Anthony Stokes on why people need to stop complaining about The Fantastic Four reboot….
I’ll never understand what pleases or displeases the geek community sometimes. In 2013, I was verbally assaulted for not being excited about Man of Steel. And those same fanboys were later upset that Superman killed somebody. Fanboys were clamoring for a Deadpool movie when they saw the test footage, until it was rumored to be in PG-13. “A Deadpool movie needs to be Rated R”, even though the test footage was PG-13. People have a bad habit of forming a singular thought of what a superhero should be and then when it goes against it they get upset. Sometimes you have to let go of preconceived notions.
A similar thing is happening with 20th Century Fox’s The Fantastic Four reboot. I don’t even understand why people care about this movie either way. The only reason I’m optimistic is because I think Josh Trank is a fantastic director and the cast they’ve assembled is incredible. Other than that, I couldn’t really care less one way or the other. But this reaction continues a trend that I’ve seen time and time again: Defending a comic book people don’t even read.
I saw somebody complain about how Star-Lord wasn’t really Star-Lord in Guardians of the Galaxy, but Chris Pratt in space. Fair enough, but is that really a bad thing? Sure people read Guardians after the movie was announced, but at the time of writing the script nobody really cared about Star-Lord. I have yet for anybody complaining about Iron Man 3’s treatment of the Mandarin to name me a comic the Mandarin was good in. And this is what’s happening with the Fantastic Four reboot.
It’s been rumored that Marvel plans on stopping printing on Fantastic Four comics but allowing the characters to show up in other books. This would be a way to preemptively try to run Fox’s reboot off the track. And honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if they did. I don’t know one person who reads Fantastic Four casually let alone big fans. Marvel probably saw Fantastic Four sales dwindling and decided to kill two birds with one stone. I don’t even understand how Fantastic Four gets mentioned among X-Men, Hulk, and Spider-Man as Marvel’s popular comics. If Fantastic Four is so great, how come nobody has been clamoring for a specific comic book run or character they want to see? Fans begged for a Mandarin in Iron Man, a Venom in Spider-Man 3, a World War Hulk solo film, but not one person has mentioned their favorite Fantastic Four comic book to be adapted. Because if we’re being honest Fantastic Four is not as good as Spider-Man or Hulk comics, so I’m all for whatever creative liberties Josh Trank wants to take with the movie. We’ve already had a traditional Fantastic Four movie. And it didn’t work out too well.
The complaints about The Fantastic Four movie are extremely trivial in my opinion and wouldn’t be an issue if it weren’t attached to this remake. I understand people don’t want their white characters turned black. Wait, actually no I don’t. If there was ever a character that could change races it is Johnny Storm. When you’re on fire I don’t think race matters. Furthermore, Michael B. Jordan is an incredible young talent and I think he’s perfect for playing Johnny Storm because he has charisma coming out of his ears. The rest of the cast is kind of young, but for the real Fantastic Four fans, the very few of you out there, the Ultimates Fantastic Four team was not much older than this cast. These are all pretty accomplished actors, two of whom have been acting since they were kids.
The thing that really bothers me is that people misconstrue every bit of information put out by the creative team about this movie. If I was Fox I wouldn’t let anybody do another interview until the movie is out. Somebody made comments about ” the characters have disabilities”. First off being disabled is not limited to mental disability, which is an incredibly offensive thought process. Secondly, a disability isn’t necessarily a bad thing and can actually be a gift. Third, what else would you call somebody with the initially uncontrollable ability to spontaneously combust? And then there are the rumors about the movie being found footage. What the producer meant, I’m pretty sure, was that it’d be gritty and have some shaky cam documentary style. Which is once again only a problem here because there have been several comic book movies to use this style in the past couple years. The Amazing Spider-Man, Iron Man, and The Avengers all have moments of shaky cam or first person. Man of Steel was full of whip zooms, so I don’t know why it’s a problem here with The Fantastic Four before we’ve seen any footage.
At least wait until we’ve seen a trailer to start judging a this movie. I’ve seen someone compare this to The Amazing Spider-Man in a negative way. How, when the movie isn’t even out yet? We haven’t even seen an official still yet, just pre-VFX spy photos. If the trailer comes out and it’s legitimately bad then I’ll understand the backlash, but as of right now it just seems like people are picking on this movie because it has a black Johnny Storm and it’s from Fox. That’s the same Fox who released three good X-Men movies in the last three years. And in a world where people are complaining that all superhero movies are starting to look and feel the same, isn’t it cool to have something try to be different? You’d think so.
Anthony Stokes is a blogger and independent filmmaker.
Originally published September 1, 2014. Updated April 13, 2018.
