"Fantastic Four - Right and Wrong." Topic

"In Cinemautopsy, we look back at a recent, high-profile failure and ask a simple question: What the hell happened? In this installment… the comic that launched Marvel Comics. A cast of beloved up-and-comers. One of the hottest young directors in Hollywood. A bold attempt to reinvent the superhero genre. What could possibly go wrong?

Many things. Many things could go wrong. And did…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Just seemed to have been made by people who had never read a Fantastic Four comic. Biggest waste of my money since Alexander!

The quick test of a Fantastic Four movie is to see what they've done with Doctor Doom. If the "creative" team running the movie think they can improve on the Lee & Kirby version of Victor von Doom, they probably won't get anything else right either.

The sad thing about that article is that even what they call the good points are things that turned me off to the movie. If I am going to a movie about a particular Intellectual Property with established characters I want to see THOSE characters, not some reimagined younger version of them. For the FF this means a couple of things.

Reed/Sue are something of a May/December romance. In the comics he is at least 15 or so years older.

Ben is about the same age as Reed.

Sue and Johnny are biological siblings. I know the article will call me closed minded, but suddenly switching the ethnicity of one half of a sibling pair is too jarring a change.

Victor Von Doom needs to be Victor Von Doom, Eastern European kingdom and all.

Once you try to reinvent all those things you are making a completely different movie. (which by itself COULD be good) Take note the best performing superhero movies are the ones staying as close as possible to the source materiel. You'd think someone other than Marvel/Disney would start to realize that. Instead in the constant need for creative reinvention Hollywood is killing the golden goose.

The Thing had no pants.

Dan Wideman II is absolutely correct. Hollywood wants to do a comic book story or a remake of an old movie or TV show because there is a built in fan base. Then don't anger that fan base by changing the characters. I did not go see FF precisely because of what Dan Wideman said.

If you want to make a movie similar to the Fantastic Four, then call it something else and I might go watch it. I might even enjoy it. But don't mess with beloved characters.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

Amen to Bunk and Dan.

The very same reasons I'm not a very big fan of the new Star Trek.