Susan Storm’s superpower is apparently joviality.
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Speaking of whom, I still love his take on the question of “does everyone see Galactus differently?”
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Given the success of some of the off-beat TV shows I was kind of hoping they’d go that route for FF.
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I want to see the Planetary version of the FF. That would be interesting.
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Yeah it’s very much a mid century sci-fi thing. As much as it’s ultimately responsible for a lot of the “Cosmic” stuff that’s already core to the MCU. It’s also not that.
A big part of what what Feige brought to the table in shifting how super hero flicks are treated is leaning into the comic book of it all. These things are inherently ridiculous. So I think the Marvel team is a little more suited to making that work than Fox was. The first go round there was just bog standard mid 00’s action, and the 4tastic debacle was embarrassed to be a comic movie. Legendarily something unrelated wedged into the property and helmed by an utter asshole.
We need this.
Groot is growing. Vines and branches. Practically it’s the same. But the difference in execution gives that little bit of plausible physicality that keeps it from breaking suspension of disbelief. It’s not rubber bands. Things move slower, at angles and they get tree noises.
And that is kind of all it takes.
Even if the CG looks the same as stretchy guy quality wise, and the end effect is roughly the same. It gives our brains something to hang on. Stretch powers in live action have a sort of cartoony, untethered character than pushes them into something like the uncanny valley. It could be made to work, and I think MOM shows they’re working on it. But it’s still subtly off in a way that’s hard to figure.
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Well everyone probably has their own individual limits for what breaks their suspension of disbelief so if a stretching body is what does it for you I can’t argue that you’re wrong. But we’re talking about a cinematic universe where people routinely use actual magic, along with a whole lot of technologies that, for all intents and purposes, are also magic, and people have long accepted the green guy whose body changes in mass depending on mood, so I personally don’t see the stretchy guy as being inherently any more silly or less plausible than most of the other stuff in the MCU. Your mileage may vary.
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I’m cautiously optimistic about her introduction to the MCU as well now that Marvel has a few solid comedy entries on their record. They already introduced her former teammate “Mister Immortal” (from the Great Lakes Avengers, before Ryan North’s run) in the most recent episode of She-Hulk.
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I’m not talking about the concept of a stretchy person being implausible.
It’s about how the effects come off unconsciously. Like how the effects on Hulk and Thanos aren’t neccisarily any more photo-realistic than those in She-Hulk. Or pick a movie with less good CG characters. But more people are able to accept them as good, or just pass over the artificiality like it doesn’t matter.
That comes down to subtle things like the animation rigging and how lighting interacts differently on the character than the background. And with a TV show vs movie it’s more a time and money spent than absolute quality.
I mentioned the Uncanny Valley because these are base psychological things. If we have a bouncing ball, and it bounces in a way or direction that’s unexpected, based on how balls actually bounce. Then something seems wrong. It’s why CG often seems floaty and disconnected from it’s surroundings.
Stretchy powers have a problem along those lines. If you can’t give it the right physicality, it’ll just come off hokey, or worse. Subtlety unpleasant.
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I remember disliking a lot of things about the 2005 Fantastic Four movie (I never bothered watching the sequel or the 2015 reboot) but I don’t remember having any complaints about the special effects. Pair the character with a good script and most people will like him just fine.
Elastigirl looked awesome and that movie was from 2004. I’m sure they can do a decent job with the visual effects if they put the right team on it.
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Right the effects are not bad.
But maybe check it out again. That flick and it’s sequels are often cited as a prime example of the issue, and often don’t show things directly. Either not centering it in frame, blocking the bit that would be physically connected to the actor or keeping it brief.
The films were dinged at the time for the stretch effects coming off as hokey. And they’re notably more cartoonish looking than the other effects around them.
It’s also probably the best example of the attempt in live action. But it still read as fake in a way that put a lot of people off, and undercut the film.
I don’t think anyone has ever suggested that stretch powers are a problem in animation. It’s a live action effects issue and one the people who work on this have called out specifically.
I think it could work if they maybe did something like this:
- Avoid retelling the origin story AGAIN. We don’t need it at this point, plus it’s a dated story anyway.
- Dump us right into the middle of a story. something connected to the MCU probably so we know some of the background.
- Downplay the stretch a bit, and play up his smarts for Mr. F
- Invisible Girl should focus more on her telekinetic abilities
- Treat the thing like the Hulk in terms of SFX
- Johnny Storm should be fun, the comic relief bit.
- Avoid Overly Serious acting. Think a little like Guardians and less like Eternals.
- Cameos! Lots of fun call backs and call outs like She Hulk.
I dunno, just thinking out loud. And for gods sake let the director do their damn job, and avoid massive interference from studio execs who think they know what their doing…
heh.
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That might make sense if he were really just an abstract force of fear and death, but canonically he’s an actual literal Giant Entitled White Dude from the Planet of Entitled White Dudes
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Galactus’ origin is irrelevant to that question. He’s been canonically described as a force of nature rather than a physical being for decades.
…Galactus is truly no longer a being in the absolute physical sense. He is as Odin named him, a force of nature. And each mind that views him struggles as best it can to perceive that unguessable force as an image it can comprehend.
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… and before that, and after that, he was, and is, a literal giant white dude with big scary spaceships and machines
… yes, the writers are contradicting each other and we can believe whatever we want because it’s all made up 
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Only when he’s drawn by a white dude. 
But whatever he used to look like is still irrelevant to how other species see him, or even what his “true” form is like in his current incarnation. I mean, you used to look like an undifferentiated ball of cells but then you took on an infinitely more complex physical form that bears little resemblance to your original appearance.
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The limited run podcast they did recently was also quite good (ridiculous in the best way)
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Yeah that podcast did a great job capturing the spirit of the comic. I sure hope we get to see Brain Drain in the MCU some day. Who doesn’t love a reprogrammed-HYDRA-cyborg-turned-nihilist-superhero?
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Well, there was Mr. Fantastic’s near-cameo in Dr. Strange 2…
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Although it’s telling that they based the MCU on the “Ultimates” version, where everything is more grounded and “grittier,” and they made it even more grounded and less four-color, too. The Ultimates version of the FF seems… not very FF-ish. (And from what I read, the last movie drew somewhat from that, which was one of its problems.) But the MCU seems to leaning more heavily into the ridiculousness of it all, especially, from what I read, in their shows. But yeah, now there’s more of a broad, ridiculous comic book world in which to place them that was lacking in the movies, which had to try to construct a tone, a context and introduce the team itself, etc.
Some aspects of the earlier MCU films are clearly drawn from the Ultimate Universe. But the comic story lines they were adapting were more rooted in 616, and the MCU versions are very much versions of the 616 characters. I think most people making that argument don’t quite remember the Ultimate Universe, and just recognize the one or two costumes that were used. Mostly Hawkguy and Thor.
Ultimate Thor was introduced as a crazed homeless man, who founded a religion claiming to be Thor. Who may or may not actually be Thor, and was apparently very into raves.
Ultimate Tony Stark was actually named Antonio not Anthony. And was effectively a mutant with super intelligence and a healing factor. The Iron Man Armor comes from something his father invented to control a chronic pain disorder associated with these powers. Not the classic made it in a cave/injury thing.
Ultimate Black Widow is a cyborg and turns out to be the bad guy.
The closest equivalent is probably Ultimate Hawkeye, since that’s clearly where Spec Ops Arrow D00d lives. But that Hawkeye has the same super powers as Bullseye, is also a cyborg, and is a convicted murderer who Nick Fury pressed into service.
They took a lot of visual cues, a few story beats, and a couple modernizing elements here. But they very much did not adapt Ultimates or the Ultimate versions of the characters (thankfully).
The other thing to remember about that era of the MCU is that Kevin Keige was not in charge. Starting out, and until after Captain America Civil War. Everything was under Ike Perlmutter. And it was only a couple of years before that, after similar clashes that Feige ended up with enough control to even make things like Guardians of the Galaxy.
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