Fantastic Beasts And The PROBLEM With Prequels 

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Fantastic Beasts COULD have been all about introverted and gentle hero Scamander studying and harnessing his empathy to rescue rare magical creatures from poachers and maybe through the oscurus learn to connect with other people better before ending the series with him going through his notes to compose a guide. And yet.

I think the Fantastic Beasts movies would be better if it was about Scamander going to different parts of the world showing us this beasts and on the way liberating others with his soon to be fiancee and Kowalsky (a.k.a. the best character ever created). Think of it as a Steve Irwing documentary, but with a ball of anxiousness that is developing to beeing less anxious thanks to his friends

I think my mom is a good snapshot of how your "average" Potter fan is feeling about this franchise - she's read all the books, she loves to buy cute stuffed animals/tie in books/toys/etc for herself or her family, and she likes to rewatch the movies when they come on TV. She doesn't care about anything that happens with the author on twitter and has no real idea about the drama with JKR or Johnny Depp. I took her to see the first Fantastic Beasts and she adored it and was so happy that there was more to watch, and we took our first trip to Wizarding World of HP in California. Then, she saw the second one and she was massively disappointed. She hated that it was so dark and long and confusing and was very upset that all the monsters were gone and that Newt didn't really matter anymore. You would think that a big time fan would be okay with that because yay more Dumbledore and he's a big important character she knows from the books but it became obvious that "Dumbledore is in this" isn't enough to keep people interested, especially if he's barely in it at all and the rest of the movie surrounding him is a bunch of nonsense. Maybe JK should have written these as a book first and then let someone else write the screenplay.

It's hilarious how Crimes of Grindelwald depicts a younger Minerva McGonagall in 1927, when she wouldn't be born for eight more years! 😂

She didn't respect screen writing. Imagine going in for surgery and your surgeon is one of your local fire fighters because he reckons both jobs help people so they're the same

I remember seeing Beasts 2 with some friends. After the movie I asked “did anyone understand what happened in that film?” We then had about an hour conversation trying to piece together senses that seemingly had nothing to with each other. We then decided the movie was bad and have never spoken about it since.

To be fair to the hobbit prequels, the book wasn’t a prequel. The Lord of the Rings was a sequel

It should have been a Mandolorian-esque western where Newt travels and helps animals on the way

To be honest, what I wanted out of the Fantastic Beasts movies are two things: More magical beasts, which ALWAYS fascinated me in the original series, as well as a greater look at the wizarding world outside of Hogwarts. The first gave me exactly what I was looking for...while the latter didn't really. Although I still enjoyed Crimes of Grindelwald, it definitely wasn't nearly as good.

No way Monsters University falls into the same "desperate" category as those other examples. It did well standing on its own, and the only continuity it "ruined" could simply be excused as Mike's sense of humor in Monsters, Inc. anyway.

Why doesn’t anyone talk about Interquels? *cries in Phineas & Ferb: Star Wars*

I feel like this entire trilogy was a bait & switch for fans. Going into Fantastic Beasts was supposed to be a fun romp about how Newt collected his fantastic beasts to make a text book for students.

I'd prefer the "Clone Wars" approach. In the original media, vaguely describe a past event and if the media makes enough money to deserve a prequel, make one

Tbh, the fantastic beasts filmed are going to be remembered for how not to expand an established universe. Casting was great, story was utter tripe. I don't even know if Rowling is to blame for how poor the FB films are. I think there's an element of "Hollywood" incorporated into them and it just doesn't gel with, well anything that already exists.

To me. Bumblebee isn't a Prequel. It's a new universe. It literally can not connect to the original 2007 Movie. In anyway. Mainly why would all the Autobots besides Bumblebee leave earth, return to the war on Cybertron, when they already have there new home on earth, then return in the 2007 movie? Why not stay.

Not sure why Bumblebee and First Class are getting hate. Bumblebee was the first film in the franchise to really humanize the Transformers and give them personalities outside of jingoistic war machine and racist caricature. First Class (despite the way they did Darwin dirty) was a fantastic reevaluation of Charles and Eric’s relationship, as well as how Charles is kind of a clout-hungry prick.

So, today is the day I realise that the 'Credence is a Dumbledore' Thing was actually serious? I just didn't believe it when watching the movie, I thought it was just something Grindelwald lied about because, y'know, that's what he does.

Why Fantastic Beasts exists is beyond me (I know the answer is “because money”) but it should either have been Newt simply travelling to different countries encountering new creatures with his own side characters along for the ride, or it should be about the rise of Grindelwald and how he was defeated, rather than the mix of both we seem to have

Honestly the worst part for me was the breakup off screen...we spent the first movie rooting for the two main characters to get together, and then we do the same in the second. I have always hated the breakup off screen. The 2nd had other problems too, but that bugged me the most.

You're really saying that Bumblebee is more soulless and more of a cash grab the preceding live-action Transformers movies? If anything, it's the first live-action Transformers movie to HAVE a soul. It's also something of a reboot...

Rowling is notorious for ruining her own lore. Considering that, in addition to all the vicissitudes of writing a prequel that were mentioned in the video, I think a lot of franchises could be better served by writing a prequel where the main story and main characters of the original are really secondary or tertiary. The wizarding world was unfortunately small before the prequels, but it is acknowledged that there are entire other countries with wizards. If you're going to write a cash grab movie it makes sense to place it in the us, but they didn't have to put in younger versions of anyone. They could have put in relatives, friends, and the ridiculously long lived characters like Dumbledore could have just not played much of a part. Honestly, Dumbledore has always been a coward who finds young, less erudite men to do what he should be doing. A brief cameo would have been sufficient.

Excuse me, X-Men: First Class is a great prequel; how dare you show it casually like it was like any other prequel!

Glad to hear Rogue One getting some love.

The movie should have simply been about Newt vs some poachers.

Personally, I was really excited to see more of the wizarding world in the US. I really wanted to see Ilvermorny, and have the main four cast's lives be fleshed out more. With a menagerie of magical monsters. Instead, we got Fantastic Beasts cast to the side, for a plot no one asked for, and a nostalgia and Johnny Depp cash grab.

I always dreamed of a movie/series about the James Sirius Lupin and Peter at Hogwards maybe leading into the first war against voldemort and finishing with Harry' scar. But now I'm scared JK Rowling will ruin that too '-'

Warner Bros counting the seconds when they can remake the Harry Potter series

I’m sorry, are we really gonna act like X-men first class wasn’t the best X-men film up to that point?

I actually really liked Monsters University. Are there plot holes? Yes. Do I like the workaround they made at the end to tie them to where they were at the start of the first movie? Also, yes.

The only prequel I’ve liked is X-men first class maybe because you have to know the events of it to understand the ending of the series

As a big Potter fan I couldn't even watch Crimes of Grindelwald. I didn't feel excited about the prequels because I knew they could be really bad and spoil some of my love for the OG books, but the plot also seemed spoiled from the start. Like so many people, I thought there could be some joy and charm in a story about a young Newt globetrotting around the wizarding world, getting peeks into other wizarding cultures and discovering magical beasts and fighting to protect them....THAT could have been a lot of fun.

Yeah I went into the first *FB* movie expecting it to basically be *The Wizarding World of Pokémon* - not…the thing we got.🤷‍♀️

So…if you’re going to do a prequel, it’s probably best to treat the original material as a vaguely worded prophecy, and nothing more. That way, when you write or film the prequel, you can just do whatever you want, and just have it fulfilling the history from the original material in only the most technical sense. Prequel character (talking about his past exploits in present time): “Yeah. I cut off the future big baddy’s hand, but it’s not like I meant to. I was actually trying to (insert completely unknown and unrelated event), and (future big baddy) came out of nowhere.” Listener frowns, confused and asks a “but” question. Prequel character: “No. It was just a fight. (Future baddy) caught me doing what I shouldn’t have and tried to stop me. We scrapped. And as we were rolling around on the floor (random thing happened) and his arm was suddenly short a hand.” Listener says something like: “Really!? What did you do, then?” Prequel character: “I ran the hell away.” (Then proceeds to grumble about how the whole-unimportant to the listener-event had been more trouble than it was worth.)

I saw The Crimes of Grindelwald in theaters when it came out. A couple months later, I realized I had no idea what happened in the movie. A year or two ago, I watched the movie for a second time. Now, again, I have pretty much no recollection of what happened.

Looking back at Smallville, my favorite live action TV show of all time, on its' 20th anniversary, they've inspired not just superhero franchises but several movie/TV franchises in general to do their own prequel of some sort. Gotham, Pennyworth, The Carrie Diaries. There are even shows like Smallville that were prequels that took place in the modern day like Bates Motel and Taken. Edit: shout out to Monsters University, one of my favorite Pixar movies and one of the best movie prequels. And to the whole franchise on its' 10th anniversary! Can't wait for Monsters@Work season 2!

I understand the need for sponsorships but I just wish u would save them for the beginning or end 😥

It's a shame that Rowling couldn't curb the ego enough to just be a consultant or story writer while letting a more experienced screenwriter lead... it would have led to a better on screen outcome while still being seeped in lore.

Hey, what the hell? The first FBaWtFT was probably the best HP movie of all. Also, at least two of the X-Men prequels were amazing.

One thing I hear come up a lot when discussing prequels I the idea that "nothing interesting can really happen because we know how the story ends". I have a hard time meshing with that idea since a lot of well received shows use flashback episodes which have a lot of impact of how we see the characters and comics have countless retconned in backstories that come out years later (if they're popular enough, multiple times for a single character over a few years) and we eat that stuff up. The "knowing the ending" thing seems to effect movies way more than any other medium I've experienced. And even then (for myself) not much more. I've seen the endings to plenty of movies before watching them from the beginning and I was along for the ride the whole time. Since it's Hollywood, I can predict most of them from the opening scene (Hell, I predicted every episode of Arrow season 1 from the pilot and was only tong about which character would guest star in a late season episode). Does anyone else feel that the importance of not knowing the ending is overblown? I'm genuinely curious.

Just sending some love for X-Men First Class, Bumblebee, Monsters University, and the Star Wars Prequels

I love monsters. I've always loved monsters from day one.The first movie in the franchise was lots of fun and at its best when Newt and his friends were the focus. The incessant need to add other elements to connect back to the main line films was messy, contrived and distracting from a wonderful story that was right there. Newt is my favorite Harry Potter character, I wanted to see what creature he would discover next. Give me more NEWT and his bag of magical beasties.

The Many Fantastic Beasts of Newark never had the making of a varsity wizard

I think the thing about your videos I love the most is your hair loss ads that yank you right out of your comfortable seat. Great stuff

The reason The Godfather part 2 works so well is that Vito's story was in the original novel by Mario Puzo, so Vito's rise was already established before the first film that Coppola could cherry-pick. Puzo was already working on the sequel before The Godfather even premiered so most of what was written was Michael's story and how it reflected Vito's.

we just wanted a series about the marauders, man..

Can we just acknowledge that Grindelwald "evil" plan was wanting to use magic to stop World War II?

Oof, it hurt that you included clips of The Hobbit when bashing prequals. Yeah, they did that series dirty in the movies, but it was at least an established prequal book before hand and not made up by Hollywood to follow LotR

I am so glad that this video has been made

Love the video as always, but my only little nitpick was calling "Bumblebee" a prequel even though it seems like it's heavily implied to be a soft reboot due to how it ignores a majority of the Michael Bay's movies. Plus even if it was a reboot, putting it on the same level as "Minions" is pretty harsh considering how good Bumblebee was.

I loved many aspects of the first Beasts film, mainly the main cast and the creature designs. Everything else was meh though, and there were many problems. I didn't even bother seeing the 2nd film after I heard how bad it was. I don't wanna see anymore of JK's film after she came out as a terf anyways. It's a huge shame because I love Newt and Jacob, their characters and how the actors portrayed them.

It’s up in the air whether Bumblebee is a reboot or not, most G1 fans such as myself consider it a reboot for now so it isn’t really a prequel

I had so much faith after the first Fantastic Beasts movie focused so heavily on Newt and his animal compatriots. I liked the dynamic of him and Kowalski. I liked the legilimens aspect of Queenie. I liked the silly romance between the two leads. I even enjoyed the surprise-Johnny-Depp. I really thought they could do something interesting and new in the wizarding world. But we all know what happened next. *shudder*

I watched Fantastic Beasts and thought the scene where Grindelwald "revealed" a heritage to Credence, was simply an evil manipulative lie.

We did know that everyone was going to die prior to Rogue One's release. That was already a canon fact. To move into Crimes of Grindlewald and Fantasic Beasts, the problem with these movies, in my opinion, is that they're not an expansion on the wizarding world. Instead its part of the mystery about Grindlewald and Dumbledore and how exactly Dumbledore won against the former. Imaging we instead were to go on an adventure with Newt to see a new beast thought to be extinct or too mythological even for the wizarding world. That's what these movies should have been about, but instead Rowling thought it was better to tack on a false name to tell a different story.

was so happy to see saul peek out right as you were mentioning the good prequals.

Hey I usually don't comment but because of the burnout situation lately around youtubers, I just want to thank you and this channel for bringing us so much quality content. The dedication and work shown on this channel is definitely noticed by us fans, and we genuinely, deeply enjoy the content here. Excited for the next video. :)

I genuinely enjoyed this series more, I wasn’t a Harry Potter fan of the books or movies when they first released but when fantastic beasts and where to find them came out I was so interested to know more about this world! It definitely got me hooked and now I am a fan of Harry Potter because I know a bit more about the background of it all. I do agree it’s being “juiced” but if you’re curious and a bit more open, maybe you’ll learn to like it ..? Though thanks for the videos! Love watching them (:

In fairness to JK, the HP setting/lore/mythos changed to suit the needs of the latest book. We let her get away with it for 7 books/8 movies, so why would she expect people to suddenly become pedantic

MPB is caused by having too much testosterone, so going bald actually means you're more manly than guys with full heads of hair. Embrace the baldness, just don't be a George Costanza. I used to worry about the thinning I'm going through, but now there's also a lot of sporadic graying, so I've decided I'm just going to start shaving my whole head when the hair gets too thin.

Warner Bros already confirmed that the new Part in the series will discuess the role of the Wizarding world in WW II - aka why the wizards let the Holocaust Happen. I think we can all agree that neither is J. K. Rowling the kind of author that should touch such heavy themes nor that they should be discuessed in a setting like the Wizarding World. So yeah I have pretty high hopes that Crimes of Grindelwald will be remembered as one of the better fantastic beasts movies.

wait, you didn't know the characters in Rogue One were all gonna die? they were never mentioned in the prequels or original trilogy. i knew it was gonna be two hours of waiting for them to die. you're right, it is the best Disney era Star Wars, K-2SO's death hit me more than the humans

tbh when i read HP then watched the movies. i always felt if 'Fantastic beast and where to find them' really existed as a book, it will be an awsome book. even better than the HP book series. It will be a book about exploration, adventure, and all other beautiful things. we all might have watched documentaries about the ocean, we see how amazing some creatures from the ocean can be: unique, queer, beautiful, extremely large, small etc. i honestly thought or rather hoped magical creatures might even up this scale. But i was extremely Disappointed. There was not enough beasts, nor where there sufficient habitats for the beasts. instead of a movie showing the uniqueness of beasts that are FANTASTIC. they tried to make the People Fantastic. so my Fantasy was crumbled.

I hate the blood pact, I much preferred the idea that his lack of action against Grindelwald was due to Dumbledore's complicated feelings for his old love, this was so much more in keeping in with Dumbledore's character because he was ultimately a very complicated man, but no, there had to be a twist, there had to be a specific reason why Dumbledore couldn't go after him, so fucking stupid

I think this movie could have been a good serie on some streaming platform. They could have made a serie about Newt and his friends going around the world, maybe seeing, together with the magic creatures, the schools. Also, there could be some episodes where the Grindelwald plot is covered.

The Planet of the Apes prequels are amazing and I'm glad to see them referenced. Rogue One, Monsters University and X-Men First Class are all strong installments even though none are the best in their series.

A discussion of good prequels should include a mention of Better Call Saul.

I still am a big fan of the first Fantastic Beasts film. I just kinda watch it as a standalone movie at present. I hope they manage to get back on course with more beasts and more Newt and supporting characters going forward. Stay well out there everybody, and God bless you friends. :)

The approach of the cost of the Greek tragedy seems to be the safest way to write a prequel. It's not about whether they'll win or lose, but how much they lost in the way.

I think what was so jarring was the tonal shift between films. The first Fantastic Beasts movie is one of my favorite Harry Potter related movies because it felt unique, it worked as a standalone story (although towards the end it certainly implied it was setting things up for future films) and it introduced new and intriguing lore. The second one aimed to be much more like the old Harry Potter movies with Grindlewald as a stand in for Voldemort, threw in countless sloppy ploy twists, and added lore that directly contradicted existing Harry Potter lore. It just felt like the second movie would rather play things safe and stick to the classic story beats, but in doing so hurt its own immersion by contradicting the books with pointless connections for the sake of relevance. I have hope that later movies will turn things around and explain some of those missteps in a way that makes sense, but I'm going to be cautious in my optimism.

The best thing about the whole thing was Colin Farell. Tragic, yes. I normally don't like him, but here he was the only one whose perfomance could be called "acting".

Rogue One was a great example of a prequel.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them should've just been a Pokemon-esque story where we follow Newt on his travels collecting a bunch of peculiar magical creatures so he can write a book on them. He meets many friends who help him on this journey, wanting to protect the magical wildlife, and many foes who only seek to ruin Newt's progress. Newt is such a sweet empathetic nerd and his interactions with the magical creatures are the best part of the movies. Just let him live out his best Magical Animal Crossing life, dammit

Personally, I believe prequel movies that have no connection to each other would have worked better here. Like a prequel movie featuring the Marauders, maybe another one with a young Tom Riddle, etc. I just don't think Newt is a strong enough character to carry more than a movie.

only thing I can think of is that the weird way that death eaters move in the original movies (wraith-like clouds) has no explanation or similarities to anything other than the way some of the "hidden suppressed power" stuff looked so maybe they are trying to do something nagini(/SOLO)-esque and take time to belabor the mundane to pretend it was planned all along

Fantastic Beasts was exactly the movie this franchise intended to be. Crimes was a badly handled forced departure attempting to make over the series into Potter prequels. Both films were good, but the fun and heart that made the first one so good was barely seen in Crimes because JK now wants to shove the Dumbledore/Grindelwald relationship into the mix. if we needed to see any of that on screen, she should've brought it out in the books in the first place. she didn't, so I have no interest in seeing it here distracting from what this series was originally presented to be.

That's a pretty great example of taking the wrong lesson from something. Deathly Hallows part 2 is the highest grossing Warner Bros film. What does that mean? A) It's the culmination of an 8 film series and the excitement has built up for years after already doing so with the 7 books these films are based on so people came out over and over to watch our heroes fight an epic battle for survival and enjoy the final film in this franchise as many times as they could before it was gone. Or, was it B) Audiences are telling us they want another 7 movies about characters they don't know or have any investment titled after a fictional textbook most audience goers won't even know exists with a story not based on a popular series of novels we're making up as we go and casting with actors who are already saturating the market that audiences have had enough of who will become problematic just as the story is picking up making it too late to recast with the author writing the scripts for some reason even though that rarely works out and whatever good we get from her name recognition will be destroyed when she announces herself as transphobic and sticks up for one of our actors after they abuse a woman which, in an an unfortunate twist, more than one of them will be accused of and the one who isn't guilty will not be the one you expect. So, is it A or B?

Wait, is this video actually trying to argue that X-Men: First Class was bad? That's incorrect on so many levels.

Thank you for breaking this down and looking into prequels for us! Another banger by Nerdstalgic!!

I got half way through the first fantastic beasts movie and I gave up when Eddy was dancing with the rhino thing. Not many films make me give up halfway through, but it was so souless garbage. Haven't seen the next one and I have no interest in anymore wizarding movies, it was clear they're just trying to make money by pumping out a bunch of pandering drek. Just like the rest of the entertainment world these days.

About the reveal, 1)Grindewald could be lying 2)Grindewald never said that Credence was Albus' brother. He implied this to Credence by showing Albus' image when he was talking about Credence's brother, but he never said "this is your brother". And we don't know anything about Albus' parents apart for the fact they had 3 kids, for all we know they could have siblings themselves and those siblings had kids, so Credence could be a cousin, or even a more removed cousin.

The Harry Potter books and movies presented a whole universe, that you wanted to know more about and explore beyond the main characters and their school. The X-Men series is probably a prime example of how not do a franchise. Also, I have head canon that because of time travel and interference with the past and decisions that get made in the present, the future and it's continuity got changed, I think that applies mostly to Doctor Who or Star Trek, but maybe some other things as well.

The funny thing is the fantastic beasts films had wonderful spell creation and imagery that we should have gotten in the main series like dumbledor vs Voldemort instead of pew pew laser guns everywhere

The only prequels that work are those set so far away in the past is basically a different story set in the same universe, like they have done for some Star War games or for the The Rise of Kyoshi novels. You may know how it ends at most but you do not know anything else and how they got there and what is the fate of most of the characters so that can make an intesting story. Just like people knows how the two World War ends but stories set in any of those two still sell.

Bumblebee had more passion and heart than all of the Transformers movies combined. Calling it and First Class soulless cash-grabs is simply wrong. The Transformers movies were more concerned with dirty jokes and panty shots than actually creating a compelling story, so calling Bumblebee soulless seems very biased. Not to mention that it's actually a reboot.

awesome video! don’t know what that minion stuff was about but we’ll done

I’ve seen Crimes of Grindlewald and I legit couldn’t remember the reveal. Also, still irritated what they did to Queenie.

Should we consider bumblebee a prequel cause it feels more like a reboot. I like the star wars prequel movies except solo, i also like the hobbit movies but the extended versions i didnt like the threatical battle of the fives armies

I wish they just made it completely seperate. The Fantastic Beasts book has plenty of information about the creatures. I'd prefer a TV show that develops the wizarding world for an adult whos left hogwarts beyond someone whos an auror/order member. Newt is a great character and I enjoy all the others too - would much prefer to see them just going around writing the book. The involvement of Dumbledore/Grindelwald to make it more similar to the HP movies, cash grab and make it more of a blockbuster movie irritates me because I feel like they're re-writing the history of Dumbledore's character to involve the new ones.

I kept seeing the Hobbit but like, the Hobbit IS in fact the book that was written first. The movies just bloat that story trying to make it like the Rings. There's a pretty good movie buried in the Hobbit... And it involves just the stuff that was in the book.

Don't know why there were references to The Hobbit movies.... Because that was already a book, all they had to do was adapt what was already written, much like the LoTR trilogy. But they didn't do that. The path was already laid for them, they didn't have to do anything extra.... However.... They had to put in extra things that didn't even exist, even characters.

I was SO bored with this film (the first one). Up to almost 45 minutes and NOTHING was happening, no story, no purpose, just random scenes to display special effects. I couldn't continue with it.

Ehm whatcha talkin bout Willis? Bumblebee is the only live action Transformers movie to date!

What is the movie in 01:11

How is X-Men first Class desperate?

Really enjoyed the first Fantastic Beasts film but thought Crimes of Grindewald was absolutely awful

i'm still not sure what the worst part of the crimes of grindlewald was, between Nagini being a person, Queenie turning evil, or everything having to do with Johhny Depp

I had a somewhat similar problem with the clone wars cartoon even if I mostly enjoyed it. No, I don't think Kenobi is in any danger. No, I don't think they will capture grevious or dooku. I already know when and how these characters die, so there's no real tension when things seem dire. At best it just serves as a backdrop to Anakin's fall and at worst it starts to feel like Grevious is a villain from a saturday morning cartoon.

Harry Potter fans of both movies and books do want to see back stories unfold and be incarnated even if we know what happened. I don't pretend to speak in behalf of all fans but I know a solid base of fans who do want to see (in my case; Dumbledore's early life before Harry Potter time line.) With that been said; I am so excited for *The Secrets of Dumbledore* and btw, Scamander has a whole paradise for his beasts and he does say their origins and habitats. There are many beats I am sure exist in the HP universe and timeline that also be addressed in the remaining 3 films. I'll watch the movies not coz I miss HP universe BUT because the HP wizarding world seems so fascinating and I am very interested in knowing the more about it that I can.

The problem is these seem to be more about Grindelwald and she seems to try to try and introduce him in similar fashion to Voldemort in terms of late introduction to the actual character. We don't get to see Voldemort in his full glory until very late into the story. But we had so much prior to this to build him up that we didn't need to see him to feel like he was always the villain and would play major part in the true plot of the whole thing. We love Newt, they didn't do him justice 😭😭.