Harry Potter fans around the world celebrated today’s release of the teaser trailer for Harry Potter prequel Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.’Fantastic Beasts’ marks J.K. Rowling’s screenwriting debut, and judging from the trailer, it is a phenomenal one.
It is immediately obvious that ‘Fantastic Beasts’ is a labour of love. Directed by David Yates and produced by David Heyman, both of whom are Harry Potter series veterans, ‘Fantastic Beasts’ is a veritable reunion of the Harry Potter series crew. The story follows ‘magizoologist’ and author of Hogwarts textbook “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” Newt Scamander, who is played by Oscar-winning actor Eddie Redmayne.
‘Fantastic Beasts’ is situated in 1926 New York, on Scamander’s return from an international adventure documenting all of the magical creatures listed in his textbook. Scamander is only meant to be in New York for a couple of hours, but a series of unfortunate occurrences result in an entirely new adventure including escaped animals, interactions with ‘no-majs,’ the American term for a person born without magic, and a global threat for wizards and no-majs alike.
Along with Redmayne, the film’s star-studded cast include Katherine Waterstone, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Samantha Morton, Jon Voight, Ron Perlman, Carmen Ejogo, Jenn Murray, Faith Wood-Balgrove and Colin Farrell.
The teaser trailer itself is beautifully constructed. Many impressive, all-encompassing landscapes feature. Yates is somehow able to make even the smallest place seem huge and vice versa, depending on what he wants to communicate from a scene. It is aesthetically pleasing to watch, as the trailer seamlessly flows through a diverse range of locations, including a train station, a bank, and a typical London Street. Somehow, which all fit together in a colour scheme of varying shades of brown, metallic silver and navy blue.
The special effects in this trailer are a joy to watch. It is clear that the production crew immensely enjoyed creating effects for the film, yet they are tastefully done and playfully inserted into the film. It is the most ‘normal’ display of magic in any of the Harry Potter films, as in the trailer, at least, everything made sense with the story.
Finally, there is the score composed by James Newton Howard. From what the trailer gives us it is fitting to the period, but Howard pays homage to the iconic Harry Potter melody, which weaves throughout the trailer and signals another instalment of the series.
The teaser trailer accomplished exactly what it set out to do – tease us! Audiences around the world will be waiting impatiently for the next trailer, and even more impatiently for the movie itself, which is set for release on November 16, 2016.