Fantastic Four Reboot

“fall in line more with a Cronenberg-ian science fiction tale of something horrible happening to your body and [it] transforming out of control”.

The problem is this leaves us with a team of four Ben Grimms. Ben's plight worked so well because he was surrounded by these three people who remained beautiful and glamorous and gained neat powers to boot while he became a grotesque monster. And yet he made the best from it, with a smile and a huge heart of gold. If you try and play that angle with the whole team, maybe you'd be better off trying a solo Thing movie.

What makes Reed, Johnny and Sue interesting is not the same thing that makes Ben interesting. Reed is the world's smartest man who still barely can keep things together, and needs his family for it, Johnny is the foolish youngster in constant selfdiscovery, and Sue is the young woman finding herself stronger than she'd ever have thought before, but unlike Ben's, those conflicts aren't born from a sense of being transformed into freaks, but from previously existing conditions that only happen to apply to their new powers. Reed particularly doesn't even need the powers to basically work as a character the same way; what makes him work is his brain and his quirks, and his responsibility to the team, not his elasticity. Ben is the only one whose story is that of a tragically mutated monster.

I sincerely doubt they care about any of that. We need drama and angst therefore all of them will resent their powers.

Johnny's powers were weird in the Ultimate comics when he thought they were killing him. He was actually shedding the layer of platelets that form his skin so that newer, better ones could grow in.

That was a one time thing, though.

edited 27th Jan '15 5:17:59 PM by Zeromaeus

Couldn't they still do Ben's thing about being a Golem while everyone else looked like their old selves and mix it with Cronenbergish stuff or whatnot?

To be fair, a super realistic take on Mr. Fantastic's power's would be just as disgusting and disturbing as the Thing's.

...I'm not the only one that noticed Thing is naked at the end, right?

And given that they're aiming for a more 'realistic' take on things, that's a problem.

At this point it probably would have been better if they'd just let Marvel have the rights to F4 back and just do whatever movie this...thing was supposed to be as its own, original, new franchise.

They could probably do away with most the problems people are complaining about right now if it wasn't trying to be passed off as a Fantastic 4 movie. Except even if it it's a half-way decent movie in it's own right, it's still going to have to content with people that want an actual Fantastic 4 movie, not some random superhero flick wrapped up in F4 packaging.

Doubly so given the job that Marvel is doing with its own movies.

But given the way people are already looking at this thing, it's probably only half a joke to say that it might actually be capable of making people look fondly upon the last take on the Fantastic 4 in some form.

I actually have that volume. It's pretty good stuff, actually. Johnny wound up naming their retrofitted space shuttle the "Awesome", and Thing smacked around a low-powered version of Annihilus after Annihilus tried to kill him and Richards by breaking their air supply only for Thing to discover he was pretty much as tough on the inside as he is on the outside.

edited 27th Jan '15 10:20:12 PM by TheSpaceJawa

Eh, the trailer looks a lot better than the Ant Man one, as far as first trailers go.

I'm hoping the movie's decent for sake of Kate Mara and Michael B. Jordan.

I'm going to have to disagree with that. The Ant-Man trailer didn't come across as so brooding and navel-gazing and actually ended with a joke because, y'know, Marvel realizes that the audience isn't going to take an ant-based superhero 1000% seriously.

edited 28th Jan '15 6:32:42 AM by spashthebandragon

I'm already looking at the crappy old FF movies fondly. They at least had a sense of humor.

I actually don't get the compulsion to compare this one with the Ant Man trailer. But since it is in fashion: Those are teasers. Teasers are supposed to create interest in the general audience. If I imagine I were part of said audience instead of someone who keeps up-to-date with the latest news about those movies either way (read: part of the crowd which already is interested in one way or another), and would be looking at those two teasers, the Ant-man trailer would tell me:

There is a movie coming out which is based on a superhero who can shrink. Ah, and apparently he used to be a criminal, but he want to do better for his daughter now. Oh, and now he is supposed to do some heist.

So, I would know the major selling points of the movie - special effects which involve shrinking, a heist, a father/daughter relationship and connected to the MCU. And then I would be either interested or not.

Now let's imagine I watch the Fantastic Four treaser. After that I know:

Okay...there are some guys. And some gal. And there is something science related. Wait a minute...Fantastic Four?

Not that the Star Wars teaser was that informative either, but at least it said: Look, cool star ship, cute new robert, laser sword, and we are totally getting back to the roots with this one.

edited 28th Jan '15 6:56:54 AM by Swanpride

"And if there was any doubt whatsoever, here's everyone's favorite starships with some TIE fighters shooting at it."

edited 28th Jan '15 9:19:07 AM by TheSpaceJawa

I heard this takes place in the Ultimate universe. Does this mean Wanda and Pietro are having sex?

While Hugh Jackman watches.

Remember, kids, Age of Ultron is the one in the fully incest-free continuity!

We hope.

As a Frozen fan, I'm already incredibly sick of sibling incest, and if WandaxPietro becomes a big thing on the internet, I'm going to scream (especially since it already has precedent in the Ultimate comics. *shudder*)

edited 28th Jan '15 7:20:04 PM by spashthebandragon

Well, Wanda is dead in the Ultimate universe, too, so unless we're adding necrophilia, too...

Don't give the internet any ideas!

People have gotten over death in the Ultimate universe. Not many, but some. Peter Parker did. Not that he's doing anything now that he's alive...

edited 28th Jan '15 8:52:22 PM by Zeromaeus

Still, death hardly means as much as it did in the earlier days when they claimed that when death was going to happen, it would stick.

Well, he's peddling off the Spidey mantle to some other schmuck so he can go on adventures with MJ or whatever. "Screw great responsibility, this random other kid's agreed to be Spider-Man for me! I'm free! Whoohoo!"

edited 28th Jan '15 9:02:04 PM by spashthebandragon

Wow, Ultimate Spider-man really did go downill after Ultimatum, didn't it? Thank god I stopped reading at Ultimatum. Shame, it was the only good part of the Ultimate universe. I tried Ultimate FF and was... Repelled.

Personally, I think it jumped the shark with Carnage-Gwen.

Oh thank god, so it's not me. That is EXACTLY the place where I knew Ultimate Spider-man was sucking. I was just using Ultimatum as the generic point because it's the thing everybody knows about.

The switch to a cruddier artist also didn't help.

By the way, considering I hear the Fantastic Four reboot is based on the Ultimate version, what did you find so repelling about it?

edited 29th Jan '15 4:52:37 AM by spashthebandragon

It's been year read it. Many years. If I recall I was not a fan of the the characterizations, the Mad Thinker volume sort of made me run In the opposite direction. Oh, and some time after I stopped trying to read it I learned that Ultimate FF is the reason why Marvel Zombies exists so they basically made me their enemy that day.