‘Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald’ Trailer Breakdown: The Wizarding World Gears Up for War

Fantastic Beasts The Crimes of Grindelwald Trailer Breakdown

Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home. So nothing feels more comforting than seeing Hogwarts for the first time in the Harry Potter spin-off series Fantastic Beasts.

But Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, the second film in the new five-movie franchise (out November 16, 2018), only gives us a fleeting glimpse of Hogwarts before whisking off on more globe-trotting adventures. This time: Paris. The metropolitan capital of France will be the battleground for the oncoming war against the dark wizard Grindelwald (Johnny Depp), which will be fought by our intrepid hero Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) and a young, hot Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law).

Join us on our frame-by-frame breakdown of the first Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald trailer.

First, I just wanted to point out that Fantastic Beasts has a new logo. The logo is a wonderfully vague “Wizarding World,” which probably means it will fold in all Harry Potter-related content in the future.

There you are, you beloved Scottish castle. But something is a little off, even as the sweeping shot of the familiar school grounds evoke a feeling of warmth. It’s — hey! Those people are Apparating on school grounds! We know for security reasons that no one can Apparate or Disapparate on Hogwarts grounds — with the exception of Dumbledore and house elves. Is this an innocent overlook of Harry Potter canon on the part of director David Yates? Or is this because Fantastic Beasts takes place 70 years before Harry Potter and perhaps the dire reason for this security measure has not yet taken place? It could be either-or — though to be fair, it does look pretty cool.

At first glance, this seems like a simple continuation of the last shot, but the woman in the bright purple dress draws my eye. Why? It’s the same outfit worn by Leta Lestrange (Zoe Kravitz) in our first look of The Crimes of Grindelwald, presumably with her fiance Theseus Scamander (Callum Turner) beside her. Yes, Leta, who was Newt’s childhood love, is engaged to Newt’s brother — the head of the Auror office at the Ministry of Magic.

We don’t know her job, though we can assume she works for the Ministry of Magic, who arrive at Hogwarts to interrogate Albus Dumbledore about Newt Scamander’s whereabouts.

“I have some questions for you, professor,” a man drawls to Albus Dumbledore, still a professor of Transfiguration at Hogwarts. But this shot is off-putting. The group interrogating Dumbledore about Newt Scamander’s whereabouts is not the same one that walked into Hogwarts in the last shot. Leta Lestrange and her bright purple dress are nowhere to be seen, and the group looks even larger. Are they both from the Ministry of Magic?

Newt repairs a teared up postcard that comes from Paris. A message from Dumbledore perhaps? And who tore it up to begin with?

Another familiar sight: a mysterious, shadowed being using the Deluminator, the magical device that can remove all light sources nearby. For years it belonged to Dumbledore, until he passed it on to Ron Weasley in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. So we can assume that this is Dumbledore going incognito to meet Newt. It feels like a fitting introduction — the very first scene in Harry Potter was Dumbledore pulling out the Deluminator, after all.

Before Newt jets off to Paris, we see him first in London — as evidenced by the red telephone booth and the London postcode on the sign behind him. And who does he spot?

Dumbledore! This flies in the face of Dumbledore’s casual denial of secretly working with Newt.

fantastic beasts the crimes of grindelwald trailer breakdown

The two of them have a clandestine meeting on the roofs of London. Newt looks characteristically nervous while the young Dumbledore laughs charmingly.

“I know he’s working under your orders,” the Ministry official says sternly to Dumbledore. “What do you have to say for yourself, Dumbledore?”

The official is played by Derek Riddel, who was cast as Torquil Travers. The name sound familiar? Travers was the surname of a Death Eater in the Harry Potter series — which makes this official a distant relative of one of the minions of Voldemort. That suddenly gives a much more sinister tone to his veiled threats to Dumbledore, and begs the question of whether Grindelwald has allies planted in the Ministry of Magic.

First, I want to know when Dumbledore traded in his snazzy suits for the serious cloaks and robes that he wears as an older man. I hope it’s not anytime soon, because damn, can he wear a three-piece suit. Law is playing Dumbledore with a sort of easy sensuality, which makes him the scene-stealer of this trailer. But his motives are a little more uncertain: Why does he charge Newt with going up against Grindelwald but not fight him himself?