fumanstan

Regarding Red Skull, I figure they could just attribute any existence and age to the Tesseract and whatever time/space he ended up in and move on. I've been disappointed in the portrayals of Doom too, but i'm not sure if we're allowed to complain about that.

Mike86

I agree and Red Skull is a pretty cool villain. I'd just be curious as to how he'd be brought back. He didn't get a lot of closure in The First Avenger though.

Solid Snake

Doom is Fox's fault.

The MCU has a great issue in getting what are great villains but never using them to their full potential.

Loki is their crutch. Winter Solider was a great Terminator. But everyone else w/ what little cool factor they brought are just punching bags really.

Admittingly... Stane was an awesome character that by the time he went Iron Monger armor it was a weak end to it. Mandarin, while something I don't personally like being a fan of the comics, was a great switch up but Killian was a weak villain too. The MCU focuses so much on their heroes that their villains aren't allowed to breath.

Big Boy Laroux

Which is another reason "All Hail The King" was so great. It looked to be setting up something much bigger... But then... nothing.

Solid Snake

Yep. Biggest tease they've done. I WANT that to be continued so much. Such a great short too.

Mike86

Stane was a good villain while he lasted. It's just too bad he got killed off right away. I didn't actually have a problem with Killian in Iron Man 3, I just thought it was a cop out that Kingsley wasn't the real Mandarin (until the retcon at least).

Red Skull was decent but only in one film and didn't have good closure. Other than that I'd just say Loki and Winter Soldier have been the best villains and think Thanos will be good. Ultron wasn't bad either but he's probably a one and done villain.

B5Erik

What I will never understand is how they can't get Doctor Doom right in the movies. He is, essentially, Iron Man gone bad.

How hard would it be to make a movie where he is a classmate of Reed Richards in college and is a genius just like Reed (or Tony Stark) and ends up using the tech he creates to take over his home country of Latveria?

That would certainly make for a better back story and a much better villain.

brayzie

In the one-shot Kingsley still isn't the Mandarin right? He's supposed to meet the real Mandarin. I thought the set-up with the background on the history of the Mandarin throughout the ages was a great build up.

Solid Snake

Yeah. Trevor is busted out to meet the real deal.

Mike86

Yeah I got that confused. Still it was better than how it was handled in Iron Man 3 with the fakeout. I'm curious if they'll ever actually do anything with it though or if it'll just be one of those things we don't get an answer to. The Mandarin is a good villain so the fact that he was wasted is a shame.

JoeyOhhhh

Interesting how the MCU villains that are best received carry over into several movies, and aren't handled as fodder.

Regarding this movie I love FF, and while the trailer looked somewhat interesting, they could have pretty much called it anything. Nothing in it screamed Fantastic Four to me.

JoeyOhhhh

I'm with this idea, but maybe not out of the gate on the first film.

They could easily do a faithful albeit slightly different adaptation of FF and use a lesser known villain if need be.

I consider the Incredibles a better FF movie than the two previous ones.

Solid Snake

I wouldn't say that. Loki was planned as he was for The Avengers. The rest are rather cut and dry on them being dead. Except for Skull.

Loki being back for Thor 2 is easily because Hiddleston is so damn charming as him.

kgrogers1979

Loki will most likely be in Thor: Ragnarok as well considering how The Dark World ended.

I wonder if Marvel plans on making Norman Osborn a recurring baddie as well since they can now use him in the MCU. Osborn in the comics has become more than just a Spider-Man villain.

fujishig

All this crossover talk, and it made me wonder why the FF rights didn't include the Inhumans, since they were introduced and were closely associated with the FF (I mean if Silver Surfer and Galactus were included...)

Mike86

Well I think part of the problem in superhero films in general is the villains are always somewhat predictable. Its partly just the nature of these films that we expect to see the heroes win, but killing off the villain is sort of shitty because it makes that villain look weak and doesn't really give a sense of danger for the heroes. At least if the villain escapes or whatever and is brought back later they can be viewed as a bit more threatening or at least not entirely predictable by just being killed off at the end of the film they're featured in.

Paul_SD

A better way to have tackled FF, and not have it blur with all the rest of the superhero movies, would probably have been to make a movie about Doom, from his POV, and have the FF appear as the antagonists to his protagonist.

Maybe focus the film on how Doom wrests control of Latveria away from being a communist satellite state to being an independent dictatorship. Doom, at his best, was a complex character whose motivations were never evil for evil's sake. You could set the story up in such a way that he has a sympathetic goal, but somewhere in his methods he crosses a line that the FF are best equipped to respond to.

Doing this would have alllowed Fox to
- give the property some 'cool' cachet by focusing on the Bad guy and not the super-powered Waltons family quartet.
- have a dynamic villain in this franchise that is equal to the fully fleshed out Magneto in the X-men
- not have to make another origin story of the FF. Since they are a public institution in their universe, any exposition as to their origins can be dropped efficiently in a few sentences of conversation or background dialogue.

They should have learned from how Magneto was handled in the X-men that getting the heroes prime antagonist right is essential to defining them.

Paul_SD

I was curious about that as well. I wonder if the tangential character rights stopped at a certain issue? Maybe up to issue 50 which gets them Galactus and Surfer (though Black Panther might have been introduced around that area too).
But then Medusa(an inhuman) was definitely introduced prior to #50, so who knows.

JoeyOhhhh

Don't get me wrong, he's easily the best villain they've cranked out, and he brings more to the roll then I think the majority of the actors who've been cast as villains (for me jury still out on Thanos). I feel like the actors aren't given enough to really flesh out their characters to be a real threat.

I've never been a fan of killing off the villains (especially the bigger ones). And like I said above how many MCU villains really seem that menacing even though we know they'll be defeated? Loki and Winter Soldier are in my opinion top two, I'd put Red Skull up there even though his demise is rather ambiguous.

To keep back on topic if this Dr Blog Doom is the real take on the character, huge misfire. Like I said earlier if this wasn't called Fantastic Four, I'd have thought it was a somewhat interesting, catch it on cable/Netflix flick.

I wonder if there's some contractual wording in the contracts that can have Marvel force the rights back

Obi-Wanma

I kinda wish they had the guts to do a FF movie without Doom. We've seen Doom done poorly on screen twice already. Just do the origin and give us Mole Man or anybody. Just try to make a good movie. If you want to throw in a little of Victor in college, fine, but no more than that. Then in the sequel, you would have time to do Doom properly.

brayzie

Hiddleston was a big reason why Thor was well-received in my opinion. But he was wasted in Thor 2, and it felt like the character was becoming over exposed after starring in the first Avengers. I don't know why they didn't try to work in Beta Ray Bill or some other well known storyline Dark World felt like a SyFy channel movie.

I always thought he was essentially Darth Vader in green.

Actually that's a pretty good idea. Kinda reminds me of Doom 2099. I would be more excited to see a villain-centric movie like than a reboot of FF.

I was never that familiar with the Fantastic Four comic books. This whole time I thought Dr. Doom was part of the FF's origin because of the movies.

Yeah, if that's the case they shouldn't force the character into the movie. If it's only one movie they plan on making, it makes sense, but they're obviously trying to start a new franchise so they should take their time like Nolan did with Batman and Marvel did with The Avengers.

Since someone brought up The Incredibles being the best pseudo-Fantastic Four movie it reminded me of these FF analogs: 1963's Mystery Incorporated and Astro City's First Family. Hope this isn't a vortex.

B5Erik

I wouldn't go that far (making the movie about Doom and having the FF as incidental characters, more or less).

I would focus more on Doom early in the movie. Show Reed and Victor in college. Show them as intellectual rivals and develop the relationship where Reed is the golden boy (with Ben as his best friend) and Victor is the red headed ugly stepchild, so to speak. Then flash forward a dozen years and Victor is developing robots and his armor tech while dealing with an oppressive communist government. From there you show Reed and the group exposed to a rare cosmic ray storm caused in part by unusual sunspot activity. The two stories parallel until Doom does something that warrants international intervention and the FF gets involved as New York is somehow threatened.

It wouldn't be all that hard to do. Creating a Doom that is somewhat sympathetic in some of his goals would make for a much more interesting story. And making Doom like the Doom of the comics (basically, again, a dark, megalomaniacal Iron Man with his high tech armor) would be really cool to watch. Fox would have their own Iron Man - and legitimately, too.

Absolutely. The first FF movie had some good scenes, but was a little too lightweight in tone (not much, but a little, and a little too silly at times) and then they got Doom all wrong. Not a whole heck of a lot happened, and the big conflict at the end was kind of blah.

So instead of rebooting to get it right, Fox abandoned the traditional, long standing, much loved FF and tried to reimagine the group instead.

For a company that has done a pretty good job with the X-Men it's surprising just how clueless they are when it comes to the FF.

ddrknghtrtns

*It was written in legend that Doom would even use black magic and sorcery against the FF.
*When a hero thought they had the upper hand against Doom, it was always a Doom-bot!
*Doom was so bad-ass, that if you saw his face without the mask, then your face would melt.
*Doom vs Vader? First, Doom would have exposed Vader for a mother loving pansy, and sued him for stealing his niche. Next, Doom would master all arts of the dark side, defeat the Emperor and resurrect him to show that he and only he alone could master this ancient Jedi art! Then he would kill him again. For shits and giggles (The grand finale), Doom would patch up the self destruct slot in the Death Star, and easily crush the rebellion.

fumanstan

No offense to any of you guys, but I think the Doom idea is terrible.

Paul_SD

I would frame the story like Doom = Castro.

He spearheaded the overthrow of a corrupt regime, installed himself as a (in his eyes) benevolent dictator, and the US gov't petitions the FF to perform a bay of pigs like incursion to topple him or neutralize a WOMD-like threat.
The incursion goes wrong, Doom captures them. Because he respects Reed's intellectual prowess, and envies their unearthly super powers, he tries to woo them to his side not by brute force, but by appealing to their intellect and moral bearings. It turns out that the story presented by the US officals was not entirely true, and there is an altogether different threat that needs to be overcome. Doom invites them to stay and witness the 'truth'. Unfortunately, despite his dabbling in sorcery to give him a 'power' edge, he is unable to contain the real threat, and it's up to the FF to save the day...and in doing so they humble Doom by proving his inadequacy (both intellectually and physically), and thereby set up within Doom, a lifelong feeling of animus and rivalry lurking behind his cordiality and seeming gratitude for their help.


And all the exposition, of how people got their powers/what the powers are/etc I could envision being contained in the one or two conversations- The first one as we follow the Gov't officials talking amongst themselves in the elevator up to top floor of the Baxter building for the initial briefing and later on as Doom is entertaining/trying to win over Reed and crew in his castle. You could have several juicy dialogue exchanges there were we get the the conflict of their various philosophies, as well as a sense of their intellectual admiration or respect for each other- which later becomes soured on Doom's end when he sees that Reed is actually his intellectual superior.

That's what I would have loved to have seen.

Instead we'll get a black Stanley Tucci sending four multicultural, cross gender Steve Rogers into pods to become transformed into superheroes where they will be interrogated/vetted by the Gov't ala Man Of Steel until they have to band together Avengers-like to stop some worm-hole/incursion by alien monsters/singularity.
Can't wait to see it all again.