I think we all liked the movie for the most part, but we are FF fans, I think honestly that a lot of us overlooked a few things because we are for the most part positive and we were hopeful for the movie. I like this movie, but I know that I am easily pleased. I can see that the potential for this franchise has been short changed by an inattentive attention to detail and a lack of respect for the source.
When you hear comments from Mark Frost about "well it was a studio driven enterprise and once you knew that going in you went with it" it make me a little bitter, because he is a writer. You have to maintain the balance on the creative side cause the suits are number crunchers for the most part.
Their jobs (suits) are tied to Fox and so they are going to be obsessed with the bottom line of fox.
Creators however have a little more independence as they move from company to company. Mark Frost apparently never held up his hand and said Doom must be Doom, heck it sounds like he suggested a lot of the changes. He made wholesale changes to classical characters because he thought that this would work better in the context of today.
And so DOOM, the template for Darth Vader became an Osbourne clone.
When I read that I could not believe it. Now we know why Dr. Doom was portrayed as he was.
So now you have a situation where Tim Story in trying to pitch the FF more on the epic side fought with Avi and won in getting the Studio to bring the Surfer, brought in Don Payne a more faithful fan of the source to try to correct what Frost and the Studio did.
So in this film you can see the influence of Tim in what this film is. Even so Fox brought some numbers to him and said the exit polls are skewing young, lets take it lighter, lets get a running time of about shrek and no Galactus battle cause the Surfer is expensive as it is, so cut that story out and lets just count the money.
I had no problem with the PG rating, I think that actually that was a plus, but the running time can't allow people to invest in these characters. Maybe the kids but for the young teens and adults you will feel cheated cause by the time you get comfortable with the characters Fox shows you the door, time to go.
I am embarrassed at myself, I jumped on some people for being too negative at times about what Fox's intentions were for this movie, but now Fox's intentions are clear.
And now to think that Tim is going to take the heat for the film not being as eventful as it could have been burns me, cause you can see that he has been working hard trying to be true to the source and to appease us hardcore fanboys.
Tim is not to blame for this stuff. It is obvious that he and Don Payne have had to be political, trying to move the studio from point A to B without offending everyone and losing their own opportunities.
Fox's model is not conducive to great and epic films. Their model is suited for simple light fare.
In that respect it is a tragedy that they have the FF franchise.
Ok that is it, no more negativity after today. I'm all out.
Here is to Jack and Stan, creators of the worlds greatest superhero team.
