Recently, there’s been some controversial news regarding the upcoming rebooted Fantastic Four movie. Out of deference to those who don’t want to know anything until they go into the theater, let’s put this behind a spoiler tag, shall we?
In specific, the actor playing Doctor Doom has let it slip that his character won’t actually be named “Victor von Doom”; instead, he’s going to be a computer genius named Victor Domashev who calls himself “Doom” as his online handle. (Presumably, the computer genius is involved in securing the same username on each forum, so that he doesn’t have to be “D00M435726918”.) Apart from a few interviews with director Josh Trank where he talked about the film as a more “grounded”, “lo-fi” version of the Fantastic Four, this is pretty much the biggest leak regarding the movie since the cast was announced…a decision that was not without controversy, since it included Michael B. Jordan as an African-American Johnny Storm.
Needless to say, some people aren’t happy with this. In fact, without having seen even a single trailer, the geek consensus is forming around the idea that this movie is going to be terrible, that it’s going to suck rocks and not in a way that will make Ben Grimm happy, and that this is just another case of Hollywood not being able to wrap their collective heads around the idea that you don’t have to avoid being “comic-booky” in your comic book movie. Now, I’m sadly quite certain that at least some of this, from certain quarters, is rooted in opposition to the colorblind casting which is actually really awesome (not the least because I’ve seen ‘Chronicle’, and Michael B. Jordan was one of the best things about it). But I don’t think that all of it is, or even most of it. I think a lot of people are just convinced that a movie that’s not like the comic is a recipe for suck.
And you know…I’m not going to say that it won’t suck. I mean, I haven’t seen anything of it yet either, and even though I really liked this director’s previous work, I said that right before seeing ‘Signs’. But what I will say is that it doesn’t really matter that it sucks, and that it’s great that they’re making a movie that could suck. Because at this point, I think it’s time to let go of the fan-fear that each new superhero movie carries the weight of the genre on its shoulders. There’s no question that it’s definitely going to be a very different interpretation of the Fantastic Four from what we’ve seen in the comics. The director has talked about a “world outside your window” aesthetic, not so much big crazy Kirby sci-fi as the cutting edge of modern, recognizable technology. To a lot of people, that just isn’t what the Fantastic Four are…
But the thing is, the comics themselves have had a lot of fun playing with that aesthetic. We’ve had an Elizabethan Fantastic Four, we’ve had a manga Fantastic Four, we’ve had a zombie apocalypse Fantastic Four, and I’m sure we would have had a film noir Fantastic Four if that particular line of comics hadn’t proven woefully unpopular. (Although frankly if you don’t want to see Sue Storm, private eye tracking down Commie spaceship saboteurs, that’s your problem and not mine.) We’ve had Fantastic Fives, we’ve had evil Reed Richards, we’ve had a young Reed Richards as techno-Harry Potter and his hard-sf Hogwarts (if Warren Ellis won’t kill me for describing ‘Ultimate Fantastic Four’ that way). The central concept is strong enough to survive quite a bit of bending and spring back into shape.
So what we’re getting is Josh Trank’s FF. That’s what he was hired for – to bring his personal vision to the film. That should excite us, that superhero movies are now being taken as legitimate pieces of art that can be interpreted by auteurs the same way that Shakespeare or Arthur Miller can be staged in experimental ways. But instead, the opinion seems to be that we want legitimate auteurs bringing their personal vision to superhero movies only so long as they do it our way. Because if they don’t do it like the comics, they’ll screw it up, and then nobody will come to see it because it sucks and then studio executives will stop greenlighting these and then we’ll never get a good Fantastic Four movie ever ever ever ever! (Sorry. That last bit is usually only spoken internally.)
But the truth is, if this version of the FF sucks, Fox will just reboot the property again. If they decide not to bother, the rights will revert to Marvel and they’ll reboot the property again. If Josh Trank’s vision for the Fantastic Four isn’t worth watching, all that will happen is that we’ll have spent two hours and ten bucks on a substandard movie, and I already did that twice with the Matrix trilogy and survived it. Nothing in particular is riding on this, and it’s really okay that they’re trying something new and different.
Because the alternative bears mentioning as well. It could not suck. It could be really interesting to see Doom as a genius who claws his way up from a nobody with a laptop to the ruler of a technocracy of his own making. It could be interesting to see a Fantastic Four that you could believe lived in your city. It could be wonderful to see an African-American kid with a superhero who looks just like him. It could, in fact, be good because it’s new and different and because it shows us something about the Fantastic Four we’ve never seen before. And that’s a reason to do it right there, not just despite the fact that it’s not what’s been done before but because of it. That’s a big part of art sometimes – trying something that’s never been done before, something you’re not sure about, just to see what happens.
And if it sucks, you can always try again.
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I’ve actually become way more interested in the movie since the Doctor Doom news came out and I’ve had some time to process it. I mean, at least it doesn’t sound boring, right?
I might not be down to see it in theatres (after all we still haven’t seen a trailer, which is worrying in terms of how it reflects studio confidence) but the movie being a gloriously weird fuck up, as opposed to the lifeless crap of the last two Fantastic Four movies, sounds kinda cool, especially in comparison to some of the increasingly safe sounding superhero work coming from other studios.
As to the low-fi real world aesthetic, I can’t help but think that could be really cool in practice. Imagine if Trank used the FF showing up the impetus for their world getting supercharged into a crazy crazy comic book-y one.
“… it’s going to suck rocks and not in a way that will make Ben Grimm happy…”
Be honest – how long have you been waiting to use that line?
I said this way back when Josh Trank was first announced as director, I’ll say it again:
There is a distinct possibility that I will hate this iteration of Fantastic Four, but that may be Trank’s intention and I think that will make it loop back around to being awesome.
I haven’t heard a lot about the FF movie that makes me hopeful, but…I also haven’t heard anything that makes me sure it’ll be bad. I’m willing to just let it be made and judge it then.
I don’t necessarily think any comic movie has to be 100% faithful to the source material. None of the adaptations so far have, after all.
But, even without that 100% faithfulness, just about everything else has been largely recognizably similar, straying mostly for the sake of either surprise or for the narrative demands of a film compared to a comic.
The FF movie seems to be different for the sake of being different. The previous two FF films had their flaws, to be certain, but they were also highly recognizable in comparison to the comics.
That being said… Doom is a ridiculously complex and complicated character to adapt to the film world. He’s got a huge backstory, that involves gypsies, quaint little eastern European countries, science, sorcery, the underworld, monks, and a little vanity scar. So it’s no wonder other adaptations have had to play with that some.
But the previous films were able to successfully keep his connection with Reed, as well as his pride and vanity, and desire to prove himself smarter than Reed. So even if that Doom was far removed, he still was more similar than an internet troll/hacktivist.
I think the last two paragraphs capture a very important point. This isn’t 2004 or 2005 where there was still some trepidation about comic book movies. There are an astonishing 10 per year already announced for the next 6 years. This has never happened before in the history of movies.
If Trank’s Fantastic Four sucks (and let’s be honest, the studio could care less about the quality, they want that sweet, sweet cash baby), then FOX will move on to making another dozen X-Men movies instead. Marvel will continue the MCU. DC will continue their DC2U or whatever we’re calling it.
The director has talked about a “world outside your window” aesthetic, not so much big crazy Kirby sci-fi as the cutting edge of modern, recognizable technology. To a lot of people, that just isn’t what the Fantastic Four are.
For God’s sake, it is right in the name. It’s not “Grounded Four.” It’s not “Realistic Four.” It’s not “These Four Shlubs You’re Watching A Movie About For Some Reason.”
It is Fantastic Four. So if you’re afraid or unwilling to make a Fantastic Four movie seem all that fantastic, maybe you should be doing something else?
Maybe, and I’m just throwing this crazy-ass notion out here on this limb to see what happens…maybe it’s the world that’s grounded in realism and the main characters are fantastic?
Nah. Clearly Josh Trank just hates us all and is blowing through a couple hundred million dollars of studio money just to make us suffer.
The guy who made the Halle Berry Catwoman movie had a bunch of reasons for making the changes he made that I’m sure sounded real good to whoever forked out $100 million for it too, just sayin’.
I mean I don’t really care that much about the Fantastic Four as a property and I don’t know Josh Trank from Adam, but I think it’s a perfectly fair stance to take that people making a licensed property and then taking creative liberties with that property have to earn the benefit of the doubt (and no, I’m not talking about the Johnny Storm casting decision either), especially when another studio down the block has consistently demonstrated that they can regularly turn out successful superhero movies without having to, say, radically reinvent Captain America’s backstory in the process.
It might end up being a great movie, but it is almost certainly going to be a terrible Fantastic Four movie.
Don’t like Victor Domashev? DOOMBOT.
I rolled my eyes a bit when I heard about troll Doom. But then I remembered that two of Victor von Doom’s most foundational character traits are pettiness and vengefulness.
Yes, he’s a guy who can whip up a time machine before breakfast and open a gateway to another dimension after dinner, and in between runs a country and fights the Avengers. But Doom is also exactly the kind of prick who would make time (or make a Doombot who can make time) to DDoS a site because they banned him for threatening 14 year olds who failed to acknowledge his superiority in spite of repeated verbal bludgeoning.
As long as internet troll isn’t the entire extent of his villainy, I don’t mind that it’s on the list.
Maybe, and I’m just throwing this crazy-ass notion out here on this limb to see what happens…maybe it’s the world that’s grounded in realism and the main characters are fantastic?
Yup, that’s why Doctor Doom is a Russian internet troll instead of an egomaniacal tyrant scientist wizard king. Sure.
(Also, it’s just kind of uncomfortable when showbiz people make bloggers the villains of something. It’s usually transparently “I’m making fun of the people who hurt my feelings on the internet.” Sure, turn your pain into writing, but that’s a little bit embarrassing and petty.)
Pettiness and vengefulness are important traits of Doom but they aren’t the only defining traits of the character. What makes Doom Doom is, as you point out, he’s also a scientific super-genius and a literal dictator who runs his own country. Doom is more than just a petty jerk, he’s a grandiose petty jerk. It’s the combination and contrast of his nobility and small-minded inability to let go of a grudge he’s been fostering since college, of his insufferable sense of superiority and his ability to actually back it up.
“Doom is an anti-social programmer who isn’t even called Doom, that’s just his online handle” misses the point of the character in several ways. It really does smack of reinventing a character simply because someone looked at it and went “well that’s just too silly, we can’t do that.” Josh Trank may have a plan in mind, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good plan.
Oh, also?
Nah. Clearly Josh Trank just hates us all and is blowing through a couple hundred million dollars of studio money just to make us suffer.
No, he’s making a product for people who do not understand or respect the property they’re adapting.
Question: would you say that the “artistic interpretation” that the Super Mario Bros. movie represents means that video game cinema is a thriving and fully mature genre?
Well, yeah, if I didn’t make it clear, it will blow chunks if Being Wrong on the Internet is the lion’s share of his villainy. I just don’t mind that it’s in there, and I don’t even mind if that’s where he starts.
I mean, I assume the movie will be an origin flick, since superhero movies almost always are, so I expect him to basically be treading water at the start. Any time machines or Doombots he’ll invent will still be in his future, along with his fights with superheroes and most any other thing you think of when you think Doom. Of course, that would work better if he were a teenager–the actor is 32, so even if he’s playing a bit younger, he’s really too old to still be in his formative stages, considering that ambition is also one of his fundamental character traits.
Regrettably, I also assume that his rulership of Latveria will be dropped entirely, for reasons of realism–if the filmmakers find the name “von Doom” to be silly, I have to think they’d laugh out loud at the idea of a national leader openly engaged in villainy outside his nation’s borders. I furthermore assume the occult angle will be dropped, whether for realism or because the studio won’t have the rights to any other significant magic-based characters.
(I probably shouldn’t do so much assuming. You know what they say about assuming, after all, and Ming’s done nothing to me.)
This isn’t adapting Shakespeare in a different time-frame or context, this is adapting Shakespeare and making Iago a talking dog. I don’t really care about a black Johnny Storm (although there’s a host of reasons it probably won’t work but whatever) but DOOM does not “blog”. And “grounded in the real world and lo-fi” is a terrible approach to take to the FF. They are not grounded. They are not “lo-fi”. They’re big, crazy Kirby machinery and rocket ships and day-trips to the Negative Zone. This is getting David Mamet to adapt “Death of a Salesman” with extra profanity, in Klingon.
Having Johnny Storm be black doesn’t really alter anything fundamental about the character though. I don’t really see what host of reasons there are why that wouldn’t work.
I don’t think we need Dr Doom in every single Fantastic Four movie. It would have been better to use the Mad Thinker or the Wizard as the lone angry computer-whiz villain this time around.
Recast Mole Man as a basement-dwelling turbonerd-slash-uberhacker, it writes itself.
This is getting David Mamet to adapt “Death of a Salesman” with extra profanity, in Klingon.
Bad metaphor. This is potentially more like “Death of a Salesman”, where Willy Loman dies peacefully in his sleep at age 80 after having seen his son grown up to be a star QB.
My only issue with casting a black guy as Johnny Storm is that they didn’t go all in and cast a black Sue as well. Making one of the siblings adopted or the Storms being a multi-racial family is all well and good, but I’d have loved to see a multi-racial First Family.
Re: the movie in general, I don’t have high hopes, but I’m willing to reserve judgement. There are some good names attached but they probably won’t gel for me until I see a bit more than what we’ve gotten so far.
1. Johnny Storm is related to Sue now through adoption (they’ve said as much)instead of blood. While that’s interesting, it’s a needless deviation from the source material, imo. 2. Johnny Storm is kind of a dick. He rags on Ben, he’s a hot-head and a dilettante, he’s shallow, jealous, impulsive. So the only black guy in the movie is kind of a dick. Well done. 3. It was stunt-casting, again a needless deviation from the source material. Fans have sat through two bad FF movies, let’s make one character black. That’ll fix the “problem”.
Here’s the problems I see with the FF movie(s) in general:
1. They aren’t part of the larger Marvel Film Universe. I’m not griping because I want the FF (and the X-Men) in the Phase 3 continuity or whatever. It’s just that the FF is so rooted in being a part of the Marvel U that making them stand-alone just doesn’t work anymore. You’ve got 4 people who have superpowers? Sorry, they’re not allowed to run around fighting crime, they’re put in a secret location and dissected to figure out how they work (if we’re being “grounded”). Without the rest of the Marvel U, Sue & Reed’s roles as the “Mom & Dad” to other heroes is gone. You also are left wondering with many films like this if there’s a world-threatening event, where are all the other heroes? On break? The FF (and many other characters) also seem all the more ridiculous without any other powered people in silly get-ups running around. This also goes for the DCU films, which I think are learning this lesson, but going about it in a ham-fisted “me, too” kind of way.
2. The FF movies as well as the Spider-Movies and X-Films are made first and foremost to keep the movie rights. Even bad films make their money back through secondary revenue streams. You might get someone to come along and turn out a good film from that setup, but it’s not like there’s a lot of pressure to do so when the IP’s value hinges more on what they’re doing over at Marvel/Disney.
3. When superhero movies don’t give the heroes a villain worth fighting, the film suffers. Superman Returns didn’t give Supes anyone to match his abilities, nor did Ang Lee’s Hulk. Fantastic Four vs. Computer Programmer just doesn’t sound like it’s going to have some epic showdown that pays off an incredible setup between good & evil. As noted above, the details are scarce, but I really hope we aren’t getting someone who hacks the Baxter building and uses Reed’s gizmos to create a bunch of Doom-bots.
Basically, it’s hard to make a good FF movie without drastically changing it so it’ll make sense in the limited context of a solo title superhero movie. It doesn’t help that they are a part of the whole “Cosmic Kirby” side of comic books, but it seems like the heroes aren’t the common problem. I almost wonder if the studios allocate so large a portion of their film budget to the FX surrounding the heroes that villains are left with barely enough cash for a silly suit and a few props in their lairs?
I’m having trouble reconciling how “oh, the black character is impulsive and hot-headed huh?” is racist (which I think is the implication I’m supposed to be taking from that statement) but “a black Johnny Storm? Pffft, clearly that’s just stunt casting, yeah that’ll fix the problem, eyeroll” somehow isn’t.
If you think the first two FF movies sucked (and they did) I’ll point out that they sucked despite Johnny Storm being as white as white could be and having a Doom that was closer to, if not exactly like, the one from the comics than an antisocial blogtovist, so I would suggest that having Johnny Storm be played by a black actor is not, in fact, somehow inherently contrary to the potential quality of a Fantastic Four movie and that you’ve got some pretty loaded assumptions there man, sorry.
My big issue is they miss the opportunity of making Reed Richards black over Johnny Storm.
@Wolfthomas: One time, and this might have been before Miles Morales was introduced as a character, I had the dubious fortune of reading the comments for an article raising the issue of diversity in superheroes that suggested, for example, that you wouldn’t lose anything important by casting a black actor as Spider-man.
In addition to the usual “I’m not racist BUT” comments you’d expect the one that always stuck with me was the guy insisting that audiences wouldn’t buy a black Spider-man because “A black nerdy guy interested in science? Psshyeah right, get real.”
@Darren K: I’d say that “it may be a good movie, but a bad Fantastic Four movie” is exactly the kind of shibboleth I was talking about. Because what you’re actually saying is, “I don’t want a movie that’s good if it’s not also a faithful adaptation”…
And good lord, why not? If it’s good, it’s good. I like things that are good, and I think that Josh Trank is trying to make a good movie. (Which is why the people citing ‘Catwoman’ and ‘Super Mario Brothers’ are missing the point. Those weren’t the products of anyone’s vision, they were incoherent masses of studio notes that somehow got filmed. You know, like the Transformers movies.) If the movie is good and not faithful, it will be a positive addition to the overall FF mythos. If it is not good and not faithful, it will be discarded and forgotten. Either way, it does not reduce the chances of getting a later adaptation that is both good and faithful. So why not look at it for what it is, rather than bitch endlessly about what it’s not trying to be?
@John Seavey: I think it’s a little disingenuous to say “oh these movies that are bad were just incoherent masses of notes, this guy wants to make a good movie.” No, someone had a vision with Catwoman, someone wanted that to be a good movie too, it didn’t just arise (as much as it might seem that way) from someone throwing darts at a board. Michael Bay thinks he’s making good movies too, and since the Transformers movies make a hojillion dollars each it seems entirely likely that someone out there agrees with him.
Or, to take a slightly more cynical approach, of course he’s going to act like he wants to make a good movie. Everybody that makes a movie does that, because if they said in an interview “Yeah whatever, I’m really just doing this for the paycheck until something I actually care about comes along” then they’d be shooting their career in the foot with a shotgun.
(Also I think it’s a little weird to cast bad movies as a result of studio mandated changes while director mandated changes are apparently A-OK. Be honest with me here, if you were going into this blind and someone had told you that the studio was responsible for mandating that Doctor Doom be turned into a 30-something antisocial hacker who uses “Doom” as his internet handle, would you not totally believe that?)
I think what gives me pause is, specifically one of the problems with the previous FF movies was that they too shied away from anything TOO fantastic- not just “making Galactus a cloud” or their weird treatment of Doom, but overall taking this very low-key, let’s not get crazy approach to the material. Which led to Rise of the Silver Surfer opening with some of the most grating “relationship issues” material imaginable.
And also, since then we’ve had two Thor movies and a space opera featuring a talking raccoon. Why play coy with this? It just seems like a missed opportunity.
I’m pretty convinced it’s going to be terrible. I’m willing to be wrong, but I won’t be paying for the privilege.
Look, Chronicle is a good little movie. Sin City was a good movie. Beetlejuice was a good movie. But Frank Miller and Tim Burton haven’t demonstrated any ability to move beyond a singular aesthetic, and their recent crap sucks because of it.
I have a feeling Trank’s heading down the same path. It’s great to have a creative vision – but you need to pick material that suits that vision.
But hell, I’m not going to get bent out of shape about it. I haven’t watched any of the latest Spider-Man movies because somewhere along the line, I determined that being a superhero fanboy doesn’t require me to watch every comic book movie that comes out – I only need to watch the ones that look appealing to me.
@Kai: You should read Kung Fu Monkey. It hasn’t been updated in ages, and John Rogers didn’t talk much about his Transformers or Catwoman screenwriting experiences because they clearly weren’t fun, but he does make it pretty clear that it was draft after draft of incorporating random studio execs’ notes. “Vision” was not on the agenda there.
And yes, it may be too early to tell if that’s also the case here. Which is, again, my point: it’s stupid to judge a movie before you’ve seen even one second of footage because an actor appearing in it made an off-hand mention of something they’re doing with his character.(and I’m pretty sure “angry blogger” was just the conclusion people jumped to based on his claim that Doom would have an online handle).
John, you took the words out of my mouth! John Rodgers is one of my favorites, here’s two small links from him about Catwoman:
http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2006/01/catwoman-notes.html
http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2004/12/tgc-651-catwoman-edition.html
“without having seen even a single trailer, the geek consensus is forming around the idea that this movie is going to be terrible”
For what comic-based movie in the past 20 years has that NOT been true?
Mr Mom as Batman? –> Batman is gonna suck!
Wolverine is a tall Australian? –> X-Men is gonna suck!
Have you seen the Ang Lee version? –> Norton’s Hulk is gonna suck!
Superman is played by a Brit? –> Man of Steel is gonna suck!
Marvel’s going with a space raccoon? –> Guardians is gonna suck!
Affleck as mopey Batman? –> Superman vs Batman is gonna suck!
A black Johnny Storm? –> Fantastic Four is gonna suck!
@ps238principal: “You also are left wondering with many films like this if there’s a world-threatening event, where are all the other heroes? On break?”
Well, that would certainly be a break from the source material.
For decades in the comic books themselves, except for the occasional “special” cross-over issue, the eponymous hero(es) have typically engaged in their own world-ending slugfests without any other teams showing up.
@Sean D. Martin: To be fair Man of Steel sucks for reasons beyond the principal casting. Also Norton’s Hulk has been quietly swept under the rug by Marvel, along with Ed Norton himself. A better example might be the angst people had over Chris Evans being cast as Captain America.
That said, you know what the difference between all those examples and the one in the article is? None of the ones you listed have anything to do with a character being turned into a different sort of character, just people bitching about casting decisions. If Marvel had let leak that they were discarding “WWII super soldier fights super-science not!Nazis and gets frozen in ice to wake up in the modern day” for something more “lo-fi” then that would be something else.
Fans of the Fantastic Four want to see Latverian super-science dictator Doctor Doom chewing the scenery apart like it’s his birthright, that’s not really that weird and I don’t think it’s unreasonable for them to be pissed at “actually he’s a hacker now, Doom’s his internet handle.” But I guess if people are going to lump complaints about that in the same box as “complaining about a black actor being cast for a part” then welp.
From the little said regarding Domashev, I don’t see the problem. This version of the FF is borrowing heavily from ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR, especially in regards to them all being young. If so, you’re seeing not only the origin of powers, but the development of their characters into adulthood. If Reed Richards is only college-aged or twenty-something, it makes sense that Doom would be the same and likewise building up to where his character will be (instead of being established as the ruler of a nation, as the 40+ Doom is when he and Reed both showed up in the Marvel-616 comics).
I’m reminded of the flashbacks to Reed, Doom, and Ben in college during Hickman’s FF for some reason when reading about this. With the “more grounded” sense, you aren’t going to have Doom throwing Romani magic around, but Hollywood has long been using advanced computer knowledge as the next best thing. And yes, As an actual surname “Doom” or “von Doom” does sound pretty ridiculous when not in Latveria – using it as his nom de plume/nom de guerre works well enough (and was already done in ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR).
(BTW, on the Johnny/Sue front, I’m surprised that no one’s made the point that I’ve been thinking of since Day One in terms of why Sue should have been black: establishing that they’re adoptive siblings is one extra piece of narrative business in a busy origin movie for four heroes and villain – as gauche as it sounds, the narrative work of making certain the audience realizes the relationship is quicker if they look alike. I’d say the same thing if it were two white actors; as a twin, I suppose that I’m sensitive to noticing how traits carry over or don’t in siblings.)
I don’t mind added diversity in superhero movies at all. I would rather watch the Fantastic Four Sassy Black Ladies than yet another watered down on-screen Dr Doom.
The Invisible Woman being black could’ve been great. Kate Mara’s better than Jessica Alba, at least.
@Kai: To be fair Man of Steel sucks for reasons beyond the principal casting.
Couldn’t agree more. The movie sucked because of major flaws in plot, logic and character.
None of the ones you listed have anything to do with a character being turned into a different sort of character, just people bitching about casting decisions.
To be fair, it’s what I came up with off the top of my head with about 10 seconds of thought to make my point. That being, pre-judgments are made about every comic-based movie. From truly pointless objections to (like the ones to a new version of Doom) complaints about significant changes from the source material.
And I’ve got no problem if the complaints are along the lines of “That’s a major change from the source material, so why even call this a Stupendous Guy movie when it’s hardly using anything to do with him beyond the title?” (E.g., I, Robot.) It’s the more mindless knee-jerk “This is a change and therefore the movie will suck.” attitude that is so bothersome.
As several have pointed out, some aspects of Doom don’t really work in modern movies, and this version of Doom could work depending on how it’s handled. And at this point, nobody knows enough to really have an informed opinion.
I think the point of contention people are having is the notion that “some aspects of Doom don’t really work in modern movies.” This has been a prevailing Hollywood mindset with regard to superhero movies for a while, but I honestly think it’s pretty overwrought, especially considering that Marvel has been quite handily demonstrating that you can actually make superhero movies that, while adapted when necessary, still adhere quite faithfully to the comics in many respects that “conventional Hollywood wisdom” would have as unable to work.
I also think claiming people don’t have enough to base an informed opinion here is wrong, their opinions are as informed as anybody going “god, just wait and see, Josh Trank has a plan!” Believe it or not you don’t need to have perfect, all-encompassing knowledge to form an opinion on something based on things like prior experiences and greater context, and I’d say that someone making a superhero movie (or any licensed property for that matter) and then demonstrating a desire to start changing the characters up to accommodate their “vision” is a pretty reasonable warning sign, but for some reason people seem really eager to just lump everybody’s complaints about it into the same box labeled “dumb nerd bitching” and call it a day.
I say this as someone who loves to rag on dumb nerd bitching. I think the angst over black Johnny Storm is a perfect example of that, and I hope Hollywood continues add more diversity to their superhero movies if for no other reason than to piss the sort of nerd off who gets bent out of shape over “you can’t make [CHARACTER] black!” But this isn’t the same thing. If Marvel can deliver Thanos in all his wrinkly, purple, be-gauntleted glory, talking space raccoons, a time-displaced super-soldier wearing the American flag for an outfit, alien invasions, and all sorts of other crazy comic book shit, there’s no real reason why a true-to-source Doctor Doom couldn’t work on screen. It’s not that it can’t work, it’s that Josh Trank doesn’t want to do it, and people disagree with that decision.
My take: FF, the comic series (including all issues/tie-ins related to the lore), exists in a vacuum. It can’t be tarnished by a film adaptation. Can an individual experience with the series/characters be tarnished? Sure, if one allows that to happen. But, by and large, it is what it is (and has always been).
That said, if this movie sucks as badly as the Doom choice seems to indicate it will (and, honestly, that treatment misses a lot of what makes Doom great, IMO), I can see why fans might wonder “Why the fuck can’t we get a decent adaptation?”
@Kai: “I also think claiming people don’t have enough to base an informed opinion here is wrong, their opinions are as informed as anybody going “god, just wait and see, Josh Trank has a plan!”
Yes, their opinions are as informed as those who say Trank has a plan. Which is to say, not very. Unless someone is connected to the production, they are really guessing as to how things will turn out.
Again, there’s a difference between saying “This is a change therefore suckage.” and “This is change, here’s why I think it’s a bad one.”
So, I’m hoping it’s clear that I’m not trying to “just lump everybody’s complaints about it into the same box labeled “dumb nerd bitching” and call it a day.”
“ but I honestly think it’s pretty overwrought, especially considering that Marvel has been quite handily demonstrating that you can actually make superhero movies that, while adapted when necessary, still adhere quite faithfully to the comics in many respects that “conventional Hollywood wisdom” would have as unable to work.”
Excellent point. And I suspect, even if most folks can’t really articulate it, that that’s what’s behind some of the complaints that come out as “This is change so suckage”.
Comic books are still looked on by most folks, even those who thoroughly enjoyed the Guardians movie, as juvenile fluff. So, naturally, if you’re a movie producer planning on making a profit with these “silly” comic book characters then a lot of stuff like machine gun toting raccoons has to go. Obviously, right? And it’s wariness to that attitude that gets folks who enjoy the original stories and know they don’t need major overhaul to be good movies that comes out as the simplified change = suck to the point where any change isn’t given fair consideration.
“there’s no real reason why a true-to-source Doctor Doom couldn’t work on screen. It’s not that it can’t work, it’s that Josh Trank doesn’t want to do it, and people disagree with that decision.”
That’s fair. And the question to Trank (or any other person making significant changes) is, “Well, if THAT’S the movie you want to make, why are you using THESE characters?” The obvious answer is “the built in name recognition”. Folks will come to see a Fantastic Four movie who would have no interest in seeing the movie were it called Cosmic Quartet.
Another reason not to like Johnny and/or Sue being adopted: one of Ben’s common themes is that he feels he isn’t really part of the family, because he’s not a blood relative, or bound by marriage. He’s just the guy who got turned into a monster while the rest of them got good powers. Adding adopted family members weakens that isolation a little, since it very clearly shows that family is more than just blood.
And Doom… Sigh.
Except there’s still plenty of isolation to the character of Ben Grimm since, as you yourself point out, he’s stuck being a “monster” 24/7 while everybody else gets cool powers that they can turn off and go live a normal life. I would say that aspect is more crucial to his characterization than “isn’t married or a blood relative.” Also I think adopted people might contest the idea that being adopted is on the same level as “guy who isn’t actually part of the family.”
I can kind of see how “lo-fi” could work, since the Fantastic Four didn’t even have costumes until they had been around for a few issues and part of Doom’s complicated backstory is that he went to college with Reed Richards (as others have mentioned). You could totally do a movie where they don’t have the unstable molecule fabric and all that stuff yet and Reed is gradually inventing it as they go along.
Having said that, angry blogger Doctor Doom does seem a little too much like something out of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. It’s kind of a fun idea (I could totally see The Venture Brothers introducing a Doom stand-in who blogs about how much he hates Mr. Impossible or whatever he’s called and making it really funny), but the execution will probably stink.
I can see why Latveria could be a deal breaker for the people making the film. It’s a whole fake country and people aren’t as willing to suspend disbelief for that sort of thing as they were back when Peter Sellers made The Mouse That Roared. But still… Guy hates Reed Richards, guy accidentally messes up his face with hot metal mask, guy then makes Iron Man-type suit and becomes a super-villain? How is that any less plausible than anything that happened in the Iron Man movies?
They could have just had him buy a castle somewhere in Germany or some other real country that has castles (because the castle full of traps was one of the things that defined him when I started reading comics as a kid and I can’t be the only one who would miss seeing that in the movie) and called it a day. They didn’t have to get all “grounded” and stuff.
Also, and I don’t know how to say this without sounding racist, but speaking as a fat, white, kind of socially conservative, protestant male… What’s so bad about making a movie about five white people?
I kind of get things like people insisting on more diverse casting in commercials to make them better reflect contemporary American society. I really get trying to make minority characters that don’t suck so that other groups are represented by somebody more compelling than Vibe or Arabian Knight. I don’t get the whole “Does Daredevil have to be a white guy?” thing I see all the time on threads at io9 and The A.V. Club.
Apparently, Ronald D. Moore set the tone for today’s geeks when he almost randomly changed the ethnicity and/or genders of several characters from the original Galactica. Which led to things like getting rid of both of the black characters from the original show, but anyway… Now, there are people out there who basically want every character that was ever played by a white male or portrayed as white in a comic (except maybe Batman and Superman) to be portrayed by somebody from another race. Why? What is that supposed to do for people?
They might as well say something like, “Does The Scarlet Pimpernel have to be white, straight and English? Can’t he at least be gay and not just foppish? And being part of the British aristocracy is problematic because he is basically an old white guy speaking from his position of power and we’re all supposed to hate people like that now.”
Johnny Storm doesn’t have to be portrayed as a jerk who constantly plays pranks on The Thing. But I can’t see any real benefit to making him the token black guy just so there is one to keep people from complaining about too many white people in the cast.
And yeah… If you’re doing it just to hit some kind of diversity quota, why not cast Aldis Hodge from Leverage as Mr. Fantastic? He makes a great supergenius and manages to seem really charming and cool while doing things like obsessing over World of Warcraft. He would be a terrific Reed Richards. That would actually make sense and not just seem like somebody said, “We can’t have two blond white people in our movie. Millennials won’t like it.”
Jesus.
Care to elaborate?
You spent six paragraphs essentially hand-wringing over “But what about the white people?” for starters. If you ever find yourself feeling the need to preface anything you say with “I don’t know how to say this without sounding racist” then maybe that’s a good sign that you should stop and reassess things.
Asking “why cast Johnny Storm as someone who isn’t Caucasian just so he can be the ‘token black guy?'” is a great example of how that, because it inherently assumes that the only reason you might ever cast a non-white actor in something is because you’re trying to meet some sort of “token” quota.
Then you have a whole bit about how diversity in media is some sort of slippery slope and if we aren’t careful soon everybody might want all sorts of characters to be played by people who aren’t white, and that would be bad because
And no man, Daredevil doesn’t have to be a white guy, why the fuck would he? What is it about Daredevil’s or Johnny Storm’s ethnicity that’s so fucking integral to his character that people have to struggle to construct some sort of “I’m not a racist but” explanation for why this casting decision is a bad thing and it’s all just to have a token character something something Millenials?
I would seriously rather see a gay or black Scarlet Pimpernel than listen to a steady stream of white nerds constantly explain why they’re all for diversity in media but just not, y’know, too diverse. Not diverse like that no, look all this stuff is off limits, it’s ours okay, can’t you go be diverse with your own stuff?
And no, I don’t think you burn crosses in your spare time or sit quietly consumed with boundless hatred of the Other. I do think that everything you wrote up there is patently ridiculous “political correctness gone mad” nonsense which has an unfortunate tendency to arise when the entire western world goes out of its way to cater to the idea that “white dude” is the universal default and that everything that deviates from that norm is an aberration that needs to be properly justified.
Are you really worried that in some hypothetical Millenial-dominated future that you’ll lack proper representation in media? That “white males” will be relegated to the minority in favor of people who don’t look like you? Congratulations, now you know what everybody else who enjoys nerd media and isn’t a white dude gets to feel like all the time.
Thanks for comparing me to the Klan. That won’t influence how people think about me. :rollseyes:
I would describe what I was doing as straight up complaining, but whatever.
You’re right about one thing. I’m sick and tired of nerds on the Internet treating me like I’m a woman in a comic shop just because I’m white, male, and the “wrong” kind of Christian.
I think young people today have taken a bunch of good things (opposing racism, sexism and homophobia) and taken them to some weird places that make it harder for me to hang out on the ‘net and feel like people actually want me to participate.
For example, colorblind casting. As a Norse mythology nerd, it’s a little weird to me that Idris Elba played Heimdall, “the whitest of all the gods” who created an early version of Germanic civilization that included slaves as one of the broad categories of people.
Heimdall is supposed to be a blond guy with gold teeth. I thought Elba was great in the second Thor movie, but I can’t talk about the small amount of cognitive dissonance this caused me because somebody like you will overreact and lecture me about racism. And yes, we’re talking about the Kirby version who isn’t a perfect match for the god from the source material so why not cast an actor people like in the role?
I definitely think there is some tokenism going on in Hollywood. Every so often a show gets it right, such as Sleepy Hollow which has several great African American characters and the local law enforcement people are pretty diverse in a way that feels realistic. Raising Hope was pretty good at populating the town the Chances lived in with good black and Hispanic recurring characters. But then you have a show like Mulaney where the black roommate just seems to be there so they can avoid the “too many white dudes” problem. Maybe he was the best guy who auditioned, but he isn’t funny enough to seem like they needed that particular actor on their show.
I’m still trying to figure out when tokenism went from seeming annoying and kind of racist to being the only moral and correct thing to do. It is like a quota system, but people don’t respond well when others talk about it. If a show doesn’t have at least one black friend for the protagonist, people complain about “too many white people” and “old white dudes” and stuff like that… which is a little weird when it’s white people doing it.
Anyway… Talking about white privilege makes sense, but it has gotten to the point where I’m supposed to be like Louis C.K. and talk about how I feel bad for being a white dude because of all the stuff other white dudes did before I was born. And any other stance is considered racist. Which gets annoying.
Nerds pick on me all the time about my religious beliefs if I forget how the Internet works and try to talk about them. A significant number of threads over at io9 are devoted to bashing Christians for being anti-science. All the godless atheists over at The A.V. Club are downright nasty to anyone who tries to defend Christianity because of the crusades, or Hitchens’ thing about how Judaism and Christianity supposedly slowed down scientific progress, or because somebody was mean to them at sunday school or whatever. And I can’t even complain about it because I get accused of having a persecution complex and things that are worse than that. I’m supposed to just shut up instead of trying to engage in a polite debate because of stuff that happened that was not my fault. That got old years ago.
Constantly being told that people like me are more or less evil by today’s standards and there should never be white male characters in anything harshes my mellow on a regular basis. It’s not because I’m worried about not being represented. It’s because it’s hard to not take all that stuff about white privilege and Christians being evil and so forth personally.
Especially since I screwed myself out of most of the benefits of being white and male back in the Nineties. For about five years, I spent far too much on comic books and that helped contribute to things like getting in trouble with my Discover card, not having money for more important stuff like my student loan payments and dental visits and a whole lot of other crap that resulted in me being broke, having lousy credit and being more or less unemployable because of my work history and my useless English degree.
I have been in situations, such as the time I got desperate and applied for food stamps or the time I tried to get into the University of Washington, where being a single white male actually worked against me. So, it gets old seeing comments about how I’m not allowed to complain about anything ever because in theory I’m near the top of the food chain. And how I should want other people to have better lives than mine because of karma or something.
I wasn’t the one segregating drinking fountains or burning witches. I’m just some geeky dude who loves fantasy novels and hates “with time to prepare” Batman. I shouldn’t have to feel like people want me to apologize for existing.
Holy fucking shit dude, would you like me to play you a song on the tiniest violin in the world while you cry about how hard it is to be a white conservative nerd these days?
“I’m not allowed to complain about anything ever!” cries the man that 99% of all western media caters directly to. “Who will think about my feelings and the cognitive dissonance I experience when I see a black man in a superhero movie?”
For somebody who’s apparently tired of everyone thinking he has a persecution complex you’re doing a fantastic job of whining about stuff that makes you look amazingly petty, un self-aware, and yes, like a quintessential Dumb White Nerd complaining about black Heimdall because “my verisimilitude!”
Your whole bit about food stamps and how you, personally, are not living in the lap of luxury and therefore all this “privilege” stuff is overblown is, instead of merely being laughable, actually kind of contemptible in a “playing misery poker” sort of way. As someone who has similarly had the pleasure of experiencing unemployment, wrangling with benefits services, the pressures of debt, and other such realities of life in this, the year of our lord 2014, allow me to point out that only one of us is using this as an excuse to throw a pity party while also complaining about those pesky black people invading our comic book movies.
And while we’re on the subject since the editing window on that last reply is about to close, let’s talk about the whole “tokenism” thing re:
I’m still trying to figure out when tokenism went from seeming annoying and kind of racist to being the only moral and correct thing to do. It is like a quota system, but people don’t respond well when others talk about it. If a show doesn’t have at least one black friend for the protagonist, people complain about “too many white people” and “old white dudes” and stuff like that… which is a little weird when it’s white people doing it.
First off, people don’t want “token” characters, they want more diversity period. The reason you get token characters is because very, very often producers and directors are extremely reluctant to add more than token characters to their production. Hollywood is of the belief that if you put too many black people in a movie’s cast that audiences will assume that it’s a Black Movie, i.e. a movie aimed squarely at black audiences first and foremost, and therefore wider audiences (i.e. white males in the 16-44 demographic) won’t go and see it.
“Tokenism” isn’t the goal, but tokenism is frequently what producers are prepared to deliver, which means that if it’s a choice between one black character or no black characters people are going to be happier to see something that at least acknowledges that black people exist than something that doesn’t. Because let’s fucking face it, there isn’t a director on this earth that has enough clout to make a Fantastic Four movie with, say, 4/5ths of the main cast being non-Caucasian with Ben Grimm as the token white guy (who turns orange around the 30 minute mark anyway).
If we’re talking television shows let’s talk Brooklyn 99, which has within in its main cast two black men and two Latina women (along with an Italian American, a Jewish man, and a few white folks of non-specific descent). There are a lot of interesting and informative articles and interviews out there regarding the show’s casting which talk about how unusual it is for a show, even a show about a police precinct in New York City which is one of the more diverse cities in the country, to have up to two Latina actresses at once, holy shit.
““There’s no way in hell a major network is gonna cast two Latina actresses in such a tight ensemble show I AM SCREWED.” In a blog for Latina.com Stephanie Beatriz shared honest, open thoughts about her initial reaction to learning that Melissa Fumero had been cast as Amy Santiago on Brooklyn Nine-Nine. And she was almost right in her assumption, because, just a few years ago, this isn’t something that would have happened. She went on to describe “The Latina” as a very particular trope on television, and there’s always been just room for one—which is why she thought Fumero’s casting automatically meant bad news for her. FOX surprised Beatriz, and she ended up getting cast as Detective Rosa Diaz.”
We live in a day and age where something like this, two Latina women being cast on the same show together, is considered a newsworthy, surprising turn of events. The idea that we’re on the precipice of white men being massively disenfranchised in media is, frankly, laughable. More importantly, this helps illustrate how frequently reluctant media is when it comes to diverse casting when “two people of the same non-Caucasian ethnicity on the same set” is a radical departure from the norm (unless, again, it’s a show being aimed squarely at an audience of that ethnicity).
The other thing let’s talk about is the idea that it’s weird for white people to bring up lack of diversity in media. Like goddamn man, that is a seriously fucked-up position you’ve decided to take, that it’s weird for other white people to maybe not want the media they consume being 99% other white people with the occasional token sprinkling of color (but not too much or the Millennial liberal atheists will have won). I’m sure you’ve convinced yourself that the only reason another white person might want more diversity in things like comic book movies is apologetic self-flagellation over privilege guilt or something, but I’m pretty sure that speaks more to your own preconceptions and, yes, prejudices than it does anything else.
Read the comments solely to see whether Warren Ellis had noticed his namecheck.
Disappointed.
Also disappointing? White guys saying “why can’t Johnnny Storm be white?”.
I expected better here.
I wanted to share some VERY IMPORTANT OPINIONS about Black Johnny Storm. But on second thought, ugh, shut up about your credit cards.