Elijah David

I finally had the chance to see Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald  recently (both the theatrical and extended cuts) and boy do I have a lot of thoughts. It goes without saying that there are massive spoilers ahead. First off, let me say that the extended cut is better. It's only seven minutes longer, but those seven minutes add some very necessary scenes. Credence's rebirth in the alternate opening, Leta's fears in the ballroom scene, more time with Credence and Nagini, and an extended version of Newt and Albus Dumbledore's early conversation all serve to fill some of the many holes left in this film's plot. If you have access to the extended cut, watch it. It's worth it. There's a lot of magic here. Some of it is old but fresh such as Portkeys and fantastic beasts. Other elements are new and strange (looking at you, blood pacts, Maledictus, and vision-spewing skull). Some of it could do with deeper explanation, while other pie...

I didn't get around to uploading more art last month, so here's the rest of the AprilFae pieces, along with some other projects I've had going in the last couple of weeks. The AprilFae pics got loaded all out of order, so I'm just going to tell you what the prompt was and what I was aiming for rather than which day it was for. This one was "faerie fruit" and I thought an acorn was the most faerie fruit. I did a little postcard with an acorn, a pebble, and a dandelion seed. This is a little trading card for "spellbound." I wanted to do something related to Sleeping Beauty, which led me to thorns, and somehow that led to a ring of thorns. This is another postcard, this time for "harebells" (which are the flowers). I couldn't quite get the idea of an actual hare and an actual bell out of my head, so we wound up with this strange little picture: These are two bookmarks, one for "goblin egg" and the...

I finally had a chance to sit down and watch Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them  this weekend (thanks to the home video release). I also read the print version of the screenplay. I'd been looking forward to this for a while now, and I was not disappointed. Here's a quick run-down of my thoughts on the story (in both formats): Newt is not only a Hufflepuff hero, but an introvert hero. And glory be, he is still an introvert by the story's end. He has made connections, to be sure, but he is still the same lovable people-avoiding magizoologist that we met in the opening sequence. The Obscurial mythology is intriguing and deep, and I hope it becomes a key point for the franchise as a whole rather than being a one-off idea. (I'm okay with it being utilized in as simple a way as explaining Ariana Dumbledore's tragedy, as long as it is used to good effect.) Jacob and Queenie are wonderful, but some of their best moments are stuck in the deleted scenes. Speaking...