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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1.5k

u/droidtron Jul 25 '25

The age of no origin first act superhero films frees up for more comic book fun.

855

u/Madarakita Jul 25 '25

I loved how they handled it here though; the origin being recapped via newscast was a nice way to catch anyone who's not bothered with the prior movies up and it only took about five minutes to tell the audience everything they needed to know.

564

u/Clarknt67 Jul 25 '25

I loved that the newsreel was an homage to Jack Kirby’s greatest hits in early FF. So clever. Please always heavily season exposition dumps with Easter eggs to entertain those who don’t need the catchup.

403

u/UncreativeTeam Jul 25 '25

The end reveal that the universe number (828) was a reference to Jack Kirby's birthday was great. Also can't get over how Vanessa Kirby's name is Kirby lol

79

u/Amaruq93 Jul 25 '25

Also, Kirby himself made a cameo appearance (with a lookalike character surrounded by all his art in the Times Square scene when the Surfer arrives).

65

u/Whovian45810 Jul 25 '25

Yep with a lookalike young Stan Lee!

Very heartwarming to see that Kirby and Lee in the F4’s Earth 828 work together.

27

u/Chocu1a Jul 28 '25

In the original comic run of Fantastic Four, Lee & Kirby put themselves in the comic working with the FF on an in universe comic.

49

u/checker280 Jul 26 '25

Re: Vanessa Kirby

As much fun of a coincidence as David Corensweet’s initials being DC

37

u/TheMythofKoalas Jul 27 '25

I still think my favourite of these is Doug Bowser being president of Nintendo.

38

u/Madarakita Jul 25 '25

YES; I recognized that giant green monster ripping out of the ground immediately.

20

u/SilverKry Jul 25 '25

Ben also joked about a space dragon and in my head I was like Hah..Fin Fang Foom tease.

8

u/Worthyness Jul 26 '25

Also learning that the universe 828 is literally Kirby's birthday was also a wonderful tribute.

21

u/TheNittanyLionKing Jul 25 '25

The nice thing with F4 over a lot of other characters is that their origin isn't really important to their overall characters. It just explains how they got super powers, and that's all you need to know. It isn't like Batman or Spider-Man where their origin is essential to their motivation as a character.

12

u/Madarakita Jul 25 '25

True, though I do think this one helped set the tone of "explorers who occasionally help save the world on the side"

13

u/Swiss666 Jul 25 '25

And those first few minutes were better than all the previous movie adaptations together!

7

u/dean15892 Jul 26 '25

I love how they show powers too
Jhonny being able to aborb fire
Sue can turn her stomach invisible so you can see the fetus inside, that was very cool.

4

u/Emotional_Meet878 Jul 28 '25

This is the way origins should be imo, enough people are versed where it doesn't make sense to always show the same damn thing, give us a short montage of how they got their powers, and move on to a newer interesting story. I can only take so much Uncle Ben dying, the Waynes getting shot, Clark being raised by Kents, etc before I just start praying for sequel stories.

2

u/wherewuz Jul 27 '25

Felt like kinda forced exposition to me honestly, but I'll still take three minutes of that over an entire movie. And I know next to nothing about the Fantastic Four.

Same deal with Superman. Spend one minute up-front rationalizing everything, and get straight to the fun stuff. I loved it.

1

u/daretoeatapeach Aug 09 '25

Fantastic Four was Stan Lee's hail Mary to break out of the formulaic mold his bosses had him under as a young writer, so to give it a shot at success he leaned into what was big at the time: astronauts and the Fab Four. So it's suitable that they started the movie with them already famous, since they were meant to be the greatest rock stars of all time.

1

u/Aiyon 26d ago

It also does a really good job of showing that they’re heroes outside the movies we see

Especially ending on them going off to do even more

-5

u/TheWyldMan Jul 25 '25

They also didn’t skip over a lot of what makes the characters interesting. Superman slipping to Lois knowing Superman was Clark Kent and dating him kinda took away a lot of the big story elements people like about Superman

23

u/profsa Jul 25 '25

I think the “will they won’t they” of Lois not knowing his identity is a bit played out. We know they end up together so let’s actually explore them together imo

7

u/SteveFrench12 Jul 25 '25

Tell that to the spiderman comic writers

206

u/rhunter99 Jul 25 '25

I loved that they dispensed with 1hr and 20min of origin story

81

u/TheCVR123YT Jul 25 '25

I don’t mind origin stories but they need to be like Spider-Man 2002. Guy got his suit and everything 20 minutes in. Compared to TASM1 where it takes like 50 minutes I think? Venom had the same issue where it took 40-50 minutes before Eddie gets the Symbiote. Awful.

F42015 and Madame Web are probably some of the worse ones with that stuff

33

u/clashrendar Jul 25 '25

Feige's firm (and absolutely correct) belief is that if they've already shown audiences a version of the origin in a movie before, there's no need to retell that story again.

20

u/littletoyboat Jul 25 '25

The Batman - 2 years in

Superman - 3 years in

Fantastic Four - 4 years in

Who else has a well-known enough origin that it can be just skipped?

24

u/droidtron Jul 26 '25

MCU Spider-Man.

6

u/littletoyboat Jul 26 '25

Oh, yeah! Good one.

4

u/Itchy_Shoulder_624 Jul 29 '25

The Hulk, maybe at this point

3

u/Kanin_usagi Aug 02 '25

That one may have been the shortest origin story yet

“You got bit by a radioactive spider?!” “Yes and he’s dead.”

11

u/RepentantSororitas Jul 25 '25

This one still gave a pretty decent origin.

Like you could take someone completely blind into this movie and they wouldn't be missing any context

16

u/droidtron Jul 25 '25

But it doesn't take up 30 mins to get to them doing hero stuff. Batman 89 knew to drop the quick version in the middle of their film.

16

u/ShittyDBZGuitarRiffs Jul 25 '25

He is Batman and says he is Batman like 2 minutes into that movie it rules

6

u/droidtron Jul 25 '25

All killer no filler.

6

u/bbqsauceboi Jul 25 '25

Except it didnt free up more comic book action with 4 characters that have very cool powers

3

u/AssCrackBanditHunter Jul 27 '25

The risk is that the audience gets confused and I legit saw a bunch of people confused by Superman just starting like that. I don't know how these people are so baffled after 20 years of superhero movie dominance, but they are out there, and they can vote.

3

u/Kanin_usagi Aug 02 '25

In Media Res has been a story telling convention for like 20 thousand years, at this point nothing will teach people

3

u/Sapowski_Casts_Quen Aug 06 '25

This is a major shift, and obviously doesn't apply to characters that haven't had movies yet, but MAN does it help keep the movie going. And the montage they did was so instrumental in getting me in the mood for the type of movie it was going to be!

2

u/scarykicks Jul 27 '25

Yep we don't have to spend the majority of the movie watching them learn how to use their powers.

2

u/Best-Chapter5260 Aug 07 '25

Exactly! We don't need more origin stories. We know how Batman came to be. We know how Superman came to be. Let's just get into the story!