Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald - 17 WTF Moments

16. Undoing The Previous Film's Ending

It's a common trait of sequels to effectively undo or "remedy" the dangling plot threads left hanging from the previous movie, but Rowling makes the hilariously transparent decision to reverse every interesting thing about Fantastic Beasts' ending within the first 20-ish minutes of this follow-up.

Remember when Grindelwald got imprisoned? Yeah, the first thing this film does is have him escape. Remember when Credence Barebone (Ezra Miller) "died"? Nah, he's still alive because...reasons. And oh yeah, Jacob (Dan Fogler) got obliviated, right? Nope, it didn't stick...because the plot needs it not to.

Grindelwald escaping is totally fair enough, though perhaps it might've seemed a bit less perfunctory if it'd been saved until the end of the first act. As for Credence's re-emergence, why even have him be disintegrated in the first place?

And while we all knew Jacob's memory wipe would be undone eventually, Rowling really put zero effort into making its reversal meaningful or even basically creative.

It's as though she realised she wrote herself into a corner last time and took the laziest approach possible to rectifying it all.