So , some of you may remember that the new Fantastic Four movie came out a few weeks ago. You may also remember that it is complete and utter shit and I did my best to tear it a new asshole. About a week after I screened it, I was still feeling salty and betrayed, but alas, relief cam to me in a rather unexpected form. For the first time, the 1994 Roger Corman produced Fantastic Four movie was released online, and I got to watch it. It was a good day.
Now, if you’re asking yourself, “1994? I didn’t know that there were Marvel movies back then! Isn’t the first Fantastic Four movie from 2005?” that’s OK. This is an ultra low budget film that was made exclusively so that the film rights to Marvel’s First Family could be retained by a German production company. Corman, renowned for legitimate B-movie classics like Rock n Roll High School and Death Race 2000 made the film without even the intention of releasing it. It existed solely for the purpose of keeping Marvel from regaining the cinematic rights. It never showed in theaters and for the longest time, the only way to watch it was to obtain a pirated home video from a convention somewhere.
Behold the early ’90s CGI!
I’d heard about this version for years, but had only seen small clips and still photos. So when the opportunity came for me to watch it legally in my own home, you bet your sweet ass I jumped at the chance! And if it helped me to wash the taste of Josh Trank and 20th Century Fox’s most recent film out of my mouth, all the better.
The first thing that I noticed about Corman’s film is that it isn’t great. By almost no metric is this a good film. The thing is, we’re measuring this against other Fantastic Four movies, so judging by on that particular scale, this is a fucking masterpiece. I think the best way to go about looking at this is by comparing it directly to the big budget 2015 version. Is this fair? Probably not. Is this fun and therapeutic for me? Absolutely!!! So lets get on with it!
The Team
The 2015 film does not feature the Fantastic Four. There are characters who share their names and powers with the quartet, but there is none of the camaraderie or family dynamic that defines the heroic team. They are just four individuals who barely share any screen time together before the final 15 minutes of the movie, at which point they just join up and claim to be best friends.
In the 1994 version, we see their history. Reed and Ben are close mates, Sue has had a crush on Reed for years, and Johnny sees Reed and Ben as big brothers. The four of them interact closely before they go on their fateful space voyage, and it is clear that they care deeply for one another. After their accident, they bond together even more, discovering their new powers and trying to cope with them. They spend time in a holding cell and we can see how they react and thrive in a stressful environment. Later, we see the Thing go off on his own, rebelling against his friends, before ultimately coming back and making the team whole again, giving him a full and compelling arc.
In this earlier movie, it takes the group a while to truly gel into the heroes we know them to be, but we see inklings of it early on and by the end we are rewarded with the real thing. Advantage: 1994.
The Atmosphere
We know that Trank was trying to create something very specific with his film. According to the sources, he wanted to make something akin to a David Cronenberg “body horror” movie, like The Fly or The Brood. This could have been an interesting and unique idea if it had been allowed to happen. But for reasons which still seem to be unexplained, Fox drastically changed his vision, rewriting it and shooting a new ending. It will probably be years before we find out what really happened to cause this mess, but what we do know is that the theatrically released product is an incoherent mess that shifts tone about halfway through and never become anything besides boring
Corman’s film, on the other hand, knows exactly what it is. It is pure Silver Age comic book fun. The costumes are classic, the plot is basic, and everything is adventurous. There’s a subplot about a Moleman-esque character that wouldn’t be out of place in the 1960s Adam West Batman TV show. The actors are giving it their all and everything contributes to this undeniable air of joy.
This may have been a shitty, low budget affair, but everyone involved was going to make it the best damn shitty, low budget affair that they could! I fucking salute them for it!
Doctor Doom
This right here is my biggest gripe a the thing that I wanted to write about most. Doctor Doom has always been, in my mind at least, one of the greatest villains to ever grace the pages of comic books. He’s a mad genius, a harsh dictator, and an honest-to-god wizard. He’s as egomanical as they come and gives absolutely zero fucks. I mean, this is his reaction in a recent comic when asked by the literal Creators of the Universe who would dare to confront their ultimate might.
Yeah. He’s pretty fucking badass.
The 2015 movie turns him into…I don’t know. He starts out as some asshole who plays Halo all day and has a crush on Sue Storm. Then he comes to the Baxter Building and does some science-y shit, then he gets drunk and stranded on Planet X*. When he shows back up (literally at the end of the movie, I might add, giving him no real time to be evil), he wants to destroy the world for reasons that are vague at best and nonexistent at worst. He’s gained powers that are not adequately explained and he acts more like a common dick than a cold hearted tyrant.
Plus, his character design looks like absolute shit. Who thought it was a good idea to give him an organic metal face instead of a mask? It looks creep, and not in a good way. And he gets a green cloak from out of fucking nowhere. Seriously, where did it come from! This has been torturing me for weeks at this point. FUUUUUUUCK!
In the 1994 movie, Doctor Doom is Doctor Motherfucking Doom. He is injured in a college experiment, blames Reed Richards, and vows revenge against him and his friends. He rules over Latveria and is a super genius who wants to rule the world because he is a crazy tyrant and crazy tyrants want to do that sort of thing. Its that simple. He looks like he does in the comics, which means that he looks awesome. What more can you fucking ask for? He is Doom and he is great. Period.
Summing Up…
As I said earlier, the 1994 movie isn’t all that good. It looks and feels cheap. The special effects are laughable at points and even by early ’90s standards everything looks dated. That being said, it at least remains true to its source material. It feels like a Fantastic Four movie. I can tell who these characters are and what drives them. Hell, even if I had never read a comic in my whole life, I would be able to understand these people and their motivations. I would get why they do what they do. They make sense.
That is the biggest flaw of Trank’s film. It never gives us the lovable, sympathetic figures that it should. The archetypes are sitting right there, ready to be adapted, but it either wasn’t able to or didn’t care to utilize them properly. Trank may have had tens of millions of dollars that Corman didn’t, but Corman had a basic understand of story and character, and that’s what makes all the difference.
The 1994 Fantastic Four may not be a great movie, but it is by far the best official** Fantastic Four motion picture that has ever been made.
*Plante X was apparently going to be The Negative Zone in an early draft of the script. Why did they change it? Fuck if I know. Maybe they just wanted to make sure it was a stupid as possible.
**For the record, the best unofficial Fantastic Four movie remains Pixar’s The Incredibles
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