Fantastic Four (Man of Steel Edition) (2015)

[Margalis]

At that point he could really be any generic super-villain though and we already have people commenting frequently in these threads about villains in comic book movies not being fleshed out at all. If you're going to use Doom take advantage of it. Otherwise you might as well just use the fucking Mole Man or the Puppet Master. It's like turning Galactus into an energy cloud.

What I described is who Doom is, I didn't change the character in any way. There's a happy medium between "turn him into a cloud" and "make a dedicated prequel about how his parents were killed by demons blah blah blah"

Plenty of movies have interesting villains that are not particularly fleshed out. Raiders of the Lost Ark has three of them. You're confusing good villains with villains that have a lot of lore associated with them. Some of the best villains of all time have very little in the way of backstory (and some of the best heroes as well) - Darth Vader, pretty much any character in any Sergio Leone movie (Lee van Cleef, Henry Fonda).

Darth Vader was just a cool costume and voice.

What makes a villain generic is not depth of backstory, it's things like bad dialog, not being relevant to the plot, simple things like costuming, how they are shot, etc. There are good villains like Michael Meyers that don't even talk! It's more of a craft issue than an issue of depth. Jaws is a good villain and he's a shark.

And I really think you don't realize how uninteresting a character like Doom is to an ordinary Soap guy.

Doom is basically Darth Vader with a different color scheme.

[Sir T]

When Vader was introduced he was stepping off a ship that was shown to be immense and powerful compared with the ship he was stepping into. You didn't need acres of back story to know this guy was a badass, it had been shown in the first minute of the movie, and then he emerged flanked by the gunfire of his soldiers, at which point picked up the captain and crushed his throat. There. Memorable character explained.

You didn't need to have half the movie explaining his backstory and his deep heartrending fall into darkness which involved being a Gypsy, his parents being chopped up by demons and then him creating magical tech armour from the deep tech gadgetry that Gypsys have/invented it all from rocks because he's a genius, then how he went to uni and developed this hatred of some other guy because of the tragic fact that he was smarter than him and then got his lightsaber and chopped his way to lead a country, tragically.

[Velorath]

At that point he could really be any generic super-villain though and we already have people commenting frequently in these threads about villains in comic book movies not being fleshed out at all. If you're going to use Doom take advantage of it. Otherwise you might as well just use the fucking Mole Man or the Puppet Master. It's like turning Galactus into an energy cloud.

What I described is who Doom is, I didn't change the character in any way. There's a happy medium between "turn him into a cloud" and "make a dedicated prequel about how his parents were killed by demons blah blah blah"

Plenty of movies have interesting villains that are not particularly fleshed out. Raiders of the Lost Ark has three of them. You're confusing good villains with villains that have a lot of lore associated with them. Some of the best villains of all time have very little in the way of backstory (and some of the best heroes as well) - Darth Vader, pretty much any character in any Sergio Leone movie (Lee van Cleef, Henry Fonda).

Darth Vader was just a cool costume and voice.

What makes a villain generic is not depth of backstory, it's things like bad dialog, not being relevant to the plot, simple things like costuming, how they are shot, etc. There are good villains like Michael Meyers that don't even talk! It's more of a craft issue than an issue of depth. Jaws is a good villain and he's a shark.

I think I just disagree to some extent with what you think makes a good villain or even examples of who good villains are. Belloq is the only Lost Ark villain whose name I can even remember. Jaws was effective largely because of the camera work, which they needed to get around the fact that the Shark prop didn't actually work a lot of the time. Lee van Cleef is menacing as Angel Eyes but is a far less interesting character than Tuco who does get a fairly lengthy monologue explaining his backstory. There are a number of hints as to Vader's backstory which become an increasing focus through Empire and Jedi. I've got no love for Michael Meyers.

I'm not saying that every villain needs their entire life story revealed, but backstory can humanize a character, give them motivation, or allow you to sympathize with them a bit, like Magneto being a holocaust survivor for example. Doom, as a character is largely only interesting when he isn't being written as a straight-up villain. Describing him as evil Reed Richards with magic reduces him to the most clichéd kind of comic book villain. He's the dark reflection of the hero at that point. He's the Iron Monger, the Venom, or the Red Skull. And that's fine for what it is, as a bad guy in a comic book movie, but if that's what you want then you can't really complain that superhero movies are all kinda samey.

That's my main point. It's not that Doom is such a great character that we need multiple seasons of a TV series to bask in his glorious backstory. It's that this is a character who actually could support something other than a typical summer blockbuster comic book movie, and yet people here who often comment on how formulaic superhero movies are coming up with the most formulaic way to work Doom into a movie. Also I'll reiterate that I've never read a single FF comic that I thought was particularly good, have no love for the FF as characters, and would be perfectly happy to never see another attempt at an FF movie, which is part of the reason I'd rather see something Doom focused rather than a fifth attempt at an FF movie involving Doom.

[Margalis]

A Sir T post I agree with!

The prequels were all about adding depth to Darth Vader and they sucked shit - the only reason they didn't ruin the character is that the sequels are so bad and Darth Vader so cool that they are essentially non-canon to everyone.

Darth Vader is a bad-ass because the movie tells you that using the language of film. It's not just some character going "this guy is a bad-ass because he has the technobabble bullshit device with the power to destroy the universe", it's because of the way the movie is shot, how characters react to him, how scenes are framed and blocked and lit, etc.

Speaking of character intros:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN3-uOjK4TY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XkHsinz7oU

These are from Once Upon a Time in the West, main villain and hero. These scenes tell you a lot of what you need to know with very little dialog - Frank is willing to kill family, including a kid, and smirks a little when he does it - he enjoys it. He's also clearly the leader of this group.

Harmonica plays his harmonica (important), gets a bad-ass self-confident and wry line of dialog, the bad guys seem wary of him - this is a guy who can handle his shit. He also gets shot - he's not some untouchable action hero. Audiences at the time would also have recognized the guys he kills, so they aren't just disposable goons.

This is how Ronan is introduced in GotG:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQsmIkN7wxg

He's in the fucking fetal position in the first shot! Then the rest of it is voiceover lore bullshit about Xandarians. WHY would you put him in the fetal position? A position that conveys vulnerability and weakness. Is it hinting that he's actually a giant wuss, emotionally or physically?

It might be interesting if you have a villain who seems super bad-ass then later you reveal that he has some internal doubts and sleeps in the fetal position - it could be humanizing, suggest depth, contrast to their godlike powers. But as the first shot it's very weird and it never pays off. His character introduction says that he is a wuss and a bore.

This is a craft issue. It's not a character concept issue.

Describing him as evil Reed Richards with magic reduces him to the most clichéd kind of comic book villain. He's the dark reflection of the hero at that point. He's the Iron Monger, the Venom, or the Red Skull. And that's fine for what it is, as a bad guy in a comic book movie, but if that's what you want then you can't really complain that superhero movies are all kinda samey.

I didn't write out an entire 120 page script. I just gave an overview of how you can present him at a basic level. You can have dialog that includes other stuff, hints at backstory, etc, just as Star Wars does with Vader.

It's the difference between the Star Wars movies and prequels. All the stuff that was hinted at in Star Wars was made explicit in the prequels to horrible effect.

[NowhereMan]

This has got me plotting out a Doom intro scene now. Picture a top US Delta force team, deep inside someplace called Latveria. They sneak inside some old castle, take out the guards and come in to rescue a Latverian scientist, we get some dialogue explaining who they are, who the scientist is (say some expert in bioengineering being forced to work on a project against his will). At this point there's a cut off radio message from one of the team, then shortly after another. Suddenly cut off gunfire and general confusion from the Spec Ops. At that point the scientist loses his shit and goes 'Doom' before turning near catatonic and the Spec Op guys start getting serious business faces. Cue a short action scene as Doom basically marches in flanked by 2 Doombots and wastes all but one of the soldiers very rapidly. The last one gets disarmed, hoisted up by his neck and informed that American aggression is not welcomed in Latveria, he will be returned to his country to carry the message that Doom doesn't tolerate interference from a corrupt and ill-functioning imperialist state.

Maybe find some way of sticking in that the scientist was working on biologically engineered corn designed to maximise nutrition and make Latveria better able to feed its people. I think stuff like, showing not only is he capable but he's doing things to make, his vision of, a better society. I guess you could then get a debrief involving Reed, the US consulting one of their best scientists because of his close historic association with Doom, which also gives you room for some backstory filing in.

[Khaldun]

I didn't think Ronan was great, mind you, but the fetal position shot actually fits what little character arc he has in the film--he's a little bit lost when the film opens since his crusade is about to be abandoned by his own people, he becomes Thanos' errand boy, he's rather single-minded and unimaginative and only really does his own thing once he decides to claim the gem for his own.  None of which makes him a good villain for driving a whole film, mind you, and it's a good example of how Marvel is just using the villains as plot mechanisms. But the opening shot isn't inconsistent with what the character is throughout--passive and easily manipulated until he gets a hold of the McGuffin.

[Lantyssa]

Of course I don't think Fox would do anything like this, although they're doing Deadpool so clearly they're willing to take some risks.

Not really.  Reynolds and company were pushing this for years, and it was only the public adoration of the leaked footage that got the project finally greenlit.

[Threash]

Of course I don't think Fox would do anything like this, although they're doing Deadpool so clearly they're willing to take some risks.

Not really.  Reynolds and company were pushing this for years, and it was only the public adoration of the leaked footage that got the project finally greenlit.

And it will be the last time after Deadpool bombs.

[Velorath]

The prequels were all about adding depth to Darth Vader and they sucked shit

They sucked shit because the writing, directing, acting, and special effects were all terrible. Bad movies are bad is about the only lesson you can take away from the prequels in regards to this discussion.

Maybe the distinction I'm trying to make here is that there's a difference between a good villain, and a good character. I think Doom could be a good character and not just a good villain. Going back to Star Wars as an example, Tarkin is a great villain, but he's barely a character. Angel Eyes in The Good the Bad and The Ugly, great villain but barely a character. Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men or Gary Oldman in the Professional. In most cases like that you're relying on a great actor to knock it out park and go beyond just what's on the page. The Joker in the Dark Knight epitomizes some of the worst tropes people have come to dislike in villains (damn near omnipotent in his planning, intentionally gets himself captured, etc...), but Heath Ledger's performance elevated the part. You could have other talented actors play those same roles with the same director and the same script and not have them come anywhere close to the original performance in the same way that if you had anyone else playing Han Solo regardless of how good an actor they were, the Star Wars movies probably wouldn't have worked nearly as well. Yes you could have a Doom who is a great villain with the barest characterization but at that point you're largely rolling the dice and hoping the actor turns in an award-worthy performance because there's very little to most of these characters otherwise.

And yes, I'm quite aware that you can build characterization through means other than detailing their backstory. I'm not sure that Ronan is a great example of it being done effectively though since I didn't hear lot of people praising GOTG because of Ronan.

[Ironwood]

And yet, what we can curse Joker for equally applies to Loki, who is every bit the same in villainy as the other Marvel Villains and yet has been made memorable by the merest backstory and the remarkable portrayal that Tom has put in.  So it's far to say that Heath made Joker what he was in the same way Tom did for Loki.

[Margalis]

I don't have any objection to a Doom TV show. I'm just saying there's no reason he can't work in a movie. The reason he doesn't work in the FF movies is that they aren't good movies. The lesson there isn't "Doom doesn't work" it's "these movies are bad, with Doom being merely one example of that."

Khaldun you aren't wrong about Ronan, but what you are describing doesn't make for a good villain.

Edit: At least not in a movie where the villain is just a plot necessity / punching bag. Having a guy who starts off as a weak abandoned errand boy might make sense if he had a real character arc - maybe in that case he could be like Kefka from FF6. But I would argue that in GotG what little Nebula says and does is more interesting than anything about Ronan. Just the scene where she cuts off her own arm says more about the character than anything that happens with Ronan.

[Velorath]

And yet, what we can curse Joker for equally applies to Loki, who is every bit the same in villainy as the other Marvel Villains and yet has been made memorable by the merest backstory and the remarkable portrayal that Tom has put in.  So it's far to say that Heath made Joker what he was in the same way Tom did for Loki.

Not the biggest fan of the Thor movies, but I think Loki was fleshed out more in the first Thor than pretty much any other MCU villain before or since.  Not to take away from Tom's acting because he's pretty damn good, but there actually is a character there in the script with a backstory which provides clear motivations and an actual character arc.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Basically loki isn't a one dimensional villain, unlike every other villain in the mcu.

[Khaldun]

They do need to pay attention to what they did right with Loki, which is NOT make him like every other motiveless sniveller who just wants to take the throne instead of the noble prince. Instead they made him a) actually rather likeable; b) not necessarily evil at the beginning; c) conflicted about his own impulses; d) angry with his stepfather with increasing justification and e) arguably still trying to do 'the right thing' at the end in terms of killing Asgard's enemies while they're not really expecting it.

Which by the way is what Doom needs besides any of the other things (or none of them): you have to kind of like the guy. The best Doom story ever was the one where John Byrne played around with the idea that maybe, just maybe, Latveria is better off with Doom in charge compared to the alternatives. When Doom has a kind of grandeur and nobility that his fellow villains and enemies lack, he's almost, just almost, sympathetic. You can even almost, just almost, see why he hates Reed Richards, especially the more dangerous and ruthless Reed Richards of the last ten years or so of storytelling.

Otherwise there isn't a single villain so far in the Marvel canon that you really sympathize with even for a second--or respect as having his own motivations independent of being a plot driver. That's really what they need--a villain who has something they're genuinely trying to do for reasons that are comprehensible and human, if not sympathetic exactly.

[Fordel]

Magneto?

[Ironwood]

Magneto would be more sympathetic if he wasn't just victim as torturer.  I know it happens in real life, but I just could never ever go for the whole 'We need to genocide them before they genocide us !' thing.

[SurfD]

Magneto would be more sympathetic if he wasn't just victim as torturer.  I know it happens in real life, but I just could never ever go for the whole 'We need to genocide them before they genocide us !' thing.

Yeah, his whole "do unto others as they did unto you" thing doesnt really make him very sympathetic.

[Velorath]

To say a character is sympathetic isn't to say that you agree with them or their methods. Clearly you aren't supposed to be supportive of Magneto killing innocent people, but in First Class for instance there's a sympathetic and even likable character there up until his turn at the end.

[Ironwood]

Yes, but in First Class he's not the man he becomes and he's tracking and killing those directly responsible for a monstrous evil that you see on screen.  So it's ok.

But his later on 'let's just kill all the humies' is utterly retarded.

[NowhereMan]

In terms of the comics though we see Magneto also trying the whole 'separate but equal' thing a few times and his attempts to basically separate off from humanity always end in tragedy and destruction as well.

[Ironwood]

Fair enough. Glotka did victim cycle better tho.

[Khaldun]

Glotka has something that I think almost no comic-book villains have, and that's self-loathing. Would help a lot with some of them. Intellectualized self-loathing is an especially fertile ground for evil deeds.

[Ironwood]

Interesting.

[jgsugden]

I don't mean to be the bearer of bad news ... but ... prepare yourself ... the sequel was pulled off the calendar.  You may cry now.

Tears of joy.

[Evildrider]

[Merusk]

Thank heavens for that. Of course this has sent fans on Reddit into fitful spirals of, "OMG MABYE THIS  MEANZ A SPIDEY-LIKE DEAL!"

I wouldn't get hopes up on that quite yet. They're making money with X-men stuff, I'm sure that they think they can find the right formula for F4 in time.

[shiznitz]

Well, they won't. Stretchy guy and a girl who turns invisible just aren't fun.

[Hutch]

[HaemishM]

Well, they won't. Stretchy guy and a girl who turns invisible just aren't fun grimdark serious enough.

Fixed that for you.

[jgsugden]

I have a lot of faith that Marvel would make a great FF film.

[Merusk]

Incredibles.png

People like pointing out the Incredibles and I generally agree but it's a totally different tone from the MCU, even comedy MCU movies like GoG and Ant-Man. Incredibles worked because of how much fun it was having them poke at the superhero tropes ("No Capes!") and worked the family story into that. Take away the comedy and it was a pretty meh movie about a guy having an affair because of his midlife crisis.

[sickrubik]

Fantastic Four still suck in any incarnation.

[eldaec]

Stretchy guy is a problem. It is a bullshit power with no obvious limit. But I suspect it is managable with a half decent writer.

And I struggle to see why anyone thinks Marvel would break sweat making a superhero film about fire guy, rock guy, and invisible guy all of whom somehow have family issues.

The avengers movies are just this with more characters.

I don't think they should do this, because why bother giving anyone money for a mediocre genre template when they have more characters than they can use already. But they clearly could do it.

[Merusk]

I don't think they should do this, because why bother giving anyone money for a mediocre genre template when they have more characters than they can use already. But they clearly could do it.

People are hyped for Marvel getting them back so they have Dr. Doom and the Silver Surfer in the portfolio, not for the Richards.

Somewhere along the line Dr. Doom became this awesome character everyone drools over instead of a bumbling despot regularly defeated by teenagers and co-dependent narcissists.

[Trippy]

And squirrels, don't forget squirrels.