The ShoWest footage.

[Bigkid]

Has anybody else here tried to take a look at the bootlegged video of what was shown at the ShoWest convention? Apparently there was supposed to be new footage from the FF film that they showed at the convention, but when I click onto the link, I keep getting this page popping up saying that the page can't be displayed. I'm thinking that someone at Fox got wind of the footage getting bootlegged, and somehow got it pulled from the web. Does anybody know if that's the case?? If not, has anybody here SEEN this footage? And if so, can somebody post another link to it? I heard about what was shown from the footage, and apparently it got a standing "o", and they even re-showed it after the panel discussion with Avi Arad and Chris Evans. So if by chance someone know's how to get this footage back online......Please......SHARE.....with us!

[ToM]

Word to the wise, you stick that footage up (if you downloaded it) and you might end up getting a little note nailed to your door from the 20th Century Fox Legal Department. Hear ye, hear ye, anybody who downloaded that thing and intends to pass it around, to it all nice and quiet like, see, yeah, yeah.

I saw the Showest footage. Listen, you *think* you're sorry you missed seeing it. But having seen the material, you can't *really* know *how* sorry you *ought* to be. It was that cool.

Let me just say something starting out, okay? I wasn't crazy about the make up job on The Thing for design tastes. The image of this character was setteled on ages ago in the comics, and they didn't go with it as we all know. He just isn't as interesting *looking* as he should be in my opinion (I'm suspicious they worried it was too close to the Corman version in both look an execution). So, I've accepted what they've given us, even though it wasn't what I wanted to see. Imagine then how my fingers were crossed for the look of The Human Torch. They have him just right.

When Fox first started touting this production, it seemed they wanted to do it on the cheap for what something like this *should* cost. Between that and the pronouncement that The Torch would be someone who "throws fire from his fingertips" I worried that Fox wanted to abduct Pyro from X2 and contain him in an FF setting (for cost purposes, that being cheaper than giving us the real Torch). And of course, I worried that he'd be "Firestarter Revisited" with no flying powers.

As we've seen since then, yes, he fully flames on, and he flies. Still, he seemed like a huge *ball* of fire, rather than the form fitting flames of Kirby. In this new material, we get a look at him, and he's just as he should be. The reason he seemed to be this massive comet in the earlier trailers is that he's trying to generate as much heat as he can to draw away a heat seeking missle from the Baxter Building.

Sue and Johnny are atop the skyscraper, when they see Doom's rocket thrusting towards them. Sue looks to Johnny, guessing what he intends to do, and says, "Don't even think about it." He responds, "I never do." Then, he throws himself headlong from the building, and as he falls towards us shouts, "FLAME ON!" He then bursts into flame (showing us his more lithe "flame form" we all know from the comics, the red figure swathed in fire, and then combusts brightly into the streaking fireball we've seen before. Great stuff.

Oh, let me say, as for casting, spot on. This is Johnny. This actor is *loving* being The Human Torch, just as Johnny loves being The Human Torch. That's so much of who he is, it works on screen (from what little time we get with him).

I really appreciate The Thing saying, and in a way that doesn't come off as camp, "It's clobber'in time...." and punches Von Doom through a brick wall. I have to say, The Thing looks good enough on screen. You don't get much of a look at his legs mind you, and I think his pants hurt the image (let's see those thing legs, the more monstrous the better).

The sequence where Sue beseeches Reed to "Just look at me" *now* provides a much more subdued "I can't" than we saw in the international trailer. No longer is it Reed looking befuddled and comic. He's now earnest, not so much a fool as in the other sequence. It still comes off as funny, but not at the expense of the scene or the characters for that matter, as I felt the original version did.

In my opinion, I think Fox should yank the international trailer, and put this content onscreens. But with a modification, less speaking for Doom. His voice is a problem.

The Von Doom of this film lacks any and all the regal elements of the comics character. This is *not* the Doom of Lee and Kirby. I mean, oh sure, he can have all the traits come off, his sense of elegance, his vanity, madness, envy, his need to be in control. But his voice has no menace, no grandiosity... no Doom. I mean, that *is* Doom, that's his character, he's grandiose he's, "fabulous." He's the personification of the *glamore* of power and cruelty. They didn't capture that. If he seems weak in the trailers, a weak foil to the heroes, you know, when Darth Vader is out there this summer in *his* mask, and the FF trailer is attached to *his* film, well.

Now, on the other hand, Doom *looks*, well, fantastic.

Alba works. Yes, yes, yes, I know people complain about the casting, but can we be real for one second? First of all, to cast this role you *need* someone who can work a superhero action sequence, work in harnesses and all that. Alba was able to do that for two seasons on Dark Angel, a Marvel superheroish series for Fox. Not only that, but she was able to keep her audience, as the *title character* of her own series. This doesn't make her Meryle Streep, but does the role of the Invisible Woman *require* a Meryle Streep? Come on people! Sue is hardly the most complex of super-women to grace a comic book! Alba's range is well enough suited for this kind of role.

She knows her way around action sequences, how to find her mark (very different to find your mark in an action film than a comedy or drama people). And she's hot.

You worried that Reed Richards streching might come off...well, hilarious on screen? It doesn't. But, because they throw in an intentional joke about it the first time you see it, it helps that IF people might laugh, it's *with* the content and not *at* it. Very savvy. It actually looks very cool.

Anyway, it's funny that the FF have been sort of this victim of image thing that I actually talked about as a theme in that long post that seems to have bored everybody. Because, based on this material, the movie looks like a big winner. Awful music, lesser takes on dialog deliveries, all that stuff in the other trailers kind of impaired expectations a bit I think. We'd have been hearing a whole lot of other adjectives thrown around this picture had this Showest material emerged first I think.

ToM

------------------
"Reality is that which
remains the same in
spite of our opinion of
it."

[ToM]

Not a hoax! Not a dream! Not an imaginary tale!

The Showest FF. footage is back online! As per your request BigKid, here's the link! Look for where it says, "click and select save to download", there's where it is (they have no icon per say for the file). http://uploadhut.com/download/index.php/?file=50844.mov

I found this while I was looking at their new FF poster.
ToM


------------------
"Reality is that which
remains the same in
spite of our opinion of
it."

[Bigkid]

Much olbiged, ToM! I will have to do this later (download), because I'm not at MY computer..... I'm somewhere else, where I don't think they'd really appreciate me downloading Fantastic Four movie footage! But when I get home later, I'll have to do it then. Thanks for posting the link, and thanks for all the insight.

[Zac]

The footage can also now be found here: http://www.comingsoon.net/news/topnews.php?id=8963
Anyways, the footage looks incredible. All of my doubts of this film are going away and seeing this footage helped out considerably.

[This message has been edited by Zac (edited 03-28-2005).]

[Bigkid]

Just took a gander at this footage myself..... I really liked it a lot! I thought they went sort of light on showing Reed, not really giving him all that much in his moments in the sun (I would've liked to have seen some more stuff with him stretching during a fight sequence), but I came away thinking a couple of things:

A). This film's going to make a bonafide star out of Evans, I believe. I think ToM got it right: I think Chris Evans HAS nailed Johnny.
B). The stuff about Doom..... hmmm..... I don't know, I'm inclined to think that they didn't show some of Doom's better stuff. I would've liked to have seen a little more with him.
C). I still think that Jessica Alba's just a tad too young looking for this role, but I'm sure THAT'S not going to be a big deal for this film.....particularly with the male section of the audience.

I, for one, think that Fox went about it all the wrong way....... and I'll comment more on this in "The Trailer" thread!

[ToM]

I'll respond to this *here* rather than in the "trailer" thread because this subject is more current (and easier for new folks to walk into for reason of this).

For starters, I'd like to share my agreement with Bigkid regarding Fox going about the promotion of this film al wrong up till the release of the Showest footage. They ended princ photography on Dec 22, and by Jan they'd already rushed out a half baked trailer. And what does a half baked trailer give the impression of? Well, a half baked *movie.* Rather than helping the film, it did injury.

I suspect the reason Fox felt the need to rush this content out was due to all the leaked set photos and other content giving what could hardly be called early *positive* buzz. Such dire reception poisoned the Catwoman well far in advance of the release. And it isn't a coincidence that on a Friday the first *awful* pictures of The Thing hit the web, and on Monday there were color photos of the cast in the USA Today. Fox has been fighting off the bad spin (yes, plants out to smear the picture are abounding as I'm sure anybody following all this has guessed) since last summer.

In order to avoid allowing detractors to "frame" the film, to explain what it is, or the worth, Fox (I suspect) started rushing out these teasers to try and draw away the fire. But with the FX work not completed, or what "take" on a certain line of dialog still not setteled on, it was all uneven.

Fox may have learned a lesson here. I note Bigkid, that you also observed the lack of Reed Richards action in the trailer, with most focus being on The Torch. I'd bet a box of doughnuts that the reason for this is that Reed's FX sequences aren't finished as of yet. Rather than go out on that same limb they've climbed out on before, I'm guessing they're going to hold off till they have some spectacular stuff. Also, unlike The Thing and The Torch, Reed could come off as funny looking if not given the proper build up. Further, it's still March. The movie doesn't come out till July. They don't want to spend up all the best material so early that they can't surprise audiences with the ad campaign later on. This film is going to be made or broken on the "gee golly" factor.

As for Sue, I don't have a problem with how young she looks. In teh comics her brother is 17, so Sue is around twenty six tops. Reed rocks the cradle of love, man. Sue was about this young at the time. In the comics, with Franklin as old as he is (or was when I left off) Sue is about thirty one or thirty two. But these are her early days, so, you know, whatever.

The FF. adaptation faces a unique challenge, because there are *four* leads to maybe get all wrong, unlike, say Batman Begins, where you have just the one. And Batman has a track record of what works and what doesn't to guide Nolan, something Story isn't so fortunate to have. Still, as of right now, The Thing seems pretty close, and Johnny is picture perfect. That alone gives me confidence.

I know there's people complaining about how Fox has tech people overseeing certain sequences in the film, holding Tim Story's hand. Listen this is just ignorant balle, or plant-talk. When you think of Alfred Hitchcock, what movie springs instantly to mind? Psycho. And what sequence in that movie comes to mind when you hear the name Hitchcock? The shower scene. Guess what? Hitchcock didn't direct that scene, not one single frame of it. And assistant directed it.

Hey, remember that hugely popular flick from the 90's, Jurassic Park? I'm sure you're aware that *nobody* rushe dout to watch that film because the human acting was so amazing. It was the CG dinosaurs that made it a mega hit. And Speilberg didn't direct those sequences, technicians did. Speilberg was largely preoccupied with prepping for Shindler's List at that time.

Such assistance is as old as the hills, as commonplace with the greatest directors of our times, or of classic Hollywood. I'd love to have seen how these same talkbakers would've been working to convince us that Jurassic Park was going to be hopelessly uneven and suck, or Psycho feel "all patchy and disconnected" for these same reasons.

The greatest challenges IMO are things I've already talked about elsewhere in this board. But that's creative success. Chances are the same crowds who loved X2 will walk into this thing, at least the first week of release. Fox needs to pull the other teaser and the international trailer, and substitute this thing before the damage is done. They're lucky in a way Elektra bombed, hardly anybody from general audiences saw that other trailer. Now, if they select *this* one to run with Star Wars, they're onto something.

ToM

------------------
"Reality is that which
remains the same in
spite of our opinion of
it."

[Bigkid]

Something else to point to about THIS footage, by the way: The editing. I want to expound a little bit on what ToM said about assistants who direct a scene rather than the directors themselves. Which is, you need a GREAT editor for a film nowadays. I don't know who's editing this film, but I can tell you this..... the editor who put this ShoWest footage together did a much better job than the other's who put together either the domestic OR the international trailer (now watch, it turns out to be the SAME people!) I think ToM's right about the Reed Richards sequences: They probably HAVEN'T completed the post-work as yet on Mr. Fantastic. So that's probably why it seems a little light on showing action for him. But I for one really liked what I viewed. There, of course, are going to be the nay-sayers on this footage......my guess is that a LOT of them just love to argue....... but I'm sure that there are those who legitimately feel that it's not going to be a good film. But we all can't start allowing ourselves to feel that just from 3 trailers. Anymore, I guess, then those of us who feel this film WILL be a success based on what we witness either. We can all just be hopefull, I guess. And, in my humble O.... I think it's going to be a lot of fun and do VERY well.