about Legilimens introduced there…
[noise in background]
Andrew: What just fell?
Eric: Your coat.
Andrew: Oh, jacket, okay. I thought an Obscurus just came in.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Andrew: … that when you’re feeling down or something like that, she said you can read minds easier, because she said she has a hard time reading Brits.
[Micah laughs]
Eric: That was just such a funny… “I have a hard time reading your kind,” and we don’t know if she means wizards, and then she says, “Brits.”
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Eric: Super funny.
Andrew: I was just picturing J.K. Rowling writing that, and it was amusing.
Micah: So maybe not Lestrange because she obviously… if they’re at Hogwarts together, then she would be older than what you were saying as it relates to an Obscurus.
Eric: Yeah, but something definitely happened with Newt and her.
Andrew: They were dating, right?
Eric: I think she said that.
Micah: It sounded like there was a romantic interest there, for sure. The second thing that came to mind… and I forget; somebody else brought this up last night and I want to give them credit, so if they’re listening to the show, definitely write in. Ariana.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Micah: There’s a very good chance this may be where Grindelwald learned about Obscurus and their value and what they could potentially do, and so that’s why I want to learn more about Dumbledore and his backstory. We know that his sister was abused on some level.
Eric: There was a traumatic incident which suppressed her…
Micah: Right, so I’m wondering, yeah, was her magic suppressed to the point where she was one of these… is it Obscuri? Is that the plural of it?
Eric: I don’t know. Let’s ask J.K. Rowling. [laughs]
Micah: But I’m wondering, once this movie is officially released, if somebody is going to reach out to J.K. Rowling and ask her that question, because I think that it’s a legitimate question to ask, knowing what we know about the Dumbledore history.
Eric: I think we’re meant to ask… that’s one of the probably main questions we’re supposed to ask coming out of this, because we never really would have thought it… it’s an added element that fits into canon, fits into the existing…
Micah: And given everything that we learn from Aberforth about that basically she was sacrificed on Albus’s way to becoming who he became, at least with respect to the relationship with Grindelwald. So I wouldn’t be surprised if Grindelwald was sort of testing her and seeing what she could possibly mean for the future; that’s why he comes to America when he learns about there being a very powerful Obscurus.
Eric: I want Colin Farrell in the sequels.
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, he was really good.
Eric: He was so good.
Andrew: Leta, by the way, she is played by Zoë Kravitz. We did hear that Zoë Kravitz was going to… she was cast kind of late, I believe, and they said…
Eric: That’s right; I remember the casting announcement was way late.
Andrew: Yeah, it came out after, but it makes sense now because she’s just appearing in a photo, something they could easily have added in later. But I think the Lestrange… something very interesting is going to be happening.
Eric: That name just bothers me, man.
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: Yeah. Well, and Newt is clearly bothered by it too.
Micah: But do you think she’s still alive? Or you think she’s dead?
Eric: I think she’s still alive.
Andrew: I think so.
Eric: But I think it’s clear to me, the ending train scene where Queenie and Newt… or is it Tina?
Micah: Tina.
Eric: Tina and Newt.
Micah: The boat, not the train. [laughs]
Andrew: But it may as well be. That was another parallel.
Eric: Did I say the…? It’s not Hogwarts, going home… the scene between them, where she mentions Leta and she’s like, “Oh, do you have somebody to get back to?” sort of thing, it sparked in me an idea that maybe Newt, who’s traveled the world recently – doing the things with beasts, writing his book – might be running from his problems, essentially.
Andrew: Yeah, he’s clearly not… in my opinion, I don’t think he’s over her if he still has a picture of her in his office.
Eric: I mean, his office is huge.
Andrew: Right, but no other pictures except for her. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, she’s the only one.
Micah: I mean, it’s very possible she’s a supporter of Grindelwald.
Eric: Oh, yeah. So Newt has a personal stake in the whole Grindelwald thing.
Andrew: Yeah. Would he know that yet, though? Supporter of Grindelwald?
Eric: It’s just so weird because Grindelwald has been running rampant over the past couple years, and it’s still 19 years from now until his defeat, so that’s a lot of terror.
Micah: I do think, though, that – and it may have been mentioned – I do think she’s tied to his expulsion at Hogwarts. Like, maybe he covered for her.
Eric: Oh God, because somebody got hurt in a beast breakout or something. They mentioned it in the movie. Something to do with a beast.
Andrew: Oh, yeah. Well, shit. What was I just going to say? I just had a cool idea about… oh, what if Newt didn’t kiss Tina at the end because he still has feelings for Leta? Maybe that’s one reason he didn’t kiss. When I was first watching it, it’s just because he was nervous, I thought, and didn’t want to, although I was expecting him to run out of the boat and just give her a quick peck or something.
Eric: Yeah. He does run back, but they still don’t kiss.
Andrew: Right, well, he stops for a second, and then he says, “Can I deliver the book to you…?”
Eric: “In person.” It’s kind of kindergarten-y.
Andrew: Yeah, but then I thought once he went in, he would actually run back out. And she does a little skip, a little hop at the end, which was really cute.
Eric: Jacob gets a kiss, but Newt does not.
Andrew: Right. So it could just be to keep fans waiting, which now everybody’s excited to see that in the sequel.
Eric: I don’t care as much about Tina, but we can get into that later.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. I definitely liked Queenie more. Tina was a little flat.
Eric: It’s just weird how she’s following him around at the beginning, and just kind of has a quirky… she goes places where she’s not supposed to, which is fine…
Andrew: But because she’s… she was an Auror.
Eric: Yeah, yeah, so she just doesn’t take… she just, yeah, sees the value.
Andrew: I thought she was going to stand up for herself when she was standing in front of the President, Madam President, when they were like, “He’s been here for 24 hours, and you didn’t say anything?” She did say something, to Graves.
Micah: Right. And I think there’s history there, too; did you get that same feeling between her and Graves?
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. And by the way, in front of Madam President, when they were in that big meeting room with all those people, there was a lot of diversity in that room, including a Native American, so I’m very interested to… I thought that was good. I’ll be interested to see who these people are; who are they representing?
Eric: Yeah. Well, and what I love about that scene is a couple of them noticed or recognized Newt, and were just, “Oh, you saved our country from this beast; how’s it going?” And he’s like, “Hey!” Really helps his credibility in that moment, because he’s the guy who just is being blamed for causing havoc in New York.
Micah: And was it the Minister for Magic that was there as well? Who was the Brit that was there?
Eric: Oh, I don’t remember.
Micah: That spoke to him.
Eric: Oh, yeah, and he says back, “… something, Minister.” It was nice that a couple people called him out. But yet, the world leaders that are in America were never really… there was no second scene with them reacting to America or any kind of…
Micah: Yeah, well, and I said this at the end of our previous episode: I think New York is done, but that doesn’t mean the president of MACUSA is not going to factor into future movies. I definitely see them, not just her, but other characters that were prominent in this movie being in future movies.
Eric: It’s been revealed by David Yates that the second film will return to the UK, probably show a lot of Hogwarts…
Andrew: Paris.
Eric: And Paris.
Andrew: It’s primarily set there.
Eric: And he said the UK too.
Andrew: Oh, right. Parts of it, yeah.
Eric: So that bothers me because it seems like for the immediate future, we’re done with America, and America in this film was pictured in a very morbid, dark, dreary way.
Andrew: Right.
Eric: The Second Salemers, the fear on the streets… it’s very much not the happiest portrait of a country that we’re all from.
Andrew: And we seem to be done with that whole battle about bringing wizards out from hiding, in America, at least, because they Obliviated all the people who found out, so it’s like none of it ever happened.
Eric: And they’re going to remain in secret, which eventually breaks, I guess.
Andrew: Well, that said, Grindelwald does want to bring everybody out of the shadows, but still, I thought that was going to be a major part going forward in America, but that doesn’t seem to…
Eric: And Ilvermorny. There’s that one line about “Which is a better school?” And Queenie, is it? Who’s really loyal to Ilvermorny. But other than that, it would really stink if in the next four films, we don’t physically see Ilvermorny.
Micah: Yeah, well, but keep in mind, Grindelwald is here.
Eric: What? Oh, yeah, is imprisoned, right?
Micah: Right, unless they’re going to extradite him to Azkaban or something like that. Or where is he in the…? Nurmengard?
Eric: Nurmengard.
Andrew: Which he created himself. But that’s at the end; that’s 19 years later from Fantastic Beasts.
Eric: And another 40, yeah.
Micah: So yeah. I mean, maybe Movie 2 opens with him breaking out of whatever the equivalent of Azkaban is here in America.
Andrew: I hope not, though. I don’t want to see him easily breaking out at the very beginning or something like that.
Eric: Hopefully years have passed, right?
Andrew: Yeah. Although, we spoke about this after Cursed Child; wow, it seems so easy to break out of Azkaban. [laughs] The Lestranges did.
Eric: Well, it’s just that so many people do it.
Andrew: Right, right.
Eric: Yeah. It’s weird because the films are in a really precarious position, because anything Grindelwald does, he would have already done, so you almost can’t introduce magic that would allow any of the characters in Harry’s world to have done something easier. He can’t have this super easy breakout spell or something that’s unpredictable that Hogwarts isn’t later proofed for, you know what I’m saying? Because of causality. So it’s weird, but they still manage to introduce totally new stuff. Let’s talk about Queenie if we can. They call her a Legilimens, which is not the same as casting the spell Legilimens, or is it? Or she can do it without spells; she can just read whatever they’re thinking.
Micah: Yeah, it seems like she’s a much more accomplished Legilimens in the sense… or maybe it’s more of a natural thing that she was born with, right? It’s not like Snape just, “I’m going to go into your mind and pull out your thoughts.” She’s a mind reader, which to me, it maybe doesn’t equate the same as a Legilimens. It’s not a forceful penetration of somebody’s mind.
Eric: And you’re not reliving physical.. he could feel her in his head, but with Occlumency and Harry is trying to protect his mind, he’s forced to relive everything Snape is seeing.
Micah: Well, he can feel it, but it’s interesting that Jacob can’t, because he’s a No-Maj.
Eric: Yeah. Definitely more answers needed there, but it’s a different element. And at first, I was just like, “This doesn’t really fit in Harry’s world,” because the way that we know mind reading to… because in the first Harry Potter book, Harry gets the feeling that Dumbledore can read his mind, but it’s not the same as seeing what’s being read pulled out.
Micah: I think there’s more to learn there, also, particularly because of her connection to her sister, which we saw when she was in the bowels of MACUSA and she knew something was wrong and she immediately acted on it.
Eric: Oh, yeah, that was cool.
Micah: So to me, this is something that’s a slightly different type of Legilimency.
Andrew: Yeah. And it could play into helping defeat Grindelwald, if she can read minds.
Eric: If they’re telepathically…
Andrew: Even though the Brits are…
Eric: Brits are much harder, yeah, yeah.
Andrew: But if they’re feeling sad, apparently it’s easier.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Well, speaking of MACUSA… so Newt and Tina are both sentenced to death.
Eric: Which, again, morbid America! They have the death penalty. What was that…?
Micah: It’s Grindelwald, though. [laughs]
Eric: Well, yeah, but I don’t think Graves…
Andrew: But the president approved of it.
Eric: Yeah, I don’t think Graves would have been the sole advocate of that way of killing people. I think the whole government had that method of disposing of their enemies.
Andrew: Right, and remember, there was a Graves before Grindelwald took over the body or whatever the hell happened there.
Eric: So I loved… the repeat effect that they used established that it’s some sort of Pensieve, right? The woman takes her memory out, throws it in the…
Andrew: Yeah. I mean, it essentially looked just like how Dumbledore did it.
Eric: But eventually, when she’s sort of trying to leave, what Newt calls a “death potion” – I think at one point I heard him say that when he’s talking about it – begins to fold up around her and tries to kill her. So is that sort of a way of making an execution more humane? To play out her life’s best moments, like her love for her sister, her mother saying, “Come here, it’s okay, come to bed”?
Andrew: Right, drawing you into the afterlife?
Eric: Did they damage her mentally? She never got that memory back, necessarily, from the pit.
Andrew: Oh, good question.
Eric: So was it a way of making an inhumane, torturous thing more humane?
Micah: It’s almost like assisted suicide.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Andrew: Well, it could also be… like, what are those moments? What’s the common thread amongst those moments? Happiest moments?
Eric: But there were also the plot moments, like the Creedence stuff that she saw in there, which had no bearing on… I wouldn’t want to see that the last moment before I died. Maybe it’s a way of showing her that she’s a good person? All your life’s greatest hits; maybe that’s what it’s all about?
Andrew: Yeah. Well, and I had a hard time hearing at some point, between the accents, and it wasn’t the best sound system in Carnegie Hall.
Eric: It’s true.
Andrew: It’s not fitted for a movie. So I had first thought that… I almost turned to you to ask what the hell was going on, because I thought maybe they were just stripping them of the magic of being a witch or wizard and just converting them to Muggle or something like that. But yeah, dying is very dramatic. That whole scene reminded me of something out of Divergent by Veronica Roth, just how it looked.
Eric: Very sterile.
Andrew: Yeah, right. Exactly. But I did like it. Again, I like these new areas of magic that we haven’t seen before; it feels refreshing to have J.K. Rowling introduce us to these various new elements, so I did like it overall. And then, of course, Newt helps her get out thanks to that beast as well, hopping on the beast to get over. “I’ll catch you.”
Eric: Was that the Swooping Evil? That was, wasn’t it?
Micah: Yeah.
Andrew: It made a noise when you stepped on it. Oh!
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: By the way, the Gigglewater in the speakeasy? That’s another classic J.K. Rowling thing that I just love. So you take the shot and then you… [giggles]
Eric: And it might have just been because he was a Muggle and tried it, right?
Micah: Well, Jacob had a couple of those moments.
Eric: Jacob, far and large, one of the lighter areas of the film.
Andrew: He’s the comic relief.
Eric: And also the Niffler.
Andrew: Yeah, everybody was very tickled by the Niffler.
Eric: Just unabashedly… it’s a great opening scene at the bank, right? They’re accomplishing…
Andrew: It was a lot, that whole scene. It was very long, and… I don’t know. I wasn’t as tickled by the Niffler as everybody else.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Like, yeah, it’s cute. It steals things.
Eric: Well, it has an endless pouch in its body for everything it…
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. It’s cute.
Eric: It just unabashedly robs people.
Micah: The Wizarding World will sell a lot of them. [laughs]
Andrew: Yes.
Eric: Yeah, and four to me. [laughs]
Micah: And the Demiguise, because I thought the Demiguise was actually pretty cool.
Andrew: That was pretty funny, yeah.
Eric: So the beasts present an opportunity. They weren’t all comic relief, though. Some were terrifying, right?
Andrew: So inside Newt’s case, there’s these… so you see his workshop once you first step down into it, and then you go through, I guess it was a door or something, and you see he has what are kind of like stages to hold each beast, and there’s curtains with the backdrop.
Eric: That bothered me so much; the curtains have just standard iron or metal rings on them like you’re printing them out at a local Kinko’s to hold them up at a convention.
Andrew: Right, so I’m trying to think what’s up with that.
Eric: Grommets.
Andrew: Is it for the creatures to feel where they are? Because the area… it seems like there’s real trees there, but the backdrops, are they for the beasts or are they for Newt to feel like they’re in these scenes?
Eric: I think it’s just for the beasts.
Andrew: But they would know that’s not real.
Eric: Well, yeah, but you go to a zoo, right? A tiger house or whatever, and they have this sad cat that’s in a pen, but the walls, at least the ones at Lincoln Park in Chicago, are painted to look like the Savannah.
Andrew: Yeah, but the cat isn’t like, “Oh, I’m in the Savannah.” [laughs]
Eric: No, you’re right, but with magic you can have wind, you can have sounds, you can have…
Andrew: True.
Eric: Even while you’re indoors. So that’s what it did for me, because wasn’t it raining the first time he sees the eagle too? Like, actually raining on them, and Newt had to cast his little umbrella spell to not get rained on? So if you can have climate, it goes an extra level to making the beasts feel, I think, a little bit closer like it’s home.
Micah: Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think it’s for the beasts.
Andrew: And then, so the other question is: Is he trying to release all these beasts back into their natural habitats?
Eric: I don’t think all of them.
Andrew: Okay. Obviously the Thunderbird, he was.
Eric: Well, because that’s what brought him to America, right? He said it was something else, but it was that. But I think in general, he’s just caring for these. I don’t know about to what end; maybe he does want to go and release them, but…
Andrew: Maybe after spending a certain amount of time studying them?
Eric: Yeah, breeding them or studying them, because he picked them up from all over the world, so it’s like, he would have to go back to every single one of those individual countries to put them back.
Andrew: But doesn’t that make sense, if the five movies we’re going to see different…?
Eric: “Now I have to put the twig creatures back.”
Andrew: [laughs] Because it seems like somebody who cares about these creatures so much wouldn’t want to hold them in captivity all their life.
Eric: That’s true, unless you could give them a comparable living situation.
Andrew: Yeah, but those stages aren’t comparable. [laughs] In my opinion.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. Well, I like that there were limits to that stage. There was that entire hillside of sheep, though, the sheep creatures that Jacob feeds.
Andrew: Oh, yeah. That was one of the more detailed sets, so to speak.
Eric: I guess there are more places that we haven’t gone inside the case.
Micah: Well, and after that, he goes into the area with an Obscurus, right?
Andrew: Yes.
Eric: Yeah, that was very…
Micah: So does Newt have one in his case that’s still there?
Andrew: Ooh.
Eric: Well, Graves took it out, but it was… well, the Obscurus was contained in a bubble, and that bubble rendered it, Graves called it useless because it was in the protective bubble.
Micah: And that was the girl that he was talking about from Sudan?
Eric: The girl that he was talking about he tried to save, yeah. So Newt is the only person alive who’s ever separated an Obscurus from its host. The host lived, and Newt was carrying it around. I don’t think Newt… this is the thing about Newt, and he is very quirky and stuff, but he doesn’t always have an end game in mind. And I think he was just keeping it in there for safety, for the world’s safety, because it’s terrifying. So I think that was more of a… that was a quarantine situation where he was using it… I don’t think he really had a plan of where it was going.
Micah: Well, one other thing I think will sell well at the Wizarding World is the Bowtruckle.
Andrew: Yeah, that was really cute.
Eric: Adorable.
Andrew: Yeah, and that Bowtruckle who was attached to Newt, and it was really sad when Newt gave him away to the…
Eric: Ron Perlman character.
Andrew: Yeah, exactly, in the speakeasy. Yeah, I would have one of those. Those are cute. Put it in your pocket like Eddie Redmayne did at the premiere.
Eric: A little… maybe made of pipe cleaners, like little… a fully posable little twig creature, right?
Andrew: Right. We’ll see if those show up at the Wizarding World, or even online. Definitely online, I would think.
Eric: Gigglewater’s probably already at the park.
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: Well, I don’t think so. Based on… I was hearing some things last night from a couple people.
Eric: Oh, that’s interesting.
Andrew: But apparently they don’t want to do that crossover at the parks there, because that’s Harry Potter’s world, you know what I mean?
Eric: Well, it’s the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Yeah, okay, I get that.
Andrew: Right. That’s what they’re saying.
Eric: Well, Gigglewater was outlawed in 1957. We don’t know why.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: There was an incident. Suffice to say, no one was hurt afterwards.
Andrew: Yeah, but this is a nice element. Now that we’re following adult wizards, we see stuff like this, like these drinks, the Gigglewater. I mean, imagine what else J.K. Rowling could come up with at bars. How about Obliviate at the end? So Newt does release the Thunderbird to Obliviate all the No-Majes.
Eric: Because it spreads this vial of venom? Or it’s the venom of a Swooping Evil, I think he said?
Andrew: I think that’s right. Yeah, because earlier, he says, “I’ve been working on this, and I think it’ll be really helpful.”
Eric: Yeah, and it takes all the bad memories away.
Andrew: And the Thunderbird, I guess, makes it rain. Making it rain! Making it rain Obliviate! That’d be a good shirt: “Makin’ it rain… Obliviate.” So I talked to one of the Hypable writers who saw it as well, and she said she liked the movie, but she thought this part was a little too convenient. And I thought it was a beautiful scene, but I do agree in that how are all these minds being Obliviated when there are people indoors? Okay, it rains on the people…
Eric: Okay, to be fair, there are people indoors, yeah.
Andrew: Right, and they cut to one of them indoors, in the kitchen.
Eric: In the shower, right?
Andrew: Oh, yeah, in the shower too. So are you telling me this went through the water pipes and…?
Eric: Eh, New York in the 1920s had very questionable plumbing. [laughs]
Andrew: Right, but okay, so Jacob, apparently, doesn’t get rained on and is not Obliviated until he steps outside, so how is it that he avoided the Obliviation?
Eric: That’s a plot hole.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. [laughs] I demand answers, J.K.!
Eric: There is the case to be made that it aerated, right? Like that it’s an airborne… from when it hit the street, it just kind of made a vapor.
Andrew: And I agree with that.
Eric: But then Jacob should have been just as…
Andrew: Exactly, because when it rains, you can smell the rain.
Eric: Oh, yeah, exactly. But then there’s also what Queenie did to Jacob, or didn’t do to Jacob. She let him step out in the rain for a couple seconds, then went out and used her umbrella over him, and then kissed him, and then walked away, and then he still got rained on again. So it’s like, later when he remembers, or when she shows up and he remembers, did she give him some of his memories back? How does that work?
Andrew: He obviously remembers some things deep in his mind, because the bakery items he made looking like the beasts… which was so adorable.
Eric: Those were adorable. I want those.
Andrew: How does that work? Yeah, maybe his mind wasn’t completely Obliviated. I know someone at dinner last night was saying maybe because he saw so much, it would have taken more effort or more rain to Obliviate him.
Eric: True, that’s a little vial spread across an entire city of people.
Andrew: Right, so he would have needed it the most. But maybe when you’re Obliviated, you still do remember… in the back of your head you recognize it, but you don’t know what. This happens to all humans.
Eric: Well, we should also differentiate between… so it wasn’t actually Obliviate. It wasn’t casting the spell Obliviate. It was the venom of the Swooping Evil or whatever, which Newt said only erases bad memories. Bad memories.
Andrew: Oh. Well, then maybe this is less of a plot hole.
Eric: So to the Muggles, it’s a bad memory; a terrifying creature is destroying their city that they live in, and they’re frightened for their lives.
Andrew: Ohh.
Eric: But for Jacob, his happy memories of finding love might have not all been erased because they were on a happier spectrum? It’s specifically bad memories, I think Newt says, while they’re in the case.
Micah: Right. No, that’s a great point.
Andrew: That could explain it.
Eric: I don’t think it 100% covers everything, because Queenie still… the way she looked at him did something.
Micah: Well, he also goes to touch his neck where he got bitten…
Eric: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Micah: … so I wonder is it almost like a counterbalance to when he got bitten? Because he doesn’t get sick, right? I mean, he’s a little loopy…
Eric: A little groggy.
Micah: … but he’s not… I wonder if whatever happened to him from getting bitten by… what was the creature that did that?
Eric: Murtlap? The spiky pig, but with soft spikes?
Andrew: Yeah, right.
Eric: The creature that I’m so glad we never saw later in the movie.
Micah: Or was he just touching it because he started to remember as soon as he saw her?
Andrew: I think so. There’s some connection there.
Eric: Something clicked, yeah. I mean, something obviously clicked because his bakery items are beasts, so he didn’t completely forget.
Andrew: So it’ll be interesting to see how these people play into future films, because this does seem to be the new trio, if you will. The core four.
Eric: Quartet.
Andrew: Yeah. Like, how are they going to get over to Paris? Or I was speculating last night, is there going to be this sidebar plotline happening with Jacob and Queenie and I guess Tina stateside while Newt is back overseas?
Eric: That would be cool. That would really be cool.
Andrew: Either way, it seems like they have to unite again. But then, how does Jacob play into fighting Grindelwald?
Eric: Yeah, because Jacob… well, that was such a bold choice that this movie made to have one of the main characters be a Muggle. I’m not going to say No-Maj.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Because if we’re going away from America after this film…
Micah: Well, David Yates messed it up, too, last night.
Andrew: Oh, he did? [laughs]
Eric: On purpose. If we’re not going back to America after this in any big way, I don’t need to learn that term, so I’m just going to say Muggle. Having a Muggle main character, and that’s a big deal, trying to get a loan at a bank for a bakery… real world stuff! But because he’s the heart, the emotional weight of this film, it was a really nice counterbalance to everything that was going on with every magical person. And it was so bold, but I love it. But you’re right, the closer they get to Grindelwald, he’s an easy target because he’s a Muggle. It would be like… I mean, he can’t even see half the stuff, presumably, that they’re going to be… he couldn’t see Hogwarts if they take him to Hogwarts, probably couldn’t see Ilvermorny if they take him to Ilvermorny, so what are they going to do with Jacob?
Andrew: Yeah, I don’t know.
Eric: I think he’s going to franchise out, though…
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Eric: … and he’s going to have a Paris bakery.
Andrew: Yeah, there you go.
Eric: He’s going to have a bakery in Paris when they go to him.
Andrew: Yeah. I think we hit all my points.
Eric: I’m trying to think… yeah, do you have anything, Micah?
Andrew: Obscurus, death room… Newt, I think, will be using those beasts to fight a lot in future movies; that seems to definitely be his thing. Grindelwald twist, still not over it.
Eric: Yeah, I wanted to mention we were leaving the center last night, the Carnegie Hall, and some girl was talking to her two girlfriends… and so essentially, when Johnny Depp was revealed, you could hear the intake of breath, and you could tell on the note that it was a positive, like, [gasps] “Oooh” kind of thing.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Well, people clapped.
Eric: And some people clapped, yeah. And it’s just funny, because we knew it was a controversial topic; we knew it was going to be controversial going in. But so this girl was saying to her friends, like, “Okay, correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t we against this casting? Didn’t we not like him?”
Andrew: Right.
Eric: It was so funny to hear because I was thinking the same thing. Even I ooh’d and ahhh’d because it’s a cool reveal and it’s sort of unexpected, and he looks so different and acts so different than the character we just saw there a moment ago. But I mean, it’s ultimately about art, which is… I don’t agree with…
Andrew: Okay, David Yates. [laughs]
Eric: I don’t agree with Yates! I don’t agree with Heyman! I think it’s a terrible way to approach because it’s not sensitive to any of the concerns. And it’s like, “Oh, he has talent,” but in the movie it works, where it’s just… it is a reveal. It serves as a… it’s a perfectly serviceable reveal of what’s been going on in the plot. So I don’t know.
Andrew: I was not outwardly… I was shocked, but I was not one of those people clapping, because I am annoyed that he was cast, and I do feel like that wasn’t the best choice for several reasons.
Eric: I think he’s too high profile.
Andrew: Too high profile. It seems like a money grab move. I didn’t like how he looked as Grindelwald.
Eric: I was okay with the looks, but then again, Johnny Depp always plays these way over the top characters that you just can’t love or like. Not that you want to love Grindelwald, but I worry that… so I felt this performance was a little more muted. I mean, partly because he’s in cuffs…
Andrew: And it was very quick. [laughs]
Eric: And it was too quick. So I like that about it, because I was expecting, again, no pupils, weird scars on his face, something more terrible or terrifying, and you got just some guy. Johnny Depp playing just some guy. So I like that for that, because it’s not over the top yet, but I still don’t like the cast. I think they should have gone… this film… it’s almost like kneecapping all of the lead actors if you cast Johnny Depp, because he immediately upstages everyone else except Eddie, who’s now an Oscar winner.
Andrew: Well, so the question is, how big of a role will he have in the sequel and going forward? I mean, is he just going to keep showing up at the beginning and end again, sort of like Voldemort?
Eric: I hope.
Micah: Until you get to the point where he actually has to be stopped.
Andrew: Yeah. It’s going to be hard to top Graves’s wandwork, though. Is Johnny Depp going to be able to do it as good as Graves was? By the way, I did like that we got to see one wizard duel between Tina and Graves. When I saw that, I was like, “Oh, yeah, we should be seeing more of this.”
Eric: They even did the… not Priori Incantatem, but the two streams facing each other.
Andrew: Right. I liked that a lot.
Eric: It’s cool that they’re both Aurors, so they have… and that’s where I specifically thought of, “Oh, they should be careful about doing that kind of stuff,” because if you go back to the Dumbledore/Voldemort battle in the Ministry where they do that, and that’s the first time you see the two strings of magic connect, that’s supposed to be really badass, but if just these two American Aurors are doing that, it maybe has a potential to undercut what Voldemort and Dumbledore were doing. And to top it, Graves, who was secretly Grindelwald, could have thrown elemental magic at her, like fire and all that stuff that [breathes loudly] Voldemort does – I just did the mouth thing – to throw flames. Graves probably could have done all that and more.
Andrew: Yeah. I have a question: In the train scene, or on the rail tracks, subway tracks, why was Graves hitting – was it Newt? – so hard? Spell after spell after spell after spell. What was up with that? And what was the spell supposed to do?
Eric: Make him uncomfortable. The thing is, he was throwing lightning. It was very Emperor Palpatine; it was very Return of the Jedi. He was throwing lightning. And you know you’re not supposed to step on the railway tracks when the car is going by because you’ll get electrocuted? It’s just like that. I was just like, “He’s making Newt really uncomfortable.” Might’ve just been torture, right? Just pain inflicted.
Andrew: Yeah, because I was wondering why it was nonstop, but it didn’t seem to be doing anything to Newt, really, and doing it repeatedly wasn’t getting anywhere.
Eric: Yeah, it’s kind of like Crucio, but a different way of doing…
Andrew: Right, and why not just Crucio?
Eric: Well, yeah.
Andrew: Why not just kill him?
Micah: Yeah. Well, that’s what I wanted to know with both Tina and Newt. I mean, unless you… he was trying to achieve a different end here, and I feel like maybe if things played out a little bit differently and he had killed both of those people… I mean, they’re supposed to be dead anyway, because… by order of the president.
Eric: That’s a good point.
Micah: I just wonder if he was able to achieve what he’s trying to achieve, and then he still has these other people who he had killed in his wake, how would that reflect on somebody like Graves?
Eric: I think that’s what it is. I think that’s why he didn’t kill Newt in that scene where he’s against the tracks, because he hadn’t yet decided to reveal himself, or he hadn’t yet decided to go on the offensive against the Ministry. When he is up in the front of the camera… remember he sighs and then turns around and starts killing the MACUSA people? That’s when I think he made the decision to give up his alias. But before that, he was trying to work within the system and protect, so he wouldn’t kill Newt, because it would look bad if Graves killed Newt, even though, as you point out, they were sentenced to death.
Andrew: I think we should wrap it up here.
Eric: Yeah, for sure. I mean, definitely more to talk about.
Andrew: Yeah, and I need to leave this hotel room. It’s way past checkout time.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: This episode sponsored by the Kitano New York.
Eric: Yes, visit the Kitano for all of your Hotel in Manhattan needs.
Andrew: Yeah, I asked for a late checkout, and now we’re six minutes past that late checkout and I still need to shower. So yeah, thank you, everybody, for listening. We obviously have a lot more to discuss. Please send in your feedback.
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Andrew: We want to know what you think of the Lestranges, the Obscurus, Graves, Johnny Depp, the Obliviate thing that wasn’t actually Obliviate… [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, he said it’s like Obliviate in the movie.
Andrew: Oh, did he? Okay.
Eric: Yeah, the comparison is drawn for sure.
Andrew: Okay, good. Yeah, send us your thoughts on everything. How do you think it compares to the Harry Potter movies? Are you excited to see more of these movies? Do you think they’re going to cast the goat in future movies?
[Micah laughs]
Eric: I think they’re definitely going to cast the goat.
Andrew: What do you think of Jacob? Queenie? Yeah, all that. We have so much more to talk about, and we’re going to in the weeks and months ahead. And we should do a quick plug for our Patreon. Your support does help us do this show; it helped us gather here in New York.
Eric: Fund this trip. Yeah, we wouldn’t have been all together. We’re actually in the same room together for the first time in five years.
Andrew: Yeah, probably. And who knows the last time we all recorded together? I mean, maybe a live podcast, but in this environment, I’m not sure we’ve even…
Micah: I don’t think we’ve ever done it.
Andrew: No. Well, maybe Book 7 release. Eric was there; Micah wasn’t. In London.
Eric: Oh, in the hotel with Laura and Kevin.
Micah: So nine years ago.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: That’s what I’m saying! This is how rare this is, and thanks to our patrons on Patreon, they made this possible.
Andrew: Yes, so thank you.
Eric: Visit Patreon.com/MuggleCast to find out more about that.
Andrew: You’ll receive signed album art. You’ll receive bonus MuggleCast installments.
Eric: While supplies last on the album art. I think with the last couple months, we’re down to fewer than 100.
Andrew: Okay. And we will be actually releasing this spoiler-filled episode early on Patreon, so we give people benefits like that. And again, we really appreciate your support; it’s making the show possible. And yeah, so we’ll be back… this is our second episode of November, so I guess we’ll be back early December, unless we can’t wait, or unless y’all get us to our next Patreon fundraiser goal, which is going to make the show weekly.
Eric: Ooh, there’s that.
Andrew: I wish it was weekly right now because I have so much to say about it.
Eric: Weekly right now, can you imagine? We could really do scene by scene.
Andrew: We could do a whole episode on Obscurus and Graves and all this stuff, what Leta Lestrange is up to…
Eric: Bowtruckles.
Andrew: [laughs] “And now a whole episode on Bowtruckles.”
Eric: Bowtruckles! Thanks, patrons.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: But seriously, thank you. Oh, and you can email us. We don’t always plug our email, MuggleCast@gmail.com.
Andrew: Yeah, if you want to send in your feedback that way. Or on Twitter, twitter.com/MuggleCast. Facebook.com/MuggleCast. We’ll look at feedback all these ways. Okay?
Micah: All right.
Andrew: Till next time. Goodbye.
Eric and Micah: Bye.