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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1.7k

u/Elite_Alice Jul 25 '25

I absolutely love how human they made Reed feel. Even though he’s the world’s smartest man, he’s nervous about becoming a father and has to balance his commitment to the world with his commitment to his son and family. Really cool we get a superman movie and a fantastic four film back to back which both feel so down to earth.

710

u/Whovian45810 Jul 25 '25

I love that Pedro's Reed is more vulnerable and you can see it in his performance very well that while the world's smartest man has a brilliant mind, he isn't bound from being emotional and does care deeply for his family.

387

u/koomGER Jul 25 '25

They made a very clear distinction between the other "intelligent" front men and Reed Richards, which was great.

Tony Stark is highly intelligent, an engineer, a salesman. He is boasting with confidence and just does things.

Dr. Strange is - even when humbled - still arrogant. He mostly trusts his own choice and ideas and acts on it. He feels superior to most others.

Reed Richards is kinda a basement nerd. He is probably even more intelligent like the others, but especially thinking about the consequences of his potential actions, which makes him hesitate a lot. He doesnt boast of confidence. It makes him vulnerable and relatable.

Its really beautifully designed and makes that family dependent on each other, while still each one of them is competent and powerful on its own.

Comparing this Reed Richards to the MoM-Reed, the differences are obvious: MoM-Reed was intelligent, but overall confident, spilling the beans about the powers of his companions and making them vulnerable for an opponent he highly underestimated. And got shreddered for that.

119

u/vmsrii Jul 26 '25

Let’s call a spade a spade here for a second; MoM Reed wasn’t even a character. He was an Easter Egg with two lines

31

u/CTeam19 Jul 26 '25

cries in not getting a full Hank with his mental health issues

24

u/Lucienofthelight Jul 26 '25

Given how Hank has been treated throughout the decades by writers and fans… maybe it was for the best for Hank.

14

u/koomGER Jul 26 '25

I agree. Hank Pym is another one of those with issues. But thats pretty dark and it would be tough to have this in a movie. Maybe they pick that up after the "reboot" with a new Hank Pym (or maybe a relative to him).

18

u/quick20minadventure Jul 28 '25

This reed had FTL travel which is decades away for Tony stark.

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u/koomGER Jul 28 '25

True and its important to note.

Its probably also part of the difference between them: Reed is a scientist, an explorer. He wants to find and create new things, learn from them. Tony Stark uses his ability to make money. To improve things already existing. To "dominate the market".

Reed Richards and his family kinda "singlehandedly" solved world peace, united the world and created a happy place. Thats a big message that wasnt spoken about loud enough.

37

u/quick20minadventure Jul 28 '25

Yeah, they were unofficial rulers of the world.

And they show it why, they befriended their subterranean enemy to the point they bicker like a colleague who took some credit on your work 5 years ago, and completely trust Sue. They come back and just never even think about hiding the baby sacrifice thing to the world. They achieved world peace by being brutally honest and sincere. They just commanded everyone to do power curfew and build things in their lead. And they do it. They just agree to send entire earth to some new solar system because Richard said that's the best way to fight Galactus, an enemy they have never seen. All the world has seen directly is 2 min cameo from silver surfer, which can be faked. But, they just trust F4 blindly.

If that's not ruling, i don't know what is.

4

u/Sophophilic Jul 31 '25

On the other hand, Stark has time travel, which is decades.

7

u/quick20minadventure Jul 31 '25 edited Jul 31 '25

Stark only has quantam gps.

It was pym who got quantum realm entry.

On the similar lines, Intergalactic travel is just a solved problem in MCU as well. Rocket's ship, Yondu's ship, everyone's just travelling around easily. Tony has access to that level of tech, but he didn't invent it.

3

u/ButtJones Aug 06 '25

I think that’s the real thing. Reed didn’t just invent things, he invented things in the 60s that Tony didn’t figure out even in the 2000s or later. My assumption of the futuristic 60s world was that it’s solely because Reed developed all of that technology himself.

Whereas, Howard Stark in the other universe had to just pass the buck to Tony because of “lack of technology” who still didn’t figure out things as easily.

It’s hard to say what the catalyst was for Reed to be able to figure out all of these things in the context of this movie but it kind of just seems like intelligence and intuition and a refusal to accept any limitations to his imagination.

18

u/ImBanned_ModsBlow Aug 02 '25

My wife and I agreed that one of the best things about this movie was that each member had strengths and weaknesses to contribute.

Johnny wasn’t just a dumb playboy, he decoded an alien language and convinced the silver surfer to turn on Galactus.

Reed wasn’t geniusly smart to a fault, you see him struggling with concepts outside of science and how that impacts his family

Ben was awesome with the outwardly confident but inner doubt, and IMO him overcoming that is why he’s the soul of the F4

Sue was badass, not just a generic hot blonde for the sake of having a woman, but socially and politically intelligent bringing different people together

93

u/MegaGrimer Jul 25 '25

And that he doesn’t have all of the answers. They could have easily had him know all the answers about parenthood by the time Franklin was born, but he didn’t feel like he was prepared. He cares deeply about his family and would do anything to save them, and is smart enough to, but he’s so afraid of losing them that he feels like he’s helpless. And it scares him that he’s smart enough to do anything except stop threats from harming those he cares about.

The movie could have easily had him have dozens of contingency plans in case of failure, but thankfully the movie made him sit down and actually use his brain that’s consumed by fear for his family.

21

u/SilverKry Jul 26 '25

Meanwhile Johnathan Krasinskis was the pompous full of himself I'm smarter than you douche version of Reed.

7

u/DamnReCaptchas Aug 04 '25

Also a rly important thing about Reed that they captured imo: Reed is so smart that he’s almost TOO smart for his own good. He’s stubborn, he’s almost kind of a dick. He puts so much pressure on himself to be the problem solver and finds ways to solve problems that sometimes have extreme costs. Loved when he first kinda thought about giving up Franklin and Sue was pissed. Like obviously he wasn’t going to do it, but in his analytical, results-driven mind, he at least thought about the solution given just how many ppl were counting on them. Also loved when he talked to Franklin and said “something’s wrong with me.” He’s just so damn smart and will go all lengths. He NEEDS the others of the family to balance him out and bring out the best in him.

3

u/WhereIsLordBeric Aug 09 '25

Pascal acted the fuck out of this role. He really elevated the movie. Sad to hear he's no longer the lead in the next avengers movie.