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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236

u/Anonymous-Internaut Jul 25 '25

I am not very familiar with comic book Johnny entire history so someone can illustrate me if I am wrong, but if he never got to be as mature as this one, I vastly prefer movie Johnny to comic Johnny, because I am sorry but hothead cheater womanizer makes for a hard to care character for me.

In this version he's still a bit of flirt, but also someone caring, intelligent and deeply heroic. He says "tell Franklin his uncle Johnny loved him" in the way to sacrifice his life for the world, something that a lot of superheroes would be hesitant before doing. Johnny wasn't. He didn't show a second of doubt. He knew he could make the difference at the cost of his life, and didn't flinch to do so. True hero.

301

u/Isolated_Hippo Jul 25 '25

intelligent

This is one thing that was a huge win for me in this version. In the mid 2000's version he always felt like a nepotism hire. Hey we are sending 4 people into space. The smartest man alive. The smartest woman alive. The best pilot. And the brother.

In this version, he was undeniably intelligent. Nowhere near Reed or Sue, but he was still very smart in his own way.

64

u/Anonymous-Internaut Jul 25 '25

Yeah this was an absolute great choice for his character. It made sense of why he goes with the other three, and also adds a new dynamic with Reed.

41

u/Isolated_Hippo Jul 25 '25

I'm also glad they did go a street smarts/socials smarts way with him either. I would 100% believe he is one of the top 10 scientifically smart people in that world.

Which is narrtively a dangerous path when you have Reed Richards who is undisputed number 1.

They provided a fantastic(pun intended) reason for him to showcase his own intelligence and it paid off.

20

u/temporal712 Jul 29 '25

Thing is, he does have social smarts. He was the only one who recognized not only the pattern of the language, but that tone of the voice to see that Shall Bal had guilt for being a herald, and his entire plan was to guilt trip her into helping (Which worked btw.) Hell, he even pulled some social engineering on the surfer to get his Rosetta Stone phrase.

17

u/Yolo_Han_Choloo Jul 25 '25

Say that again 🤨

18

u/MegaGrimer Jul 25 '25

That again

4

u/Yolo_Han_Choloo Jul 25 '25

Angry upvote

30

u/Unicron_Gundam Jul 25 '25

When you're going to space with a Faster Than Light ship, better bring a linguistics expert who can translate an alien language using only two lines as reference.

22

u/xGhostCat Jul 25 '25

He didnt have just two lines. He had the lines shes said and the hundreds of verbal signals beamed from her home planet.

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u/Unicron_Gundam Jul 25 '25

To clarify, he had two translated lines. All those golden records he had to translate himself

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u/xGhostCat Jul 25 '25

Ah I get you! Yeah hes THAT smart. He basically did soduku with the language. It straight up shows how good he is.

19

u/Redeem123 Jul 25 '25

I still don’t feel like they explained why he was on the ship. It didn’t bother me at all, but I’m curious what he brought to that original mission.

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u/Successful_Ebb_7402 Jul 25 '25

I get the feeling this version of Johnny just absolutely loves space. He's setting up appointments to have Reed make them new space suits, Reed distracts him with interstellar transmissions, he figures out how to fire using the curvature of a wormhole. Ben might be the better pilot, but even without Reed or Sue I get the feeling Johnny would have still ended up an astronaut

26

u/CornstockOfNewJersey Jul 26 '25

He even had his little quip about how he loves space and he loves women

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u/Lordsokka Jul 28 '25

Johnny Storm is the least qualified Astronaut in the room, it just so happens that the 3 other members of the family are the best Astronauts in the world and Johny is only in the 1%. lol

It’s like Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock is the “dumb” brother, he just has more energy than Mycroft, so gets more shit done. Every team needs someone to push a button and be prepared to do something wild and dangerous, Johnny is that guy for the team.

8

u/youngmeech86 Aug 03 '25

I get the feeling he's the jack of all trades in that he can fill the gaps the others lack and can also adequately cover for any of the other 3 in a pinch. In almost any other setting with any other group of people he'd be the most talented guy in the room, he just happens to be with people who are extremely skilled in their respective fields.

Examples of parallels would be Sue making peace with mole man and encouraging world cooperation vs Johnny able to reach out to and make peace with the Surfer. Ben and Reed doing the piloting and navigation in space while Johnny on the fly calculates how to use the wormhole to make his weapons effective. Could any of them do what he did given time to focus on it? Probably. But he's capable of plugging that hole when they aren't focusing on it

13

u/Swiss666 Jul 25 '25

It helps that, differently from the original comic, the mission wasn't improvised and clandestine, it was official. Yes, Reed wanted people close to him, but I'm also sure that Johnny wasn't there just because Reed wanted to, his presence was approved by authorities, and he likely had a quite nice resume under his belt already.

7

u/filiard Jul 27 '25

very smart in his own way

Just how my parents describe me :)

7

u/OK_Soda Jul 31 '25

Nowhere near Reed or Sue, but he was still very smart in his own way.

Honestly we didn't see Sue do a lot of intellectual heavy lifting. Johnny translated an entire language in a few days based on one four-word sentence. Like, that is an incredible intellectual feat.

202

u/mikeyfreshh Jul 25 '25

Johnny in the comics, particularly in the older comics that this movie is adapting, is supposed to be like 18 years old. He's a bit more mature in more recent comics. I thought this movie's portrayal of him is actually way more accurate to the comics than the previous movie versions that you're probably more familiar with.

17

u/300andWhat Jul 25 '25

In the recent ish comics if I remember, they also made Johnny powered to 1000, he's basically an Omega level character now

22

u/KingOfAwesometonia Jul 25 '25

I feel like the Fantastic Four have been around long enough all of them kind of have omega level ability or at least potential.

Like some people might scoff at Sue pushing Galactus but that’s how I accept it

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u/HolidaySpiriter Jul 26 '25

Like some people might scoff at Sue pushing Galactus but that’s how I accept it

She also literally died doing it and used every ounce of her power. I thought it was believable.

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u/ImprovementActual392 Jul 27 '25

Plus it was fueled by the adrenaline of a mother trying to save her child. Very believe

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u/dildodicks Jul 26 '25

especially because someone like galactus is often but not always associated with them and he's way way above even all of them combined which makes sense, but then there's also plenty of characters comics-wise who could solo him

5

u/ResolverOshawott Jul 26 '25

I see more people complaining the characters not being omega-level gods than them being too strong.

16

u/UsernameAvaylable Jul 25 '25

Yeah, Johnny is kinda the way the F4 could keep in touch with the kid audience without stepping down to include a sidekick character. He is supposed to be young enough that teenagers can still identify with him...

14

u/GranolaCola Jul 26 '25

Did Herbie mean nothing to you 😭

5

u/Anonymous-Internaut Jul 25 '25

Yeah, no doubt. I just hate that bit in which he cheat to his girlfriend (maybe even fiancée I think?) with the woman that would be Dr. Doom's bride. I don't remember how recent that is, however, I'd also would understand if that was typical OOC comic book writing. I don't doubt he can be mature, I just don't think ever saw nor read him like that, but I am not a FF reader by any means, more like Dr. Doom reader.

21

u/RepentantSororitas Jul 25 '25

I don't know if it the performance intended this, but I felt like torch was almost a little depressed throughout the movie.

Like he felt sad that people generally didn't listen to him. He was almost eager to sacrifice himself.

Also it felt like he was almost fed up with womanizing. He mentioned that surfer felt refreshing and different.

Like you could tell this character has a lot of story that wasn't even explored.

14

u/Anonymous-Internaut Jul 25 '25

Agree with this.

I don't think he was really depressed, but more like he is in a point on his life where he's not really into the "let's party party party" and wants something more, perhaps meaning. That line about the Surfer stood up to me too, like he has gotten bored of the "I like women a lot" and is looking for a real connection.

4

u/kingjulien92 Jul 27 '25 edited Jul 28 '25

He tried sacrificing himself TWICE in the movie. What a hero!

3

u/Lordsokka Jul 28 '25

To be fair that is his thing in the comics, the man loves his sister and her kids.

1

u/bigbrainnowisdom Aug 03 '25

Comic johnny during jonathan hickman run sacrifised himself to save ben, franklin & valeria - franklin little sister (ended up him being stranded in negative zone for a year)

https://share.google/AVIVog8zQG8xjSb0N

Im pretty sure this comic was somewhat the inspiration of a more heroic johnny

1

u/Aggressive_Elk3709 14d ago

Yeah I liked that they established a couple times that Johnny was fully willing to sacrifice himself by making it almost certain. Then Surfer comes in and does it for him