What would you have done differently?

[Mysteryman]

I would have hired a different Director

 

[NotSoLongAgo]

This is kind of a cheesy excerpt I just came up with off the top of my head for when the group would visit Victor's mansion or castle or something and they run into armor, with the Doctor Doom faceplate.

Victor: Sorry for the armor.
Reed: What is it?
Victor: It's a ceremonial faceplate worn by my ancestors when they would go ride into battle. It was a symbolism for their inevitable win: Cold and unfeeling, without an ounce of mercy. It's the same tactics I apply to this day. I leave it out as a reminder that I come from a family of kings.
Susan: It sounds more like conquerors.
Victor: Well, Ms. Storm, that's not what the history books say, and believe me, history is written by the victor... hm, interesting.*smirk*

It's pretty cheesy, but I found it okay.

Why are they hanging out with Doom? Why isn't Doom wearing the armor? Also, Doom doesn't come from a family of kings. He makes himself king after being oppressed.

And Doom doesn't apologize

 

[Batsfan1]

Why are they hanging out with Doom? Why isn't Doom wearing the armor? Also, Doom doesn't come from a family of kings. He makes himself king after being oppressed.

And Doom doesn't apologize

He wasn't really apologizing in my head. Just being condescending. This is before he becomes Doctor Doom. I've said before that I'm not extremely knowledgeable on FF character lore. Besides it was just an exchange off the top of my head.

 

[Marvelocity]

How do you NOT pass an open-book test??? The FF directors have 50 plus years of history to pull from..........the answer given to them on a silver plater and yet both decided to ignore the source material....

This is the best post I've ever read on this site.

I'm so sick of directors thinking they have a creative take on a franchise that has been around for 50 years. No, you don't. No one wants your crappy vision or interpretation of something that is already perfect.

 

[cronosred]

How do you NOT pass an open-book test??? The FF directors have 50 plus years of history to pull from..........the answer given to them on a silver plater and yet both decided to ignore the source material....

I don't believe anyone involved in this production really wanted to make a Fantastic Four film.

 

[AndrewGilkison]

A movie with a pre-established Fantastic Four going up against a Frightful Four type group that is controlled by a rogue government agent. That way you could do a real Fantastic Four movie and have the body horror stuff and the government using super powered people as weapons angle.

 

[MydnightPhoenix]

My judgement is only from reviews have not seen the film.
Hired a differrnt director
Cast a differrnt Sue Storm
Make Sue black or make Johnny white
Run like hell with the Sci fi horror thing.
Not have Victor Von Doom/or have Victor and use the Domashev name and have Von Doom be his real name that he doesn't use. AND not defeat him the first time out
Make Ben a more integral part of the science and not just a friend who tagged along.
Sue be from Victors home country.

 

[Dasher10]

I wouldn't have hired Josh Trank.

 

[cph9fa]

I'm glad this thread exists. I was actually thinking of starting one if it hadn't. I'm going to approach this keeping as much of the first half as possible, and try to explore where that film could have gone...

My main change: Don't attempt to use Doom as the main villain. Build the suspense around him by saving him for the sequel. There's just not enough time for him to become a credible villain and be defeated in the final act of an origin story. Instead, have the villain be a denizen of the nega... planet zero -- perhaps a reimagined version of Annihilus? (Even if its Annihilus-INO).

The other main change: Don't have Reed flee. It seemed like merely a contrived way to turn Grimm and Reed against each other and have a fight scene that really wasn't worth it.


First Act/First Half of Second Act
This can stay mostly the same as it was.

I wasn't bothered by Ben's older brother/bully originating Ben's famous catch phrase, but I also like screencrush's idea to use the Ultimate origin of the phrase, and have it be his baseball coach's motto.

When the probe sends back pictures and environmental data, have there be a brief image of a dark, fast-moving shadowy blur on the planet.

I also agree with an earlier poster about finding an excuse to keep Ben around at the lab, so he can bicker with Johnny. Also, give us at least one good sibling rivalry scene between Johnny and Sue.

When they first visit the planet, and Victor investigates the energy pool, he finds a strange glowing rod next to it (or hovering above it). Cut to a shadowy figure watching from a nearby cave. Victor takes the rod so they can bring it back to study, which is what triggers the energy to attack them all. As he gets engulfed in energy, he tosses the rod to Reed. They manage to all escape, with the rod. They even manage to pull back Victor, who has been engulfed in some sort of cocoon.


Second Half of Second Act
*** NO "ONE YEAR LATER" ***

Victor has taken the worst of the hit, and remains in a coma as his body is reformed. (Also, he needs to have a better defined powerset, and more-limited so that he can't just burst people's brains arbitrarily).

Instead of escaping, Reed attempts to free Ben. As the two sneak through the facility, they find Victor next, and try to help him, but by this point, the guards have caught up to them, and order them to stand down. Before anyone can do anything, Doom awakens, kills a bunch of soldiers and escapes the base, leaving Ben and Reed to be surrender.

The army needs Franklin to repair the device so they can get back to the negative zone. They might have a pretense of finding a way to fix the children, but their real motivation is creating their own super-powered soldiers (this was hinted at in one line, but should be expanded upon). In return, for his aid, Franklin is able to negotiate with them to treat the children better than lab rats. Maybe Reed, depressed, refuses to help Franklin (or maybe he's too busy studying the rod?), but Sue is able to use her pattern-matching to piece together Reed's notes well-enough to fix the machine. It doesn't have to be completely rebuilt from scratch, after all, just repaired. No one can figure out what the glowing rod is or does, and it gets set aside.

Intersperse this with the four slowly moving from despair and fear to accepting their powers, gaining their suits, learning how to control them, but not certain what to do with them. Maybe some military training or missions? I don't know, I was confused by the character motivations behind that subplot... At any rate, this lasts no more than a month or two, not a year!


Third Act
When the military finally sends a team back to the planet, they are slaughtered by the alien being Annihilus, some sort of an horrific combination of a giant insectoid Bat, a Pteranadon, and an Alien (from Aliens). Annihilus then uses the pod to return to Earth, where he kills Franklin, and recovers the cosmic rod. He then vows to destroy their world using the portal to Planet Zero, and the Fantastic Four have to come together to stop him. The finale would actually look a lot like the existing one, only they are fighting against the irrational rage of Annihilus, instead of the irrational rage of a Nihilist.

The ending? It turns out that Victor has made his way back to his homeland of Latveria where he is out of reach of the US government. Using backdoors that he planted while working on the projecct, he's managed to download all the information on the project, and publish a scathing expose online about the US government's secret trip Planet Zero. This goes viral online, and people are suddenly curious about the other four survivors, and demand the government release them, thus propelling them into the public eye, and infuriating Doom, who starts a tech firm in Latveria named Doombots Inc.

 

[pr0xyt0xin]

um... short of give the rights back... how could they have made this installment watchable? Oh my god, it's barely worth the effort.

From the top:
1. The child acting was some of the best in the film, but i'd still cut it to a minimum.
2. skim through the high school years. dont need to see too much of this (if any)
3. time lapse of them working on the project at the Baxter building. several years of work. they are in their twenties now.
4. make the transdimensional warp only function in zero gravity, thus require them to go to space.
5. Victor doesnt go with, but funds the expedition. He's inherited a small country, why wouldnt he be a billionaire? He's also a robotic engineer, designing Doom Bots to pilot and maintain the spacecraft.
6. Sue goes with instead. She's more than just a trumped up fashion designer.
7. Ben and Reed have another meetup before the departure. Ben complains about being a loser stuck at home and never amounting to anything. So Reed decides to bring him.
8. they don't get their powers in a drunken haze.
9. they teleport and transform simultaneously at about the halfway point of the film. They are stuck in the negative zone (not "planet zero") for most of the remainder of the film.
10. There is "NO VILLAIN BATTLE" but instead they just have to work together to survive this alternate dimension.
11. They use their powers and teamwork to find their way back to our dimension and then back to the planet's surface.
12. They get back and Doom is pissed at them for not bringing back anything substantial.
13. Dr Storm is proud and supports them for being brave through their deformities/trials. He doesnt die.
14. They decide to keep adventuring/learning/exploring as the Fantastic Four.
15. Post or mid-credits scene of Annihilus escaping the negative zone through a crack they left in spacetime.

Bonus fixes:
- Redo crappy CGI
- Reshoot emotionless/wooden scenes.
- Fix Thing's nose/brow, give him some pants.
- Fix Sue's wig.

That's assuming the same cast/creative team/director/studio. If I could change those.... well you bet your ass i would.

 

[Random490]

I had this thought on how a simple rewrite to fix Doom.

So the setup is that while in the Negative zone when they first get their powers they are attacked but an army of creatures. The Four makes it back and Doom is left behind presumed dead. So the movie continues on some time passes and Doom appear at the base, his body covered in scars, cameras are angled to not get a clear look at his face. He easy takes out any guard that approaches him. I'm thinking his power is him naturally tapping into magical forces, think something like Scarlett Witch in AoU. He sees some experimental metallic plates with a green cloth around them. He transmutes the materials to form flexible metallic armor and cloak very similar to the comics. The most we see of his scarred face is his eyes beneath the mask.

He then gets attacked by the human torch. A green aura appears whenever someone attacks him. He captures the Torch in a force field causing his flame to die and him to pass out. The thing then attacks, knocking Doom back. Doom, needing to keep one arm out stretched to contain johnny, fights the thing with one had proving his strength. He then blast the Thing into the far wall. While charging a larger blast, Susan surrounds him in a force field causing the blast to back fire. Once he notices her he realizes who he is fighting. Take a proud noble stance and says

Doom: Susan, Johnny,... Grimm? So where is Reed Richards?

Reed: Who are you?

Doom: I'm not surprised you don't recognize me, it has been a while.

Reed: Victor? I thought you were dead?

Doom: The Brilliant Reed Richards wrong? Perish the thought

Reed: How are you alive?

Doom: Because I willed it. Surviving that world you left me to die on. Turns out it wasn't so different from ours once, until those creatures came. Seem their leader has been trying to come into our world for sometime and your left over device allowed him to create his own. That's what I used to return. He and his army should be here in a matter of hours.

Reed: What? We have to stop him.

Doom: That's what a military is for.

Reed: Victor we need your help.

Doom: This is beneath me and you have no right to ask anything of me. I am returning home and if any of you attempt to stop me I won't hold back and kill you all.

So then the final act would be the four against annihilus (Which was basically Doom in the theatrical cut) and perhaps a post credit of a new report stating a change of government in Latvaria by Dr. Doom

 

[CTFFFan]

Trash the entire movie and start over. The one positive out of the entire piece of garbage was that they showed how Reed and Ben met (their version). After that it was downhill fast.

 

[Zarex]

Soft reboot. The Story films were not good, but the basic building blocks of a successful series were there. The decision to go dark and gritty and retell the original seemed to be more due to cost than audience appeal. It was a terrible idea that Domasheved the project.

Recast the leads and move forward about a decade with an older, finely tuned team. Add Franklin and Valeria to the mix. Have the whole family go on an adventure to the Negative Zone, and finish up by teasing both Franklin's terrifying powers and the return of Lord Doom. There were rumors that something like this was in play, with Bruce Willis voicing Ben, but cost likely played a major role in getting the Tranktastic version soon leaving theaters.

 

[Vadakin]

What would I have done differently? Everything.

First, make Doom the ruler of Latveria. As the king, he'd be called King Victor but his family name would be Von Doom and he would refer to himself as Doctor Doom by the end.

The setup revolves around the mysterious Eastern European country of Latveria. Having declared independence from the Soviet Union, it entered into a long and bloody civil war. Young Victor, himself descended from Latverian royalty, fled to the US during the Soviet era. Educated in American schools, Victor proved to be brilliant and went to college with another prodigy, Reed Richards but while Reed was interested in science for the purest of reasons, Victor harboured a desire to return to Latveria and take back what he believed was his. He does this during the civil war, leading what is effectively a peasant revolt against both the forces still loyal to Russia and those supported by the west, in what is the last proxy war within the Cold War. Conquering both sides, Victor is declared undisputed ruler of Latveria, making himself an enemy of the east and the west.

Then Latveria goes quiet for years. Victor closes the borders and creates an electromagnetic dampening field around the entire country so that not even spy satellites can get a good picture of what's happening there. He creates what the US calls a European North Korea.

All of this is backstory for your sake that may be referenced but is secondary to the plot. All you really need to know is that Victor is ruler of Latveria and the world sees him as a tyrant.

Years later, the Fantastic Four have already had their outer space mission and have gotten their amazing powers and are active as heroes in New York. When an American spy drone is shot down over Latveria, it is the first contact between Latveria and the outside world in over a decade. The administration decides to send a small, covert team across the border, into Latveria to see what's going on since all technological efforts to spy on the country have failed. However the team is captured and for the first time since closing the borders, King Victor addresses the world, accusing the US of sending assassins to kill him and threatening untold destruction on the US and the world.

Hoping to defuse the situation, since the world has no idea what kind of weapons Victor has at his command, they propose to send a negotiating team via the UN to Latveria to work out a lasting peace. They are surprised when Victor agrees, however he insists that Reed Richards lead the team as they knew each other at college and Victor respects his intelligence. He also invites the rest of the team to join Reed and see the kind of country he has created for themselves.

The Fantastic Four travel to Latveria and are amazed to find that instead of a poverty stricken and oppressed country, Latveria is a social and technological marvel with every need of every citizen taken care of. Victor explains that every citizen is free to leave but most choose to stay, the only requirement being that they swear fealty to their king. Reed in particular is amazed by this apparent utopia Victor has created but is still concerned that it's a dictatorship and urges Victor to open up the borders and let the world see and share in his advancements.

Victor agrees to leave Latveria and travel to New York to address the UN, in the hope of creating a lasting peace. He invites the Fantastic Four to stay at his castle and enjoy his hospitality while he makes the arrangements for the trip. Of course, it turns out to be a trap. Victor has designed special cells for each of the Four, meant to nullify their powers, including Ben's who finds that Doom has returned him to his human form.

Victor reveals that the only reason he agreed to the peace negotiations was to get the Fantastic Four out of New York. He tells Reed he will share his advancements with the world and make it a better place but that since the world will only see him as a villain, he will have to force the world to change and if that means embracing the role of villain, so be it. He remembers back in college, when people would make fun of his name, Von Doom, calling him Doctor Doom. Victor decides to embrace that and leaves the Four in their special prisons to travel to New York.

Once Doom is gone, Reed immediately gets to work on figuring out how to escape their cells and thanks to some scientific mumbo jumbo and convincing Ben to return to his rock form, they do. However, they can't call the Fantasticar to pick them up because all outside technology is disabled by the dampening field, so the Four have to make their way across Latveria to the border, hoping they can get back to New York before it's too late. The people of Latveria, unwaveringly loyal to Doom, make every effort to stop the Four from escaping the country.

In New York, the skies above the UN building darken. The world does not yet know of Dooms intentions but they are soon made clear as he arrives at the UN, not in a limo, not in a helicopter, but in a massive, flying warship. Speaking from his throne on the bridge, Doom declares that the world needs a single, strong ruler to unite them, not petty, squabbling politicians and proceeds to fire the warship's main cannon at the UN, completely destroying it and killing all the delegates inside.

The response is immediate as military jets scramble and forces pour into Manhattan. Doom is prepared for this assault however and massive battle takes place, with the warships guns targeting the jets and countless Doombots being unleashed against the soldiers on the ground. The military finds itself completely outmatched and after an epic, losing battle, they are forced to retreat and concede temporary control of Manhattan to Doom. They attempt to evacuate the island but Doom refuses to let them, holding Manhattan hostage and giving the world 12 hours to surrender.

Meanwhile, the Fantastic Four fight their way through Latverian military units, comprised of both people and bots and finally make it to the border, where the Fantasticar is waiting. They learn what is happening in New York and immediately rush there to help.

They arrive with time running out and lead a campaign against Dooms forces, hoping to disable the warship and force Doom to surrender. After a long battle, the Four reach Doom and have their climactic showdown. Doom is finally beaten but not to the point of surrender. As his warship crashes into the sea (with Sue using a forcefield to prevent it creating a massive tidal wave), Doom escapes and retreats back to Latveria. The day is saved, at least for now but Doom is still out there.

As cleanup in New York begins, Reed returns to his lab in the Baxter Building and discovers a strange energy signature heading towards Earth. Doom has also discovered the same signature and begins making new plans, unaware that the signature is that of the herald of the devourer of worlds, Galactus.



So yeah. That would have been my F4 movie, or at least one version, with Doom as ruler of Latveria, trying to take over the world. The origins of the F4 would have been told in a news broadcast when a reporter is talking about Reed agreeing to be a part of the negotiating team, as a bit of exposition rather than going through the origin from the start. Doom himself would be scarred and wear the mask and armour. Unlike the other films, he wouldn't share the same origins as the F4. His power would be purely technological, with the magic aspects being introduced in the sequel.

 

[Syncer]

Now I'm not a huge FF4 fan but I do have a couple of ideas but no plot

Some things I would keep like Reed and Ben being childhood friends, the Negative Zone (I feel that travelling to another dimension in this day and age would BE huge compared to cosmic rays) and Franklin Storm

The ages of the characters would be pretty young, Reed, Sue and Ben would be around 27-30 and Johnny would be 22. Victor would be around 30. Reed would be this child prodigy, an utmost genius, who's taking a break from science following the death of his father. Ben is a pilot with Air Force and is highly accomplished, winning a few medals. Sue is a scientist working at her Father's workplace and partial work area, the Baxter Institute. Since Johnny is known to be a good race car driver, I had the idea of him being an up and coming F1 or NASCAR Driver.

Victor's origins I find are kinda odd. I had the idea Victor is a young man and a genius whose genius have aided in the advancement and protection of Latveria, which led him to be recognized at a renowned figure in the nation as well as have a modest wealth. He studied in the US with the help of Franklin Storm. He is also an associate of Reed Richards,meeting him in his final year of College and developing an envy of him. At 30 years old, he decides to run for Prime Minister of Latveria. He's arrogant, but it's earned

*NOTE: I feel having Victor ruler of Latveria at the beginning makes the story not mesh. I also want to mention, and I dunno if this is right, but I see Victor as a kinda tragic character

Victor's childhood would consist of losing his mother and guarding and abandoing his love Valeria, he mention it to Franklin

So, from here on, I would have the four head to the Negative Zone, gain powers. Doom is scarred as a result of being in the vincitiy of the Quantum Gate and this only increases his arrogance and villany. He slowly develops the powers of Technopathy.

Annhilus would be the main villain. Doom would begin to build Doombots and his armor, and take over Latveria in an epic stage.

Like I said, not much of a plot,but laying my ideas there

 

[Whiskey Tango]

I would have shipped the rights back to Kevin Feige in a nice box with a red ribbon in the hopes that he might look favourably upon me from his eternal throne and grant me a few boons, like an X-Men tv show and an option to do an X-Men vs Avengers movie someday.

Then I'd take some of the hundred+howevermanymillion dollars I didn't just sink into a terrible, career-endangering FF film, and let Josh Trank make Chronicle 2. And then I'd take the rest and have a big Hollywood party with cocaine and strippers.

 

[Kar]

I had an idea I came up with after watching Trank's tank. Haven't fleshed it all the way out but I like what I got so far. (Everyone has some great ideas here by the way. Thats what happens when you read the books)

I'd set it in the MCU but YEARS before the Avengers. Like maybe in the early 70s.

Reed Richards and college buddy Victor von Doom are demonstrating a machine meant for interdimensional space travel to the government (Sue Storm and her father are present) in order to beat other countries in a race to space. Doom early on shows signs of being a narcissistic power hungry cocky scientist who doesn't heed Richards warning about the possibility of them tearing a hole in the fabric of space and time. So Reed secretly sabotages the machine so it won't work. It goes haywire, something he didn't expect, and it explodes in Doom's face. He's pronounced dead.

Years later Reed is a professor at a university and when he is confronted by Sue Storm. Since the incident he's been labeled a disgraced scientist. She recruits him on behalf of the government to rebuild the machine. After much convincing (and because he's smitten by Sue) and because he needs the money, Reed joins the new project again, meeting pilot Ben Grimm (and sparking a friendship) and engineer Johnny Storm who mocks him for his crush on Sue.

After months of building and training, the four prepare to board the craft/interdimensional machine. It rips a portal and the crew travel through it but they are overwhelmed by the energies and crash land back on Earth. They have been mutated by the rays (blah blah blah, Ben gets the short end of the stick) and are taken back to base to be quarantined.

Its later revealed to the audience that Doom is still alive, having survived the accident. The government has kept him hooked up to life support, his body nearly crippled, to use what he knows to rebuild the machine and striking a deal with the Latverian government to fund them weapons. They are also designing him a mechanized suit of armor to help him walk. We learn that Doom and his ancestors are a long line of scientists and intellectuals (maybe a cult even?) that believed in a different God that was birthed during the Big Crunch (aka Galactus).

Blah blah blah, the four understand their powers, Ben mopes, Johnny pulls pranks/does cool stunts, Sue and Reed flirt while Reed mopes cause Ben is moping...they then learn the portal they opened never closed and its slowly expanding and could possibly destroy the planet. They band together to find a way to stop it, but Doom (now wearing his suit and his family's cloak worn by Count Doom or something centuries before) tries to stop them. He reveals he planned for this portal to open as it is actually a time warp that can lead him back to the Big Crunch so he can recreate the incident that made Galactus and become a God.

The four fight him, find some way to beat him and close the portal, saving the world and becoming heroes. The papers label them the Fantastic Four and they move into the government funded Baxter building. Post credits scene: Reed and Johnny are looking at an image captured by a satellite of something coming out of the portal before it closed. Johnny notes that it looks like a surfboard.

 

[Kar]

Sequel I'd have it open up with the government having discovered the silver surfboard that escaped the portal. Meanwhile Reed and Sue are working on a device to explore the Negative Zone (something hinted at in part one) that creates a doorway between Earth and other dimensions. This causes the dimension of the Mole people to collide with ours. Led by their ruler the Mole Man they make a charge for Earth to inhabit it for its resources after their own world is dying. They destroy landmarks and buildings with earthquakes before just all out flooding the city of New York with its inhabitants and creatures. Of course the Fantastic Four are on the job. I'd have Reed somewhere in the story plan on proposing to Sue. Doom somehow returns to offer a hand to Reed, bringing with him an army of Doombots to fight the molemen. Mole-man releases the gigantic monster from the first issue and they all defeat it and seal off the Negative Zone after sending the molemen back. Doom escapes (turns out the Doom that showed up to help was a Doombot). Sue accepts Reed's proposal, party party party, happy ending. Post credit scene: government officials enter the room where they were keeping the surfboard locked up. They see a naked silver man standing there and the surfboard missing. He asks where is his board (Doom managed to break into the bas during the huge fight to steal it)

Part three would be the Galactus storyline with Silver Surfer being the main antagonist. I'm thinking I'd make it a two-parter with the first part being them fighting the Silver Surfer and Doom while part two would be Surfer joining their side to fight Galactus, who was alerted to Earth after the events of the first movie. I would actually show Galactus. Like have a huge face in the sky staring at everyone.

 

[Eddie]

The problem with trying to do Galactus in an MCU FF film not set in the modern day is that it's pretty well established that aliens weren't public knowledge until the Chitauri invasion. It's one of the main reasons I think a reboot should just stick with a modern setting.

 

[Kar]

Valid point.

 

[Saitou Hajime]

I think the real question is would anything different been allowed to happen to begin with?

 

[MydnightPhoenix]

I've seen the movie and have updated my changes:
No Doom or if he's there don't make him a villain. Develop his villainy over time and at least 2 movies and make him a constant prescence ans threat they canr entirely defeat. Get an actor from Eastern Europe to play him. Keep his name as Domashev.
Have either Reed not escape the facility or have them all escape together. I prefer seeing the former and seeing them grown closer as they only interact with each other and grow accostomed to the idea that they are in this together.
Make Sue Storm black or Johnny and Franklin white.
If Sue must be white make her from Latvaria.
Make everyone older, at least college or graduate school.
Have Ben already be in the air force with an impressive career.
At least explain why the 4 don't need suits when they go back.
Show more of Reeds intelligence.
Have Ben be more than Reed's baggage handler.
Have them want Sue to go over with them but she says no and tries to talk them out if it. She reluctantly agrees to man the computers.
DO NOT TOUCH THE GREEN OOZE!
Show Reed's leadership skills and not just a throw away speech of being stronger together.
The way the movie depicted their powers was good, even Reed and his Plastic Man powers. But how they used them against Doom was lame. But taking Doom out as the villain would alleviate that horrible climatic battle, I honestly didn't think it could be worse than the 2005 fight.