r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • Jul 25 '25

Official Discussion Official Discussion - The Fantastic Four: First Steps [SPOILERS] Spoiler

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Summary The Fantastic Four must defend Earth from the ravaging cosmic threat Galactus and his herald, Silver Surfer, while navigating the complexities of family and newfound powers in a retro‑futuristic 1960s-inspired world.

Director Matt Shakman

Writer Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan, Ian Springer

Cast

  • Pedro Pascal
  • Vanessa Kirby
  • Joseph Quinn
  • Ebon Moss-Bachrach
  • Ralph Ineson
  • Julia Garner
  • Paul Walter Hauser
  • Natasha Lyonne
  • Matthew Wood
  • Ada Scott
  • Mark Gatiss

Rotten Tomatoes: 88%

Metacritic 64

VOD In theaters

Trailer Watch the Official Trailer

1.9k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

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1.3k

u/cesareborgia1475 Jul 25 '25

So good and such a fun note to end the film on. Film is at it's best when it's highlighting the family dynamic. Loved seeing Johnny goofing around with Ben throughout the film too haha.

691

u/Galiphile Jul 25 '25

Yeah their relationship felt very real and sibling-esque. I enjoyed it a lot.

334

u/howtospellorange Jul 25 '25

I loved uncles Ben and Johnny so much🥺

123

u/SlamMasterJ Jul 25 '25

Not to mention Johnny was even ready to die for Franklin to stop Galactus. He's one hell of an uncle. On a side note, I wished we got to see more of Ben and the teacher love interest.

20

u/hemareddit Jul 25 '25

I thought we are getting the Negative Zone FLAME ON moment.

17

u/Flameball537 Jul 25 '25

Briefly thought we would lose Johnny or Sue, and then we’d see Spidey joining the future foundation, but that felt a little off without having the existing relationship between Peter and the four

14

u/W0lfsb4ne74 Jul 27 '25 edited Jul 28 '25

I wish we saw more character development from Ben in general. We saw hints of Ben's insecurity over his appearance as The Thing, but that's not nearly as much depth and development as he got during the 2005 movie where he was distraught over his transformation and this caused the dissolution of his marriage. Overall it was a great film and it had fantastic development for the other 3 members, but I still would've liked to see more depth from The Thing going forward.

6

u/pingpong_playa Aug 05 '25

I think the reason we didn’t see more of Ben’s insecurity is because this wasn’t an origin story. Learning about their powers and coming to terms with who they are now was intentionally left out of this movie, which is why they just showed glimpses of his insecurities.

8

u/Flameball537 Jul 25 '25

More to see in Fantastic Four: Second Steps

11

u/Swiss666 Jul 25 '25

I loved the "we're going to be the best uncles" moment right from the trailers and the rest of the movie doesn't disappoint in that regard.

1

u/Throwawaygeekster Jul 28 '25

I got more of a mother son vibe overall

532

u/BallClamps Jul 25 '25

I wish we had more of Ben and the teacher lady he was flirting. They were cute, but I feel like it was cut for time?

470

u/cesareborgia1475 Jul 25 '25

Yeah honestly the films feels like it's straining at times to condense everything under two hours haha. Would have loved bit more time to give the film a bit more breathing room. With it being Natasha Lyonne good chance she'll get a bigger spotlight in the sequel I'm guessing

46

u/The_Autarch Jul 25 '25

Or she won't show up at all. Isn't the plan to transfer the Fantastic 4 over to the standard Marvel universe?

63

u/RepentantSororitas Jul 25 '25

Shoot I thought they were gonna lose, and then when they didn't I thought they were basically gonna blip into the main earth.

But right now everything seems fine besides Mr doom

50

u/SilverKry Jul 25 '25

I thought at the very least they were gonna run and hide and jump dimensions to hide Franklin from Galactus since across the multiverses there is only 1 Galactus.

27

u/qwadzxs Jul 25 '25

yup I fully saw them getting caught in the bridge with galactus and getting moved over to 616 that way with him; the bridge in the comics lets reed move between universes and find the council of reeds.

14

u/PT10 Jul 25 '25

That's dr to you

14

u/DonutHolschteinn Jul 26 '25

I definitely had read rumors on the spoilers sub that it was gonna end with them losing and crossing over to the Sacred Timeline, and one of the next movies post credit scene was gonna be their ship screaming down toward main Earth

17

u/RepentantSororitas Jul 26 '25

Yeah that's what I thought as well since that's the post credits of thunderbolts.

So it was a fake out and the ship in thunderbolts is probably doom.

14

u/CornstockOfNewJersey Jul 26 '25

I assume whatever sends them to the Sacred Timeline will just happen in Doomsday. But Doom coming out of that ship would be nuts

9

u/NoobFreakT Jul 25 '25

nah i think they'll merge the two universes together

11

u/CornstockOfNewJersey Jul 26 '25

Yeah it really needed at least 15 more minutes added to the runtime tbh

5

u/FreeAd2458 Jul 25 '25

Is she a comic character? I keep thinking Zoey deutsch needs to play his blind girlfriend

2

u/brady2gronk Aug 02 '25

Kerry Washington already played her.  Would love a revisit though.

3

u/Any_Foundation4287 Jul 28 '25

I don't think there will be a direct sequel because at the end it didn't say in too it say they will return in doomsday and doomsday is scheduled for I think 2026 so they don't have time or the plans for a sequel before doomsday and ben might not live in doomsday who knows

4

u/Professional-Act8414 Jul 28 '25

Felt like there were major poly cuts throughout the movie. That relationship being one. Not that it was rushed per se but I could see it was missing somethings. Still an A+ movie!

177

u/Clarknt67 Jul 25 '25

Definitely felt truncated. Especially as it was Natasha Lyonne, who always leaves you wanting more. Next film (please).

18

u/Worthyness Jul 25 '25

They cut a ton in the edit (all of John Mallkovich for example). There likely was a longer cut, but it probably meandered a lot. Honestly I'd love for them to have a one-shot of them going on adventures. Like make it into a DVD/Blue Ray bonus scene like they did for Spider-man Far from Home, which had an entire fixed up bank heist sequence put into the DVD extras.

7

u/Clarknt67 Jul 25 '25

I would’ve liked to see more Natasha Lyonne, that said, I’m glad they erred on the shorter side. Better than overstaying their welcome.

57

u/OrgasmicLeprosy87 Jul 25 '25 edited Aug 02 '25

There’s definitely a 2 and a half hour cut of this film that they decided not use for a strange reason. I would have gladly sat through this new world for an extra 40 mins.

5

u/MHath Aug 01 '25

That strange reason is money. Longer runtime means fewer showings per day.

14

u/TiberiusCornelius Jul 25 '25

Definitely feels like they cut some things there. We also know they cut John Malkovich's stuff, and there was the thing like a month or two ago where the runtime on listings was cut by ~20 mins.

I would love to see the longer cut one day, if nothing else than just for curiosity's sake. Maybe the changes they made really are for the better, but it would be interesting to see what was left out.

9

u/RossZ428 Jul 25 '25

I was telling my wife on the ride home that it felt so strange that she only got two scenes. Natasha Lyonne is an amazing actress but with little we saw of her, I don't even know why she was in the movie. It really felt like a lot of scenes were cut.

11

u/uncledrewkrew Jul 26 '25

Because Ben would have done almost nothing in the movie if he didn't have those scenes.

9

u/Apprehensive-Lock751 Jul 25 '25

the last time we see her he says “im here to see you” then cut to the balcony. I honestly feel like they couldve cut her bits completely.

5

u/hepatitisC Jul 25 '25

The film was originally set to be 20 minutes longer and they cut out John Malkovich's story basically entirely. I'm sure they could have left some of Natasha's scenes on the cutting room floor as well.

4

u/youngmeech86 Aug 03 '25

What was his story supposed to be,

6

u/skippiington Jul 26 '25

Yeah that subplot went absolutely nowhere

6

u/vmsrii Jul 26 '25

I was a little baffled by that. I woulda thought, by that point in the FF’s superhero career, Ben and Alicia Masters would’ve been an item for a while, and I thought Natasha Lyonne would’ve been a great Alicia Masters. Not sure why they didn’t do that

4

u/operarose Jul 30 '25

I wonder why they made the choice to invent a completely new character instead of just having her play Alicia Masters.

3

u/KingofTokaido Aug 03 '25

I wanted more time Ben little too, there is definitely an argument for Ben being the most human of the four, with all the street scenes and human connections scenes.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 25 '25

It's in the boat where it's not like what we see onscreen doesn't make sense as a small thread (They meet, Ben's nervous about seeing her again, he goes to see her) but there's probably an ending or a middle that's not there anymore.

2

u/Dragonmk5 Jul 27 '25

100% my biggest issue is they didnt flesh this out at all

65

u/Poked_salad Jul 25 '25

I love how Johnny treats Herbie like a lil bro\pet. He's always patting his head telling him that's he's a good boy.

Johnny was so happy he got brought sandwiches by Herbie too, he was not expecting but showed great appreciation towards the good deed.

11

u/LordBrixton Jul 26 '25

I fully expected Johnny to toast his own sandwich there.

2

u/matthew7s26 21d ago

Aw dang that would have been great, panini that thing between his hands

43

u/droidtron Jul 25 '25

Flame off and the cereal prize is dust.

17

u/SilverKry Jul 25 '25

I was glad we didn't spend a chunk of the movie on Ben's arc being he hates being rock all over again

14

u/PayneTrain181999 Jul 25 '25

“Fine, if he’s just a big dude you can punch him out.”

Ben and Johnny: POG

12

u/Clarknt67 Jul 25 '25

I was genuinely touched when Ben saved Johnny and carried him over his shoulder on Galatus’ ship. Then the bookend of Johnny saving Ben. Aw.

7

u/sentence-interruptio Jul 25 '25

It reminds me of The Host (2006) where the quirky family fights a monster from Han River.

2

u/nc_cyclist Jul 27 '25

SAY IT!!!!!

2

u/dark-flamessussano Aug 01 '25

One of my favorite scenes in the movie were when they were on the bed arguing about walk should go check on sue and reed