Assuming Fox Will be Making this Film, What Outcome do You Hope for?

[Whiskey Tango]

Much of what DrCosmic is saying here seems questionable.

 

[DrCosmic]

.... you've got to be kidding me... it makes far less sense for Loki to suddenly have beef with the rest of the avengers.. and they all randomly unite. Just like it makes little to no sense in reality (where these films try to take place) for a man to be a WWII hero taking the nazi's head on with nothing more than a vibranium shield (in fact if you actually even cared to pay attention to the comics, Cap and Bucky using guns retcon happened well before the film)

Hmm... that comment was sarcastic. I'm not sure if you're sarcasming my sarcasm or playing it straight. Regardless, Cap regularly using guns was Ultimates first, then, because that was a popular natural modernization, 616 adopted it, and then the films.

Taking on the Nazis with the available resources makes perfect sense, succeeding perhaps not, but that's the action movie genre for you.

This is a ridiculous statement. Great men who achieve great things don't lock themselves in a lab. There are plenty of people in Afghanistan at this moment who very well may win Nobel Prizes in the future. My son has a friend who is in ROTC, a chemistry major and he was one of the brightest kids in a HS graduating class of over 500.

If it's really so ridiculous, where is your list of scientific prize winners with military careers? We're not talking about best of 5 hundred here, we're talking about best of 5 billion! People like Albert Einstein, Steven Hawking, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, these people are so intelligent that aspect dominates their lives. That's how modern life works. We're not talking about 'smart guys' we're talking about the smartest people on the planet, people that would put anyone on that list of the smartest people we've ever heard of to shame. That's not a guy who devotes years of his life to shooting guns at people. It would be absolutely counter to his life's trajectory, and no intelligent military would put such an asset into combat anyway.

I never said Reed should be in his 50's. 30-35 would be a good range for me.

Really? I thought people thought Gruffud was too young didn't like the artificial greying. Interesting. Perhaps our visions aren't so far off as I thought.

Let me introduce you to Mario Alvarez II. He's been racing since he was 4 and there are many more like him on the AMA road-racing circuit.

http://www.younggunracer.com/

So Johnny should not be a regular kid of his time, but he should be incredibly exceptional, a celebrity in his own right that just happens to be connected with the most incredible scientist on the planet? I don't think that makes for an organic story, giving Johnny his own separate 'origin' per se. Should Ben also be a famous pilot? And Sue a famous... whatever she is?

Again, you put words in my mouth and then say something that has nothing to do with what I posted. Of course Sue can have an occupation, but she shouldn't be a prodigy science genius. How realistic is that? The original Sue was a regular woman of her time and the new Sue should be a regular woman of her time. Not a super-genius.

And Sue on the other hand should be unexceptional? I suspect Ben, as a highly accomplished pilot is exceptional as well. This is one problem with using the 1960s as the "only true" FF the members come to the table unequal. Sue comes in as a tagalong, even her little brother can help on the mechanical side. That's incredibly lame, especially for one of a very few female superheroes to be the useless one until her boyfriend gives her super powers. That makes her relevant 'occupation' girlfriend. Not putting words in your mouth, but going to the natural conclusion. If she's an accountant, or clothing designer, or whatever, that's all off camera. Her contribution to the team and to the film is being the girlfriend, as opposed to the pilot or the mechanic/daredevil gopher. That's pitiful in the modern day when regular women are encouraged to do incredible things just like regular guys.

As for how realistic, it is extremely realistic for a prodigy science genius like Reed to meet lots of other prodigy science geniuses. At least one of them would be attractive. It is not likely for him to meet and connect with a normal woman of the day, because he is so very ab-normal.

The UFF turned Sue from a fainting wallflower into a powerhouse who took charge when necessary. It didn't take 40 years to make this happen either like 616 did.

Did you even read my post? I thought I was very clear that there were certain key elements of the characters that needed to be maintained but I never said they needed the same occupations and histories. I simply said their basic natures shouldn't be randomly and unnecessarily changed as they were in UFF.

There was nothing random or unnecessary about it, and you are very specific about what you want Reed and Johnny's histories and occupations to be. Johnny a racer and xstreme sports type (like in Story's FF) and Reed a veteran and adventurer. My point is that if this line about Reed's past had been included in Story's FF, the movie would not have been better. Throw out those histories and occupations and look around and see what in the real world most easily resembles/produces the FF. The UFF did that, and it was quite successful. The 616 has grown more successful when adopting those updates (Future Foundation think tank for instance).

Yeah, goat legged Doom sucked, but that doesn't mean that you use the parts of 616 that don't work in the modern day.

Much of what DrCosmic is saying here seems questionable.

Please question me, I've already been shown that 616 Stark was more or less a military contractor before Ultimates turned Stark Enterprises into Lockheed Martin. If there's something else wrong, let me know.

 

[spideyboy_1111]

Hmm... that comment was sarcastic. I'm not sure if you're sarcasming my sarcasm or playing it straight. Regardless, Cap regularly using guns was Ultimates first, then, because that was a popular natural modernization, 616 adopted it

Wrong again as usual... Cap has been depicted with guns even in the 90s. "regularly or not".

You keep wanting to characterize how these characters should act and be by their origins (or using that as a basis for their example) ... When the origins are dated. They've been taking modern versions/characterization of the characters in the books and essentially retelling their origins with those characteristics in mind. The ultimate universe has had little influence over the 616. Regardless if what you may think (and Im sure you will try to argue in some feeble way)

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

If it's really so ridiculous, where is your list of scientific prize winners with military careers? We're not talking about best of 5 hundred here, we're talking about best of 5 billion! People like Albert Einstein, Steven Hawking, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, these people are so intelligent that aspect dominates their lives. That's how modern life works. We're not talking about 'smart guys' we're talking about the smartest people on the planet, people that would put anyone on that list of the smartest people we've ever heard of to shame. That's not a guy who devotes years of his life to shooting guns at people. It would be absolutely counter to his life's trajectory, and no intelligent military would put such an asset into combat anyway.

30 seconds on Google turns up this: http://diverseeducation.com/article/57774/#

"It’s a sad state of affairs for a country that educated about 10 million returning veterans after World War II – including three U.S. presidents, three Supreme Court justices, 14 Nobel Prize winners and 24 Pulitzer Prize winners."

But I don't see why you are demanding such a high standard to prove an obvious concept when you are advocating UFF - a world in which children are taken from their parents who are paid so that those children can work on high tech devices. That scenario is completely unbelievable compared to my scenario which simply reflects real life.

So Johnny should not be a regular kid of his time, but he should be incredibly exceptional, a celebrity in his own right that just happens to be connected with the most incredible scientist on the planet? I don't think that makes for an organic story, giving Johnny his own separate 'origin' per se. Should Ben also be a famous pilot? And Sue a famous... whatever she is?

No! I said nothing of the sort. I was just pointing out that kids and teenagers participate in motorsports. For every one that becomes a celebrity, there are 100's of thousands that will never do it for much more than the fun of it. Do you really not know kids who ride and work on dirt-bikes, mini-bikes, go-carts, dune buggies, ATV's etc.?

Ben should be a pilot. Pilots aren't typically 'famous'. Sue can be any number of things. Teacher, lawyer, doctor, magazine editor etc. etc. etc. She just shouldn't be a scientific genius prodigy. The Fantastic Four isn't a group of scientific genius prodigies.

Here is my post again. These are the relatively simple key points that I made and I meant what I said. I didn't have some hidden, unstated agenda in which what I really meant is that I wanted all the elements of the originals maintained. As I have said over and over and over again, some updates are fine and necessary, but the updates that were in UFF changed the basic nature of the characters. That's not updating, that's re-inventing and there's no reason to reinvent simple characters that have timeless characteristics that audiences can relate to.

Here are the primary key characteristics that I feel the FF needs that UFF screwed up.

1. Ben and Reed need to have had a long, deep, meaningful friendship prior to their transformation. They didn't have that in UFF. They knew each other when they were 10 and then were reunited just prior to the accident (14 years later?).

Imagine you knew someone when you were 10 and then you met back up with them 14 years later. You wouldn't know each other at all.

2. Doom HAS to be Doom - not the AWFUL character from UFF. I can't even begin to describe all the things that were wrong with that character.

3. Galactus needs to be Galactus - not the swarm of UFF.

4. Sue and Johnny should be younger than Reed and Ben and not geniuses. Johnny should be street-smart and mechanically talented with a history of racing and other thrill-seeking activities while being nothing like Reed in the brains department. Sue should be intuitive and much better at dealing with people and public relations than Reed, but she's not a scientist.

5. Reed should be a veteran and strong leader and adventurer - not a geek who has been sheltered in a think-tank his whole life.

6. The incident leading to their powers should be a result of Reed pushing boundaries beyond what others think is safe. It should be a risk that he takes on because of his extreme curiosity and willingness to take risks in the interest of learning something.

As long as those elements are maintained, I'm okay with UFF influences for minor details, but I'm concerned that if they use UFF as a primary source rather then the 50 years of true source material we will get an FF that bears little resemblance to the real FF as we did in UFF.

 

[Crimz]

Sue being a scientist would be redundant, Reed is a genius-level scientist no more are needed. She'd just be an assistant, the writers should give her a career that would be useful to the 4. I also hope that they don't make her seem so weak like in the previous films, getting nosebleeds whenever she had a forcefield and doing no fighting at all. She just put up forcefields she didn't fight at all in both films. Lame.

 

[Zarex]

You can suss out the FF members' education and training based on what skills are required for space travel:

Reed Richards - Mission Leader and Science Officer. Multiple advanced degrees and world renowned in the field of experimental physics. As the "dad" of the team he must be at least in his early 40s or the entire thing no longer works.

Benjamin Grimm - Pilot. Decorated Marine Officer and friend of Reed since their college days.

Susan Richards - Medical Officer. Rather than give Reed another job, have Sue be the team physician. It fits in with her role as the team "mother" and makes her necessary, but in a very different way than Reed. Late 20s or early 30s, a decade or so younger than Reed.

Johnny Storm - Engineer. Early to mid twenties. Knowledge of mechanical systems come primarily through his work on automobiles, but is brought on the mission as a last minute replacement after Herbert "Herbie" Kirby becomes sick and can't make the tight window for the launch.

 

[Whiskey Tango]

Please question me, I've already been shown that 616 Stark was more or less a military contractor before Ultimates turned Stark Enterprises into Lockheed Martin. If there's something else wrong, let me know.

Nah it was the thing about teenagers not being into cars or bikes which I don't feel was very accurate, at least in the States gearheads have always been a thing even before everybody started bolting their dick head jumbo jet spoilers onto their tiny Matchbox clown cars.

And the bit about scientists not working in the field but Mr. Lumpkin fielded that one also.

otherwise good convo

 

[wobbly]

Plus Iron-Man's origin is a direct update from 616 (A weapons maker, heart injured in a war zone, held captive etc), as was his armour.

His Ultimate origin was so bloody awful (his whole body was basically one big brain cell, blue protective skin as kid, growing back limbs etc) that the last I heard they ret-conned that crap out of those books continuity.

His ultimate armour when IM was being made I think was still the clunky Hitch designed one (not nearly as good as the 616 Adi Granov one the film took it's cues from) Even the Mark 1 armour was remarkably faithful to IM's first 616 suit.

Funny how Marvel Studios most successful solo character so far is the one that's followed it's 616 books the closest...

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

Here's one of an infinite number of scenarios that would not only be much more faithful to the original but would also be a much more believable update than the mess in UFF:

Reed Richards - 33 years old. Founder and Chief Technical Officer of Reed Richards Aerospace (RRA) - a tiny start-up that Reed founded when he was 27 as an off-shoot of some of the post-graduate work he had been doing at Empire State University. Reed attended ESU as an undergraduate on an ROTC scholarship. After graduation, he served in Iraq and Afghanistan to fulfill his obligation before returning to ESU to complete his postgraduate work.

Ben Grimm - Also 33 years old. Ben met Reed when they were put together as Roommates at ESU. Ben was a football player at ESU and also served in Iraq and Afghanistan as an Air-force pilot. He currently works at RRA as a pilot and technician.

Sue Storm - 27 years old. Reed's girlfriend and a professor of humanities at ESU (where she and Reed met when she was an undergraduate and he was completing his PHD).

Johnny Storm - 18 years old. Sue's brother. Johnny has just graduated HS and is currently working full time at an auto-tuner shop. He worked there part-time while he was in HS and he does club-racing on the weekends.



Reed believes that his technology is simpler, less expensive and safer than technologies from companies such as Space X and Virgin Galactic. He wants to demonstrate those characteristics by being the first private company to orbit the earth in a manned vessel - his vertical take-off vehicle nicknamed the 'Pogo-Plane'.

To further illustrate the simplicity and safety of his vehicle, he has asked Sue and Johnny to come along on the first flight with him and Ben. Sue and Johnny have, of course, enthusiastically agreed and jumped at the opportunity. After signing all the necessary legal paper-work absolving RRA in the event of their death, they're ready to go.

But the board isn't convinced the craft is ready and they put on the brakes. Reed is concerned that if they don't act quickly and go for it, Space X or Virgin Galactic will beat them to that critical first manned flight.

So he brings Ben, Johnny and Sue to the craft one night. Since Reed is the founder and often puts in late-nights, he easily gets past security, and since the craft is so simple, it can be launched by the crew with no ground control.

The four take-off and everything seems to be going well until an unanticipated interaction of cosmic rays with Reed's anti-matter drive catalyzes an event that creates a previously unobserved form of radiation. The crew becomes ill and crash-lands the vehicle in a remote location . . .

 

[DrCosmic]

Wrong again as usual... Cap has been depicted with guns even in the 90s. "regularly or not".

You keep wanting to characterize how these characters should act and be by their origins (or using that as a basis for their example) ... When the origins are dated. They've been taking modern versions/characterization of the characters in the books and essentially retelling their origins with those characteristics in mind. The ultimate universe has had little influence over the 616. Regardless if what you may think (and Im sure you will try to argue in some feeble way)

So, my saying Cap didn't use guns regularly is false because he used them irregularly? This what you call feeble arguing?

I haven't linked origins and how the characters act, except possibly in Reed's case, so how can that be what I want for all these characters? Stick to what I said, instead of imagining some motive.

It sounds like you're trying to characterize it all as coincidence. And honestly, I can't prove it's not all a coincidence, so okay.

30 seconds on Google turns up this: http://diverseeducation.com/article/57774/#

"It’s a sad state of affairs for a country that educated about 10 million returning veterans after World War II – including three U.S. presidents, three Supreme Court justices, 14 Nobel Prize winners and 24 Pulitzer Prize winners."

But I don't see why you are demanding such a high standard to prove an obvious concept when you are advocating UFF - a world in which children are taken from their parents who are paid so that those children can work on high tech devices. That scenario is completely unbelievable compared to my scenario which simply reflects real life.

Good find, and that's great for people much dumber than Tony Stark in decades past, but it simply doesn't address my point. If my standard is 'high' it's only to reflect Reed's incredible intelligence, which is necessary for the franchise to function properly, and as a result, it is totally in conflict with how military service and intelligence intersected in times past.

As for children being used in Think Tanks, that's more conspiracy theorist territory, it makes perfect sense is completely believable when you're talking about kids who are blowing Einstein out of the water at 11 years old, but we don't have anything like that in real life to compare it to exactly, only how we think the government would react to such things. You could tone down Tony's intelligence, or his ability to apply scientific principles, and then there are several other things that would make sense. Is that what you suggest?

No! I said nothing of the sort. I was just pointing out that kids and teenagers participate in motorsports. For every one that becomes a celebrity, there are 100's of thousands that will never do it for much more than the fun of it. Do you really not know kids who ride and work on dirt-bikes, mini-bikes, go-carts, dune buggies, ATV's etc.?

I know lots of kids. I don't know any that do motorsports. The ones that do motorsports on roads, do you? You consider them average kids or exceptional? Now I know lots of kids out in the country that do all kinds of off-roading, but I don't really think of Johnny as a country kid. That kind of conflicts with the street smart fun guy personality that makes the character himself. Now in the 1960s, those two things went together. In the 2010s, they don't, so in order to make the character organic in the present day you should change his interests.

Ben should be a pilot. Pilots aren't typically 'famous'. Sue can be any number of things. Teacher, lawyer, doctor, magazine editor etc. etc. etc. She just shouldn't be a scientific genius prodigy. The Fantastic Four isn't a group of scientific genius prodigies.

Now it's true you didn't say anything about Ben being famous, but... wasn't Ultimate Sue a doctor? A prodigy doctor... which would be necessary for her to be of any help with their new biologies... or would she be a pretty much useless doctor, again reducing her to the role of girlfriend?

Here is my post again. These are the relatively simple key points that I made and I meant what I said. I didn't have some hidden, unstated agenda in which what I really meant is that I wanted all the elements of the originals maintained. As I have said over and over and over again, some updates are fine and necessary, but the updates that were in UFF changed the basic nature of the characters. That's not updating, that's re-inventing and there's no reason to reinvent simple characters that have timeless characteristics that audiences can relate to.

I'm not saying you have an agenda, I'm just pointing out what follows from using the 1960s as your standard for what makes a great modernization, regardless of your intention.

On the point, I'm not clear on exactly how the updates of UFF changed the basic nature of the characters. Reed still became a strong leader. Johnny was still street smart and had all his personality, Sue was definitely different, but that was needed, she couldn't be the 1960s/homemaker persona. Are you calling a veteran and a mechanic part of their basic natures? Cuz that's not what basic nature means.

And the characters we got in UFF were insanely more relatable than the 616 FF. Goodnight.

Nah it was the thing about teenagers not being into cars or bikes which I don't feel was very accurate, at least in the States gearheads have always been a thing even before everybody started bolting their dick head jumbo jet spoilers onto their tiny Matchbox clown cars.

And the bit about scientists not working in the field but Mr. Lumpkin fielded that one also.

otherwise good convo

Into, no doubt... to the point where they race on tracks and can actually repair them... i haven't heard of any teenagers like that, at least, not ones without publicity agents.

Plus Iron-Man's origin is a direct update from 616 (A weapons maker, heart injured in a war zone, held captive etc), as was his armour.

His Ultimate origin was so bloody awful (his whole body was basically one big brain cell, blue protective skin as kid, growing back limbs etc) that the last I heard they ret-conned that crap out of those books continuity.

His ultimate armour when IM was being made I think was still the clunky Hitch designed one (not nearly as good as the 616 Adi Granov one the film took it's cues from) Even the Mark 1 armour was remarkably faithful to IM's first 616 suit.

Funny how Marvel Studios most successful solo character so far is the one that's followed it's 616 books the closest...

That Ultimate Iron Man origin retconned in and out was bad, no two ways about it. The original brain tumor one was a solid update, and would be followed if we hadn't had a new war to have him captured in.

I'd say his attitude was more in the insufferable Ultimate Stark direction, and the weapons maker isn't exactly only a 616 thing, and the 'I don't have what it takes' anxiety arc from IM3 is straight Ultimate. In fact, his job description is much more like the real world Military Contractor shown in the Ultimate Universe than the vague "weapons maker" described in 616. So... closest to 616? Sure, but the Ultimate influence made it so much better than a random modernization.

 

[Lord]

Ultimate Fantastic Four was a mess?

 

[psylockolussus]

I voted for "I hope it is a great movie suited to these classic characters."