Lets wave goodbye to 2015! Good times, bad times we’ve had them all – but you know what they say, as one door closes, another one opens. Over the coming month we’ll be bringing you a snapshot of everything 2016 has to offer – the good, the bad and the ugly. Hold on to your hats folks, it’s going to be a bumpy ride!
It’s been five years since the release of the last Harry Potter film, and almost ten since the final book came out, but we are once again preparing to return to J.K. Rowling’s best-selling, record-breaking wizarding world.
Based on a Hogwarts textbook of the same name, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is about British magizoologist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), and his adventures in 1920s New York. Many fans who have grown up with Harry Potter are already excited to see what this new area and era of the wizarding world has to offer, especially as Rowling has written the screenplay herself.
With only a general synopsis and a short movie trailer released, we don’t know very much about the plot of the film itself, but it focuses on the apparent escape of several magical creatures from Newt’s suitcase into New York City – with potentially explosive results. Although there are links to the original Harry Potter series (as well as the textbook, Newt is grandfather to Rolf Scamander, who marries Luna Lovegood), this film is a new story set in the same universe, rather than a prequel to Harry’s tale.
Even though Newt himself has only three words of dialogue in the footage released so far, people are already excited for Oscar-winner Redmayne’s performance, and there is a lot of speculation about the storyline and characters. Those already announced include a No-Maj (the American term for muggle) named Jacob (Dan Fogler), who possibly has something to do with the escape of the creatures, and Porpentina Goldstein (Katherine Waterstone), mentioned as Newt’s wife in the muggle edition of the Fantastic Beast and Where to Find Them textbook, released for Comic Relief in 2001.
This film is the perfect opportunity for current fans of the series to re-enter the wizarding world, as well as introduce yet another generation to Rowling’s much-loved magical universe.
Isobel Sheene
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Images sourced from Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, Warner Bros. Studios also via Entertainment Weekly
I didn’t realize that “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” took place in New York City. That should be interesting to see some American witches and wizards! I have high hopes for this film because J.K. Rowling is so involved in it. Hopefully it lives up to the hype!