The Harry Potter spin-off movies, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and its sequels, have the same problem as the Star Wars franchise. The third installment of the wizarding franchise, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, suggests the film’s core will center on Albus Dumbledore’s past with Grindelwald, as well as the big reveal that Credence is actually a long-lost Dumbledore brother named Aurelius. However, this storyline highlights the growing issues with the film series and it parallels the same problems plaguing the galaxy far, far away.
When Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them debuted in 2016, it was in a position to begin an entirely new story set decades before the Harry Potter films. Through Newt Scamander’s adventures as a magical zoologist, the first film expanded its world a bit more by introducing other aspects of the magical realm where the beloved Harry, Hermione, and Ron first dwelled. It also engaged with several American witches and wizards, which allowed the Wizarding World to feel far bigger than it once was. However, the introduction of Grindelwald as the franchise’s primary villain tied the story back to Dumbledore, essentially becoming an extension of the original story.
This hinders the Fantastic Beasts story in several ways, the primary of which keeps the third film from expanding its scope to explore something the audience isn’t familiar with. Delving deeper into Dumbledore’s story isn’t exactly new — it was something heavily touched upon throughout Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Revisiting the same characters over again prevents the Fantastic Beasts franchise from diversifying its stories. Why does Newt have to be tied to Dumbledore and his past at all? Why does the audience have to be pulled back into a plot that was tackled in the Harry Potter series?
To that end, Fantastic Beasts is following in the footsteps of Star Wars, a franchise that has been so dedicated to the Skywalker saga that it keeps reaching behind it to further its connections to the original characters rather than looking ahead and expanding the scope of the (very ginormous) galaxy. As an example, The Mandalorian worked to move past the original trilogy’s story before bringing Luke Skywalker into season 2’s story. The new Star Wars trilogy — which began with The Force Awakens and ended with The Rise of Skywalker — did something similar. By being too deeply connected to the past, the Star Wars movies and its TV shows have been unable to shake the Skywalkers at all.
When there’s a whole world out there to explore — be it the expansive Wizarding World and the various witches and wizards who exist in it or a galaxy full of interesting people, creatures, and entire planets — limiting the range to a few characters just because they’re already established is a disservice. Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore could have been about anyone else, but it's using Newt to further a story that was already told and a character who had plenty of focus in the Harry Potter films.