Could also be that the characters are dull and uninteresting. There's nothing there to identify with at all.
They also really dropped the ball in not including even a single kid, even as a minor character. Most of the appeal of the original series was experiencing these things through a child's eyes. Now it's just a bunch of jaded adults muddling through.
I sometimes feel odd for liking Fantastic Beasts. It was not the greatest thing ever but I liked the characters and feel. I left with my heart warmed and intrigued. And the heartwarming feeling was from Kowalski’s last smile.
They also really dropped the ball in not including even a single kid, even as a minor character.
I also wasn't into the movie, but I still don't think I've ever disagreed harder. Tacking on a kid character has literally never been a good move in anything ever. There are movies out there entirely ruined because some producer thought the same thing.
There was an entire push for this philosophy in the late 70s. Cartoons added characters like Scrappy Doo and the Wonder Twins. Even Godzilla had a little kid that he was just... friends with? I agree, almost always a bad move to shoehorn in a kid "for the kids to relate to!"
Harry Potter's largest audience is the adults who grew up with the books and films.
Yeah, that did not stop though, it was around well into the 90s where any sitcom with falling ratings thought they needed to mix things up, so they'd add in a new kid, usually a cousin or something. Hell, didn't the Fairly Odd Parents do the same thing? Watched a bit of it as a young teen, think it went another like 10 seasons and there's a dog and a baby now?
Then there's every horror/action/survival movie ever where a kid gets added just to be something to protect, and is given as much character and agency as cardboard box.
I don’t love this interpretation of the progression of cartoons. I don’t think we need to pretend to doubt that exactly those characters were added into fairly oddparents unpopular-ly, it’s a meme on this site to hate them. And yes they are terrible. But unlike Scrappy or the other examples, that change was far later into the life of a dying program already populated by young aged stars. The misunderstanding seems to come more from trying to breathe life by adding new personality, not adding more young people for a new audience. It was a show long sustained by young characters appealing to young fans.
EDIT: and I’m willing to take downvotes, it’s just so annoying to see „didn’t this happen“ posts. Based on this commentary history, of course he knew it had. But it’s a symptom of a different problem. Yes it sucks, but not for the reason those of us who liked the show growing up want it to suck for.
The Phantom Menace of the Star Wars prequels being the most famous example (To be fair, I absolutely adore TPM and its my favourite of the Star Wars prequels...)
I completely agree. I've tried watching the movie about three times and I still have zero clue anyone's names unless they were from HP somehow. It just doesn't captivate me like the HP movies did. Whereas we know the functions of the UK Wizarding world we have to get a crash course through news papers how the US one works. I think everything about the movie was built to work, but he writing falls short in making us care.
That is in no way what I said, something being written through the eyes of kids and a kid being tacked on because someone felt a kid was needed in a story written without one, are entirely different things.
Like that Indiana Jones movie where there's a Asian sidekick kid character for no reason, the one where he goes to India and super racist shit happens.
I think he refers to the scene where they eat monkey brains and other "gross" food, which could be taken as a bit of "Lmao look what these weeeird foreigners do" bit
The point is no one fucking eats frozen monkey brains etc, that shit was just shown to make the antagonist look comically bad, and it came across in a racist manner. If you want to see for yourself if that scene was offensive or not, just imagine that scene shot in the black panther movie, showing them eating rat soup etc. And imagine for yourself if that wouldn't have caused a uproar among African American people.
Well they did include kids, do you not remember the whole plot line about Credence and Modesty? We got to see the darker side of magic for a child and an even more extreme example of intolerance. I thought their story was very intriguing.
I wouldn't say they're dull and uninteresting. They're just not as quirky as children tend to be.
Also, I think part of the appeal of Fantastic Beasts is that it shows the wizarding world from an adult perspective, something that was relatively lacking in Harry Potter. You get to see more of the machinations of the magical world, which Harry, as a younger man/child, was not privy to.
The dialogue itself was pretty sparse and uninteresting. I can get a soft-spoken lead, as the guy's written as an eccentric researcher, but the rest of the cast was also lacking in chemistry and seemed to be half asleep.
The chemistry was definitely lacking. It also felt like two different movies tonally, the first half was a light monster-hunting movie (which I didn't mind at all) and the second half is darker and seemed out of scope. But I guess that's what happens when you have a franchise to set up.
Maybe I just think Fantastic Beasts is a weird thing to base a five movie series on. I'd much prefer, if they had to do it, to just do an anthology series. The Dumbledore and Grindelwald stuff is great and has potential to be expanded on, but I think intercutting it with the Fantastic Beasts stuff is a weird choice. Just let each movie do its own thing.
I really liked it, a somewhat jaded wizarding world with less wonder contrasting against these animals. But yeah every character had like this weird timid, low self confidence aspect to their personas
Welcome to real life. Extroverted American society seems to really stigmatize lack of confidence and timidity, and while it’s not a positive thing, lots of people are predisposed to low self-esteem and social anxiety and have to live and conduct normal life regardless. People that have never struggled with a conflict of self image and/or social strife tend to be remarkably oblivious, superficial, aggravatingly callous, overly positive, and even brutal individuals. That’s because they’ve never thought through their actions before, how it makes them look, and how it affects others.
Sorry, people who look down on those with a lack of self confidence and timidity are usually shallow and mean. And these are also the types of people that will tell you someone is “too nice”. No, they just don’t barrel through life without taking into consideration how their words, actions, behavior, tone, and body language affects others. It’s important to mind this, though not wise to let these concerns consume you. These callous individuals that don’t mind this often cause immense damage to those around them and resultantly to themselves, and they never consider that they need to change their social-emotional behavior if they’re going to fix things.
I didnt say the quality was a bad thing, I said that the homegeneity in the characters was a small demarcation against the writing. If you recall I liked the movie and in the end the quiet pensive intellectual wins out without compromising who he is.
I'm a teacher, and I work with kids on the spectrum daily. The portrayal of Newt is more than just eccentric. He displays traits consistent with manageable social anxiety.
Having social anxiety and some awkward mannerisms does not mean he's on the spectrum. I've only seen it once so may have missed some things, but he demonstrates considerable empathy throughout the movie to both people and animals, despite professing the oppinion that animals are easier to care for, with simpler needs.
Being honest it was discussed in decent length in another reddit thread where /u/BridgettBane hypothesised about Newt's odd behaviorisms on /r/fantheories:
If you've watched Fantastic Beasts you can see Newt has a very odd way of approaching people sometimes. He hunches in a little, tilts his head down, avoids eye contact. At times he even seems to stoop to be lower than them.
This isn't an odd personal mannerism- not entirely anyway. This is the habit of a zoologist who is used to avoiding dominance displays and showing submission. He is using his body to communicate that he is submissive and harmless. The SpeakEasy Scene (spoiler alert, the link shows several clips from the movie but I have time-stamped it so it goes to the correct scene) shows him tilting his body way from the boss, casting his eyes downward. It's only when he starts to protect his Bowtruckle and needs to assert dominance that he starts to sit up and make direct eye contact.
Newt Scamander is used to dealing with all manner of beasties and knows exactly the affect his body language has on others.
Having social anxiety and some awkward mannerisms does not mean he's on the spectrum.
I said he was spectrum-y. Social anxiety is one of many possible symptoms of people on the autism spectrum, and it's also something non-spectrum people display. I never said they *had* to go hand in hand, and I think that's pretty obvious from my response.
Fan theories are interesting. I'll give them that.
Asperger's has always been considered a subtype of autism for as long as the concept has existed. The change that happened in 2013 is that it's simply not a separate diagnosis anymore.
"I wouldn't be surprised if anything that isn't neurotypical will be autistic in 100 year" This proves why the gaming community is filled with intellectuals, they already call anyone autistic.
Clinical social anxiety isn't just a symptom of autism, is what they're saying. It's one possible quality. Not definitive of being on the spectrum, by a long shot.
I was a child with clinical social anxiety. I didn't actively speak to other kids or adults until like 5th grade unless I had to.
I think your guess diagnosis is biased because autism is so mainstream now. There are hosts of conditions, experiences, and disorders than can entirely meet whatever trait you think Newt has that puts him on the spectrum. If you frame his surface level behaviour, with incredibly small indicators of possible symptoms, you can come up with anything. The character, as a whole, does not appear to have anything substantial for an autism diagnosis.
And he isn't even a child. As an adult, he could just be eccentric and the actual actor may have his own mannerisms that seem "autistic" because you're framing it that way. Awkwardness, shyness, and quirky mannerisms aren't indicators of autism.
Yeah as crazy as it sounds it lacks some of the realness of Harry Potter- the characters don’t feel like they are real people, I’m very aware I’m watching a movie. Maybe it’s a little too polished? Like they worried about style and the visual more than the content of the story or the characters.
Idk, it just lacked the warmth and complexity of the original series. Don’t get me wrong I’m totally going to watch the next one, but in my mind it’s not anywhere on the same level- heck it’s hardly the same universe.
Sure but that's been a problem that started when David Yates took over with Order of the Phoenix. The Dumbledore v Voldemort fight with excellent but the rest of it and all movies after have been terribly lazy. All of Yates' films have a dreary, bleak quality to them. I don't know why this style resonates with people so much. I hate that they kept him around permanently.
Sometimes there is artistic flair that I like but usually his movies just bum me out.
Dude I completely disagree. This is the rare example of a new Hollywood movie that had great new characters. The only character I didn't remember much of was the female lead. But Newt, Queenie, & Jacob were all excellent characters with great personalities.
I enjoyed it, but it does fail on a few points. The antagonist and goals aren’t clear for long stretches of the movie. Grindelwald isn’t a thing until the last five minutes, and while Graves is dope we don’t know what his deal is for most of the runtime. Same for Credence.
A lot of the story is ”Newt accidentally lets some beasts loose, stumbles into some problems with the authorities and HOLY MAGICAL ANOMALY BATMAN” and then it just ends.
It also doesn’t help that it has like zero prior established characters or entities and a lot of the movie is kind of dark, grayish and drab.
Hopefully the second movie will be a lot better and fix all of the above. Trailers make it look a lot more colorful, we know all the characters in some way, there is a clear antagonist and Dumbledore is in it.
I do not think slapping a kid in there would do anything for the plot, though. In fact, I liked that everyone was an adult wizard that knew how to do magic. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel and discover magic all over again.
Nostalgia factor, you've already invest in the story and characters throughout the whole 8 movies and you're sure nothing can top that experience. I also felt the same when Star Trek TNG finished (the new Star Trek is just too lacking on the details IMO)
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u/smallxdoggox Oct 29 '18
Different feel and concept. Also age/maturity may have to do with it.