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[[quoteright:340:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/340px-Ffmovie1994_1602.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:340:The Fantastic... [[{{Pun}} Four-gotten]]?]]
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In 1992, The Constantin Film production company held the film rights to the ''Comicbook/FantasticFour'' comic book, but they were about to lose said film rights unless they began production by December of that year. Since both the budget and the technology necessary for such a venture were lacking at the time, they instead opted to do a ''very'' low-budget film produced by Creator/RogerCorman and directed by journeyman music video director [[http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0766020/reference Oley Sassone]]; this was done as an AshcanCopy to maintain the rights, and it was never released in theaters or any home media. However, a release date was set for 1994 and the cast and crew were told the film would be released. Although Creator/StanLee says that it was never intended to be released, Corman and producer Bernd Eichinger claim that they ''did'' plan to release it, but Marvel executive Avi Arad, fearing that it would cheapen the franchise, bought the film for the amount of money Constantin spent making it and ordered all prints destroyed.

According to some fans and critics who got their hands on the movie (circulated via bootleg video at comic-cons and such), not getting released was the best thing about it (though the Thing's costume is also considered a rare high point). Other viewers exhibit rabid devotion to it and demand an official DVD release. Most people (outside of ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment'' fans) are unaware that the film even exists.

You can see the movie on Website/YouTube [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrbFLJHeX8w here]]. More information can be found [[http://www.teako170.com/ffmovie.html here]] on a website that goes behind-the-scenes into its production. Overviews of the film can be found [[https://web.archive.org/web/20051206011900/http://www.agonybooth.com/fantastic_4/ here]] from Website/TheAgonyBooth or [[http://www.i-mockery.com/minimocks/fantastic-four/ here]] at Website/IMockery.

Not to be confused with [[Film/FantasticFourDuology the 2005-07 duology]] or [[Film/FantasticFour2015 the 2015 film]] made by Creator/TwentiethCenturyFox (on which Constantin also produced). Or the inevitable Creator/MarvelStudios-produced film, set to be a part of the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse.

The documentary created in 2015, called ''Doomed! The Untold Story of Roger Corman's The Fantastic Four'', gives these details and much more.

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!!This film provides examples of:

* AbortedArc: There was a subplot about Thing coping with his new form, but this is put to a halt when Alicia Masters is kidnapped.
* ActuallyADoombot: Doom seems like one, or else his gloves are living beings.
* AdaptationOriginConnection:
** Doom accidentally gives the four their powers with his Colossus Ray experiment. Oddly enough, a similar thing would happen in both the 2005-07 and 2015 films, albeit the other way around (the FF's experiment that gave them their powers also gave Doom his).
** The accident that disfigured Victor back in college (and forced him to wear his iconic mask) was an earlier attempt at the same experiment that would later give the Fantastic Four their powers.
* AdaptationalVillainy: This version of Dr Doom has none of the positive qualities of his comics counterpart.
* AlternateContinuity: The film is set its own distinct continuity from the comics and later live action movies, being designated Earth-94000 in the Marvel multiverse.
* AllYourPowersCombined: Doctor Doom's brilliant plan involves taking the team's powers and adding them to his own.
* ArtisticLicensePhysics: Doom's giant laser oddly moves much ''slower'' than light speed, taking several minutes to reach its target, when, in reality, traveling at light speed to the opposite of the planet would only take about 1/15 of a second. And one can't just say we're seeing it in slow mo as the Human Torch is able to ''outrun it and intercept it''. There's also the problem of how a laser could go around corners.
* TheCameo: He is hard to make out through the VHS bootleg fuzziness, but the professor who tells the class to "Bring your imaginations" to the viewing of Colossus (no, not [[Film/Deadpool2016 that one]]) as it passes by is ''Film/PoliceAcademy'''s own [[DaChief Commandant Lassard]] himself, George Gaynes.
* ComicBookMoviesDontUseCodenames: Downplayed, since Doctor Doom is only ever referred to as just "Doom". Also his real name is only ever given as "Victor" leaving off his surname of "von Doom", presumably since the Fantastic Four don't realize that Victor and Doom are the same man until just before the climax, and the StevenUlyssesPerhero trope would've made it rather obvious.
* {{Cyborg}}: Doom is implied to be one.
* DisneyVillainDeath: Happens to Doom at the end.
* DisabilitySuperpower: Alicia Masters is blind but when Ben Grimm bumps into her, she can "sense" that he feels sorry about it. Sure, she has no super powers to speak of and Ben did get through telling her how sorry he was, her blindness just gives her that ability to sense peoples' emotions somehow.
* DistractedByTheSexy: Reed tries to tell Johnny that it is too dangerous for him and Sue to go to space with them until he sees Sue for the first time in years. She's apparently sexy enough for him to lose his train of thought and abandon reason all together.
* DullSurprise: Reed [[http://media.agonybooth.com/images/articles/The_Fantastic_Four_1993/inspace4.jpg doesn't seem to react at all]] during the scene where the Four are irradiated, as opposed to the [[http://media.agonybooth.com/images/articles/The_Fantastic_Four_1993/inspace1.jpg rather]] [[http://media.agonybooth.com/images/articles/The_Fantastic_Four_1993/inspace2.jpg exaggerated]] [[http://media.agonybooth.com/images/articles/The_Fantastic_Four_1993/inspace3.jpg reactions]] of the other three.
* EvilLaugh: Doom's laugh is so epic that it appears in the background of a scene that has nothing to do with him, and even follows him to his death.
* {{Expy}}: The Jeweler is without question supposed to be the Mole Man. They couldn't use the original name due to rights issues.
* GenericDoomsdayVillain: Doom.
* TheGrotesque: The Thing.
* HeadBob: Dr. Doom has a severe case of this.
* IntergenerationalFriendship: Reed and Ben are college students and apparently good friends with Johnny and Sue, who haven't even hit puberty yet.
%%* TheJailbaitWait: Reed apparently did this for Sue.
* LargeHam:
** Joseph Culp's performance as Doctor Doom. Strangely, as the Agony Booth's review notes, Culp actually gives a sinister, understated performance in the early sections of the film, only to go batshit insane about half an hour in... Which, to the film's credit, is absolutely right for Doom.
** Reed's teacher at the start of the film is extremely enthusiastic about the speed of light.
* LostEpisode: Lost ''movie''. Well, it was supposed to be lost.
* LoveAtFirstSight: Ben and Alicia. Well, love at first touch in the latter's case since she's blind.
* ManlyTears: Reed starts to bawl when the ER doctor tells him that Victor's burns "were too severe".
* MayDecemberRomance: Reed's relationship with Sue should be this, although they don't look that much different in age once she grows up.
* MilkingTheGiantCow: Doctor Doom gestures with no shame, even punctuating "you have twelve hours" by writing "12" with his fingers! (Some fans have pointed out that this kind of makes sense, as it would be in-character for Doom to think everyone else is too stupid to understand him and have to spell everything out for them)
* MoodWhiplash:
** The movie is campy and owes a lot to [[Series/Batman1966 the Adam West version of Batman]], but we still see a surprisingly violent shootout between the Jeweler's men and Doom's.
** When Ben wanders the streets, it's a surprisingly dark and depressing scene that might seem appropriate in some gritty [=1970s=] drama.
* PersonalityPowers: While this has always been the case with the Fantastic Four, in this movie Reed comes to believe that it's the actual cause for their specific powers, saying that the Colossus comet had "touched our psyche".
* PrecociousCrush: Sue had one on Reed when she was younger. It developed into a relationship years later.
* ReplacedWithReplica: The Jeweler swaps the real diamond our heroes plan to use in their spaceship with a fake, intending to give it to the woman he's stalking. The fake diamond creates the spaceship accident that transforms our heroes. The weird part is that the "fake" one sparkles and the "real" one doesn't.
* ShoutOut:
** Believe it or not, the scene in which Sue grabs the zero-g pen while in space was obviously a direct homage of ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey''.
** Then there's the line [[Series/Batman1966 "Holy Freud, Batman."]]
** It may not have been on purpose but when Reed sees Sue for the first time since she grew up, it is almost identical to the shot in ''Film/BlueVelvet'' in which the protagonist meets his love interest. Creator/DavidLynch used the same shot in ''Film/{{Eraserhead}}''.
** The sequence with the Human Torch protecting New York from Doctor Doom's "laser" is either this or an outright plagiarism of the first of the WesternAnimation/SupermanTheatricalCartoons, in which Superman likewise beats back a mad scientist's death ray he was using to try to destroy Metropolis.
* SparedByTheAdaptation: Mrs. Storm, who in the comics died when Sue and Johnny were relatively young, is depicted as still being alive when the Four have their accident. Oddly enough their father, who ''was'' alive (albeit in prison) during the Four's early career, isn't seen or mentioned at any point in the film.
* SpitefulSuicide: [[spoiler:At the end, Dr. Doom chooses to fall to his death rather than give Reed the satisfaction of beating him.]]
* StalkerWithACrush:
** Alicia and Ben both [[InstantSeduction instantly fall in love]] when they bump into each other. They don't even say their names. Alicia immediately goes home and sculpts Ben's face and is even seen licking some of the clay from her fingertips.
** Likewise, the Jeweler has apparently been stalking her and falls in love with her.
* TakeMyHand: Even in his moment of victory, Richards lacks the courage to deliver the final blow.
* ThreatBackfire: The Jeweler tries to get Dr. Doom to back off by threatening to kill Alicia. Doom, who has never even heard of her before and has no particular reason to care whether she lives or dies, is not impressed.
* TitleDrop: Mrs. Storm does it with enthusiasm and little explanation.
* TruerToTheText: Perhaps ironically, aside from a few artistic licenses,[[labelnote:*]]such as Doom accidentally giving the four their powers in an experiment, which in itself seems ironically like a reversal of what would happen in both the 2005-07 and 2015 films, in which the four get their powers in an experiment they make that also gave Doom his,[[/labelnote]] this film is more faithful to the Fantastic Four comics than any of the officially-released films that followed.
* TwoDecadesBehind:
** If it wasn't for the CG effects for the Human Torch, you'd believe that this movie was straight from the 70's considering its low production values [[note]]not helped by the fact that the movie was ripped from a low quality copy of the final cut[[/note]]. This movie was actually made in ''1994'', a full year after ''Film/JurassicPark'' was released.
** The space suits that the group wear vaguely resemble early space suits worn by astronauts in the early '60s. At the time of this film's production space suits were given a drastically different re-design to allow for safer travel in space.
** The footage of the house blowing up to establish the power of Dr. Doom's laser cannon is StockFootage of a house being obliterated by an atomic bomb from 1955. This would have been especially obvious to '90s audiences given the clip's notoriety in the media during the Cold War.
* UrbanLegend: Rumor has it that Marvel bought the film and locked the master copy in a vault so it would never see the light of day. Other accounts claim that Avi Arad [[KillItWithFire burned the negatives himself]].
* WasOnceAMan: Doom feels this way.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The Jeweler was mostly responsible for the Fantastic Four's transformation (long story) and kidnapped Thing's girlfriend, yet most of the main characters never meet him. He simply [[VillainExitStageLeft walks off camera]] in a scene with Dr. Doom and is never seen or mentioned again.
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