Fantastic Four (Man of Steel Edition) (2015)

[Maven]

Official trailer for the new Fantastic Four movie.

OK, so they took a Marvel property and made a Zack Snyder Grimdark version.

[Malakili]

I'll wait for netflix.

[Ironwood]

Ahaha.  That looks fucking woeful.

[HaemishM]

Not enough in there for me to say one way or the other. They went for way too much teaser and not enough meat.

[Ironwood]

They're nicking the Ultimate Storyline and Origin by the looks of it, the casting is fucking awful and The Thing look godawful in that one shot you see of him.

No, I'm pretty much ok with casting stones this early.  Bad.

[jgsugden]

It certain looks horrible.  The bad thing about it being horrible is that they're tying it to the X-verse.  More 'Deadpool without a mouth' badness that they'll have to wipe out with time travel...

Crossing FF and X-men together makes no sense.  They're like oil and water.  FF works so much better partnered with the Avengers, Spider-man or Hulk.  Fox really should just hand these characters over to another studio for a share of the profits...

[HaemishM]

That won't happen. Fox let the Daredevil rights go back to Marvel because they didn't have any movie plans in the works. Fantastic Four has more play than Daredevil in mainstream movies, despite what you might think of the movies. Plus, they are apparently in discussions to make an X-Men TV series (there are rights complications with TV properties based on ABC airing Marvel stuff).

[Merusk]

X-men always did well on TV, I'd be happy to see a return.

Was the FF4 ever really popular? I recall them being somewhat popular a long time ago when I was under 6 but that could be me. It seems comics and culture moved on and they don't quite work as a team these days. I'm not sure how you'd make them work, really. They need someone who understands them and understands modern culture to reboot them properly.

This movie sure doesn't look like that. It looks like another grab to keep a possible profit center in Fox's hands until they, maybe, at some point in the future, figure out how to actually do a superhero movie.

Probably right about the time the market for them goes poof.

[jgsugden]

X-men on TV is entirely in Marvel's control.  If they say no, then it won't happen.  Fox has to give to get... and Marvel is going to want something.  I could speculate forever about possibilities... but right now, I think the statement by Fox is likely more about putting pressure on Marvel to allow them to make it than anything else.  As such, I think there is a pretty decent chance we do not see them on the small screen anytime soon.  And if we do - can they do the true X-men justice on a TV budget yet?

FF - on screen - has never been done right.  Fox has botched it twice now (or so it seems, at least).  However, I have a pretty clear vision of how the MCU could use those characters and how they'd fit in naturally.  However, I just can't see a way to mesh them with X-men that makes any sense or capitalizes on anything that has come before...

[Ironwood]

I could speculate forever about possibilities...

Go onnnnnn....

[Slyfeind]

Yech. I liked the previous movies just fine... well, not so much the second one, which I lost interest in about 15 mins in. And I didn't particularly care for their James Woods-esque Doctor Doom. But the tone of it was just right.

[Tannhauser]

I felt nothing from that trailer. 

Yes, at one time FF was a thing.  A big thing for Marvel.  You had the classic 60's, 70's and John Byrne's defining run in the 80's which to me was the high water mark of the comic.  My personal favorite was when Byrne had Gladiator (Superman) fight the FF. 

Unfortunately, they put out an animated FF show without Johnny Storm; they were afraid kids would set themselves on fire copying him.  He was replaced with a robot named Herbie.  Needless to say the show sucked.

But I agree with Merusk, pop culture has passed FF by.  The powers, stretching, invisibility, fire and being rocky seem trite to me now.  Maybe a good writer could change my mind and maybe this has a good script, but I'm not going to see it in the theaters.

[Khaldun]

I didn't instantly hate it quite as much as I thought I would, but I'm not loving it either.

[Velorath]

Official trailer for the new Fantastic Four movie.
OK, so they took a Marvel property and made a Zack Snyder Grimdark version.

Chronicle was pretty dark as well. There have been a number of rumors of production problems during the filming of this though that mostly seemed to center around Josh Trank being some kind of psycho, but who knows how true any of that is. I still think there's a good chance this could be a decent movie, if not necessarily a good Fantastic Four movie. I don't really care much about the FF as characters anyway so it doesn't matter too much to me.

[Khaldun]

I love the characters, but maybe they're due for some reinvention. The basic core thing with the FF, it seems to me, is:

One part explorers/adventurers (rather than standard crime-fighting superheroes)
One part dysfunctional but loving family
One part cosmic/global/superscience/weirdness, e.g., these are not guys who operate in mundane settings even though their lives as weird adventurers have this totally normal domesticity hidden inside of it all

And then each of them has a few really core things:

Reed Richards has to be basically the Professor from Gilligan's Island--a bit otherworldly, a bit absent-minded professor, a bit crazy, but also surprisingly good in a fight if need be
The Thing has to be salt of the earth, an ordinary Joe, but also quick to anger and melancholy
The Human Torch needs to be impulsive, young, a bit stupid, a bit vain
The Invisible Woman needs to be in love with Reed but also surprisingly powerful and basically capable of being the real emotional heart and spirit of the family--mother, sister, wife, most trusted confidante

If you're going to do Doctor Doom, he has to be Reed's intellectual rival, and incredibly vainglorious and arrogant but also distressingly competent when need be--like Lex Luthor, someone you can almost imagine being a hero rather than a villain if it weren't for some crucial character flaws

Everything else is negotiable or can be shifted.

[shiznitz]

Rex Reed has had some grey hair forever. Making this about college age kids is a mistake. Also, how hard is it to find a real blonde in Hollywood for Sue?  I like Kate Mara but not for this.

[Nevermore]

Fox seems determined to have terrible casting in all their attempts at doing Fantastic Four.  Chiklis and Evans were the only two that worked from the first movie.

[HaemishM]

I think the most damning indictment of this thing is that no one seems to feel positive about it. At most, the reaction is like mine - I don't hate it, but I don't feel much from it.

Mark Waid did some good FF comics a few years ago, right before the Civil War came in and totally fucked the character of Reed Richards pretty much forever. Since then, no writer has done a version of the group that hasn't in some way been really terrible or really weird. Hickman's run was too much sugar for a dime and the Council of 1000 Reeds, JMS did a run that didn't really have any lasting impact but did reset Doctor Doom back to boring status after Waid's run, Mark Millar followed his shitty Civil War by trying to patch the Richards' marriage back together despite the fact Reed had become a goddamn mad scientist creating homicidal Thor Clones and Matt Fraction spent 16 issues with the FF off of Earth dying because their powers were killing them only to end it with yet another cross-reality teamup with other universes' versions of the FF against Doom the Conqueror.

So yeah, it's all been really weak tea.

[Evildrider]

Not a huge Fantastic Four fan and that trailer really didn't make me want to go see it.

[Fordel]

The FF are from another time and should probably stay there. Their story has been told, resolved, retold and resolved again a half dozen times. They suffer from being the originators of a bunch of tropes, so their original schtick of not having secret identities and being a family aren't compelling in comparison to everything else around.

Their powers are fine, but their characterization is not complex nor interesting and has been done to death already. The FF work best as like, a supportive backdrop in a universe. Probably the most important bits about the FF franchise are their rogues gallery. That opens up all that weird cosmic stuff and Doom.

[Khaldun]

I completely disagree that they're done or boring as characters. Shit, by that standard every single superhero ever and every character from serial genre fictions is done and boring. A dysfunctional family having weird adventures? A scientist who always has to feel a bit guilty that he not only did an uncontrolled experiment with his friends but ended up making three of them even better off but one of them a monster? A kid who acts like an overconfident dick but gets away with it all and an older man who is the responsible guy who somehow ends up fucked over all the time because of it? (In the origin, Ben tells Reed he's being an idiot, and more often than not he remains the voice of prudence right up to the point that he loses his shit and decides to tear someone a new asshole.) A woman who is determined and charismatic but who secretly worries she's not worthy of her genius husband (Reed and Sue often have echoes of Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe), and who often has to keep the family together when no one else will bother?

How is any of that done, over, boring? Sure, there are storytelling cycles with the FF that they go through, but hello! Batman, Superman, the Flash, the Avengers, Thor, Spider-Man, Sherlock Holmes, the Doctor, the guys from Supernatural, Mulder and Scully, Captain Kirk and many others would like to have a word with you. The fundamentals with FF are really strong. The powers are the least interesting part of it. One of the best versions of the FF was The Incredibles, which had a lot of the same dynamics but different powers and different family configurations.

[Fordel]

Pretty much all those people you listed are in the same boat, yes. To the point of parody with most of them. Some of them have had to re-write reality in order to reset their lives and repeat their stories, because there was no where else to take them.


It's not their powers, its the people. The Incredibles have the same power set on 3 of 4. It's just the speedster replacing the torch. The Incredibles work because they are NOT the FF. It's a different set of characters with different personalities and interactions. A set of characters that hasn't spent the last 40 years going through the same motions and driving them entirely into the ground.

The FF is:

Reed is a inattentive and neglectful husband and friend.
Johnny is an immature asshole.
Ben wishes he was a real boy.
Sue should file for divorce.

They've told pretty much every single story imaginable surrounding these four people and their specific personalities. The two main things that made them unique back in the day, are not unique anymore. There are lots of super-hero families and lots of heroes with public identities and fame.

[eldaec]

Write a decent script and you can make a decent movie. Even a grimdark one. Write a terrible script and it will almost always be awful. This is where most non-disney superhero films go wrong.

Naturally, people who think they have to go grimdark because it worked for Nolan and want to ride coattails are not likely to value a decent script.

The idea that the FF have covered everything possible is ridiculous. The only real issue they do have is making Mr Fantastic not look like something from Roger Rabbit. But write a decent script and people won't even notice.

[Velorath]

I think Fantastic Four is the one major Marvel series I've never really been able to get into. There are runs of just about every other big Marvel book that I've loved. Hell, multiple writers have managed to make guys like Hawkeye and Cyclops interesting over the years, but aside from maybe some stuff with the Thing none of the FF have ever really clicked with me. Dr. Doom tends to be a more interesting and multifaceted character than any actual member of the team.

[Ironwood]

I find Susan Storm an interesting character.  Richards has a lot of potential to be interesting and they almost managed it with Hornblower, but it was kinda flat.

[K9]

X-men always did well on TV, I'd be happy to see a return.

Season 7 of Archer: X-ARCHER

I'd watch that so hard

[Khaldun]

There are lots of super-hero families? Name 'em for me.

Public identities is more a sign of how the secret identity and most of the plotlines connected to it is fading as a trope in general.

[Merusk]

Richards has a lot of potential to be interesting and they almost managed it with Hornblower, but it was kinda flat.

I'm so happy for this reference because that's all I ever see him as, even on his new show.  Which made his part in Titanic a bit odd.

I didn't say they were boring, Khaldun, I said the culture had moved on from them. Sue Storm isn't a heroine, she's a battered wife who should leave her inattentive douche of a husband. 

Venture Brothers deconstructs the FF4 problems perfectly for me (Because J. Storm is a personality I just want to see burn, not immune from it.) and The Incredibles used the same structure differently.

Incredibles writers knew Storm's personality works better as a rapscallion kid you can enjoy vs. Douchebag Dudebro you want to punch.  They established that even though Mr. I is a self-obsessed douchebag (and he is.) with a midlife crisis he cares for his family. The wife isn't some haggard, helpless woman who just can't  understand why her husband doesn't love her. (And that doesn't fucking play at all today other than on Lifetime movies) Violet was the only one who didn't fit her counterpart, the Thing as perfectly, because their issues were different though at the core they just want acceptance.

And despite doing really well that movie didn't get a sequel because they couldn't come up with what to do next.  Which gives me little hope for FF4 ever pulling this off.

[Lantyssa]

Not like it matters.  They'll just endlessly repeat their origin story.  The last thirty minutes of the movie with the Big Bad is filler.

[Ironwood]

Tru Dat.

[jgsugden]

Nobody wants to comment on my biggest problem with the FF?  Sue Storm as the damsel in distress over and over and over....  It is such a core element of so many of their 'classic' stories (and of her powers - the ability to disappear) that telling those older tales on film would come off as sexist in the modern era...

[eldaec]

That is only a problem if she gets written that way. Which clearly doesn't have to be and won't be.

[eldaec]

In fact, if you want to see how to write Sue Storm, and the fantastic 4 as whole, just watch The Incredibles.

[Tannhauser]

Sue Storm is the true power in the team.

[Fordel]

There are lots of super-hero families? Name 'em for me.

Public identities is more a sign of how the secret identity and most of the plotlines connected to it is fading as a trope in general.

The Summers, The Waynes (adopted is still family), The Cages, The hilarity that is Emma and her Cuckoo's, Arrow and Canary just had a baby, The house of Magnus, Mystiques endless series of bastards, Xaviers endless series of bastards, The kents with their endless stream of kryptonian cousins. The Parkers and all their connections? The Corazon's before they all mostly died ( :( ). Even fucking Wolverine has a brother and son these days.

That's just off the top of my head.




Sue hasn't been a damsel for decades and any writer or director portraying her as such is an idiot and fool.