[Aptorian]

Us vs. them. If you're not a part of the solution, you're a part of the problem.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

QuickTidal, on 26 November 2020 - 03:20 PM, said:

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 26 November 2020 - 02:05 PM, said:

Little sad they couldn't get Colin Farrell back (I liked him in the first instalment) but Mads Mikkelsen is a great choice.

Having said that, I'll wait for it to be available on telly. The second one was.... well, mediocre would be generous.

I feel so weird because your stance on this is pretty much the status quo of most viewers, but I think the second film is leaps and bounds better than the first and I actively enjoy it enough to rewatch it often. Is somehitng wrong with me? What am I missing?

Hey, nothing wrong with differing opinions!

My vague memory (only seen it once) was a feeling that they needed to pick a plot thread or two and stick with it/them.

For the sake of any who haven't seen it:

Spoiler

Threads I vaguely remember:

1. Credence not being dead (zero explanation thus far, might come later) and he has a sidekick who might be Voldemort's snake pre-curse.
2. Credence maybe being a Lestrange
3. Wizard with Unbreakable Vow re above - that whole thing ending up going nowhere
4. Newt and Jacob chasing Tina and Queeny
5. Whatever Grindelwald is actually doing
6. Credence might be a Dumbledore?
7. Dumbledore's blood pact with Grindelwald

I could be misremembering but it felt like too any separate threads only very tenuously tied into each other - for me you could have taken Newt out of the film and lost nothing material plotwise, which is a shame given he was the protagonist in the first instalment. It wasn't without some lovely spectacle and I wouldn't say I found it difficult to follow, but I just struggled to care about any of it.

This post has been edited by TheRetiredBridgeburner: 27 November 2020 - 11:49 AM

[QuickTidal]

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 27 November 2020 - 11:48 AM, said:

Spoiler

Threads I vaguely remember:

1. Credence not being dead (zero explanation thus far, might come later) and he has a sidekick who might be Voldemort's snake pre-curse.
2. Credence maybe being a Lestrange
3. Wizard with Unbreakable Vow re above - that whole thing ending up going nowhere
4. Newt and Jacob chasing Tina and Queeny
5. Whatever Grindelwald is actually doing
6. Credence might be a Dumbledore?
7. Dumbledore's blood pact with Grindelwald

I could be misremembering but it felt like too any separate threads only very tenuously tied into each other - for me you could have taken Newt out of the film and lost nothing material plotwise, which is a shame given he was the protagonist in the first instalment. It wasn't without some lovely spectacle and I wouldn't say I found it difficult to follow, but I just struggled to care about any of it.

Spoiler

So I think the throughline plot is just meant to be Grindelwald escaping, revealing he's free, and gaining followers (new and old) to start the world on the path to a wizard war (while pretending it's because WWII is coming and he claims he can help avoid it; which is bullshit). Everything else either serves that, or is world building for the FB era of Potter. The LeStrange plot line serves both Newt and Theseus's story (as a shared history and old love triangle), and also as a misdirect/red herring to avoid the reveal that Credence is actually a Dumbledore. All the other bits juts felt like extra FB Potterverse stuff to me.

I agree there are a lot of threads, and probably too many...but I dunno, where I found FB 1 sparse on plot CoG felt like a reward for sitting through the first film (even though I enjoyed that as well).

[Gorefest]

QuickTidal, on 27 November 2020 - 02:02 PM, said:

I agree there are a lot of threads, and probably too many...but I dunno, where I found FB 1 sparse on plot CoG felt like a reward for sitting through the first film (even though I enjoyed that as well).

Oh, I'm sure there was a lot of interesting stuff in it for hardcore fans. I just think that a good quality movie should be able to cater to hardcore fans, casual fans and the general public alike. I definitely don't mean to diminish your enjoyment of the film. I personally just thought it was a train wreck. And i only offered my opinion because you asked!

This post has been edited by Gorefest: 27 November 2020 - 03:49 PM

[QuickTidal]

Gorefest, on 27 November 2020 - 03:47 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 27 November 2020 - 02:02 PM, said:

I agree there are a lot of threads, and probably too many...but I dunno, where I found FB 1 sparse on plot CoG felt like a reward for sitting through the first film (even though I enjoyed that as well).

Oh, I'm sure there was a lot of interesting stuff in it for hardcore fans. I just think that a good quality movie should be able to cater to hardcore fans, casual fans and the general public alike. I definitely don't mean to diminish your enjoyment of the film. I personally just thought it was a train wreck. And i only offered my opinion because you asked!

That's fair, and I would have no idea what that film would look like to a non fan, so you probably make a very valid point. It's not super often I'm in the opposing camp about a movie, so I fully accept I'm in a tiny minority.

[polishgenius]

Incredible Aptorian, on 27 November 2020 - 11:30 AM, said:

Us vs. them. If you're not a part of the solution, you're a part of the problem.

Meh. I feel like by using her position as one of the most famous people in the world and almost certainly the most famous in her particular sphere to propagate and promote transphobic stereotypes and myths, she's being more than 'not part of the solution'. The abuse she got was obviously not okay, but people are more than entitled to either push back against it or just not want to bother with her anymore.

[Malankazooie]

I watched the first Fantastic Beasts movie, but for me, it wasn't all that memorable, because, to be honest, I can't really recall what it was about. I'm going to have a go at the second one that is causing so much debate sometime this weekend, will report back later.

[Malankazooie]

Okay, watched Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.

I thought Depp was excellent as Wizard Hitler. Sad that he got shitcanned. The movie is great at tapping into childhood fantasy psyche of what wondrous creatures it shows us, but the movie was a distracted mess. So thumbs up for the special effects and fantastic beasts (loved the Chinese dragon), thumbs down for *yawn -"now what are they going on about here during this part?"

Sad to see Depp gone. So that Mad Milkson guy will be taking over as Wizard Hitler Wizard Magneto and will be battling it out with Wizard Professor X (played by Jude Law) in the third one it looks like. Alternatively, could probably draw a parallel to Palps and Coughy-breathy guy from Star Wars. Wizard Palpatine and Wizard secret brother of Wizard Professor X. *labored-breathing "Albus, he's your brother" *labored-breathing.

[amphibian]

polishgenius, on 27 November 2020 - 04:58 PM, said:

Incredible Aptorian, on 27 November 2020 - 11:30 AM, said:

Us vs. them. If you're not a part of the solution, you're a part of the problem.

Meh. I feel like by using her position as one of the most famous people in the world and almost certainly the most famous in her particular sphere to propagate and promote transphobic stereotypes and myths, she's being more than 'not part of the solution'. The abuse she got was obviously not okay, but people are more than entitled to either push back against it or just not want to bother with her anymore.

Polish genius said it exactly right. She's done more than simply have the shitty views. She's actively promoting them and one of her pen names (Robert Galbraith) is linked to the person who pioneered the deeply dangerous conversion therapy (Robert Galbraith Heath) that has hurt many LGTBQ+ people for decades. She's said that she didn't pick the name for that and has provided a story, but it rings a bit false to me when she's continually pumping the anti trans stuff and continually being really weird about her gender/sexual attraction stuff.

The death threats and so on aren't ok. She still is a legitimate target for criticism that is valid and meaningful, especially since she created perhaps the most beloved series in the last fifty years - which has some pretty shitty parts within itself and separate from her personal opinions after closer examination.

[Tiste Simeon]

It does? Reread Harry Potter not long ago and nothing major stood out in that sense...

[QuickTidal]

Tiste Simeon, on 30 November 2020 - 05:09 PM, said:

It does? Reread Harry Potter not long ago and nothing major stood out in that sense...

If I'm not wrong, I think a lot of people have issue with the stereotypes at play on some of the periphery characters?

Seamus Finnigan, the only Irish character...is hot tempered, loves turning water into alcohol, and blows everything up when he attempts magic....but they forget that this didn't happen in the early books, and was an addition from the director of the first two HP films, Chris Columbus...if you pay attention, Seamus doesn't have these traits till after the movies began coming out. So JK added them for consistency going fwd I believe.


The Bankers in the Wizarding World are goblins (seen as a Jewish stereotype apparently), though those same people claim that she didn't put any effort in with her only Jewish wizard...who is named Goldstein...but Goldstein is a jewish name, so I fail to see how naming someone that is offensive.

Cho Chang, the only East Asian character (with one Korean Last name as her first name, and a Chinese one as her last name)...is in Ravenclaw (the intellectual house), rats out the cool kids for their dark arts class with Harry. This is the one that seems to get the most play for offensive...and I kind of get it...but this is the only one I think is worth mentioning, and I don't think it's worth dumping on the whole series for. It's just a good teaching/learning moment about the silliness of her name, and the need to put her into stereotypical East Asian tropes.


But as someone else noted (paraphrasing), she was damned if she did and damned if she didn't. If she left out representation, she would be dumped on. If she had unacceptable representation (23 years later), she gets dumped on. If she had more accurate representation in side characters then she would be dumped on for being a white woman and assuming she understands other cultures. It's hard not to agree with all of this...It's a no-win situation, especially reviewing it all in 2020 VS 1997 with new optics.

That said, her stance on the transphobic stuff is bad and she should rightfully be dragged for it. There's really no defending that stuff, especially since she said it recently AND doubles down on it when people challenge her.

[polishgenius]

The Cho Chang stuff came back up and got more apparently hurtful to people when it turned out that there had been another asian character in the series all along and it was Voldemort's cursed love-snake. It made it seem like she hadn't learned from that teaching moment much.


Similarly, the lack of minority representation at Hogwarts wasn't that notable until they cast a black woman as Hermione in the play- awesome- and in response to the reaction from dickheads, Rowling's reaction wasn't 'who cares Hermione can be black if I want' she pretty much went 'oh I never wrote Hermione to be white and if you thought she was you were being racist', which isn't far off the same reasons people were upset when her response to no gay people at Hogwarts was to tell us Dumbledore is gay in the books honest. Which like QT says especially at the time the series started she would have got stick for including but it seems to mark a general tendency for her to be unable to admit having got something wrong even if it was innocent or with good reason, which has manifested itself bigstyle in the transphobia thing.



In any case there are other issues with HP for me- the complete misunderstanding and misrepresentation of poverty (the Weasleys are not poor), the whole waved-aside-but-never-really-dealt-with thing with Slytherin and how grim a prospect Sorting would actually be in reality- but none of it would really be write-off material (many classic childrens- and adults- books have one flaw or another you can pick at, I still like Narnia and Narnia is in many ways way way more problematic than HP is - without the current stuff.

This post has been edited by polishgenius: 01 December 2020 - 12:26 AM

[amphibian]

I was more talking about her "other continents have magic too" thing that ended up with a weird "there are schools in Japan, Brazil, and Africa".

Then she said that the school is in the Mountains of the Moon, which isn't a real range - distinct from the French school in the Pyrenees and the Hogwarts location.

Then she kinda said it's supposed to be in Uganda and serve all the wizards coming from 700 million Africans and 50+ countries.

Then she went and did some pretty bad stuff with First Nations folklore that gave it all to Europeans coming over to make wizard houses where there were none before, despite all these magical creatures etc that she's happy to have them include as mascots.

That's peripheral material, but the goblins being Jewish stereotypes is bad. So too is her Galbraith story where a trans villain is really not treated well. All the little things plus her personal statements have been kinda indicative to me that she's a bigot and confident enough about it to give it a charming spin, print it, and send it off to make money.

She wrote the books in the 1990s, 2000s, writing more in the 2010s and 2020s, and has been adding onto her statements all throughout. It's not like she's cranking these out in the 1950s where this kind of general attitude was far more prevalent.

Look at how Neil Gaiman represented folklore of faraway places and look at how Rowling does. Both are British, working today, and successful. One is a lot better at not hurting the people whose folklore they are using and also much better at being a person who doesn't exclude people based on their gender identity or ethnicity.

[Macros]

One is a much better writer period

[QuickTidal]

amphibian, on 01 December 2020 - 01:26 AM, said:

I was more talking about her "other continents have magic too" thing that ended up with a weird "there are schools in Japan, Brazil, and Africa".

Maybe I'm missing something, why is this a problem? She's already established schools in other countries in the main series (France, Russia).

amphibian, on 01 December 2020 - 01:26 AM, said:

Then she said that the school is in the Mountains of the Moon, which isn't a real range

It's an ancient term Diogenes termed for a range in Africa. Many scholars have agreed there are ranges which could fit the description. I fail to see why this is an issue though since it's a fictional series, so referencing an ancient term for a mountain range in Africa seems pretty innocuous for what would be an old Wizarding school.

amphibian, on 01 December 2020 - 01:26 AM, said:

Then she kinda said it's supposed to be in Uganda and serve all the wizards coming from 700 million Africans and 50+ countries.

That's definitely a little wonky, but I'm sure in action there would be more to it?....or maybe there wouldn't.

amphibian, on 01 December 2020 - 01:26 AM, said:

Then she went and did some pretty bad stuff with First Nations folklore that gave it all to Europeans coming over to make wizard houses where there were none before, despite all these magical creatures etc that she's happy to have them include as mascots.

Agreed, because it would not have been hard for her to make the American Wizarding school stem from Native tribes and not an Irish immigrant. Like the American school could have been ancient and rooted in native traditions, and accepted the immigrant students after they started arriving and thus you'd get your attempt at making American egalitarian school. So yeah, that's a bad one.

amphibian, on 01 December 2020 - 01:26 AM, said:

That's peripheral material, but the goblins being Jewish stereotypes is bad.

Pinning this on Rowling is not really on since she took her inspirations of everything in her book from elsewhere. But here's a Jewish writer speaking on the subject. With a read.

amphibian, on 01 December 2020 - 01:26 AM, said:

Look at how Neil Gaiman represented folklore of faraway places and look at how Rowling does. Both are British, working today, and successful. One is a lot better at not hurting the people whose folklore they are using and also much better at being a person who doesn't exclude people based on their gender identity or ethnicity.

I agree Gaiman handles it better, and is the better writer.

[QuickTidal]

WHOA.

Warner Brothers is sending their ENTIRE 2021 sked of theatre releases not just to theatres, but day and date on HBO MAX streaming service too.

I knew that movies were going to change on the back of the Pandemic year, and I knew ONE of the studios would have to bite the bullet and be first...but I dunno if I had my money on WB.

https://www.hollywoo...ax-and-theaters

[Mezla PigDog]

I watched Parasite recently. So so so good.

[Mezla PigDog]

polishgenius, on 26 November 2020 - 10:50 PM, said:

Macros, on 26 November 2020 - 10:16 PM, said:

Well that was a thought for me too.
I have basically switched off the news and social media for the last while because it's just fucking depressing and bullshit in equal measure.

What is the full scale of what Rowling has said and/or done and what has been the blow back from it?

Rowling's been mostly quite careful to avoid publicly saying anything obviously pointable to as hateful, but here is a massive twitter thread rebutting the essay she wrote defending herself back in June. She's also had a history of promoting very, very anti-trans people, some mentioned in that essay but also moments like this.

I find the controversy around trans-women really difficult because I agree with both sides. Not the hateful side that denies the right of trans-women to exist or call themselves women but I agree with the side that says cis-women have medical needs that you can't deny. The clear fact is that trans-women are significantly more marginalised than cis-women but there are a lot more cis-women so their needs are also a huge deal. So all sides need to be heard and taken care of and the fight isn't getting any kind of woman anywhere. The old school feminists don't seem to have a language to cope with where it is at right now.

[QuickTidal]

Watched David Fincher's latest MANK on Netflix (written by his now-deceased father in the 1990s') with Gary Oldman, and it was EXCELLENT. The story of the guy who wrote CITIZEN KANE.

If you like Oldman, and Old Hollywood flicks, this is for you.

A few technical aspects really elevate this one. It's shot in B&W and with an almost grainy texture, the score is Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross but is UNRECOGNIZABLE as their work as it sounds like something really recorded to score a film from the 30's, the sound design is purposely made to sound like it's playing in an old movie house. There's a muted echo to the sound...it should be annoying, it is not. The whole thing feels like it was made back then. Sound stages, backdrops.

Anyways, it's very very good. Probably one of the best films I've seen on Netflix as an original.

[amphibian]

QuickTidal, on 04 December 2020 - 05:22 PM, said:

Watched David Fincher's latest MANK on Netflix (written by his now-deceased father in the 1990s') with Gary Oldman, and it was EXCELLENT. The story of the guy who wrote CITIZEN KANE.

If you like Oldman, and Old Hollywood flicks, this is for you.

A few technical aspects really elevate this one. It's shot in B&W and with an almost grainy texture, the score is Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross but is UNRECOGNIZABLE as their work as it sounds like something really recorded to score a film from the 30's, the sound design is purposely made to sound like it's playing in an old movie house. There's a muted echo to the sound...it should be annoying, it is not. The whole thing feels like it was made back then. Sound stages, backdrops.

Anyways, it's very very good. Probably one of the best films I've seen on Netflix as an original.

You may enjoy this article that talks about the movie and how the collaborative process did include Welles more than Kael and the movie depict.

https://www.newyorke...er-citizen-kane