The second full length Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore trailer has dropped (watch here) – and it is absolutely explosive.
There are a few scenes from the previous trailer which I won’t be recounting but you can find that breakdown here, and with that said, let’s get into it:
1: The trailer opens up with a shot of Hogwarts and future Harry Potter era Dumbledore saying “Memory is everything. Without it we are blind. Without it, we leave the fate of our world to chance”, while looking into the pensieve, which stores his memories.
It seems like Albus’ memories are going to be prominent in this film – hopefully that means Godric’s Hollow flashback scenes.
2: We then skip to current day Albus in the Hogs Head holding the blood pact in his hand, with the chains wrapped around his arm, cutting in. This, coupled with the blood pact shining red, shows that this is around the time Albus demonstrates to the Scamander brothers what the blood pact can/will do.
3: Next we see the Quidditch match over the Hogwarts grounds again, but this time we can spot two people walking through the courtyard, into the castle. Could this be related to the next scene, maybe? because..
4: …we then see Minerva McGonagall at the door of the Hogs Head pub telling Albus she has just received word of terrible news regarding Grindelwald. Could the above figures be Newt and Bunty? or perhaps Ministry officials? This looks to be with the scenes of Albus and Aberforth in the pub together at night, which we’ll see more of in a bit
5: Cut to Grindelwald in Nurmengard with someone walking up towards him. By the tie we can tell this is the same day as we’ve seen him take Yusuf Kama’s memories in the previous trailer, so he may be looking out the window at Yusuf, while someone comes to tell him of the arrival. Or
6: Back to Grindelwald at the top of the temple shouting “The time is close, my brothers and sisters. Our war with the muggles begins today!”, while the next shot shows his followers responding by shooting fireworks of his insignia from their wands.
There’s a lot going on here; so first of all we can see two guards at the actual temple entrance behind the ICW candidates, then at the bottom of the temple stairs we see that the four figures are Bhutanese guards. Another interesting thing is we can see the Grindelwald banners a little more clearly now, and can see that the posts are in the shape of the Elder Wand.
Most importantly, though, we can see between slide 2 & 5 that the banners have changed – this infers that Grindelwald has won the election when he shouts the above message to his followers. At the top of the temple we see the two guards, Santos, Grindelwald, possibly Vogel, and Tao in front of a small crowd
7: Newt at the temple looking very defeated at the prospect of the scene above, and then a quick new shot of Albus during his confrontation with Credence in Berlin
8: Right back to the start of the film now and we see that Lally has come to enlist Jacob who “said I wanted out and I want out”. Lally appears to have persuaded him, though, because we see him with that same frying pan on the train to Berlin.
Some things of note here are the fact Jacob clearly ran out of his bakery with what he could grab – a frying pan and ladle – which makes me think he thought he was coming to Lally’s aid? The second thing is Lally’s very on-the-nose book we see her with throughout the film called ‘It can’t happen here’, which is the title of a dystopian novel by Sinclair Lewis, about the rise of a dictator.
We can also see a ‘no help wanted here’ sign in the corner of Jacob’s bakery which I feel sets the mood of the scene in a funny way
9: We’re inside what appears to be the Berlin Ministry now (where both Theseus & Santos’ posters were based), and we see Newt, Lally and Jacob following Helmut and another acolyte, who stop them in their tracks. I wonder if they’re the ones who arrested Theseus and that’s why the gang is after them? (Side note that we finally have a great shot of Lally’s hair and the gorgeous braid she has)
10: This is an interesting one. Here we have a gathering in the same room the gala dinner takes place, but this time it’s a tea and sandwiches affair.
Cut to Grindelwald and his inner circle arriving at the gala dinner. Grindelwald (you’ll notice his tie is undone like when he was crowd-surfing outside), Rosier, Queenie, Credence, Carrow, Kama, Paul Low-Hang on the far right who played a member in the Pentagram room at MACUSA in the first film, with some more concealed behind. Most interestingly, though, is that Leta Lestrange?? Short cropped hair (like Zoe currently has, and had at the time of filming), in a darker version of Leta’s signature Crimes of Grindelwald colour, in Nurmengard where, if she survived, she would have been transported to… Is this why Kama went to Nurmengard? Did Leta survive?
We can also see the Ministry symbol above Grindelwald , on the wall behind. It’s quite different to the ICW symbol, so this is likely at the Berlin Ministry of Magic.
11: A lovely throwback clip of Jacob taking a shot of gigglewater on the train to Berlin which brings a smile to Newt’s (and ours) face.
12: Back to Hogs Head with Albus and Aberforth before the former leaves, and we can see the words in the fogged mirror a little more clearly now
‘Do you know wh_ I s_ke_’
13: As the gang gets ready to depart the train in Berlin, Bunty tells Newt “No-one can know everything. Not even you.” which suggests that Dumbledore is aware Grindelwald is ‘watching’ them. Is this why Bunty was brought into the fold (as she was the one setting up the five cases in the Room of Requirement)? Someone trustworthy but who Grindelwald would not know to follow with his ‘seeing’ abilities?
Theseus is also sporting his red and gold phoenix tie here, which we’ll see again later on
14: Back to the gathering outside the ICW from the previous trailer, but this time we see that the Grindelwald fireworks are coming from some of the guards. Possibly after Grindelwald has been accepted in?
15: When Grindelwald arrives at the scene above he seems to do so in a branded car – we see the GG insignia at the front, but also the bonnet ornament is a G symbol that flexes out into either a dragon or firedrake. Very cool!
16: One of the most shocking scenes in the trailer (of which there are a few) is this one of Albus and Gellert together in a restaurant – or are they?
Albus: “What you’re doing is madness”
Gellert: “With or without you, I will burn down their world”
Let’s take a look at the scene. There do appear to be people behind Grindelwald while they’re speaking, but when the camera turns to face the table, the place appears empty except for Albus. Grindelwald is not there. We can also see that every table and booth are covered in white except for where Albus and Gellert were seated – the hot seat, as it were, if you’ll excuse the firey pun. Considering the fire and the fact Grindelwald has disappeared, though, I don’t think this is a real meeting – as in, physically. This gives the impression it’s similar to the penseive where Albus is working out his own thoughts with Gellert (similar to Harry in Deathly Hallows at Platform 9 3/4). Alternatively, this could be a meeting of minds, of sorts, where Grindelwald really did join Albus in a mental location.
17: Filling in the blanks of the Room of Requirement scenes from the previous trailer, we can now see Albus activating the portkey to Bhutan – and you’ll notice the qilin start to move!
18: Back to the battle of Berlin with Credence and Albus where we finally see how they’re battling in two places at once: the deluminator.
First though, the phoenix appears next to Credence here – if we hark back to #7, was that Dumbledore’s reaction to seeing the phoenix? We can also see clearly that Credence is using his wand to channel his Obscurus, not spells against Albus. Then, as Albus clicks the deluminator, we see that actually, they’re not in a mirror dimension like I’d first thought, but..
you can see here that actually, the deluminator shuts off the light of the world and when he clicks it, everything comes back – before the camera pans through the puddle.
I’ve flipped the image in the last slide to make it easier to see that they’re in the same place, but now back in the ‘muggle’ world. Credence appears to be quite injured, which we’ll come back to later.
19: Going back to the restaurant scene, we see/hear Grindelwald say “Do you really intend to turn your back on your own kind? It was you who said we could reshape the world”.
I think it’ll be really interesting to find out if this is a ‘real’ meeting and not in Dumbledore’s own mind, but Grindelwald wearing the same tie we see him with in Bhutan makes me think it’s a true conscious meeting.
20: Back to the Hogs Head with Newt’s reaction to Albus’ blood pact story and demonstration
“Even if we make mistakes, we can try to make things right”
Sounds like a man ready to set off on his mission!
21: Back to China at the start of the film again, where we see more of the scene where the acolytes come to take the baby Qilin from Newt. We see him grab his case and then run through the forest as the acolytes shoot spells after him – my only question is, if he’s holding his case, how is he also holding the Qilin with both arms? Are these different times? Did he bewitch the case to follow? Did he ditch it somewhere and the Wyvern picked it up for him? Curious to see
Bonus image of Newt’s open case here where we can see a photo of Tina still resides.
22: Forwards to Bhutan now where we get to see more of the Lally and Theseus team-up as they battle acolytes in the street. Flying orbs (are those small Qilin statues on the table next to them?), attacked by clothing, and some rather impressive magic from Theseus as he throws someone into a wall, where they become stuck in a mural.
23: Into the underground prison now as we see the Manticore grabbing a prisoner into its depths, prompting Newt to say “We’re gonna need some help” – and insert the greatest scene in cinematic history. Pickett riding Teddy the Niffler as if into battle, with Newt’s wand brandished like a sword! Epic in the truest sense of the word.
While Pickett has stolen Newt’s wand from the prison guard, Teddy has Theseus’ tie which is emblazoned with a gold phoneix. I suspect this might be a portkey given to him by Dumbledore in case he was in need of a quick escape during the mission.
24: We get a closer look at the seemingly duck-billed Wyvern here, who is carrying Newt and his case away to safety after the acolyte attack. That’s not all he’s carrying, though – he still has the baby Qilin in his arms!
So did he manage to rescue the one he was protecting in the dome next to the dead mother? How does Grindelwald end up with it? Many questions!
25: One of the most shocking moments of the trailer now as we see Albus and Gellert duel it out in Bhutan. There appears to be a spell dome around them, preventing the onlookers from getting hit – I imagine this is Albus’ doing, considering what happened during their last duel.
The clip ends on a cliffhanger as they’re at a stalemate:
26: We then see Yusuf Kama and Liu Tao point their wands, likely at Grindelwald, and then Santos casting what looks to be a Revelio spell. Bonus glimpse at Tao’s wand
27: Firstly, note the female acolyte to the back – we’ll be seeing her again soon. Now, here we see Helmut and other Grindelwald followers open one of the duplicate decoy cases – Lally’s judging by the books (and the fact one is written by her! Advanced Charm Casting by Eulalie Hicks) which attack the acoloytes upon release.
That’s not all though – if you look closely you’ll see that a bludger is also attacking the acoloytes, taking them down one by one. As we switch to the rooftop view we can see that there are actually two cases open on the ground – Lally and Theseus.
I think Theseus’ decoy case contained bludgers and the golden snitch that then goes to find Albus, letting him know what’s transpired. Could this have been why a flashback of young Theseus playing Quidditch at Hogwarts was planned (but ultimately scrapped) for Crimes of Grindelwald?
28: Back to the prison where we finally see the face of the Manticore – right before it grabs Theseus.
On the bright side, we know he’s not dead because he does make it to Bhutan later in the film, but how on earth is he going to escape?
29: Back to the dark mirror dimension of Berlin where we last saw Credence was seriously injured on the ground – and now we see that his phoenix comes, likely to heal him.
I wonder if something could have happened Credence’s Obscurus in this place, void of light. Maybe Dumbledore didn’t bring him there to get away from civilians, but for another reason – bringing the dark to light in both metaphorical and literal senses.
30: Remember the female acolyte with Helmut earlier on? Spot her with another henchman searching the streets of Bhutan. I’d wager a guess that Grindelwald has ‘seen’ them coming, but as none of the gang know exactly what they’re doing or what’s in their cases, and he cannot make a move directly against Albus, who does know – Grindelwald is flying blind as to their exact movements.
Also, if anyone is able to translate the writing on the wall next to Jacob, please let me know!
31: Back to the gala dinner scene which we’ve already seen part of, but, and bear with me here, if we look closely at Jacob holding his wand in an almost surrendering position before it shoots upwards seemingly of its own accord and creates a spell. Jacob very clearly didn’t create that spell himself, but if you look closely at the background, that’s Queenie and Credence he’s staring at in the entryway.
Now, if you look even closer, Queenie’s hand is down when Jacob’s is down, and she raises it as Jacob does. Is Queenie the one who forced the wand up?
Back to the rest of the table, we see Grindelwald, Rosier, Kama, Carrow, two empty seats for Queenie and Credence, plus four others; the Leta lookalike, a long-haired man next to her, the extra from the first film who appeared in the Pentagram room at MACUSA, and one last man make up Grindelwald’s closest allies here.
As the storm spell rages we see Vogel being flown across the room, as well as another look at the Berlin Ministry of Magic insignia on the tablecloths:
32: And finally, we have Albus and Jacob, with the latter requesting to keep his wand, as you would, standing on the temple plinth near the end of the film, with Newt, Kama, Lally, an unknown woman (McGonagall? Leta?), and Bunty sitting on the steps behind.
There we have it! A breakdown of what we saw in today’s brand new Secrets of Dumbledore trailer. What do you think? Anything you hadn’t spotted? Are you team #LetaLives? Let us know over on Twitter & if you have theories of your own you’d like to share, be sure to post over on the Fan Hub!
