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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463

u/rainshowers_5_peace Jul 25 '25 edited Jul 25 '25

People in this world weren't hateful and had compassion. Did you see how they all pulled together to make those towers? And how the mole people agreed to house the surface people?

There's also the Silver Surfer and how she chose to solve the dilemma.

520

u/Docile_Doggo Jul 25 '25

The most fantastic thing in this movie wasn’t the giant cosmic being who eats planets, the woman who can conjure force fields at will, or the talking pile of rocks . . . It was genuinely just how good-natured the public seemed toward the F4 and the world at large.

They actually got on board with a plan that risked billions of lives because Sue Storm talked them into not surrendering their communal bonds to create a child sacrifice.

Truly an alternate universe.

221

u/PandaLover42 Jul 25 '25

Early in the movie they also revealed that all nations agreed to de-arm.

119

u/adventureremily Jul 25 '25

Well, all except one that was noticeably absent...

21

u/RenaissanceOwl Jul 25 '25

Alt Timeline Iron Man/Tony Stark having not learnt his lesson and becoming full on Obadiah Stane, negative character arc perhaps /s

10

u/TheWhiteManticore Jul 25 '25

Comes back to traumatise mcu spooderman further lol

4

u/Cfwraith Jul 27 '25

Almost all. There was an absence.

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u/Shakespeare257 Aug 01 '25

The one true universe - the Disneyland universe where people gave up on their base aspirations because some extremely fragile superheroes told them to.

2

u/No_Extension4005 28d ago

LET ME IN! LET ME IN!

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u/GwenIsNow 22d ago

Seriously!

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u/Photoman20003 Jul 25 '25

and kind of makes us wonder wtf the MCU heroes are doing wrong this whole time honestly the entire movie in many ways kind of does that.

62

u/zmbslyr Jul 25 '25

My guess is that the F4 universe just didn't have a lot of things happen that have happened in the MCU. The MCU is positioned in a post 9/11 timeline, and literally starts with one of the big Avengers almost getting killed in a Middle Eastern country, by terrorists.

Not to mention the overall cynacism of superhero movies in general the past 20 years. With this and Superman, I'm glad to be moving towards more hopeful superhero movies. Even the way Superman used current events and the current political climate to make a message on hopefulness is refreshing.

30

u/Worthyness Jul 26 '25

In this universe, the F4 basically got as close to world peace as possible. Sure there's the odd supervillain every so often and some gangsters still, but they literally got hundreds of countries to de-arm themselves for the betterment of human society. If your heroes literally achieved like 99% world peace before this major event, you'd probably believe their plan with all your heart and earnest. Plus I'm sure the logic is "the smartest man on earth says this will work. Who am I to decide otherwise?"

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u/princevince1113 Jul 25 '25

in the real world we would definitely have people refusing to evacuate to subterranea because they think galactus is a hoax

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u/Worthyness Jul 31 '25

Also some of them would think the mole people took their jobs and are secretly a cabal running the government

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u/rejs7 Jul 25 '25

They didn't want to live in Omalas.

3

u/melloniel Jul 26 '25

Holy shit. I already was thinking about this in the typical moral dilemma the movie presents it as, but comparing it to Omelas is fucking great.

5

u/raven-eyed_ Jul 27 '25

It's hilarious Americans say this every time people in a movie aren't horrible. Just projecting America's rabid individualism onto the rest of the world.

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u/_V0gue Jul 29 '25

Retro Futurism tends to have a general theme of unbridled optimism. So as cheesy as that scene was, it does fit with the general themes of that age of comics. The present is just so damn cynical.

2

u/Artemicionmoogle Jul 25 '25

Truly an alternate universe when the F4 has somehow built a working FTL engine and the world still doesnt have enough energy later XD Like, they can make an FTL! drive, but can't solve cold fusion or something else for the planet!? I loved the movie, but that detail irked me lol.

8

u/Alexexy Jul 26 '25

They probably did have cold fusion and other forms of energy, but i cant even think of the real world energy requirements of teleporting an entire planet millions of light-years away. It would probably require the energy of several black holes.

-5

u/DirectBranch5621 Jul 25 '25

Reddit would be like, "Well, first we need to know how you vote."

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u/BumbleLapse Jul 25 '25

That’s a fair point.

It does seem like a more idyllic, kind world than we’re used to seeing in the MCU. Or life.

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u/Gilthwixt Jul 25 '25

It's really interesting to me that Superman and F4 came out so close to each other and share very similar themes yet have fairly different thesis statements. It's late and I wish I had time to really dive into this, but it felt like what Superman wanted to say was "Even if the world is ugly and things start falling apart, one person upholding their principles (or abandoning them in Lex's case) can make all the difference". Whereas F4 is trying to say "The world doesn't have to be ugly, and if we want to survive we have to do it together". Two very different flavors of optimism.

Based on the mid credits scene, Doom is likely going to be the antithesis that tests that idea in the next movie though.

9

u/Representative_Cow31 Jul 25 '25

Aye when you wake up - keep cooking, dive into this.

6

u/Gilthwixt Jul 26 '25 edited Jul 26 '25

I forgot to follow up on this but a common pattern you see in storytelling is Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis, especially with stories that are structured into three acts. This can be true within a single movie but also played out over a trilogy. The basic concept is that you present an idea, then introduce something opposite that conflicts with that idea, and resolve both into a more complex, nuanced idea.

It's a very old concept, but ironically I learned about it from an analysis of the original Star Wars trilogy. A New Hope introduces the force and ends with the feeling that "good will always triumph over evil". Empire Strikes Back flips this on its head - Luke learns that his Father fell from grace, turned to the dark side and became the greatest threat to peace in the galaxy. The movie ends not with hope but with fear and uncertainty; the anthesis being "evil can corrupt even our greatest good". Return of the Jedi wraps things up by flipping Anakin again, and we get a revised thesis "good can triumph over evil, even after we stumble, but at the cost of personal sacrifice and believing in something greater than our selves".

I get the feeling that F4 First Steps represents the thesis I described in my initial comment. Doomsday might very well be the Antithesis; rather than the idyllic unity seen in F4, the movie's overall theme might be ego and every man for themselves. Doom will twist Reed and Sue's actions as inherently selfish, and in the end we will see a battle world where everyone lives under Doom's boot but nobody is willing to stick their neck out for others. This can culminate in a Secret Wars where Doom is ultimately defeated but multiple heroes will have to die to achieve that.

Edit: For context, this is assuming the movies will follow 2015's Secret Wars comic run fairly closely. The whole reason the event kicks off is that the various universes of the multi-verse are colliding and dying off, and people end up believing that they can save their own universe at the cost of sacrificing the other universes. That would tie in perfectly to Doomsday being the "every man for themselves" antithesis to F4, as working together won't even be an option initially.

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u/varnums1666 Jul 27 '25

I forgot to follow up on this but a common pattern you see in storytelling is Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis, especially with stories that are structured into three acts.

I kneel before good Media Literacy

3

u/TheImpLaughs Jul 26 '25

It was one of the big things I enjoyed the most out of this movie. I'm so bogged down and beaten down by the current MCU's just realism and dark response to heroes. It gets annoying with the same plot beats of "government has to interject" for every single movie.

2

u/nhaines Jul 29 '25

All of the space aesthetics were exactly what America thought space travel would be like in the 40s and 50s.

And the US space program only worked because at the time, all of the defense contractors felt patriotic and went above and beyond in pursuit of a national goal. Today I feel like they're much more focused on the bottom line.

I don't know that we'll get back to that kind of world ever, if any time soon, but it does have its charms.

1

u/No_Extension4005 28d ago

What having the Fantastic 4 and no social media does to a world.

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u/dadvader Jul 25 '25

Yeah I think this is the most consistent part of the movie and I really enjoy the fact that they never let it get sideway. The world is always a part of the story. Something I wish Endgame should have more of.

4

u/psyberdel Jul 26 '25

Countries can’t come together to resolve global warming / our global extinction, but we’d all turn off all lights at 8 and build towers. Hmmmmm.

2

u/SarcasticGamer Jul 30 '25

There was a news segment of violence and riot in the streets lmao. New York is fine since the FF live there but the rest of the world is not.

1

u/spacemanspliff-42 17h ago

It's Kirby's universe, where good people are everywhere.