Fantastic Four 2015

The latest trailer for the Fantastic Four movie, due out in August, has hit now. In it we get a better glimpse of the tone of this film and the characters in it.



The description on the trailer says:

"FANTASTIC FOUR, a contemporary re-imagining of Marvel’s original and longest-running superhero team, centers on four young outsiders who teleport to an alternate and dangerous universe, which alters their physical form in shocking ways. "

And that, right THERE, is the crux of the problem I have with this film. It's Marvel's longest running superhero team, created by the genius of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Therefore show it the respect it deserves, and make the film faithful to the source material.

But no, like so many other "remakes" or "re-imaginings," what you have instead is lesser-talented individuals who pervert the creative work of others. It's nothing short of bastardization.

The makers of this film don't give a damn about the source material, other than to cash-in on the popularity of the brand name. Every comic book fan out there should shun this film for that reason alone.

And the way they made changes to the source material is, frankly, insulting. All of the characters are, predictably, younger. The human torch is now black, for some reason, but his sister is white. Because, you know, we want to be politically correct but not TOO politically correct. We can't have TWO black characters in a film. So instead we'll make them step-siblings. Cool.

No, not cool - it's manipulative and shallow and people should be smart enough to see this dumbass ploy for what it is. They're brother and sister - make them both black, or asian, or white or whatever you want, because otherwise changing the plot to keep Sue white reeks of racism from the filmmakers.

Dr. Doom, the Fantastic Four's arch-nemisis, is no longer the ruler of the country of Latveria, he is instead now an internet blogger. No I didn't make that up. That is these filmmakers' idea of an evil villain. And no, the irony of writing about what a dumb idea for a supervillian a blogger is - on a blog - isn't lost on me.

I honestly don't know who this film is intended for. Not fans of the comic, that's for sure. You just took their much-lauded comic, the longest running one in the Marvel Universe, and pissed on it.

If you wanted to make a story about kids who get sucked into another universe and gain superpowers, make that story, but call it something else. But then you would lose the ability to cash-in on the Fantastic Four brand name, and that's what this is all about.

I hope this film flops. I hope Marvel in turn gets this back and makes a proper version of it, and puts it back in the Marvel Universe where it belongs. At least Ant-Man is being released in July. Maybe I can catch a rerun of that week instead.