Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald - Has J.K. Rowling Become George Lucas?

The Harry Potter creator has learned the wrong lessons from Star Wars.

by James Hunt
JK Rowling George Lucas
Lucasfilm/WB/Executive Office of the President [Public domain or CC0], via Wikimedia Commons/nicolas genin from Paris, France [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The latest entry into the increasingly populated Wizarding World has arrived, and reaction to Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald has been rather mixed, at best. It recorded a franchise-low opening weekend at the box-office, which is combined with the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score of the whole series as well.

It's a marked shift for a series that has pulled in billions of dollars and, while not as much acclaim as the books, is generally well-regarded by both critics and Harry Potter fans. Even the first Fantastic Beasts movie performed well in this regard - over $800m gross; 74% on Rotten Tomatoes - but the sequel, which also feels much more directly connected to Potter despite the time-gap, is more reminiscent of a different set of movies.

Watching The Crimes of Grindelwald, with its huge plot twist that feels made up on the spot and muddled narrative in which characters get lost, there's very much a sense of what went wrong with the Star Wars prequels. This movie essentially stands as confirmation - or at least moves us much closer to it - that J.K. Rowling is now committing some similar 'crimes' to those that George Lucas did all those years ago.

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NCTJ-qualified journalist. Most definitely not a racing driver. Drink too much tea; eat too much peanut butter; watch too much TV. Sadly only the latter paying off so far. A mix of wise-old man in a young man's body with a child-like wonder about him and a great otherworldly sensibility.