Fantastic Animals： The Mystery of Dumbledore： The Product of the Fast Food Age

Special feature of 1905 film network On April 8, 2022, a fantasy adventure film directed by, mads mikkelsen, and starring was released in national cinemas. As the third part of the Fantastic Animals series, the film’s reputation was low and its performance was not satisfactory.

In the quick question-and-answer session, Liu Yanyan, a visiting professor, director and screenwriter of Beijing Film Academy, gave humorous answers to the host’s questions.

The Fantastic Animals series is very interesting. As a series of movies, each one has a different style. In the first part, the relaxed and interesting magical animals attracted many audiences, while in the second part, it began to become deep and difficult to understand. In the third part, The Mystery of Dumbledore began to take the popcorn route again and played the emotional card. What is the problem with such a series of films with inconsistent tonality?

The tonality of the first Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is the closest to that of the Harry Potter series, and it does not show a complete adult magic world. Although the protagonist Newt is an adult, he maintains his innocence. "Fantastic Animals: The Crime of Grindelwald" began to want to turn the series to more mature and adult topics, and to change the works of children to a wider age, so as to be more convenient for the audience to substitute. For example, Newt’s brother works in the Ministry of Magic and thinks that he should find a decent job within the system, which is a copy of real history and a re-expression of discourse expression. It can be said that the fact that the tonality of each series is different is the business plan of the creative team, but there are problems in its implementation. For example, the role of Grindelwald has changed corners, and what happened in the objective world has affected the presentation of the magical world in the film.

Originally, Grindelwald was played by, and Fantastic Animals: The Mystery of Dumbledore was changed to mads mikkelsen. Liu Yanyan said: "These two are very good, but they are not the same type of actors. Depp, an actor, belongs to him sitting on the side of the road. When you pass by, you will take a look, because you will feel that this person’s temperament is very strange and always carries an unstable factor; At first glance, Micol Sen is the kind of person who has experienced everything. He is particularly calm in his heart. He has seen everything and won’t panic. No matter what kind of business leader he is, he must be the backbone of his business. Choosing two completely different types of actors in tandem will have problems with the coherence of tonality. "

"Fantastic Animals: The Mystery of Dumbledore" encountered a storm of temporary angle change, but the temporary angle change was not the key reason for the low reputation. Many bad reviews mentioned that the film’s plot was dull and lengthy, and its logic was weak. It put too much pen and ink on Dumbledore and Grindelwald, two close friends and enemies, and gave up the control of the main plot and the much-anticipated magical animals. What "hidden rules" does this reflect in the operation of Hollywood film projects? First of all, the most fatal problem is that they don’t stick to their original intention, bow to the flow excessively, are keen on speculating the so-called CP, encroach on the normal narrative atmosphere, do nothing in the drama, and damage the quality of the product itself for marketing. The characters in the film are quietly laid very deep in the first two films, and as a result, in the third film, they suddenly become just characters from villains, which is very unconvincing because they lose the support of the dramatic structure. The film’s handling of the transition from rhythm to combination is also lacking, which does not give the audience a refreshing feeling of climax scenes, and does not have the basic ethics of transition from combination as a commercial film.

Liu Yanyan mentioned: "Like playing house, everyone took the characters to the place where the incident happened, put them there, pressed a button to do it, and there was nothing beyond expectations. This is actually the amusement park mentioned by some excellent American directors when they criticized superhero movies in recent years, saying that this is not a movie, but an entertainment project in an amusement park. When you sit in it, you know exactly how to upset you and turn you, and the next movie is still the same.

To build a brand, the core logic needs long-term development, which is just contradictory to traffic thinking. One of the important reasons for the success of the Harry Potter series is that it has not completely bowed to the flow, but has its own persistence, winning by narrative and completely portraying the characters and the world, and at the same time, telling the story with great restraint, which will not change the plot because of the audience’s hope. Many British national treasure actors appeared in Harry Potter, but they often left after a guest appearance. At the same time, the United States produced a number of classic original remakes of movies, such as percy jackson series and very famous series, and their embrace of traffic was much higher than that of Harry Potter series. From this point of view, the interesting thing about Fantastic Animals series is that it came from the early days before the flood of Hollywood superheroes, and its transformation is epochal, and it can be seen that it struggled when the traffic was rampant. Liu Yanyan thinks: "Fantastic Animals is a good research specimen for the film industry." It can be said that the birth of "Fantastic Animals" series has two eras.

At present, the planning of the series is to shoot five films, and some viewers have begun to call for a new director for the latter two films. Can a new director solve the current problem? In this regard, Liu Yanyan held a negative attitude: "I don’t think so. If the director of the next film changes and there is no change, then you will know that the problem of the film is not the director, but the producer. The producers in Hollywood are very strong. Commercial films like this series are stable in business, and the directors don’t have much right to speak. The damage to a film industry is obvious. If you really get a son of destiny and turn decadence into magic, you need a very strong game ability with the producers, and the producers must be determined to decentralize before they can turn the tide and return the film to a more comfortable direction. "

"Fantastic Animals" series films bear the romantic feelings of countless magic fans. In other words, it is a series of magical films. I hope the producers can learn this lesson and stick to themselves instead of catering to the market, which will eventually damage the film and make people who love it sad and lost. Looking forward to the series rekindling the magic of magic, so that fans can continue to unite and believe in magic together!