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Episode 137: Fantastic Four (1994)
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It was never officially released, but the 1994 Roger Corman-produced Fantastic Four movie has been widely available for a long time. We finally watched it to see if it's anywhere near as bad as its reputation.
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Transcript
Introduction and Zencastr Promotion
00:00:00
Speaker
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Introduction to 'Movie Fighters' and Superhero Films
00:01:03
Speaker
Ring the revolting bell, sucker! This is Movie Fighters, the show where Chris Sims and I, Matt Wilson, we watch movies and beat them up.
00:01:16
Speaker
There's a new Fantastic Four movie coming out in a few months, and people seem excited about it, unlike that new Captain America movie, which people are not excited about. So we thought it would be appropriate to...
00:01:30
Speaker
go back in time to a Fantastic Four movie that was never actually officially released, either into theaters or on video, but was available at every single convention I've ever attended.
00:01:46
Speaker
Yes, widely available. On DVD. And that is the 1994 Roger Corman Fantastic Four movie, which...
00:01:58
Speaker
Again, never officially released, not on Disney+, plus not on any streaming service, but is available to watch and download on the Internet Archive.
The 1994 Roger Corman Fantastic Four Movie
00:02:09
Speaker
So, that is where you can go watch this if you want to go watch this.
00:02:14
Speaker
Chris, have you ever seen this before? ah Believe it or not, I haven't. ah Even though... It was one of the bootleg DVDs that we would pick up at conventions and sell at the comic book store where I worked. I don't think it was ever in the rotation for like what would just play on the um the little display TV all the time.
00:02:36
Speaker
Okay, what was on the rotation? Was the original X-Men animated pilot in there? Oh, are you talking about Pride of the X-Men? That's right. Yes, ah that one was on there.
00:02:47
Speaker
The one that I was always excited to see on there was the Cutie Honey live-action movie, which we watching oh we watch we watched the Cutie Honey live-action movie for the Bandcamp version of Movie Fighters. yeah If you've never listened to the Bandcamp episodes of Movie Fighters, the Cutie Honey movie is in there.
00:03:07
Speaker
the ah The Star Wars Holiday Special was was on there a lot. Those are the ones that really stick out in my memory. ah This one I know we had, but I was never really interested in watching it, and I don't think... The guy was in charge of the the movies and DVDs would would pick it up at the cons every now and then, and it always sold, but like no one was ever excited about it.
00:03:31
Speaker
Yeah, it's more of a curiosity than anything, right? It's... It's a fascinating relic of a period of time when Marvel was just desperate to get any movie made based on its properties.
Insights from the Documentary 'Doomed'
00:03:49
Speaker
Matt, I did something that, as you know, I am loathe to do. Research? Research.
00:04:02
Speaker
I hate learning a new thing that I don't already know. I've learned everything that I need to know already in my life. In kindergarten, according to that ah that poster that people have.
00:04:14
Speaker
Right, yes. But I did watch the documentary, Doomed, ah which is on... I know it's on ah ah Jeff Bezos' bad bookstore website, Prime.
00:04:29
Speaker
I believe it is also on Tubi. i don't I don't know enough about the morality of Tubi to make any judgments.
00:04:37
Speaker
It's owned by the Fox Corporation, and the Super Bowl was on it. a Okay. You know that I'm a bit of a documentary fan, and that was not like the best documentary I've ever seen, mainly because the story here is not that interesting outside of the question of whether this movie was ever meant to be released.
00:05:02
Speaker
Which, there has been a Prevailing narrative and... you know like I would almost call it even a fan theory... That this movie was made only to... Secure rights or as a... A producers-esque... task Tax dodge.
00:05:21
Speaker
But... According to the documentary... like Everyone involved in it... Outside of maybe Roger Corman... Who doesn't really appear in the ah documentary...
00:05:33
Speaker
were They were all sure that they were making a Fantastic Four movie that was going to be released to theaters. They knew it was low budget, but they were going to do the the best that they could do and and get it out there to the people. Which is evidenced by the fact that it is finished.
00:05:52
Speaker
like yes They did theyd full post-production on it. It's done. yeah it's got all the effects and everything in it, which... It's curious, right? like You'd think at some point in the process of deciding that this movie would never be released, all of that would stop, right?
Marvel's Struggles and Cinematic History
00:06:15
Speaker
Yeah. but But it wasn't. um I think it is interesting to go back and look at what Marvel movies got made pre-Blade.
00:06:27
Speaker
Blade was the movie that made Marvel movies... viable, right? Like, before Blade, Marvel movies were this weird curiosity.
00:06:42
Speaker
Spider-Man had been in production hell for decades by that point. And there there was just like, not somehow Marvel movies were not breaking through.
00:06:58
Speaker
While Superman got made in the 70s,
00:07:01
Speaker
Batman movies were getting made by the late eighty s you know, but Marvel was just having a hard time. Yeah, and part of that was DC having the benefit slash curse of being owned by Warner Brothers.
00:07:17
Speaker
Yeah. And Marvel being, you know, i at the time, and ah a relatively independent company. I mean, you know, owned by Cadence Magazine Group for a while, but...
00:07:30
Speaker
Generally, Marvel Comics was its own thing. but but we' find Weird array of owners yeah over the years. like By the 90s, after their bankruptcy, they were owned by Toy Biz. Toy Biz, yeah. yeah Marvel... yeah For some reason, no one wanted to put a budget on Marvel stuff. like the The Incredible Hulk TV show was...
00:07:57
Speaker
you know had good ratings for its entire run, was popular. you know It's obviously like a a well-known piece of pop culture. ah But no one wanted to translate that to movies even after Superman.
00:08:11
Speaker
And I don't know why. Yeah, so the one Marvel movie with any kind of budget that got released pre-1998 with the release of Blade was Howard the Duck.
00:08:25
Speaker
I mean, that might be why. That might be why, yeah. That may be the problem here. Howard the Duck came out in 1986. Notorious flop. Lucasfilm was involved.
00:08:38
Speaker
And you know that is what it is. That was the only like real theatrical movie pre-Blade that Marvel had. But there were there were a lot of direct-to-video movies. Well, that is if you don't count Men in Black.
00:08:53
Speaker
Men in Black wasn't a Marvel comic, though. It was ah Malibu comic. Yeah. So it that only kind of counts.
00:09:04
Speaker
Yeah. yeah There were a lot of attempts to do Marvel TV, and some of those attempts got turned into direct-to-video movies.
00:09:15
Speaker
The Doctor Strange movie from 1978.
00:09:22
Speaker
There was the Matt Salinger Captain America movie from 1979. We have also watched that one. Yep. There's a couple of TV Hulk movies from the from the TV show.
00:09:37
Speaker
Yeah, that in that introduced ah Thor and Daredevil. And those are are mentioned in ah the documentary. ah Kind of hilariously, the makers of the Fantastic Four movie...
00:09:51
Speaker
are like like, yeah, I mean, you know, when Thor showed up on that Hulk movie, that was so bad.
00:09:59
Speaker
it was it was not not faithful to the comic.
00:10:08
Speaker
There is the 1989 direct-to-video Punisher movie with Dolph Lundgren. They also mentioned that one, and honestly, that movie is better than anyone gives it credit for. It's still not good.
00:10:20
Speaker
We've seen that too. Yes, we have watched that. I don't remember if we did that one for Comics Alliance. or i I believe we did that one for Comics Alliance because yeah i we did all of them.
00:10:31
Speaker
We did all the Punisher movies.
00:10:35
Speaker
There is also the Red Brown Captain America movie from 1990. There sure
00:10:41
Speaker
There was 1996 Generation movie. There was a 1998 Nick Fury movie. tv generation x movie there was a ninety ninety eight nick fury movie so ra Talk about Generation X starring Max Headroom.
00:10:54
Speaker
And Nick Fury starring... David Hasselhoff. David Hasselhoff, yeah.
Rights and Popularity of Fantastic Four
00:11:00
Speaker
Starring Baywatch himself. Here's one thing that I'll say about the the documentary that they get absolutely and objectively wrong.
00:11:11
Speaker
Okay. They talk about how... you know Everyone was excited because ah New Constantine had gotten the the rights to do a Fantastic Four movie, and even though they were going to it a low budget, they were going to do a big... like It was a big property. it was you know This is something that could have launched the ah to you know launched the the people who made it, and the creators, and the the actors, to a big...
00:11:44
Speaker
like a ah big stepping stone for their career. And everybody did kind of view it as a stepping stone for their career, which I do. like you know that's That's legit.
00:11:55
Speaker
That's how movies work. You make one so you can make the next one, right? Constantine is a German film distribution company. Yes. And they were going to put up money, and Corman was going to put up his own money.
00:12:08
Speaker
And everyone was very excited because obviously, you know big name property, you get out there you get out there and And it's it's a huge deal for them.
00:12:21
Speaker
Fantastic Four in 1992, which is when they were like started making this movie, they they started casting and started production in December of 1992. That's not a huge property.
00:12:34
Speaker
Fantastic Four in 1992 is on maybe the lowest point of Fantastic Four as a franchise in the past 64 years.
00:12:47
Speaker
Yes, and notably, this that was four years away from... From Marvel being bankrupt. Marvel being bankrupt, and also the hard reboot of Heroes Reborn.
00:13:01
Speaker
Yeah, they were, like, it was a lot of people talking up at the beginning of the documentary about how, you know, fans would be really excited, but, like, no one was fucking... re Like, Matt, do you know who was writing Fantastic Four in 1992? No clue.
00:13:15
Speaker
no no clue Me either.
00:13:20
Speaker
Like, maybe that might have been around the time Simonson was doing it, which which are very good comics. But like, yeah this started production three months after the X-Men animated series started.
00:13:36
Speaker
That's what was hot. Anything that wasn't X-Men or Spider-Man at Marvel was kind of like not a big deal. Which is probably why New Constantine got got the ah rights to do $1 million dollar budget Fantastic Four movie.
00:13:56
Speaker
Right. the The Fantastic Four cartoon... so there had been a Fantastic Four cartoon in the late 70s. That's the one that introduced Herbie.
00:14:07
Speaker
But there was another... Tom DeFalco was writing Fantastic Four in 1992. Old Reliable. Old Reliable Tom DeFalco. That comic's going to come out every month.
00:14:19
Speaker
Yeah. There was another Fantastic Four cartoon in 1994, the same year that this movie was finished.
00:14:30
Speaker
But it was not especially popular. but Yeah. yeah like it like I mean, that cartoon's really interesting and like worth going back to because it's a weird cartoon that is super...
00:14:44
Speaker
faithful to and inspired by Jack Kirby designs. So, like, absolutely worth going back and and looking at it. But it wasn't popular.
00:14:55
Speaker
There's a Beta Ray Bill action figure that was released for that cartoon, like, as a tie-in, which is wild to me, even today. that That Fantastic Four cartoon was paired with an Iron Man cartoon.
00:15:08
Speaker
In like an hour block, as I recall. Yeah, with ah with ah Stan Lee doing little framing sequences. They also talk about Stan in that documentary.
00:15:19
Speaker
And I gotta say, if they're wrong about Fantastic Four being a ah big deal in 1992... I mean, look, for us, Fantastic Four is important.
00:15:31
Speaker
Right? Like, not trying to take that away from the book. But I'm just saying it was not... Much like Blade, it wasn't something people cared about in 1992. It was not one of Marvel's top properties right at the time. Right.
Stan Lee and Hollywood Aspirations
00:15:47
Speaker
Correct.
00:15:48
Speaker
Stan Lee showed up to the set, was very nice to everyone. you know i mean, you know, it's a Stan Lee story, so he's very nice, very excited about everyone.
00:15:59
Speaker
According to the producers, he brings donuts one day for everybody on one of his many set visits. And then... while production is still going on, goes to a convention and someone asks him about the Fantastic Four movie and he's like, oh yeah, it fucking sucks.
00:16:17
Speaker
like he They ask him, what do you think of it? And he says, I don't think much of it. It's the last movie that will be made without our control and that will never happen.
00:16:30
Speaker
But I guess they had to do it because of a contract. That's what Stan says. And The reaction of what reaction of the filmmakers to that is exactly what you would expect it to be, which is like what like, the director is like, yeah, you seem like you were having a good time on your multiple set visits, dude. yeah like you know You seem like you were having a good time when you brought everybody donuts and told us we were doing a great job.
00:17:00
Speaker
Like, what the fuck, man? Well, this is this is the the story of Stan Lee in Hollywood, right? like Stan famously left Marvel as editor-in-chief to go to Hollywood and try to shop around Marvel properties for movies.
00:17:20
Speaker
And got the door closed in his face I don't know how many times. Right? Right. ah Stan was never happy in comics. Yeah, it's weird to explain to people in the post-movie and also post-canonization and post- canonization backlash and post post-canonization backlash backlash of Stan Lee that like that dude... I don't doubt that he...
00:17:50
Speaker
liked the comics that he made and and and worked hard on a lot of them, but he didn't want to be a comics guy. No, he wanted to be a movie guy. And so when movie opportunities did come up, there I think there was a lot of feeling from him that he wanted to glad hand and make connections and whatever, but like he also wanted to make good movies.
00:18:17
Speaker
And I think he could tell that this movie was low-budget, cheap, and going to be seen as a B movie. And so that's probably why he said what he said. it's just it It just feels so weirdly out of character for consummate huckster Stan Lee to not at least be like, yeah, you know that they've got a limited budget, but they're really you know they're doing They're really being faithful to the spirit of it.
00:18:45
Speaker
like Unless he knew something about why it wasn't going to come out. I mean, there's also the possibility that he was talking to someone that he was sure would but not divulge what he was saying to anyone else. But he was on a panel!
00:19:01
Speaker
He was on a panel? Yes, he was on a stage. fan asked him. That's nuts. Yeah. Like, that's the weird thing is it's so contrary contrary to what we know of Stan Lee, the the the Marvel Comics spokesman, right? The salesman.
00:19:17
Speaker
Like, the guy who's always, you know, like, the guy who will, will, Matt, can I, can, never mind.
00:19:33
Speaker
the salesman, to not, to in public, in front of God and everybody, be like, yeah, it's not going to be good. Like, it seems, honestly, it seems mean.
00:19:47
Speaker
And the fact that the people, like the filmmakers, were hurt by it is unsurprising, because it seems very out of character for Stan, purely based on what we know about his tendency to to put stuff over.
Roger Corman's Influence and Production Insights
00:20:05
Speaker
Speaking of consummate salesmen, let's talk Roger Corman for a second, who did not direct this movie. He produced this movie through his company.
00:20:16
Speaker
But Roger Corman was like the – if you're unfamiliar, he is the B-movie guy of the second half of the 20th century.
00:20:29
Speaker
And started so many careers. Yeah, like that's one of the things that makes it very easy to believe people ah why people thought this would be like a great stepping stone to a Hollywood career. Because, like yeah, you're making a low-budget Roger Corman picture now, but like look at who else has been in those movies.
00:20:53
Speaker
Yeah, Jack Nicholson got his start in roger a Roger Corman movie, A Little Shop of Horrors. So, you know, there's a reason to kind of have some feeling of excitement about being in a Roger Corman-produced movie.
00:21:09
Speaker
um You can go look up the many, many, many movies he produced and careers he jump-started of many directors. Like, I think Spielberg's first movie was a Corman movie?
00:21:23
Speaker
And the list goes on and on. But... He did not direct the movie. The movie is directed by Oli Sassone, who was mostly a music video director before this.
00:21:38
Speaker
um Also directed some direct-to-video movies, including Blood Fist 3, Force to Fight, ah Future Shock, Playback.
00:21:52
Speaker
Went on to direct episodes of Hercules and Xena.
00:21:58
Speaker
As well as Silk Stalkings, Mutant X, Mortal Kombat Conquest. Don't when you talk about Silk Stalkings.
00:22:07
Speaker
Went on to be a TV director, for the most part, um after directing Fantastic Four. um The cast is full of people you've never heard of. Chris, does the does the documentary confirm... I've heard the story that the actor who played Reed Richards, Alex Hyde-White...
00:22:28
Speaker
Didn't know he was going to be in a Fantastic Four movie until he got there. Everyone, according to the documentary at least, knew that they were going to be in FF. Some of them weren't like familiar with the franchise, but they knew like it was a comic book and they knew who they were playing.
00:22:43
Speaker
They talked about the reason they cast everybody they cast as well. And they said that you know the the actor playing Reed and the actor playing Sue had really good chemistry. The guy who was disappointed was the guy who plays Ben Grimm.
00:22:57
Speaker
Because he wasn't going to be in the Thing suit. And he's actually, like, he's like six five and is taller than the Stuntman who is in the Thing suit, who was also, like, very oh excited. And I'll say this.
00:23:15
Speaker
Here's what I learned from that documentary, and I don't know if it's going to be clear when we watch the movie. That Thing suit looks better than you think. Yes, it's it's for a movie that had a budget of $1 million, dollars that was the budget of this Fantastic Four movie.
00:23:34
Speaker
The Fantastic Four movie that is coming out later this year has a budget of probably 200 times that. Yeah. I don't know what the actual budget of Fantastic Four First Steps is, but I would i would venture that it's $200 million. dollars like And this movie was made for $1 million. so I mean, the thing looks good yeah the new movie. i I feel like that's where the majority of the money went to.
00:24:07
Speaker
they you know they They really show like a lot of behind-the-scenes footage of when they were making the thing head. And how it was... like They had one version that was just rubber so that he could do fight scenes and bust through walls and stuff.
00:24:21
Speaker
And one version that had a bunch of motors in it. It's very reminiscent of the turtle heads from the Ninja Turtle movies. Yeah, very much so. And like they show it making like various expressions and how they wanted Ben Grimm to be able to look like he did in This Man, This Monster.
00:24:42
Speaker
And then like you know then it would be clobbering time. You would not know from looking at the like art that survives from the promotion, that thing mask looks good.
00:24:55
Speaker
Maybe they didn't shoot it in good lighting, but it looks good. Interesting note about the guy who plays Ben Grimm, Michael Bailey Smith. He has mostly made a career out of being like monsters in costumes.
00:25:11
Speaker
He was in two The Hills Have Eyes movies in costumes. He played Super threat Freddy in Nightmare on Elm Street 3. He was an alien in Men in Black 2.
00:25:21
Speaker
two like He's done a lot of monsters in costumes roles, so it's even more weird that he didn't get to be in the big in the Thing costume.
00:25:33
Speaker
Yeah. But they like he's, again, bigger than the guy that they made the costume for. Yeah. Alright, we're going to dive in to Fantastic Four 1994, unreleased,
00:25:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:53
Speaker
we're going to take a little musical break and if you want to pause and watch the movie during that break the place that i know that it is available is the internet archive so Go to the Internet Archive and just search for Fantastic Four 1994 and you'll find it.
00:26:10
Speaker
Oh, I will say, the like one of the biggest bummers of the entire documentary is that ah the cast and crew wound up like having like the guy who plays the thing...
00:26:27
Speaker
go like sees the movie at a con and is like, oh my god, like where did you get that? And he's like, oh yeah, you know it's a bootleg. and the guy's like, oh, I was in it. I i played the thing. And the guy's like, wow, that's amazing. Do you want a copy? And the guy goes, yeah. And he goes, ten bucks.
00:26:43
Speaker
Oh god. like They all had to get it from fucking bootleggers at cons, which is grim. Speaking of which, the quality of this is like VHS quality, so be prepared for that. yeah it's It's never been you know up upscaled to even DVD quality, even though it was sold on DVD at cons for years and years and years.
00:27:10
Speaker
It was available on YouTube for a while. It is not anymore. for whatever reason. um But it is on the Internet Archive. so I bet that reason is the Walt Disney Corporation.
00:27:24
Speaker
Could be. Could be. go catch it Go get it on the
VHS Quality and Film Enjoyment
00:27:27
Speaker
Internet Archive. Watch it on their website, or you can even download it from there. and And watch along with us. We'll be back to talk about the movie right after that.
00:27:53
Speaker
And we are back from watching Fantastic for nineteen ninety Four 1994. And I said before we started that this was kind of like VHS quality.
00:28:07
Speaker
I mean VHS quality like taped from another VHS. No, it's it's definitely like copy of a copy of a copy. It is...
00:28:20
Speaker
it is it is bad quality, and I would like it if there was a at least better quality transfer of this film out there.
00:28:31
Speaker
It makes me wonder if that's part of why it hasn't been put on Disney Plus or something.
00:28:39
Speaker
Like, is there not a decent quality transfer of this movie that exists? I mean, surely there has to be, right? Like, i the, the ah to either the director or one of the producers suspects that the reason it was bootlegged is because he went and like took a, a print of it to a, like they basically heisted it out of the office and took it to a dubbing place so that they could at least have their own copy and like, you know, show stuff. And he's like, yeah, I'm pretty sure that's where it got leaked.
00:29:18
Speaker
But, I mean, there has to be at least a copy that someone has somewhere that is better. Apparently, Avi Arad said that he took the final ah working print and destroyed it.
00:29:34
Speaker
But neither the ah producers of the film, nor I, believe that that happened.
00:29:42
Speaker
Notable truth-teller, Avi Arad. I mean, look, ah if you're not if you're just a comics guy, you're not going to destroy it. Right, yeah.
00:29:54
Speaker
i I'm curious. like Because I don't remember if it was on the recording or while we were watching that we talked about the... like All of the cast were like, just release it.
00:30:05
Speaker
Yeah. Right? In some form. Because it's finished. And... Similarly, it's like, surely, as just a curiosity, putting it on Disney Plus would be – people would watch it, right?
00:30:22
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, like there's there's no downside. It's not going to hurt the brand, because there's three other Fantastic Four movies that exist.
00:30:34
Speaker
And they're all on Disney+. plus Yeah, and they're all on Disney+. plus And it's not like this is going to be any less well-received than those were. like Those are all not good. And I'm going to say this now.
00:30:47
Speaker
The Ben Grimm, the practical Ben Grimm in this movie, worlds better than the Michael Chiklis version in the 2005 and Fantastic Four movies.
00:31:01
Speaker
yeah man Like, it's it's hard to tell a lot in this movie just because of how bad the transfer is and how, ah like, the the lighting is not great. But there are shots of Ben Grimm, like, of the thing.
00:31:16
Speaker
Close-up shots of him talking that look good. Like, legitimately look good. I'll say this, Matt. Of the pre-Blade Marvel movies, this is the best one.
00:31:30
Speaker
There's not a whole lot of competition, but yeah. yeah like it Look, it's been a hot minute since I've seen that ah Hulk movie with John Rhys-Davies as Kingpin and Daredevil in it, but it's certainly worlds better than either of the Captain America movies.
00:31:50
Speaker
and And I think it's probably, at least as far as enjoyability to watch, probably on par with Punisher. If not better. the the only one that The only ones that I think are any competition are the TV Hulk movies and Punisher.
00:32:10
Speaker
Yeah. yeah like it's it's I found this movie, and I know I'm getting ahead of myself, I found this movie to be enjoyable to watch.
00:32:22
Speaker
Yeah, ah even with the poor quality transfer. Yeah, if it was if it had a better transfer and like you could actually tell what was going on in some scenes, it's it it's not it's not a great movie. Yeah.
00:32:43
Speaker
But it is a pretty faithful Fantastic Four movie that kind of does everything you want. And considering how limited the budget was, it's mostly just impressive that they pulled it off as well as they did within those restraints.
00:32:58
Speaker
And I had a lot of fun watching it. This is one of the most fun movies we've watched for movie fighters, I think, ever. Yeah. And let me say again, like, you know, there's some...
00:33:12
Speaker
messing around for inflation or whatever, but this movie cost $1 million. dollars The 2005 Fantastic Four movie, 11 years later, cost $100 million. dollars And it's certainly not 100 times better. I mean, look, I'll be honest, I have not seen it.
00:33:31
Speaker
I can't imagine it being 100 times better. It's not. it's like That movie's version of Doctor Doom, considerably worse. ah This movie's version of Doctor Doom kind of rules, actually. Yeah, that that movie's version of The Thing. like Michael Chiklis is a better actor than the guy who plays him in this, but...
00:33:54
Speaker
As far as like the look, this is better. it's It's kind of astonishing. Also, this movie crams an incredible amount of story into 89 minutes.
Remastering the 1994 Fantastic Four Film
00:34:05
Speaker
Yeah. I mentioned at one point like it felt like it was either too fast or too slow. yeah But also, I think on the balance, it does end up being you pretty pretty fun.
00:34:20
Speaker
I thought it was wild when... the producer said that they should get the the print, ah do a remaster, and like add in modern special effects.
00:34:34
Speaker
But having watched it, I'm like, yeah, maybe they should do that. That's actually pretty good.
00:34:40
Speaker
Yeah, like there's a few places where the special effects shots should just be totally replaced. But aside from that, and and there's some sound stuff that needs to be fixed, which we'll talk about later. Yeah, the guy who played Doctor Doom was like in the documentary it was like, if you ever decide to put this out, even right now, I will come in and do the, like, I will do ADR for Doctor Doom.
00:35:06
Speaker
Please let me do that. Because yeah I am almost 100% sure that when Dr. Doom is talking and clanking around in his armor, that's all like captured on the set.
00:35:19
Speaker
that is That is raw audio. And it it's not the best. It's very echoey, yeah. Okay, so let's ah let's talk about the events of this movie.
Character Development and Plot Highlights
00:35:31
Speaker
um it The movie starts with a college class. I mean, look, have you read Fantastic Four numbers 1 and 3? one and three You kind of got it.
00:35:43
Speaker
Yeah. Reed and Victor, who does not get a last name. Doesn't get a last name. That's maybe one of the weirdest and worst parts of the movie, but yeah. Like, this is Victor Von Doom, but he is only referred to as Victor.
00:35:56
Speaker
And a key plot point in this movie is that Reed Richards didn't know his last name. Yeah. ah In the documentary, there's a part where they ah they're talking about the casting, and I think it's one of the producers like reads out the the cast listing and talks about all the people who auditioned for this movie. Apparently, they did see Mark Ruffalo for Reed.
00:36:15
Speaker
Very funny. Which, you know... That must have been a young Mark Ruffalo. God. Yeah, man. He mentions calling him Victor Vaughn. Uh-huh. And for you know all I thought at that moment was, you know, Viva on the Travel and Bob the Villain.
00:36:30
Speaker
Correct, yes. ah But then I wonder if if the the character's name in this that we never actually hear was Victor, like V-A-U-G-H-N. Yeah, like Brian K. Vaughn.
00:36:44
Speaker
yeah oh Which would have been like a goot like, of all the things to change in this movie, of all things, that would that's weird. But they do want there to be a little bit mystery.
00:36:55
Speaker
It's one of many examples of trying to not make his real name Victor Von Doom. Like in Ultimate Fantastic Four when he was Victor Van Damme. Which is dumber! Which is actually dumber!
00:37:11
Speaker
All right. So they're in this college class. The college professor is played by the only recognizable actor in this movie, George Gaines. I am shocked that you could recognize this person given the quality of the VHS. but I know this via IMDb.
00:37:27
Speaker
Okay. He was Commandant Lessard in all of the Police Academy movies. Okay. No, he's acting. acting He's definitely acting. yeah yeah So he's talking about the speed of light. He's he's telling them the the various ah velocities relating to the speed of light, and also saying that there's going to be a comet that's going to pass in visual range of Earth called Colossus.
00:38:00
Speaker
Also kind of a weird change, especially considering that that is the name of a different Marvel character, but sure. Yeah. That has elements and ah power never before seen. So students, go see Colossus. Go watch Colossus pass over Earth later tonight.
00:38:20
Speaker
Yeah, he mentioned something about how it travels close to the speed of light. Yeah. ah Which is... is certainly odd, but sure.
00:38:32
Speaker
So, it's you know, it's comic book stuff. One of the things we get from this scene is he's writing the speed of light in miles per second, and then he's like, and if you want that in kilometers, and we get a ah a shot of Reed in the class, who, off the dome, says what the speed of light is in kilometers per second, and he goes, thank you, Reed.
00:38:54
Speaker
yeah And that's how we know Reed's smart. That's how we know Reed's smart, yeah. A fact that you could easily find and memorize.
00:39:04
Speaker
During all of this, Reed and Victor are passing ah schematic back and forth for a device that there that they've built that they're going to use to do an experiment on the Colossus comet. They're going to harness its power.
00:39:24
Speaker
Right. So... They walk out of the class. They talk for a little while.
00:39:31
Speaker
Reed says something to Victor to the effect of, are you ready to do this? And Victor like moves his hands around in a funny way ah kind of like pushes toward Reed's face. And he's like, yes, I am.
00:39:45
Speaker
It's like, this is what Dr. Doom will be throughout the movie, where he's just like hand acting all the time. And on the one hand, it's very goofy. On the other hand, it's absolutely Doctor Doom.
00:39:58
Speaker
ah Joseph Culp, who is Robert Culp's son, yes is fucking going for it as Doctor Doom from moment one, and I love it.
00:40:10
Speaker
Because if you think about Dr. Doom, and we are two dudes who have thought about Dr. Doom, I would say more than average. You more than me, even. More than most, yeah. ah Like, yeah, Dr. Doom's a huge fucking weirdo. He's gonna act like a huge weirdo.
00:40:29
Speaker
Well, like, you know, again, like, it looks goofy on screen in this movie. But if you look at Dr. Doom in comics, that dude is doing shit with his hands all the time.
00:40:43
Speaker
Yeah, he's kind of like doing, like, I will say, this movie is making an honest attempt to be a Jack Kirby comic come to life.
00:40:56
Speaker
And so Dr. Doom is kind of like doing Jack Kirby Doom poses as though, like, you know, in motion. Which is, yeah like, it's fun. It's very fun. like it I don't think it totally translates to the screen, but I appreciate the attempt, at least.
00:41:14
Speaker
How often have we said that we would much rather have a failure that goes for it? Yeah. Yeah. I would always rather have an interesting failure than a boring compromise.
00:41:29
Speaker
Yeah. you know They decide that they're going to do this. Before they do their experiment, Reed goes it and visits... people at Mrs. Grimm's... Mrs. Storm's. Or Mrs. Storm's Home for Children, i think is what it's called. it's No, it's a boarding house.
00:41:46
Speaker
It's where he lives. Okay. Oh, it's where he lives. Okay. Mrs. Grimm's Home for Children is a very different movie. That's, yeah.
00:41:58
Speaker
It's Mrs. Storm's boarding house. Okay. um Ben Grimm also lives there, and he's playing video games with Johnny Storm, who is a child. Sue Storm is also a child.
00:42:12
Speaker
She's a teen. ah She's like 13 or 14 max. There's... It's... i i don't I think she's maybe a little bit old. i Look, I want her to be older.
00:42:26
Speaker
The idea of Sue being significantly younger than Reed is something that was in the comics and has always been weird and that they have like definitely retconned away and moved away from a lot.
00:42:39
Speaker
If Reed's supposed to be in college and 20 and Sue's 16, and she has a crush on him but he is not romantically interested in her, that's a lot easier to take.
00:42:54
Speaker
Well, this this movie does play it as Sue is the one who's making all the moves. Yeah, which you Sue has a crush on Reed. It's much better, yeah. um But he like just basically comes and... and we get We find out that they all know each other.
00:43:14
Speaker
And that's kind of it. Then Reed and Victor do their experiment. It goes horribly wrong. A bunch of energy comes down through their machine and zaps Victor.
00:43:28
Speaker
And Victor is taken to the hospital. Reed is... waiting outside the room to see what happened to Victor. And this bearded doctor comes out and says, he's dead. I'm sorry. We're taking him to the morgue.
00:43:46
Speaker
And they get in an elevator with his body. And this doctor could not look more suspicious yeah as the elevator closes and they leave.
00:43:56
Speaker
And so Victor's not dead and he's going to become Doom.
00:44:02
Speaker
Flash forward to ten years later. When Reed is 29?
00:44:10
Speaker
At most 32. But he has his gray temples now. He has his Reed Richards hair. So it's ah it's look, it's a hard 32. Yeah. Oh, by the way, I glossed over Ben and Johnny playing video games.
00:44:26
Speaker
The video game is about a laser that shoots Earth, which will actually be plot relevant. Later in the movie. Because Johnny cannot succeed in this video game.
00:44:40
Speaker
ah So. Flash forward 10 years later. We get some Reed and Ben. Establishing that they're like. Good friends. Ben has been in the Air Force.
00:44:53
Speaker
It's mentioned that he was in the Air Force. Reed has got this. spaceship that he wants Ben to fly. And Ben's like, I don't know. And Reed's like, this is better than any mission you've ever done in the Air Force.
00:45:06
Speaker
So why don't you do it? And so Ben agrees. Then they go back to mrs Mrs. Storm's house and we see that ah Sue and Johnny are adults now and Ben is like, we gotta take them on the spaceship. They're never gonna forgive you if we don't take them on the spaceship.
00:45:26
Speaker
And, like, there's no other reason given as to how they're qualified for this mission.
00:45:34
Speaker
Yeah, like, extremely, like, they know more about this experiment than anyone. And it's not mentioned that, like, you know, in the comics, Sue's also a genius.
00:45:46
Speaker
And, but but, I mean, in the comics, it's never been clear why they bring fucking Johnny.
00:45:55
Speaker
Sue's kid brother. Yeah. it's ah Can I bring my brother along? I'm supposed to babysit. Yeah. Hey, if there's a scene where they open the door and Mrs. Storm is ah is in there.
00:46:08
Speaker
And Ben goes, Hi, Mrs. Storm. Can Sue and Johnny come to space with us? And this is played as like you know a funny in-joke that they have together.
00:46:22
Speaker
It comes off as just weird as hell. TBQH. It is a drastically terrible line read. yeah i i was going back and forth as to whether the guy who plays ah Ben Graham, Michael Bailey Smith, or the guy who plays Johnny Storm, Jay Underwood were the worst actors in this movie. i Which one of them?
00:46:45
Speaker
i Here's the thing. I said many times that i hate to I hate to be the one to have to say this. But this is a pretty dead-on, annoying-as-fuck Johnny Storm.
00:46:58
Speaker
Like, that kind of is his deal. Like, that kind of is what he's like, especially in the early comics. So I don't know if Jay Underwood is bad or just, like, over-committing to being this kind of annoying goofball character.
00:47:16
Speaker
Ben is bad. yeah Ben is unfortunately, like Michael Bailey Smith is unfortunately not very good. And look, I understand why he was like, why couldn't I be in the suit?
00:47:31
Speaker
But the stuntman they have in the suit is great. Yes. His mannerisms are exactly what you want from the thing.
00:47:43
Speaker
So I get it. Yeah. Like, unfortunately, i get it. So anyway, they get in their spacesuits and they get in their spaceship and take off.
00:47:58
Speaker
But before that, Reed explains that they have this diamond that he has procured that will allow them to go fast enough to pass by the ah the comment the Colossus Comet, without being harmed by its cosmic rays.
00:48:22
Speaker
There is a whole little thing where a guy who was supposed to be the Mole Man, but wasn't the Mole Man because of legal issues, so he's instead the jeweler, comes out of a sewer and...
00:48:38
Speaker
gets through their laser grid, their security laser grid, to steal their diamond and replace it with an exact replica. Steal their what? Diamond.
00:48:50
Speaker
There we go. Diamond. um And Dr. Doom is watching this as it happens, and he's like, Ah, that little man did me a big favor.
00:49:02
Speaker
They're gonna go to space and be killed. And then the comet will be all mine. It's so weird that this guy is the jeweler and not the mole man. Because it's so evident from everything that he's supposed to be the mole man.
00:49:19
Speaker
Even if we did not know that this was the mole man, because they talk about it it being the mole man in the the documentary, it's very obvious that he is supposed to be the mole man. Like, he kidnaps Alesia.
00:49:31
Speaker
Yeah. ah So, they go on their mission. They go close to the comet, and because the diamond is a fake, a forgery, they are hit with the cosmic rays.
00:49:46
Speaker
The spaceship explodes in space, but thankfully they all land on Earth anyway. Yeah, man. And see... The Fantastic Four didn't immediately die, Matt?
00:50:00
Speaker
I don't know. What are you looking for here, bud? don't know. Look, they could have just shown potentially the spaceship falling to Earth and crashing instead of exploding in the middle of space. I mean, yes, that that would have been – sure, that would have been an option if you want to get and technical about it Anyway, they all wake up in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere and begin to realize that they have powers.
00:50:31
Speaker
Well, Ben doesn't yet, but Sue is already invisible, and Reed is able to stretch out and help her when she's like falling. like Because the top half of her body is visible,
00:50:50
Speaker
And Reed's like, where's your legs? And so she starts to fall, and he stretches out and grabs her. Johnny sneezes because he has dirt in his nose.
00:51:04
Speaker
That's a line that is stated. it happens. He sneezes and has and sets a ah bush on fire. Very biblical.
00:51:15
Speaker
And so they have to camp out in this field...
00:51:21
Speaker
waiting for rescue. Dr. Doom knows that they're alive. Because he had his boys monitoring, yeah. Yeah. So he knows that they're alive.
00:51:32
Speaker
Everybody else believes that they're dead. Like, we see a newspaper headline that says... Reed Richards and crew believe dead in... Because they took Reed's girlfriend's 20-year-old brother to space.
00:51:49
Speaker
yeah Meanwhile, well, Alicia Masters... who met Ben earlier in the movie. There's this very brief meet-cute between them.
00:51:59
Speaker
yeah Ben accidentally knocks a sculpture out her hand and breaks it, and is like tries to help her, ah doesn't realize that she's blind, and so it wass just like literally like picks her up.
00:52:10
Speaker
like it's It's kind of a weird sequence, all things considered. She immediately, like you know because she's Alicia Masters, she senses his heart, or whatever,
00:52:22
Speaker
And that he's a good guy. He's the idol millions. As soon as she walks away, he's like, Reed, I think I'm in love. And Reed's like, yeah, okay, great.
00:52:36
Speaker
Anyway, Alicia is making sculptures of the Fantastic Four, who has already been called the Fantastic Four, because Mrs. Storm calls them the Fantastic Four when they meet up at her house earlier.
00:52:52
Speaker
um she's making sculptures in their memory, because again, everyone thinks that they're dead. yeah And she realizes that one of them is Ben Grimm, and she's like, no, he can't be dead.
00:53:05
Speaker
This guy she met one time, yeah who broke her statue. you A guy brings her like a mold that they made of the FF, so that she can make her statue.
00:53:20
Speaker
Which is weird, because where did they get the mold for the statue? It's... Like, i'm I'm quite perplexed by it, Matt. This guy that I think is maybe supposed to be Willy Lumpkin?
00:53:34
Speaker
He's Willy Lumpkin-coded, for sure. For sure. ah Anyway, just as she's but about to start her sculpture, she's captured by the jeweler's henchmen.
00:53:50
Speaker
Who, Chris, you noted, instead of being mole men, they are just unhoused people? Yeah, they like they're like, instead of being the moloids, the weird little guys that ah are of, I don't know, kind of dubious sentience, they're Right.
00:54:10
Speaker
And our little guy monsters, they're just unhoused people, which is whack choice movie. It's probably the most fucked up thing in this movie.
00:54:24
Speaker
It is kind of like Tim Burton Batman-ish of them, you know? It's like... hits like it's it's It's sort of kind of like that one episode of Batman the Animated Series.
00:54:39
Speaker
Yeah. but well What's that episode called? ah With the guy who's like got the kids working for him like underground? Talking about ah some of the the sewer king or whatever his name is.
00:54:52
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I gotta find out what that episode's called. That's one of the worst episodes of Batman the Animated Series. I would venture to say the worst, but yes.
00:55:04
Speaker
It's so bad that I don't know the name of the episode and that guy's name. The Underdwellers. The Underdwellers, that's it. And his name is, in fact, the Sewer King.
00:55:16
Speaker
Yeah, man. if you like It's Tim Burton-y in the same way that like if you're ah if you work for a circus in a Tim Burton movie, You are at the extreme end of the morality scale one way or the other.
00:55:31
Speaker
One way or the other, that's right. No middle ground. Yes. Anyway, they kidnap Alicia Masters because the jeweler has become infatuated with her and wants to make her his queen.
00:55:44
Speaker
One thing about this movie is that anyone who sees Alicia Masters immediately falls in love with her. i mean, you know, she's hot. Sure, sure.
00:55:58
Speaker
So, some guys in military Jeeps show up to rescue the Fantastic Four. You know they're the military because they have a green Jeep and the off the side of the Jeep is a small American flag.
00:56:15
Speaker
Correct. Correct.
00:56:18
Speaker
But it turns out that they're not actually military guys. They are posing as military guys and instead work for Doctor Doom. Because, again, Doctor Doom is the only person who knows that the Fantastic Four is alive.
00:56:31
Speaker
We get a ah really pretty fun sequence of Doctor Hopman. ah well But first first, as soon as they get there, Ben Grimm has transformed into the thing.
00:56:46
Speaker
And they're about to shoot him. And Reed and Sue have to like realize who he is and then go like, no, no, no, that's our friend. He's with us. And already we're getting a Ben who's ashamed to be the thing.
00:57:01
Speaker
He's a big rock monster, Matt. He's a big rock monster, yeah. i mean, like look, Fantastic Four number one, as soon as they ah they land the shuttle, he's like, I'm what Susie called me, a thing. Yeah.
00:57:15
Speaker
So, then Dr. Hauptman. We've got a fun sequence where Dr. Hopman is going into each of the Fantastic Four. They've got them in like a little lab cells, and he goes in and ah it kind of checks to see what all of their powers are. And he tells he tells them that he's got to take a blood sample to test their DNA.
00:57:39
Speaker
and he But he tells ben he tells the thing like, I don't know how we're goingnna do that. Yeah, and so we get like kind of a fun little bit where each of them does something, like uses their powers in kind of like a funny way. like Ben's like, alright, do what you gotta do, and he sits down and the chair breaks.
00:57:56
Speaker
Ben takes a full back bump and then just kind of like like drops his arms on the ground like, what the fuck else do I have to deal with? It's kind of a perfect Ben Grimm moment, honestly.
00:58:07
Speaker
Yes, it's, again, the stuntman who's in the costume knows what he's doing. ah The Johnny bit is he says flame on for the first time and makes his hand catch on fire. like, i just kind of flame on.
00:58:26
Speaker
And he screams like it hurts him. And then says flame off and the fire goes out. And yeah, this movie does a weird thing where it's not just flame on, but also flame off.
00:58:44
Speaker
Eh. I don't like that he says flame off. Yeah. Sue turns invisible and Dr. Hauptman is like, Miss Storm? Miss Storm? Where did you go? And then I don't even remember what stretchy thing Reed does. i I honestly do not recall what Reed does either.
00:59:02
Speaker
Which, you know. he like that's he like read i think he reaches out to get the syringe that Dr. Hauptman is holding so he can take his blood sample. But...
00:59:14
Speaker
you know The stretchy effects of this movie are poor. As good as the thing is, all of the Reed effects are pretty bad. I do kind of like what they do when he reaches to grab Sue the first time, which is they do one of those Vertigo-style zoom out while pushing the camera physically in ah like depth of field kind of things ah to to kind of get the retraction.
00:59:44
Speaker
They definitely do ah play the horrible ah balloon expanding noise anytime he stretches, which, how are they gonna ah how are they going to navigate that one in the new movie?
01:00:00
Speaker
I guess we'll find out. Don't have Reed sound like a balloon stretching. It's bad.
01:00:08
Speaker
They haven't shown any of the stretching effects yet. like We've seen Ben, we've seen su go invisible, and we've seen some Human Torch, but the one character they haven't shown any of their powers in the trailers yet is Reed.
01:00:25
Speaker
Maybe they'll just use ai like ah whoever made that poster, and Reed will just be like, oh yeah, i have too many fingers because of my Cosmic Ray powers.
01:00:37
Speaker
Man, that poster... Lord have mercy. poster was like I have not watched that trailer because that poster was so bad. The movie looks good. The poster is abysmal and insulting.
01:00:54
Speaker
Anyway. Rough stuff. They were in separate cells, but then we see them all together in the same room. All four members of the Fantastic Four. And they're talking about how they have to get out of here These don't seem like government people on the up and up.
01:01:15
Speaker
And Ben is kind of like, ah just leave me here. Maybe we should be here for a while longer so they can study us.
Ben Grimm's Internal Conflict
01:01:21
Speaker
But Johnny really, really wants to leave. And so Reed is like, hey, buddy, how about you help us out to Ben?
01:01:31
Speaker
And Ben's like, okay, what do you need me to do? And so they put a plan in action where Ben beats up three guards. And so Johnny, Sue, and Reed take their uniforms.
01:01:45
Speaker
And Ben stays behind while the other three go through this facility and try to see what's up and how they can get out of there. They go into a room with a big like laser cannon.
01:01:58
Speaker
And Reed is like, this thing has an atom splitter. The power of this is is unbelievable. And then Ben busts out of the the cell on his own. He just punches through the door.
01:02:14
Speaker
Which is pretty great. And they manage to get out of there. but They encounter Dr. Doom, who introduces himself. and Just as Doom, by the way.
01:02:27
Speaker
Just as Doom. And there's a bunch of like armed guards around him. And he's like, get them armed guards. And he leaves the room. like Everybody uses their powers to try to defeat the guards, except for Johnny. Johnny's like blasting a wall with fire to try to open a path out.
01:02:45
Speaker
But, like, Ben is beating them up. He says it's clobbering time for the first of three times. ah he He beats a bunch of them up. Reed is, like, sticking his leg out all stretchy and tripping them.
01:02:58
Speaker
Sue is turning invisible and ducking so they shoot each other. Yeah, a lot of these dudes do fully die.
01:03:08
Speaker
Like, pretty clearly. Well, Ben is, like, punching them really hard. Like, that might, like... break their skull or whatever. But Sue definitely is using tactics that kill them.
01:03:21
Speaker
and don't think she's learned about force fields yet. Anyway, ah Ben punches through the wall because Johnny's fire thing isn't working and they get out of there. Then Ben just kind of like dips out.
01:03:36
Speaker
He's, again, ashamed of being the thing. he's he as i As I say to Biscuit, he's big wumpy. Yeah. He says, I'm the one who became a freak.
01:03:49
Speaker
And so he leaves to go out into the streets of New York on his own. And he just ah but there's one shot of just him approaching these two women. And they, you know, scream and run away. This is after we get a sequence where Reed, who has been like trying to figure out why the Colossus energy affected him the way that it did,
01:04:14
Speaker
is like, ah sue Sue confesses her love for Reed, and then goes, why am I so shy around to you? And he goes, that's it. You're shy. So you turn invisible.
01:04:24
Speaker
she She starts to confess her love, but never actually gets the words out. And that's why she's like, why am I so shy? yeah Yeah. and He's like, you're shy, so you turn invisible. Johnny, you've always had a really bad temper.
01:04:40
Speaker
I stretch myself too thin. And Ben, you're an idiot.
01:04:46
Speaker
Ben, you're an idiot who relies on brute strength instead your brain. i was convinced he was going to say, Ben, you know, you've always been very protective, like a wall around us, and that's why you're made of rocks. But no, he's like, Ben, you rely on brute strength instead of using your brain.
01:05:01
Speaker
Reed, you could have phrased that a little bit better. There's a line in the trailer for the new movie that pretty much sold me on it. Which has Sue tells Reed at one point, Ben's always been a rock.
01:05:18
Speaker
Or always been our rock. And I'm like, yep, that's Ben Grimm. That is a description of Ben Grimm. I think I am sold on this movie.
01:05:30
Speaker
Alright. ben Ben's like, okay, yeah, well, Reed goes, yeah, so I feel like the Colossus energy mutated us based on what was in our psyche, not just but like not just our our physical forms.
01:05:43
Speaker
And Ben's like, cool, you all look normal, I'm a rock monster. Yeah. So, he wanders around on the streets of New York for a little while.
01:05:54
Speaker
You should have gotten a hat and trench coat, Ben. Maybe you'll learn that No been tell, yeah Yeah. Maybe you'll learn that soon enough. soon enough But he's like hanging out outside a restaurant. He's got like a blanket over him.
01:06:08
Speaker
This guy comes out to take out the trash. And he's like, what are you doing out here? You can't be out here. What are you doing out here? And he takes the blanket off of Ben, sees that he's the thing.
01:06:19
Speaker
And he also screams and runs away. And that's when some of the jewelers' henchmen show up and say, like... Friend, why don't you come and join us?
01:06:31
Speaker
We have a home for you. Why don't you come home to us? So then Ben goes to the jeweler's lair and sees that Alicia is there.
01:06:46
Speaker
And this ah makes him furious. The jeweler is going to give Alicia the diamond he stole earlier in the movie. The what? The diamond.
01:06:57
Speaker
Thank you. Everybody in this movie says diamond with three syllables. It's great. Honestly, it's great. Yeah. He's going to try to marry Alicia and give her this as the wedding gift.
01:07:10
Speaker
But Doom shows up and steals the diamond. There's like a standoff between... the Jewelers henchmen who are all armed as well.
01:07:23
Speaker
And so this armed, this gun battle happens. Doom takes Alicia hostage and Ben tries to save her. But then Alicia's like, please don't, don't risk your life for me.
01:07:39
Speaker
i love you. And that makes Ben turn human,
01:07:46
Speaker
which is weird. Yeah, I didn't really understand that. yeah I guess the idea is, in that moment, Ben no longer sees himself as a monster, so he stops being the thing, which kind of plays back to what Reed was saying.
01:08:04
Speaker
But that doesn't really work. And it's not... That's like the least comics accurate thing in the movie. Yeah. Like...
01:08:15
Speaker
Ben has turned back into Ben in the past, but thanks to experiments that never actually work out. Not for some psychological reason. We should have had him go put on like show him putting on the Thing costume like he was putting on the robot suit like he used to in the comics.
01:08:35
Speaker
That would have been Yeah. Anyway, he turns back human and then has to run away. ah because he definitely can't fight these guys now, all these armed guys.
01:08:47
Speaker
But then as soon as he like goes back out into the street, he turns back into the thing in nutso sequence trying to represent his his psychological state.
01:09:06
Speaker
Yeah, listen, the... the I enjoyed watching the movie. Don't get it twisted. It does come up against its budgetary limitations at certain points. For sure. like We didn't talk about it much when the they get hit by the cosmic rays.
01:09:25
Speaker
But the way that they show that is basically by sticking the camera on the end of a kaleidoscope. Yeah.
01:09:38
Speaker
So Ben goes back to Reed and Sue and Johnny, who have been investigating who Doom might be. Because they realize that the only person who knew about the Colossus comet the way that they did, the way that Reed did, was Victor.
01:10:01
Speaker
Who Reed thinks is dead. But then he's like, Victor's not dead. And finally puts it together that Victor and Doom are the same guy. Yeah.
01:10:12
Speaker
Which is presumably why they either changed Victor's name or didn't just didn't ever call him Victor Von Doom.
01:10:23
Speaker
Which was a weird choice, because I don't think the movie would have lost anything Reed had just been like, Victor? And then they're like, you know, I mean, like like he does again in the comics, a weird change.
01:10:39
Speaker
And it's not like it is difficult to tell that that is, in fact, Joseph Culp doing the same wild over the top voice that, again, is pretty fun.
01:10:52
Speaker
Yeah. Also, Sue has made them costumes now, which. Look, they're not good. But they have a sort of homemade charm to them.
01:11:05
Speaker
yeah The worst thing about them is that the Fours are on their stomachs and not their chests. The Fours are lower than they should be. Yeah. Particularly on Sue, where hers is like constantly covered by her belt.
01:11:18
Speaker
So they have, you know like like in the original Fantastic Four costumes, they have these like white collars. To them. Those collars, the collar part of those costumes are gigantic. the Very big.
01:11:35
Speaker
Very big. And so they take up a lot of like costume real estate. It's a weird design choice. But anyway, and you said that in the in the documentary, the actress who plays Sue was like, well, Sue made the costumes, so of course they don't look...
01:11:52
Speaker
all that, like, so slick. Yeah, like, that was... Which good explanation. Yeah, that was her, ah like, you know, they were talking about the costumes and how the costumes do look cheap, and she was like, yeah, but I mean, like, if you watch the movie, Sue made them, like, in a day. yeah Like, Sue went out in this movie and bought spandex and sewed these costumes together.
01:12:16
Speaker
And you mentioned, Matt, that, like, if anything... More like first draft superhero costumes should probably look like that. like like Peter Parker in the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movie makes a professional-ass looking Spider-Man costume.
01:12:33
Speaker
Well, yeah, like he goes from wearing like a hoodie and like a really unprofessional looking costume to a costume that is way better than what Peter Parker could make.
01:12:45
Speaker
Yeah. That you think is better than Peter Parker could make. I have faith in Peter Parker and i believe in him. so Yeah, he he definitely had access to whatever those lenses are made of that the eyes in that costume are.
01:13:02
Speaker
Just big sunglasses, Matt. Come on, it's just big sunglasses. They put on their costumes. They know that Doom is Victor. They also know that he lives in a castle in Latveria, because there's also a bit where Doom like sends them a transmission,
01:13:21
Speaker
on the big screen that they have in the Baxter building. You know, like like Dr. Doom does. And he's like, hello. but That starts with him just saying hello, which was so fucking funny to me.
01:13:35
Speaker
He tells them that that laser cannon that they saw earlier ah is going to destroy New York City if they don't ah provide him or come to him within the next 12 hours.
01:13:50
Speaker
ah to surrender. So they get in the Fantasticar, which they have, and go to his castle.
01:14:01
Speaker
And there's this bit as they're going into the castle where I think it's Johnny who's like, isn't this a little bit too easy? oh you guys ah ah yeah. Ben goes, do you like walking into a trap?
01:14:15
Speaker
And Reed goes, I don't know. I've never done it before. Yeah. A good line. a genuinely like good line.
01:14:25
Speaker
ah so they they But like they know that they're going to surrender to begin with. you know like Of course they're walking into a trap. They walk in Doom is like, here's my laser.
01:14:40
Speaker
ah You're going to surrender to me. Or you know New York City gets it.
01:14:48
Speaker
And they just start fighting anyway, like Doom's various henchmen. So Doom starts a countdown to fire the laser, a 30-second countdown.
01:15:03
Speaker
And it is counting down so fast. It's like 30, 29, 28, 27, 26, 25, 24. Yeah. twenty seven twenty six twenty five twenty four It's the fastest countdown I've ever heard.
01:15:14
Speaker
But we see like some cool uses of the Fantastic Force powers. We see Sue use a force field for the first time. Which is actually pretty well done. Reed does some foot stuff if you're a fucking pervert freak-o.
01:15:27
Speaker
Oh yeah, like i I kind of skipped over that. they They're like being held in these like containment cylinders that are just depicted using light.
01:15:40
Speaker
And so it's kind of implied that they can't really move. And so Doom starts a machine that like starts sucking out their energy. like I guess the cosmic energy that they got from the comet.
01:15:55
Speaker
And Sue is screaming. Sue is screaming in pain during this. Reed's kind of no-selling it. Yeah, all the rest of them. Well, I guess Johnny's not. But Reed's kind of no-selling it.
01:16:08
Speaker
And Reed just like stretches out his leg... Out of the light. The cylinder of light. And kicks over Doom's machine. That's pulling the energy out of them.
01:16:19
Speaker
Causing a big explosion. And that's when Doom starts the countdown. So anyway. The countdown gets down to zero. They do not stop the laser cannon.
01:16:31
Speaker
So it. Boom. Shoots. In fact. It's not a boom. The sound effect it makes is like. Yeah.
01:16:43
Speaker
ah Which i don't know if that's intentionally funny or not, but it's funny.
01:16:49
Speaker
Johnny, remembering his video game, is like, I've been wanting to stop a laser cannon my whole life. And he finally flames on whole body and flies out of there.
01:17:01
Speaker
A thing that you said wouldn't happen. I thought for sure he was never going to go full-body Human Torch. That we were just going to shoot fire out of his hands. And I was wrong.
01:17:12
Speaker
My apologies to Oli Sassone. Who did it. Who actually did it. He of little faith. The special effects of full-body Human Torch Johnny are rough stuff, though.
01:17:30
Speaker
Look, that again... The movie does come up against its limitations at certain points. Yeah. um But he does like catch up to the laser beam, which is wild.
01:17:44
Speaker
And he gets in front of it it hits him, he's like spinning around and tumbling while he's getting hit by this laser beam.
01:17:56
Speaker
And then he manages like to redirect it into space before it hits New York. Meanwhile, ah Reed and Doom are fighting out on a balcony. And Doom falls over the side.
01:18:09
Speaker
And Reed stretches out to like catch his hand to try to save him. Doom is like, you fool. You will never be as... ah powerful as me because you've got sympathy and that works against you.
01:18:27
Speaker
And Reed's going to try to save him anyway. He starts to like pull him up. But Doom's gauntlet comes off and he falls off the side of the castle into whatever's below it.
01:18:40
Speaker
Into a green screen. The castle's on a mountain, so he falls all that way. Reed and Sue leave because you know they're like, well... That's it for Doom.
01:18:52
Speaker
And the camera zooms in on the gauntlet that's laying on a ledge, and it's like moving on its own. Which we decided had to be an indication that that wasn't Doom, it was a Doom bot.
01:19:06
Speaker
Right? Right.
01:19:11
Speaker
Ben goes and frees Alicia, who has been kidnapped... for the second time ah here at Doom's Castle, um and finally introduces himself to her, and you know they're instantly enamored with each other.
01:19:27
Speaker
Yeah, there's a scene where he goes, I don't think we've been formally introduced. I'm Ben Grimm. And she goes, I'm Alicia Masters. And he goes, nice. Nice.
01:19:40
Speaker
To meet you. And I thought it was just going to leave it at nice, and I thought that was going to be great. ah there's They also do the bit where like Alicia touches his face, and she's not you know horrified by his rocky exterior.
01:19:57
Speaker
Yeah, man. We love that shit. Come on Yeah. Then the last scene of the movie is Reed and Sue's wedding. Because Sue did finally confess her love to Reed.
01:20:10
Speaker
ah a little earlier. And he says, I love you too. And so the last thing that happens is they get married in their Fantastic Four costumes. Well, Reed's in his Fantastic Four costume.
01:20:23
Speaker
Sue is in a wedding dress. Johnny's also in his Fantastic Four costume. Which, I mean, you know what that means. Not a virgin.
01:20:33
Speaker
Didn't wear white on a wedding day. She's wearing a white wedding dress.
01:20:38
Speaker
Well, Reed's not. Reed's not. Reed's the one who's not a virgin. Yeah. ah A terrible example for the kids.
01:20:47
Speaker
Anyway, Ben's like, we won't get into any trouble while you're gone. And they get in the limo and drive away. And the last shot of the movie is a stretchy arm waving out of the sunroof of the limo.
01:21:04
Speaker
I don't know if this is like the most famous shot of the movie, but I know it's like the one that I've seen it before, and whenever it's like mentioned in something, this is the one they always show to be like, oh, this movie look at how much this movie sucks.
01:21:17
Speaker
And it's not great. it's it's It's not great.
01:21:22
Speaker
All right, Chris, what are our high points for Fantastic Four 1994? I mean, it very... i mean it is very like ah particularly for 1994, very faithful to its source material. It's i mean it's essentially an adaptation of Fantastic Four 1 and 3.
01:21:39
Speaker
It has some like pretty fun bits in the script, like some pretty genuinely good lines. And I love the way ah that ah Joseph Cole plays Doctor Doom. I think he's like chewing scenery and overacting,
01:21:58
Speaker
But I think that's a valid way to play Doctor Doom. I think it's as much trying to match Kirby body language as it is trying to emote with a full mask over your face.
01:22:12
Speaker
Yeah, right I think that's the reason he's doing a lot of hand acting is because... Yeah. But like... Willem Dafoe has to do that in the first two Spider-Man movies where he's wo wearing the full Green Goblin mask.
01:22:27
Speaker
This is not that different from that. No, it's really not. like and i It feels very similar to that type of acting, if we're being honest.
01:22:38
Speaker
And I think his acting would seem better if he had been allowed to come in and like overdub the voice so that it wasn't a little bit muffled. And echoey, yeah. yeah The Ben Grimm costume looks, or the Thing costume looks fucking great.
01:22:55
Speaker
Yeah, like ah a genuinely awesome practical effect, again, particularly for that budget.
01:23:02
Speaker
And like, even though i don't think Michael Bailey Smith is an especially good actor in this, I think the casting is largely ah pretty good. Like, Alex Hyde White is a pretty good read.
01:23:18
Speaker
Rebecca Staub is a pretty good ah Sue. Jay Underwood is really get going for it as Johnny. And they all look pretty much the part.
01:23:29
Speaker
Yeah. you know they They do. They look like you would see them at a con and go, wow, that's great cosplay. Yeah, for sure. They don't necessarily look like a movie.
01:23:43
Speaker
But they they look enough like the part. This has high-budget fan film vibes to me. Very, very true. Brackets positive.
01:23:59
Speaker
Alright, what are our low points for Fantastic Four 1994? I got two right off the top. I mean, yeah, there's two that we discussed during the watching of the movie that are... Well, there are three that are like pretty important.
01:24:12
Speaker
yeah One is lighting. This movie is not well-lit. There's a lot of... like The thing costume looks good, but there are a lot of shots where it's lit poorly, so it doesn't look as good as it could. Yeah, the bad lighting makes it look worse.
01:24:29
Speaker
Yeah. um That is also true of Doctor Doom, who looks worse because of poor lighting. And I don't think that's something you could fix with a better transfer, unfortunately. i i think that is the unfixable technical problem with the movie.
01:24:45
Speaker
The fixable technical problem with the movie is sound. And we've talked about it already. Like, the Doctor do like dr Doom is as hard to understand as Bane in Dark Knight Rises.
01:25:04
Speaker
And it's not an acting choice. It's like, he's just not, like, he's, you could tell that it was sound that was recorded on set. And there's a lot of other sound problems where it's like just poorly recorded dialogue.
01:25:22
Speaker
The third thing is music. There's maybe like four pieces of music four or five pieces of music, and they are played repeatedly and too loud.
01:25:34
Speaker
In the same way that you can always tell an amateur comic by the lettering, You can always tell a low-budget movie by the lighting.
01:25:45
Speaker
yeah ah like It is, for some reason, the first thing to go. Amateur movies, low-budget movies, they're not lit well. And this, I think, is is no exception.
01:25:57
Speaker
Again, exacerbated by the bad transfer, but that's not the film's fault. You know? the The sound mixing is bad. And I know that... ah I think we've said it on the show, or maybe we just talked about it while we were watching, but ah ah Joseph Culp did expect to be able to go in and do ADR for all of the Doctor Doom scenes, and never did.
01:26:19
Speaker
right oh And I feel like that... Like, I mentioned... It would probably be a lot better if you couldn't hear the armor clanking oddly as he was talking and gesticulating.
01:26:33
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's funny, I guess, or maybe weird, that this movie you know was quote-unquote finished and had more or less finished special effects.
01:26:48
Speaker
But the part of it that was definitely not finished was... Clearly the complete sound mix. Yeah, like the the background music in a lot of places way too loud. The dialogue is is muddled in a lot of it.
01:27:03
Speaker
There's a part where Reed goes, get the costumes. And I swear to God, I thought he said, fuck the costumes. It's also funny that he calls them costumes and not uniforms.
01:27:17
Speaker
Yeah. Also, again, adjusted for the budget... Aside from the thing, the special effects are... Adjusted for the budget, not terrible.
01:27:35
Speaker
That doesn't mean that objectively they are good. But they ain't good, yeah. In particular, once he flames on and is flying around, that is... For the budget, impressive that they did it at all.
01:27:48
Speaker
But it is like... i mean, i I realize where I recognize it, Matt. There's a scene where like Johnny's being ah shot by the laser and kind of battered around by it.
01:27:59
Speaker
yeah That's very clearly... From the Max Fleischer Superman shorts. You're right. It is. They've just like used that as a model and put this fucking Super Nintendo Donkey Kong Country ass oh Johnny Storm over it.
01:28:17
Speaker
So again, impressive that it that they did it, given that this was probably done for like a ham sandwich. you know You have to wonder if...
01:28:29
Speaker
the special effects weren't also like a placeholder that maybe were going to get adjusted and fixed later.
01:28:41
Speaker
I mean, i they seem pretty on par with like like other Corman-produced stuff. of the I mean, you know, ah one of the things they say in the documentary is when Steven Spielberg was making Jurassic Park, Roger Corman was making Carnosaur.
01:28:56
Speaker
hu And like... Yeah. yeah Yeah. You know? like The Sue effects are very low-budget.
01:29:08
Speaker
The Johnny stuff doesn't look bad. The Reed stuff is god-awful. a It's poor. They did all their practical effects on Ben, which, honestly, the right choice.
01:29:21
Speaker
Alright, Chris, what are our final thoughts about Fantastic Four 1994? Shockingly watchable. Yeah.
01:29:30
Speaker
Even with a a bad transfer, which I wish I had known this before now, I just went and checked it to see if if this was on Dailymotion.
01:29:42
Speaker
It is, and I think the version on Dailymotion looks better. Interesting. ah I would have assumed that the Internet Archive version would have been like, you know...
01:29:58
Speaker
one of the better available prints of the movie. But whoever put up this one on Dailymotion, it does look better. So listeners, if you haven't watched it yet and you want to watch it a slightly ah less...
01:30:16
Speaker
copy of a copy version of the movie, ah go go find it on Dailymotion. um It doesn't look a lot better, but it looks somewhat better. I don't know if I would have ever watched this movie if not for this this podcast, even if someone told me it was good.
01:30:35
Speaker
oh But like i had a good time with it. like It's goofy, and there are some bits that are bad, but like it's honestly not a bad Fantastic Four movie.
01:30:46
Speaker
it's It's very faithful. like I don't know anything about the writers of this movie.
Fan Enthusiasm and Film Critique
01:30:55
Speaker
ah Craig J. Nevious and Kevin Rock.
01:31:01
Speaker
But like it seems clear to me that they are fans. Yeah. ah like It's mentioned in the documentary. like They got the script and the non-Roger Corman producer read it and he's like, wow, who's making this?
01:31:16
Speaker
And they were like, we are? He's like, no. Yeah. On Wikipedia, um it says that this movie has an approval rating of 27% based on 11 reviews, which... That's all internet people like trying to get an easy click by ragging on a movie that is widely regarded as bad.
01:31:44
Speaker
Which is annoying. Yeah. No, like, I mean, again, because this is one of those movies that became a punchline because it it never got released. It's a Roger Corman movie, a slow budget, blah, blah, blah.
01:31:55
Speaker
But Clint Morris of Film Threat did get it right when he wrote... Yes, it's terribly low budget, and yes, it's derisorily campy and feebly performed.
01:32:08
Speaker
But at the same time, there's also something inquiringly irresistible about this B-comic tale that makes you wonder why it didn't get a release somewhere along the line. Even if it does resemble Toxic Avenger more than, say, Spider-Man...
01:32:20
Speaker
The script isn't actually all that bad, and some of the actors are actually quite good here. And with an extra polish, I think they might have been able to release this thing. I agree. ah i fully agree. like It should have been... If this was a TV movie or a direct-to-video movie, I think it would be perfectly acceptable.
01:32:41
Speaker
Again, it's better than Captain America. It's better than... It's probably better than Punisher. I think it's better than Thor 2. Like, I haven't seen Eternals.
01:32:55
Speaker
But, you know. It's more fun to watch than Eternals. Easily. And also, folks, 89 minutes. Eternals is a drag, man.
01:33:06
Speaker
A drag. Yeah, or ah always has been, always will be. Yeah, like, it's better than Ant-Man 3. Yeah. Yeah, man!
01:33:18
Speaker
It's better than Ant-Man 3, for sure! Again, like I don't know if I should say go out of your way to watch it, because it's not great, but it was fun. And if you're curious, there's no reason not to.
01:33:35
Speaker
I think it's a very interesting
01:33:41
Speaker
artifact.
Comparison to Other Fantastic Four Films
01:33:43
Speaker
Of superhero movies from before the time when superhero movies were everywhere. Yeah.
01:33:53
Speaker
When like superhero media was kind of
01:33:59
Speaker
B-movie stuff, you know? Yeah. I also think it has, like... I mean, this is going to sound like it is way too high praise for this movie, and it honestly probably is.
01:34:11
Speaker
But I do think it kind of has the same kind of... Not as good, but the same kind of timelessness because it's based on like so thoroughly on the comics that Sam Raimi's Spider-Man does.
01:34:30
Speaker
It's not as good a movie as Sam Raimi's Spider-Man, which is still great 23 years later. But it has that same kind of feeling, you know? Well, it's it's got a reverence for the source material that both share. And also, Sam Raimi is kind of just like a higher-budget Roger Corman filmmaker.
01:34:55
Speaker
Yeah. Like, he's got those same sensibilities, those same kind of like old-fashioned
01:35:03
Speaker
horror movie director kind of instincts. I mean, he's he's a guy who knows how to get the most out of ah his budget. That too, yeah. um But like, Ramey movies are kind of, kind of feel like B-movies in the best possible way.
01:35:20
Speaker
And so I can see how you can make that comparison. yeah Comparing this to the Fantastic Four movies that came later,
01:35:30
Speaker
i think the filmmakers who made those later Fantastic Four movies learned all the wrong lessons. From, I'm sure, what they consider to be this failure of this movie.
01:35:45
Speaker
Where it's like, oh, we can't be hokey. We can't we can't have like Galactus, who looks like a Kirby Galactus. We can't have Doctor Doom like actually be Doctor Doom.
01:35:59
Speaker
We've got to do like we got to do this other stuff to decampify everything. And that is the wrong lesson to learn. I hope, for the new movie.
01:36:11
Speaker
and And based on what I've seen of it, there is a lot of kind of like... Kirby-looking stuff in there.
01:36:21
Speaker
it Including a Kirby-looking Galactus. Yeah, AC told me Galactus was in that movie and I was shocked. Yeah. but this but They're far well enough away from this movie and the kind of like internet...
01:36:36
Speaker
jokey, snipey shit about it, that that movie can feel more like this than Fantastic Four 2015, which is abysmal and a bummer.
01:36:50
Speaker
ah ah Again, i have not seen it.
01:36:55
Speaker
All right, everybody. ah We'll be back in April with another movie.
Future Movie Plans and Listener Engagement
01:37:01
Speaker
We'll figure out what to watch between then and now. I know we talked about Sonic 3. Maybe it'll be streaming somewhere and we can watch it in there. In the meantime, if you want to suggest a movie for us to watch, email us at moviefighterscast at gmail.com or ah you can hit us up on our personal ah Blue Sky accounts or we're on Tumblr at moviefighterscast.tumblr.com So...
01:37:28
Speaker
Any of those places would be a place to get in touch or suggest a movie.
Support and Sign-Off
01:37:32
Speaker
If you want to support this show and all the other shows that we do in the Klytus Media family, ah you can go to patreon.com slash warrocketajax and kick in as little as a dollar a month to make sure that all these shows keep happening and to get all the shows we do ad-free on Patreon.
01:37:57
Speaker
If want to find me and my stuff, go to mattdwilson.net to find links to my comics, my books, my other podcasts, and my social medias. Chris, where can people find you? Everybody can find me by going to the-isb.com. That is my website.
01:38:11
Speaker
It has links to the other things that I do on the internet. I was also on a couple of recent episodes of Retronauts, so check those out as well.
01:38:19
Speaker
Thanks for listening, everybody. Keep on fighting.