Fantastic Four: Proof That Not Every Superhero Needs a Dark Reboot

Fantastic Four: Proof That Not Every Superhero Needs a Dark Reboot August 10, 2015

thingReed Richards feels really, really bad for what he did to Ben Grimm. He tells Grimm over and over that he’ll figure out a way to change him back from the (very angry) mountain of rock he’s become. Grimm knows it’s hopeless, though. “You can’t fix this,” he says. “Nobody can.”

“You were my best friend,” Reed says.

“Look at me!” Grimm says. “I’m not your friend. You turned me into something else.”

The same could be said of Fantastic Four director Josh Trank and 20th Century Fox. They turned Marvel’s first family into something else—something it never should’ve become.

There are lots of reasons why Fantastic Four became the summer’s most notable disappointment, and many are about what the film didn’t have: pacing, character development, coherency, that sort of thing. But the most glaring problem for me was what it had way too much of: darkness.

Hey, it’s not like I have a problem with adding a little grit to my superheroes. I’m a Batman freak, and Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight—the best superhero movie ever—is about as chipper as Apocalypse Now.

FANTASTIC-FOUR-9But here’s the thing: There’s always been an element in Batman’s character that has been pretty dark, no matter what the guy looked like in the 1950s and ‘60s. He’s become a pretty malleable character over the decades. But Marvel created the Fantastic Four still seems very much a product of the early 1960s (its first issue was released in late 1961); when John F. Kennedy ruled over Camelot but everyone still Liked Ike, before the Cuban Missile Crisis or Vietnam protests or before anyone had heard of the Beatles. Sure, Marvel’s first family had their share of problems: They were the first superheroes to exude a bit of humanity, really. But they were still created in a world that was still marveling over color televisions: They were bright, unapologetic, un-ironic heroes living in a crazy, larger-than-life world. And they were, above all else, fun.

Which, when you think about it, is what a summer superhero movie should be, too. Not every comic-book property wants or needs a Dark Knight re-imagining.

Marvel—the Disney-owned movie studio (which doesn’t own the rights to the Fantastic Four)—gets that. Sure, Iron Man and Captain America and the rest can get serious. But for the most part, movies featuring our Avengers’ cast of characters are colorful, bombastic and even silly at times. And Fox seems like it understood the franchise better 10 years ago. Sure, the first Fantastic Four movies, 2005’s Fantastic Four and 2007’s Rise of the Silver Surfer, weren’t exactly artistic triumphs. But they weren’t supposed to be. As a lifelong fan of the Four told me, the films reflected the team’s light vibe pretty well—even if they sometimes overshot the mark and hit full-on wacky at times.

But you can’t just take the team and shoehorn their DNA into a more 21st-century ethos. You have to honor the property for what it is and decide whether it, or aspects of it, might still resonate with modern audiences.

Fox missed an opportunity here. See, modern audiences prize honesty. They appreciate characters that are true to themselves. In a world that tends to reject conformity and questions standards and constantly reminds us to love who we are for what we are, no matter what that looks like, the Fantastic Four seem to fit right in: So what if you’re a little stretchy: We love that about you. You’re made of rocks? Hey, you’re still beautiful. And while, sure, our characters do indeed embrace their curious attributes to some extent, it would’ve been nice had the filmmakers also embraced the ethos from which these characters sprung. The Fantastic Four’s superpowers aren’t so special in these days of CGI superheroes. But their soul? That can’t be duplicated.

194149There’s something curiously spiritual about being true to oneself, I think. We’re told from the time we first start Sunday school that God made us unique and special. He has plans for us. And hey, if those plans involve gamma rays or inter-dimensional trips to play with some green goo, so be it.

“For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving,” we’re told in 1 Timothy. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

Fantastic Four failed because the franchise’s caretakers looked at the characters’ outward appearance and turned it into something else—something it was never designed to be. It ignored the heart. But the heart, as we should all know, is what makes the difference.


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