4 the Record: When Movies Disappoint Franchise Fans

To a certain degree, I understand that writers and directors must cut certain things away when they adapt written works for the big screen. This is because there are certain restrictions inherent in the nature of the medium, such as time and what one can practically portray, especially as concerns live action.

But deciding to cut away or alter something that is intrinsic to the story or its characters is not a decision that I can understand.

Some of the worst offenders in this category that I can recall are all three movies in The Bourne Trilogy and the remake of The Sum of All Fears -- and yes, there was an original version made. It is truly a shame, however it was decided that Carlos the Jackal, the main antagonist for The Bourne Trilogy as written by Robert Ludlum, would not be adapted into the movies. Instead, the main antagonist would be the CIA. This most likely made escalating the action through each subsequent movie a challenge, and while they may have remained fun romps of action on some level, they lacked the main punch of the books. Similarly, TSoAF was reduced to just one plotline, making it feel very similar to the Bourne movies, in my opinion. Perhaps it is because I am a fan of Ludlum's intrigue plots, and of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan novels that I was so disappointed in the movies after looking forward to them for so long. Or perhaps I am not alone.

Looking in the other direction we find Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Hobbit. I can understand, at least in part, what he was trying to do since I enjoyed The Lord of the Rings, and that trilogy made a healthy profit for Jackson, but extending The Hobbit into three movies was not necessary. Especially since I cannot remember more than half of what happened in the movies being in the book -- although I admittedly read them all about 23 years ago, so my memory of them may be a bit hazy. Jackson added so much material that I have heard many of his detractors say the movies became boring or weighed down by unnecessary material. I may agree with that last, especially given today's audience's tendency to have shorter attention spans. Watching The Hobbit may have been a fun way to while away a day over the winter break, but most people aren't likely to be willing to do that.

When it comes to movie adaptations, few properties have profited the way comic books franchises have, especially in the last 15 or so years, starting with Fox's X-Men movie. Of course, certain things have to change so they look less ridiculous, so spandex becomes leather, and so forth. Adaptation is not in itself bad. I would only say it's bad adaptation when writers and directors abandon the things that are at the heart of a character or franchise. Witness the two-movie Amazing Spider-Man reboot, which attempted to revamp Peter Parker into a cool guy, and which at the same time removed "with great power there must also come great responsibility." This is Spider-Man's heart and soul. Without it the webbed wonder just becomes a guy in a horribly clashing costume who quips as he thwips -- and I say that as a big Spider-Fan. Yes it was interesting to learn something about Peter's parents. It's just too bad it came at the cost of other characters, including Peter and Gwen. It's also too bad Sony's writers chose the wrong backstory for Richard and Mary Parker. Oops.

Of course, Marvel itself is not guilt-free when it comes to this. We knew we were getting something different when we saw Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, but then some of us had been prepared by reading the Ultimate comics line, and the MCU was clearly to be based more on that than on mainstream 616 Marvel. Still, I would have appreciated having Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne, founding members of the Avengers, in Marvels's The Avengers, even at the cost of Clint and Natasha. And as though to complicate matters, they made an Ant-Man, but without Hank as the title character, so instead we get the second Ant-Man, Scott Lang -- and still no Janet, and she was the one who named both the Avengers and the Vision. Then we get to Age of Ultron, where the writers had to concoct a way to create Ultron without Hank. So... Hydra? Somehow. It actually makes sense, reflecting on it, for this version of Ultron to be more conceited and forgetful than the other versions: he is, after all, based on Tony Stark, who flies by the seat of his armoured pants more often than not. Any other version of Ultron has brain patterning after Pym, which lends itself to the homicidal genius thing he has going on in Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes and in the comics. Here, he's unfortunately something of a clown. And the only things of Tony's he hacked, apart from wiping his systems, were the Iron Legion, not Tony's actual armours. But I'm probably most upset about how they treated Wanda's powers. Joss Wheddon really ought to know better: mind manipulation is not one of the Scarlet Witch's powers, although Hydra could have given her something to change her powers so she could do that for awhile. Wanda's powerset includes hex bolts, probability alteration, and at her highest power reality warping. But not mind warping. So the entire plot that we go through is completely improbably.

Did I enjoy The Avengers movies though? Yes. I simply would have been happier had they been adapted more faithfully.

So we come to the movie that inspired this post, at long last: Fant4stic. I can see where the '4' comes from, but the 'fantastic?' It is far from that, and all because the writers and producers try to make the FF something they're generally not: serious and loaded with hard science.

Yes Reed, Sue, and Victor are serious scientists, but not the type shown here. Besides the whole gate thing not being fully explained, we have characters trying to explain other sciences about which the viewers do not need to know much at all, if anything. Then there's an attempt to explain the science of Planet Zero despite it being fictional, the different powers of the Four including how Sue gets powers when she wasn't there, and Doom. The thing is that the writers fell flat when they came to trying to explain Johnny's and Ben's powers, especially in trying to insist that under all that rock there still was a man, somehow not being crushed under the weight of all that stone. They tried so hard to explain hard science that they barely managed to get the FF started before they had to end the movie, whereas I feel that's about where it should have started.

Which is another way Fant4astic tries to be something The Fantastic Four is not: serious and dark. You have the science as I mentioned, the brooding, and a government manipulating people with special abilities. It's like Fox was trying to remake the FF in The Dark Knight's image, forgetting that these are Marvel's First Family. They're explorers and scientists with a lighter tone, so this dark image does not fit them at all. But okay, if you're going to go for dark and brooding, as well as with a younger cast, you may as well be consistent about it, right? Especially about Ben and how he doesn't want to be the Thing. Only at the end he seems to have accepted it. In over 40 years, when has Ben Grimm ever really accepted his rock hide? Certainly not after a year or two!

I would be doing an injustice if I also did not mention the timeskips, and that the story begins with Reed and Ben as school kids in _2007_. It then skips seven years to a science fair where, with Ben's help, Reed has refined his 'transporter.' And oh yeah, Ben's feeling very much unappreciated since the only thing he can contribute is his muscle and pushing buttons. And have we mentioned how he comes from an abusive home? Reed's foster parents not understanding him is actually in the original version, though. Anyway, Franklin Storm and Sue come and recruit Reed, but not Ben, to their government project to find a way to this other space Reed and Ben have also found. They finish the project with help from Victor von Doom (nice decision with the name), who is basically just a an environmental activist, so no mention of his mother, who was a magic-user. Reed invites Ben along to a late-night drunk dare to go to Planet Zero with Victor, Sue sees a readout that lets her know the transporter is in use, and she goes down to bring them back, which is how she's where she needs to be to get empowered. Victor touches some green energy that makes the planet fight back against them, and in the end the planet does get him. The others get back. Jump forward _another_ year as Ben, Sue, and Johnny learn to control their powers while Reed is on the run from the government, which is using Ben as a tank, and would soon use Johnny if the team doesn't find a cure. Dr. Storm decides to go along with the government's plan to send more people to Planet Zero to research the green energy, only Doom is there and he's very interested in destroying Earth and humanity using the powers he has from the planet -- and he looks like a really bad Cyberman reject, melded with his environment suit. Another thing that seems to be gone is Doom's rivalry with Reed, something that has driven him for much of his career as Doctor Doom. This Doom, though, is all energetic force.

When the new heroes fight Doom singly, of course they get defeated, showing the value of working together. And of course when they work together, they can defeat Doom. But that end isn't something that's necessary, especially if Fox was setting up for a sequel.

My conclusion is that Fant4stic is not recognizable from the comic. If it was not meant to be, great, but if it was they really dropped the ball. Anyone who enjoys the comic can feel free to skip this one. Those unfamiliar may still enjoy it, even if Doom is far less than Doctor Doom's pinky finger as far as intellect and power go. I would go so far as to recommend the 1994 version over this one if you like the comics, but then what did I expect from a company that seems more interested in retaining character rights than in writing faithful stories with those same characters?