5.4: The Grindelgraves-Credence Relationship was Much Different in the Shooting Text
As detailed in Part Four of this series (links to every part of ‘Finding the Text’ are listed at the end of each post), the “original screenplay” published version of Rowling’s story and the movie as released by Warner Brothers was a shadow of the movie as conceived and first filmed with respect to the relationship of Grindelwald’s Percival Graves and Credence Barebones.
Instead of meeting in an alleyway, for example, they meet in a diner. The diner conversation includes open flattery of the confused young man by the suave elder and allusions to their past meetings for meals. Grindelgraves even gives the boy a magical flower, a Periculid, supposedly dangerous, he makes from a limp carnation. What seems icky manipulative homoerotic grooming in the alleyway is essentially a lovers date at the diner in the first shooting script version.
[This scene, we should note, is not cut as much as it was re-conceived and re-shot. The difference is that the screenwriter was almost certainly party to the changes made before shooting was wrapped and the editing begun.]
The shooting script’s version of the film’s finale, too, reflects a more important relationship between Graves and the boy Barebone. In the movie we see, Grindelgraves come into the subway after Newt has been talking sympathetically to Credence-Obscurus. Both the LEGO Dimensions video game and book tie-in, A Character Guide, have Grindelgraves begging Credence’s forgiveness and telling him, not that he is a “miracle,” but that he is “beautiful.”
I apologize! You are beautiful, can’t you see, Credence? There is no need to hide. No need for shame. We’ve both had to hide what we want and who we are.
More after the jump! [Read more…]
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