Fantastic Four (1994)
The Blind Eternities forum
Posted on Dec. 29, 2018, 12:47 a.m. by DemonDragonJ
Some people may not be aware that the 2004 Fantastic Four film was not the first feature-length film adaption of the Fantastic Four franchise; that honor belongs to a film made an entire decade earlier, in the year 1994.
That film was filmed and produced in its entirety, but never officially released, for reasons of which I am not entirely certain (likely because the studio that produced it was not confident about how well it would perform, given that it has a very limited budget). However, it now is available for viewing on YouTube in its entirety.
Out of curiosity, I decided to watch the film, and I found that I enjoyed it. It is unquestionably campy and corny, the special effects are low-quality, even for that time, and it reminds me very much of the Superman and Batman films of the 70's, 80's, and 90's, but I still liked it, because it felt as if the filmmakers put great care and effort into it, rather than it being a soulless attempt by a corporation to make money.
I do have some specific comments about the film to make: at the beginning, Reed and Ben are already adults, but Susan and Johnny appear to be only twelve or thirteen, and Susan has a strong attraction to Reed, despite the great difference in their ages. Also, ten years later, Susan and Johnny are still living with their mother, despite the cost of living in 1994 being far lower than what it is now, unless they were merely visiting their mother at that time. Also, on the subject of Susan and Johnny's mother, she was never seen or mentioned, again, after Reed and Ben recruited Susan and Johnny, so I do hope that she learned that her children were alive and well after the accident.
It would be nice if this film could have a proper release on home video, but that seems to be very unlikely to occur at any time in the near future, so at least the film is available for free viewing online.
What does everyone else have to say about this? Is anyone here aware of the existence of this film, and, if so, have you seen it?
DemonDragonJ says... #4
Gattison, I have actually seen the 1998 Nick Fury movie, although I recall very little of it, but I have not seen either the 1979 or 1990 Captain American films.
December 29, 2018 11:43 p.m.
GoldenAgeBatman says... #5
There's a really interesting documentary on Amazon Prime about the making of this film.
Stan Lee would show up on set with doughnuts and encourage the crew, all while the crew had no idea this was all a charade.
January 21, 2019 2:11 p.m.
GoldenAgeBatman: Oh, that's awesome! Thanks for sharing!
Gattison says... #2
I've been aware of this for quite some time now. Years ago a friend and I scoured the internet for as many obscure "cult" movies as we could find. This was one of them. And, I can shed some light on why it was never released: it was one of those infamous times when the company was about to lose the rights to the intellectual property unless they actually used it. So they made a FF movie that they knew would be shit, just so they could hold onto the franchise rights for another period of time.
It was made by Roger Corman (a name that should be familiar to MYSTies and other B-movie afficionados), who made Death Race 2000 and a million other B-movies like the original Little Shop of Horrors.
I really like bad movies, so I remember really enjoying this movie. I remember the Thing looked like crap, and Johnny Storm only used his "Flame On!" in like the last 10 minutes of the movie... but these horrible directorial decisions are what I find entertaining, lol.
Along the same subject, are you aware of the Captain America movie from 1979 starring Reb Brown (a name you'll probably recognize if you watch MST3K)? What about the Nick Fury TV movie from 1998 starring... wait for it... David Hasselhoff (of Kung Fury fame... seriously, look up Kung Fury)? What about the Japanese Spider-Man giant-robo series... the first and most powerful of all giant-robos, even before Power Rangers/Super Sentai came out.
In fact... I think I even made homemade DVD cover inserts for all these things because I thought they would never get DVD releases.
So anyway, yeah, heh. This kinda stuff is right up in my wheelhouse. =D
December 29, 2018 4:44 p.m.