I watched Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them today. I enjoyed it as a popcorn flick. I was more interested in seeing it, because I want to see the sequel Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindenwold. I think Jude Law is pretty cool and I want to see his portrayal as young Dumbledore.
Anyway, the plot of Where to Find Them was pretty cliche and progression felt patchy at times, but the visual design was creative (particularly
). It stoked my imagination the way the Harry Potter films do and I liked that it was more about adult wizards on an adventure rather than kid wizards. However, some of the "romantic" interactions came off as adults acting like awkward teens. I also think that some thematic elements that were barely a blip on the radar and heavily glossed over could be expanded upon to create more grown-up lore for J.K. Rowling's wizarding world. For example, in examining the way Arthur Weasley and Queenie view muggles/no-majs... both are clearly fascinated by them/us, but how much of their muggle/no-maj enthusiasm is fetishism?
Speaking of expanding J.K. Rowling's world, I hope that Rowling realizes that America is a BIG country (at least 10 states are bigger than the UK) and every region is wildly unique. I hope that the America based magical school Queenie briefly mentions in the film is not the only school of its kind in America. America is vast and a veritable mosaic of cultures, so it would make sense to me that there would/should be more than just one magical school in this country.
If you look at Native American mysticism, different tribes have their own unique views, lore, practices, mythologies, traditions, etc. because of their varied and widespread geography. We typically associate peyote and going on "vision quests" after taking it as something Native American tribes did, but that's limited to tribes who lived in the more southwestern desert regions where peyote grows, since peyote is a cactus. And then when looking at the influences brought over from abroad, you get unique regional mysticisms like Louisiana voodoo that's an amalgamation of several traditions from the African diaspora. Leaving the mainland, there are the Inuit traditions in Alaska and the Polynesian ones in Hawaii. There's also magical creatures. Folks who grew up in New Jersey would probably be familiar with the Jersey Devil and the Red Lion. However, those who grew up in the southwest or Puerto Rico would be more familiar with chupacabras.
