My inbox is full of owls about the “final trailer” for Crimes of Grindelwald and its stunning revelations. Color me “non plussed.”
Were any of our regular readers surprised that the Maledictus was named Nagini? I hope not. I discussed it in November last year here and here, and Oxford’s Beatrice Groves explained it’s literary allusion here that December. Yesterday’s “big reveal” was rather stale news, I thought, for those paying attention.
Was anyone as disappointed as I was in the ‘Today’ show interview with The Presence and the Crimes of Grindelwald second-tier actors as I was? After 20-plus years of interviews, we spend more than ten minutes of a twenty minute interview on her the Cinderella story of Rowling’s single motherhood and how often she thinks of her mother? “Where do you get your ideas?” “What’s with the return to red hair?”
Rowling managed to sneak in a reference to her ‘Robert Galbraith’ novels, which I suspect none of the five people being filmed there not JKR have read, but only as something like a hobby she does when she’s not doing important collaborative Wizarding World work with David Yates, et aliis.
If there is a keeper moment (besides Rowling’s reference to her blonde bombshell look of a decade as “accidental” [!] and “looking like Dolly Parton’s plainer sister”), it was when the interviewer asks why Rowling doesn’t do many interviews. Rowling pauses significantly before offering her rehearsed answer about writers and their energies.
She seemed to choke back the answer, “Have you read any of my books and thought about what I think of the legacy media? People like you?” Or, “Because when I do speak to people like you, I get questions about my life as a single mother, the color of my hair, where I get my ideas, and how often I think of my late mother rather than the artistry and meaning of my novels and screen writing or anything of interest to serious readers…”
Anyway, lemmeno what you think of the trailer and its “revelations.” For a scene by scene breakdown of the trailer without any discussion of the trailer structure or possible meaning for the films, look here. More trailer breakdown, too, on PotterMore.com, something like the horse’s mouth (Mouth of Sauron?). Tomorrow we’ll go back to unpacking the depths of Lethal White, a novel Rowling wrote herself, with a post by Louise Freeman about a song that belonged on Rowling’s White Horse Playlist. And about Matthew’s desire for revenge on Cormoran…
Forgotten as it seems to be in the media and Potter fandom, Lethal White was published only a week ago. We have plenty of time to look at the latest Warner Brothers teaser droppings about Cimes of Grindelwald, which advertising, despite the supposed “finality” of this trailer, will no doubt continue right through November. We have only just begun to talk about the depths of Lethal White!
Most “serious” fans already knew about Nagini. I think they revealed it in the trailer because most people had already figured it out and maybe felt it would drum up more enthusiasm for the new franchise if there were direct tie-ins to HP. Rowling claimed on Twitter she had held onto the secret for 20 years. How much detail of this story has she REALLY thought out and known before working on these screenplays I wonder.
Of course, going on Today and being interviewed by Hodta (who covered the May royal wedding live) is setting yourself up for soft ball, non-literary questions. I would like to know how many of the actors have even read the HP books let alone, as you ask, the Strike series.
Having watched all the trailers, analyzed tie-in media etc., I feel there will not be much left to reveal in the actual movie itself. But, maybe I will be surprised.
Kelly…..John……I think we all know that “serious” readers or fans of the Harry Potter novels will search the internet news almost daily for the latest “leak” of Wizarding World” clues from the past pre-Harry Potter era. Even though much of what we discussed at LeakyCon was known through the trailers or before…the fans just enjoy the lure of new things in the wizarding world from Newt, Grindelwald, Dumbledore and the rest. Rowling stated that more unrevealed backstory or characters will be found in Crimes of Grindelwald that are not in the trailers.
How much does Rowling have in detail of this story before working on the screenplays?
Well….I can remember when I was in Edinburgh, Scotland at Blackstones Book Shop where J. K. Rowling likes to stop in on occasion. We were there the night that Deathly Hallows was released in 2007. We spoke to one of the managers there and asked if she knew if Rowling has revealed to them if she has more to Harry’s saga beyond the 7 books. She just smiled and said, “David….she has a vault somewhere in Scotland that has enough wizard,character and family history in the wizarding world that could continue into more books….much of which she told us may never be published”. So I think what Rowling will give us in 5 FB screenplays or FB movies may be just a portion of what is in those wizarding world file boxes in that vault.