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Saw it last night. Nothing particularly wrong with it, other that it probably was too short.

Did Kate Mara get naked?

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You know what the funny thing is about that "What went wrong?" video is? The part where he references Alien 3. There's no doubt the film was hurt by the studio interfering with David Fincher, but the direct implication of that is they gave too much control to the director which happened to be a french man who couldn't speak a word of english and was know mostly for surrealist arthouse films and that became a clusterfrak.

The real problem with both films is they gave too much control to the star Sigourney Weaver. With 3 she didn't want to work with Cameron again and demanded her character be killed off. With Resurrection she demanded choice of the director as a condition of coming back. She was so afraid of being typcast she sabotaged both film. The sad thing is when her time comes and she passes, no one is going to remember her for any of the dozens of so called serious dramas she has been in. Those roles she held in higher esteem than some low brow scifi role. Sure Gorillas In The Mist might get a mention, but nobody cares about things like The Year of Living Dangerously. No the thing people will always remember her for is the role as Ellen Ripley.... Well that and maybe Ghostbusters. I think she realizes this which is why she's all in for the Blonkamp film.

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But that's just it though; Sigourney Weaver and other actors like her don't want to be typecast because they want to be seen as professional performers, artists. Personally, I'm a no-talent nobody without a penny to his name, so there's a part of me that wouldn't mind betraying any sense of artistic talent for the sake of a fat paycheck, but on the other hand I also get not wanting to be typecast. For Sigourney and her like its about immortalizing themselves as artists, performers, masters of the stage and all that, rather than the paycheck. If I had talent of any kind I'd rather be remembered for that, instead of the money or the notoriety it brought me. But, just like Sigourney, it wouldn't hurt to make millions off of my work, either...

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I wouldn't lay blame upon Weaver for pulling her weight on the Alien sequels. Typecasting is a real problem (especially in Hollywood), but I think the problems with those films goes far beyond typecasting. I'd say look at it from the performer's perspective; they are almost always from the generation before your own that values different things. Leonard Nimoy initially resented the Spock role. Reeve resented being known only as Superman. Sigourney Weaver initally resented Ripley. They all wanted the careers of those actors that inspired them into acting, in films made before most of us were born. You can't blame actors for being their generation or having trouble adjusting to the "silly" sci-fi, video games and comic books that the younger generation values.

Before our current modern Marvel movie era, do know the reason why MOST super hero movies were terrible? Because the films were made by my parents generation, who couldn't give a crap about comic books. Today, the geeks are my age and all grown up. They are the ones making super hero movies that VALUE comic books and those beloved characters. Today, few filmmakers care about video games, which is why nearly all video game movies are awful. Only Spielberg enjoyed video games and he never made a video game movie. In the next 10-15 years, we'll finally start to see filmmakers who value video games and we'll finally see some good video game movies.

And Jameron is no angel; he lives up to his reputation as a borderline insufferable personality. If you haven't seen him speak in person, some you can pick up from the special features for his films.

They made a documentary lately about another notroiously troubled production, the Island of Dr. Moreau called Lost Souls. I wonder if in 10-15 years, we'll get a documentary about the real story behind the making of Fantastic Four (2015). It's so messed up, we may never get the whole truth. But I'd say the story behind what happened - and what is still happening - regarding the production of this infamously bad film is far more entertaining of a story than the one being sold on the big screen :)

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I didn't think it was that bad... What they originally filmed anyway. The problem is that it is just missing big chunks of exposition.

I liked the horror take on being a superhero quite a bit, and it works really well with the Fantastic Four. Made me think of the Venture Brothers take on them. The first 30-40 minutes were pretty cool, but the reshoots and the lack of arc for Doom took it's toll.

They also totally ripped off Akira when Doom came back.

Then, the last 5 minutes are like super upbeat and poorly written. It was the cherry on top.

It's like a train ride that is steady and building, then it goes off the tracks and everything goes wrong all at once. Engines explode. Bombs go off in the passenger car.

But basically Trank cracked under the pressure of making a big film and couldn't get things to work, and Fox didn't give a frakk because they were just making it to keep the rights anyway.

Perfect storm of no frakks given.

Edited by Gakken85
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Fantastic Four Review

Disclaimer - I still haven’t read the original Fantastic Four #1 comic. But I read the Jim Lee reboot, the Ultimate version which I liked and this movie is based on, and a bunch of other comics with the group. And I do think somehow they need to get Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four together on screen.

I had to do a review because I think people jumped on the hate wagon for this movie. I don’t know why either. Maybe it was the fact that Marvel Studios wasn’t making the movie. Maybe it was the casting. Or that it’s more a science fiction story than a superhero one. I have no clue. But this movie isn’t that bad. To me even though it doesn’t have better action sequences, it’s actually better or a more enjoyable movie than Spider-Man 3, Amazing Spider-Man 2, Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3, X-Men 3, Thor 2, Blade 3, both Hulk movies, and many others that I could continue to list. And even though most hold them to high regard I would watch Fantastic Four before watching Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 again as well since I find the whole Mary Jane focus boring. Also those movies are not exactly like the original Spider-Man comics which few so called comic geeks cared about back then. And of course Fantastic Four is far better than those last two movies which I can’t even remember.

The origin story is handled well. It’s up there with the better origin stories in comic book movies. In fact the origin story is the majority of the movie. The horror at what happens to the characters is something different too. I’ve always thought Johnny’s powers were cool but I think this is the first time I thought how scary it would be. Probably the weakest part of the origin story is how Doom is handled. He just becomes a bad guy but I never felt he was a bad guy. It’s on the level of Anakin’s turn in Revenge of the Sith.

Because of the Doom character, I think the movie falls apart at the end. We get some action scenes and they feel like they are there because they’re supposed to be. Superhero movies always have a big battle at the end. But this story should be a more personal one. If you look at one of the best superhero movies like The Incredibles, that setup the bad guy to do what he was doing at the end. Here Doom is the bad guy because that’s what’s needed so he does bad guy stuff and we need an end of the world situation. And honestly I’m still not sure how everything happens at the end of the big battle.

The actors playing the Fantastic Four do a good job. They were believable and you could see them becoming a team during the early scenes. On the change to Johnny though, it’s funny how people come up with all sorts of reasons supporting Scarlett Johansson as Motoko or whatever she’ll be named in the Ghost in the Shell movie. But Johnny Storm as a black guy seems to be off limits. Honestly the previous Fantastic Four movies were so bad that I barely remember Chris Evans’ performance in them and he’s a far better actor now anyway and good as Captain America. Michael Jordan is just as cool as Human Torch as I think he is from the comics I’ve read. And I’ve purchased comics just for Human Torch covers. Johnny and Sue are my favorite characters in the Fantastic Four. Johnny just happens to be black in this version and is still the coolest in the group. I believed that Johnny and Sue were brother and sister. At least far more than I believed that Jessica Alba was a scientist in the previous movies, which was not at all. And for this reboot some change was bound to happen. They weren’t going to change Reed. Nor were they going to make The Thing a minority character. So it was either Sue or Johnny. So step into the different race marriage debate or change the other one.

I think the failure of the movie might be down to management or even the original story not being completely thought out. Which in theory should be the director’s fault as he should be in control of everything. Of course there was tweet from the director on the release week but many directors remove their name from the movie when they don’t approve of changes and that didn’t happen with Fantastic Four. In the end, Fantastic Four isn’t the horrible failure that many would lead you to believe. There are many far worse superhero movies and yet the number of truly great superhero movies is fairly small. Fantastic Four is a bit above average and fans of the characters should still check it out.

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