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After watching trailers again I now think the projector on the screen I saw it on was just really dim. God dammit, Odeon!
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Nov 19, 2016 23:40
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Every 3D movie I've seen that wasn't in an IMAX or AVX theatre has always been dim as poo poo.
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Nov 19, 2016 23:42
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People who like this movie are such broken, broken people. You have my pity.
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Nov 19, 2016 23:59
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MorgaineDax posted:Every 3D movie I've seen that wasn't in an IMAX or AVX theatre has always been dim as poo poo. Saw it in 2D. The direction of the movie was pretty dull even outside of the colours, though. I know we're used to the wizarding world, but there was really no sense of wonder even with the biggest scenes, except a couple times in the first suitcase bit. I think overall we should have spent more time seeing things from Kowalski's POV instead of Newt's. It honestly felt like Yates was just bored of this poo poo. The most interesting/'big' shots were in that drat fixin'-it-up montage at the end. But that fuckin' memory loss piss bird was the dumbest deus ex machina
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Nov 20, 2016 00:19
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Escobarbarian posted:But that fuckin' memory loss piss bird was the dumbest deus ex machina If it was just "everybody who goes out in the rain forgets memories of the last day" or whatever it might have made sense, but somehow it can change all the newspapers too, and nobody's going to notice that the newspapers kept inside are different than the ones kept outside??
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Nov 20, 2016 01:14
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Roadie posted:If it was just "everybody who goes out in the rain forgets memories of the last day" or whatever it might have made sense, but somehow it can change all the newspapers too, and nobody's going to notice that the newspapers kept inside are different than the ones kept outside?? Ah but, you see, a wizard did it
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Nov 20, 2016 01:16
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Hedrigall posted:Ah but, you see, a wizard did it If it was some kind of "every wizard in New York uses the Statue of Liberty's torch to cast a giant obliviation spell" thing it would bother me less than "a big raincloud and some venom from a weird flying lizard thing automatically correct everything".
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Nov 20, 2016 01:31
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I feel like that resolution would bug me in most movies but for some reason it doesn't really bug me here. I'm not even a Potter fanboy but I just can't get too upset about it. I acknowledge it as kinda dumb but I guess I expect stuff like that from Potter movies in service of a more "magical" childlike story. Of course death rooms aren't very childlike. But for some reason I find myself judging the obliviate thing less harshly.
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Nov 20, 2016 01:41
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Jenner posted:The new canon that wizards and muggles are physiologically different? Stupid. Midichlorians? 
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Nov 20, 2016 02:01
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Great characters. Shame about everything else.
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Nov 20, 2016 03:39
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Roadie posted:If it was some kind of "every wizard in New York uses the Statue of Liberty's torch to cast a giant obliviation spell" thing it would bother me less than "a big raincloud and some venom from a weird flying lizard thing automatically correct everything". They should have just owned the dumb retcon Kowalski whispers something to Newt, he waves his wand and a giant flaming banner declaring EAT AT JOES flares into the sky. Everyone immediately goes home. You gotta try harder than that to get people interested in your ads. This is New York.
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Nov 20, 2016 03:51
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resurgam40 posted:Um, didn't the Dursleys do just that, though, or try to? The Dursleys never told Harry anything about magic. It's true they punished him for his accidental outburst of magic and called him a freak, but they never explained why and Harry always interpreted the outbursts as acts of defiance, like how his hair always grew back after they cut it. Anyway, the Dursley's were awful, but that was their function in the story and stop thinking so hard about it. The film itself was...okay. It felt too big and busy. You could easily remove the whole newspaper stuff and not lose a thing, or for that matter the speakeasy, or a good character chunk of Newt and Kawolski in the chest. The whole creepy cult family thing felt like something out of a different movie and the deaths were, for Harry Potter, rather over the top violent. I didn't hate it, but I don't think it's great either. One thing that the Grindlewald reveal made me think about was the interaction between Graves and the kid. While watching the movie I had a sort of predatory gay vibe with how Graves treated Credence, and it makes more sense considering he did basically the same thing with Dumbledore Also, that was Ezra Miller??
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Nov 20, 2016 04:09
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The "Obscura" thing actually does have basis in Harry Potter. Dumbledore's sister. They never phrase it as such in the book but they use almost a word-for-word similar description of her and the thing in the film. It's not a particular coincidence that the movie ends up using Grindlewald as a guy explicitly trying to help someone with the same condition. It was one of the few things in the movie I thought was particularly clever. Shame about the rest of the film.
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Nov 20, 2016 04:36
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ImpAtom posted:The "Obscura" thing actually does have basis in Harry Potter. Dumbledore's sister. They never phrase it as such in the book but they use almost a word-for-word similar description of her and the thing in the film. It's not a particular coincidence that the movie ends up using Grindlewald as a guy explicitly trying to help someone with the same condition. It was one of the few things in the movie I thought was particularly clever. Shame about the rest of the film. This actually makes quite a lot of sense. I think it would go a long way to explaining why Grindlewald would know that he can use vunerable young magical kids as weapons in such a way. For the record though, I dont think in any way Grindlewald was trying to help Credence, just use and exploit him further once he realised his true value as the weapon he was trying to harness.
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Nov 20, 2016 05:00
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ImpAtom posted:The "Obscura" thing actually does have basis in Harry Potter. Dumbledore's sister. They never phrase it as such in the book but they use almost a word-for-word similar description of her and the thing in the film. It's not a particular coincidence that the movie ends up using Grindlewald as a guy explicitly trying to help someone with the same condition. It was one of the few things in the movie I thought was particularly clever. Shame about the rest of the film. Hmm, good catch there. That ties things together pretty well, so I'm all for it. I wonder who they're going to cast as a svelte young 40-ish Dumbledore, and whether they'll be able to resist using him in just the 4th and fifth movies or do something like a cameo in the 2nd movie and then a fairly major role in 3-5.
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Nov 20, 2016 06:14
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I think that may have been the most joyless 2 hours of my year.
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Nov 20, 2016 06:36
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Did anyone have trouble understand large amounts of the dialogue in this, or was it just my theater's sound system? I especially had problems understanding NewtMorgaineDax posted:Also, I liked the movie, but everything with the Shaws should have been cut. I forgot they were even in the movie until I checked IMDb. I'm assuming that family will have a bigger role in the sequels, but their plot just gets forgotten. A True Jar Jar Fan posted:I really assumed Newt was gay and that he loved Kowalski. They had a genuine connection that didn't exist at all between Newt and Tina and he took him into his private home to share his beloved treasures and let him in on intimate secrets. I assumed Queenie's "I have trouble reading men like you" line was pointing to Newt's sexuality rather than just a "he's British" joke but it doesn't go anywhere interesting with that. Jenner posted:People who like this movie are such broken, broken people. You have my pity. virtualboyCOLOR posted:Great characters. Shame about everything else. ImpAtom posted:The "Obscura" thing actually does have basis in Harry Potter. Dumbledore's sister. They never phrase it as such in the book but they use almost a word-for-word similar description of her and the thing in the film. It's not a particular coincidence that the movie ends up using Grindlewald as a guy explicitly trying to help someone with the same condition. It was one of the few things in the movie I thought was particularly clever. Shame about the rest of the film. Nichael fucked around with this message at 08:19 on Nov 20, 2016 |
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Nov 20, 2016 08:14
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NowonSA posted:Hmm, good catch there. That ties things together pretty well, so I'm all for it. Jared Harris? His dad was the first Dumbledore after all, and he could definitely also channel the gruffer Gambon version of the character.
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Nov 20, 2016 09:12
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Fantastic breasts and where to find them?
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Nov 20, 2016 09:55
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Baronash posted:I think that may have been the most joyless 2 hours of my year. Sure it was. In TYOOL 2016. I thought it was OK. There was a lot of stuff I liked and a lot of stuff I didn't. I liked Kowalski. I liked Queenie. I wasn't so thrilled about the two of them together. I was honestly not really convinced by the whole "New Salem" thing. The hot religious topics in the news in 1926 were things like the Scopes monkey trial. No one's going to be too psyched about burning witches. The CGI was also pretty disappointing as mentioned. Eddie Redmayne was fine. I forsee a long future for him being charmingly befuddled in romantic comedies. Jon Voight sucks and I don't know why they keep giving him work. Overall though, most of the films flaws were ignorable. I ate my popcorn and was happy enough but I won't be going out of my way to recommend it to anyone.
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Nov 20, 2016 13:11
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twerking on the railroad posted:I was honestly not really convinced by the whole "New Salem" thing. The hot religious topics in the news in 1926 were things like the Scopes monkey trial. No one's going to be too psyched about burning witches. That was a plot point. other than street kids looking for charity food, nobody was giving a poo poo about the New Salem movement. Nobody was taking flyers from Credence, Jon Voight wouldn't even give them the time of day at the newspaper office, even the people listening to the mother outside the bank had an air of 'hey look at the crazy'. All that added up to making the family even more isolated and unhinged
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Nov 20, 2016 14:19
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Movie was quite enjoyable but not quite as epic as the other Harry Potter films. The real sad part is when you realize Jon Voight's character won't remember his dead gay son.
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Nov 20, 2016 17:31
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Wow, a lot of hate. Oh well. I thought it was a really really fun ride. I read all the HP books and saw all the movies like basically everyone else and the entire time all I could think was "I want more stuff outside of Hogwarts". This movie has a story that is scraping that surface and I had a great time. I am really looking forward to see how much more there is to the wizardry world Rowling created. Everyone I personally know has had a great time with this flick so far and are excited for more. I was NEVER excited for another HP movie, and in fact, watched them out of order. They did a fantastic job with the whole book-to-film translation so I didn't have that hunger to see them. Also, I have NO IDEA what to expect with these movies since there aren't books for me to read beforehand. The surprise made it more fun for me. Was this even in the same ballpark as a film that Arrival is? Not even close. Was it more fun for me? Yup yup.
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Nov 20, 2016 17:31
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This was easily the best HP film since Prisoner of Azkaban. Maybe it's because this one didn't have the weight of a 600 page novel to compete with or any pre-conceived expectations, but it was honestly great. It had a lot of interesting ideas and played with them in interesting ways. It had enjoyable, natural feeling characters, and expanded upon the universe rather than bastardising it. (And the Cursed Child screenplay absolutely bastardised it, so maybe my expectations were set a bit low). There were some irritations though. The film had a habit of setting things up in a clever way, and after the payoff cramming in several redundant lines of dialogue to make sure everyone understands. Yeah we get that Credence being alive beyond age 10 implies that he's scarily powerful. Thanks. The overarching story never really meshed with the fantastic beasts side of things, but not in a distracting way. It definitely felt like the first in an anthology, and that Newt & Co's story is pretty much wrapped up for the time being. I'm wondering what they could do next though, since the only other unexplored spin off book is the Quidditch one. Maybe a 1920s world cup or something? e: Oh and I really wasn't expecting it to be this popular. To see it on a Sunday afternoon we had to sit in the very front row and crane our necks (we didn't realise that when we were booking and thought we'd be at the very back). And there was a huge, obnoxious round of applause at the end, which isn't really Basildon's style. Roadie posted:If it was just "everybody who goes out in the rain forgets memories of the last day" or whatever it might have made sense, but somehow it can change all the newspapers too, and nobody's going to notice that the newspapers kept inside are different than the ones kept outside?? I thought the newspapers were done by the aurors, not the rain. I did wonder whether people could see the incident from across the river. It stands to reason that not everyone who saw would still have been in Noo Yoik when the rains came. stev fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Nov 20, 2016 |
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Nov 20, 2016 18:21
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The themes are very topical. The new salemers are the ignored underclass, like rust belt people who voted trump. The wizards just want to cover everything up and maintain the status quo, even after newt proves how useful his animals are, they go from wanting him arrested to just kicking him out of the country. Slight improvement. A better script couldve better unified the beasts and the nomaj's (and new salemers) theme of being unwanted
got any sevens fucked around with this message at 22:43 on Nov 20, 2016 |
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Nov 20, 2016 18:51
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I liked it fine, but it isn't perfect. There's a lot of scenes where I felt the pacing was a bit awkward. I assume there's a lot that was cut from the theatrical release. It did give me a craving for more though. And it is pretty cool to have a filmseries in the HP universe where we can't know the upcoming plots by reading the book first. They have the ability to really surprise us this time around. Let's hope they don't overdo it and add references to the "original" series, like The Hobbit series did with LOTR.
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Nov 20, 2016 21:26
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Yeah, I enjoyed this film, but I feel like it needed three or four more passes on just about everything. The actual scenes of this film felt bizarrely lethargic for a plot that was surprisingly good, and a lot of that was editing yes, but I think the casting of Newt and Tina were equally to blame. I don't know if this is going to be an unpopular opinion or not but I thought they sucked and had no chemistry with each other or anyone else. And I felt like half their dialogue was cut out or something because there was just this empty space of interactions whenever they should have been interacting with things. As a result like 50% of their screentime consisted of their blank, owl-eyed awkward expressions where there should have been...I dunno...any dialogue or exchange or exposition or anything for their leads to be doing. Newt in particular had one single expression through the whole film, but I especially don't understand Tina's character. She's supposed to be intrepid...but mousy. She's supposed to be a competent cop...but she's horribly nervous and browbeaten. The Dark Secret flashback scene that, for all intents and purposes, should have explained her character -- connected the dots, solved the paradoxical equations of her personality -- was just that she got super mad at the Salemer lady and attacked her? That doesn't...solve anything about the character, it just adds more contradictory traits. Compared to those two, Jacob and Queenie were far more likable and relatable. The film just lights up whenever Jacob and Queenie got to do things, and gets sluggish and tiresome when Newt and Tina got the torch. Speaking of which, wizarding New York felt decidedly unwizardly. I don't know how much of this was intentional in the tone and writing, to make Newt's suitcase all the more wondrous and impressive, but the extent of magic from this magical community was mostly telekinesis and teleportation and a tiny sprinkle of some other stuff I guess. MACUSA was particularly just...there. It felt drab and unimpressive and annoyingly adult. Not for me, thanks. I think it was a mistake for there to be literally no wizard children depicted in this film at all; it's missing that vital element that made Hogwarts and the old HP world connect with people. Especially since the plot of the film kind of hinges on wizard children. And speaking of that, I did really enjoy the Obscura plot. Unlike everything else it was interesting, well-written, well-acted, employed relatable worldbuilding, and visually goddamn impressive. Those last thirty minutes of the film are like, finally this film is moving! ...Unfortunately, along those lines, I thought the Grindelwald twist was very nearly the dumbest thing that could have happened and let a lot of the wind out of those sales. Holy poo poo this was stupid, and that's saying something about the same writer that once gave us the Moody/Crouch switcheroo. You get Graves who's this powerful, charismatic, interesting antagonist...and then reveal him as loving Johnny Depp looking the absolute worst he's ever looked, playing this once-fascinating character as some sneering supervillain. "And I would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for you meddling So yeah, this film's got some stuff going for it, but those things are locked in stalemate against the stuff going against it.
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Nov 20, 2016 22:23
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Grindlewald was signalled the very first time you saw Colin Farrell. He was presented from behind, looking exactly like the glimpse you saw of Grindlewald, except with dark hair. From the writer that called a werewolf Lupin. I think the film had real problems with pace and trying to weave too many things together. It was also not about Where To Find Fantastic Beasts.
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Nov 20, 2016 23:27
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BrianWilly posted:Yeah, I enjoyed this film, but I feel like it needed three or four more passes on just about everything. Re Tina: it isn't that she attacked the Salemer lady, it's that she deliberately revealed herself to non-magicals in order to stop Mary-Lou's abuse of Credence, which is why she's no longer an Auror. I do agree with you that she didn't really feel like Auror material, given how much they were built up in the books as needing a great deal of training and competence, and she really didn't give the impression of either in her character. I also agree with Scamander and their chemistry with each other; I mean, he's fine, and I think I can see where they were going with his character, but they almoist did too well on the whole "he's secretive" thing, because I couldn't really get a read on him. There was this strange disconnect with him and the rest of the movie, like there's some no-mans-land between Rowling's writing, Yates' direction, and Redmayne's portrayal of Scamander that he occupies and I just find him off. howe_sam posted:The Dursleys never told Harry anything about magic. It's true they punished him for his accidental outburst of magic and called him a freak, but they never explained why and Harry always interpreted the outbursts as acts of defiance, like how his hair always grew back after they cut it. Anyway, the Dursley's were awful, but that was their function in the story and stop thinking so hard about it. I'd love to... but the books kept shoving them in my face in every book, and contriving a reason for Harry to keep staying with those horrible people, who continue to abuse him until they leave and Dudley is sort-of redeemed. You don't think it kinda dilutes the very palpable anti-abuse message just a bit that this keeps happening? More of an attempt should have been made to stop that abuse from continuing; making them the butt of jokes and the talking to they get from Dumbledore at the beginning of Book 6 does not cut it. It's just a weak-rear end attempt to have one's cake and eat it too in having Roald Dahl style horrible guardians, and it's one of the elements of this story that just doesn't work. George is not made to live with his horrible grandma every summer after creating the Marvelous Medicine, she shrinks away to nothing and that's that.
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Nov 20, 2016 23:41
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keithy george posted:Grindlewald was signalled the very first time you saw Colin Farrell. He was presented from behind, looking exactly like the glimpse you saw of Grindlewald, except with dark hair. From the writer that called a werewolf Lupin. That's so true, it mightve been better to have the story be like Star Trek 4, where they're undercover in the muggle world and lose their wands and have to catch the animals without being detected.
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Nov 20, 2016 23:41
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I really liked this film, yet I think it suffered a lot from that they went all in on using the fantastic beasts plot as a cover that this was leading to a "real" prequel series involving the Grindlewald era, which we probably should have seen coming as soon as they announced it would be five movies.
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Nov 21, 2016 01:23
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Mameluke posted:Jared Harris? His dad was the first Dumbledore after all, and he could definitely also channel the gruffer Gambon version of the character. Good choice, I can absolutely see that working. I've never seen Harris give a bad performance, although he's got such a distinctive voice/presence that I tend to see him more than the character, kind of like how a common complaint about Tom Cruise is that he's Tom Cruise in every movie. That's really the only criticism I can throw at him though, I'm always happy to see him in any given role because he's a hell of an actor. Here's hoping he gets the gig, but even if he doesn't I have to assume that they're going to get some sort of top tier British actor who will do well in the part.
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Nov 21, 2016 02:53
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twerking on the railroad posted:I was honestly not really convinced by the whole "New Salem" thing. The hot religious topics in the news in 1926 were things like the Scopes monkey trial. No one's going to be too psyched about burning witches. It seemed weird to me how they had the religious implication, but never really mentioned it directly. I guess it would've been weird to mention it, too. I liked the implication that Newt was performing wizard exorcisms with Creedence and the girl in Africa.
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Nov 21, 2016 07:18
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jisforjosh posted:
There was something very familiar about the character that I couldn't put my finger on until I came home and read this thread. Yes, he is very reminiscent of Doctor Who, almost to the point of homage. Just read on wikipedia that Matt Smith himself was considered for the role, so this is probably not entirely an accident. I thought the film was decent. It did what it set out to do. Although I agree the ending was way too easy and convenient and is best left as forgotten as the destruction of New York by the Glow Cloud's little brother, the Dark Cloud. ALL HAIL THE GLOW CLOUD Why did Newt even bother traveling by boat? You would think a portkey system would have been in place a long time ago, particularly since breaking the masquerade is subject to summary execution in America or something. Apparition does seem to have a range limit, indeed JKR herself reiterated this on twitter a couple days ago probably due to this exact question. Plus I remember portkeys being used for the Quidditch World Cup. skooma512 fucked around with this message at 09:37 on Nov 21, 2016 |
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Nov 21, 2016 09:35
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Probably would've been tougher to get the case past portkey customs officials (which I assume there would be for international travel) than the muggles.
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Nov 21, 2016 10:19
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The three super annoying things for me in this movie: The Ending So Credence is dead now and the city is half destroyed. Doesn't matter let's just wipe all the memories and fix it, done. The memory wipe I can understand, but the way they just fixed an entire city was lazy. What about the people straight up slain by Credence? How will you explain a nice fixed room with a red smear that used to be somebody's wife on one wall? They should have not been able to fix everything as well as they did and instead just replaced headlines with FREAK TORNADO RIPS THROUGH NYC. It'll set up a nicer conspiracy theory sequel with the journalists' pictures, paper family, and a subset of people constantly repeating hurricanes can't melt steel beams. Newt himself. I liked the character but Redmayne played him seemingly always crouched over and smirking like a secret masturbator I still don't know where to find Fantastic Beasts so I can only assume that the movie failed at the one thing it was supposed to tell me. gently caress you JKR you hack fraud. I was hoping that the sequels wouldn't be all focused on Newt but instead focus on an entirely different story about different wizards in different situations. And that they're not all about saving the world or the city or whatever. Just give us a Mighty Ducks but with quidditch or something. Also for the guy who was talking about wizard kids: they're all in boarding school and this film is in termtime
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Nov 21, 2016 10:53
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The second film is gonna be set in Paris apparently
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Nov 21, 2016 12:30
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Got dragged to this on Saturday. It was like a 2 & 1/2 hour episode of Doctor Who. One of the really bad ones.
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Nov 21, 2016 13:06
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skooma512 posted:Why did Newt even bother traveling by boat? You would think a portkey system would have been in place a long time ago, particularly since breaking the masquerade is subject to summary execution in America or something. Apparition does seem to have a range limit, indeed JKR herself reiterated this on twitter a couple days ago probably due to this exact question. Plus I remember portkeys being used for the Quidditch World Cup. Pretty much everything about the wizarding world seems to be fragmented and lacking coordination. There is a million things in the series where it's odvious how much better things would be if the wizards could just organize and work together. Half the way harry ends up being a hero is by going around and actually talking to people and actually combining the information and talents that everyone already had but wizard culture keeps isolated. It seems way more muggle than wizard to think "we should set up a comprehensive travel network using portkeys".
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Nov 21, 2016 15:27
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A True Jar Jar Fan posted:Really conflicted here, because the movie felt to me like a Potter film, a Pokemon episode, and a remake of Carrie mashed together into something tonally incoherent. I liked the individual pieces and felt that any one of those three elements would make a fine story, but they just didn't gel together for me. Don't forget the ending that was straight out of Scooby-Doo! I agree though, this movie seemed like it didn't know what it wanted to be, and as a result none of it was interesting, just a bunch of disparate set pieces glued together with lousy cgi. jivjov posted:J. K. Rowling's wizarding world has always been really dystopian and problematic if you scratch just beneath the surface. I've always kinda taken that as a feature, not a bug. Seriously though, they have a goddamn magic word that instakills so they could provide the most humane execution possible, but they go to lengths to make these hosed up supervillain death chambers and send people to die in them for trivial offenses? It just made me think "you know, maybe these people really should be exterminated." raditts fucked around with this message at 15:32 on Nov 21, 2016 |
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Nov 21, 2016 15:27
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