Discuss Fantastic Four
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The FF deserve better!
posted by Norrin_Radd_Of_Zenn_LaSTAFFMOD on September 11, 2017 at 8:51 PM
A Jack Kirby milestone passes and one of his most endearing and collaborative creations is stuck in purgatory.
Reply by MirrorMask
on September 13, 2017 at 10:02 PM
Why do you think Hollywood has such a hard time making a decent FF movie?
Reply by tmdb53400018
on September 13, 2017 at 10:07 PM
What is this "milestone" you write about???
Reply by gspgreases
on September 13, 2017 at 10:09 PM
i think fox has to make a movie every couple years to keep the rights from going back to marvel. So rushing might be a issue.
Reply by MirrorMask
on September 13, 2017 at 10:20 PM
That explains their most recent failure, but not the first FF movie. I did enjoy the first FF film, though. Even if Sue Storm was miscast.
Reply by tmdb53400018
on September 13, 2017 at 10:30 PM
I enjoyed the first FF film, too. However, I did feel that it could've been a little better than it turned out. That actually goes for both of the first 2 FF films... I know with the Silver Surfer movie, the script needed some more work. I'm not so sure what went wrong with the 1st film, aside from the director.
As for the casting of Jessica Alba as Sue Storm, I felt it was ambitious of them to cast a Latina in the part. It seemed like Alba's feistiness came out more than once in the films. That translated to a feisty Sue Storm -- which ain't all bad. My least favorite casting for the films was either Kerry Washington as Alicia Masters or that Julian McMahon as Dr. Doom. At least in the John Byrne-written books, Dr. Doom was just, fearsome. Julian just doesn't have that quality.
Alba was good in her role.
Reply by Norrin_Radd_Of_Zenn_La
on September 13, 2017 at 10:37 PM
Aug. 28th 1917 - Aug 28th 2017 , 100th Birthday and recognition from both Marvel and DC.
DC JK 100thhttp://comicbook.com/dc/2017/05/17/dc-announces-jack-kirby-100th-birthday-one-shots/
Reply by MirrorMask
on September 13, 2017 at 10:39 PM
The blue contacts were distracting and she was the weakest link to me. I really enjoyed Julian McMahon as Dr. Doom, but that's mostly because I loved him on Charmed.
Reply by tmdb53400018
on September 13, 2017 at 10:45 PM
A-ha! And what a milestone that is. Something special, indeed. Marvel Studios should get the film rights back on general principle, with this happening.
Reply by tmdb53400018
on September 13, 2017 at 10:51 PM
In a certain sense, I've kind of felt that Sue was the weakest character of the 4 in the books, anyway. Ben and Johnny were hot-heads, in different ways, while Reed was the big-brained leader. What characterized Sue? She was the sis and wifey in the family structure of the group. That's almost... boring. Again, the filmmakers' casting of Alba in the part of Sue was kind of bold, in my opinion. Alba gave the part flavor that, say, the other woman who played Sue Storm in the later film lacked.
It really sounds to me that you brought a lot of your preconceptions and prejudices into watching the first two FF movies. Julian McMahon did feel like a TV character as Dr. Doom -- a TV villain and he was HORRIBLE!
Reply by Norrin_Radd_Of_Zenn_La
on September 13, 2017 at 10:51 PM
I and my kids personally liked the first FF movie. I don't think Hollywood has a hard time I think FOX has a hard time making an FF movie. As a property the FF was way above FOX Studio's creative imagination. When Kirby left Marvel and the FF as a co-creator the next guys in the Marvel Bull-pen struggled with both reproducing and redirecting the sheer magnitude of the FF universe and the FF legacy.
The FF have a huge footprint on Marvel and on the comic book industry. Fox never understodod what the FF was.
Reply by rmontro
on July 18, 2018 at 6:49 AM
As great as the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been, it truly does make me sad because my favorite Marvel heroes, the Fantastic Four, has missed out on the fun. Their license got sold to Fox early on, and while most of their X-Men movies have been passable, they clearly had no idea what to do with the Fantastic Four. And Doctor Doom, one of the best comic book villains ever, has never been depicted well.
The Fantastic Four was Stan Lee's first superhero creation, the first Marvel comic book, the book that set off a revolution, and served as the centerpiece for the Marvel Universe during Stan's run as a writer. It truly saddens me that they have not been able to have a decent movie version, during a time when so many other, more obscure heroes have been successful.
This last movie was especially bad, and I dislike that it drew upon the Ultimate Fantastic Four version. I don't like the Fantastic Four as a bunch of genius kids. The Fantastic Four should be a family. Reed and Ben older, Sue a little younger, Johnny younger yet. Reed should be the father figure, not a brat.
And quit giving Doctor Doom electrical powers. He should be more like an evil Tony Stark, but smarter, his power coming from his armor. I know he also dabbled in the mystic arts, but this was seldom touched on in the classic Lee/Kirby run. Doctor Doom in these movies remind me mostly of the villain in the Howard the Duck movie. And that's not a good thing.
Reply by Innovator
on July 18, 2018 at 12:39 PM
The problem I saw with Doctor Doom was they kept giving him powers along side the Fantastic Four. Doctor Doom in the comics gave himself powers because he was jealous of Reed Richards getting powers. His main motivation was that always wants to be better then Reed Richards in everything, smarter, richer, more powerful. Also whenever he sees someone who is more powerful then himself, he wants to take that power for himself (the second FF movie portrayed a better Doctor Doom than the first movie). It was also a mistake not to show Latveria in the movies, as that what makes him more than a one note villain. Doctor Doom thinks he could rule the world better than everyone else, Latveria being a utopia is his proof of concept.
As for the FF themselves, I never really had much of a problem with the FF in the first movie, they acted like a family. Other than Tim Story's constant want to get Jessica Alba naked, they were fine. However, the latest movie touched on an aspect of the FF that the previous movies ignored, was that the FF aren't superheroes, they're explorers which is why I liked the first half of that movie better than the second half (which turned them into Power Rangers).
Reply by JustinJackFlash
on July 18, 2018 at 2:08 PM
I'm far from an expert on FF. But from an outsiders perspective they do seem very, very dated. And very childish. "Flame on!", "It's clobberin' time!", "I'm going to take over the world, bwah ha ha!"
I'd say the best way to adapt this is to embrace these aspects in a similar way that Sam Raimi did with his Spider Man films. Give it a sixties-ish vibe and a kind of innocence and naivety. The reason Raimi's Spiderman worked so well was because it felt like a comic book from the 60s, embracing the comic's roots. This vibe I think could totally work for FF.
The problem is they are trying to modernize it. Especially the last one.
Reply by rmontro
on July 18, 2018 at 3:09 PM
I do agree that the FF in the first movie was not terrible. I thought they got the Ben and Johnny dynamic pretty close. I didn't care for Reed and Sue so much, I didn't buy their chemistry, and I never got the impression that Reed was super smart. And Doom really, really bugged me.
In other words, embrace the source material. It sounds simple, but it's the secret to the whole thing, IMO.
Reply by Innovator
on July 18, 2018 at 3:41 PM
The one thing that always bugged me was the weird incestuous vibe we got with Johnny and Sue's relationship.