Not so Fantastic summer?

[ToM]

I've heard it said that the past is just today having walked in a different door. It's true I think. The door in question is the backdoor of the cineplex. And it makes me wonder how many of us will be walking through the *front* door this summer.

Consider this list:

The Honeymooners
The Dukes of Hazzard
Bewitched
Mr. And Mrs. Smith

No, this isn't a listing from TV Land. These "can only be seen in theaters." You know, or in reruns on television.

Oh, then we've got this slate of films to lookforwards to!

The Bad News Bears
Herbie: Fully Lohan (or whatever it's called)
The Pink Panther
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory
The Longest Yard
War of The Worlds
Dark Water (remade American-style from a Japanese import)
Batman Begins (yet again)

And another movie called.....Fantastic Four.

Okay, Fantastic Four *was* made as a film already, but it was never released. And the shoe-string adaptation was only crafted as a means for the holder of the film rights to *keep* said rights a little longer till cash for a more full blooded version could be gained. And, you know, that never happened. So, given that the *first* Fantastic Four flick was *never* *meant* to be seen, I figure we can excuse it from remakehood.

Anyway, all this makes me wonder if being one of the only "fresh faces" in a cloned crowd will bige FF. a boost in the ticket sales this summer. It could. Alternatively, if audiences are put off from going to movies in the first place by the "been there done that factor", we could be looking at something that turns people off to the box office entirely. All the movies could suffer a chill this summer. I mean, for Pete's sakes, I just read that for Herbie they *literally* dragged out the old car from the sixties! It's actually the same car. Talk about pulling a franchise outt'a mothballs.

People are predicting a fountain of cash for Charlie, but wasn't that "Series of Unfortunate Events" something of a misfire? I also seem to recall the *original* Charlie adaptation not being well received upon theatrical release (becoming a classic through television). Charlie is a very dark movie. After taking kids to see dark Star Wars, and maybe dark Batman, they might feel the kids need a break. And then you've got Madagascar. There's also Fantastic Four which *may* resemble a live-action The Incredibles, something the kids loved last summer and gave a good "family" buzz.

During wartimes, people *do* want to return to nostalgia. During Desert Storm reunion specials for old tv series and retrospectives reaped in mammoth ratings, and many formerly hot shows, which were brand new, took dives as soon as shooting started. So, maybe this *is* a time for, you know, all this remake garbage.

This summer, everything that *isn't* a remake, is dark, depressing, violent. And some of what *is* a remake is also dark, depressing, violent. I mean, how many people are really looking forwards to seeing America destroyed and suburbs worth of families slaughtered in a Terror War parable? I mean, I live in New York...so, that doesn't seem like something I want to munch my popcorn to, you know? This movie being out there might even drive people *into* these made for movies tv shows..or whatever they are (that whole "escape the war through nostalgia act).

Anyway, what I find most depressing of all is that rather than taking us to new places as tent pole films ages ago tried to do with Jaws, or Star Wars, a Close Encounters of The Third Kind here and there, we're getting a whole summer of remakes of material *those* movies were trying to elevate us up *from.* Summer at the movies looks like an impacted molar. I figure I'd go see Fantastic Four just so that I could go to the movies and see *something* this summer.

ToM

[CaptainSkeptic]

The "remake" label is a very malleable thing. For one, Movies like Batman Begins is not a remake by ANY stretch of the imagination. A prequel? Only until WB feels it is safe to formerly admit that they WILL be "remaking" the entire Batman film franchise but even so, Begins is not a remake because it takes place earlier in the Batman chronology and tells of a younger Batman. The sequel(already being developed) COULD be called a remake of 1989's Batman with the caveat that 1989's Batman should never have been made because it wasn't BATMAN(more like they invented an all new superhero with a less engaging story and at the last minute decided they could just rename him "Batman" and give him a similar yet improved costume to reap mega-profits).
Technically, Fantastic Four is way more of a remake than Batman Begins because the Roger Corman film(officially released or not) told the same story(on a lower budget) as this summer's FF movie.

Another point is that, movies like War of the Worlds will not make jack sh*t off of the people who remember the original film. THIS WotW will have as much nostalgic appeal to people 45(who might remember going to see the original) and over as Alien had to fans of It! The Terror From Space!(the movie that Alien was a "remake" of).

The T.V. > silver screen adaptions(e.g. Dukes of Hazzard, Bewitched, etc.) are truly puzzling though. Dukes of Hazzard was a terrible show(I even had a sense of this as a child who watched it regularly during the 1970's) adn this film seems like a lame excuse to show Jessica Simpson in sexy shorts while cars jump over small lakes/large ponds in the background(and of course to play the nostalgia card). The Bewitched idea makes me grimace. The plot is that some producers are planning to bring the T.V. show back and will farrel is a struggling actor auditioning for the part of "Darren" and happens to become involved with Nichole Kidman's character who happens to be a real witch(*groan*). I kid you NOT about any of this!


One thing I do have to say though ToM: What is with this idea that "Dark" = "Depressing" and "Depressing" = "Bad film"?? I just don't get it. For one thing, I find Bad films, no matter how colorful and fun they puport to be(99% of the C2Fs released thus far) to be far more depressing than the darkest of dark films ever made! Saving Private Ryan was a laugh riot compared to 1989's Batman or even SPiderman 2 which I must now concede was a bad movie(I don't care what Ebert says) full of poor logic and Hollywod formulae. The train sequence that you keep bringing up had me sinking in my seat and groaning it was so bad!

People do not go to movies to be blasted with color and good cheer. They go to(hopefully) see entertaining, if not excellent, films. Million Dollar Baby was depressing, dark and the best film released last year.
This does not mean that "happy" and "fun" movies are bad. They are not. Just that whether he film is "happy" or "depressing" or "bright" or "dark" has nothing to do with how well made the picture is.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was a colorful and bright C2F and it was absolutely TERRIBLE! BAd writing, bad fight choreography, bad acting...atrocious dialogue.
The Crow was a very dark C2F and guess what? It was also TERRIBLE(Alex Proyas' direction aside which was actually quite good)!! and for the same reasons that TMNT was bad. Bad script, bad acting, bad chorography, etc.

If history has shown us anything, it is that "darkness" has no measurable affect on audience numbers(and even if it did, who cares?) but good and bad word of mouth DO. So far the word of mouth on Batman Begins is that it is a good, dark Batman film and expectations on Fantastic Four are mixed. Split between the justifiably negative expectations of comic fans who have read the script to those who will give just about any "fun" action flick with expensive special effects a glowing review before even seeing it and no matter how bad it actually turns out.

[ToM]

I disagree that this FF. adaptation is a remake of the first... for something that may be purely technical in nature. At the time, the owner of the rights was faced with a situation where he had to enter production, or lose the rights to make a movie. So, he went about making *a* film, but not *the* film. The version Corman produced was never intended to be seen by anybody but those involved. It was something of a means to *get to* make *the* movie. And that movie was never made. The Corman is as much a theatrical film then as an animatic for the current Fantastic Four feature is. You don't call a dress rehersal a play.

Besides, the story is very different in key ways.

Now, I tend to agree that Batman Begins doesn't *exactly* qualify as a remake. This is more of a relaunch, a different treatment of a basic concept. Still, King Kong '76, a parable about the energy crisis is a remake of King Kong '33, which was a Freudian parable of sexual repression and release. They're set in different times, about different themes, but one is still a remake. Godzilla '98 is a remake of Godzilla '53.....but placed in a different setting, period, largely about different themes. But still, this film is regarded as a remake (though in reality it's a remake of The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms). Batman Begins will surely be thought of as a re-do of the same sort, and that's very close to being a remake.

WOTW may seem more like a do-over of ID4 than the first WOTW film. I mean, it's coming out Memorial Day Weekend, you know? Aliens invading that weekend...going to seem very familiar.

BTW, I think Alien was *really* a remake of a Doctor Who story, The Ark In Space. It has all the same situations, people answering a signal discover a dead alien on aboard a spacecraft. Sleeping humans in suspended animation are impregnated by an insect-like alien. THese creatures go through stages, starting out *small* (after breaking free of human hosts) growing to huge size. Not only do they do all that crawling around in ducts and such looking for the creature, they kill it in the end by tricking it into getting before the jets of a shuttle and hitting the gas, burning and blasting them out into space!

Forget Bewitched, Will Ferrell's next gig after that is to play the lead in a comedy version of Saturday morning sensation LAND OF THE LOST. When are they going to open a branch of homeland security to dealing with *these* domestic threats?

As for "dark/depressing being a bad film," I don't mean to suggest that it is. But what I mean is that if you have a group of summer tent pole pictures all grouped together which are such, it can wear the audience out. Three in a row, and you're wanting a pick me up, you know? Also, since the first Spider-Man film, the superhero type things that've been on that darker side (like Hulk and Daredevil for example) haven't done that well. They opened huge, then saw much audience bleed. Meanwhile, stuff like Pirates of The Caribbean exploded expectations for being "feel good."

Spider-Man 2, now talk about a remake! Point by point it really is the first film all over again, and I think with a less satisfying character journey. What was the whole *point* to Aunt May losing the house? So Peter could confess he was responsible for Ben's death? And if Aunt May is just going to forgive him, with the two taking no journey together to that point beyond, "Well, shucks, just forget about it Peter.." then what was the point? Where was the drama? Ah, filler.


Anyway, you can have a good, dark, serious brooding film. And we should. I just worry about films like Batman Begins being grouped together, because it can cancel each other out (though I could really care less about WOTW anyway aside from wishing it was farther away from Batman).

Expectations for Batman and Fantastic Four emerge from two different places. First of all, they have different sets of expectations. For one thing Fantastic Four isn't recovering from Joel Shumacher! Batman's expectations are high, because fans are wanting to get it out of the muck of the last two films so badly (and people like you and I are wanting to get it away from ALL of those earlier films because this was the kind of movie they should've made the first time out). Just because the thing is anything other than Shumacher-like, because it's "dark" and serious, people are ready to just pronounce it good. And let's be honest, it couldn't be as bad as either of those.

Fantastic Four is going through *exactly* the sort of fan *teething* response that the first X-Men did. Actually, a lot of the material that's been released has it looking *better* than X-Men did! Bryan Singer wasn't any mucha sure thing towards good or bad than Tim Story is. I mean, Unusual Suspects could've been a fluke, Apt Pupil was horrible and a flop to boot. Sure, Singer has talent, but he could've blown it all the same. Look at that awful Superman mess? Hey, Fantastic Four looks a hundred times more positive than that on the worst day. Singer could've blown X-Men just the same way. Just the luck of the draw.


In some ways though, the same expectations emerge. For me, I'm conflicted nearly as much over the look of The Thing as I am over the rubber Batman get-up. Thing gets a pass though, because I find I must accept there really was no other way to go with it and have it work (if the brow ridge is *too* large you lose the actor, he can't act, character comes off more poorly, lumpy costume *and* no performance rather than just problematic costume being an issue). They could've done SO much more with Batman. Batman deserved so much better.

Listen, the fans that've bashed the script are coming from a certain place. It could be good, it could be bad. Things change during production. Part of the problem was that an earlier draft was their dream come true, set in the sixties, it was completely true to the original comic series. The problem was that it would've been far too expensive, and The Incredibles would've come out before it, and been exactly the same thing, having the same look and everything. Not only that, but the director tapped had *just* done a movie that aped the sixties look and feel, was set there, a film called Down With Love. And it was a mega bomb. And right after it bombed, he was mysteriously no longer on the FF. project.

Also, the changes made to the characters and situations have people upset. Still, these are nowhere near as extensive as those made to X-Men , or even Batman in '89. And unlike *most* of the changes they *had* to be made considering this story was about the space race against the communists. I have my issues about thematics, but that's already a long and verbose post here.

ToM

[Jakerman]

I don't consider FF a remake either. Heck I didn't even know there was an original. And I don't consider BB a remake either because it's a story that's never been told and villains that haven't been seen on the big screen. I won't be seeing any of the *true* remakes like Longest Yard or War of the Worlds but BB, Star Wars, Madagascar, and Zorro (not sure if that one is a summer flick) look pretty good. FF as I've said on another post is going to be bad. But that's judging by the trailers.

[Bigkid]

I might be crazy here, but I didn't necessarily think that the idea to re-make "Bewitched" was a bad one (the film's premise, I mean). I think it's probably going to be very entertaining, and I sort of thought when I heard that 20th Century Fox was re-scheduling the release date for July 8th, I thought to myself, "Cool. The next closest release is going to be Bewitched", which I thought was a bad idea to begin with, but when I saw the trailer (which, by the way, really didn't look all THAT bad), now has got me thinking, "AHH, DAMN!" Fantastic Four just MIGHT have to compete with that dollar, now. But, maybe I'm wrong........who knows?? Some films just come out of nowhere like the longshot on the racetrack, you know? But I DO believe that, as the summer movie season ALWAYS proves, audiences are just absolutely STARVED week in and week out for some new form of entertainment to assail our senses, and Fantastic Four will find an audience for it, I truly believe. :)

[norrinraad]

Yeah, Bewitched doesn't look that bad to me either, certainly not the trainwreck that Dukes of Hazzard and Six Million Dollar Man are shaping up to be (although I do like Jessica Simpson).

As for Batman Begins, I think the title obviously points out that this is not so much a "remake" as a back to basics attempt to correct the flaws of the '90s films. WBs realised after X-Men and Spider-Man that they had a wonderful franchise just sitting there waiting to be nurtured. Since all ties with previous continuity are being severed it really is a fresh start, rather than an attempt to remake a classic.

And since this is supposed to be a Fantastic Four forum :roll: I'll just say that I don't see how this film could be considered a remake either. As ToM pointed out, the original was made for a prupose and was never meant for commercial release or public showing. Of course in this day and age it's impossible to keep anything private but FF is no more a remake of that Corman film than Silver Surfer would be a remake of that infamous student film that was circulating the net a few years ago. This hopefully bodes well for the film in that it may be perceived as being (somewhat) fresh, The Invincibles notwithstanding.

[ToM]

I'm also confident that Fantastic Four will find an audience. Generally speaking, July can be a rough month for these sorts of pictures. The initial excitement of the summer movie season had it's biggest bombburst between the start of May and the end of June. But often the surprise hits emerge at this point, like Pirates of The Caribbean, which went on to be the biggest movie of the summer (something nobody thought it could do).

If after a slew of darker fantasy films have had moviegoers wanting lighter fare, something zippy and fun, Fantastic Four is probably what they're looking for. You know, if they can be convinced that's what it is (and good enough to shell out to see). Also, it provides characters and powers of a sort not on screen before, at least where The Human Torch is concerned (I'll post these pictures from the other thread here to make my point)

Take a look:

http://img97.echo.cx/img97/668/freefallin3my.jpg

And look at him here:

http://img97.echo.cx/img97/5149/soaring3xf.jpg

Man, after one remake after another, seeing something *new* like that could really help move people into seats.

But the other thing is that if Fantastic Four pulls in many of the same families who loved The Incredibles, it'll do well. Hey, if FF. can pull in even say, *half* of what The Incredibles did, it'll be a success.

With the big bang FF. trailer running before Star Wars, a film that'll have nearly everybody *well* in their seats before even the *first* trailer runs (just to make sure as to get a seat) a whole lott'o kids are going to be checking out the superheroics. A lot more people are going to see *this* trailer in theaters than those for most of the other films out this summer. That can only hurt the picture is they savagely screw it up. I tend to think they're going to be more careful with this one, and they've been learning how to get it right all year.

Worst case scenario, FF. pulls in around 150, say, 157 million. And that puts it in X1 territory.

As for BB not being considerered a remake, eh. It's a do-over, not exactly a remake. They're explaining the reasons for why he's "a Batman", and they did this twice already from '89 onwards. When you tell the general audience it's "the origin of Batman", they're going to think, "Didn't we already hear about that?" It'll look like the story is being told in a different setting of sorts, with different badguys. You know, like any of the various Frankenstein adaptations, same story, just told a bit differently. It's just another take on the same subject, a restart. And I have to say, just by the trailers, it all looks really familiar because of the costume being so much the same.

I was just considering the remake situation of FF. against the remake situation of BB, and something comes to mind that may be *key* to looking at them. The FF. movie Corman did, was a means of protecting a film's rights from elapsing. The *new* version is being made strictly to find theatrical success. But Batman Begins is being made largely because the studio is trying to protect an asset, a property that's been fading from relevance (and therefore bankability). "Batman" means millions and millions in backdoor marketed products.

Warner Brothers has a studio that churns out movies, but that is one chamber in a literal beehive of divisions and tiers of divisions, all needing products. An executive at a studio needs to be able to be answerable to the shareholders in a favorable way. Keeping all those other divisions filled up with product and success can help you out of a trouble spot when you have a few other projects fall on their faces. So, in a way, Batman Begins is being made for the same reasons the Corman Fantastic Four film was made, to secure a product and keep a series of doors open.

ToM

[CaptainSkeptic]

I disagree that this FF. adaptation is a remake of the first... for something that may be purely technical in nature. At the time, the owner of the rights was faced with a situation where he had to enter production, or lose the rights to make a movie. So, he went about making *a* film, but not *the* film. The version Corman produced was never intended to be seen by anybody but those involved. It was something of a means to *get to* make *the* movie. And that movie was never made. The Corman is as much a theatrical film then as an animatic for the current Fantastic Four feature is. You don't call a dress rehersal a play.


I am well familiar with the story behind the Corman film. My point was that if one were going to call Batman Begins a remake in ANY sense then one can also make as strong a case that FF is a remake.


Now, I tend to agree that Batman Begins doesn't *exactly* qualify as a remake. This is more of a relaunch, a different treatment of a basic concept. Still, King Kong '76, a parable about the energy crisis is a remake of King Kong '33, which was a Freudian parable of sexual repression and release.

it does not matter what sorts of subtextual inferences YOU draw from either version of King Kong(justified or not). King Kong 76 was a reamke because it was a REMAKE! It was the same story about how a boat full of guys adn an actress end up oin a mysterious island where a 50' gorilla is worshipped as a god. The ape falls in love with the actress and they capture it and take it to New York...and so on. THe theme is neither sexual repression or energy crisis. it was 'Beaty and the Beast' in a modern setting. King Kong vs. Godzilla was NOT remake because it told a different story featuring the same lead character(Kong) which took place AFTER his death in NY(I know, I know... :roll: ).

This Fantastic Four film coming out tells the same stroy as the4 Corman film: Four humans get amazing abilities by exposure to cosmic rays. One becomes 'stretchy', one 'rocky', one 'firey' and one 'invisible', and they fight evil with their newfound powers. SO while this will be an imporvement(I assume) over the Corman film(regardless of the reasons why teh Corman film was made), it is still essentially a new attempt to tell that story.

Do I belief FF is a remake? No. Just pointing out that if we were going to start making far-fetched cases for movies being remakes, then FF is at least as strong(probably stronger) a canidate than Batman Begins.



They're set in different times, about different themes, but one is still a remake. Godzilla '98 is a remake of Godzilla '53.....but placed in a different setting, period, largely about different themes. But still, this film is regarded as a remake (though in reality it's a remake of The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms). Batman Begins will surely be thought of as a re-do of the same sort, and that's very close to being a remake.

Godzilla('98) is considered a remake ONLY in the sense that it is a modern take on Godzilla and (re)tells the story of humanity's first ecnounter with the radioactive dinosaur. Notice the title: Godzilla. Not "Godzilla Begins" or "Godzilla Returns" or "Revenge of the Son of the Curse of Godzilla's Bride Part II in 3D". Just "Godzilla".


BTW, I think Alien was *really* a remake of a Doctor Who story, The Ark In Space. It has all the same situations, people answering a signal discover a dead alien on aboard a spacecraft.


there are, litereally, 3 dozen movies adn episodes of TV shows adn books that you can go back and make a compelling case for inspiring Alien but accordng to Ridley Scott and the writers, the movie was chiefly inspired by It! The Terror from Space(or is that "From BEYOND Space"? memory lapse here) which was a 1950s sci-fi horror about a small crew of people on a space ship being hunted down by a menacing and quite frightening(for it's time) savage alien and they(the surviving man adn woman...women did not survive without a man before Ridley Scott's update) manage to destroy the creature at the end by shoving it into an airlock-type thing and jettisoning it into space.





Forget Bewitched, Will Ferrell's next gig after that is to play the lead in a comedy version of Saturday morning sensation LAND OF THE LOST. When are they going to open a branch of homeland security to dealing with *these* domestic threats?

*Ack* Now they are going after Sid and Marty Krofft!? My fondest memories from childhood were of watching shows like Land of the Lost and Bigfoot and Wildboy!


As for "dark/depressing being a bad film," I don't mean to suggest that it is. But what I mean is that if you have a group of summer tent pole pictures all grouped together which are such, it can wear the audience out.


Same is true of overdoing ANYTHING. A summer full of "fun" movies will drain audiences as well. IS there any evidence that this summer has a disproportionate amount of "dark movies"(compared to previous years)?



Three in a row, and you're wanting a pick me up, you know? Also, since the first Spider-Man film, the superhero type things that've been on that darker side (like Hulk and Daredevil for example) haven't done that well. They opened huge, then saw much audience bleed. Meanwhile, stuff like Pirates of The Caribbean exploded expectations for being "feel good."

I wouldn't call The Hulk "dark". It was campy and a mess of a superhero movie trying to be an art film within a 70's TV show remake. THAT is why it plummeted so quickly. Daredevil was simply a bad movie that lacked any real attempt at transition or exposition. Comparable to 1989's Batman only lacking that film's hype.

Spider-Man 2, now talk about a remake! Point by point it really is the first film all over again, and I think with a less satisfying character journey. What was the whole *point* to Aunt May losing the house? So Peter could confess he was responsible for Ben's death? And if Aunt May is just going to forgive him, with the two taking no journey together to that point beyond, "Well, shucks, just forget about it Peter.." then what was the point? Where was the drama? Ah, filler.

Hindsight for me, is 20/20 adn I now realize that BOTH spidey films were pretty bad. The kabuki theatre bewteen SPidey adn the Goblin in the first film just rubbed salt in the wounds I endured while trying to pretend that this was not 1989's Batman all over again(with Willem Defoe as Joker). They even had the Goblin attack the city during a sort of city-wide celebration(ala Gotham's 200th anniversary)!


Anyway, you can have a good, dark, serious brooding film. And we should. I just worry about films like Batman Begins being grouped together, because it can cancel each other out (though I could really care less about WOTW anyway aside from wishing it was farther away from Batman).

I disagree when the genres are so different. If Batman Begins were being released along with V for Vendetta, A version of The Crow that was actually based on teh graphic novel by O'Barr, a movie version of Cloak and Dagger, Spawn II(blech!) etc. then that would be one thing but audiences are not going to shy away from WotW because they just saw Million Dollar Baby, because one will still be a sci-fi movie and one a tear-jerker contemporary drama. Likewise, no one is going to shy away from Batman Begins because of familiarity with WotW or Star Wars ep. III.

Expectations for Batman and Fantastic Four emerge from two different places. First of all, they have different sets of expectations. For one thing Fantastic Four isn't recovering from Joel Shumacher!


I disagree. Fantastic Four is trying to overcome a gluttony of, what fans are becoming increasingly aware of, "fun" cheese-superhero slugfests with fancy CGI effects. Fantastic Four has to overcome the fact that we have seen Spiderman I & II, the Batman movies(esp. the Shumacher ones), Daredevil, Hulk, Elektra, etc. Even non-cheesy movies like X-Men can work against FF just for the fact that it is a "team" superhero movie.

Most people I have talked to can tell just from the trailer for Begins that this is a completely different take on Bats'. Visions of Schumacher seem to vanish from minds when those trailers are shown! In the end, BOTH the FF and BB have to overcome a lot, potentially at least.




Fantastic Four is going through *exactly* the sort of fan *teething* response that the first X-Men did. Actually, a lot of the material that's been released has it looking *better* than X-Men did! Bryan Singer wasn't any mucha sure thing towards good or bad than Tim Story is. I mean, Unusual Suspects could've been a fluke, Apt Pupil was horrible and a flop to boot.


Apt Pupil was not "horrible"(though it was certainly no "usual Suspects") and even if Usual Suspects were the ONLY thing to his credit, he beats Tim Story hands down. I mean come on...Barbershop?



Sure, Singer has talent, but he could've blown it all the same. Look at that awful Superman mess?


What awful Superman mess? I have not seen the film yet.



Hey, Fantastic Four looks a hundred times more positive than that on the worst day.

Not in my opinion and I am a WAY bigger FF fan than a Superman fan(I hate Supes actually). I think that Superman Returns, when the dust is settled will be a MONSTROUS blockbuster. It has too much going for it witht eh Christopher Reeve thing, familiarity, nostalgia, etc.


Singer could've blown X-Men just the same way. Just the luck of the draw.


Superman has not been "blown"(yet) and in fact Superman Returns is shaping up to be BETTER than the original Reeve movies if for no other reason than Lex Lutor is NOT being played by Gene Hackman for comic relief(I hope Speacy is not doing this!?). Also movies do not turn out "bad because of "luck of the draw". Bad movies are poorly written and/or directed and/or acted and/or produced. Their quality is not determined by a coin-toss.


In some ways though, the same expectations emerge. For me, I'm conflicted nearly as much over the look of The Thing as I am over the rubber Batman get-up.


WHAT "rubber Batman getup"?? I just do not see it adn you are the only one I have ever heard of making such a repeated charge.




Thing gets a pass though, because I find I must accept there really was no other way to go with it and have it work (if the brow ridge is *too* large you lose the actor, he can't act, character comes off more poorly, lumpy costume *and* no performance rather than just problematic costume being an issue). They could've done SO much more with Batman. Batman deserved so much better.

That is not true at all. A good actor will act well even with prosthetics and they could have also used CGI to fill out the look. It is more than just the brow-ridge though. The whole of the Thing just does not look impressive. He does not look like something that can clean-jerk a semi truck and throw it at someone. The same logic said that you could not do comedy from behind a mask adn so the Tick TV show had a maskless Walburton saying lines that would have been ten times funnier if he were wearing a stiff mask while saying them(and it would have REALLY been The Tick!).



Also, the changes made to the characters and situations have people upset. Still, these are nowhere near as extensive as those made to X-Men , or even Batman in '89.


Matter of opinion. WHat they did to Doom alone was more extensive than anything in X-Men and Jssica Alba STILL seems to be amongst the poorest imaginable choices to play Sue.