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Post by GRWelsh on Nov 27, 2021 11:11:36 GMT -5
I watched this yesterday and it was okay. It had a lot of positives like the cast and world-building. We get to learn more about the Wizarding World, in particular what it was like in America and in the past (1926). The main character Newt Scamander is a shy, awkward outsider which is a nice contrast to Harry Potter, and I liked his motivation of compassion for fantastic beasts and wanting to help them and bring understanding to his fellow wizards (shades of Hagrid there, another animal lover). I also liked No-Maj (muggle) Jacob Kowalski being a main character since we haven't seen that before in the Potterverse. Jacob is a surrogate for a viewer unfamiliar with the Wizarding World. The main female character, former auror Tina Goldstein, was underdeveloped and forgettable, although I liked her sister Queenie who was memorable as a flirty, mind-reading witch talking in 1920's slang. Unfortunately, the overall story was a bit muddled and it wasn't clear who the antagonist was. It felt like there were multiple stories going on that were independent, only coming together in the end. The fantastic beasts themselves weren't that great and they needed to be for this story to work. They didn't tie back to folklore the way the ones in the Harry Potter series did (dragons, griffons, basilisks, etc.), but rather were fanciful inventions made up for this story. That made them flat by comparison. By the end, I was thinking "CGI garbage." There was too much CGI and it wasn't good... there were exceptions such as the effect of wizards repairing damage to the city. Overall, the Wizarding World concept just doesn't work as well without child protagonists... Its whimsical nature is much better suited for a children's story.
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Post by geneweigel on Nov 27, 2021 11:25:18 GMT -5
The girls were into "Potter" for last three years and thousands of dollars down the toilet. Last Halloween, they were decked out in Harry Potter and Professor Snape costumes. They would do impressions of dueling Newt Scamanders and "New York Trolls" from that film. Now its like if it says "Harry Potter" they walk the other way. I saw the second film and it seemed disconnected sort of like the culmination of the original movie series. I'm probably going to be forced to watch this series until the end "Dad, you wanna go to the movies?" i.e. "Dad, you wanna pay for a movie that my friends don't wanna see?"
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Post by GRWelsh on Nov 27, 2021 14:18:48 GMT -5
I've been thinking that how much people like the Wizarding World books and movies has a lot to do with their whimsy tolerance. When I first tried to read the Harry Potter series, I didn't make it past the first book. It was just too whimsical for me. I remember thinking that the broomstick named the Nimbus 2000 was just too much. This came up in my game recently with my Toadwarts dungeon. Normally, I like fantasy to be epic or swords & sorcery, i.e. more serious and without in-game jokes or puns or pop cultural references. Usually, the joking is outside the game. This is a change of pace in flavor although it is still an actual AD&D adventure, just with a few whimsical references. My friend Eric, who is no Harry Potter fan, has been ranting about the whimsy... I'll have to remind him of the time he ran an adventure with numerous pop culture references, including Leaguelong Island with three glowing volcanos ("Three Mile Island") and a resort island presided over by Mr. Orc ("Welcome... to Fantasy Island")! I look at my Toadwarts adventure as similar to EGG's "Alice in Wonderland" levels in Castle Greyhawk, an amusing diversion but definitely not a change in genre for the entire campaign.
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Post by Scott on Nov 27, 2021 16:15:07 GMT -5
I like both styles, but I usually keep the whimsey quarantined in the Greyhawk dungeon, it's the unabashedly gamey part of the campaign. You won't encounter Slimer from the Ghostbusters in Erelhei Cinlu, but you might end up getting slimed in the Greyhawk dungeon.
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Post by GRWelsh on Dec 8, 2021 8:58:05 GMT -5
I just watched the sequel THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD and it was an improvement over the first one. We get more into the politics of the Wizarding World. Johnny Depp was good as Grindelwald, turning him into a sympathetic villain, but as with most prequel series there just isn't as much drama when you know what is going to happen (Grindelwald eventually battles Dumbledore and Dumbledore wins). So, we know any scheme to kill Dumbeldore by Grindelwald is doomed to fail. Unfortunately, this conflict is the core the plot and therefore lacking in suspense. But I like the idea that the renegade wizards believe what they are doing is right, and can foresee the horrors of World War II, and can prevent those horrors if they simply assume rulership of the earth over the no-maj/muggles. I did notice something... the movie is titled THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD but what crimes did he actually commit? He seems more like a dangerous political figure than a criminal. Anyway, I like Newt Scamander as the borderline autistic protagonist, just a guy trying to do his own thing and show empathy for non-human creatures.
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