After four years, the third film in the “Fantastic Beasts” franchise is finally back on the big screen.
For the April theater chain, “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore” is undoubtedly the magic blockbuster that bears the heavy lifting at the box office.
If the “Harry Potter” series of films has built a new and imaginative magical world for teenagers, then the “Fantastic Beasts” series of films has shown adults about the struggle for values and power in the wizarding world.
The new series “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore” still revolves around faction competition and builds a larger magical world.
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1,Some settings about the magical world
Before talking about “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore”, let’s take a look at the background of the “Fantastic Beasts” series of films and some conceptual settings about the film.
The worldview of the “Fantastic Beasts” series of films is built on the magical world of the “Harry Potter” series.
This world is not filled with intense stories of various magical battles, but all wizards who know magic must hide themselves and coexist with ordinary humans.
Ordinary humans do not know any magic, but they still become the rulers and leaders of the world, which makes some of the wizards dissatisfied.
And the “Fantastic Beasts” series of films is to show the contradictions and entanglements within the wizard on this issue.
In the background, there are several special settings in the magical world.
One is Blood Pact.
Blood Pact is an important setting in the “Fantastic Beasts” series of movies, which is equivalent to a token of an oath to never abuse each other.
Dumbledore and Grindelwald fused their blood together and dripped them into the Blood Pact chains when they were young. Once either party had thoughts of infringing the other, the Blood Pact chains would tighten and strangle themselves.
The second is about the death of Ariana Dumbledore.
And Dumbledore has always had a “hidden child”, his sister Ariana Dumbledore.
A quarrel between Dumbledore and Grindelwald turned into a duel, and during the melee, Ariana Dumbledore was inadvertently killed and Grindelwald fled.
After that, the Dumbledore brothers broke up and their best friends turned against each other.
Three is a number “7”.
The number “7” is a very important number in the “Harry Potter” movies.
In “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore”, Dumbledore’s team to guard Qi Lin is exactly seven people.
These include Newt, whose chest protects the most important Fantastic Beast in the battle; Theseus, Newt’s older brother; Bunty, Newt’s assistant; Hicks and Kama, both helpers whom Newt brought in; Jacob, a non-magical man Muggle.
Finally, Dumbledore himself.
The fourth is “International Statute of Secrecy”.
“International Statute of Secrecy” is a behavioral law that everyone in the wizarding world needs to abide by. The law stipulates that wizards master magic but must hide in ordinary life and should not be publicized.
The original intention of the law is to protect this magical world, but it also makes many wizards with powerful magic complain, and then plan to break the shackles of the “International Statute of Secrecy”. Grindelwald is one of them.
2,A battle over the choice between good and evil
After talking about the above concept settings and the background of the story, let’s take a look at the story of “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore”.
“Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore” continues to be directed by David Yates, co-written by J. K. Rowling and Steve Kloves, “Eddie Redmayne” Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Jude Law, Ezra Miller, Callum Turner, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol and more The cast returns, with new addition Mads Mikkelsen as Grindelwald.
The film tells the story of an excellent team led by magical zoologist Newt Scamander, who together deal with the growing dark forces led by the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald.
The protagonists Newt, Dumbledore and the dark wizard Grindelwald, who are familiar to the audience, meet on a narrow road in the wizarding world, new wizards emerge, and new magical animals are revealed.
The story of “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore” takes place in a period when the magical forces of all parties are gradually growing and the leaders of the magical world are changing blood.
There has always been a legend in the magical world that the magical animal Qi Lin can perceive the pure kindness in people’s hearts and kneel to the pure and kind people. To become the leader of the magical world, Qi Lin must be recognized.
Therefore, the clue of the movie’s story is — Qi Lin.
In order to become the leader of the wizarding world, the villain Grindelwald sent his men to snatch the freshman Qi Lin and kill him to cast a spell, so that he would kneel before him during the election ceremony.
But what Grindelwald didn’t expect was that the magical animal Qi Lin was actually a twin, and the other Qi Lin was rescued from the clutches.
The mission of the decent people represented by Dumbledore is to send the only surviving Qi Lin to the election ceremony in the wizarding world, so that Qi Lin can choose a leader who is truly worthy of trust.
Around this Qi Lin battle, the duel between good and evil started wildly in the wizarding world. Dumbledore formed a team to fight against the most dangerous dark wizard in the modern history of the wizarding world.
With the growing strength of Grindelwald’s faction, Dumbledore’s team encountered many crises. Newt, Jacob and others went to many places, trying their best to stop the dark wizard’s evil plan.
All kinds of magical animals will also play an important role in this earth-shaking magic war.
In addition to Bowtruckle and Niffler making their debut again, new mythical beasts such as Manticore and Airwing Bird all appeared.
3,The “choice” of magic values
It seems to be a battle of pros and cons about maintaining peace in the wizarding world, but under the scramble “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore” also explores a deep topic about “choice”.
In the magical world, is it the righteous faction that wants to lead the world and exert the power of magic, or the faction that obeys the “International Statute of Secrecy”?
The first is the “villain” represented by Grindelwald.
In the film, Grindelwald is a “villain” character. In order to become the ruler of the magical world, he uses brutal means to obtain the magical animal Qi Lin, who decides the leader’s ownership, and kill him.
But all along, Grindelwald did not consider himself an enemy of the wizarding world.
Because he is unwilling that the wizards with powerful magic will always hide their abilities, he wants the wizards to rule the whole world and get the status and glory they deserve.
Therefore, in Grindelwald’s worldview, what he does is to make people in the wizarding world better.
As for cannibalism, he also has a very sad mentality, which can be confirmed from the fact that he has never received Blood Pact bracelet damage, and he is still full of love in his heart.
Grindelwald didn’t want to be an enemy of other wizards, but his actions made others have to be an enemy of him.
Under the “International Statute of Secrecy”, wizards try to hide their existence, which Grindelwald considers insulting.
Therefore, he chose to defend the sovereignty of the wizarding world with absolute domination.
On the other side is the “decency” represented by Dumbledore.
Dumbledore is the only wizard in the wizarding world who has the ability to resist Grindelwald.
But because of the existence of Blood Pact, Dumbledore never came forward to confront Grindelwald in the first two plots.
In “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore”, Dumbledore’s final confrontation with Grindelwald is also his choice to finally stand up and confront his former best friend for the peace and tranquility of the wizarding world.
In the final battle, Grindelwald even shouted such a sentence: “who will love you now, Dumbledore!”
It can be said that although the two Blood Pacts have been broken, the feelings in their hearts still exist, which may become one of the clues for the next sequel.
At the end of the film, Grindelwald chooses to flee after the conspiracy is revealed to have failed in the election.
But as the greatest dark wizard in the world, whether Grindelwald is fighting for Qi Lin or the leadership position, he is not blindly fighting as one party against another.
What he thinks is to guide the ideological revolution and transformation of the entire race and group.
Even if Grindelwald fails, his loyal supporters are still there. Perhaps at the end of the film, Grindelwald did not flee in a hurry, but turned around and came back.
The struggle over worldviews and values in this magical world will also continue.
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