It was inevitable that the first spinoff to the treasured Harry Potter saga would be controversial.

So longtime fans of J.K. Rowling’s series of books about wizards and magic waited anxiously for the release of the movie adaption of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Would it meet their expectations? Would it keep the magic alive?

While the Fantastic Beasts story features an entirely different set of characters and is set in 1920s era New York City instead of the mystical world of Hogwarts, there are a few small connections to the Harry Potter series. For example the title of the movie is taken from one of the textbooks Harry Potter reads at Hogwarts.

Although it might be unfair to compare Fantastic Beasts to Harry Potter, the comparisons will be unavoidable. So let’s break it down.

The CGI: In case you didn’t know CGI stands for Computer Generated Image. “Fantastic Beast and Where to Find Them” had incredible CGI. CGI has always been a big part in the Harry Potter movie. Without the CGI the movie may not have been as magical as it had seemed. They really did a good job improving the CGI compared to Harry Potter. Although all the Harry Potter movies had amazing CGI for it’s time.

The Plot: The story developed quickly and hooked the audience at the very beginning. Although it had you at the beginning it got very slow a few places in the middle, but was able to hook me back on within a ten minutes of losing me. The story made sense throughout the movie. Even if you aren’t familiar with the Harry Potter movies, you will understand this movie completely. In my opinion this was a very good idea to expand their audience.

However, Newt the main character played by Eddie Redmayne, never really proved himself to be a worthy lead roll. He never seemed worried about his beasts causing mischief in New York or even the fast moving demon Obscuris attacking humans in the city. Unless there is more books made by J.K. Rowling, I don’t see this movie having a saga or sequel. The director didn’t leave many loose ends at the end of Fantastic Beasts for the series to continue.

Dialogue: The dialogue between characters was executed perfectly; however, non-verbal dialogue such as body language, was not executed as well. Newt’s facial expression never changed, even in a moment when he should be very excited. He always had a blank facial expression.  

Although Newt’s character is supposed to be antisocial and quiet, like he was, but I believe they over exaggerated this aspect by having him have no emotion in the movie. If the director had him show emotion at the end it would have developed the character much better than he was. In Harry Potter the characters were much more realistic, therefore were able to connect with the audience on an emotional level much easier. The audience in Harry Potter seemed like they actually cared what happened to the characters. I feel like Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them lacked in that area due to Newt’s characteristics being overly exaggerated.

Final Verdict: 7/10 This movie blew up the Harry Potter community. It satisfied some of these people. For most it was probably more of the same thing with no new things added to this movie to expand the Harry Potter universe. Fans of Rowling’s will likely clamor for her to write more books and Hollywood will keep wanting to produce her stories into movies, but I hope that they either stop making the Harry Potter universe movies before they ruin the legacy Harry Potter left, or improve it and find a way to connect it to the Harry Potter movies.