Reed Richards A Bit Tougher In Fantastic Four 2
Posted by John Campeaon 14. 07. 2006in News Chat
News flash! People generally didn’t like Fantastic Four the movie last year. Some people, like myself, walked out knowing we just saw a bad movie… but for some reason still had some fun watching it. Go figure… movies are funny that way.
All signs have been point to the studio realizing the first effort was not good enough and have been vamping things up a bit. Silver Surfer all CGI (good news), a possible appearance by Galactus and a few other tid bits. But now the good folks over at Cinematical are reporting that the writers knew they had to alter how they portrayed one of the main characters too:
I read the following comments from one of the primary script writers for the Fantastic sequel: “I think the one thing I really want to do is make Reed Richards, that character, smarter and tougher. He’s the leader. I think Ioan [Gruffudd] did a great job [in the first film], but I think he could have had more stuff to play as the leader. Reed Richards has his nerdy side, but he ultimately has to make some tough choices.”
Totally 100% true. It’s ok to not have a hero be the same old guys as every other hero, but you can’t just make Reed a bumbling nerd either. Who would follow him? The comic gives him a bit of a tougher edge too without making him Cyclops (from the comics… not the movie).
Will Fantastic Four 2 actually be better than the first? Who can say at this point… but it at least looks like they’re doing some of the right things to try to steer the ship in the right direction.
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That sounds good, but what they REALLY need to do is change The Thing. He just looked like a bald orange guy with cracky yet foamy skin. He sure didn’t look rock-like to me. He should have been CGI in my opinion. Kind of like The Hulk. Like dry crackly rock. He also should have sounded like rock. He was silent. AND WHERE WERE THE HUGE RIDGES OVER HIS EYES??!! Come on. That is key in The Thing
Well I was happy I only paid 50 cents to see it and that was a “let’s see how bad this turned out” kind of thing.
It was totally horrible but some of the changes (especially to Doom and his “powers”) were totally useless to the story. I didn’t buy Jessica Alba either. I’d have loved a slightly older take on Sue.
I felt they should have started the thing right in the middle, with the FF having been around 8 years or so, Franklin Richards being about 5 or so, and not done the boring old origin story.
I think it could have been a better film that way, really focusing on the family aspect that always tended to differentiate the FF from other teams.
Maybe #2 will get it right. But will audiences pay to see the film?
I meant to say it “wasn’t totally horrible”.
It really is pretty much standard summer film fare.
Now all they have to do is recast Sue (older) and Johnny (younger) and hire a new writer/director (better).
I hope Thing has ridges in this one too, Brandon, but lest we forget: Thing DID NOT have “the brow” when FF first started in the comics. Also, as mixed as I was on the first film, I thought the Thing suit was fine. Oddly, the CGI Hulk wasn’t all that in some scenes…and I really liked that film, aside from the pictture in picture.
As for Reed, this is not unusal…he would have to be more of a leader type, since Reed being ‘forced into leadership’ and wrangling in the team was a big chunk of the first film. Given a few years span, yes, this character would have to be more active. Yes, he would also give more attention to Sue.
HOWEVER
There is “another” report from on of the FF scribes, and maybe we should not get all worked up over “the serious” Fantastic Four. The same writer , Don Payne (Super Ex-Girlfriend) who also said Reed will be more leader-like, also said to Sci-Fi wire “”The Silver Surfer will be in it. The Fantasticar will be in it. We’re just trying to make it more exciting and funnier, and, you know, we’re trying to top the first one.”
Funnier?
Well, I hope not. All the other stuff: stellar.
You know who I think could have made a great Fantastic Four movie. Terry Gilliam, haveing him do the Negative Zone/Annihilus story would have been some great trippy shit.
Fantastic Four sucked a giant cock. Tim Story
should go back to directing budweiser commercials. Was that too harsh? To think the studio would bring him back is perplexing to me. With him at the helm I don’t see anything much better than the first. Silver Surfer is CG that’s nice. Is The Thing CG? The half ass effort that was put into his character was pathetic. What was with Jessica Alba’s pasty looking face? She looked worst that my grandmother at her funeral viewing.
=( Another marvel franchise that won’t cross the 200 million dollar mark and that very sad. Am I the only on that thinks that if these marvel adaptations were done correctly they would be challenging Titanic for the top grosser of all time?
Too true. The movie was bad but I did really enjoy it as well. I guess it’s what they refer to as a “guilty pleasure”. I also agree that #2, on the surface at least, appears to be moving in a better direction than the first. I’m actually starting to get a bit excited at the prospect of number 2.
I thought the first one was okay, but expectations probably played a part. I rented the DVD (out of curiosity) thinking it might be utter shit, but it was… a bit better than utter shit, meaning they exceeded my expectations, which – as we all know – is the sign of good customer service. It’s a daffy story and they made a daffy film out if, with added hot girl and funny guy. Also – and I didn’t fully understand this part – Vic Mackey was so goddamn rock hard that he had turned into ACTUAL ROCK! That was a nice twist I didn’t see coming.
So I’ve got high hopes for the sequel. If they make much the same film, but with a naked guy surfing in space, I don’t see how it can fail, whether Reed Richards is tougher or not.
ok this is just to comment on the Silver Surfer CGI thing.
Remember T-1000? Wasn’t he basically Silver Surfer?
I have my doubts about how realistic they could make it though. Could they make it photo realistic? Even to this day, I can’t be fooled into thinking a CGI character was real.. Or maybe I did, but didn’t know.
CGI characters generally don’t impress me much, but I agree having him all CGI is the best way of doing him. But CGI characters are such a tricky thing to pull off. Look at Hulk, Yoda in the prequels. The other bad part about CGI is that it ages very poorly.
How about if they teach Jessica Alba how to act? Maybe that would help the movie.
I will like to have fantastic four 2 on dvd