【English Classroom】哈迷们的集体狂欢

A:Hello everyone,this is our today’s English Classroom,I am… D:Have you ever heard the movie Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them? A:Of course!I watched it twice last week!I love magic…really.Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a prequel to the Harry Potter series，set 70 years before the first book and film.At first glance, the new Harry Potter prequel "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" hardly seems tailor-made for Chinese audiences, especially given its elements of witchcraft and the supernatural — which can be a deal breaker for China's state censors. D:But nearly 20 million people have purchased Chinese versions of J.K. Rowling's novels about the boy wizard since they were first available across the Pacific 16 years ago.And hordes of adoring fans propelled the last Harry Potter film, 2011's ”Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2," to $60.8 million at the Chinese box office, back when the country's total theatrical gross was about $2 billion. A:Although it's been five years since the last movie, Potter-mania hasn't waned. D:Yes.Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the eighth book in the series — and a script for a London stage play — quickly sold out its initial 300,000 copy print run when it became available for preorder in China in late September.And that's why Warner Bros is counting on "Fantastic Beasts," the first "Harry Potter" film since "Deathly Hallows Part 2," to be a monster at the Chinese box office, which could really use one after its worst slump in five years amid a dearth of bankable hits and a reduction of online ticketing subsidies. A:The first two films in the Fantastic Beasts series，which comes from the Potter universe,will have David Yates （director of the last four Potter films） behind the camera. Potter’s producer David Heyman is likely to produce all five movies， and perhaps most importantly the series will be written by JK Rowling.To ramp up the anticipation, all eight "Harry Potter" films were screened at last June's Shanghai International Film Festival. D:I still remembered that as soon as the familiar music started up and the blue Warner Brothers logo appeared on the screen, I was transported back to that oh-so-familiar magical world created by British writer J.K. Rowling.Even I cried.But it’s definitely not all-too-familiar– Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is Harry Potter for adults. A:Unlike previous stories in the Harry Potter series, there is no Harry, Ron or Hermione this time around.It’s 1926, and our hero is named Newt Scamander, a messy-haired, freckle-faced young wizard from the UK,and author of a textbook that Potter later studies at Hogwarts.and it’s from that textbook the film gets its name.Traveling from the UK, Scamander arrives in New York carrying a strange suitcase filled with magical creatures, that accidentally ends up being switched with someone else’s.The creatures are soon unleashed upon the streets of New York. D:So While Scamander spends the rest of the story hunting them down while fighting US authorities. A:Yep.Not only providing viewers the thrill of seeing the magical creatures being chased down, the storyline of Fantastic Beasts also contains a more serious angle that relates to the real world.Rowling told The Guardian when she described writing the movie that she dealt with some dark themes,and there was a lot of stuff in the sewers. D:Through the experience of Scamander, a British man in the US, the movie explores the issues of racial inequality and discrimination toward immigrants.The secretive and cruel American Ministry of Magic can be seen as a reference to today’s US political structure.To Rowling, some politicians in the real world are, as she described, worse than Voldemort. A:Despite its make-believe premise, the themes of Fantastic Beasts are very real indeed. D:It’s a film about immigrants with different values and ideas, but who just might save us from ourselves.It’s about the power of whispering rather than shouting.It’s about accepting others and not holding them back. A:Scamander’s tale of heroism could be just what we need right now, and Rowling is the only one who could tell it.And JK Rowling has hinted the character Albus Dumbledore will feature in future films in the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them series,it is not known who would play the role of Dumbledore in future films. D:At the film event,director David Yates said： “We can‘t tell you too because we’d have to kill you all， but we do mention Dumbledore and he features in a wonderful scene between Colin and Eddie Redmayne.” A:I can not wait to watching the second one of this series! D:And so do I… A:Maybe we can go out tougher at that time! D:Do not forget our friends Baileys, Richard and Lydia! A:And Kiko.Certainly not. Ok,this is our English Classroom,I love magic. see you !