Hello my name is Vega Goose and I’m here to ask and answer one simple question. Why do the Fantastic Four always suck? Even if you enjoy their early outing you have to admit that these are extremely subpar superhero movies.

Now the first thing we have to look at is the stories they attempt to tell. The Fantastic Four origin story isn’t really movie worthy and by wasting your time developing it you end up feeling like your building up to a much better film. This is a movie where you just need to jump into a world where these heroes already exist. Now you could tell a story that begins after they got their powers. Even doing an origin story for Doctor Doom sort of like what was done in 1989 with Batman.

The second thing you have to do with these movies is embrace the cheese. Give the 94 unreleased movie credit they embraced the comic booky aspects of the story and the film was way better for it even if it as well was an origin story.

The third and most important thing you need to do to make this franchise work is you have to get these character right. There is a reason they are called Marvel’s first family. Reed is the father figure, Sue is the matron of the group, Ben and Johnny and the two bickering children. This is important as it is the core of what makes the comic work.

Now each set of films does this wrong in different ways so lets start with the 2005 Edition.

Reed in this film goes from focused scientist to head in the clouds dreamer who is completely clueless about the world around him he isn’t likable and makes you shout at the screen at how stupid this so called smart guy really is.

Sue goes from the Matron of the family to a complete bimbo and unlike a lot of people I don’t blame the actress for that. I have seen Alba act before so I know she has the talent.  At no point do you believe she is the voice of reason for the group, that she is glue holding the team together.

Instead we get a character who’s arc basically is about which guy she wants to hook up with Doctor Doom or Mr. Fantastic and having more issues keeping her clothes on than a spring breaker after ten shots of fireball whiskey!

Johnny in the comics is basically Maverick from Top Gun he’s the best and he knows it however he isn’t just out for himself, he isn’t selfish and doesn’t need to learn to think for others. However in the movie that is literally his arc. He’s just a complete asshole in this movie and at no point did I like him or want him to grow or change I just wanted him out of the movie.

Then we have Ben Grimm who honestly this movie got right. He is just a guy from Brooklyn who happened to be best friends with a scientist. He is a pilot but he is just an average joe. Also I’m going to make this clear I thought the suit worked well and I’d rather have that than what we got in the new one which I’ll get to in a minute.

Finally we get Victor Von Doom and like Ben Grimm this character is pretty good. Though I’ll be honest in his case I don’t think they went broad enough. Doom is practically the definition of the trope comic book villain. So let him go nuts. Instead he comes off like a retread of the Green Goblin from Spiderman.

So as you can see the problem here is that fans don’t like the changes you make and the new comers don’t have any foundation meaning there is no reason to change these things.

Now moving on the 2015 version we see much the same problem. Only here all the characters have the same issue so I’ll cover them all at once. They have no character here Sue and Ben never even look each other in the face the entire film.

This movie fails in a completely different way than it’s 2005 counterpart. Here rather than going half in serious half in camp they go full serious mode. This doesn’t work with the Fantastic Four for the reason I went into earlier.

Now the biggest two issues here involve the storm family and the villain. So let’s start with the elephant in the room.

One of the main plots is Sue getting over being adopted. This was completely added for the movie and only takes screen time that could have been used for telling this story rather than more exposition. This pissed off the fanbase as their was really no reason for it and confused newcomers who didn’t care. I understand you wanted to diversify the cast a bit but why not just make the Storms a black family?

Were they worried people would bulk at the idea of a interracial couple in Reed and Sue? I don’t understand the purpose of this choice. It just bogs you down and divides an already divided fanbase.

Then we have this movies version of Doctor Doom and wow. Anyone complaining about McMahon ate their words and hard. Here he is basically a walking zombie with emo problems and unexplainable powers.

The 2005 version was not exactly loved but this movie was ashamed to be a Fantastic Four movie never even giving the Four their names.

This has lead people to ask can a good fantastic four movie be made. The answer is yes and it’s really simple to see how. READ A FUCKING COMIC!

Seriously why is that so hard for film makers to figure out every superhero can not be Nolanized it doesn’t work.

So in closing the Fantastic Four suck because the people making their movies either don’t get the material or don’t want the material.

Thank you for reading and I’ll see you next time.