"The Secret Crimes of a Dying Franchise" Transcript

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(This transcript was created from the original script uploaded as closed captioning. Differences where James skipped overdiverged from the script are highlighted.)

Hey everyone! Before we start the video I just want to give a BIG thanks to the literal thousands of people who have signed up for my patreon over the last couple of days. You guys are absolutely amazing and I love you all.

So from now on let’s just say all of my videos are sponsored by my amazing patrons! If you’d like to become a patron the link is down in the description below. There’s going to be a whole lot more extra content coming that way in the very near future. So don’t want to miss out.

Okay, now, let’s talk about this train wreck.

So, I watched The Secrets of Dumbledore (twice) so you don't have to.

I wasn’t going to watch it, but my morbid curiosity to see what Rowling had shat out this time got the better of me. So I hunted around online for a watchable video-- through entirely legal means. And honestly, with the high quality of phone cameras these days, I expect better from these things. Then sat down to watch the movie of which critics have said:

[Text on screen:]

“A world full of wizards has never felt less magical” -Detroit News

“A once-promising franchise hits bottom” -Newsday

“The Secrets of Dumbledore is just trying to get it over with” -Now Toronto

And

“A franchise chore” -Globe & Mail

Lovely! And… not at all inaccurate.

Okay, so, full-on spoilers-synopsis¹ ahead. But honestly… you’re not missing much.

[Begins showing rather bad quality bootleg footage of the movie.]

The movie starts out with a quick scene between Dumbledore and Grindelwald where Dumbledore states clearly, for the first time, that he was in love with Grindelwald. He repeats this statement later on. All together this takes up six seconds of screen time, which has been edited out for the Chinese release. Shocker.

We then move on to our purveyor of Fantastic Beasts, Newt Scamander as he, I think, assists with the birth of a magical lizard deer called a qilin.² I say I think, because it was obvious that the theater doors were open so I could only make out about half the screen. So baby qilin is born, then Newt is attacked by Credence, of being expelled from other Warner Bros movies fame, and the qilin is kidnapped. But luckily another qilin was born. Twinsies! What luck.

Meanwhile Jacob, back in full muggle mode after, kind of being a part of the team at the end of the second movie, is recruited by a fabulous witch named Lally, to come back to the team again. Even though he’d been on the team the last time we’d seen him. But so was Nagini and she just up and disappeared too. Oh and apparently this movie only takes place about a year after the first Fantastic Beasts movie, even though that took place in the 20s and the final battle between Dumbledore and Grindelwald is supposed to take place in 1945. ... ... ... Anyway…

Jacob joins the team and we meet up with the bunch of misfits, led by Dumbledore who shows off the fine jewelry that's stopping him from being able to fight Grindelwald. That nonsense McMuffin introduced in the last movie.

And then we find out that there’s a wizarding world election going on. Time to elect a new president of the whole wizarding world. There’s two candidates. A woman named Santos and a man named Tao. Who are… not a part of the plot at all, really. According to dialogue a qilin (which seems to be pronounced differently outside the movie but we’ll stick with this for now) had once been used to pick the next wizarding world big cheese, because qilins can sense goodness in people. That’s what makes them fantastic. A fantastic beast, if you will.

We’re left to assume that it's been centuries since they’ve actually done that, but apparently they’re going back to basics this time around. Kind of. We’ll get to it. Sort of.

So at a big event for the nominees, it's announced that Grindlewald has been pardoned of all his past crimes, and so now he can run for president of the wizarding world toohimself. And why wouldn’t he? He has an army of dedicated followers. But isn’t it up to the qilin to make the decision?

So, things go south and the team is broken up into multiple teams, which is always smart, under the pretense of "confusing" Grindelwald, who now has the qilin. But he kills It and reanimates it so it will bow to him come time for the election.

Which moves us into the second act, which I’m not going to describe because it’s damn well pointless. The whole of the second act doesn’t need to happen. Nothing takes place that really changes things, other than Credence finding out that he's not Dumbledore's kid or brother, but he IS a Dumbledore. His dad was Dumbledore's brother, Aberforth. Who was getting it on with some girl in the village. But Credence barely exists in this movie so who the hell cares?

Basically the second act is for action scenes and lots of slow motion to entertain the kiddies. And a crab walk. Seriously, there was like 15 minutes of this movie that could have been replaced with Zoidburg.

Going into the third act, our group of heroes are once again sent on a mission, each of them carrying a copy of Newt's magical briefcase, one of which ()...one) contains the living qilin. This way Grindelwald’s goons won’t know which briefcase to snatch. How does Grindelwald know that there’s even a second qilin to begin with? Magic. He does a magic thing and sees that there’s another one. Or might be another one. Maybe. He’s not sure.

So everyone convenes in Bhutan, where the election will take place. High-jinx^{[sic: Hijinks]} ensues until it's time for the qilin to pick its person, who ends up being Grindelwald, of course. But Newt is having none of it. He says there’s another qilin, the living one, but he can’t find it so he can’t prove it. Because nobody has the briefcase with the qilin in it. So the wizards vote and Grindelwald becomes president.

Which… This movie is really bad for this. But it likes to introduce things that have never once been referenced in HER material over the last 3 decades. Where once upon a time you had the Ministry of Magic, and then the American Congress of Magic. Apparently there is an… overlord of magic? Who is elected to preside over all of wizardingkind? This is very fundamentally important worldbuilding that you think would have been explored in depth before now. I know it’s been vaguely referenced but we need to know this going into this movie.

I mean in narrative terms they needed an important title for Grindelwald to try and win. So SHE just… pulled something out of her ass? Nevermind that Grindelwald could just organize his followers into a militia and skip this Batman V Superman Lex-Luthor-Esque scheme so complicated that if you look at it the wrong way it just completely fallsfalls completely apart. But apparently this needed to be a political drama. And a spy thriller. And a kids movie. And an adventure movie. And — right, a Fantastic Beasts movie.

Well, the qilin, as the fantastic mcguffin of this movie, is… kinda… pointless? Because in ages past, a qilin would bow before a collection of candidates — thereby indicating the most suitable one to become leader. However, because peering into someone’s soul is so pedestrian, wizards resorted to the barbarism of democratic elections instead.

And while they’re still having an election (not even a secret ballet because reasons), Grindelwald is also going to bring a qilin for extra measure. Even though it’s abundantly clear he has a strong voter base that is growing by the minute. Not only based on dialogue in the previous two installments, but also indicated by a… kind of attempted assassination attempt on him? Or one of the other candidates by the twinkiest wizard since before Daniel Radcliffe had chest hair? But even then, not really because Lally yeets the poison out the window anyway.

But bear in mind the qilin’s verdict is not binding. Wizards and witches can still cast a vote for whomever. So… there’s a possibility that the qilin could tell the populace that someone is perfect for the job, and then they won’t vote for them anyway? Does the qilin choose the leader, or do the people? This seems only slightly less unnecessarily complicated than our ‘muggle’ method of determining the state of conflict and economy in the world, based on an election in Ohio every four years.

I’m sorry, is this hard to follow? Try sitting through a movie in which every time a plot starts to materialize, there’s a cut away to a character you had completely forgotten about.

Anyway, Newt's assistant, the one who had an obvious crush on him in the first two movies, shows up with the real briefcase and out comes the living qilin. The other one dies for real and the living one picks a new best leader… Dumbledore.

Which is… a choice. Excuse me for moralizing here, but Dumbledore is not pure of heart. Dumbledore was fully on board with subjugating muggles when he was younger, was totally okay with risking the lives of our Fantastic Beasts heroes just to distract Grindelwald, and later on in life would lead Harry Potter to the slaughter in the war against Voldemort and then, once Harry kinda died, told him he didn’t need to go back and could just let his friends take care of all the fighting from now on. That, to me, does not describe someone who is pure of heart.

Back to the story.

Dumbledore refuses and the qilin picks the woman who was running instead. Grindelwald is pissed and is about to kill her, I think, but Credence steps in front of him. He says screw it and launches a killing curse at Credence, but both Dumbledore and Aberforth launch protection spells, which intersect with the killing curse and destroy the magical McMuffin stopping Dumbledore and Grindelwald from fighting… somehow.

So the gays jump into their own little magical pocket dimension and have a wand fight for a few seconds, inching closer together each time they dodge a spell, and eventually end up with their hands over each other’s heart. How sweet. Dumbledore walks away as Grindelwald asks: “Who will love you now, Dumbledore?”

Then we leave the magical pocket dimension and everyone has their wands pointed at Grindelwald, but he zips away and the movie ends. There’s a denouement where literally everyone has coupled up except Dumbeldore, who is now the sad lonely gay. Wonderfully positive representation.

It essentially leaves us at exactly the same place we were at the end of the last movie. Grindelwald is on the run, our team is no closer to catching him, still over a decade from the big final battle between him and Dumbledore, and two more hours of our lives lost.

Oh except Aberofroth is going to take in his abandoned son, Credence, because Credence is dying now apparently. And now Dumbledore doesn’t have the magical jewelry anymore. Which he shouldn’t have in the first place because it was just stupid.

So that’s the plot of this… I hesitate to call it a movie. It felt more like multiple filler episodes of a tv show. Like a network tv show, not even a cable one. Obviously I’m not a fan, which is kind of a relief. Because I don’t even have to pretend not to like it because Rowling is TERFy trash. I legitimately don’t like it!

Of course I haven’t been a big fan of anything she’s written since 2007 so I shouldn’t really be shocked by this. To be fair there are some good performances here, especially from Jude Law and Mads Mickelson, but as described, the movie has a myriad of flaws… from bad pacing, meandering direction, an aimless plot, and no real story progression.

And it’s egregious habit of telling us things it should be showing us. Film is a visual medium. Do not tell me about something that happened in the long long ago. SHOW me it happening. That is, like, one of the first things you learn in film school. “Show Don't Tell” is THE code of good filmmaking. Any good writer knows this. Any director worth their damn salt would have the script rewritten to make this happen. But oooh we can’t rewrite Joanne’s script. It’s gospel. It was sent down from on high, etched in stone tablets and carried down the mountain by unpaid house elves.

But the thing that stood out the most to me, which I don’t know if this was done on purpose or by mistake, is the complete lack of canonical coherence. Not only to HER very own IP which she lately has lovingly constructed with the help of lifting details from fanfiction… but specifically regarding Grindelwald’s real-world inspiration.

Grindelwald, ever since his introduction, has been seen as the magical world’s equivalent to Hitler³. Fans even jokingly nicknamed him Wizard Hitler³. So if you’re following that progression, this movie shouldn’t have involved any magical lizard-deer. (The powers of which are slightly different than in Chinese mythology. But hey — when has Rowling ever NOT used and changed the myths of other cultures for her own means?) It should have been a straight up, three-way election in which Grindelwald secures a plurality of the votes. Putting him in power even though the majority don’t want him there. Mirroring Hitler’s³ own rise to power in the 1930s. Because, the way the movie portrays it, people are all on board for him being in control until the deer lizard says otherwise, and then they change their mind once they know that he's corrupt. And sadly, that’s not how elections work.

For instance, Donald Trump’s supporters didn’t abandon him when they found out about the horrible things he’d done. In fact Trump got about 12 million MORE votes in 2020 than he did in 2016. A lot of people weren’t turned off by his authoritarian tendencies, they actively preferred them. They wanted a strong-man leader. And they actively decried any proven instance of him lying as fake news. Even when he was caught bald-faced lying on camera, his supporters actively rejected it. On some… psychological level they could not accept truth.

Meanwhile, the wizarding world runs on this after school special logic where truth and justice wins over the masses. Apparently. Grindelwald actually does fit the Hitler and Trump comparison in one way though, because he has gained his following by spurring on a class of people who perceive themselves to be subjugated: wizards who are sick of having to hide their wizardness. Or Arian Germans and the white working class in real life. These tyrannical types use these people as a stepping stone to gain power, and they always have a scapegoat. Trump blamed everyone who wasn’t white, Hitler blamed Jews, Roma, gays, the disabled, and basically everyone who didn’t fit his idea of ideal human. And Grindelwald used Muggles.

But there’s a difference. Wizards actually are kind of subjugated, and do have to hide.. But by using this deer-lizard, and then having Grindelwald lose the election, you’re obscuring the Hitler allegory, which has been driving the interest in Grindelwald as Wizard Hister since 2007.

But if we start talking about allegory, there’s another problematic angle. Since Grindelwald is actually gay, or at least that’s what we’ve been lead to believe, we’re kind of in a sticky situation where two heterosexuals, Rowling and screenwriter Steve Kloves, are dictating who is a good gay, and who is a bad gay. In Rowling’s Wizarding World is seems that she’s saying that Grindelwald is the bad gay because he’s rocking the boat. He’s demanding wizards have the right to be seen, and stop hiding from muggles. He’s demanding they be allowed to come out to the closet, in a way.

Of course he also wants to subjugate, if not enslave and kill muggles too, because Rowling doesn’t have a subtle bone in her body. But his basic argument of “wizards shouldn’t have to hide” is one that actually reverberates quite loudly among the queer community she, and her followers, are currently doing their best to demonize. First, she and her followers came for trans people. And now, at least her followers, are coming for gays and lesbians as well. Claiming that we groom children with queer YA books, or even mentioning the LGBTQ community in schools.

Now, Rowling hasn’t said this herself. But she has retweeted some people who have. And if you go back a few years her crusade against trans people began exactly the same way. Retweeting TERFs and transphobes long below vocalizing her own ignorance and hate. So whose to say the gays aren’t next on her chopping block? Rowling is now throwing her lot in with people who accuse gay men and women who support trans rights of ‘grooming’ children. These groups of people are associated with those who actively feel that any expression of queerness must be kept away from kids. Rowling, who once expressed herself as a staunch ally, is now beginning to side with errant homophobes. For no other reason than siding with people who share her bigoted opinions on trans people.

If Rowling is no longer comfortable throwing herself into queer spaces, instead taking social calls with and retweeting homophobic influencers… could that be an indication that the cis queer community she once sided with is now losing it’s tolerance for transphobia?

There’s a glass-half-full take on this. That Rowling was procedurally pushed out of queer-allied spaces because cis-folk (queer or allies) would not tolerate her rhetoric. So she HAD to turn to homophobes because nobody else would tolerate her transphobic hateful opinions.

But the glass-half-EMPTY takeon this is that this is one of those reasons why queer people can be a little bit… suspicious of allies. Because Rowling’s compulsive hatred of trans people is more important to her than her support of cis-gay people. That she is willing to compromise her support for gay people, but unwilling to compromise her own bigotry toward trans people.

Hating people is simply more significant for her sense of self than loving people. So… will she just turn on ANYONE who openly supports trans people? Whom she openly accuses of being ‘dangerous revolutionaries’ out to ‘invade’ and ‘disrupt’ womens’ spaces?

I mean… she HAS been writing a character who is a dangerous revolutionary who is out to invade and disrupt wizarding spaces… However… while she demonizes the queer character who calls for revolution, coming out, and an end to the status quo (albeit in the most extreme way possible), she does not demonize the other gay, who actually is a teacher. Dumbledore.

But it's okay for Dumbledore to be a teacher because although he WAS in love with Grindelwald, he is not actively with him. And she herself has said that after the love affair ended he became something like asexual. So basically gays are good, and are okay to be around kids, as long as they don’t have anything close to a sex life. Celibate gays are fine. The gays who are willing to keep hiding in the closet are fine.

Dumbledore DID want to change the world, just like Grindelwald. When he was younger. But he's grown up, and matured out of that mindset. He doesn’t want to change things anymore. Everything is fine as it is. He has his cushy job at Hogwarts, why call for a revolution now?

Of course I’m not saying that we should be siding with a character who, up until a few days ago, was a wizarding allegory for Adolf Hitler. But it is interesting that it seems to be rich wizards and wizard cops who are most stressed out about the possibility of Grindelwald coming to power, and not your average witches and wizards. We don’t really hear from them except when we see them cheering on Grindelwald and carrying him around like a conquering hero.

So the spoken message and the visual message seem disjointed. We’re meant to hate and fear him, like Voldemort, but it's not the 1990s anymore. The world has changed a lot. People are much more aware of “revolutionary” thinking like trans rights, taxing the rich, and getting rid of income inequality. The heroes of today’s world are calling for the change we need, while the villains are calling for the conservation of current values, or even moving backward — regression. So I just find it interesting that it's the heroes of this film who want everything to stay the same, and the villains calling for change.