I’m pretty sure you would have the same complaints for pretty much any run of the comic book over the last 60 years. “We will always win if we just stick together” and Reed Richards whipping up a universe-saving gadget on his lunch break are the kinds of conceits that make the stories so charming (if not believable). I’m always happy when a superhero movie doesn’t feel it needs to be more realistic than the source material. This film was definitely made for fans of the comics.
The Fantastic Four was my favorite Marvel comic when I was growing up, and the best thing about this film is that they embraced the whole comic book style and details instead of trying to rewrite them and remake them as the earlier movies did. The Incredibles too the idea of the FF and tweaked it only slightly, notably keeping the interfamilial dynamics, and making the powers look believable – which the other FF films did not do. I think there needed to be more banter between Ben and Johnny, but their grabbing onto Ben’s Jewishness (a relatively late addition to the FF mythos) was spot-on.
I liked that the female Silver Surfer was Shalla Bal – that was the name of Norrin Radd’s girlfriend, and Norrin was the name of the male Silver Surfer from the Silver Age (all revealed in Silver Surfer #1). Nice details.
I think they established that the construction was happening over months….also, their technology was way more advanced so imagine it would happen much faster than it would on our earth.
Yup, they mentioned Galactus’ ship travelled to outside Saturn, this happened almost instantly when they got back so he used FTL. After that it just travelled normally to earth, which I imagine took him some months.
Yeah. That rocky beard didn’t grow in 18 hours.
Jupiter. Red spot, no conspicuous rings.
Just saw this this weekend, really liked it all. Weirdly, did not recognize Garner until flashbacks, something about the silver changed her face recognizability for me.
The FF had their origin in 1961. The movie happens 4 years later, in 65. The credit scene was another 4 years later, in 69. The Very Hungry Caterpillar was published in 1969. Perfect.
I missed that the movie was set that long after the origin. My mistake! Interesting that Eric Carle also existed on that alternate earth.