It Should Have Been About The Surfer

I posted on social media that the recent Fantastic Four film should have been about the Silver Surfer. Numerous times I went on to say why it should have been about the surfer but let me just air this out so I don’t have to be repeat it again on social media.

First, I’ll go ahead and say I was looking forward to the Fantastic Four film and I liked it. I was in awe at its overall aesthetic. Damn, I thought, look at that blue. Ain’t that some shi? I liked the tones and what they meant to the film—kind of retro but not. I liked the costumes. I liked the sets.

Unlike so many folks out there, I liked Galactus. A lot needed to be done in those areas and they did a lot. Galactus did small things to make him a bit more present, like when he finally makes it to land and gathers a handful of soil. He seems to ponder something. We wonder, what in the world is going on in his head. That curiosity is refreshing. Let the viewer do the work. It’s not something expected. I found stuff like that mindful.

This is the first time that I appreciated The Thing or any of The Four. They worked well together. They fit the theme of having a strong family and strong core to everything around you. I like how The Four took on challenges and burdens of society but stayed true. They weren’t tone deaf. They found the words through their integrity. As a matter of fact, they found an angle that worked BECAUSE of their integrity. I mostly liked this film.

Now, this is where it gets negative. So, I’ll just come out and say I’m no authority on script writing. I’ve never written a good script or had it made into a successful feature film. I’ve written a few novels but none of them were to any acclaim. I’m not claiming to be the authority on the negativity I’m about to present. I’m still going to present it.

Like I said above, the main issue is that The Fantastic Four should have been about The Silver Surfer. Or to say it differently, we should have been introduced to the Fantastic Four through the situation of the Silver Surfer.

Why do this? Because the film suffers from telling and not showing, and the key to fixing it is to add detail where there is none. However, the details need to flow, and in this story be in order. The last thing this thing needed were flashbacks.

Many have said that it is slow to start and feels over-edited. Well, it probably is. If it is, it’s probably because of timing. Why else did it feel that way? The question is where to add tension from the outset, and when you release the tension, where can it start to build into what we expect it to be?

The answer is the Silver Surfer. Why not turn to the character with the most interesting past in the story, the one with as much to lose as The Fantastic Four, and by the end, the one who sacrifices for the greater good.

None of The Four are as interesting as The Surfer.

Jonny Storm has no depth at all. Funny guy. No depth. He felt like Robin from Batman and Robin. Sue Richards was acted amazingly but we never see her doing her job. We don’t really see her being a mother, even. Reed Richards, also well-acted but he, too, has little depth. The Thing seems to have a love interest that was clearly edited out, because it went nowhere. I don’t even think they touched, which would have been interesting.

But the surfer has the burden of becoming the herald of Galactus. There’s a lot of amazing baggage to deal with here that we don’t see dealt with.

Imagine meeting pre-surfer. We meet some family and friends of The Surfer on this interesting world. Boom. Three minutes or so in, Galactus arrives. Who is the type of person to sacrifice themselves to save everyone? The soon-to-be surfer is. We follow The Surfer as it seeks out world one. Emotions. Then they settle in. Cool. Now we come to the planet of The Fantastic Four. We can hand off the point of view to The Four but they don’t need to carry the story. Because they can’t carry the story.

Why can’t they carry the story? Because of what I eluded to above. They’re a week ensemble. They didn’t all have a film of their own to give them a backbone. There are too many of them to flesh them out for this two-hour film. So, again, if you needed to focus on a character, why not choose the most interesting one. Again, The Surfer.

If they did that, they could have talked a ton more about The Surfer’s powers, which without at least a little more explanation made us ignore them. The Surfer fits into the family theme. It would have helped with the pay-off. They really wanted The Four to deal with Galactus but really they’re not capable. It would take The Surfer to help them, and, in the end, The Surfer did just that. To me, it should have been a Silver Surfer story. It should have been titled The Silver Surfer with a subtitle that mentions The Four. The same film would have happened but with more action, with more depth where needed, and the thinner characters would have been justified as it’s really not about them anyway. It still would have been two hours but now we don’t need to see Jonny Storm find the surfer’s original language, which felt forced. We wouldn’t need to watch The Thing start a romance that goes nowhere. We wouldn’t need to keep asking about the baby. We could just know or know more.

It should have been about The Silver Surfer.