The Fantastic Four: First Steps

[Glacier Peak]

23 minutes ago, BurtHutt said:

Well, I guess it's a bit more complex. Galactus doesn't seem to have an alignment in most cases. He consumes planets for his own survival - that's his sole motivation. He really should've had more dialogue and discussion with the FF. 

 

I've read Galactus stuff for a long time. I just didn't like the way he was portrayed in this movie. 

 

You suggest he is evil due to causing the suffering of the sentient beings on the planets he consumes. Would you characterize a hunter here on earth also as evil who hunts animals for sport? I can offer many other examples...

Even more so, on a galactic (ha!) scale, Galactus devours worlds to feed the greater universal ecosystem of birth and rebirth, much like a Black Hole devours all matter and then..

[BurtHutt]

9 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

Even more so, on a galactic (ha!) scale, Galactus devours worlds to feed the greater universal ecosystem of birth and rebirth, much like a Black Hole devours all matter and then..

He's an incredibly complex character. He should've gotten the Thanos treatment with a slow, detailed reveal over several movies. He is the real big bad.

 

I also take issue with how he was so weak in this movie. I know he just devoured a planet and it may not have been as nourishing but still...quite lame. To have him pushed into the device via Invisible Woman was insulting.

 

It really was not a good movie.

[battlewraith]

50 minutes ago, BurtHutt said:

You suggest he is evil due to causing the suffering of the sentient beings on the planets he consumes. Would you characterize a hunter here on earth also as evil who hunts animals for sport? I can offer many other examples...

 

There are certainly people that view humans killing animals solely for sport as evil. The cutoff line for most people seems to be sentience.

Hunting other human beings for sport is absolutely regarded as evil and killing off helpless populations is monstrous. One thing that I think the movie got wrong is that Galactus doesn't just eat planets--he needs to consume worlds that are able to support biological life. 

 

The Silver Surfer is, imo, a rebuttal to the idea that Galactus is just some inscrutable entity that can't be regarded in moral terms. As a herald, the Surfer is far beyond a human being in terms of abilities, perspective, etc. The Surfer has seen the vast scope of the universe and has the most insider perspective on what drives his boss. Yet the Surfer, after spending a brief time on Earth, decides to revolt on behalf of humanity. It's hard to view the Surfer's cross-species empathetic sacrifice as heroic without conversely seeing Galactus's complete indifference to other beings as evil. Not to mention Galactus's thuggish dealings--be my herald and I won't eat your planet. 

 

I remember the whole John Byrne trial of Galactus thing where they tried to redeem Galactus--he has some higher purpose, etc. But I default to the initial idea of Kirby and Lee, which I take to be "what if you ran into a godlike being that was just hungry and didn't give a shit about morality."

 

All that said, I agree with you that the depiction of Galactus was not great.

 

I had two ways that I think they could've resolved the situation that were lore appropriate and better than Sue hulking out:

 

Spoiler

1. When Reed sends the robot off to get samples, it unwittingly nabs the ultimate nullifier which is later used to drive big G away.

 

2. The team fails and gets their asses kicked, but Franklin Richards manifests his full space Jesus persona and either drives Galactus away or negotiates more time for Earth (more time could be a million years since Galactus is immortal). He then wipes the teams memory of the incident and reverts back to an infant. Something like this actually happened in the comics and Galactus makes a comment in the film about the infant hiding his power.

 

 

[El D]

2 hours ago, BurtHutt said:

Well, I guess it's a bit more complex. Galactus doesn't seem to have an alignment in most cases. He consumes planets for his own survival - that's his sole motivation. He really should've had more dialogue and discussion with the FF. 

 

You suggest he is evil due to causing the suffering of the sentient beings on the planets he consumes. Would you characterize a hunter here on earth also as evil who hunts animals for sport? I can offer many other examples...

 

The comparison doesn't account for the fact that a human hunter who shoots deer doesn't commit the full genocide of an entire planet's worth of civilizations every time they make a venison sandwich. Also there's a core disconnect with 'it's just basic survival!' in that as an on-going problem it doesn't jive with Galactus being a deific cosmic entity nor the otherworldly, fairy tale-esque solutions that the Fantastic Four are commonly capable of. They can make any sort of plot-solving nonsense that the story requires except engineering something Galactus can subsist on indefinitely? Nor, apparently, can Galactus himself despite all his own technology, power, apparent lack of antagonism toward those he consumes. Of course, any permanent solution to his hunger would negate Galactus' motivation to spark conflict and effectively excise him from the narrative (at least as an antagonist). Though in that case maybe he ought to have a deeper motivation to warrant ending countless civilizations and treating solar systems like Vegas buffets beyond 'I got space munchies that nothing can solve that despite every other nonsense plot solution apparently being not only plausible, but outright expected from my opponents.'

 

Which, funnily enough, is why this movie took the route it did. The Fantastic Four do have a possible solution to Galactus' eternal hunger, it just happened to be something they were unwilling to give up. That makes the conflict personal for both the Four and Mr. Big Purple and Hungry. It also gives Galactus a reason to keep pursuing them because its the only solution he knows about. He's got a Reason to go after the Four repeatedly now versus just 'welp, guess I'll just eat more worlds despite not especially wanting to.'

[Ghost]

Instead of a hunter killing for sport, wouldn’t a fairer comparison be humans eating animals and plants, with no regard?  Or even humans killing insects and rodents for simply existing within the same space?

 

By the definition laid out, that would mean we are also evil.

 

[battlewraith]

26 minutes ago, Ghost said:

Instead of a hunter killing for sport, wouldn’t a fairer comparison be humans eating animals and plants, with no regard?  Or even humans killing insects and rodents for simply existing within the same space?

 

By the definition laid out, that would mean we are also evil.

 

 

Key words are no regard. Humans that just kill plants and animals for funsies are seen as bad, if not outright evil. If an ant is in my house, I kill it because I know that it's a drone with no consciousness and it doesn't make much difference to the colony. Furthermore, I don't leave food out so that ants won't be attracted and I won't have to kill a bunch.

 

If I went to step on an ant and it said "please don't kill me, I want to live." That would present a moral dilemma. I would at least try to communicate with the ants to get them to stay out of the house.

 

Galactus in this situation, not only kills the ant communicating with him. He kills all the ants on the planet as well as every other living thing.

[Krimson]

I think there is one proper resolution for this movie. At some point Galactus should take a good look at unborn Franklin, and then become completely unnerved when he sees Franklin unflinchingly staring back.