Fantastic Four reboot?

[Praetor]

That's almost like saying Rupert Everett & Nathan Lane shouldn't be cast in straight roles because they gay.

Erm - not really. This is a physical thing, not a mannerism thing.

Alba couldn't pull it off. At all.

I'd argue it's mostly because she's a bad actress, but finding an actress who actually looks the way the character has been presented would have probably helped.

I'm sorry, I'm not following. You'll have to explain to me what dying her hair blonde has to do with her acting skills.

For me, it's a distraction. If she at least looked the part, I believe audiences may have been more forgiving of a bad performance and it's also possible that an actress who looked the part might have had an easier time finding the role for herself. YMMV, of course.

 

[ManOnTheWave]

I think in order to do a decent FF film, someone has to go back to the books and figure out what was successful about them. The movies' choice of villains wasn't bad, but the execution was. Dr. Doom is a villain of operatic style with science fiction proportions, not a vain business man. Galactus is a god in Greek tradition, but on the cosmic scale, not a generic cloud monster. A good FF movie needs to be BIG. Otherworldly flights of fancy big.

 

[Praetor]

Agreed, ManOnTheWave.

I think also that totally ejecting the family aspect of the F4 is a mistake, since it was a part of Lee and Kirby's original concepts that seemed to work so well and give them such an identity - a bickering family who happens to be superheroes. It's not unlike changing Spidey into a popular guy with a lot of money, or the X-Men into rock stars. I'm not saying that it has to be a family friendly film, just that they as characters should act like a family.

I think the other thing that has to be given some thought is the origin. A scientist, his actress girlfriend, her brother, and a pilot get into a spaceship. Hurm. Sounds like an unfunny joke.

If you make Sue a scientist it gives her something to do but also in some ways undermines the neglectful attitude cycle that IMO works well for Reed towards Sue. Making Johnny co-pilot or similar works but then makes Sue seem even more unneccessary, unless the whole thing is a publicity stunt on Reed's part? "Prize-winning scientist Reed Richards is taking his actress girlfriend Sue Storm on his new spaceship to observe cosmic rays. Piloted by veteran test pilot Ben Grimm, and accompanied by Sue's brother, heart-throb copilot Johnny Storm." Maybe it could even be Sue's idea? Seems nicely 'Lost in Space' like and worthy of her.

I'm not terribly familiar with the Ultimate F4 beyond the notion that they were in some government think tank or something but that doesn't seem like the right way to go. There is a certain campy element to F4 that I believe can and must be subtly acknowleged for it to translate well to screen.

I think also that tying their origin to Doom's is a mistake. I prefer Doom's undoing be his own doing, and his being able to blame Reed for having warned him. Doom is for all intents and purposes the prototype for Darth Vader and should be treated as such - larger than life and regal, with his own bizarre sense of honor and justice. Even if they don't indicate that his mother is literally in Hell, perhaps it would be enough to suggest he feels he damned her to Hell, and what he does is his way of both achieving vengeance and making up for it?

I think the reason the first film felt so inferior, beyond the characterization mis-steps, was the pacing itself. It felt too slow. It would have been nice to have essentially run the plot faster, and jumped ahead more and have the F4 be more established heroes before their showdown with Doom.

 

[exodus]

I think in order to do a decent FF film, someone has to go back to the books and figure out what was successful about them. The movies' choice of villains wasn't bad, but the execution was. Dr. Doom is a villain of operatic style with science fiction proportions, not a vain business man. Galactus is a god in Greek tradition, but on the cosmic scale, not a generic cloud monster. A good FF movie needs to be BIG. Otherworldly flights of fancy big.

....but how exactly do you portray Galactus in such away?

What exactly does a "god" look like?

 

[ClayinCA]

I wonder if the rebooted Fantastic four movie will be more "Ultimate" based.

Oh, good Lord, I hope not - if they make Reed Richards a teenage genius, I'll be staying far, far away from this movie.

 

[ManOnTheWave]

....but how exactly do you portray Galactus in such away?

What exactly does a "god" look like?

I think you bite the bullet and try to make a giant man covered in technology look and sound awe inspiring. Which might be difficult to do. (Which is why we got a cloud monster in the first place.) But I do believe it could be pulled off by the right people.

 

[Praetor]

I think he seemed rather awe-inspiring in the cinema scenes from 'Ultimate Alliance.'

 

[darkwing_duck1]

How about Scarlett Johansson? And they don't even need to dye her hair. With her onboard, could they get Ryan Reynolds too?

Those are good ideas, actually.

Who would make a decent Dr. Doom though?

Johansson is out of the picture as she's been cast as Black Widow for Iron Man 2.

I thought the F4 themselves were VERY well cast in the first two, esp The Thing and Torch.

I didn't have any real problem with Doom's casting either, but if we simply MUST recast...hmmm...John Shea?

 

[Thrall]

Mr. Fantastic - Alexis Denisoff
Sue Richards - Scar Jo is out probably. Eh, Elisha Cuthbert then. She's Suizie Homemaker enough.
Doctor Doom - Hugo Weaving.
Galactus - Big guy with a purple blender on his head. Not a fucking cloud.

Keep Johnny, Alicia, and Thing though. They were perfectly cast.

 

[Aragorn]

Thrall, going by your avatar... have you considered Yvonne Strahovski as Sue?

 

[Thrall]

Thrall, going by your avatar... have you considered Yvonne Strahovski as Sue?

Excelsior! Sheer brilliance! Good idea.

Seeing Yvonne Strahovski in spandex is inspired.

 

[hyzmarca]

The FF origin is too cheesy to do right on film, so it is best to just ignore it, or only show it in an opening montage. Start it out in the middle, to keep the family feel. Make Sue the strong character that she is in modern continuity, rather than the weak character she was originally. Have Franklin and Valaria already around, but without any useful powers, thus playing up the family dynamics, with Dr. Doom serving as a bizarre combination of villain and godfather, simply because his affection for Sue and the kids almost equals his hatred for Reed.

For a villain, Annihilius. They haven't had any Negative Zone in the movies yet. Or maybe the Skrulls. Though, really, they should have Skrull secondary characters in positions of authority and save the invasion for the sequel.

 

[Captain Craig]

I'm so out of touch with current FF that I have no idea who Valaria is, off to Wiki for me it seems.

 

[Praetor]

The FF origin is too cheesy to do right on film, so it is best to just ignore it, or only show it in an opening montage. Start it out in the middle, to keep the family feel. Make Sue the strong character that she is in modern continuity, rather than the weak character she was originally. Have Franklin and Valaria already around, but without any useful powers, thus playing up the family dynamics, with Dr. Doom serving as a bizarre combination of villain and godfather, simply because his affection for Sue and the kids almost equals his hatred for Reed.

For a villain, Annihilius. They haven't had any Negative Zone in the movies yet. Or maybe the Skrulls. Though, really, they should have Skurll secondary characters in positions of authority and save the invasion for the squeal.

That could work, I think.

 

[CaptainCanada]

I'm so out of touch with current FF that I have no idea who Valaria is, off to Wiki for me it seems.

Valeria Richards, their second child. Her origin is unspeakably convoluted (spanning unrelated stories by three different writers from John Byrne in the 80s to Jeph Loeb & co. in the early 00s), but sufficed to say, she's now a few years old, and has super-intelligence.

Regarding the origin, definitely skip the origin. Their origin is fine (weird stuff happens in space, they get powers), but it's not a story in and of itself (indeed, their first story is mostly about them fighting the Mole Man), and you can cover the important parts in two minutes of exposition. Start the movie with the Fantastic Four as the Fantastic Four: world-famous science heroes led by Dr. Reed Richards, whose incredible inventions are transforming the globe.

 

[Chaos Descending]

Thrall, going by your avatar... have you considered Yvonne Strahovski as Sue?

Man, I wish I had thought of that! What a GREAT idea!

Well then can we get Yvonne Strahovski to play Sue this time around?

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

^Yeah, the origins are so silly & irrelevant that they should just be thrown away in an opening montage or something. "Blah blah blah Cosmic Rays blah blah..."

Both him and Reed had the same flaw of not showing of their genius. Reed seemed to average, he never came across as the man lost in his work. He didn't even speak as if he wa a genius, niether did Doom.

Yeah. Part of what made Gruffudd seem so weak in the film was that he wasn't even a particularly good scientist. I mean, a major, dunderheaded miscalculation on his part is what caused them all to get powers in the first place.

 

[hyzmarca]

Valeria von Doom was originally presented as the time-traveling future love-child of Sue and Dr. Doom, though the actual circumstances of this were left a mystery. Marvel took Chris Claremont off the Fantastic Four before he could tie up that particular plot thread and his replacement quickly retconned her and de-aged her.

Personally, I think that might be fun to play with in a serious Fantastic Four movie. Hints of a moment of weakness between Sue and Doom at a time when she and Reed were seperated, lingering questions that could be solved with a simple DNA test that no one has the guts to perform because they're all afraid of the possible results.

 

[CaptainCanada]

I don't think that would work very well, for no other reason than I can't see any scenario where Sue would decide to sleep with Doctor Doom.

 

[Dusty Ayres]

I don't see any need to do the Thing with CGI or mo-cap.

Easy for YOU to say, because you're not the one working under 20 lbs. of latex and spirit gum. But Chiklis is, and that wears on a person after a while. And what the other poster said about your hatred of CGI is right on the money-you're sounding like a old fogey who can't live without their precious silent films because that's all you know. Time to put up, or shut up.