Spoilers Fantastic Four (Spoilers)

[Staffan]

That "secretary" is actually the head of the Future Foundation. Not that you would really know that; I made the same assumption but looked it up before I posted it elsewhere. It is honestly wild how much of this movie is directly focused on the Fantastic Four and no one else.

Thank you. I mostly made the assumption because she seemed to mostly act as a liaison between the FF and everyone else (like Mycroft Holmes).

I wonder if she had a bigger role in some earlier version of the script because she was in the "big role" part of the credits before the mid-credits scene.

 

[Older Beholder]

It is honestly wild how much of this movie is directly focused on the Fantastic Four and no one else.

I'm not sure how wild it is to have a movie about the Fantastic Four focus on the Fantastic Four.

 

[Older Beholder]

I thought that showing the origin story in a TV show montage celebrating 4 yeas of the Fantastic Four was a good way to catch up the audience whilst also giving background to the world we're in.

 

[Staffan]

I'm not sure how wild it is to have a movie about the Fantastic Four focus on the Fantastic Four.

Sure, but there were pretty much no-one else. Everyone else was just background filler. Compare to, for example, Thor Ragnarok where you in addition to Thor have Loki, Valkyrie, Jeff Goldblum, the Hulk, Bruce Banner, Heimdall, Hela, Skurge, Doctor Strange, Odin, Krog, and probably some other people I can't recall because it's been a while.

I thought that showing the origin story in a TV show montage celebrating 4 yeas of the Fantastic Four was a good way to catch up the audience whilst also giving background to the world we're in.

It was OK, and probably the best way to do it. It's what I've encouraged in other cases: just jump in where the movie character are already established and have some backstory. And I thought the similar tack worked in Superman, so I'm not sure why it didn't work for me here. Perhaps because their pre-movie heroics were so great in nature, such as achieving world peace (except for Latveria), whereas for Superman it was just "He's been Supering for three years and is the most powerful known metahuman." Heck, with Superman we didn't just skip the background, but half the movie plot as well – when the movie starts, he already stopped Boravia's invasion and stuck their president to a cactus. So I can't really put my finger on why it felt flat in FF and not in Superman.

 

[Older Beholder]

Sure, but there were pretty much no-one else. Everyone else was just background filler. Compare to, for example, Thor Ragnarok where you in addition to Thor have Loki, Valkyrie, Jeff Goldblum, the Hulk, Bruce Banner, Heimdall, Hela, Skurge, Doctor Strange, Odin, Krog, and probably some other people I can't recall because it's been a while.

It was OK, and probably the best way to do it. It's what I've encouraged in other cases: just jump in where the movie character are already established and have some backstory. And I thought the similar tack worked in Superman, so I'm not sure why it didn't work for me here. Perhaps because their pre-movie heroics were so great in nature, such as achieving world peace (except for Latveria), whereas for Superman it was just "He's been Supering for three years and is the most powerful known metahuman." Heck, with Superman we didn't just skip the background, but half the movie plot as well – when the movie starts, he already stopped Boravia's invasion and stuck their president to a cactus. So I can't really put my finger on why it felt flat in FF and not in Superman.

Oops, hit the wrong button before replying...

Ragnarock had more characters, yeah, so did Love and Thunder.

Fantastic 4, Galactus, Silver Surfer, Moleman and Franklin felt like enough characters to tell a story for me.
The number of characters has nothing to do with how good a film is, although too many characters is a common complaint of Marvel films.

Personally I thought the opening of FF worked better than Superman, which to me felt like I'd missed half a movie when it started and relied too much on a having to read white text on snowy background to catch up.

 

[Staffan]

Oops, hit the wrong button before replying...

Fantastic 4, Galactus, Silver Surfer, Moleman and Franklin felt like enough characters to tell a story for me.
The number of characters has nothing to do with how good a film is, although too many characters is a common complaint of Marvel films.

Sure, it's enough to tell the story. But it's not enough to give it depth. It felt very much like the Four, except for Ben, were in their own isolated bubble and never dealt with anyone else outside of holding speeches.

 

[Older Beholder]

I just want to make another post about the production design.
I loved all the detail and (alternate) world building.

Those silver vinyl records looked so good!

This is also the first movie I can remember in a long time where I would have liked to have seen it on IMAX for Galactus.

 

[Older Beholder]

Sure, it's enough to tell the story. But it's not enough to give it depth. It felt very much like the Four, except for Ben, were in their own isolated bubble and never dealt with anyone else outside of holding speeches.

They are in an isolated bubble. That's the point.
They're disconnected from the world they protect. That is the depth.

We're shown this through both Johnny and Ben and they're interactions with people outside their circle. Johnny looks uncomfortable when Sue teases him about dating, because he yearns for space, and is thus attracted to the Surfer when she shows up.
Ben going back to his old neighbourhood and talking to Natasha Lyonne while minimal, still does a huge amount of work in painting the picture of what they're going through. Having this is the main (or only) interaction of our heroes with their past lives only serves to highlight it.

We're shown, not told that the accident in space that gave them their powers has also isolated them. This is also important as it speaks to the closeness and family aspects of the four characters.
I agree that this film is laser focused on the fantastic four and little else, I just think that this is a strength of the film, not a weakness.

 

[Micah Sweet]

They are in an isolated bubble. That's the point.
They're disconnected from the world they protect. That is the depth.

We're shown this through both Johnny and Ben and they're interactions with people outside their circle. Johnny looks uncomfortable when Sue teases him about dating, because he yearns for space, and is thus attracted to the Surfer when she shows up.
Ben going back to his old neighbourhood and talking to Natasha Lyonne while minimal, still does a huge amount of work in painting the picture of what they're going through. Having this is the main (or only) interaction of our heroes with their past lives only serves to highlight it.

We're shown, not told that the accident in space that gave them their powers has also isolated them. This is also important as it speaks to the closeness and family aspects of the four characters.
I agree that this film is laser focused on the fantastic four and little else, I just think that this is a strength of the film, not a weakness.

Agreed. That world is pretty much entirely supporting and being supported by the FF. It looks just about everything about Earth-828 that's significantly different from our Earth, or the MCU, at the same time is a result of the Four. I can really see why someone like Doom would choose to isolate.

 

[Staffan]

I agree that this film is laser focused on the fantastic four and little else, I just think that this is a strength of the film, not a weakness.

Indeed, a matter of taste. I've generally been more into the soap aspects of ongoing comics and while the FF had less of this than the X-Men or Spider-Man, it's certainly been there. But it's wholly absent from this movie.