I think that is a retcon that i am not okay with. Albus seeing Grindelwald as his desire instead of his dead sister (caused by said man) is not cool.

 

That’s a good point. His sister’s death is the main thing that drove them apart.

 

It's actually not known who it was that killed her.

Ariana Dumbledore

Many think it was actually Dumbledore himself who accidentally shot a stray curse that was deflected towards Ariana that killed her.

 

I didn't say he killed her, he's the main reason why that conflict happened and what drove the Dumbledore siblings apart. Its not realistic to think Albus still desires him after everything that happened.

 

Yeah.. actually now that you mention it, I agree. So they want us to buy that Dumbledore wanted to grind on Coleslaw Head more than he wanted to see his dead family again and at peace? Jesus.

 

FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD Final Poster Features Johnny Depp Taking On The Wizarding World

 

Looks like Mcgonagall is back and she will be played by Fiona Glascott, which is a huge retcon since she wasnt even born yet in 1926.

 

FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD Clips & U.K. Poster Released As First Fan Reactions Pour In

 

Damn. Not even Maggie Smith was born by 1926. The books and movies have always been their own timelines for sure, especially by the time of Yates’ direction, so I was figuring this was an attempt to handwave Smith being much older than her book counterpart, but damn Smith wasn’t even born by 1926 let alone a grown woman by then.

 

Sounds like another one of Rowling’s post-Deathly Hallows retcons

 

I mean the spoilers are already online from the recent fan screening, but this is a new level of stupid.

 

FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD Reviews Point To A Sequel More Filler Than Fantastic

It's just okay. Depp is between decent and good.

 

Well Ezra Miller wore quite something to the Premiere

 

Suddenly, Lady Gaga’s fashion choices almost seem normal in comparison. He looks like a Dalek trying to disguise themselves as a human

 

So it came out. Major revelations (won't be mentioned here) that change a great deal of the established history.

 

This desperately needed to be a book. Clearly JK is not good with the movie format which sucks cause i thought she would get better after the first one. The structure of the movie makes Revenge of the fallen look like a masterpiece. There are so many characters, so many plotlines, very little time. You have to be a hardcore fan to digest everything and not get bored, even i did. But the third act of the movie is surprisingly thrilling but the first hour and a half are criminally butchered.

 

I wasn’t too excited for this based on the trailers even though I’m a big Harry Potter fan, but I still came out of it really disappointed. This movie is just a mess. There’s way too many characters in this movie and none of them get any development. Eddie Redmayne and Dan Fogler are good in their roles once again. However, the movie actually ruins one of the best parts of the first Fantastic Beasts movie with Jacob and Queenie’s relationship. I get that they want to introduce conflict and move the characters forward, but things get weird with Queenie’s character even before one of the big twists. Ezra Miller plays a surprisingly large role in this movie, but he’s not really playing a character; Creedence is more of a plot device. Johnny Depp is ok as Grindelwald, but I still feel like there’s something off with his character design that’s unnecessarily distracting. Jude Law is kinda underused as Dumbledore. This movie also makes one of the cardinal sins of a lot of prequels in explaining things that don’t need to be explained; and J.K. Rowling throws in more of her trademark post-Deathly Hallows retcons!

Spoiler: Spoiler

First of all, the idea of Nagini originally being a woman before becoming Voldemort’s snake could work in theory, but they don’t do anything with it. They just included her character because they could; not because it served the story. The reason Dumbledore couldn’t face Grindelwald himself did not require any sort of magic explanation. Dumbledore can’t physically move against Grindelwald because he made a blood pact with him that’s similar to the Unbreakable Vows from the books. Why was that added? Dumbledore’s emotions were a good enough reason for him to not take action. He loved Grindelwald and felt guilty about the altercation that led to his sister’s death. That’s more interesting than magic curses. The tragedies that he experienced in life that formed him into the wise professor we all know and love are part of what made him a three dimensional character. Creedence being Dumbledore’s long lost brother is also a terrible twist. While it doesn’t have to follow the book, another Dumbledore brother was never mentioned once by Aberforth in Deathly Hallows. There’s also no build up to this twist. Rowling used to be a master of foreshadowing and giving subtle clues to mysteries that could still surprise you. This twist just comes out of left field; kinda like most of the developments in The Cursed Child.

I think it’s safe to say that Warner Brothers turned this into another Hobbit situation. This was originally supposed to be a trilogy, but now there’s going to be three more of these. It also has a lot of tonal dissonance as it will shift back and forth between scenes of whimsy and really dark subject matter.

It’s not an unwatchable movie. The action and the effects are fine, and all of the performances were good enough (well except for Zoe Kravitz). It is by far the worst movie set in the Harry Potter universe though. Outside of Marvel movies and Mission Impossible, this has been a really bad year for franchise movies.

 

Agreed. My brain was pretty much tired at the end of the movie and not in a satisfied way. Was just a mess to constantly keep track of everything trying to figure out if it would be important later and never was.

 

The Harry Potter Films Are The Best Adaptations Of All Time

Even I think this is too much for CBR. But audacity gets attention.

So can anyone who's a fan of the films verify this?

 

Eh, they’re really good adaptations, but I wouldn’t call them the best or most faithful of all time. If they were to remake them, I doubt they could do it better in most cases though. The first two movies are very close to the book and do a great job introducing a magical wizarding world. Prisoner of Azkaban is also very accurate to the book, and I can’t even think of anything the movie cut out at the moment. It also took the movies in a darker and more character driven direction as it doesn’t end with a big confrontation with Voldemort. Goblet of Fire was my favorite book in the series, so I was a little more bothered with some of the changes they made in that film. Dumbledore was way too aggressive in this movie compared to his calm demeanor described vividly by the book and by the previous movies, and character relationships were very condensed. Order of the Phoenix cuts out a lot of stuff from the book, but a lot of it did make sense to cut in hindsight. Half Blood Prince also simplified some character relationships and cuts out a couple bits of Voldemort’s backstory (which are a big part of his motivation while setting up the Horcruxes). Deathly Hallows works for the most part as a two part adaptation, but there were some things I was disappointed to see them leave out like Dudley thanking Harry for saving his life and the way they set up Dumbledore’s backstory without paying it off (even though we will see it now in the Fantastic Beasts films).

It’s more of a two part question. Is it the most faithfully adapted book series of all time? It’s probably pretty close given how long the books are, but I’d personally give it to The Hunger Games since the changes from the books are relatively minor.

Are they the best movies based on a book series? Nah, I have to give that one to Lord of the Rings.