"Fantastic Four" questions

Cafe Society
1

I enjoyed this film while watching it, but now doubt and questions are creeping into my mind. Can anybody help me with these questions?

When did Victor plant cameras in RR’s lab? Did he always have them there, or did he plant them when they began collaborating on the space mission?

During the bridge sequence, three of the Four are unable to get past the police blockade, so Reed convinces Susan to become invisible. There’s some humor when she gets halfway undressed and becomes visible again. Then she goes all the way (as it were), Johnny gathers up her clothes, and… what happens? We cut to the Thing, then back to Susan, who is buttoning up her clothes and telling Reed “I can’t believe you made me do that!” They seem no closer to helping the Thing. Are they even past the police? If so, it must be only be a few feet – do the police see them? Even is Sue got past them, how did Reed and Johnny?

When did Johnny buy a red Porsche with the vanity plate “Torched”? While they were in self-imposed quarantine? And how did he pay for it?

Speaking of money, since Victor is going bankrupt and Reed is worth “less than a postage stamp,” how can either afford all the equipment for the cosmic ray generator to reverse their condition?

Why does Ben decide to stay the Thing at the end? I assume it’s something like, “As long as Dr. Doom out there, I’m one of the few people who can stop him. I have to stay like this to protect my friends and protect my city.” But does he actually say any of those things? Do you agree with his decision?

After the space station incident, our heroes are recuperating at a Von Doom hospital. Johnny eventually escapes to go snowboarding on some pretty impressive mountains. Ben escapes and visits his wife in Brooklyn. So where are the mountains? Vermont? This is an actual geographic question, not meant to be sarcastic.

Was there a major action sequence between the bridge accident and the final battle, or did I miss it?

What happens to Reed in the generator? He says he didn’t have enough power, but he appears to be melting, or to have received extra elasticity – he collapses in front of Sue. But he seems okay the rest of the film. And how can something that reverses his condition actually lead to an increased version of it?

Can anybody answer these? I really want to like this film. Then again, I was desperately rooting for Van Helsing too…

2

I had similar questions when I saw the movie and figured it was just bad writing.

3

… All excellent questions…The movie is indeed edited poorly.
The bridge sequence in terms of Sue’s invisibility is pointless… Unless you assume that Jonny and Reed used the distraction of a woman turning invisible to slip past.
The cameras… ahh come on he’s an evil genius he could have some technolgy to spy on the video signal.
Now the car… I am assuming that during the living together montage… we missed out on a proposed “FF as celebrities” montage. Either this was edited out or was left over in the script I don’t know. But a lot of stuff doesn’t add up unless you assume that somehow Johnny atleast has parlayed his abilities into some financial gain… I assumed we’d see this at the X-games sequence (where Johnny is well known already) but we didn’t. Remember that later Johnny mentions their marketing guys and shows The Thing a talking action figure?
The movie is poorer without this whole element… it would also add to the rsentment that Victor has for Reed… not only has he stolen his woman but thanks to the accident Reed now enjoys financial success (I’m sure Reed wouldn’t balk at getting grants now that he is a celebrity hero) while Vic’s empire is crumbling.
Why does Ben stay the Thing… that’s a little tricky… I guess that’s what makes him a hero… he’s willing to live as a monster if it means he can help people.
…It is a deeply flawed movie… but it was kind of fun.

4

Rest assured, all those “missing” scenes will be included in the DVD release. This growing bullshit practice of cutting key scenes from the theatrical release, just so they can be put in the DVD as “exra” scenes or as some kind of phony “director’s cut”, is really getting out of hand.

5

This isn’t that kind of movie. You know, the kind you think about after you leave the theater.

6

I saw it last night. It seems to me that there is another trend in movies: extended periods of time passing between scenes with no indication that time has passed. Same thing that happened in Revenge of the Sith – Padme telling Anakin that she’s pregnant, and she’s not showing yet, and then a few scenes later she looks like she’s eight months along. I think the same thing happened in FF. I mean, Reed didn’t build that machine in three days!

Well, going bankrupt doesn’t mean that you lose all your assets immediately. That doesn’t happen until the court judgement is made. So they still had all their stuff.

7

I’d like to know if Reed was so smart and had all those fancy computer gadgets why he was still solving equations on a chalkboard (I thought everybody had switched to whiteboards ages ago) and drawing things by hand, when MathCAD and AutoCAD (or SolidWorks or Pro/Engineer) are industry standards for those things. Someone missed a big product placement opportunity.

8

Wow, I forgot about this – this was a laugh out loud moment for me. Reed says, “See? I’m working on it!” and pushes drawings of the outer shell of the machine (as opposed to, say, something functional, like technical diagrammes) towards his buddies.

If I were Ben, I’d be saying “What the hell is this, cartoons? I could draw that! Here, I’ll draw you a rocketship! And then I’ll make it fly! (proceeding to run around the room with a piece of paper making “whooshing” noises.) Where’s the invention, you idiot?”

9

Was Grimm’s soon-to-be-ex in the cab with Richards and the Storms when the crash on the bridge occured? I don’t remember seeing her. Aside from the goofy coincidence of the other three FF members happening to be on the same bridge that Grimm chose to do his “Thinker” bit, if the soon-to-be-ex wasn’t with them, how did she possibly get there so fast, and why would she bother just for the dramatic toss-the-ring-like-it’s-a-scorpion bit?

10

I assume she saw the news coverage.

–Cliffy

11

Even so, the bridge was crowded with motorists, spectators and emergency personnel. How does she get right up to the action?

Oh, well…

12

Another question: If Doom’s super energy was needed in order to get the machine to work properly (making the cosmic cloud and all) and bring Ben back to normal, then how the heck did he go turn himself back into The Thing afterwards?

I didn’t get the whole turning-invisible-to-get-through-the-crowd thing, either. She goes invisible, then shoves through, with the guys following her. Why do you need to be invisible to do that? Nice panties, though.

13

It had enough juice to either amplify their abilities or give them powers, but not enough to reverse the process. That part, took Doom’s juice.

14

Short hijack - but my wife, who was 8.5 months pregnant when we went to ROTS would say she looked maybe, 4 months pregnant when she gave birth. It irked her to no end.

15

What, the people of Naboo are physiologically identical to us Earth people? Even with midichlorian gametes fermenting their ova?

16

This weekend I was hanging out at a bookstore while my kids were enjoying a Harry Potter party. I found a book on the making of FF, and it included a script. The script implied just this - the distraction of her turning invisible allowed Johnny and Reed to slip past, then Sue followed while invisible. I missed where and how she got re-dressed, though.