(WARNING SPOILERS)
I would like to take a moment from our regular scheduled talks about creative ambitions to take the time to have a brief story analysis of the movie above. Fantastic 4, that came out in earlier this year by Twentieth Century Fox.
As I have worked on my writing craft, one of the things in the three classes I am taking for creative writing the semester have touched on the same subject at one point or another. That is seeing holes in story structure, plot etc. By learning how to spot these flaws in story structure, I not only learn to see it in my own work, but also in the work of other story structures such as in books and movies.
A friend and I went to the dollar theater on Tuesday because it was a two dollar ticket night at the cheap seats. both of us went to a movie, got a medium popcorn and a large drink to share for under $13 dollars. Considering the price of tickets in regular theaters, that's not bad for two people. Because it is the cheap theaters however, movie choices are limited. We had both heard that 'Fantastic 4' was a horrible movie, but we figured we were only paying two dollars to go see it so why not? We were already going with Low expectations. However, we were surprised that the movie managed to surpass even our prior low expectations by being even worse than we could ever imagined.
'Fantastic 4' is nearly two hours of bland, unimaginative, poorly structured story if you can even call it that. The first 3/4 of the movie are slow paced 'origin' story of how the characters know each other and how they got their powers with literal cut scenes of seven years later and one year later. After they get their powers they completely glaze over the main four learning to use and adjust to their powers. Then the last quarter of the movie is a quick jerk turn of events as we are dropped into the second 'plot' of Doctor Doom coming back from a different dimension with the desire to destroy the planet and the know-hows to do so with little effort.
The story is fragmented so drastically in this fashion that everything about the characters is glossed over with no real character development or purpose, they are just there. Doctor Doom, one of my favorite villains from the Marvel universe, is passed over completely and has no character development at all. The character is a bitter loner, pinning after the girl he loves, Susan Storm, jealous of the new boy genius, Reid Richards, and "dies" in the other dimension. A year later, he comes back with a new set of scientists sent over to the dimension, having survived a year on an alien world, altered like the others with the purpose to destroy the planet to save his dimension which has now become his home. But they explain nothing of why he went to this sudden extreme. (And where the hell did he get his cloak from?)
This movie was poorly written, and I believe simply made so that the company could hold onto the copy right for a little bit longer. My advice, give the copy-right back to Disney/Marvel and they'll actually do a good job.
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