Beware of mega movies

If you’re an avid Harry Potter fan like me, you’re probably already aware that J.K. Rowling’s “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” a textbook mentioned in the series, will be brought to the silver screen sometime in the next several years.
And, like me, you’ll at first be excited, because you still can’t believe the series is over.

However, in an interview with Warner Brother’s CEO in the March 29 edition of The New York Times, Kevin Tsujihara announced the adaptation will span not one, but three megamovies aimed at capturing the life and escapades of one magizoologist Newt Scamander in the American Roaring Twenties.
And that makes me incredibly nervous.

It’s not the idea that we should be concerned with — fans have always itched for Rowling to explore the fictional universe in which magic-doers and Hogwarts inconspicuously reside.

In fact, Potterheads have been fixated on the idea of the possible role of magic in other communities outside of the United Kingdom ever since “The Goblet of Fire” was released, which hinted at the presence of wizarding academies in the United States.

It is the very concept of three megamovies that is sinister. And we are right to be nervous after Peter Jackson’s monstrous injustice to “The Hobbit,” which was based on a similar premise.

Jackson promoted the decision to split the mere 300-page novel into three separate films as a desire to tell the “untold stories” of Sauron’s rise to power from other Middle Earth texts.

But it was clearly a thinly veiled plot to milk as much cash as possible out of the book after the tumultuous success of his previous Tolkien adaptation, “The Lord of the Rings,” which is an actual
trilogy.

This is further evidenced by the first two Hobbit films’ desperately meandering plots, the addition of backstories and love trysts that were never conceived by Tolkien. Direct changes to the source material allowed for flashy, “cinematic” CGI moments to occur — goose chase in Smaug’s lair, anyone? — serving little other purpose than to crush the original prose in dead weight.

Naturally, one has to wonder if the upcoming “Fantastic Beasts” megamovies will be handled in such a sloppy, ham-fisted manner.

The only source material we have is Rowlings’ pseudo-textbook as authored by Scamander, replete with Harry and Ron’s doodles, which makes it rife for adaptation. No gosh-darned previously-established plots exist to hinder a particularly creative, or avaricious, imagination.

With that being said, however, three aimless films filled only with ostentatious CGI opportunities, fumbling romantic subplots, unconvincing cameos and non-compelling action would be a serious disservice to the fan base.

They would ultimately insinuate that we’re so starved for follow-ups, we’ll take any old bone thrown in our direction as long as it looks pretty, has magic and maybe has Dumbledore.

As for now, the upcoming megamovies remain uncasted, undirected and unproduced, which leaves us with a giant question mark. Though Rowling’s personal involvement with the script provides a glimmer of hope and promise, we as fans should be wary of the severe downsides of the megamovie trilogy format.
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mcaranna@indiana.edu