The Fantastic Four: First Steps

[Without_Pause]

Someone loves Fantastic 4 so much they have four fingers.

 

[Ghost]

Well the first trailer dropped.

 

They looked a lot better than I thought the would.

I’m actually excited again about a Marvel movie

 

 

Edited February 4 by Ghost

[Mopery]

3 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

Someone loves Fantastic 4 so much they have four fingers.

If you merge the A with the I you get 4

 

Fantastic AI

Edited February 4 by Mopery

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

And here we go...

 

 

Thoughts:

Spoiler

• Loving the retro-future 50s vibe. Even if it feels a little, y'know, Praetorian.
• On this world, F4 are established, and have a solid fanbase down to the merch and masks...
• ...so we don't need to go through the setup yet again. Probably, except in flashback.
• That's a lot more dialled-down, confident, smooth-but-firm Pedro (and also Reed) than we've seen before - but vulnerable with Sue.
• Similarly, Ben seems more at peace than we've seen him before, though... there are moments.
• Sue is holding the family together under stress... that sounds familiar...
• ...and Johnny's still an idiot.
• All yer best Marvels have a Proper Big-Boots Actor as The Big Bad (or at least A Big Bad), and they got Malkovich. 
  Internet says this is the Red Ghost, Ivan Kragoff, and... his Super-Apes???
• But we also get Galactus. Quite a smol ickle cute Galactus by his normal standards, but that's 100% the big purple guy.
• Oh, and there's Herbie, the Fantasticar, and some fun other little details.

[Techwright]

1 hour ago, ThaOGDreamWeaver said:

And here we go...

 

 

Thoughts:

  Hide contents

• Loving the retro-future 50s vibe. Even if it feels a little, y'know, Praetorian.
• On this world, F4 are established, and have a solid fanbase down to the merch and masks...
• ...so we don't need to go through the setup yet again. Probably, except in flashback.
• That's a lot more dialled-down, confident, smooth-but-firm Pedro (and also Reed) than we've seen before - but vulnerable with Sue.
• Similarly, Ben seems more at peace than we've seen him before, though... there are moments.
• Sue is holding the family together under stress... that sounds familiar...
• ...and Johnny's still an idiot.
• All yer best Marvels have a Proper Big-Boots Actor as The Big Bad (or at least A Big Bad), and they got Malkovich. 
  Internet says this is the Red Ghost, Ivan Kragoff, and... his Super-Apes???
• But we also get Galactus. Quite a smol ickle cute Galactus by his normal standards, but that's 100% the big purple guy.
• Oh, and there's Herbie, the Fantasticar, and some fun other little details.

 

 

• Do we have a specific in-story date for when this takes place?  Going into this trailer I thought I'd read it would be the "Camelot" era of America, basically the early 1960s, but the car designs look more like 1954 to 1957. 
• Did you noticed that they showed the changes to Ben, Sue, and Johnny, but (as near as I can tell) they didn't show Reed's unique nature.  Considering what else they revealed, I wonder why that is?  Maybe the CGI is not done yet, or could it be that it is a plot point, like he's the brains of the team, but his physical change is taking longer to happen?
• I wasn't sure from the early sketches that the uniforms would look anything more than dorky, but they actually look great.
• Ben looks great!  I wasn't sure how they'd improve on the Michael Chiklis look, but they somehow did, and managed to make it look so much closer to the early comics as well.
• Pedro's "7 o'clock family dinner" speech sounded weird. Not the context, that's on-point for the era, but actually how he sounds. I'm having trouble defining that further, but it didn't sound at all like what I'd expect from Reed Richards.
• Love the actual labeling of "Fantasticar" on the front side panel.  The car looks, well, fantastic, though I'm wondering how they intend to make it break into quad vehicles.  Regardless, if there's a real vehicle involved, that suckers going to be fought over at auction by the guys who own copies of the 1960s Batmobile.
• Loving the mid-century modern and Populux look of the sets.
• Wondering if we'll get a cameo from Howard Stark, possibly consulting with Reed Richards.

 

EDIT: Forgot to add, the rocket looks awesome!

 

 

 

 

Edited February 4 by Techwright

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

17 minutes ago, Techwright said:

I'm having trouble defining that further, but it didn't sound at all like what I'd expect from Reed Richards.

What I picked up was that it was a confident, authoritative, paternal Reed, not the nervous, self-effacing nerd we've seen in other flicks. 

It's possibly because this Reed has already been through some... stuff... and it's changed him. This may also be why the family are under pressure - from celebrity, the expectation to deliver the world (repeatedly) from increasingly weird forms of eeeebil, and so on.

 

And the Fantasticar does look amazing. Wonder if it comes in black, maybe with some purple pearlescent...

[Techwright]

Adding to my earlier thought, assuming this F4 is in the same universe that we've been watching since 2008 and not another from the multi-verse, then a Howard Stark cameo is just the tip of the iceberg.   We could have exchanges with:

• Howard Stark (and perhaps Jarvis again?)
• Peggy Carter
• any of the Howling Commandos (though I'd see them more in a armed courier mode for SHIELD)
• and, very interesting to me, we could also see Toby Jones's Dr. Arnim Zola, now a SHIELD scientist through Operation Paperclip (and of course, secretly one of the two current heads of HYDRA), consulting with Reed Richards. 

 

Actually, that is an interesting angle.  Hydra is still very much alive and parasitic at this moment in time.  What happens when the Big Guy in the Big Helmet shows up?  Does Hydra try to interfere like they did in The Battle of New York (they're the ones that convinced the World Council to launch the nuke)?  Does Zola (assuming he's even in an F4 production) maintain cover but aid Richards?  Do the writers conveniently forget SHIELD and HYDRA and send in the F4 alone?

[BrandX]

6 hours ago, Techwright said:

Adding to my earlier thought, assuming this F4 is in the same universe that we've been watching since 2008 and not another from the multi-verse, then a Howard Stark cameo is just the tip of the iceberg.   We could have exchanges with:

• Howard Stark (and perhaps Jarvis again?)
• Peggy Carter
• any of the Howling Commandos (though I'd see them more in a armed courier mode for SHIELD)
• and, very interesting to me, we could also see Toby Jones's Dr. Arnim Zola, now a SHIELD scientist through Operation Paperclip (and of course, secretly one of the two current heads of HYDRA), consulting with Reed Richards. 

 

Actually, that is an interesting angle.  Hydra is still very much alive and parasitic at this moment in time.  What happens when the Big Guy in the Big Helmet shows up?  Does Hydra try to interfere like they did in The Battle of New York (they're the ones that convinced the World Council to launch the nuke)?  Does Zola (assuming he's even in an F4 production) maintain cover but aid Richards?  Do the writers conveniently forget SHIELD and HYDRA and send in the F4 alone?

 

From what I've heard, this will be the universe that RDJ Doom comes from

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

10 hours ago, BrandX said:

From what I've heard, this will be the universe that RDJ Doom comes from

I've also heard that the F4 world is its own specific universe - which is why they get drawn into the universe-collapse plotline.

(Along with Doom, who may or may not be this 'verse, Deadpool and his 'verse, etc.

 

BTW, there was a full launch party at the US Space And Rocket Museum (which is pretty cool, being a space nerd...)

 

Edited Wednesday at 03:31 PM by ThaOGDreamWeaver

[Techwright]

17 hours ago, BrandX said:

 

From what I've heard, this will be the universe that RDJ Doom comes from

 

6 hours ago, ThaOGDreamWeaver said:

I've also heard that the F4 world is its own specific universe - which is why they get drawn into the universe-collapse plotline.

(Along with Doom, who may or may not be this 'verse, Deadpool and his 'verse, etc.

 

 

I've now seen multiple confirmations of that, so thanks for the first alert, @BrandX.  With "the universe-collapse plotline"  I'm going to guess...

Spoiler

That Galactus actually destroys this beautiful retro-future 1960s planet, possibly while the F4 are off planet in a second space flight (Reed's comment in the trailer, "Before we went up the first time..." implies there's a second launch.)  Whether due to the earth-shattering energies (literally) or due to Reed's MacGyvering the situation, the F4 survive by hoping universes, essentially their "first steps" into the multi-verse  

 

By the way, I gather from other readings that the Silver Surfer tied to this universe's Galactus is supposed to be female.  Whether this is a female Norrin Radd, or another character given the Silver Surfer powers, I'm not certain yet.  

 

[TTRPGWhiz]

5 hours ago, Techwright said:

 

 

 

I've now seen multiple confirmations of that, so thanks for the first alert, @BrandX.  With "the universe-collapse plotline"  I'm going to guess...

  Hide contents

By the way, I gather from other readings that the Silver Surfer tied to this universe's Galactus is supposed to be female.  Whether this is a female Norrin Radd, or another character given the Silver Surfer powers, I'm not certain yet.  

 

Julia Garner (“Ozarks”, mostly) is playing Shalla Bal, who is part of Norrin Radd’s original backstory (she was the empress of their planet and they were banging). She was also the Silver Surfer in Earth X.

[battlewraith]

Well, after reading all the withering contempt for this project and then watching the (actual) trailer I'm interested. One thing that works for me on a superhero or fantasy film is a strong visual aesthetic. If they let the designers do their thing I'm in. 

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

5 hours ago, battlewraith said:

If they let the designers do their thing I'm in. 

They're certainly being quite smart. 

For example, if you're wondering what the weird arrows are for... ask Ed Sullivan.

(They're not gonna go full Partridge Family and sing, are they?)

[Techwright]

24 minutes ago, ThaOGDreamWeaver said:

(They're not gonna go full Partridge Family and sing, are they?)

 

"Goodbye World, that's the song that their singing"?

 

 

Also, I'm not quite certain what the focal point of that picture is.  Can someone point it out?  😉

 

 

 

Alright, a tad more seriously, just a tad, I had some fun looking up real life locations for the Baxter Building and cross-referencing them with the RL location for Avengers tower.  It turns out, they're really close.   So close, in fact, that I'd not be surprised if the MCU folks made them the same site. 

 

As the Avengers movie's Battle of New York City showed, Avengers tower was directly behind Grand Central Terminal.  That puts it on the footprint of the real-life MetLife building  in Midtown.  If you're standing where the Avengers first assembled, looking at Grand Central Terminal, then the Baxter Building is suppose to be immediately to your left of the GCT.  The location I was told was "[East] 42nd and Madison". While there are 4 corners, of course, and I wasn't told the specific one, the standout corner is the northeast one, closest to the GCT, and on the footprint of the real life One Vanderbilt tower.  This also places it a stone's throw from the "site" of Avengers Tower.  It makes me wonder just how much of the battleground locations of the Avengers movie might be shown in this movie as kind of an easter egg.  That, of course, is assuming they stay with the comic address for the building.  One fan theory I've heard is that the Baxter building will actually be on the same footprint of Avengers (Stark) Tower, and that either (A) it is the building Tony tears down to build Avengers Tower (though in a different universe?) or (B) if the F4 cross over to Earth 616, they will make Avengers (Stark) Tower their headquarters.  Not sure about that last bit being accurate.  I suppose it depends on what time in Earth 616 they do cross over into, as the Contessa in Thunderbolts has already revealed she was behind the purchase of Avengers (Stark) Tower to convert to the Thunderbolts lair.

[ZacKing]

Well, having seen the trailer, I'll say it doesn't look awful.  I personally just don't think this is the right cast for this.  Pedro Pascal doesn't scream "world's smartest man" to me.  Don't get me wrong, he's a great actor and I think he's great in GoT and Mandalorian.  I just don't think he's right for Reed Richards.  I'm not sold on Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm either.  I'll give it the benefit of the doubt though.  The Thing looks pretty good, but I didn't think the Chiklis rubber suit looked bad either. 

 

I'm more looking forward to seeing this than the other crap Marvel has shoveled out as of late, so that's a plus for me.  I really hope they get this right. 

[TTRPGWhiz]

What an arc.
Guess this turd got polished enough.

[ShardWarrior]

On 2/9/2025 at 11:06 AM, ZacKing said:

Pedro Pascal doesn't scream "world's smartest man" to me.

 

Me neither.  Love him as an actor, but he does not fit Reed Richards to me.