Fantastic Four (Josh Trank)

[Dukefrukem]

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[Dukefrukem]

TGM you saw it??

[Ezee E]

So, is the Cronenberg-vibe from watching the movie?

[TGM]

TGM you saw it??

Yeah. It's a very mild yay. I don't really have any kind of strong feelings for it one way or the other, but I didn't hate it, either. I thought it was better than the other 2, though that's admittedly not a hard feat to achieve. Very much feels like a typical early 2000s comic book movie, though.

[Dukefrukem]

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer will have had a better opening weekend than this.

[Ivan Drago]

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer will have had a better opening weekend than this.

Until the worldwide box office revenue comes in and bails it out.

[number8]

Until the worldwide box office revenue comes in and bails it out.

Nope.

"The movie also stumbles overseas for one of the lowest global starts in history for a big-budget superhero movie" (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/box-office-fantastic-four-flops-814123)

[Ezee E]

With an undesired remake, could the same happen again with the 3rd Spider-Man in less than two decades?

[Dukefrukem]

I wonder if the X-Men crossover will ever happen now.

[Ezee E]

Best is to just get rid of the Brood, and throw in the Xenomorph for the ultimate crossover.

[TGM]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ol2rzuRDAE

[Stay Puft]

The studio clearly did not care here, or simply never had a clue. What an utter waste of time.

You can turn the third act into a drinking game where you take a shot every time you spot an insert from studio mandated reshoots. They usually involve things like e.g. a close-up of Mr. Fantastic delivering woefully poor line readings of dialogue that explains the plot as it's happening.

But at the same time this was probably just a bad direction to take this franchise. The whole thing is bad ideas applied like hotfixes to that first bad idea.

[Stay Puft]

What an utter waste of time.

I'm strangely still thinking about this, though. Like, I can't get out of my head just how fucking weird this whole thing was. How did this happen?

Philip Glass worked on this. There was Philip Glass music. Tim Heidecker is in this movie.

I mean mostly it's boring and dumb but it's also inexplicable in that wonderful way only a Hollywood studio trainwreck can be.

[Ivan Drago]

There's ONE scene that's incredible in the middle of the movie, and it's probably the only remnant of Josh Trank's original vision. But it's sandwiched by a dull first half, flat dialogue, and yet another butchering of Dr. Doom. The Latveria easter egg, the ONE delivery of 'It's clobberin' time', and what little attempts there are at humor were all cringeworthy ("I am SO putting this on Instagram"), the characters have barely a shred of personality or development, and it just wastes the talent of everyone involved. Good lord, this was bad.

[Ezee E]

There's ONE scene that's incredible in the middle of the movie, and it's probably the only remnant of Josh Trank's original vision. But it's sandwiched by a dull first half, flat dialogue, and yet another butchering of Dr. Doom. The Latveria easter egg, the ONE delivery of 'It's clobberin' time', and what little attempts there are at humor were all cringeworthy ("I am SO putting this on Instagram"), the characters have barely a shred of personality or development, and it just wastes the talent of everyone involved. Good lord, this was bad.

What's the scene?

[Ivan Drago]

What's the scene?

When they return from Planet Zero and discover that they've transformed. It literally looks and feels like something out of a horror movie. Too bad it lasts for all of five or ten minutes before a massive time jump to the final act of the movie.

[number8]

That's the one scene that everyone is praising. Kind of ironic, because before this came out Trank was talking about wanting to make this as a horror movie and people were put off by the idea of a dark and frightening Fantastic Four. So they softened the movie with a ton of reshoots, and that aspect is what most people liked.

There's a lesson there about half-assing something. If you're gonna do something controversial, commit to the controversy. Trying to reach a compromise rarely ends well.

[number8]

I don't think the article is online yet, but the latest Entertainment Weekly has a piece on the chronology of the production breaking down based on the testimony of 9 people involved in the film.

[Skitch]

Please post asap. So curious about this production.

[Dukefrukem]

Man, the first 2/3 of the movie is pretty decent. It's after that where stuff falls off the tracks as everyone above says. The reshoots with Kate Mara's blonder wig was reallllllly distracting. Dr Doom wants to destroy the Earth why? He builds a device out of rocks? He has what kind of powers? So many things unexplained.

[EvilShoe]

This was surprisingly watchable in that "how did this get made" way, if bad overall.

I didn't really mind it for the first two acts to be honest. The understated tone of it all kind of works in its favour.

Then we get to the third act and conflict is set up, resolved, sequel set up. It's just such a bizarre mishmash of tones, and the plot kind of amounts to nothing.

[Dukefrukem]

Sequel has been removed from Fox’s lineup of scheduled releases. (very very quietly)

[TGM]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkFEyZL9f_M

[Skitch]

I'll say this, I'm more likely to rewatch this than Tim Story's FF movies.

[Dukefrukem]

I'll say this, I'm more likely to rewatch this than Tim Story's FF movies.

Not me.

[Skitch]

http://i.imgur.com/RSdUBdG.jpg

[Dukefrukem]

Still would watch.

[Grouchy]

I quit this movie before it was over. It just didn't seem worth the effort.

The only thing I found mildly amusing about it was the Franklin Richards method of convincing people to do stuff - just stare at them in the eyes and very gravely state what you want them to do for you. Works all the time.

[Henry Gale]

Finally watched it because it was on Netflix and I felt like I had to simply get it out of the way at some point to end whatever curiosity I had about it all, but wow, this thing just gets worse and worse as it goes, doesn't it?

It goes from mildly stilted but at least '80s/'90s kid-movie sweet with the childhood versions of Reed and Grimm, then we catch up with them and the likeable Storm family, then.... it mainly becomes a quickly defeating game of "Spot The Re-Shoots!" with Mara's platinum blonde wig and Jordan's Creed 'stache as the most key signifiers.

Agree with you guys on the "horror" scene in the middle of them first discovering their powers being compellingly unsettling, and the thing that perked up my interest very briefly before the "1 Year Later" card showed up to bring my excitement right back down to nil. At that inter-dimensional trip happens at the halfway point. Also, say what you will about Story's terrible '05 movie, but it got right to it from the get-go.

The lack of use of the characters' powers would be one thing if the finished product felt like it maintained anything developing their personalities otherwise. The only semblance of an attempt at noticeable conflict and at least the beginning of an arc is with Grimm, but then he's just kinda cool with everything after a while(?)

Not even an fascinating mess like so many other notorious disasters like this often are to watch. It's just clearly a bunch of different perspectives of commerce and creativity that were never on the same page, desperately/reluctantly attempted to be dismantled and salvaged as something that simply had some discernible beginning, middle and end without any personality, meaty storytelling or even visual traction to engage anyone at all.

Some stuff happens, and then it stops happening. It feels like an essay a student did an incomplete rush job on, but had to hand in something because it was worth too much to not give in anything at all. It technically fits the criteria and the structure, but there's no point of view to even judge.

At least we have The Incredibles until Marvel Studios gets the rights to this back and makes any even mildly compelling version of these characters look effortless.

[TGM]

A year later, and yeah, I probably shoulda given this a nay. I suppose I was trying to be lenient on it, since I could relate to Josh Trank's frustration with having the project taken away from him, and didn't want to add to the hate train at the time. But yeah, anytime I've brought this movie up in conversation since, it's always been in a negative light, and really, deservedly so at that.

And I also think that's sorta the difference between something like this or Suicide Squad, where that movie's director, David Ayer, is doing the opposite of Trank and jumping to the defense of WB fucking with his movie, playing the good soldier and even saying that the butchered theatrical version is that movie's director's cut. And the thing is, I can see why he would do that, sure. But, it also shows to me that he clearly doesn't have any respect for his own movie. And so, if he doesn't even respect it, well then why the hell should I?

So yeah, I suppose my yay a year ago was more in support of Trank's passion for the project, even if the similarly butchered finished product ended up a complete and utter mess.

[Dukefrukem]

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In addition to Annihilus and the Negative Zone, we had Doctor Doom declaring war against the civilized world, the Mole Man unleashing a 60 foot genetically-engineered monster in downtown Manhattan, a commando raid on the Baxter Foundation, a Saving Private Ryan-style finale pitting our heroes against an army of Doombots in war-torn Latveria, and a post-credit teaser featuring Galactus and the Silver Surfer destroying an entire planet. We had monsters and aliens and Fantasticars and a cute spherical H.E.R.B.I.E. robot that was basically BB-8 two years before BB-8 ever existed. And if you think all of that sounds great...well, yeah, we did, too. The problem was, it would have also been massively, MASSIVELY expensive.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-original-plan-for-josh-tranks-fantastic-four-sounds-1785344574

[Irish]

omg, duke! this guy!

*cue furious rant about another rando screenwriter*