Are Superhero films dying?

[Ryujin]

This is very blunt but also I don't think you're really wrong, fundamentally.

The issue with the FF, which you simplify to "bad" is that it's outdated and irrelevant to almost everyone, and the characters aren't very relatable nor are they cool. Even where they approach relatability (Ben Grimm/The "rock hard" Thing - their words not mine lol), the same sort of thing has been done better by a huge number of characters. Ben Grimm is pretty low on the totem pole of "Oh woe is me, I got turned into a scary thing" characters. Mr Fantastic is big in Marvel, but how many smug, superior white men super-scientists have we seen as heroes or villains? I think a lot of his dialogue, if unattributed, would be very hard to distinguish from Tony Stark or even Dr Strange or even certain villains. Plus in the comic he's kind of awful. Human Torch is just yet another young male show-off with some issues about recklessness, and a particularly boring power set. The Invisible Woman has interesting but bizarre powers (invisibility AND force-fields - you can link them by making the invisibility being bending light with forcefields of course), but doesn't have a terribly clear personality because Lee wrote her essentially as one of the first "girl power" characters - literally he meant for the others to gradually realize that she was actually the most powerful of them all. Which was a bold move in the 1960s, but, like par for the course in the 2020s (Captain Marvel being probably the straight-up most powerful hero in Marvel, so long as we keep the godawful Sentinel off the table - Hulk and Thor are certainly somewhat comparable, but you get the point).

I swear to god the whole conception of the team was basically Stan Lee pranking people by making 1960s cultural stereotypes into actual characters, but that's a whole other discussion.

Dr Doom is a 1960/1970s icon, and whilst he looks ridiculous, he oozes 1960s style and has a wild vibe and completely insane powers (he's a wizard, seriously). But whilst many nerds adore this, I think most audiences, seeing an "faithful" Dr Doom played straight are going to be pretty "LOL???!?". Hence the awful versions of Dr Doom that we got in both the recent movies, where they where they managed to just create Dooms guaranteed to annoy anyone who liked the actual Doom, but also not at all compelling, just generic supervillains.

So yeah.

I did see one suggestion on the internet which could work, which is to make the movie a 1960s period piece for like, 30-75% of it (dangerously treading on Incredibles territory of course so I'd suggest a less stylized take on the 1960s), and then have Doom or Reed do something which pull them all into the present day, irrevocably (with magic or science respectively), then have it become a sort of "fish out of water" quasi-comedy as everyone, including Doom, has to adjust to the new reality and find ways to fit in, and probably get into unfortunate situations with existing heroes/villains.

The FF characters, while stand-ins for the '50s/'60s nuclear family, are even bigger stereotypes than you might realize. Mr. Fantastic is trying to keep all of his many balls in the air, so becomes able to stretch in order to do everything at once. While Reed is doing this, Susan fells ignored. She's invisible and becomes so. Johnny is a hot head, who never thinks before he acts. FLAME ON! And Ben? He's the stalwart friend and protector, that everyone depends on. Their rock.

 

[billd91]

The FF characters, while stand-ins for the '50s/'60s nuclear family, are even bigger stereotypes than you might realize. Mr. Fantastic is trying to keep all of his many balls in the air, so becomes able to stretch in order to do everything at once. While Reed is doing this, Susan fells ignored. She's invisible and becomes so. Johnny is a hot head, who never thinks before he acts. FLAME ON! And Ben? He's the stalwart friend and protector, that everyone depends on. Their rock.

To tie in to more tropes of the 50s and 60s, Reed is the lab coat wearing scientist and Sue is his younger/beautiful lab assistant. They're very much, at their origins, inspired by the media and politics around them. Notice that many of their early stories are also infused with the Cold War from trying to beat the Soviets in the space race to villains like the Red Ghost.

One bit of credit I will give the latest iteration of the movie - it based itself more on the Ultimate FF, which was a pretty good update of the idea of the FF. The movie was just executed... poorly in so many ways.

 

[Rabulias]

One bit of credit I will give the latest iteration of the movie - it based itself more on the Ultimate FF, which was a pretty good update of the idea of the FF. The movie was just executed... poorly in so many ways.

Most of the MCU has drawn inspiration from the Ultimates universe stories, so that was not a ground-breaking idea. And I agree about the outcome.

 

[Ryujin]

To tie in to more tropes of the 50s and 60s, Reed is the lab coat wearing scientist and Sue is his younger/beautiful lab assistant. They're very much, at their origins, inspired by the media and politics around them. Notice that many of their early stories are also infused with the Cold War from trying to beat the Soviets in the space race to villains like the Red Ghost.

One bit of credit I will give the latest iteration of the movie - it based itself more on the Ultimate FF, which was a pretty good update of the idea of the FF. The movie was just executed... poorly in so many ways.

From what I read it sounded like the original storyline was going to be far better than what we eventually got, but the producers felt that it needed a Big-Bad, and a suitably and nausiatingly sufficient CGI ending, instead. Cerebral doesn't work, to them, even if only minimally so.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The FF characters, while stand-ins for the '50s/'60s nuclear family, are even bigger stereotypes than you might realize. Mr. Fantastic is trying to keep all of his many balls in the air, so becomes able to stretch in order to do everything at once. While Reed is doing this, Susan fells ignored. She's invisible and becomes so. Johnny is a hot head, who never thinks before he acts. FLAME ON! And Ben? He's the stalwart friend and protector, that everyone depends on. Their rock.

This is spot on. Unfortunately it's difficult to capitalize on without risking making audiences groan at the obviousness of it, or going again into Pixar-ish territory, which we're already dangerously near. Yet if you move away from it, you potentially move away from the actual characters, and FWIW, MCU has mostly been pretty close to the comics, character personality wise, the biggest deviation I can immediately think of actually being Peter Parker, who had a rather different psychology to the previous Parkers (of comic and screen) until the events of the surprisingly decent No Way Home (instead of really being Your Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man, with grief/regret over losses he'd been involved with, and a determination to do better, he was more like a spider-themed Iron Man Jr, but that has now changed). I think with the FF you probably would have to move away a bit - going man-out-of-time/fish-out-of-water probably helps you there.

 

[Ryujin]

This is spot on. Unfortunately it's difficult to capitalize on without risking making audiences groan at the obviousness of it, or going again into Pixar-ish territory, which we're already dangerously near. Yet if you move away from it, you potentially move away from the actual characters, and FWIW, MCU has mostly been pretty close to the comics, character personality wise, the biggest deviation I can immediately think of actually being Peter Parker, who had a rather different psychology to the previous Parkers (of comic and screen) until the events of the surprisingly decent No Way Home (instead of really being Your Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man, with grief/regret over losses he'd been involved with, and a determination to do better, he was more like a spider-themed Iron Man Jr, but that has now changed). I think with the FF you probably would have to move away a bit - going man-out-of-time/fish-out-of-water probably helps you there.

The only way that I can see them doing a classic FF, and carrying it off, would be to set it in the late '60s. OK, not the only way. They could also Zoolander the crap out of it. Doubt they'd go that way though.

One of the reasons that the 2005 movie didn't work, was because they pretty much showed what I describe on-the-nose. The scenes where they discover their powers are cringingly spot on, rather than having any subtlety at all. Oh, there's also the thing about putting one of the most beautiful women in the world in blue contacts and a bleach job.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The only way that I can see them doing a classic FF, and carrying it off, would be to set it in the late '60s. OK, not the only way. They could also Zoolander the crap out of it. Doubt they'd go that way though.

One of the reasons that the 2005 movie didn't work, was because they pretty much showed what I describe on-the-nose. The scenes where they discover their powers are cringingly spot on, rather than having any subtlety at all. Oh, there's also the thing about putting one of the most beautiful women in the world in blue contacts and a bleach job.

I was trying to remember if that movie really did that or if I was just remembering it as if it did because I'd just read your post.

There was a lot of really weird low-level racism going on still in '00s cinema (not that there isn't now, but it's different), hence what they did to poor Jessica Alba. It does seem increasingly messed-up from a modern perspective (or even really like a 2015 perspective lol). It's one thing if a character's flaming red hair is a defining part of their look and linked into their whole deal or something but with Sue it's more like her hair colour doesn't matter so long as it doesn't clash with the FF uniform too hard. And looking at pictures the dye-job looks as awful as I remember, and also they didn't give Reed his greying temples, so like what the hell man, they can't even claim accuracy! Young Chris Evans was a good choice for Human Torch though. Man I'd forgotten how awful The Thing looked though.

 

[Clint_L]

IMO the Fantastic 4 comic is bad, and Doom always has been a rubbish villain with a ridiculous costume. So bad movie = faithful adaptation.

It's art and art is subjective and you are welcome to your objectively wrong opinion.

 

[Zaukrie]

I don't think the Marvels is going to do well, not because of the quality, but it isn't about DUUUUDES being cool. And I don't think it has the appeal of Barbie to overcome that.

 

[Ryujin]

It's art and art is subjective and you are welcome to your objectively wrong opinion.

I really enjoy a villain who chews the scenery. Would have loved to see Alan Rickman's take on a character like Doom.