Patricio Tarentino of TheRowlingLibrary.com sent me this Secrets of Dumbledore trailer just released in Japan. There are quite a few shots that were not included in previous previews but one in particular caught his interest — this one of the full sized manticore that is really a big scorpion.

As explained in Mr Tarantino’s ‘David Heyman confirms the creatures from the trailer of Fantastic Beasts 3 are baby manticores‘ and my ‘Beasts: Manticores or Poisonous Crabs?‘ post, this is a whacko departure from Rowling’s description of the XXXXX danger level Manticore in her Scamander Fantastic Beasts guide. I wrote then about the baby crabs being described by Heyman as “manticores” that maybe this was just a matter of the young beasts not having their leonine or human aspects:

This could certainly be a non-issue, i.e., baby manticores in Rowling’s presentation may just look like little crabs and their leonine aspects and human face with speech only manifest with maturity. The trailer, immediately after the dancing crab scene, features a giant scorpion tail swinging in at Newt and Theseus. We’re going to see a full-sized manticore, it seems, and I want to bet the brothers Scamander will have a conversation with it as well. I want to think that because, of course, any kind of dialogue with the creature will require that it have some kind of face and the ability to speak as humans do. At this point, it’s anybody’s guess.

After watching the trailer and taking a closer look at the screenshot above, nobody needs to guess. That isn’t a traditional Manticore or one that conforms even to Rowling’s previous description of them. I want to give Rowling the benefit of the doubt here and blame Kloves, the Davids, and the CGI mavens for this departure. If I’m right in this assumption, namely, believing that Rowling would not disregard what she has written in Scamander’s voice about a creature Newt confronts in the film and displays his expertise to save himself and his brother, then we have one more bit of evidence that Rowling wrote the original story and left all creative control to the Warner Brothers wily wizards of blockbuster mechanical formula and special effect overkill.

Your comments about the trailer and the Manticore issue are coveted, as always. Please do read, if you haven’t already,  Mr Tantino’s article explaining the background to this controversy, including his success in confirming what Heyman had said, and my longer notes about what this scene echoes from the first film. Cheers!

 

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Through the TRL Daily Prophet’s reports, I have been following the news since December about the publication of a Secrets of Grindelwald screenplay. Only last week did an aside in a news release about the new Secrets trailer confirm that there would be a published screenplay — and announce that it would be available to readers on 19 July, three months after the movie premiere. “The screenplay of Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore will be published in the English language by Little, Brown (U.K.), Scholastic (U.S.) and Pottermore Publishing (ebook) on 19 July 2022″ (Hat tip to Beatrice Groves). 

The TRL Daily Prophet noted:

The publication date for the original screenplay has been announced too: July 19th. Yes, you read that right: almost 3 months after the release of the film. Why? It hasn’t been explained (maybe they will wait to see the success of the film to know how many copies to print?). I hope the fact that the film will be well known by the fans at the time of the book release would make them include some extra material (maybe deleted scenes?)

Three Quick Notes:

(1) Why the Delay? The only idea I have heard that makes sense was one floated by the TRL Daily Prophet in January, namely, that MinaLima, the artists that designed the first and second Beasts screenplays, were not engaged in time and were working on other projects (including this one for the Beasts franchise). The subject of why this project did not result in the simultaneous publication of the book and the release of the film highlights the oddity of the whole exercise and the change of direction in Secrets of Dumbledore with respect to the screenwriting.

First, Rowling does not number the published screenplays among books she has written (see her October 2020 interview with Graham Norton for that list). She is openly acknowledging that, though she does the original plotting of the movie, the two Davids who run the show for Warner Brothers are going to, as she said Steve Kloves explained to her, “fit the woman to the dress,” i.e., re-write her story so it conforms to block-buster movie formula. This has resulted in a host of filmed scenes never being used or even included in deleted scenes (see this list with an addendum or two for the first film), relatively incoherent final products, and disappointing box office, for Wizarding World films at least. There may be no big push from Team Rowling to get the screenplay out there because it’s not her product. [Read more…]

 

Three Quick Notes:

(1) Compare and Contrast: Five years ago, we were given a group picture of the principal players in Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald. Unlike the picture above, everyone was in the same room and grouped according to allegiance and affection. That picture was a telling transparency of the movie about to be released; see my interpretation of it at that time, ‘Crimes of Grindelwald Group Portrait,’ for all the give-aways embedded in the iconographic portrait. Though very different in composition than the 2017 ensemble shot, structured to be read from the top down rather than left to right, I think the new picture, too, is telling a story about the film about to be released.

(2) The Story Depicted: The ‘main event’ in the Secrets of Dumbledore, the pivot story and ‘meaning in the middle of the five part film franchise, is Albus Dumbledore. In the allegory of the soul Rowling is writing in Fantastic Beasts — every Rowling book thus far has been an exercise in depictional psychology thus far so we can assume this series is too — the soul in question is Albus Dumbledore, simultaneously Everyman and Superman.

As the picture shows, his left or sinister side is the dragon-esque Grindelwald and his right, the aspect within him that only does what is good and correct rather than for personal or political advantage, is Newt Scamander, whose ability to understand and communicate with Beasts is Christ-like, i.e., logos rooted. Note the light at the tip of DDore’s and Newt’s wands and the darkness at Gellert’s and their respective lines of sight; Newt and Albus have the same vision and Albus has turned his back on his childhood friend. The phoenix that is the central heat, light, and principal action of the picture, the dividing point of top and bottom and the backdrop of the title, is Dumbledore’s “beast within,” the resurrection bird and familiar or “inner light” of Christ in the language of the Radical Reformation magi. The film will be the solve et coagula crisis of Dumbledore’s struggle to throw off his oath and magical chains to his dark side, represented in the exterior world by Gellert Grindelwald, and the Transfiguration teacher’s metamorphosis into his true self, the phoenix, with Newt’s support.

(3) The Side Show: The three characters above the phoenix are the main event and the seven below are the corresponding supporting cast or bit players. Those closest to the front, Newt’s brother Theseus and Yusuf Kama, were not in the first film and I doubt either will live to see the finale; they have their places here, I’m guessing, because their action in Beasts 3 will be the pinnacle of their roles. Not vto mention they are very handsome. The two men are backed by a parallel pair of attractive women, Eulalie Hicks (Redwall fans rejoice at that first name!) and Queenie Goldstein. The third and last tier of the under-staging has Newt’s assistant Bunty behind Lallie and Credence and Jacob backing Queenie. Only Credence is not wielding a wand with a light tip (even Jacob gets one!), which emphasizes that the only members of Team Grindelwald, the dark side, depicted are Gellert, Aurelius, and Queenie, whose allegiance as a faithful servant to the first Dark Lord is clearly suspect  because of her illumined wand.

These are supposed to be ‘quick notes’ so I will not strain an interpretation of the undercard in this story depiction beyond “they are not the main event.” I suspect that Credence will play a much larger part than his background-filler slot here suggests because the Obscurus/Obscurial theme of which he is the principal exteriorization of soul and shadow in Rowling’s work to date is the mirror reflection in allegory of the Dumbledore-Grindelwald battle and Theseus-Newt conflict. I think the orphan is being downplayed here because the actor who plays the part and the character himself are both relatively unpopular with movie goers (can you say, ‘The CCP’?) and not apt to generate ticket sales as Jude Law and company will. 

And who isn’t depicted? The two most important absences are Tina Goldstein and Leta Lestrange. I’m hopeful that this is to protect the Big Reveal in the story about these two being active under a Demiguise cloak or the magic of Polyjuice Potion. I doubt very much that we have seen the last of these two players or that they will be given a vacation during the pivotal series story-turn in Secrets; perhaps they are the ‘Secrets’ of Albus Dumbledore’s plan. Using the Goldstein sisters would be a natural for an accomplished alchemist, right? No surprise if the title is more meaningful than its surface suggestion that Dumbledore was once a Grindlewald fan.

Your comments and corrections are coveted, as always. What, if anything, do you make of this poster? Is there any significance to the absence in the title graphic of any Deathly Hallows symbolism, something predominant in the Crimes of Grindelwald graphics? Is the central place of the Phoenix in the poster a pointer to Frank the Firebird in Beasts1, a marker that Beasts3 as the five part series’ pivot will echo the first film as Goblet did Philosopher’s Stone and Lethal White did Cuckoo’s Calling?

Three quick notes:

(1) Two Thumbs Up. Great trailer! I’ll be there on opening day to watch this one. It looks like there will be plenty of ‘car chases,’ CGI special effects, and Jacob Kowalski comic moments — everything that promises another Aeschylean drama from the world’s most popular and challenging writer! Sarcasm aside, though it is only an advertisement designed to titillate interest and put butts in theater seats, I’m hopeful that Part 3 will be less the butchered version of Rowling’s screenplay to fit the “dress” of blockbuster formula that the first two films obviously were.

(2) Did anyone notice any Fantastic Beasts? I think the thesis that the “beasts” of the franchise title are less the CGI anthropomorphic characters than the “beasts within” the human beings who are in turn allegorical figures will gain traction with the third installment. We’ve seen the Niffler and Bowtruckle in previous trailers and hints of the phoenix, but this latest packaging of highlights downplays the magizoologist aspect of the series. I guess it wasn’t polling well while interest in the human characters continues to climb…

(3) The Dragon and Phoenix: The repeated shots from the scene of Dumbledore and Grindelwald in heated conversation and wand-drawing for battle suggest that Lana Whited’s discussion in her ‘Here There be Dragons (and Phoenixes)’ posts will be in play in Secrets of Dumbledore. Rowling’s psychomachia in her Fantastic Beasts franchise is the soul and its Jungian shadow, the phoenix and dragon, of Albus and Gellert, “closer than brothers,” and the war within every human soul between light and darkness, cf. the Obscurus/Obscurial theme with Credence/Aurelius and the conflict between the Scamander brothers as this series’ Peter and John. I anticipate that the characters in Beasts3 will take on only slightly less transparent allegorical roles of the various human faculties than those we saw in the interior drama exteriorized in Christmas Pig’s Palace of Power voting.

Your comments and corrections are coveted, as always.