Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them premiered worldwide on November 18, 2016. I went to see it with one of my friends opening weekend last minute and I’m so glad I did. As a dedicated Harry Potter fan I was very excited to see this movie and it ended up meeting all my expectations and more! Although, I may be slightly biased because this movie made me very nostalgic for the Harry Potter series. It is a big part of so many people’s childhoods and has many of us wishing that we would’ve gotten our Hogwarts letters when we were twelve years old (I’m still waiting for mine, it probably got lost in the mail).

When the series ended, the fans were devastated and thought that there was going to be nothing left to look forward to from J.K. Rowling. Then, in 2001, Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them and its companion book Quidditch Through the Ages were published. Fans all around the world were delighted to have the Wizarding World of Harry Potter live on! However, the books weren’t enough to satisfy the fans need for more magic. So, when the news got out that Fantastic Beasts was going to be made into a five-movie series everyone was ecstatic and we knew that the magic of Harry Potter would never go away!

Even though Newt Scamander (the main character in FB) does not appear in any of the books for Harry Potter, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is mentioned throughout the book series as a school textbook. Set in 1920's New York, it is it's own story and happened before the time of Voldemort's rise to dark magic fame. However, while watching the movie, you will notice that there are a few sneaky Potter references and some are easier to catch than others.

1. In the beginning of the movie, the first few bars of the opening theme song are borrowed from “Hedwig’s Theme” that was composed by John Williams and used in all eight of the Harry Potter movies.
2. Albus Dumbledore was briefly mentioned by Percival Graves when Newt Scamander gets in trouble. He is mentioned how when Newt was at Hogwarts Dumbledore was the one of the only professors on his side when he was threatened to be kicked out, which is a classic Dumbledore thing to do.
3. The mention of Leta Lestrange got some fans attention. The mention of the name Lestrange brings us back to a time when Bellatrix, one of Voldemort’s most loyal followers, was helping cause chaos in the wizarding world. We learn that Leta was a very close friend to Newt at Hogwarts.
4. If you couldn’t tell already, Hogwarts is mentioned quite a few times throughout the movie. Newt Scamander is also shown wearing a Hufflepuff scarf around his neck a few times as well.

Overall, just seeing the characters use magic and recite spells that we all know by heart and witness all of the amazing beasts and creature in this movie (the Niffler probably being everyone's favorite as well as the Thunderbird reminding us of Buckbeak the Hippogriff) was enough to bring on the nostalgia. This movie ended up being a box office hit grossing around $220 million opening weekend and $500 million overall. It is also J.K. Rowling's fifth biggest "wizarding world" movie. The Harry Potter fandom is one of the biggest fandoms in the world so you know that any movie that has Rowling’s name even mentioned will get worldwide attention and praise no matter what.

This is the end of this article and I just have one last thing to add. So many people, including myself, have fallen in love with the characters of Fantastic Beasts (Especially Eddie Redmayne who plays Newt) and the magical creatures within it. I believe that the right people were casted for this movie and everyone fit their characters very well! (Even the surprise Johnny Depp appearance as Grindlewald). This movie deserves all the praise that it gets because it has touched the hearts of so many fans and we cannot wait for the rest of the movies to come out! Even when this series is done, as fans we will always crave more magic.