Any potential follow-up to Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore will have to resolve several issues with the sputtering franchise, not least of which is the series’ portrayal of Katherine Waterston’s Tina. The Alien: Covenant star, who played a prominent role in both the first Fantastic Beasts film and its much-maligned follow-up, The Crimes of Grindelwald, was conspicuous by her absence in the third installment. Not only did this raise some serious narrative questions, but also detracted from many of the story’s more successful elements.
Over the first two films in the series, Porpentina “Tina” Goldstein was a key character at the center of the drama, both driving the plot forward and acting as an unrequited love interest for hapless but well-meaning protagonist Newt Scamander. A skilled witch with a strong moral compass, the first film found Tina demoted to well below her skill level and using her encounters with Newt in New York as a means to regain favor with her bosses at MACUSA, before the follow-up saw her embark on a globe-trotting adventure to find the mysterious Credence Barebone and thwart Gellert Grindelwald. In both movies, Tina is a prominent and welcome presence, providing an objective moral lens and a strong character for audiences to root for.
Despite establishing herself as a key figure in the burgeoning Fantastic Beasts-verse, however, Tina was almost totally ignored by The Secrets of Dumbledore. Katherine Waterston appeared only for a few brief moments and was bizarrely not included in Dumbledore’s plans to prevent his former friend Grindelwald (played by Mads Mikkelsen) from attaining the title of Supreme Mugwump. Considering her abilities – especially when compared to other members of the chosen crew – and the character’s previous importance to the over-arching story, this snub feels all the more difficult to understand. Given Tina’s history with almost all other key Fantastic Beasts characters and the potential impact she can have on the story, it’s imperative that any future films return her to center stage.
Beyond Tina’s natural fit within the context of Dumbledore’s anti-Grindelwald coalition, there’s another reason why her return is a must if the series is to succeed into the future. The chemistry and frisson between Tina and Newt gave the first Fantastic Beasts film a romantic heart that has been conspicuous by its absence in later entries, save for forced subplots involving the likes of Jacob and Queenie and Credence and Nagini. Restoring Tina would therefore not only enhance her character, but help place Newt back at the forefront of what was originally intended to be his own story. This could help give the flagging series the change of direction that it so clearly needs after the huge disappointments of Fantastic Beasts 2 and 3.
In many ways, Tina’s absence from The Secrets of Dumbledore‘s main plot confirmed the franchise’s shift away from the “fantastic beasts” that give the films their name and towards a much larger story focused on Grindelwald’s battle with his former lover. Yet, as diminishing critical and commercial returns show, this tactic is not paying off. Whatever the intended narrative arc behind the proposed five-movie Fantastic Beasts run, returning the focus to Tina and Newt could be the way to restore what made the original film relatively successful. It would, at the very least, make Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore‘s treatment of the character seem more like a bizarre blip than something more permanent. Continuing with such a strange narrative decision would only serve to exacerbate some of the clear tonal and story problems that are obviously hindering what could otherwise be a successful addition to the Potterverse.
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Author: Thomas Lethbridge
