issue 17// volume 44

arts // no. 7

Long-awaited, fan-made Voldemort
origin story finally up on YouTube

> ‘Voldemort: Origins of the Heir’ review

Veronnica MacKillop
Senior Columnist

 

He Potter fans are a devoted
crowd, and are always looking
for more content from the beloved
franchise that ended six years ago
with its eighth film. While we wait for
the next installment of the Fantastic
Beasts franchise, Italian independent
film studio Tryangle Films has created
Voldemort: Origins of the Heir, the Dark
Lord origin story we've always wanted.
Since a Kickstarter for the project
was launched in 2016, people have been
avidly supporting and anticipating
this fan adaptation, and as of th time
of writing it has already been viewed
over 10 million times since its January
13 release. After the Kickstarter began,
Tryangle Films ran into some issues with
Warner Bros. issuing a takedown notice,
but they reached an agreement and the
film was able to start production once
it raised €15,000 from the campaign.
Considering the fact that this
52-minute, straight-to-YouTube movie
is an amateur production that made no
money off the project, the film has very
impressive visual effects, sets, and actors.
It’s not without flaws, however;
director Gianmaria Pezzato makes
some interesting choices with camera
angles, some of the dialogue is
pretty strange, and the poor English
dubbing is a little distracting, but
overall it is a very enjoyable film that
fits quite nicely with the franchise.
The actors are convincing for the

most part, though sometimes the delivery
of the dialogue seems a little off. In
addition, in one of the flashbacks the
characters are supposed to be 12 years old,
but the same actors, who are in their mid-
208, play the roles. Also take note that the
film is definitely aimed at hardcore fans—
it makes a lot of references to the books
and movies that could easily be missed.
The plot follows Grisha McLaggen,
an original character—although the
McLaggen family is canon in the Harry
Potter universe. She is the heir to Godric
Gryffindor; one of the four heirs in the
film, another of which is Tom Riddle,
the heir of Salazar Slytherin. Grisha

is captured and questioned at the
Russian Ministry of Magic, where it is
revealed that she’s trying to find Tom
Riddle because she suspects him to be
involved in a string of murders. The
film is told mostly in flashbacks, and it
has a pretty interesting twist ending.
Origins of the Heir is not an official
part of the franchise, so its creators didn’t
have to follow any rules, but, knowing
Harry Potter fans would be highly critical,
Pezzato made sure to do his research.
Although some things are definitely not
canon, for the most part the events could
very well be. We only know bits and
pieces of Voldemort’s adolescence, and

 

Promotional image for ‘Voldemort: Origins of the Heir’

this film does a nice job of portraying
what his time at Hogwarts and shortly
after could have been like. It would have
been interesting to see more canon events
such as Tom opening the Chamber of
Secrets, but it’s understandable that the
filmmakers wanted to focus more on
events we didn’t already know about.
Overall, considering the sheer
amount of fanfiction that exists based
on the world of Harry Potter, this film
is notably impressive and enjoyable.
It is no A Very Potter Musical, but it’s
quite an interesting story that clearly
had a lot of hard work put into it.

The most important tabloid ever written

> ‘Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House’ book review

Greg Waldock
Staff Writer

 

he line between journalism and
tabloid journalism is quality,
content, and intent. Given that, it can
be hard to argue that Michael Wolff’s
provocative tell-all Fire and Fury: Inside
the Trump White House is anything
but pure tabloid journalism at its most
egregious—if it weren't for the horrifying
accuracy behind everything he writes.

The story Wolff tells feels like a
cross between House of Cards and The
Producers, a terrifying combination of
professional schemers and a comedy of
errors that led to the most internationally-
embarrassing individual ever to sit in the
Oval Office. It’s a story only Wolff was in
the position to write, but it should have
been shared by a more talented teller.

At its best, Fire and Fury is an
extraordinary work of modern journalism.
Wolff pulls on his 18 months’ experience
as something truly unique in the White
House: A fly-on-the-wall that actually
went unnoticed. He was able to conduct
informal interviews with some of the
most famous (and infamous) people

in the political world, as shown in the
astoundingly personal level of detail he
displays with all his subjects, President
Trump most of all. Wolff’s knowledge
of the situation in Washington is borne
of both lived experience and meticulous
research, and it lends a colossal amount
of authenticity to a subject that could

so easily be fabricated. This detail—
where all the major Trump players
(from Sean Spicer to Ivanka Trump to
Michael Flynn to Donald himself) are
fleshed out on an extremely human
level—is the true strength of the book,
making it such a hugely important piece
of this enormous political puzzle.

At its worst, however, Fire and Fury
is messy, confusing, and poorly sourced.
The sentence structure is convoluted,
the larger book structure is almost
nonexistent beyond being basically
chronological, and Wolff’s vocabulary
switches from pretentious to frustratingly
inadequate at the drop of a hat. This
is a book in dire need of an editor.
Understandably, it was released quickly to
keep up with the changing political scene,
and the hastiness shows. The loudest and
most valid criticism of both Wolff and
his book is that important information is

sourced seemingly at random. Sometimes
he'll name-drop a minor staffer or a
massive media mogul, and sometimes
he'll neglect to mention that a quote is
clearly from Steve Bannon or Spicer. The
poor writing and sourcing will tragically
mar the book’s reputation as an important
piece of political journalism, placing

it more firmly in the realm of tabloid
journalism, though this categorization
may lead to its success in the long

term as a sensational piece of media.

Fire and Fury is gossip: It’s a
description of wild celebrity personalities
and it spills the beans on their private
emotions, sex lives, and personal
opinions. It’s flagrantly unsympathetic
to its subjects and almost exploitative
in its interrogation of its subjects’ loved
ones. This isn’t a criticism on my part—far
from it. An ethical paper journalist would
never have done what Michael Wolff
did in this book. A tabloid journalist,
however, would, and that’s exactly
what Wolff is. Fire and Fury is not the
moralistic and structured takedown of
a corrupt regime, it’s an uncomfortably
precise celebrity gossip rag about the
celebrity who holds the nuclear codes.

 

 

FIRE

AND

FURY

INSIDE THE TRUMP
WHITE HOUSE

 

MICHAEL WOLFF

 

Cover of ‘Fire and Fury’ via Amazon