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What is wrong with Fantastic Four movies?

I love comic books.  I love movies.  I love comic book movies.  So I am always excited to see a new comic book movie being released.  I don’t always love paying movie theatre prices and ususally wait for most movie’s to get to the cheap theatre before going to see them, except for comic book movies; I’m happy to pay full price to see them as soon as they come out.  Normally.  I’ve heard so many bad things about the new Fantastic Four movie that I waited til it made it to the dollar theatre before seeing it.  The fact that Fox had a review embargo in place until just before the movie was released is a sign that even they didn’t think the reviewers were going to be helping sell their movie.Josh Wilding fromComicBookMovie.com wrote this :

We weren’t expecting the first reviews for Fantastic Four until tomorrow, but a number of sites have broken embargo and dropped their verdicts on the reboot early. Simply put, they don’t have much nice to say about it! It’s worth bearing in mind that all but one of these come from the trades, and they always tend to be pretty harsh on superhero movies. However, these aren’t the same kind of mixed reviews we saw for Ant-Man last month; they’re extremely harsh, with only the cast really emerging unscathed. The direction, screenplay, and special effects unfortunately aren’t so lucky!

Once the reviewers were actually allowed to start spreading the word, it looks like Fox’s fears were well founded.  9% from Rotten Tomatoes , 1 1/2 stars from RogerEbert ( I always agreed more with Siskel than Ebert anyway).  I find myself disagreeing with most critic reviews but even the general audience found it pretty horrible.  2.6 out of 10 from Metacritic. 4.1 out of 10 from IMDB. I wasn’t very excited to see it when I went into the theatre and I was pretty much less excited when I walked out.  I think the beginning was OK.  The changes from the comics were OK for the most part.  Unfortunately, I always go into comic book movies knowing they are going to be changing things up. Although the Johnny Storm change was a disappointing and obvious pandering to diversity, I can live with that.  The lead up to their powers in the first part of the movie was acceptable save for the inclusion of Doom in it.  His character hurt that part of the story. After the machine was completed the movie just went down hill.  The time spent with the army was ridiculous, Reed running away and not contacting the rest, the father figure of the movie and his actions…all of it was terrible.  When they brought Doom back, it started getting worse, faster.  I am so glad I didn’t pay full price to see this movie.

A bad review of the most recent Fantastic Four movie is not really what I wanted to write about.  I want to pose the question of why have all the Fantastic Four movies been so bad?  The first two were not as bad as this most recent one, but they were not very good either.  It isn’t necessarily the acting that is so bad, although there are some bad actors, I think the script is much more of the problem.  But the real problem that has plagued these movies is…Doom!  Doom is the central bad guy and they handle him in such a poor way it destroys the whole film.  Dr. Doom is such a well developed villian that it is criminal that whoever is writing these scripts can’t translate that to the movies.  There is a ton of reference material for him beyond the comic books themselves so there is really no excuse for having such poor representation of him in films.  Even the Dr. Doom of the Super Hero Squad is a better character than any in the movies.

A well written Dr. Doom would necessitate the FF to be better written than they have been up to this point or they would never stand a chance of believably defeating him.  Besides which, if someone could write Dr. Doom true to his character, the FF would be a piece of cake, he is far more complicated than the rest of them combined.

I end with a plea to Fox, “Three strikes and you are out!  I know that making comic book movies are like printing money, but you have screwed the FF up so badly it doesn’t look like it works for you.  Pass the FF rights back to Marvel for a cut of the action and you’ll be making more than what you’ve done with the three you have failed with so far.  Also…what is with bringing Galactus into the picture in such a pathetic way?  You don’t bring out the big guy the second movie in the series and then kill him off, he is what drives the whole franchise if you do it right…. But that is the point, you aren’t doing it right.  Let Marvel take their turn.”

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Net Neutrality

The vote over the so called “Net Neutrality” by the FCC is over, but we have yet to see the real impact that will come from this reclassifiction of Internet traffic.There are lots of reasons that Net Neutrality is good.  Any advocate for it can list off many reasons why it is great.

On SaveTheInternet.com they give this are their main point:

Net Neutrality is the Internet’s guiding principle: It preserves our right to communicate freely online. This is the definition of an open Internet.

Net Neutrality means an Internet that enables and protects free speech. It means that Internet service providers should provide us with open networks — and should not block or discriminate against any applications or content that ride over those networks. Just as your phone company shouldn’t decide who you can call and what you say on that call, your ISP shouldn’t be concerned with the content you view or post online.

Without Net Neutrality, cable and phone companies could carve the Internet into fast and slow lanes. An ISP could slow down its competitors’ content or block political opinions it disagreed with. ISPs could charge extra fees to the few content companies that could afford to pay for preferential treatment — relegating everyone else to a slower tier of service. This would destroy the open Internet.

The ACLU also puts in their 2 cents:

The Internet has become so much a part of the lives of most Americans that it is easy to imagine that it will always remain the free and open medium it is now. We’d like to believe it will remain a place where you can always access any lawful content you want, and where the folks delivering that content can’t play favorites because they disagree with the message being delivered or want to charge more money for faster delivery.
But there are no such guarantees.
If the government doesn’t act soon, this open internet — and the “network neutrality” principles that sustain it — could be a thing of the past. Profits and corporate disfavor of controversial viewpoints or competing services could change both what you can see on the Internet and the quality of your connection. And the need to monitor what you do online in order to play favorites means even more consumer privacy invasions piled on top of the NSA’s prying eyes.
Even the White House is jumping on the Band Wagon:
More than any other invention of our time, the Internet has unlocked possibilities we could just barely imagine a generation ago. And here’s a big reason we’ve seen such incredible growth and innovation: Most Internet providers have treated Internet traffic equally. That’s a principle known as “net neutrality” — and it says that an entrepreneur’s fledgling company should have the same chance to succeed as established corporations, and that access to a high school student’s blog shouldn’t be unfairly slowed down to make way for advertisers with more money.
There are not many people who will disagree with these points. However, Net Neutrality is not really what the FCC vote is about.  For one thing, the US government can not set policy for the entire world, although many countries follow where the US leads.  Internet traffic is not strictly a US commodity, although the US is dominant.  The real meaning behind the FCC vote is whether or not the US Government is going to take a more active role in how and where it regulates Internet traffic in the US.
Joshua Steimle from Forbes has this to say regarding the true point of the FCC’s vote:
While I have no problem with net neutrality as a principle or concept, I have serious concerns about Net Neutrality as legislation or public policy.
Mark Cuban, who made his billions as a tech entrepreneur, gives a great interview on CNBC that really should be listened to:
The Courts will rule the Internet…All bits are bits, all bits are equal.

He then expands upon this on The Blaze:

…the Internet isn’t perfect, but slowing down or reversing its progress by giving the government control is not the answer.
As the real impact of this vote starts to become more apparent, I think that more and more people will realize that government regulation does not equal Net Neutrality.  Another wrinkle is that as Presidential administrations change, the regulation will change to match the political views of the current US President.  This is not the Net Neutrality that was presented to the general populace.  The upside of this is that is was a vote by the FCC, what is to stop them from voting again to change the regulations they have now imposed?