Fantastic Four reboot-- Casting, Rumors, Pix, ect;

[Nerys Myk]

stj wrote:

---

If one identical twin was born with magnetic or telepathic powers but the other one wasn't, you'd just let it go?

With twins one always get superspeed. The other gets hex powers.

[Dream]

Evans and Chiklis were very good as Torch and Thing.

Unfortunately, everything else about the first two FF movies were terrible. Jessica Alba was completely miscast as Sue. That Nip/Tuck guy as Doom was also awful.

[Emh]

Here's hoping that not only the writing is better but so is the casting. I still can't believe they cast Jessica Alba as Sue.

[Skywalker]

Christopher wrote:

---

I disagree. The Thing makeup was the most effective thing about the previous movies. Sure, it didn't match the absurdly oversized version of the character in the comics today, but it looked great, like an Alex Ross painting from Marvels brought to life. I'll grant that performance capture has gotten to the point where it can be reasonably convincing, but there's no reason to use it when a real live human being can still play the part just as well. If they want to make him bigger, they can digitally alter his size in post-production as they did with Chris Evans's torso in Captain America.

A real live human being does play the part in motion capture. At least the type I'm thinking of, i.e. Bill Nighy as Davy Jones in Pirates of the Caribbean.

[Trekker4747]

Really, I think Chiklis as The Thing was perfectly cast and almost perfectly executed. I've no problem with the "guy in a suit" thing with The Thing but in the movie it didn't look quiet right. The colors in the movie were too bright and too perfect and not natural looking at all so The Thing looked less like a walking hulk of rock and more like partly melted Payday bar.

[Mr. Adventure]

I think Fox should cast only Foxs in the reboot.

Matthew Fox as Reed
Megan Fox as Susan
Freddie Fox as Johnny
Vivica A. Fox as Alicia
and Special Guest Star Michael J. Fox as the voice of The Thing

[Samuel Walters]

What the Fox are you smoking?

[Dantheman]

Christopher wrote:

---

As for the source of their powers, I'm surprised that so many commenters here would expect them to use the old cosmic-ray origin. Previous Marvel movies have updated the characters' origins -- Hulk was created by a supersoldier formula (or nanotech in the Ang Lee version), Spidey was created by genetically engineered spiders rather than irradiated ones, etc. The previous FF movies replaced the "cosmic rays" with some sort of exotic space storm. I'm sure the new version will find its own way of updating the technobabble.

IIRC, the Ultimate version of the Fantastic Four (and Dr. Doom) got their powers from a teleportation accident that had them briefly exposed to another dimension. It's very complicated.

[Christopher]

Hanukkah Solo wrote:

---

A real live human being does play the part in motion capture.

I'm aware of that, of course. Many human beings are involved, including the performer, the character designer, and the animators. I just resist the kneejerk attitude that CGI is always preferable to conventional effects like miniatures or prosthetics. There are things that CGI is good for and things that prosthetics are good for. I see visual effects as an art form, and I've never seen the logic in thinking that one artistic technique should replace another rather than coexisting with it.

Trekker4747 wrote:

---

Really, I think Chiklis as The Thing was perfectly cast and almost perfectly executed. I've no problem with the "guy in a suit" thing with The Thing but in the movie it didn't look quiet right. The colors in the movie were too bright and too perfect and not natural looking at all so The Thing looked less like a walking hulk of rock and more like partly melted Payday bar.

I still say he looked like an Alex Ross painting brought to life, and thus it worked marvelously.

[Trekker4747]

Christopher wrote:

---

I'm aware of that, of course. Many human beings are involved, including the performer, the character designer, and the animators. I just resist the kneejerk attitude that CGI is always preferable to conventional effects like miniatures or prosthetics. There are things that CGI is good for and things that prosthetics are good for. I see visual effects as an art form, and I've never seen the logic in thinking that one artistic technique should replace another rather than coexisting with it.

I still say he looked like an Alex Ross painting brought to life, and thus it worked marvelously.

I dunno, different strokes. The colors and lighting were generally wrong in the F4 movies all over the place giving everything to much of a bright, non-realistic, too-colorful look. Yeah, I suppose is meant to go with the tone of the comic and the look of a comic but it didn't translate well on screen for me. The Thing looked too much like a costume and not much like, well, a chunk of rock.

[Skywalker]

Christopher wrote:

---

I'm aware of that, of course. Many human beings are involved, including the performer, the character designer, and the animators. I just resist the kneejerk attitude that CGI is always preferable to conventional effects like miniatures or prosthetics. There are things that CGI is good for and things that prosthetics are good for. I see visual effects as an art form, and I've never seen the logic in thinking that one artistic technique should replace another rather than coexisting with it.

There's nothing kneejerk about it. Using mocap for the Thing would allow for more flexibility on the filmmakers' part, and allow them to accomplish more with the character in action. The Thing looked decent in the first two movies, but I'm going to have to disagree with you on his looking like an Alex Ross painting come to life. In the Ross painting, the Thing looks like he's made of rock (or whatever rock-like substance he is, I can't remember now). In the movies I thought he looked like he was made of rubber. But people see things differently, so I don't see much use in arguing about it.

[Christopher]

Well, maybe I'm being too resistant to change. I liked the prosthetic Thing in the previous movies because CGI at the time was not up to portraying a basically human character as realistically, especially if you wanted that character to deliver dialogue and convey a subtle performance effectively. But in the wake of Avatar and Rise of the Planet of the Apes, I suppose that's no longer the case, if the animation is done well enough.

And that's still the caveat with CGI to this day. Most people make this facile assumption that CGI can do anything more easily than conventional effects, but actually it's much harder to simulate real things convincingly in CG than with other methods, and it really only looks better if you have tons of time, money, and talent to put into it. Really good CG would be better than a rubber suit, but a rubber suit would be better than mediocre CG.

[Skywalker]

Christopher wrote:

---

Really good CG would be better than a rubber suit, but a rubber suit would be better than mediocre CG.

On that we can definitely agree.

[Shazam!]

Elfin Mischievous Humbug wrote:

---

Here's hoping that not only the writing is better but so is the casting. I still can't believe they cast Jessica Alba as Sue.

It surely goes down as the worst piece of casting of all time.

[stj]

If you didn't know who Jessica Alba was, her Sue Storm was okay.