Did "Fantastic Four: First Steps" need more action?
For the record, I liked the film, but I've heard people say that the lack of repeat viewing is due to a lack of action in the film for the first act or so.
Obviously, they decided not to do the origin story for a third time, but I have noticed that when you have an MCU film that isn't an origin story, they tend to reintroduce the character with some sort of action sequence right away or early on (Dark World, Winter Soldier, Age of Ultron, Civil War, Guardians 2, Ragnarok, Black Panther, etc.)
They could have a badguy threatening the city and the Four showing up to stop him. This would've be a great opportunity to keep John Malkovich in the film, and show off Reed's stretching ability, which we barely see in the film.
What do you think?
Obviously, they decided not to do the origin story for a third time, but I have noticed that when you have an MCU film that isn't an origin story, they tend to reintroduce the character with some sort of action sequence right away or early on (Dark World, Winter Soldier, Age of Ultron, Civil War, Guardians 2, Ragnarok, Black Panther, etc.)
They could have a badguy threatening the city and the Four showing up to stop him. This would've be a great opportunity to keep John Malkovich in the film, and show off Reed's stretching ability, which we barely see in the film.
What do you think?
Commentaires
Id say both of those things wwre pretty surprising.
Now if youre saying you knew what aas gonna happen, like you knew they would live - yeah you can say that about any and all super hero movies.
That said I think it set a great baseline to build from and flexing their powers (especially thing and Johnny) is a wide open opportunity
It was just… boring
You're absolutely entitled to your opinion don't get me wrong...
But Frank bebe literally brought someone back from the dead.
How is that not showing?
And if you want more: Reed, established as the smartest man alive, both generally in the medium, and this film, who singlehandedly solved the Galactus problem in two different ways in a really short span of time was unable to detect what made the kid different despite running all kinds of tests.
That's more subtle but think of how mysterious and powerful the kids powers must be that Reed was able to not only understand a cosmic god like being in the very short time he encountered him, but also find TWO was to defeat him but was unable to detect anything from bebe despite multiple attempts.
I don't know what else you want other than him floating in the sky with cosmic glowing eyes and saying in a troublingly adult voice "to me my Galactus" 😅😂
Jokes aside, early Franklin s powers were always subtle and mysterious in his first appearances even as a teen the nature of his powers remain a mystery even to himself
I don’t know to articulate very well but that moment kinda left me thinking “…..are you fuckin serious? That’s the climax, a baby has the knowledge and power to resurrect his mother…”
It felt cheap and I was making fun of it to my friends. I did not feel any gravity or weight. I felt ripped off.
Easily the most boring marvel movie 2nd only to The Eternals. And I like that movie.
I feel absolutely the contrary but again that's my view.
To me it's impressive that a baby, with very little understanding of the world around him just instinctively resurrected his mother.
To me it's not about being earned because this ISN'T an adult. This isn't say a 20 year old who just got their powers resurrecting someone. That would absolutely not feel earned unless control of life and death was their only power. Because if it was one of many it'd feel over powerful and as you said not earned. It would feel like a deus ex machina.
The reason it did not feel like that for Franklin, to me at least, is because he's a baby, because he has no sense of the world. This is just the pure love and innocence of a child. It's a cute animal nudging their dead masters body affectionately without fully understanding what happened, it's a baby saying "mama" for the first time not fully understanding what it means. It's a massive demonstration of the almost limitless nature of his power because without effort, without much thought, he just did the thing. Implying for him it's the equivalent of a sneeze. Implying his power goes far far beyond that.
It doesn't feel cheap to me because the whole movie spent a lot of time demonstrating that a cosmic, god level being was willing to change course and target this child when typically he works purely on instinct and mostly very lazily, sending weaker beings (the surfer) to locate his meals. But even before being born, this being said "yup! I need that little burgeoning entity to be my successor" purely based on the energy he gives out.
So with that in mind, healing his mom, basically via a baby just going "nope I love you don't go" is not only justified by the whole narrative up to that point but also continues on the films values of family is strength, non violent approaches can be more powerful than any punch. These are the core values of the FF.
I also think it's why some disliked this film. Because they expected a punchy action film when they finally tried to do something that breaks from that mold and stands on its own as a new form of super hero team origin.
They just kept telling us he’s so important and telling us Galactus wants “the power cosmic” cool. I don’t care, let him have Franklin. You’ve given me no time with this child to care about him as a human being.
And RELYING on the inherit importance of a baby is what annoys me.
To each their own, I loved the aesthetic, some of the cinematography and even a little bit of the acting. I just didn’t enjoy the movie as a whole and wouldn’t rewatch it. And I rewatch all of em.
Your explanation for how they could show he was important was by showing bonding time with the family. But these are two different things. The way you want them to show his importance was how he’s important to the family. But the importance yore complaining they didn’t show is how he’s important to Galactus, the universe, the story, etc.
So which is it? Should they have shown how he was important to the family or how he was important to Galactus, etc? If the latter, how should they have shown that beyond what they already did?
They also just made him a kaiju who attacked 60s retro future NYC. It’s so overdone. Everyone has already seen that movie so many times. And they didn’t even do a good job at it.
As someone who has edited (short) films, I can assure you that everything is cut for a reason. Pacing is truly paramount to a film’s effectiveness, and that’s something that changes from the script, to filming, to editing. Something can work amazingly on the page, AND on set, but just not when you see it on the screen.
People mostly point to the idea that higher ups will try to get movies as short as possible so they can be in more theaters. Is that a factor? Maybe? But honestly everything we hear from behind the scenes points to Marvel being very hands off with this sort of thing. I’m more inclined to believe these things are cut down just to make it flow better.
It actually would have been cooler for them to take down a mId level baddy instead of doing a montage of them fighting a few enemies.
Not sure why they didn't do that. The movies you listed, especially Avengers AoU, would have been cool to have something similar in FF.
My guess is it’s more likely that for whatever reason, they didn’t think the action scene worked. Maybe the action was too campy looking with Reed fighting super smart orangutans. While I think hardcore FF fans would’ve loved the silly campy nature of it, I can also see Marvel being TERRIFIED of the internet and social media in 2025 where bullying is the norm, to make disparaging memes about it over and over.
FF didn’t seem to have much of that. The comics did a great job evolving Sue from an afterthought to a fully powered superhero, but here she was already there. Ben struggles with his loss of humanity and inability to connect until he meets Alicia but in the movie he doesn’t seem to have much inner turmoil at all. And Johnny is just…there to solve a language problem. Reed gets a bit more depth with his struggle to not already know the answers. Basically, it’s just a movie where…a bunch of stuff happens.
Personally I liked thunderbolts better because they at least attempted to talk about mental trauma and abuse and attempts to heal, and the characters had some evolution.
Anyway just my take. Enjoyable but not worth a rewatch
Galactus got compared a lot to Godzilla in Asian Markets...and yeah Big G doesn't really show his powers.
Ben really got screwed as he doesn't really struggle with inner turmoil and doesn't really show off in the fights.
It’s a well made Fantastic Four, but they need other folk to make them interesting. They’re a family of scientists that are also astronauts and explorers made family in marriage and friendship as well as functional adults, unlike the Incredibles which have the benefit of growing pains and societal pressures or The Impossibles from Venture Bros as burned out super heroes for storyline potential. Giving the team their 5th member was a good start but bounding it in aspects like the Power Cosmic or making the child a maguffin for future stories is kind of the burden of the MCU (I just hope it will go somewhere, like when Franklin wills himself to be a mutant or when his sister is finally born).
Then the movie slows down a lot and you're just waiting for Galactus to show up, while the Four mess around with their teleportation scheme.
I thought it needed less comedy, and more soft character moments. Some of the humor was good, but a lot of it could’ve been cut in order to get more character scenes scenes, especially for Ben, who was so underdeveloped. The core characterizations and dynamics were there, but just not fleshed out enough to be really satisfying. Reed didn’t do enough, IMO. And while Vanessa Kirby absolutely killed her performance, I also felt like Sue was edging into Mary Sue territory. I mean she did change her mindset a bit to be willing to risk Franklin to save the world, but it was pretty minor and too subtle in comparison to everyone else’s flaws and mindset changes.
There were parts of the third act that were very similar to the 2nd fantastic four movie when I feel they should have differed from it. For example maybe more action with them defeating Galactus' other heralds that he has in the comics. And I would have preferred Galactus to win, it would really set the tone for Doomsday and the stress on Reed.
It needed a secondary villain. Galactus doesn't really let The Thing get to do anything.
I think the movie they probably should have made would be the F4 fighting Red Ghost and Mole Man and stop them from doing an Evil Science thing. Doing Galactus and Silver Surfer again makes it too similar to **Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfe**r even if Galactus is a big man and Silver Surfer is a lady.
The action in the film was good. Could've had more of it, but it was acceptable. I guess it'll leave us hungry for more in the future. Apologies for my ranting. Just my 4 cents.
The four aren’t action heroes, they’re explorers and scientists.
the original Stan/Jack story was all about what if this family of super scientists that is all about how science can do anything encounters god?
and their answer to that is — nothing. they can’t do anything.
that is why the Watcher had to intervene.
and the Watcher stepped in not because he was impressed by their super science, but because for the first time in eons, he was impressed by their humanity.
hammering the point that — it isn’t about science or knowledge, it’s about humanity.
and they changed it, so now it’s not a story of man vs god, it’s a story of man vs monster, which is just… boring.
Punching and kicking won’t get you out of that. They have to be smart and figure shit out, and they all learn a little lesson at the end. It was perfect in that regard, and I’m really not a big fan of recent mcu (or really that much of past mcu)
In the overall arc of the multiverse it's a valuable story, I guess, although it could have been done in a far snappier way IMO. That talkshow host was great though, and Mole-Man was cool, and both those could have been used more - hopefully they get another chance.
The battle in Knowhere in Guardians
The battle in South Africa in Age of Ultron
So, no
I enjoyed it and rewatched it once it was streaming, but it’s just missing something to make it exciting
I couldn’t enjoy the movie because I feel like I don’t understand the universe. When the public turns on the team it’s like for two minutes before it resolved with a speech. When they want to bait galactus I didn’t even know how Galactus was going to pick up the baby. Could he even step foot on earth? Can he shrink himself down from and walk among us? I thought it was going to be a punchline that Galactus stays supersized.
It would have been more impactful if Galactus had won. "If I can't have the baby then I will have your world" *gulp* and the movie would still have the same outcome of the F4 escaping.
The whole plot would remain the same.
F4 prepares to teleport the world but Silver Surfer destroys them. F4 realizes they only have enough power to teleport themselves but still attempt to fight Galactus. During the fight F4 realizes they won't win and have to make the choice to save themselves.
They make the decision to teleport themselves and have Galactus win. Galactus devours their world and F4 still gets to escape.
That would have been way more impactful than having no one die at all.
Also, Earth needs the right distance from the sun to be habitable. Their teleporter was still a prototype. How could they guarantee Earth would be teleported to the perfect spot? Their original plan wouldn't have worked and everyone would have either burned or froze to death.