First of all, it should be clear to everybody now that as brilliant and lovable Eddie Redmayne is, the new franchise is going to be only marginally about the adventures of Newt Scamander and his magical suitcase. As JK admitted herself in an interview, the new stories are "primarily about how Dumbledore became Dumbledore" (which is probably what HP fans care most about anyways). Therefore, I think the plot line following Grindelwald and his manipulation of Credence, leading up to his final duel with Dumbledore, will take the center stage. This is also supported by the most shocking reveal at the end of FB2, regarding a certain "Aurelius" (which I think is a red herring by the way, given how JK is a master at deception). A friend of mine pointed out a striking parallel that knits the stories of Newt and Credence together: Newt loves magical creatures, even those considered to be monsters by ordinary folks (Leta Lestrange says something along these lines in the movie). Credence is a lot like such an animal, rejected and feared by others. But not Dumbledore. By learning Newt's kind of compassion, Albus Dumbledore will become the headmaster we know and love. I suspect it's going to be another story about redemption through love.
If JK had wanted, she could have given us a light-hearted adventure movie about finding fantastic beasts and some awkward flirting between Newt and Tina. But judging from the way the story is going in FB2, JK means serious business. She aims at the same level of world-building as she did in HP. HP started off as this tale of an 11-year-old boy, but then it went deeper, especially in "Half-Blood Prince" and "Deathly Hallows". We thought the Malfoy family was messed up, but they was nothing compared to the Gaunts. And it turned out the Dumbledores had their fair share of troubles too. The greatest failure of the last three HP films, in my opinion, is the exclusive focus on Harry, at the expense of the backstories of Voldemort and Dumbledore, which I think were crucial pieces in JK’s overall design. The FB series will make amends in this regard. The ambition for depth is very clear in the Kama-Lestrange and child-swapping subplot (Titanic crossover!) which I think could make a great short story on its own. Unfortunately JK is not as good a screenwriter as a novelist, and a double exposition through long monologues feels lamentably unfitting for a film like this. Still, it's good material and I should not complain.
In a way, JK is rewriting HP. It’s always been rather miraculous that Harry, as an abused orphan, turned out to be a healthy, functional adult. I think JK knows this, but decides to spare her young readers from psychological horror. The darkest element in HP are the Dementors, which are stand-ins for depression, and Harry is (for the most part) happily insulated from them by the protection of his Patronus, stand-in for family love, which both Credence and Harry in fact lacked. I think Credence is a more brutal but more realistic version of someone in Harry’s situation. The Obscurus is a stand-in for a more pathological state of mind, and it dominates Credence much more heavily than, say, Voldemort’s soul does in Horcrux-Harry. People say Ariana Dumbledore also developed an Obscurus; if true, this point is certainly going to be developed further. It would be interesting to explore the character of Nagini too. A hatred-filled young man desperately looking for his identity and a young foreign woman suffering from an inescapable curse. If done well, which I think JK has the ability to, this series can rise from the level of a young adult novel to that of tragedy (Didn’t JK quote the Choephoroi in the preface to "Deathly Hallows"?)
Finally I’d like to address my favorite development in FB2: Queenie’s turning to the dark side. Some fans are very offended by this, and members of the Politburo at Vox have already found evidence that JK relapsed into her history of misogyny (Exhibit A: Dolores Umbridge). I find such criticism misguided. Reading HP, I often wondered about the possibility that, for example, Ron joins the Death Eaters. He is pure-blood, qualified, and often needs self-validation. But surely this cannot happen in HP, because Ron is too innocent and good. With Queenie, JK can take more liberties. Her ability to read mind is incredibly powerful, but her lack of control over this power can also be dangerous and destabilizing. It is, after all, not inconceivable that her apparent cheerfulness and bubbly demeanor stem from a hidden sense of insecurity and frustration (of living under the shadow of her rigid, no-nonsense sister perhaps). I agree the execution of her switching-sides is a bit abrupt. However, a common complaint is that bad guys in HP are often too one-dimensional, which is understandable since it was originally a children’s book. Grindelwald has already proven to be a more charismatic and more sympathetic villain than Voldie. I have high expectations Queenie’s future role—as a more bad-ass Bellatrix.
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