Potterhead Rants

Originally written on November 30th, 2016

I saw Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them and I have a suggestion for the casting of the young Albus Dumbledore for the next movies: Robert Downey Jr!! I think he would be a great choice: he almost has the same age of Johnny Depp (RDJ 51 years old, JD 53 years old); we already saw him in great "super skilled" hero roles, like Iron Man or Sherlock Holmes; many fans of the 2 actors would love to see them in a movie together, sooner or later, so...why not these(?); I know he doesn't have blue eyes, auburn hair, British accent and doesn't seem tall, but Johnny Depp himself doesn't have NATURAL blue eyes, blonde hair and german accent, and Depp is only 4cm (1,5inch) taller than Downey Jr (in the chapter "The Greater Good" of Rita Skeeter's book in the Deathly Hallows, Grindelwald is taller than Albus); Johnny and Robert, together, would be 2 American actors who play non-American roles and Robert already played a British role: in 1992, he made a magnificent interpretation of Charlie Chaplin in "Charlot", in which he also did the famous dance of the bread rolls from the movie "The Gold Rush", thing made, coincidentally, by Johnny Depp, too, in the 1993 (almost at the same time) movie "Benny & Joon". I saw many suggestions from other fans. The top suggestion, the ONLY one I would agree to is Jared Harris, but only because is the son of Richard Harris, the original Albus, and he was Moriarty in the Robert Downey Jr's Sherlock Holmes second movie. Jared Harris and Robert Downey Jr are my suggestions, but I would really love to see the second one act an epic magic duel with Depp!!

Originally written on April 12th, 2017 (Jude Law is cast as Dumbledore)

Sincerely, I would have preferred Jared Harris, the son of the original Dumbledore, but I believe he will be better than Robert Downey Jr., even if he is 9 years younger than Johnny Depp. (I asked for Sherlock Holmes or Moriarty, and they got John "not-Emma" Watson). Jude Law, Johnny Depp and Colin Farrell acted as the same character in "Parnassus", to complete the performance of their friend Heath Ledger, who died during the shooting of that movie.

In "Parnassus", people go through a "looking glass", like in Alice 2, in which Johnny Depp is The Mad Hatter and Helena Bonham Carter (Bellatrix Lestrange) is The Red Queen!!

Other magic mirrors are in "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" and "The Beauty and the Beast" (Emma Watson).

I wonder if the new Shrek and Snow White movies will have Emma Watson and Helena Bonham Carter...

Originally written on September 12th, 2017

Since 11 days ago, when Albus Severus Potter took, for the first time, the Hogwarts Express (19 years after the Battle of Hogwarts in 1998), and after re-reading the books and re-watching the movies, I wanted to expose some mistakes and talk about a couple of things about the Potter Universe, starting from

CASTING GONE WRONG ON POLYJUICE POTION

I won't talk about minor roles or every single character who had 2 or more actors playing it, or how little the actor matches the book description (see Horace Slughorn), but when books become movies, adaptation comes into play. Though, it's kinda strange to realize that this is Cedric Diggory at 16 (HP3) and 17 (HP4) years old. And these are the incredibly important green eyes of Lily and Harry Potter. Or that, reading about Voldemort's history, he asked about Horcruxes to Slughorn at 16 years old, at the same time of creating the first one, the Diary, in 1942 (we know the date 'cause Nick celebrates his 500th Deathday and the cake writing is "Death 1492"; and Moaning Myrtle is dead from 50 years). This was Voldy at age 16 (HP2 and HP6). Voldy's enemy, Albus Dumbledore, has a brother (Aberforth, first mentioned in "the Goblet of Fire") who appears in HP5 and HP7. But the man himself, Albus Dumbledore, has a strange change. No, I'm not talking about from Richard Harris to Michael Gambon between HP2 and HP3! Harris died and Gambon is a great Dumbledore! I'm talking about the memory of 1937, when Albus talks to Tom Riddle Jr. about Hogwarts and the 5 Fantastic Beasts movies, which take place between 1926 and 1945 (Grindelwald's defeat). And now, a sensitive topic:

HERMIONE IS NEITHER BLACK NOR WHITE, SHE’S GRAY

The controversy about Hermione being White in the movies and Black (or Afro-British) in the stage play for "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" was apparently shut down when J. K. Rowling wrote a tweet saying that Hermione was never specifically imagined or wrote as a white person. As a fan of the Harry Potter books as well as the movies, I disagree when I read details like “she turned slightly pink”, she gets shadows of tiredness under her eyes, her mother is “pale” or the many times Hermione’s face is described as “pale” or “white”. And usually she points out when a person is “black” in the books, like Angelina Johnson (3rd book), or Kingsley Shacklebolt, or the African Wizards in the Quidditch Cup match. Of course, all of this is debatable as well as the big announcement that Albus Dumbledore was Gay all along (there was never a single indication of romantic relationships in his life and his friendship with Grindelwald was described exactly like the ones between Harry-Ron and James-Sirius). That said, on the real life, human, adaptation level, I don’t care if Dumbledore was straight, homo or bisex (he would actually be a good example against the stereotypical, exaggerated representation of homosexuality) as well as I don’t care about Hermione being Afro-British or Euro-British (or even Asian-British) as long as she’s represented by a great actress. This controversy is actually good: it makes open-minded people realize that book characters can be different for every reader and that we have to use our subjective imagination to visualize the stories put on paper. The majority of the Potter fans read the books after seeing the movies, visualizing Hermione Granger as Emma Watson, who could be consider as a miscasting herself: “lots of bushy brown hair, and rather large front teeth”. Talking about Fantastic Beasts, J. K. Rowling said it's a spin-off (a parallel series barely connected) of Harry Potter. I'm sorry to say this, but it's in the past, there is Grindelwald, there will be Leta Lestrange and Albus Dumbledore: it's a prequel!!!!!

BELLATRIX AND LETA LESTRANGE ARE NOT RELATIVES!

When Leta Lestrange was mentioned in the first Fantastic Beasts movie, many superficial fans of the Potter Universe thought: she’s a Bellatrix’s ancestress! Nothing more WRONG! Bellatrix Lestrange was Bellatrix Black before marrying Rodolphus Lestrange. It’s also worth noting that Leta Lestrange had this name at school, before an eventual wedding, in which she would easily lose it. Rodolphus could at most be a descendant of a brother or a cousin of Leta.

FORGOTTEN RELATIVES (SPOILERS)

Don’t be discouraged about Bellatrix’s relatives, because a couple of quick sentences from Sirius Black in the fifth book, reveal that Bellatrix Lestrange, Narcissa Malfoy and Andromeda Tonks are SISTERS! That means that Draco Malfoy, Ninfadora Tonks and Delphi Riddle (Bellatrix and Voldemort’s daughter, Cursed Child) are direct COUSINS! And when it comes to the Weasleys, the branches of their tree intertwine everywhere! Sirius said Molly is his acquired cousin and Arthur is his second cousin! And, for their children, Ron marries Hermione, Ginny marries Harry and Bill marries Fleur, making Albus Severus Potter, Rose Granger-Weasley (Scorpius Malfoy’s, son of Draco, love interest) and Victoire Weasley (Teddy Lupin’s, son of Ninfadora, girlfriend) COUSINS!

Update on November 16th, 2018

SPOILERS: Leta Lestrange died without any children. And she was about to become Leta Scamander.