The Trailer For ‘Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them’ Is Magic

The first full, living, breathing trailer for the Harry Potter prequel Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them dropped last night during the MTV Movie Awards, and it’s just plain, old brilliant.

The film, starring Eddie Redmayne as a young version of the legendary magician and author Newt Scamander, returns fans to J.K. Rowling’s world of wizards and witches but sets its feet in the 1920s, instead of the 1990s and early 2000s. More than that, the trailer breezes through New York City, making this the first time audiences have seen what that magical universe looks like outside of England. Even if only a few exteriors were shot in the fair city, it’s a pretty epic vision of Gotham’s past. 

With David Yates, who directed the last three Potter films, behind the camera, the winking, shadowy tone of the past movies seems to be present, and there’s even a mention of a much-beloved character as well. The trailer also gives us a peek at perhaps the film’s big bad, Colin Farrell’s Percival Graves. He looks… unhappy. Ezra Miller (the Flash from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice), Katherine Waterston (Inherent Vice), Ron Perlman (Hellboy), Samantha Morton, and Jon Voight also either pop up in the two-minute-and-twenty-second tease or are slated to appear.

As CNN notes, along with all the exploding hearts out there, there’s already been a bit of a backlash against the trailer. Some have quite rightly noted the film’s apparent lack of diversity—a criticism borne out by a quick scan of IMDb where only two of the top 10 billed cast members are people of color. It’s perhaps the only thing that keeps this magical trailer from being 100 percent, bang-on perfect.

Watch the trailer for Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, above, and look for it in movie theaters November 18.