Fantastic Four (2015) Teaser Talk

So, finally after months of waiting and speculation we finally have our first look at the Fantastic Four reboot. Now this movie really isn’t in a good spot, it seems that everyone is against it and that nothing can go right, and it’s true. This movie from the get go sounded like a complete and utter train wreck. Just like Sony’s attempt with the Amazing Spider-Man it was obvious that this was Fox’s rights grab.  

What I mean by this is that 20th Century Fox, who currently has the rights to the Fantastic Four property were about to lose it’s rights to the characters and comic. If that happened the Fantastic Four would return to Marvel and Disney where they could do whatever they liked with the characters. You see Fox had a limited time frame in which to make another movie, and time was running short, so they quickly through a movie together in order to maintain the rights.

Sorry if this information isn’t new to you but I feel like if you don’t really understand studio politics and the business of filmmaking this had to be quickly brushed on. Now, I remember being in highschool (yes that’s how long they’ve been thinking of making this) and hearing about a possible Fantastic Four reboot movie. Even then they (Fox) said that they wanted the movie to have a more grounded and realistic feel like the Dark Knight, back then this was all the rage after the success of Nolan’s Dark Knight movies, everything had to be grounded and dark from Spider-Man to Mortal Kombat we were seeing grounded realistic takes on characters. Now I don’t have a problem with all of this, assuming of course that the character can translate easily to a more grounded environment and darker tone.

It works for characters like Batman, and Daredevil however there are some characters that just can’t translate well into a more grounded universe. The Fantastic Four are one of those characters. This is a superhero team that stops galactic threats and monsters on a regular basis, they have always had a sort of campy fun feel to them. Making them dark and serious is a major disservice. Now I know there are all the changes to characters like Doom and the race change for Johnny Storm (it’s not a big deal get over it) but even the tonal shift isn’t what's wrong with the movie, production apparently was hell as well. All that fans had for months were some set photos, there wasn’t even a poster, hell Star Wars Episode VII had a teaser and when it came out in 2014, the movie wasn't even due until this coming December! But finally we have our first look at whatever it is that Fox has had planned with the Fantastic Four, I’ll let you decide yourself what you make of it.

Now, I personally don’t care for the trailer at all. Remember when I said they wanted to have a more serious grounded feel ala Christopher Nolan? Well it looks like they took this straight to heart, because this trailer reminds me of a little teaser trailer that came out in 2013 for Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi epic (if you want to call it that) Interstellar.

From the music to the shots it looks like Fox is trying really hard to give us a grounded movie here. Now the major problem I have with this teaser is that it does nothing for the audience, it doesn’t even allow you to get excited for the movie. A teaser is supposed to show you clips from the movie and give you just a basic rundown on what the movie is and what it’s about. If you walked into a movie theatre and saw this trailer you wouldn’t have guessed it was a Fantastic Four movie, sure the Marvel logo at the beginning tells you its a comic movie but as you watch the trailer you’d think it be anything but a superhero movie. It isn’t until the very end of the trailer do you get the idea that ,hey this is the Fantastic Four movie no one outside of internet boards are talking about.

This teaser doesn’t show you the Fantastic Four, it doesn’t even give you a sense of excitement to make you even buy tickets. So I’m going to do a little comparison with two Marvel trailers, one that’s fairly recent and one that’s 10 years old.

So first lets take a look at Marvel Studios latest teaser for this summers Ant-Man.

This trailer is getting crapped on by people for being too “generic” I personally think its the best teaser that Marvel Studios/Disney has come out with. Now, I am not a MCU fanboy, there are some movies in their library that I either hate or feel impartial about. I’m also not a DC fanboy, I just love movies. So now that thats out of the way, where does this teaser succeed where Fantastic Four fails? It’s simple it’s right in the title, Ant-Man. That’s right, in this teaser you actually get to see the title character and you get to see him use his abilities in two quick scenes. You see him use his shrinking ability and you get to see him control an ant. You also get the quick rundown of the plot making it very obvious what it’s about. Fantastic Four doesn’t even give you the heroes or their abilities, you just get a fancy backshot and what seems to be a sci-fi film.

Now the next trailer is actually a Fantastic Four trailer, this here is the first teaser for the first reboot that came out in 2005. This movie is basically panned by everyone, but watching the trailer you get a completely different idea because it’s actually superior than the one that came out today!

Now, as I said in the Ant-Man portion this trailer gives you what you want. It shows you all the characters and their abilities, gives your the villain and even the basic plot and tone of the movie. You might say that “well the trailer doesn’t give much of a story at all” that’s because in all honesty there wasn’t one in the finished product. As with most of the superhero movies of the early 2000’s the plots were all the same. Light and fun with hero vs. villain. Basic fun popcorn cinema that you expect from the early 2000’s. This new trailer however doesn’t even serve it’s basic purpose of a teaser trailer.

Of course you can argue that there are four characters instead of one singular hero like in Ant-Man, but this trailer here was able to quickly showcase the four heroes abilities, it even showcased Doctor Doom. And this is a trailer thats twenty seconds shorter than the current Fantastic Four trailer. Even the excuse of that it't not finished works because this movie finished shooting in the summer! There are obviously more they can show here,.

Now maybe my opinion will change when the theatrical trailer releases, but as it stands I am not that excited for this movie. But apparently if you go through the trailer frame by frame there are some coordinates that pop up and if you type them into your browser Latveria pops up on Google. It’s nice to see that they are not completely ignoring Doom’s origins but you’re going to have to try harder than that fox.