Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Fantastic 4 Trailer: Is this Already Doomed?

So I got a glimpse of the Fantastic 4 Trailer...


Yeah lets discuss this for a second. So this is made by the same studio as the very popular "X-Men: Days of Future Past" but likely not the same people. Just because it was made in the same building does not mean it has the same quality of story telling. I know the main writer who worked on all the new X-Men movies in the past worked on this script, but apparently he is working on ALL the FOX Marvel scripts, so who cares, right?

The trailer is very vague and doesn't show any real meat, which makes me feel they are hiding something [perhaps total suckage or total surprise?]. This trailer has such a "X-Men: Days of Future Past" feel to it that I'm not sure if it will have its own identity or wash into the abyss like the other films as a carbon copy of something we have already seen. What is worse is they are already in the works of a SECOND Fantastic 4 film. Apparently the execs are so sure of this movie that they just know we are going to love it. Here is the description of the story:

FANTASTIC FOUR, a contemporary re-imagining of Marvel’s original and longest-running superhero team, centers on four young outsiders who teleport to an alternate and dangerous universe, which alters their physical form in shocking ways. Their lives irrevocably upended, the team must learn to harness their daunting new abilities and work together to save Earth from a former friend turned enemy.

I decided to look up who was who in IMDB and guess who is Sue Storm's brother? Yeah not any of the white people in this footage. Johnny Storm is black folks which is going to cause a big ruckus in the comic community. I wouldn't care if they replaced Ben Grimm [The Thing] as black considering he is a separate entity, but how are the brother/sister duo meant to be portrayed now? Their mom was banging the milk man? Is he now adopted? Did Sue's mom remarry and he is a step brother? Or is Sue the adopted one in a black family? Why must they always make things so difficult for the sake of diversity? Granted I do agree that there is not enough ethnicity in the comic movie world, I am not sure he was the correct choice in this case. I even heard rumors that he was friends with the director and got an easy shot in, but that could just be angry speculation from the hate crowd.

This is not a racial thing either. It's a common sense thing. Hollywood knows how fanatical the comic base is. You start changing things around with people who are meant to be brother and sister, it makes it much harder for the audience to swallow. If you were going to make "Johnny" black, why not make "Sue" black too? It's probably not going to be as big of a deal as I am making it, but this alone already gives this movie a rocky start. Changing a main character's look is often a big no no when you are dealing with comic heroes. So if he is going to survive from the tsunami of shit that is coming his way, he better be the best damn Johnny Storm the audience has ever seen. Compared to the last Johnny Storm that ended up crossing over as Captain America [YES, ITS STILL WEIRD TO ME!].

Reading all the lovely opinions online, I am getting a lot of back and forth whether this will be worth while. My money is on wait and see before spending your hard earned money. Its been forever since we have gotten a Fantastic 4 movie and FOX seems to suck at everything that is not X-Men, so they are trying desperately for new money makers, including a Gambit and Deadpool film [that Deadpool test footage was very uninspiring and super irritating. I am not sure if I want to put myself through that CGI freak show].

Also is this supposed to be a set photo? Because this worries me:

This is one of a few photos of people walking. No costumes or battle shots; just walking. With this dude with glasses apparently. Is this supposed to get us excited? Their PR person either A. Needs to be fired or B. Knows exactly what they are doing and doesn't want to put in that much effort into this either.

I hope this is Johnny's Dad because if not, this sure is going to be a hell of a lot of explaining to do on little Johnny's behalf. In this photo we see Reed Richards, but you can also see photos of Ben Grimm and Sue Storm around the net. I surprisingly barely have found a photo of Johnny Storm in action, but I didn't really dig that much either.

So I am sure all of you out there are either super excited or super 'meh' over the project. I personally don't see this being that uniquely exciting, but who knows. Maybe FOX will hit it out of the ball park this time and we will have tons of raging Fantastic 4 fans as the "whatever is popular" crowd will wash right out in time for Comic Con to cheerfully greet our mega stars. Or...we can hope that we easily forget as we get fooled again by the studio that we thought did good things.

What did you think of the new Fantastic 4 trailer?

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2 comments:

  1. I agree that diversity for the sake of diversity is a poor action. Or, if you're going to change a character's ethnicity, don't half-ass it. Johnny & Sue Storm should BOTH be black, in this case. I have no problem with Michael B. Jordan. I think he is, at the very least, a decent actor. But, like you, I don't think he was the right choice for this movie. They should have just kept Johnny Storm white. Better yet, they should have never rebooted this franchise, because I don't I didn't ask for it. Lol. Still, time will tell as to whether it's a good movie or not.
    By the way, that Deadpool trailer was gutter trash. It doesn't help that I'm not a fan of Deadpool, anyway.

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    1. I havnt seen Jorden in enough things to really assess his capabilities, but I will take your word for it. I like Deadpool on paper, but in live film his jokes seem just really awful out loud. I think its the goofy voices that make me think "CHEESE! OMG CHEESE!"

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