Susan, that's it. You've got a problem with being shy, right? So, you vanish, yes? Johnny, you've always had a quick temper. Now, come on, ever since I know you, right? You could call it fiery, so what happens? I catch fire, exactly. Me, I've always had this problem. I just stretch myself thin all the time, trying to take care of everybody, trying to do everything at once. Too many things. Ben, you've always relied too much on brute strength when your intelligence would have sufficed. Hello, and welcome to Comic Book Movie Oblivion, the podcast about feature films based on convicts and comic strips that people have stopped talking about. We are hosts, Jordan and Kumar, that's me and me. And this would be a very special episode. We are crossing over with Deconstructing Comics to talk about the Fantastic Four movie from 1994. So, actually, Jordan and I have hosted Deconstructing Comics seven times. So, we have hosted it a few more than seven, but we have visited seven times. Yes, together seven times, and this podcast would not exist if it hadn't been for those seven episodes, I don't think. I think that's pretty safe to say. So, it's a spin-off, okay, it's a spin-off or a thunderling. I think it's another term I would use for it. Okay, so our co-host here, our third host is Tim Young from Deconstructing Comics. My boss at Deconstructing Comics. So, Tim, do you want to tell us about the show before we get started? All right, well, so this show goes all the way back to 2005 when podcasting was in its infancy. And it grew out of a comics drawing class. And in the early days, it was more, I think, more about making comics than it is now. It sort of evolved over the years and become, like, our topics tend to be about kind of notable comics from the past, sometimes very recent comics or movies based on comics, or submissions sent in by their creators for a critique. That's another thing that we do. And as we said, Kumar is kind of part of both of these shows, comic book movie, living, and Deconstructing Comics. And so Kumar and Emmed, who's also in Australia, the three of us have kind of evolved into being the main three people on the show, although very rarely are we all three on at the same time. And sometimes one of us is on with someone else, someone other than us three. So lately, there's been a lot of discussion of manga and Jack Kirby comics from the 70s. So if that sounds interesting, then check us out. And but what was your very first episode? Because as I recall, it was the trailer for Superman Returns. That's right. Yeah, we were talking about, yeah, the trailer for whatever Superman movie that was coming out in 2005 that I never actually saw. It was called, it was called two men lives of two men returns, but it was 2005 and the whole episode was about the trailer. So it began as comic book movie material. Yeah. And so we're carrying on that legacy. Movies have always kind of been lurking in the background. Yeah. So did I say we were talking about Fantastic Four from 1994? Yes, you did. Okay, unreleased. I chose a few issues to read, one, eight and eleven. So let's do a pause the podcast. Do people need to go away and read these comics or watch this movie before listening to this podcast? Have you been living under a rock? Then, yes, if not, then settle in for us to talk about the Fantastic Four that you know so well. There's actually a twist in this movie which the characters don't know about, but the audience does, like the audience knows. And the characters are, it's a big reveal for the characters in the movie. It's the construction is bizarre. Yeah, I think I know what you're talking about. And yeah, I mean, comics fans are not fooled for a second, but... No, no. No, and on screen, you see them bring this character back to life on screen after the moment after he supposedly dies. Yeah, yeah. So... No, that's going to be shocked about the, what we're talking about. I assume you've paused and come back the origins of Doctor Doom. Yeah. Okay, so let's roll the tape. Welcome to deconstructing comics, Crossing Over This Week with comic book movie Oblivion. Welcome, Kumar and Jordan. It's an old-fashioned crossover, just like Crisis on Infinite Earths. Yes. And we're going to be talking about the 1994 Roger Korman fantastic form movie that was finished and then not released. This is kind of the first in a series of, we're going through. So we did Tim Ketchiss up with the MCU, but now we're doing Tim Ketchiss up with the fantastic form movies because I've never seen any of them. Me too. So now I finally have watched this one. So, but first of all, tell us about comic book movie Oblivion. Comic book movie Oblivion, the description is it's the podcast about feature films based on comic books and comic strips that people have stopped talking about. I've never been quite happy with that description, even though I wrote myself and I've read it out loud for 107 episodes. But it's basically the mission statement of the podcast was to cover comic book movies that were not in universes. So not Marvel Universe, DC Universe, or Sony Spider-Man Universe. Yes. So basically anything else. It's fair game. It's fair game. Yes. And we have done some very mainstream stuff and we've done the most obscure stuff. And it basically started because I maybe five years ago watched the Popeye movie and was like, how come we haven't done this as a podcast? Or why aren't there podcasts covering this kind of movie? Why aren't people talking about the Popeye movie? Exactly. And then a year later, I discovered this movie starring Pam Greer called Friday Foster, which I had never heard of. And then saw in the description, it was based on a comic strip and I was like, how can I, how is it possible that I have never heard of? I feel like I know a bit about comics and a bit about movies. And to me, it was shocking. I was like, well, somebody needs to cover this kind of material. If you're wondering what could possibly be the nexus in which Pam Greer and Robin Williams coexist, it's us. Yes. Exactly. So if you like to see out of that, tune in. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, so now we're kind of both podcasts here. So let's talk about this movie. Well, first we, first we have to cover the comics. Okay. Oh, that's right. So yeah, for, for their podcast, we talk about some comics for us. All right. So. So we got to fill in my audience. I don't think we mentioned that. Okay. So our format is usually we cover, we choose some of the comics sometimes. If it's like a long running legacy title like Fanta's for, we just have to kind of choose sort of random issues that maybe are related to the plot. Yeah. If it's, if it's not an exact match, like a graphic novel or something like that. So for this episode, we've chosen Fanta's for one, five or no, one, one eight and 11 or one, five and eight. One, five, eight and 11. Okay. And so usually what we do is we cover the comics and we cover the movie. Then we have three votes. We vote on the comic. Yeah, your name. Do we like them or not like them? The movie? Yeah, your name. And then the adaptation here, and a recently we've added a new vote. If the movie's really bad, called, is it worse than Veronica? You have to watch the movie, Veronica to understand that statement. The other thing you just need to know is sometimes we ring a bell. If we mention Alan Moore, HP Lovecraft or Dune, any of those three things. Kumau's three bugbears. The other thing is we have All Star. So if an actor appears in three different movies on our podcast, they get labeled an All Star. So like Timothy Dalton was in Brenda Star, Flash Gordon. And the Rocketeer. And the Rocketeer. So he is an All Star, for example. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. And was there anything else we need to cover? Is there anything else we'll explain it as we go along? Yes. Okay. Yeah. You'll just get some random stuff we'll get thrown at you. Absolutely. You'll have to deal with it. You're in our house now. I didn't know about it reading issue 11. I read one through eight and then I didn't have any more time for reading them. Sure. 11. Well, we'll talk about 11 as we get to it. But okay. I guess we can describe the, like, the origin of the Fantastic Four, which is issue one. So this is by Stanley and Jack Kirby. It's early Jack Kirby. Right. 1961. I think the anchor on this one was George Klein on the first issue. Jack Kirby's best anchor was Joe Sonot, who came in later. And I think like Pete Kirby, I would say is like around issue 40, 45, 50. Then we get the Kirby we know and love. Right. I was going to ask about that. I assumed it was probably early work because it's kind of pretty rough. I think I felt in the early days, there's lots of questions about how much Stanley was really involved in this. My understanding is Martin Goodman, who was the head of Marvel, wanted Marvel to have a book like DC's JLA, a team of superheroes. And Kirby had already done challenges of the unknown at DC, which is kind of like these four here adventurers that go out and, you know, fight all sorts of stuff. They appear in Teen Titans Go to the movies. That's right. Exactly. There's no credit box in this issue. So it's even Stanley's not like smiling Stan at this stage. He's like anonymous. But it starts in media's rest. So we get this guy in a suit, shooting this smoke signal out into the sky that says, Fantastic Four. Yeah, they did sign it. They're along the right. Oh, right. You're right. Yes. There's no, there's no huge credit box. You're right. Yeah. It's not like what we had later with written by smiling Stan Lee and drawn by Jolt and Jack Kirby or whatever. Yes, exactly. It's a little bit more humble at this stage. Yeah, it's really hard to imagine, actually. A lot of this stuff is really like, it's really like watching the pilot episode of some show that you've watched seven seasons of that you never saw the first episode of your like, what is this? Yeah, it's been like watching the cage. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like Star Trek's a cage. You're like, who are these characters? What is going on? Why does everything look weird? Why is Spock's air so weird? So this shadowy figure has shot his gun, which makes a smoke signal that spells out the words Fantastic Four. And this is a call to action for the these other people to when they see the words in the sky, that's like, okay, we got to go. We're finally being activated like secret agents. They know. Yep. They all like secret agents. They've never had a mission before. This is their first mission. And the first thing they do is start tearing up the city. Exactly. So Sue Storm is a, she's this lady who's having a tea with a society friend we're told. And when she sees the side, she decides to turn invisible and walk away. I don't know why she needed to be invisible. Yeah. She goes through the street and people over and people are like, something rushed past it. Why is she invisible? Don't know. This is typical. Typical. Because she can be. Yeah, it's very difficult. Because we need a demonstration. Well, yes, of course. Yes. Yes. And similarly, you know, we cut to Ben Grimm. This enormous figure shopkeeper is telling him that we'm sorry, we don't have anything in your size. Yeah. Even though he's indoors, he manages to see the signal about the window somehow. And then he probably strips off all the clothes he's wearing. Yes. Exactly. He's a monster. Why did he need to do that? He's exactly as monstrous with the clothes as he is without them. Yes. And that they weren't kind of fighting his identity. So why not just stay hidden? And interestingly, his dialogue is very formal. Right? No, not the, I guess he's from, he really turns into Jack Kirby, you know, later in the series. He's got a very kind of Brooklyn or Queens kind of, for example, at this case, in this stage, bat everywhere, it is the same. I live in a world too small for me, not even contractions for crying out loud. Yeah, exactly. Yes. Yes. I noticed that too. Yeah. He just talks pretty much like Ridge Richards does at this point. Yes. And we also learned that they live in Central City. With the buy. Yes. Not even New York. It's not New York. Central City is also, I think, where the flash leads. Yeah. Oh, and that's right. Different company. Okay. So, as Jordan said, the thing goes in a rampage. He starts smashing through doors, smashing through streets, crushing cars. He's just trying to get to read Richards, really. He bash it. He goes into the subway, sorry, subway to Suez. Yeah. He decides he's close enough. And then he bashes his way out through the street. Yeah. He doesn't even want to find a manhole. Yep. Pretty responsible. Now we meet Johnny Storm, who is a, he's this kid who loves hot rods, and he's working on a car. But then he sees the number four in the sky, as the others did. And he turns into fire and flies up into the air. Not just that, but he just starts melting stuff. Yes. Absolutely. So he's just, this guy's hot rods. It was the other two. Very hard on. Yeah. He just melts the roof and flies out. He melts the car. I think he melts a window later. Yeah. Suez gets in a taxi and rides the taxi without telling the taxi driver where she wants to go. Then she decides she's just close enough. Then she gives him money. She's still invisible. Why? Why did I want to just turn visible and pay him money instead of freaking this taxi driver out? At this point, the army starts chasing Johnny Storm, not knowing this flaming figure in the sky. He starts melting the jets and they fire a nuclear missile item, which read Richard's stretchy arms, reach up and grab. Yeah. Everybody in this is super careless. Yeah, it's, this is chaos. It's eight pages of chaos is what we've had so far to regular, you know, interceptors, even carry nuclear missiles. Are they allowed to shoot them at the seams? Yeah, in the city, in a major city. Yeah, crazy months. Yeah. It's all pretty crazy. Yeah. Now, once they all arrive, we get a recap, a flashback of how they became these people with these amazing powers. Yeah. Okay. So what happened was there was a fear that the commies would get to space before the Americans? Well, they would get to the cosmic cloud first. Oh, right. Yes. Okay. So, is it, did they say cosmic cloud? Something, Tim, it's something along those lines, I think. It's not specifically space, I think. I think that was just space was my space, Ben says, if you want to fly to the stars, then you piled the ship count me out. You know, we haven't done enough research into the effect of cosmic rays. They might kill us all out in space. Sue says, Ben, we've got to take that chance unless we want the commies to beat us to it. I never thought that you would be a coward. Yeah, that doesn't seem to be anything more than let's get to space before Russia does. They just want to beat them in the space race. Now, so this was published in. When was this published? 61. That was, that's the same year as the first man space flight. Yeah, of course not. Yeah. So Reed is a big brain scientist. His brain gets bigger and bigger over the years. He becomes a real super genius by the time you get to like issue 30, 40, 50 in there. He wants this big log, Ben Grimm, the pilot the ship, but Ben thinks it's crazy, but Sue calls Ben a coward. And that's the thing that drives him mad. He's like, I'm a coward. Nobody calls me a coward. I'm going to go to space. Yeah. So, given what happens later, this is really also very irresponsible because it ruins his life. She knows that calling him a coward is going to get him to do it. It's just like Marty McFly, you know, you call him chicken. Yeah, he'll do it. Exactly. And it's not good for him because he turns into a big orange blob. Yeah. So they, they go to their rocket station. They sneak in. They sneak in. And we should mention why take Johnny and Sue along. That's right. Sue says, don't say it, Reed. I'm your fiance where you go. I go. That's space. And I'm tagging along with Sis. So it's settled. That's right. And in the movie that we're going to talk about, it's no more logical than this. Exactly. Point in the movie. And this, I mean, she's these two people are not qualified. They're just going to space. Yeah. They just want to tag along. No training. Nothing else needed. That's not an official mission. So I guess it's fine because they have to actually sneak into the spaceport. Right. Right. At night. That's right. Past and armed guard. They fly up into space and then the ship is bathed in cosmic rays, which is something they were worried about. Yes. And sure enough, when they land on Earth, they crash landing. They crash. They climb out and they're all very strange. So Sue starts turning invisible, including her clothes. And Ben starts turning into this weird like rock monster. His clothes tear off of him. His clothes don't turn into rock. He gets really angry that he's become this weird ugly creature and he starts attacking Reed. Oh, also he's jealous. He has a romantic interest in Sue, even though they're engaged and he is constantly annoyed that her feelings for him. So she had his responses to that read out of Joes. Reed starts stretching like plastic man. He's basically a plastic man rip off. He starts stretching into all sorts of weird rubbery shapes. His clothes also stretch into weird rubbery shapes. I think he needs unstable molecules. Yes. Exactly. At this stage, I think later on the human and the human torch lights up, but his clothes don't burn. His clothes don't burn. He later on, he'll need asbestos clothes. That's right. Good old asbestos safe as houses. But at this point, his clothes just don't burn up. So I think he lives in a huge asbestos room eventually. Yeah, yeah, that's the lampshades made of asbestos. Exactly. It's kind of how it's like the excuse for every like covers all the fire damage, everything anything fire related is covered by asbestos, much like the cosmic rays just cover whatever their power is. They're sure cosmic rays though, though, they're mysterious. Asbestos is a real thing. Yes, that's true. Also, not good for you. Yeah. So a poor old Johnny Storm probably has a passema. Yeah. Yes. So all four of them have four different have had very different reactions to these rays. It's not like uniform. They've all got very different powers. And the rest of this issue, they fight a villain called the Mole Man. I don't think we need to go too deep into this. He's this guy that was he like ostracized by society? Yeah, because he had, because he looks, because he's ugly. And he was ostracized, he went to live underground. And then he just said, I'm going to go mole themed. And he just, this is relevant to the in that in the movie, they wanted to have Mole Man and they couldn't get the rights. And so they had to substitute another. We'll talk about that when we get to it. That's true. It's, it's very rough. It's not like Mole Man's presence is becomes known to the fore when he starts destroying nuclear power plants. That's right. All around the world, including in Australia, where, of course, there is no nuclear power. Yes. Yeah. Issue two was not one of the ones you wanted to talk about. I read like one through eight. I'll just say about number two, number, number one was their very first mission, number two, they're already world famous. Right. Word travels fast. Yes. Yeah. Well, I think he, I think Stanley was kind of smart about having different types of superhero groups. Right. So it had like this famous one, and then he'd have like the X-Men that couldn't be famous. Right. Like all the, all the books were quite different thematically. So actually that we should talk about the four characters that are on the team a bit too. And I think it, they evolved pretty quickly. They get to handle on how they should be handling this group of people. So Reed, as I mentioned, is a big great big brain. He's older. He's got great temples. A little bit unusual for Marvel character. They tended to be a bit younger young people characters. Yeah. Sue is a woman. She's a woman. She's so scared of the team. She's constantly bringing them tea and coffee and sandwiches, things like that. This is 1961. Yeah. Later on, her power develops so she can form force fields. Like it's kind of an extension of her invisibility power. And she, oh, of course later, she becomes known as invisible woman, not invisible girl. Yeah, I think that didn't change until John Byrne did it. Oh, really? Okay. Okay. Pretty sure. Okay. So Johnny is the young teenage hothead. Hothead. Get it? Yes. As we mentioned, he loves fast cars. And he loves playing pranks on Ben Grimm, the thing. And Ben becomes, as we mentioned before, kind of very, very much like a Jack Kirby himself was even draws himself. He draws the thing looking like himself almost in some panels later on. Yeah. And he's constantly annoyed and he wants to be human again. Yeah. And he's angry at Reed and Reed is constantly trying to come up with toys to transform him back. Yes. And they usually work for a few minutes and then we're off. But Reed's like, I'm not going to give up. We'll keep trying. But he's cantankerous of arrestable grumpy and he's always clashing with Johnny Storm. Yes. And lots of other people cooking the Yangtze street gang. They become a kind of side character throughout the series that are like some more Jack Kirby is jumping in there. Yeah. The street gangs. Yes. This is sort of very Stanley because they spend half the time fighting monsters and half the time fighting on another. Yes. Very much so. They're very kind of dysfunctional. Yeah. Well, yeah. And I guess that was something unusual in comics very much. Especially compared to like JLA, where everybody was getting like getting along superheroes that were all like we're all the big guys. Totally well balanced moral paragons. Exactly. Exactly. And I suppose if we can flatter Lee a bit. One of his big contributions I suppose to comics is that beside the idea of extraordinary characters having ordinary problems like not getting on with your own. Yes. Yes. Well, Alan Moore ding ding ding ding described this very well in that he said that DC's characters were one dimensional. They were just aunties or uncles that were all good. That was it. They were one dimensional. And he said that Stanley's major breakthrough was that his characters were two dimensional. They would have like they would be your aunties or uncles but they would have trouble with girls or money or something like that. They would have one thing that they were struggling with. Which actually works really well for Fantastic Four. They've all got kind of one thing and the four of them play off each other. And you know by issue five six seven eight. It's really the wheels are turning pretty well I think I think the plot still don't make any sense. No, the plot story, but the family dynamic is really working whenever those pages are happening. I would agree with that. The plots are just craziness things just happened for no reason in the more man issue. More men. I think Johnny storm and Miss Fantastic Perhaps end up in the subterranean kingdom. Yeah. And they pass out because of blinding light. And when they wake up more man's put them in anti blinding light suits. That was how we resolved that problem. Yes. The moment took the time to dress them, undress them. I guess he undress them out of what they were wearing and put this skin tight kind of like wetsuit thing on them with hood. That's a big job. Yep. And he cared enough to do it and then he tries to kill them straight after. I'm just really think what the. Yes. Yes. And Sue tends to get captured a lot in these early shoes. But she does tend sometimes is the one that rescues them because it's true she is and we even get an issue reminding us of that. Yes, that's right. So she tends to turn visible again or turning visible and then get away from the bad guy and rescue the team. But her other thing is she tends to fall in love with people like name or even though she's engaged she and any time anybody handsome comes along she's like ooh this guy. Oh dear. And it's kind of typically like that I'll remember some other soup bits as we as we go along they're usually quite bizarre. Speaking of bizarre team did you read the miracle man issue. Yes. What is that three. Yes issue three I believe yeah yeah I was kind of surprised by that one I think I had read one through six a long time ago my brother and I had the pocketbook edition. I think it was one through six, because number seven was I read number seven that was completely new to. But this one I love because it was all a dream almost is out this one summed up right. There's this character miracle man. He's performing on stage he can do anything any miracle I guess right you know we would call him a reality author in modern kind of like power parlance. He could become impervious to harm he could turn a giant key into a machine gun. He can animate an enormous statue made of paper mache and wood to go rampaging through the streets. And kind of the at the end Stanley decides that he did it all with hypnosis right. You just imagine the door and reads like I figured it out. And I'm like you figured it out. He did he did he hypnotized a crowd at one point. Yeah, you know that all thought they saw this paper mache monster. Did you hypnotize Ben Grimm into pulling his punch when he hits miracle man in the face. Yeah, yeah, none of it makes any sense however issue three also brings us the fantastic car which is this vehicle that they fly around in that becomes a fixture of the series. It has telepathic controls. Yes, right. And Sue also creates the the outfits for the team in this issue. So again this the team as we know it in the present day starting to take shape at this point. issue five. Is our doctor doom issue right we're introduced to the character of doctor doom who we learn was a old university classmate of reads who became interested in the dark arts and magic and was doing some sort of experiment and like blew himself up. And scarred his face and I wears this mask. And he lives in a castle we don't know much more about that in this issue. Many years later we learned that he's actually king of this country called Latvia. The area. Yeah, he kidnaps the fantastic for and force read recognized as his voice and forces them to go back in time to steal blackbeard's treasure. Yeah, so I was kind of surprised by this because a few months ago I watched the whole 90s fantastic for cartoon. Okay, and that this is a story that they adopted for the cartoon. That's nice. Was it just as bonkers. Did they arrive in pretty much you know 17th century Caribbean and nearby there were some pirates that have just done a big clothes swiced. So they can they can grab outfits straight away because there's two pirates squabbling about how they're going to divide up the loot from the big clothes robbery they've just performed. Yeah. When I was really struck by was how much they could cram in one issue when they did such compressed storytelling. Yeah, that's true. We're reading the early amazing spider man stuff for the patreon show but still like wow they got this whole story into one issue. What happens, Dr Doom, as you say he arrives at the tower he traps them in the tower he outsmarts them he takes Sue hostage with Sue hostage he forces them to board the helicopter where he then flies them to his castle where is his castle. I guess it's somewhere in the US. Much like doom in the movies castle. He then announces he has a time machine. He's going to send them back he wants them to steal blackfields jewels they go back in time. They steal the clothes off the squabbling pirates they find black beard or do they, they find who they think is black beard but then it turns out the thing is black beard. When he decides to stay in the past then a typhoon hits his ship sinks he changes his mind before they go back to the present read says well we can't I'm not going to give doom these jewels because if you wanted them that's bad. The jewels are all lost anyway in the storm there they end up on the bottom of the ocean. There is something funny there. When they leave when they go back in time they they agree to the submission because they've got Sue hostage. They say okay we'll get the treasure we'll get the treasure fine they say this twice when they arrive in the past they decide to swap out chains into the jewels they figure there's something powerful in the jewels. Read says if doom wants them that's reason enough for me not to give them. In which case I think I see where you're going to come up but why did they try and get them in the first place. Wait wait but he says read says we promised we could bring the treasure chest we never said treasure I flipped back he does say treasure twice. He did not mention the chest they never mention the chest. Also doctor dim gives him 48 hours I don't understand why. Why doesn't he just it's time travel they can be back there for 10 years and then just bring them back to 24 hours later 40 hours later when they're old and correct it yeah bring more than 10 minutes later. Maybe it's one of those one of the yeah exactly doesn't make any sense maybe it's one of those conceits where time passes in the. It really means it that Jack wanted the credit for the story maybe it's like the valiant comic universe with where it's in real time. Yeah it's crazy to me Jack really fought for credit on these well not crazy but I mean I mean because the family dynamics working but these stories are still add up at all. Why would they even go for the why did they even try to find the jewels if read had no intention of ever giving the jewels to do anyway. They could have just sat where they landed and waited the 48 hours that's true yeah they could have just found a treasure chest nearby. It's just making it up just lying around they just treasure chest everywhere in that time and please. Yeah exactly they go back doom opens the chest surprise surprise it's chains the fantasy boy haven't even left yet so he's like well you guys are screwed I'm going to suck all the oxygen out of this room also he's a doom bot. That's right introduction of the doom bot yeah he's not sucking the air out of the room so he has to come down and rescue them they blow up his castle this is all one issue. Yeah yeah it's crazy yeah issue eight introduces us to the puppet master and his stepdaughter Alicia master yeah I did not know she was a stepdaughter. No I didn't know that now he just said daughter maybe it's been retconned maybe she really was his daughter she calls him father. And he said roll me father I'm only your stepfather which is something no one's ever said. But perhaps she wants him to be the father so perhaps that's the version that she remembers in the future. This puppet master guy is a guy who found some radioactive clay radiation again a marvel universe does everything as everything as every day. He sent some radioactive clay and if he molds people into the more if he molds the clay into the shape of a person he can control that person how does this work. How does the clay know how does the clay know what person it has been shaped into. I don't know. I don't know. Absolutely mind. So anyway he's also going to test this for the first time to mix a guy climb up a bridge and he's going to make this guy jumped his death. Johnny Storm comes up he flies by grabs a guy with his hands on fire skies on harm by Johnny grabbing him by fire that's weird okay. We get a page in the very I think the next issue explaining how that happened because he instinctively turns off his fly when he touches human skin. Oh, okay. Well actually it's a page that's just inserted in the issue here. Oh, it's the same issue for a feature page. Oh yeah. Oh, I see. Okay. This is also the page that explains that he can, he can create a supernova fireball, which is how do they know that he can do this. Has he done this because his solution will not exist anymore if he created a supernova out of his hands. He read just take this out from his DNA he knows he's the potential of it. I don't know. I mean they made up the character so they can he can do anything they wanted. So because Johnny saved this guy, puppet master's angry and wants to kill Johnny. So for revenge he carves a sculpture of the thing that he control. Why doesn't he carve Johnny. Yep. So instead he makes the thing come to his house and he figures out that his daughter Alicia looks just like Sue Storm because Sue shows up invisible. And he's like okay I'm going to disguise you as Sue Storm and you're going to go over there with the thing and they're going to let you into the base now two questions. Why would you disguise your your blind daughter as a as a woman with sight. That's like a bad plan. Also why do they need Sue to get into the base can't thing just go home. They've already got the thing and in fact the thing takes her back. Yeah. While still under the control of a puppet master there's no reason for him to do that. Also one more thing come up he then makes a doll of Sue. Yeah. And of course we've established that you make a doll that looks exactly like the person and that's how you control it. Alicia looks exactly like Sue. Yes. And is dressed exactly like Sue. So how does the doll know the difference. Yes. How does the clay know which one is the real soon. Yes. Great question. Then he forms a he forms a puppet of the the the warden not the warden of the prison but like the trustee the trustee of the warden. Why not just form a puppet of the warden to steal a key out of his desk. And we only ever see the trustees hand we don't even know what the guy looks like. No. Very strange. So I don't know he wants a prison riot to happen. I can't remember there is reason for that. Me neither. Yeah I don't remember but in the end. He just wants to create chaos. Yes. Yes. So after the big fight and after they stop the prison break. The puppet master has made a puppet himself as a king. Well first he's coming up you've missed some crazy stuff. Okay. So first of all he's made a giant puppet. Yes. That he controls. So hang on. Oh that's right. How does this work. Did he make the giant puppet of the radioactive clay. Or did he make a smaller puppet of the giant puppet out of the radioactive clay. In which case where did the giant puppet come from. Yes. You can control inanimate objects now. Yes. Just as a flying horse. Yes. Yeah. Yeah that's the next crazy thing. He has a jet powered flying horse. Right. What's the story with this horse. Did he just build a jet powered flying horse. In that case why is he fucking around with radioactive clay. Yeah. Yeah. He found the clay. He found the clay. He's not going to not use the clay. He found this magic clay. Then finally he also can't make up his mind because with the horse he says it's my greatest puppet of all. And then a few pages later he's got a different greatest puppet of all. Yes. They're all the greatest. Yeah. Well the best bit is that he makes puppet of himself. Would you ever make a voodoo doll of yourself. Exactly. Right now make himself king. Somehow the puppet of himself is going to make it. Why don't you just make yourself king. He's just made it. He hasn't even made it to make himself king. He's just made it to fun. For fun. This is what he's made out of radio. He's stupidly made it out of his magic clay. So when it falls on the ground he trips over Alicia's hand which the other people didn't have to have an easy comics horror type solution for this. Like they would just fall over and the doll fell over. He got monkey pulled. But he trips over her hand as if it's a curse. And then he goes out the window. And then he falls out the window to his death. Except he's mad later. Does he come back later does he? I guess he does. Oh yeah. Lots of times. This is not the end of the puppet. And Alicia becomes a major, Alicia becomes a major like the romantic figure for the thing. Because they're married in current continuity. And I think maybe there's like a bit of jealousy with Johnny as well. Like maybe Ben thinks that she's interested in Johnny or she is interested in Johnny. Oh boy. I can't remember. I feel like there was a period when she was dating Johnny. There was also a period where she was dating the silver surfer. But then they put her back together with thing. Oh comics. Oh well. Okay. Well I just want to mention issue. Were there any other issues up to the number eight that you wanted to mention Tim? So they also have this building called the Baxter Building which appeared in issue three. Which is like this. Right. And you already had. You spotted this to Tim. Go ahead. We only saw the name on the side of the building. Nobody ever said Baxter Building. Okay. Right. What would you think you enjoyed it? I was thinking that it already has the. It has fours on it before they've even decided that they're the fantastic four. Ah well. Yeah. When they fly out of it in the fantastic car. I think it has four. That's in the movie. It's in the comics. Yeah. In the movie. But it's right. They're already called the the fantastic four by issue three. Oh because of the thing he shoots in the air. There's something in the air and they're the fantastic four. Oh yeah. In that first edition. Sorry. In that first issue. It says fantastic four like two words. Yeah. And I think he decided that's not a realistic thing for a player gun to shoot into the air. So after that it's just a four with a circle around. Right. Even in the same issue. It's just a four with a circle around it. Well I don't know. Realism is not a concern here. I think it's just that it takes a bit. It takes a bit of space. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Issue. Oh sorry. Tim you were saying. Yeah. No I didn't need to say anything about the others. Well we do have an appearance from Namor. He's reintroduced to the Marvel universe. Okay. Briefly teams up with Dr. Doom. Okay. Right. So issue 11. Break support wall and defend us for address the readers. Now in early issue number five the doom issue. So Johnny is reading a whole comic at one stage. I knew you were going to mention this. I have to tell you Tim. This whenever the comic appears in the comic it flips some kind of switching commands brain. You just can't handle it. He short circuits. Yeah. Well I can kind of. I mean they did this a lot in the early Marvels where there was a company called Marvel Comics that was making comics about these heroes that lived in the world. So there are fantastic four comics in the world of the fantastic four universe and the whole comics in that world that's been established. We even meet Stan and Jack in one issue at some stage. Right. So in this issue 11 there's a story where the readers are addressed. They get reader fan mail from readers and they address them and one of the letters is about how soon is useless. So she starts. She breaks down into tears about this. Of course. And this read has to say how. They both read and read and. Abe Abe mentioned that Abe remember his famous remark about his mother the time he said that all he was all he'd ever hoped to be he owed to her. So reads point is that yes who is useless in a fight. But she's an inspiration to us like Abraham Lincoln's mother. And that's why she's worthy of being on the sort of damning with my praise. But then Ben Grimm goes on to mention all the times that she rescues them. Yes. With her invisibility powers and he says if you want to see broad scrapping go watch the wrestling. That's right. That's right. It's actually a pretty good line. Yes. Yeah. See if you readers want to see women fighting all the time then go see lady wrestlers. Yes. That's actually a pretty good line much better than much better than reads one about Lincoln's mother. Honestly. Yeah. Okay. So I think we've kind of covered the main thing is the dynamics of the team. Yep. I think more than the stories and maybe the origin the points of the origins of the characters. We get a bit of their background in the issue 11 as well where they talk about how Ben was a fighter pilot and second world war. Read riches was in OSS or whatever the American equivalent was. And yeah, but that's not as important as as you say the fact that they're a squabbling kind of nuclear family. And also we've covered a few important story beats. Yes. Which are going to crop up in our film, which we will discuss. Yes. Also, many years later, I think it's like in the 90s, we were finally told what Sue's PhD was. We don't know anything about our education at this stage. But months later on that stuff is covered. Now. Okay. So we're going to get to this movie, which for years I called the Roger Korman. We even did a top of this episode, but it's not really Roger Korman. Yes, produced by him, but not directed. But I did want to point out that we had several animated versions of Fantastic Four before this, but they were all very short lived. So 1967, Hannah Barbera. That was 20 episodes. 1978, the Freelink Company did 13 apps is only 13 with her be the robot. Yes. Yeah, that's right. I'm not sure if Johnny Stone. 94, we had 26 episodes presumably to tie in with the movie. I'm guessing this was produced. Perhaps. And then we added 2006 version and it was only 26. Very hard even to get animated series out of a really great comics property. This should be easy. This should be going gangbusters. It is awesome characters all around. It's Jack Kirby, Full throttle by the time you get to issue 30 or 40. I remember first, which was the Fred Flintstone thing, happy hour or something. It was Saturday morning, 13 episodes in 1979. So I would have been five years old, but this one didn't have a fan of support. Only had the thing. And he was a kid who had these magic rings and he would slam them together and say, thing ring, do your thing. So in fact, the word thing and thing. The rhyme was thing and thing. Thing ring, do your thing. And he would, and all these rocks would fly in and attach to him. I forgot about that. I don't think I ever watched it. I just heard about it and didn't want to watch it. I absolutely watched that. It was probably my first exposure to the Fantastic Four. Unless they were on the Mary Marvel Marching Society. But yeah, almost definitely that was my first exposure. That 1990s Fantastic Four cartoon series. Definitely not made to coincide with the film. I think it came out a year later. And probably following on from the success of the X-Men cartoon. Right. Of the early 90s. By that point, the conspiracy quote unquote. To bury this film was well underway. And it definitely wouldn't have had anything to do with the film. Okay. So we've got this movie directed by Olay Susson. Susson. Mostly TV director. He did a lot of music videos in the 70s and 80s. Apparently successfully. Right. So not the first director we've discussed who began with music videos and moved it onto comic book movies. Right. Right. Direct a written by a fellow named Craig Nevius. Who was the mastermind behind a TV show called Black Scorpion. Which is like the sexy superhero lady kind of TV show. So I guess is kind of in his wheelhouse is kind of material. And then there's a second writer credit in Kevin Rock. I don't know anything about it. He writes or something. Yeah, it could be. Hard to imagine somebody rewrote this. It's fine. Workman like. Especially since they're probably on a weekend to do it. You're really going to spend another weekend ending at somebody else? I think the script is not the worst thing about it. For me, my two biggest complaints were bad miking of the actors and bad lighting. So much of it is dark. Like what is going on in there? Yeah, partly because we've got a bad copy. Even the one that's been cleaned up the one we watched. And as for the miking, there was no looping. No, that's right. On this movie because by that point, well, there's. Well, depends on how deep we're going to go and at what point. But if this didn't move, it didn't get a proper post production. It's the money stopped coming. But it was a post. But people who aren't wearing masks is kind of hard to make out what they're saying. The audio quality is poor. Part of that is the version we have. Also, I would say the lighting is probably deliberately dark to cover up bad sets and effects and stuff like that. Absolutely. Because it was at the famous Venice studios in California, Roger Coleman's studio, which at that point was a condemned building. With rats. With rats crawling around the sound matting and a single cat called Lucy in charge of keeping the rats down. Apparently the fire wardens had literally condemned the building. And according to the casting director or someone in charge of the interview in the documentary doomed, which I also watched. He said that they kept the door open at all times because on the reverse of the door was a notice saying this building has been condemned. So yes, I imagine also I imagine they kept the light low to make the things costume look better. And I must say that whenever the things costume is shot in low light, it looks pretty bloody good. Yes, I think the animatronics in the face and stuff are pretty impressive. Yeah, I was surprised by that. That's where it looks like we're actually moving. Yeah. The face is expressive. It's pretty good. Maybe the best thing about the movie. I think so. I really love the thing in this. I think it's my favorite thing. Actually, I think maybe to jump my head, I actually think the actors are pretty well cast. Like that actor, the actor that looks like the Ben Grimm version looked like Ben Grimm. Like in that kind of rock show. Reed was very handsome. Sue was very beautiful. Well, you sure was very beautiful. Oh, yeah. I'm crushing on her now. Oh, yeah. Beyond that actor, Rebecca Starb, who played Sue Storm, she will not be surprised to hear as a former model and a Miss Nebraska. And the guy that played Ben Grimm, name of Alex Hyde White, apparently Stan Lee would frequent the set. Wait, Alex was... Oh, no, sorry. That's some re-rich it. Sorry. I apologize. It's Michael Bailey Smith is the guy that played the thing. Ben Grimm, not the thing. Well, yeah. Ben Grimm, not the thing. Correct. Correct. Apparently, Stan Lee would hang around the set a lot. This is true. For a film that Stan Lee later disowned and spoke very negatively about at the time, apparently he had nothing better to do than visit the set a lot. Yeah. Well, Hyde White said that he even brought donuts one time. Right. Well, speaking of the... Oh, he said... Sorry, come on. Go ahead. You like this, come on. This is particularly your funny bone. He apparently said to Michael Bailey Smith that you are who I was thinking of when I invented the thing. Oh boy. Oh, wow. That's a whole podcast on its own. Wow. Exactly. Okay. Well, I did want to talk about the story. Okay. So first, I need to mention the credits because there is no mention of Marvel Comics, Stan Lee or Jack Kirby in the opening credits or the end credits. At the very end, we get fenced for a copyright in Marvel Comics, which is very strange to me because at this point in time, the Batman movies are still making money. Why wouldn't you advertise that you were based on a comic book, a Marvel comic book? And as you, you know, the X-Men cartoon is probably going off at this stage. Why not just admit to that? It's very strange in the credits. I agree. Yeah. What do you think about the theme? It's very rare to see this. Sorry, just a second. It's very rare to see this pretty much every team, every movie that we've reviewed, all, you know, 107 of them have almost always acknowledged in some way, shape or form what they're based on. Yeah. So sometimes they will be very, especially pre 1989, they will be very shy about saying that they're based on a comic book. They'll kind of dance around it. They'll say story based on the story by or based on the graphic novel or based on the property or the creation. Yeah. Based on characters created by some characters created by, yes. But almost always to the point that I imagine it's a contractual obligation that you have to acknowledge the original source. That's why it's so strange that in this case, it hasn't, except at the very, very end of the credits. Yeah. Bit of a puzzler. Yeah. What do you make of the music good or bad? I was surprised at the quality, actually. Okay. They get John Williams for this, they didn't, but I think they, I was going to say they ripped off John Williams. John Williams also famously just ripped off all his riffs from other people anyway. This is a good score. I was watching the movie and my wife was nearby and she said, Oh, that's really nice. I'm really enjoying the piano. Okay, good. And my life is musician. So, okay, good. It's pretty good. Yeah. Correct. Correct. They spent $6,000 of their own money in order to get the music finished because they were that passion. And it's not, they're not the only people to spend their own money on this movie. Right. Right. Okay. So we start at a university, Reed Richards is in the class. He's setting next to Ben Grimm. There's a teacher, he's talking about, the professor is talking about this comment that's coming by, called the Colossus. Does it only come by once every 10 years? Does he say 10 years? Yeah. A radioactive comet-like energy source traveling in 10 year orbits that tonight will be the closest to Earth that it will ever come. Okay. Except in 10 years when it's just as close apparently. Yes. So, Reed's classmate Victor is sitting behind him. They're working on designs for some sort of rocket. I'm significantly bigger. Victor doesn't seem to have a last name. No. No, he doesn't. That's right. Well, it's a very important point. He doesn't have a last name. Oh, no, he's Victor Vaughn. His last name is Vaughn. Like, I'm guessing it's V-A-U-G-H-N. Like Vince Vaughn. Did they ever say that? I think they do. At some stage. My old classmate Victor Vaughn. And they seem to be, it's not so much a rocket as it's some sort of antenna or device to draw down the power of Colossus. Except separate experiments. Very confusing. There's two experiments going on. There's like a rocket experiment and there's an energy experiment, I think. Oh, is there a rocket experiment? I thought that was- I don't know. They're passing designs back and forth and I'm not sure what the designs are for. I think they're talking about the device that we see them using later to draw the energy from Colossus. Okay, so they have this experiment going to draw the energy down from Colossus. Reed doesn't think it's ready. Victor in classic, like hubris scientist mode is like, no, it's going to work and we're going to do it tonight. This is our chance. Yeah, he promises Reed, they'll run just one more set of simulations, but then goes back on his promise because as you say, he's got that classic Dr. Doom hubris. It can't be wrong. Yes, so they draw down the power. Of course, the machine explodes. Victor is zapped with all sorts of energy from Colossus. I actually thought they were all going to get their powers in this moment because a lot of superhero movies do tie the origins together these days. Yeah, well, in fact, they do that. They've done that with both more recent iterations of Dr. Doom's origins, haven't they? At this point, at this point, Sue and Johnny are kids. That's true. Good point. Yes. Yep, in fact, they visit Mrs. Storm's boarding house as it is on the side as a living there, I guess. Yes, he is living there to get something. Yes, he is living there. And little Sue, Sue's like 12, 13 years old. She has a mad crush on Reed. We get some delightful Frank Miller-esque pre-teen crushing on an older male here. Yeah. Now, there's something I want to point out about this scene because this actress looked very familiar to me who plays Young Sue. Yes. She is an actress named Mercedes McNabb, who was on Buffy Vampire Slayer as the preppy girl. But then I looked her up and she's actually in both Adam's family movies as different characters. She is the girl guy that tries to sell cookies to Wednesday. Are they made from real girl scouts? Yes, that's her. Yes, Mercedes McNabb. Yes, I spotted that. So now she's been in two comic book movie of Vivian films. And also, yeah. But she's on the way. She's on the way. And also the guy that played Reed. What was his name, Clyde? Alex Hyde White. Yeah, so he's going to hit three because he was in Captain America. The second Captain America TV movie, which someday we will cover. That's right. I hate it. So I guess we're jumping into a comic book movie of Vivian early. All stars early. As you pointed out, Alex Hyde White who played Reed, he was in Captain America 2 Death Too Soon, the 1979 TV movie in which he played Young Man. And he's also in the Adventures of Tintin, which we will eventually get to. And I was interested that his father was Wilfred Hyde White, who I only knew because some months ago I found out about the 1979 sitcom The Associates that he was in. It was the first TV series appearance for Martin Short. He was one of the stars of that show. Well, yes, I think both Alex White and another one of the other actors both had famous actors. Joseph Kolp who played Victor Von Doom was the son of Robert Kolp. Thank you. Come on. Yeah. Okay, so there's a big explosion. Victor is getting all burnt up. You see his face get all burned up. Yes, it is. Typical supervillain origin. And he takes a breath in. Awesome. Yes. Yes. Yes. And he is presumed dead. Right. Well, not quite. They take him to the hospital. Yes. Ben runs in and saves him. Gets burned in the process. They take to the hospital. And then two very suspicious doctors tell Reed, but I'm sorry, he passed away from his burns. I am taking him to the morgue now. Yeah. This guy's excellent. I love it. I had a question here. Yeah. So those two doctors. Yeah, I have a lot of questions. They turn out to be Doom's henchmen later, but we see them on the college campus playing chess before the Colossus come. Yes. And like, why are they there? Does he have those Victor have henchmen? Why do they have a declared Victor dead? Well, that's the real question. I figured they were just keeping tabs on him. They were from wherever he's from. Why not just say, oh, he's a lot. He's a lot. He's a lot. He's from chance. He's fine. Let's give him some bandages and take him home. Why do they have to say he pretend he's dead? This is a really good question. Why? And also, if he's been very badly, if you need to rest, they say we need to revive him. We need to hurry. So if you need to revive a person that's been badly burned, he's taking him out of the hospital, the best plan for some. I don't get it. Wild. Well, he needs to be. They need to think he's dead, so he can make his dramatic company. Did he break the law or something and they need to keep him out of jail? I don't get it. Okay. They've decided he's better off back in the home country of America because his castle clearly is in America. Yeah. Pennsylvania. Well, later on, there's a really hard to make out line where he apparently says where he's from, but I can't even make out some of it. Huh. Oh, it's just some of that very muffled dialogue that right that Joseph needs to come back and do in ADR, which he is willing to do as he states in the documentary. He's just waiting for that call. Yeah. Actually, he just this year, in fact, started a change.aud petition. This is Joseph Kolb. Okay. In March of this year, urging Disney to release this movie, or at least acknowledge it in some way, shape or form. Right. He's one of the class members, one of the people involved in the film that's never given up on the idea that it should be released. Yeah. I mean, you'd think that they could use this as kind of a promo for the upcoming movie. The actors in the documentary say over and over. Why not just release it? Yeah. People will buy it. It's well, you know what? It's like a people say, why doesn't George Lucas just release the original trilogy on editing? People will buy it because there's more going on than just money here. Batwoman? What about the Warner Brothers Batwoman that they completed, edited, finished, and then did not release? I want to talk about Batwoman, but we're going to return, like, the mystery of why this film was never released is interesting. Okay. We will discuss it. Okay. So now we cut to 10 years later. I was shocked when this came up on screen. But then I should have been because we knew that Sue Storm is a little girl in the opening scene. Yeah. Yeah. And now Reed has gray hair. He's going to prematurely gray. I would say because he was a college university student in the 10 before the 10 year skip. Yeah, he's a rad student. We don't know. I don't know because Sue's like 12 years old. Yeah. I really don't. I really need him to be like early 20s. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. That is what we prefer. Given the age difference. And how long he's been over? I don't think it would go over well now. No, I'm 30 years ago. My head cannon is she was she's like maybe 24 and he's 29. Yeah. Premature we gray. That's my head cannon. You can't take this from me. Yeah. So he is building a rocket. I'm not sure why. I think the comments coming back around because it's been 10 years. He is building this rocket. He wants Ben to pilot it. They're like, we need two more people on our crew. They go over to the, what was the house, the boarding house. Yeah. And they recruit these as as Tim said earlier, they just walk into like, hey, join us. We're going to go in a space. They asked their mom. Ask Johnny and Sue's mom. Can Johnny and Sue come with us to space or whatever it is. Yeah, that's right. That's exactly what Ben grooves is. And, and then Reed is having second thoughts. He's telling Johnny, like, maybe you shouldn't. And then Sue shows up. Oh, Sue's gorgeous. So she has to come with us. Yes. Yes. Yes. That's exactly what happens. In my notes, I've got take this hot chick to space. Yes. Yes. Gorgeous. Yeah. I mean, only sussone. He's done a good job of photographing her like he really knew what he was doing. And we get the name, the title drop. It's Mrs. Storm. She says, look at you for the fantastic four. Yes. That's lovely sort of schmaltzy music. Very much like the Donner Superman scene where Lois Lane is like, what a Superman. Hmm. Superman. Like that. Yeah, or like a gut. We don't talk about Guardians of the Galaxy, but there's a similar scene. Yes. In that way, it's sort of plundered off. Yeah. So. Yeah. Okay. So the, it's very difficult to get to tell what's going on here. Are they going to get a spice? I bet they need to go look into diamonds. You didn't then have this giant diamond in a suitcase, giant diamond in a suitcase that they're taking into, I guess, the building where they work. This is the biggest diamond to ever exist. It's huge. Just like the size of your head. And they go into this building. Meanwhile, and when they go in, Ben accidentally bumps into this blind woman. And she's got it. She's carrying a statue that she's molded and it smashes on the floor. Yeah. And she's very upset. And to make her less upset, he decides to manhandle her. Yes. And then she says, this is a blind person. He grabs her, picks her up, I think sort of hugs her for a bit, and then plalks her down and says, you're all right, baby, I've got you. Yeah. And then, and then she catches the blind woman. And she touches his face and she says, I can sense you're a good person. Yeah, lucky. And then they walk away. Yep. She walks away. She leaves her broken statue. They go upstairs. That's it. Yeah. I don't think they didn't even get each other's names in this scene. Yeah. And then Ben Ben says, it's hard to hear. They're there, but this echo we stare well, but Ben says like, I'm in love. And then he's talking with Reed about that as they're going up the stairs. You're in love with her. Why don't you go get a number out? Maybe. Just let her go. Just let her walk up with the shattered remains of a statue. Meanwhile, there's a character that I thought was the mole man is observing Alicia Masters from a hole in the wall. First he's, I think he's here to see the diamond, but yeah, he goes on going after the diamond first. He comes out of a manhole. Yeah. Yeah. We know that it was supposed to be the mole man, but well, we don't know. Learn who this character is for 40 minutes. We're not going to name. I assumed it was the mole man for 40 minutes of the movie. Of course. Of course. But as Tim pointed out earlier, this isn't the mole man. Right. The option that was purchased. Yeah. Yeah. But Constantine, Constantine, new Constantine pictures picked up in the early 80s, didn't cover the mole man. Instead, it's just the Fantastic Four Doctor Doom and the Silver Surfer. Because as they point out in doomed documentary and also common sense, if you purchase the option for Fantastic Four, you get hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of characters. Right. Right. Right. Just about everybody's been in Fantastic Four at some point, right? Right. So they, it specifically says, you know, you can have these three, you know, seven characters and that's it. Anyway, as Tim points out, supposed to be the mole man, but we can't call him that. So he's called the jeweler. So he sees Alicia for the first time in the scene and then falls in love with her, but he was already here for the diamond. Okay. Does this guy fall? Is there something about Alicia? Clearly, because both Ben Grimm and the jeweler have both fallen for her. Yes. After having seen her for about three seconds. Oh, again, this movie is full of attractive people and she's just another one of them. Okay. So, then and regal up to their lab, which is in this just building, I think. Yep. And they load the diamond into the, I'm not sure if this is even the lab or if it's just a separate space where they're keeping the insanely expensive diamond. I don't know what they said. Now they have the most most countries. They have this laser grid, which they said protect the diamond, but it's down close to the ground and the lasers are not invisible. You can see them. So when the jeweler, the mole man jeweler shows up, he just steps between the cracks. Anyone can do it. Not just steps. He does a skippy little dance. I thought he's a leprechaun. I thought he was a leprechaun character. I was like, okay. The leprechaun character. We still don't know. He's a jeweler at the stage of the movie. Maybe he can. Maybe he's got some sort of he's got a jewelers lens. Yeah. Maybe that lets him see the lasers. But we can see the lasers as the audience. Yes, we can see the lasers because we're where the audience, right? My head can and come out. You can't prove it's not true. Yeah. Okay. So meanwhile, this is all being observed on a monitor by Dr. Doom, who has also instructed his two henchmen, the same henchmen, two stumbling henchmen, who stole him from a hospital when he was in, had third degree bones over his whole body. Yeah. That was great. So now we've got two factions after this diamond and we've got two romances. And this is a 90 minute movie. It's actually a five minute movie. Yeah. Oh, this is happening at the same time. The jam packed like a like a 1961 comic. It sure is. And the jeweler slash moment, so I was leprechaun comes in and swaps the diamond out. Much like Indiana Jones, just how he has an identical one. Exactly the same, but made presumably of plastic. I don't how. I guess he's an expert jewel. He's a superpower. This I mean, this diamond must be a known quantity. It must be the biggest diamond that's ever been found ever. Right. I guess he knows about it. And he's made a perfect similar crop. Anyway, do watch. How did we get it? Do you explain how a grad student got this? No, he's not a grad student anymore. He's now a successful industrial. Oh, that's 10 years later. He lives in his flash pad. Oh, okay. He's rich. Okay. Anyway, it might have been explained during some day. Oh, yes. This is so Dr. Doom. Here we go. He's a bit like Dr. Claw. We only see his hands like in the inspector gadget cartoon. And he's got a voice like Bane in Batman Dark Knight Rises where you cannot understand what he's saying behind his mask. It's an absolute mask. Apparently, Dr. Doom. I noticed I watched it twice. I love that. So, before the accident, not only are Victor's henchmen around, but they're referring to him as his highness. Yes. So, like, is he a prince or something? Yeah, he's that white. He has a castle. You're right. He's the king of Latvera, but they never say another. No, they don't. And in fact, as we said, his castle seems to be in America because they didn't live in America where they said where he was. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, they do say he's high. So, I mean, we know as comic book fans that he's a king. If I didn't know anything about the Fantastic Four, I would be confused. But you know what, if we had some lines of dialogue, maybe they were there and we didn't hear them during the university scene, where Reed was like, "Oh, just because you're a prince doesn't mean you can do this blah, blah, blah." That would have helped. I kind of like that it's just the henchmen saying that he's your highness. I mean, that kind of covers it, I think. He's royalty and he has minders. Okay. But he's there. He has like a throne that he sits on and stuff in there. Anyway, he's happy because now he doesn't have to steal the gem. The leprechaun has done his job for him. Right. Because what he wanted, he wanted steal the gem because he wants to stop Reed's space launch because he is obsessed with Colossus. Let's talk about Dr. Doom's plans as the movie progresses. At the moment, no one else is allowed to have the secrets to Colossus except him. Right. And he knows that no one else is in the world. This is plan number one. No one else in the world knows about Colossus. Even though Colossus is probably public knowledge. Right. Because the professor was telling them about it in the first thing. Yes. Yeah. I guess no other scientists are trying to do this. I guess that professor's died. He seems pretty old. Incidentally played by George Gaynor's who was in the police academy movies. Okay. As the kind of like, fusting superintendent of police. Okay. Right. Okay. So, Reed and his, the other fantastic for go up in this spaceship. I'm not sure why they're going up in the spaceship to Colossus. Something to do with Colossus. But they're using a dinosaur. They're gonna get there first. I guess they're thinking if they can get up there, they'll be closer to Colossus than they would be on the ground like they were 10 years earlier, my guess. Yeah. It's not, it might be covered in some dialogue that we can't hear. Yeah. That's just kind of understood for this whole movie. Right. But the fake diamond, which was their power source, I guess, explodes. No, it's, I think it's, I think it's shielding. Oh, oh. Well, so Reed note, Reed, while they're up there, Reed says the diamond's a fake. And so, and it's that the fakeness of the diamond is causing things to go haywire apparently. Yep. It's a crucial component. And it's failure means that they're exposed to the cosmic rays and also the ship blows up in orbit. Yes. Yeah. And somehow they hold the earth and they're all fine. I actually liked this bit. What? It's all me crazy. Because Reed says, how come the ships and pieces, but we're okay. They acknowledge it at least. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it actually ties in their powers have made them somehow invulnerable. I actually thought that was a good little touch, which is not in the originalithomics. You're right, actually. And there's a, it's a bit like, maybe they vanished into the cloud for a bit. A bit like a siren in the Nexus and Star Trek 7. Yeah. And they're immaterialized back on it. Yes. But you're right. Actually, I changed my mind. But I do notice that there's some good old Corbin NASA stop footage in this scene. Oh, yeah. There's lots of stock footage in this movie. Nuclear explosions, footage of the earth, all sorts of stuff. Yeah. Just stolen from other sources. Yep. And the spaceship itself apparently lifted from an early Soviet science fiction film, which Corbin used over and over. Oh, okay. You know, 500 movies. I was wondering about that because they'd actually spend the money to build this, like, model space. Just Corbin doesn't spend money. Right. We'll move you for a million dollars, we're told. Yes. Yes. Yes. He actually out of pocket from the actors. And he had a policy that none of his movies would cost more than a million dollars. And he only ever lost money on, as far as I know, one movie, which was a movie called The Intruder, which was about segregation. And I think was Shatner's first movie. And because of the controversy around it, it lost money. And probably this movie because it was never released, of course. He did not lose money on this movie. We can cover that later. Okay. It didn't sound like it from the... Oh, no. This is part of the whole mystery. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah. There's so much wonderful mystery about that, like, this movie wasn't released. Okay. So they crash and now they start developing their powers. It looks like the comic. They're like in a field. Yeah. And suddenly... And their powers are slowly manifesting? Yeah. So... First is Sue. Yes. They can't see her. She's calling out to them. No, Johnny's first. He sneezes. Oh, right. He sneezes. I... When the sneeze started coming out, I was like, "Oh, no. Are we gonna have a fire sneeze?" Yes, it was a fire sneeze. It was bad. He sneezes. Sue turns invisible. So initially, she doesn't realize she's invisible. And then she materializes. And then she starts... She makes her bottom half visible and she freaks out that she can't see her bottom half. But if she was invisible before, couldn't she not see herself when she was completely invisible? How does this work? She just wasn't looking down at herself. She was looking at them. But what about your own nose? Your own hands, your shoulders? You're right, of course. But this is an extreme situation. I've just been in a... Okay. Oh, by the way. I'll give it a bite. By the way, something about that scene. I did not notice it until I was watching this YouTube... A couple of the guys on YouTube who were... What did they call their series? So bad, it's good. It was their series. And they noticed that in that scene where she's half invisible, she only has half a shadow too. They actually went that far and got rid of the shadow of her legs. A lot of people were trying really hard on this movie. Yeah, they were. I give this movie a pass, but some people were very passionate about this film. All the actors, a lot of the people working behind the scenes. Yeah, music, guys. Oh, yeah. People spending their own money, especially the cast. Guy that played Ben Grimm, Michael Bailey Smith, he reckoned he spent 12 grand of his own money on promoting it. Because they try it. Essentially, we will get to it. Don't let me forget, because we need to talk about it, because it's really interesting. It is really interesting. Fantastic. Then we get the Mr. Fantastic Effect. Yeah, because two trips, she's trying to run away. She's about to fall down, and he reaches out, and his arm stretches out in this ridiculous effect, but not the most ridiculous Mr. Fantastic Effect. This is the only point in the film I reckon when it looks all right, because we get a quick cut. We sort of see him reach out, and then we get a quick cut of his hand behind Sue's head. But quite often he's reaching for stuff that he doesn't need to reach for. And that's true in the comics a lot of the time. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's reaching for something across the room. No reason. Just put that thing next to you next time. Yeah, that's right. That's right. You got to make the most of it while you go. But unfortunately, yeah, like, this is the way I felt that that scene needed a little bit of dialogue, because so he reaches out and catches Sue before she lands on that sharp piece of wreckage. Yes. And everybody is a little bit freaked out, but it wasn't 100% clear to me that they were freaked out because he had stretched. I felt like somebody needed to say, "Read your arm." It stretched. That really would have been nice to have. Especially since we didn't see it stretch, because it was done with quick cuts. It's like you kind of have to know about Mr. Fantastic and his power set in order to understand what's going on. True. You're really right, Tim. Someone should have said, "Read your arm just stretched." In between those quick edits. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I completely agree. Johnny is also... Besides the sneeze, he's able to make his hand catch on fire. Yeah. He's working on it, and he says, " Is he safe flame on here? Has he found that yet?" Later. Later. But it seems to me he has to safe flame on out loud in this movie. Which is like it was in... That's like it has on the comics. Yeah. And a little touch that's like the comics. But yeah. And also, by the way, Reed's clothes also stretch, and Sue's clothes turning visible. Yep. Yep. Yep. And Johnny's clothes don't catch fire. They don't catch fire. But he only ever lights his hand on fire. So he's kind of excused in this situation, I think. Good. He only does his full transform at the end. Yeah. And we don't see him. Which I wasn't expecting. By the way, I thought it was just going to be his hand the whole movie. Because the rumor I heard about this movie for years was that he only his hand ever lights on fire or whatever. So at this stage, I think Dr. Doom now, he's changed. He wants revenge on the Reed or...? No. So his sources have found that the four of them survived. At first, he's really angry because he wanted them to die in space for whatever. Because he's angry at Reed, right? Because he blames Reed for the accident. And because he wants Colossus all to himself. Okay. Right. Yeah. So, but then once he finds out where they are, he wants his people to go get them. Now, it was unclear to me where is this field that they landed in? Are they in America? Are they in Latvia? The next morning, apparently American soldiers show up with American flags on their Jeep. And then that's when we first see Ben has overnight morphed into the thing and they almost shoot at him and Reed stops them. It looks so good. I just love the way the thing looks. Yeah. I remember seeing stills for this before it came out and being impressed even though. Well, when I watched... When you look it up online, when you read a article about this film, they will often use the promotional still, the same promotional still, which has the three actors and the thing in the background sort of with his arm around them. Arms around. And because it's a promotional still, it's really overexposed. It's quite bright. And he looks kind of janky in that because it's bright light. And you look at that and you think, "Oh, it looks awful. This is this joke film that was so shit that never got released." But then in this first scene, where it's in flickering fire light and the mask is moving, it has full mobility. It's even better than the how of the duck puppet. It's amazing the range of emotion that it could express. Yeah. Like, I was blown away considering it. This film cost a million dollars. And how much of the budget was spent on this suit? Yeah. And the animatronic mouth. Yeah. So we cut back to Alicia. Now, Alicia is making a bust of Ben Grimm for some reason. She's making busts of all four. No, no, no, because those guys come in after. A guy shows up with the delivery. And he's like, "You got to make--" You're right. Sorry. Okay. So she's making a bust of him because she won't give him in the hallway. She's into him. No, no, no, no. So, no. So she's been entrusted to make memorial statues of all four of them because America thinks they're dead. Yes. It's a very quick memorial. They've been dead less than a day. Yeah. And this delivery guy comes in and he's got these molds of their faces, which supposedly were used for a helmet fitting. Why do you need a mold of their exact face just for fitting-- Like, you know what the hell is the shape and size of the head. But this is what I don't understand because she touches the mold of Ben's face, which she's also making one of these. She touches that. And then she reads the name on the Braille card and says, "Ben Grimm," and she starts crying. Yes, because she's learning this for the first time. You know, this makes sense. Come on. All right. This does make sense. All right, Tim, do you want to explain it? Yeah. So she felt, you know, his face when she met him, when he broke her statue. And so she didn't know who these people were that died. Okay. And then when she feels the mold of his face and realizes that it was the guy that she ran into in the hallway that she immediately fell in love with, now she's upset. Yes. So what mold was she working on when that guy came in? That's to tell us Kumar, the audience, that she remembers his face. Because she touched his face. She touched his face in the hall. She felt a connection with him. She went home and started sculpting his face. We see her sculpting his face. So we know the audience that she remembers it. Then she touches the mold of the helmet. The helmet. And she immediately recognizes the face. And we know she reads the Braille card. And then she reads the Braille card. Okay. She realizes now she knows, Ben Grimm, the guy that I felt this connection with, has died. This is bad news. I know it's a bit contrived, but I feel like it does make sense. Okay. But then the mold people show up and they kidnap her because the jeweler, because the jeweler has fallen in love with her. Now, let's go through the jeweler's plans. The jeweler wanted the diamond for himself. Now he wants the diamond to give to Alicia. Yes. He decides pretty. Yeah. After he meets Alicia, he gives up on getting the diamond for himself. He decides it's going to be his dowry for his marriage to Queen Alicia. It's going to take down to his mold there, which is, I don't know, what is this like? Is this like the mall locks in X-Men? It's like the exiles. Yeah. He's got a big crew down there. Like all these mall people, these rat people that he lives with. Yeah. Okay. So now we have medical examinations of the Fantaspora who are recovered. As you said, by the army, apparently in the United States. At this point, we still don't know. They're not in the US. They're definitely because the doctor that examines them is one of Dr. Doom's headshots. And that guy actually goes into a medium. He doesn't talk to Dr. Doom on the phone, throws into a room with him. This is a good touch. I like, at this point, we don't know that we assume they've been taken by the US military. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's actually some good storytelling. The doctor then, in a couple of humorous scenes, tries to get blood samples from all four, and he can't get samples from any of them because the thing has solid rock skin. Johnny flames, sort of lights on fire and gives him a fright, so storm turns invisible. He gives her this range and says, you do it or something. That was what Mr. Fantas. Yeah. With her, remember, she's like, turns invisible, and then she's behind him, and he's shocked, and he jabs himself with the name. Yes. It's all right. It's pretty funny scene. And then we stretches instead of walking across the room to take the syringe from the guy. Then we see that very same doctor who's wearing a comical kind of like headlamp, so that we know he's a doctor talking to Doom. And that's when we realized that they're actually in Doom's custody. Yes. Okay. So, but there are questions. How did Doom do this? Does Doom keep a bunch of US uniforms around? So that these people can and US army, and guys with American accents. Yeah. Where are they? Did they crash land in America, in which case is, or did they have the great good fortune to crash land in Latvia? There's two options right? They're either in America or they're in Latvia. Neither are great options because if they're in Latvia, why does Dr. Doom have all these US military uniforms hanging around? Yeah. At least the movie dealt with something that the comic didn't, which was how did they get back to civilization after they crashed in that field? Good boy. That's not covered because, you know, it's all compressed. Is it covered when they get away, you know, a few scenes ahead when they escape from this layer? How did they get back to that? That's a good point. They must be in America. So, do we see that they're in the castle in America? Yeah, we get establishing shot of the castle, but yeah, where is the castle? It's going to be in America. I just believe it's in Pennsylvania. So they get kind of impatient with their treatment and they have no contact with the outside world or anything. They can't let their families know that they're alive. They get suspicious. So they do some sneaking around. They find some, what was it? It's not like a readout thing, but it's written in another language. It looks like Georgia. And so I assume that it's supposed to be Latvarian or something. It's not even like a stupid letter. Some of like Greek or something. It looks like a Latvarian language. Yeah. So then they find Doom's contraption for, what, forgetting, supposed to be forgetting the power out of them. Okay. Okay. Wait, wait. Reblind for a second. First, I want to mention that when Doom talks to the doctor, when we get this reveal that the doctor belongs to Doom, he wants the doctor to harvest the fantastic first power. So his plan has changed again. Yes. Well, he's discovered. I want their powers. It's fine because he's discovered that they've stolen the power of Colossus. Yes, because Doom is obsessed with Colossus because that's what, you know, scarred him in the past. So he can't tolerate anyone else interfering with Colossus. So when he finds out that the power of Colossus is running in their veins, he can't abide it. Yes. As I must have that. Okay. So his plan now is to go full super scroll. He's going to drain the power from the four of them and inject it into himself and have all four elements at his command. So the other moment I wanted to mention before we, the scene where they find the Latvarian writing is when they escape from their guards, they're locked in this room. We get a very Roger Korman moment here or very Batman 66 moment where we don't see the fight. The screen just swirls around a bit. And then the fight's done and the guys have been beat up because we can't afford to film it. Yes. Yes. Yes. And also they've swapped clothes. Yes. So again, well, this is straight out of issue one. Yes. People I'm dressing and dressing one another off panel or off camera. Yes. So another point in the movies favor. Yes. So when they escape, they have to fight. They actually are stopped by doctor. Oh, as you mentioned, they find this device, which later we learn is a laser, which is going to blow up New York. Now, wait, it seems to have something to do with Colossus. Maybe, but later on, he says, if you don't turn yourselves into me, I'm going to use a slicer to blow up New York. Why was the laser there in the first place before they ever had power? Yeah. Well, we don't know because Richard's looks at it and he recognizes elements of it. Yes. He says, this is familiar. I've only seen this once before. So this scene is the place where I think there's part of the line. I just can't catch from doom. Read asked him where they are. And he says, beautiful, charming something. And I am the Supreme and beloved monarch. Okay. And so then you have to rewind and listen. I know I love Joseph Copp's performance. I know I shouldn't because it's so campy. Yeah. He's there. He said he came to play for sure. He's having the best time. He's just stipulating like a mad man. And I will say that I think the costume looks good. It does. And I just love it. The costume looks good. Whenever he moves, they've added a clicking sound effect. Yeah. I just, it's like, so he's gesturing and he constantly moves his fingers like a guitarist. Yeah. It's going click it, click it, click it, click it, click it. And I just, I just fucking love it. I mean, he's having the best time. Later on, we get, when he threatens them with the laser, he's talking to them on a video camera or something. Yeah, it's a doom zoom. Oh, very good. Oh, anyway, he's, he's right up in front of the camera and he's, he's got his hands right in frame. I don't know if this is the actor or if it's the director that's telling you to do this, but they've just said, just go nuts with your hands. He's waving his hands around everywhere. He's waving him in front of his face. He's constantly moving his fingers. There's barely any room in the doom zoom to see both his face and his hands, but he's shopping them both in. And I'm here for it. It looks so funny. Yeah. So, doom calls in his goons. So there's a big fight here in the laser fortress. And there's a, okay, Sue does this move where she turns invisible and the goons shoot each other because she's standing in between them. She ducks. I saw that too. And she ducks ducks. And she does this when she reappears she's down on the ground. Yeah, and she does this twice in the movie. So, you know, and Reed makes his leg really long so that the goons running in triple. And Johnny fires shoots fire people and misses every time. Yep. It's great, annoying. There's a great. So, in the meanwhile, the thing is just wrecking shit. Yep. It's so good. He says it's clobbering time. Three times is a movie in a 90 minute 85 minute movie. He says it's clobbering time. Three times. It's not enough. I could have done with three more. But it's great. They've got guys running at the start at the guy in the doom suit. Sorry, the thing. And he's just pulling them around. He's going, he's flexing. He's going, he's smashing him in the face. It's great. It's the thing. Fucking shit up. And that's what the thing does. Yeah, he doesn't do enough of it in the Fox movie. So I'm really happy that this is happening. These scenes are like, so they escape back to home. Where is it? I'm sorry. I've got to get back to the scene. I'm sorry. Yeah. Doom says that he calls his henchmen. And then he leaves. Yeah, he says, I want to thully my hands. And then he leaves and then all these henchmen running and they beat the hell out of the henchmen. The human torch melts the wall. The thing busts through it. They escape. And then. Yeah. Doom comes back in. And he says something like, no, I hope you're ready to. And it's an empty room. And then he says, huh? Yeah, I was surprised to see Doom played for comedy several times. There's another one in the Doom Zoom call, which, which, I don't know, does something else happen before that? And when he manages to somehow call, read, you know, do a video call with read that read wasn't even expecting. And when he says, you have 12 hours or I'll wipe out New York City. Have a nice night. Yeah, it's great. So this is the important point. When they escape. This is a very important point about where are they? Are they in America or Latvia? movie movie covers this over is we get a scene transition, which is number four, like a Batman, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, comes forward and back, and that's the only time it's ever used in the movie, one time. - Yeah. - The number four, one time. - How'd they get back? - In these before or after, and it's used to cover up the fact that we don't know what country they are. - I just want to believe that Dr. Doom's castles on the outskirts of New York City, so they can upstate New York or something. - Later, when they fly, later they get in a fantastic car and the car flies towards screen and then we had a match cut where it flies to the castle. So it's literally across the road as far as the end of-- - Yeah, it's just a couple of suburbs to the north. - Yeah. - Okay. - It's just like an eccentric guy living in New Jersey or something, who's castles. - Yeah. - Reed figures out that their powers are matched to their personality. - Yes, it's a thing in the comments. - No, and it's the dumbest thing, and it drove me crazy, I hated this so much. - And he's like, I'm always stretching myself thin so I can stretch. Sue is always shy, that's why she's invisible. - Johnny, you're a hothead, a little hothead. - Johnny, you're a hothead, that's why you catch on fire. Ben, you're always relying on your strength, that's why you become this-- - Instead of thinking things through 'cause he's a smart guy, much like he was, I guess in that first issue. - This is, Reed, 'cause why did their, okay, so how come Reed's clothes can stretch? How come Sue's clothes can turn invisible? Explain that. - He stills off and stretch themselves, dude. - Well, come on, man. Are they stretching themselves thin, or are her clothes shy? I, this, it makes me-- - But how does that climb, but if you don't have this explanation, the clothes stretchy doesn't make any sense either. This, I agree, this scene doesn't need to be in the movie, but I feel like personality powers is a trope that people get it. - I guess, but-- - It's just funny that it-- - So that means that cosmic rays are a bit like the puppet master's clay, they can sense people, like they know what people are thinking, I guess. I don't know, it's-- - Well, it's more like it unlocks something in you, right? 'Cause it's their flaws that become their powers or something. And I don't like it, I'm not, I'm not explaining it, but I'm just feeling that this is a trope that gets pretty familiar. Something happens to you, and it's your mind that makes it real. - Yes. - Or that determines the character of the abilities that you manifest. There's, like I said, there's even a, there's a trope for it on TV tropes. I love TV tropes, Tim. I have to talk about it constantly. It's called personality powers. Okay, so, but Ben realizes, you know, they have this argument about it, 'cause Ben's like, well, I don't turn back. You guys turn normal, I'll never look normal again. And he storms out. - Oh, yes, it's a bloody good question. He says, you know, why am I on all the time, and you guys on? - Yeah, and this is a good question. - That's a good question. - In the comics all the time, where he just storms out in anger. - Yeah, just like the comics. - And he wanders the street, which he does in the comics all the time. Usually, he wears a trench coat in the comics when he's wandering the streets, but I was all right with it. - This is great. - I was just wandering around, I assume LA. - Yeah, yeah. - It's mentioned actually in the documentary where it is, they've mentioned the specific street. They found it well lit street. This was actually done in post. - Okay. - Because they needed a bridging scene. - Oh, and it was like actually the director in the costume. - The casting guy, it was the casting guy. The best talking head they have in the whole documentary is just this random, he's not even the actual casting director. He's the assistant casting director. But he still has all the doc, he brings all these documents, and he's just, he's got a really great kind of presence and he talks and talks and he talks. And he's a stocky kind of tallish bloke. And he's the, apparently the director, Olay Sassoon said to him, "Hey, you want to be the thing?" And he says, "I would have paid money to be the thing." So he got in that suit and he rambled around LA for an evening, no permissions, that has found a random street that was well lit. - Right. - Yeah, great. - You probably see people dressed as a thing around LA anyway, like those people who dress up as marble characters for tips. - Ben's, yeah, isn't there a specific street they do that on? - Yeah. Okay, well, anyway, he's found by the rat people and they take him in 'cause he's outcast like them. - He seems to have lost the ability to talk here. - He's just gonna go, "Hmm." - Yeah, he's depressed. He's just really depressed. - Okay, okay, fair enough. - And at this stage, while he's away, Sue makes the costumes, it's very much like the scene in his shoe three. - It is. - Except the costumes look pretty bad. I don't know why the four is down over their stomachs instead of up over their chest. - Because it's been, this is a common suit. It's been made, it's spandex, and they've used a sewing machine to sew a four onto it. You can see the stitches. I'm okay with it, you know, because it looks like she made them in half an hour, which is what she did. - That is true. Yes, that is true. It's cinema verite. - Yes indeed. She looked really good in that spandex. - Another point. - In fact, yes. In fact, I noticed that she was in the suit the whole time and the guys were not. I was like, "Okay." So we've got the shapely actress. I know what's going on here. Come on. - Yeah, I'm right. - It's a given way. - And certainly Camara, back to Yora, the scene that you loved where they decide that their personalities have determined their powers. The Johnny Storm says, "Holy Freud Batman. "I think you're right." - That's right. Yep. That line is absolutely in this movie. - Fortunately. - Also speaking of Johnny Storm, when Sue brings out the spandex, he says, "I'm not wearing that. "I'll look like a dork." - Yes. And that line, there's a line that's like that in the first X-Men movie, which came out five years after this, six, seven years. - Right. - Where Cyclops says, "What do you expect us to wear, Yolo spandex?" - Ah, yeah, you're right. - Yeah. Meanwhile, Doom has decided he needs the diamond after all. He's changed his mind. Why? What? - Yeah. - You know, first he said, "I don't need the diamond." Now he says, "I do need the diamond." He needs it for his laser, which means he needed it all along. So that makes no sense. - Yep. - He sends his bumbling henchmen, who I quite like these actors. I can't figure out which ones, which I'm an IMDB. So they'll have to remain nameless. But they go in and offer to buy the diamond, the biggest diamond in history of the jeweler. They said, "We'll make it worth your while." I'm thinking, "How do you make it worth his while?" - Yeah. - He earns a diamond that's worth as much as a hemisphere of the earth. - Why not just steal it? - That was your plan in the first place. - Well, they do try that, but they're well armed. Yeah, well, they should have stole it back when stealing was an option before the jeweler took it, because they actually do try to hijack it at gunpoint. And unfortunately, the mole men, or the mole ox or whoever we want to call them, they're all really well armed. So they're sent packing, and Doom decides to take care of business himself. So meanwhile, Ben Groomer's arrives as the thing, and Doom shows up. He's here to get the diamond. He's, you know, messing everyone up. - He's fighting these rats. - By the way, this layer, the rat layer, has a bottomless pit in it. (laughing) They occasionally throw people down into this bottomless pit. - But that's, wasn't there a bottomless pit in the comics? And didn't the mole man, he discovered Atlantis or something? - Yes, you're right. - Yeah, when Doom comes in later and they're shooting at him and he's bouncing the bullets off, like every guy who gets hit then falls, do their death, like, "Ah!" - That's right. - Yes. (laughing) - So by the way, Doom has shown this is New York. So Dr. Doom has shown up in New York. Let's just point that up at the moment. - Yeah, I'm sorry. He definitely lives in upstate New York. - Yeah. (laughing) - It's canon, man. - So Alicia had been kidnapped earlier. She's here, and when Ben sees her, they're like, "I love you, I love you." By the way, they bumped into each other in a hallway, and he sat. - 10 seconds, and he sort of molested her. - Yeah, and they're madly in love with the other. Anyway, his love for her turns him back human. - Why does this happen? - Why? (laughing) - It has something to do maybe with the powers matching their personalities. - Jung is trying to think through this situation 'cause of his love, and then he turns back into, this is the only time it ever happens. He never does it again. It's not explained why, I don't understand it. I actually watched it twice. - Yeah. - The scene that is. Unlike Tim, I didn't have the mental fortitude to sit through the whole film for twice. Even though I spoil this, I really liked it. (laughing) But I couldn't bring myself to watch it twice. But I did watch this scene twice, and I still don't know why he turned back. Dr. Doom says, "Oh, it looks like our friend "is not feeling himself," or one of the goofy lines that he's always ushering. - Yeah, yeah. And then, okay, so Dr. Doom threatens the team. He says, "I've got, I'm gonna go near it, "and I have the friend of Mr. Grimm." - Well, he's got the diamond now. He's taking care of the jeweler. - Right, but he says, "I have the friend of Mr. Doom." - Yes, he has Alicia. - Yeah, and Ben, Ben ran out and he was-- - How do they know, how do they know who Alicia is? - Yeah, well, they just say his friend, and that's enough. - How do they know who that is? - Well, Ben knows. - 'Cause this is-- - Oh, wait, but he's not back yet. - Ben's not back yet. - You're right. (laughing) - Ben, Ben, so Ben turns back into rocks, and then he comes back to the fantasy. Why didn't he go back into the rat tunnels and fight Dr. Doom? Why did he bother-- - Go on, I guess he realizes he needs his friends. Maybe that's why he turned back into a human. Hang on, is what is turning back into a human represent here? Does it represent a downgrade or an upgrade? It's not clear right, see it, I mean-- - Well, you know what, I would say-- - It saps his feeling of wanting to fight, and so he calms down or-- - So it's a downgrade then, but he wants to become human-- - He's fighting the Hulk, but I will say this, in the comics, the thing wants to be human, but the reader, it's bittersweet for the reader. When you're 12, 13 years old, you don't want Ben to turn back into a human, you want him to be the thing. Even though you understand his pain, that's one of the great things about the Lee Kirby Fantastic Four, they delineated this so well. - That's just like Al and Thelma the Alchemist. - Right, okay, so-- - That's a bit of a plug, Tim. (laughing) - Yeah, the law of equivalent exchange podcast, thank you. (laughing) - So-- - Find it on platform you prefer. - So once Ben comes back, they're like, okay, we gotta team up and go fight Dr. Doom, just protect New York and get Alicia back, right? - Yep, this is where they use that A-bomb footage with the famous footage of the house blowing up. - Yes, that's right. And they fly off the roof of the Fantastic Four building with their Fantastic Four car, and the building has the number four on it, like the Baxter building. - Oh, yeah, and they haven't told themselves the best. That's what I was referring to, oily, you're right, yeah. - And not only have they not, hold themselves as four, they have been back for a day. They crashed on Earth, they were taken captive by Dr. Doom, they came back to New York, now their building has a number four on it. Where did that come from? - Well, Mrs. Storm-- - Mrs. Storm put it there, 'cause she's the one who first called the Fantastic Four before they even had power. - That's right, at the boarding house, the boarding house-- - And she commissioned the memorial too when they'd been gone for less than a day. - Less than an hour, yeah. - Just a really proactive lady. - With no contact with the outside world, so. (laughing) - Okay. - So they show up at Dr. Doom's lair, they're captured in these like laser beams that like these-- - Force fields, I suppose. - Force fields, yeah, force fields. And then this beam shows that she's got to drain their powers, well, like electricity. - He's extracting their powers and, yeah. Is it with, I don't know, why does he have this ability? It doesn't matter, whatever. - So Reed is able to stretch his foot out of the force of, if you can do it, why not just stretch your arm out? Why not just move any part of your body? Your body can leave the force field. - Well, they seem to be physically confined. - Yeah, but you're right, why not just use his arm, you're right. - Why do they leave the music rooms? - Well, because they're struggling again. I mean, the thing, they're all pretty clearly confined by the beam in some, so it's a force field and-- - But yeah, Reed could have stretched his arm down under, but I guess his foot's closer. - Yeah, it seemed to take a lot of effort. Like he had to really strain just to get, just to stretch his toe. - And then we get a really goofy, all the misfantastic fix are really lame. They're really lame, kind of like foot looping. - Yeah, it's such a quick cut. You can't quite tell what's going on. You just see his leg is there stretching somehow, but it's dark and it's quick, and who knows what he's actually doing. - Well, it kicks the-- - Well, then the next shot, you see, you see the foot kicking the device. - Yes, it kicks the extracting laser. The laser that's extracting their powers, his foot kicks it, it stops extracting their powers, and then it shoots the force field projector, freeing them. Okay, the laser that extracts powers also destroys force field projectors. Is it emitting force, or is it sucking thing at, whatever, you know, it doesn't really matter. It's fine, it just needs a feed with it somehow. It's okay. - So now we have another fight in the same layer. - Yep. - Same location. - Same set. - So basically it was shot, maybe on the same day, except the Fed has put their costumes on. - This was a 21 day suit, shoot. - Okay. - Which is actually kind of long for a Coleman film. - Yeah, basically, and as I mentioned before, Invisible Women uses the same moves, Johnny uses the same fire, never hits anything. - Yeah, well, it's really kind of force field. - He produces a force field, which was never mentioned before. - Right. - And how is that tied into her being shy? Oh, I guess she puts a shield around herself. - I guess so. - But they never mentioned that this was a possibility. - It's definitely the Johnny Storm plane throwing sort of like shot is the same shot. They use the same, like, how hard is it to film a guy putting his palm up against the camera? Just have more than one. - We forgot an important point that-- - I love it. - When they were back at their place, they realized that Doom is Victor. - Oh, yeah, you're right. - Which like any comics fan already knew that at the beginning of the movie. - Even the, yeah, but even the viewers knew 'cause we saw the scene at the Moore. - Yeah, exactly. And Reed, who's supposed to be the smartest man in the world, didn't even recognize the language that he must have seen constantly 10 years ago because Victor writes it. And also-- - Yeah, he's a steamist familiar, but-- - Ooh. - This is the guy that knew the speed of light down to two decibel places in kilometers. And yet he couldn't remember this script. - Yeah. - Come on, man. - So the laser is fired and Johnny goes full flame, which is another thing he hasn't done before and I didn't know could happen. Or I was expecting-- - Full CG. - Full, full, bad, 94 cheap CG. - Well, it's 92, no, it's 93. - Yeah. - And, you know, like CG-- - Looks like he's done for a video game. - CG can be good, but not on, not on Corwin budget. And also this was done after, this was when the film was in post and in limbo. So it wasn't even when the money was still flying. - Right. - Uh, incidentally, Johnny can fly faster than light because he chases a laser beam after the window. - Yep. - And he races it through you or-- - It's a ray beam, I guess. They should have called it a ray beam or a particle beam or something. - Yeah, he just fights it. - And somehow flame deflects it. I'm not sure how that happens. - That's a good point. - A laser would just go right through flame. - Yeah. - And then he somehow deflects it off the base. - He punches it into space. - Like what, I couldn't believe it when I saw him flying and then it was going towards the earth. Like what? - It's following a curvature of the earth. - Yeah, it was following the curvature of the earth, but now it's not. Or you think that he would have had to fly all the way back to the source of the beam and blow up the machine that was shooting it, but that's not how it went. - It's more like it, yeah, it's very-- - Ben and Alicia are reunited here and he doesn't turn back into human for some reason. I don't know. - It's bizarre that that scene's in there. Maybe it's just so that the actor can have a little bit more screen time and we can see him shirtless 'cause he's pretty big. He's a big dude. - Yes. - He used to play football. - Yeah, he's a huge dude actually, yeah. So Dr. Doom, he falls off the ledge of the castle and he's hanging there and Reed has to save him that kind of scene and he's laughing at Reed, blah, blah, blah. But Reed holds onto his glove and Doom falls and then the glove which is left behind on the ledge moves by itself. - Yeah. - What does this mean? - It could mean it. It means, yeah, sequel. It means that Doom's still active. His influence, look, look, I know what you're saying. Does it mean that was a Doom bot? - Could do, could do, it could do. It just means that Doom's malign influence is not vanished from the world of the film. - Of course. - It's still animating him. - I get that. - Of course he did. - My question is, how are the fingers moving in the glove? - What's the doylist explanation? It's, well, Doom bot, I like Doom bot. - Okay. - So then Reed and Sue get married and for some reason the three men are in their fantastic four uniforms and Sue is in a wedding game. They're a reversal of the rest of the film where Sue's in the spandex most of the time. - Yes. - And they are in their sivis. - We really wanted to see the spandex. - Yeah, that's right. - And then we get, they drive off in the just married car and we have his sort of-- - Oh my God. - This is probably the worst effect in the whole movie. - Yep. - They've got this long rubbery arm sticking out the roof of the car through the sun roof. - Out of the sun roof, yeah, yeah. - And it's sort of waving. - It's so bad. - It's waving sort of dangly. - It's so obviously just a piece of rubber that they've stuck out with a glove on it. (laughing) - I couldn't believe it. This is the final song of the movie. I could not believe it. Okay, I guess it's trivia time. - Oh yeah. Well, we've got a lot to talk about. - Okay. - All right. So where to begin? I guess we begin with when burned eichinger, German producer first bought the option from Marvel in the early '80s sometime. - Okay. - 1983 is the figure that's usually quoted. He was, he owned or was high up in a production company called Constantine Films Ding Ding, which had made decent movies, you know, like The Never-Ending Story. - Okay. - The Name of the Rose with Sean Connery. So he bought out the option for Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer and Doctor Do. Okay. But this is the '80s. He's having trouble getting a movie studio interested in it. They won't stump, no studio wants to stump a cash, wants to, you know, partner with him. This is Pretty Batman 1989. So this is when, you know, like crappy movies, you know, The Punisher, things like that. Even after 1989, he's still not quite there yet when there's very much interest in kind of making comic movies of a certain type, you know, ones that are, you know, a bit darker, so on and so forth. His option is running out. It's a 10-year option. It's coming all or a nine-year option. It's coming up to the end of 1992. In fact, December 31st, 1992, apparently, is when the option runs out. He, now, what's happening now? Ishinga may have, he wants to make this film for a big budget. He wants to make it $30 million to $100 million, you know, he wants to make a proper movie, but time's running out on his option. He may or may not have been in talks with Fox at this point, not quite certain. He wants, he would like Marvel to renew the option, but Marvel is not interested in renewing the option. First of all, they sold it to him for pennies in '83. Apparently, it possibly is low as $200,000, and this is at a point where you have people in charge at Marvel who want to get Marvel properties back in the Marvel state. So we passed the period in the '80s where they were selling it to whoever, whoever that's hoping that they would make a buck. Now you've got people in charge who have ambitions. They want that power back, specifically who you mentioned earlier, Tim, Abby, Arad, is that it? Yes, we'll come back to him. What do you do? Your option's running out. His option will be extended if he starts filming. He doesn't have to have a complete movie. He just needs to start filming. Okay. Yeah. And they started on December 28, right? Yes, they did. They did start filming on December 28. Okay. That's right. That's right. So not coincidentally, at this point, I think it decides that he's going to make a cheap, fantastic, full movie. Absolutely not a coincidence. Okay. He approaches Lloyd Kaufman from Trauma. Yep. Centric character, but he's not into it because he thinks he's friends with Stanley and doesn't want to go to Stanley, I guess. Then he approaches the king of Schlock, the king of cult himself, Roger Coleman, says, "I want to make a fantastic full movie. I want to do it for less than a million dollars." Is that, "Can you do it?" Coleman goes away with his blokes for a weekend. Comes back on Monday, says, "Yep. Yep. We can do it. When do you want to start?" And actually he says, "Can we start as soon as possible? Because for reasons." [Laughter] As Tim points out, they started on December 20th. So at this point, hang on, his Constantine Proctions has planned to put out this movie and make money from it. This is the big question. So we'll say, "Yes." Coleman is under that impression. Maybe. Yeah. Yes. Yes. The documentary says that it was in the contract that the movie would be released. Right. So, okay. Okay. Yes. At this point, no one, at this point, it depends on who you ask. In later years, Coleman says that he knew all along that this film was being made to extend the rights. But then once you've extended the rights, then what? Well, he just figured he's going to release the movie. He didn't have a problem with it. Okay. One of the questions that the documentary raises is, "Who knew what went?" Yeah. You know, how cynical and sleazy was this move by Constantine and Ishing up? Did he trick people, basically? He certainly didn't put it around. The cast didn't know that this was a film that was being made cheaply, probably to extend so that he wouldn't lose his option on the film. Coleman, in 2005, in the article that's quoted in the documentary, "Fantastic Faux," he says that he knew all along. And in fact, had a conversation with Ishinga where he said, "How about we start filming on December 31st on the day the option is going to lapse?" And Ishinga said, "No, that would be too obvious what I'm doing. Why don't we start shooting on December 26th?" Coleman said, "It's going to be pretty obvious whether it's December 26th or December 31st." And then, not coincidentally, they start filming on December 28th. Like, splitting the difference. So, I think Coleman thought this was going to be a film that he released. Okay. So, we get a very quick shoot. Yeah. We get 21 days, less than a month. But again, this is not unusual for an opportunity. Can I saw which came out the same year, 1993, had a shoot of only 17 days. And that was one of his more successful films. Yeah. So, the film's made. They wrap production and then it moves into post. And this is where things start to get very confusing. Okay. Okay. What happens? Now, what is certain at this point is that support for the film starts to dry up. Okay. Coleman starts assigning his crew to other projects. Okay. This is why it's Coleman doing this. Don't know. But the editors are having to start working on the film in between other projects. Mm-hmm. And there isn't as much money being made available for things like special effects. And it certainly isn't many money being made available for promotion. They haven't been working on it secretly. Why is this happening? You know, I don't know. Because there are sort of three explanations for why the film didn't get released, I would say. The first explanation, as we've already discussed, is that it's never meant to be released. It's just a con. Actually, I just tricked everyone from Coleman down into working on this movie for pennies for less than it would cost him to renew the license with Marvel. Because obviously they're not going to let it go ever again. OK. Anything less than a big sum. But then there's no way he can make money. If he makes a movie that he's not going to release, he can't make money on it. It's literally like one of those bad moments. No, there's a clause in the contract that says that he can change horses midstream. If he's not happy with how one studio is doing, he can take the film to another studio. Oh. So he could theoretically-- He could theoretically sell the rights to Fox, which is what he did. OK. That's what he actually did. OK. And that's when Chris Columbus ends up directing the film. OK. That's the original-- That's the first fantastic film to get a major theatrical release, along with Owen Griffith, Michael Chickless, Jessica Roberts. Chris Evans. Yeah. Yes, and of course Chris Evans comic book movie of living in royalty. Yeah. [LAUGHTER] So people that support this theory, Stan Lee, for example, he says this is the case, the director himself in the documentary says that it's what he believes. And also the stunt man who plays the thing, guy named of Carl Ciofaleo. I read his book as preparation for this episode, which is called "Star Stunts and Stories." And he says, "It turned out the guy who earned the rights to the story was going to lose them if he didn't act on his option to make the film." As the story goes, he decided to make the low budget movie with Roger for the sole purpose of preserving those rights. He never intended to release the film. Instead, this production gave him the ability to sell the rights to 20th Century Fox for about 20 times what it cost us to make our version. That, my friends, is how business is done. Oh, okay. So I'm starting to understand. So even if you make the movie, you still have the option to make more movies. Yes. You haven't used it up. Yes. Exactly. Okay. I see. Okay. But also you don't have to, you can still release the film and do this. It's not a requirement that the film not be released. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So he could have released it. And this is strange to me because this is the era when Punisher came out on video and Corman had, he was switching to video. Like, "Carnister" was a video release. Not just that Kumar. Captain America, 1991 came out. Yeah. A year earlier, really. Yeah. And we've covered that on the podcast. That's a direct-to-video. It's a terrible movie, but I guess it probably made money. Maybe. Maybe. The thing is he doesn't lose anything by releasing the movie. So that's another problem with this story. If this is just a trick, why not just release it anyway? Direct-to-video. Yeah. Yeah. But then we have option two, which is that someone panicked somewhere. Somewhere in the labyrinthine, kind of like managerial or bureaucratic stratum of Hollywood got alarmed by this movie. It was too shit. The idea of a low budget. Okay. Right. And somebody. This could be someone who worked at Fox. Again, we've got Punisher, Captain America. And to a certain extent, Howard the Duck. I'm not sure what they're worried about. Well, I guess it's because this is the post-Batman era. And comic book movies now have cache. There's an understanding that they can make money now. Okay. But still Punisher and Captain America are both after Batman 89. Is Punisher after Batman 89? Yeah. Okay. Absolutely. Right. Yeah. Marvel's in the doldrums, but I guess, you know, I don't know about this one. I don't know about this one. This one. Alex Clyde White is a proponent of this argument. Yeah. He thinks, as we were discussing earlier, the cast tried to run, I suppose, what we would now think of as a Ryan Reynolds Deadpool tactic. When support for the film started trying up. They seem to have taken it on themselves to promote it. Right. Is this, this is your impression from watching the documentary TV? Yeah. Oh. And Kumar, they, they seem to have, it seems to have been them. It's driving it. Like the director in the editor's name. Yeah. And getting the trailer out. And yeah. And like Hasseling Corbin to give them stills and pay for them to ship the thing mask to New York so they can do promotional experience. Promotional events and things like that. Going to Comic Con, screening the trailer. The cast seemed to have taken it on themselves to promote the film. So it's kind of like a, yeah. Like Ryan Reynolds leaking the Deadpool footage to YouTube, except way less effective. Alex White's theory is that his, I mean, understandable, he's put himself at the center of this story is that these actions are what alarmed somebody. These aggressive attempts to promote a film that might have otherwise flown under the radar might have ruffled some feathers. Someone who's negotiate, someone who's perhaps who's negotiating to have the film purchased for, you know, so that Chris Columbus can direct it. All what have you sounded to me from the movie. Like it was probably somebody at Marvel saying, we don't want any more crappy looking moral movies. That's option three. And Avi Arad. Yes. Yes. And that's the reason it got killed. Exactly. Thank you, Tim. You've anticipated option three. Okay. Which is that it was spiked by Avi Arad specifically. Yeah. Because Avi Arad, founder of Marvel Studios and kind of like one of kind of like who's one of the major figures in overseeing the modern Marvel MCU, the Marvel juggernaut. The idea is that he, he also kind of like it. He'd seen success with the X-Men animated cartoon of the early 90s. Yeah. With Fox. Yeah. With Fox. Exactly. And Marvel wants more creative control of these properties. They've seen the potential presumably with Batman. They want Marvel properties to be back in the Marvel stable, or at least to have more say. Mm. That's why they're not interested in renewing the option with new constant in. And that's presumably why Avi Arad, and this is a matter of record, paid for them. And Icinga, a million dollars each to kill the movie. Oh. Oh. Yeah. Well, rather to buy it. He bought it. Marvel owned it. They confiscated all the negatives. Yep. It either burned or locked up in a vault somewhere. Yes. Yes. Well, Avi Arad went on record at a promotional event for Spider-Man 2002 as saying, "I paid $2 million for it and then I burned it." Audience presumably got a laugh. And that's the only thing he's ever said on the subject. He can't be drawn on it. He won't talk about it. The fantastic Bo interview in 2005 tried to talk to him about it. The documentary in 2015 tried to talk to him about it. He won't speak about it. It's been buried. You know, yeah, as Tim said. So now Disney owns the rights to this movie. Do they have the negatives? So soon wants to think yes. As a filmmaker, he can't imagine a person burning a negative. Yeah. But I don't know. These people are cold-hearted capitalists. It wouldn't surprise me if they just chucked it. This is just celluloid. If I throw it, no one will ever know. Yeah. Where is Batwoman? Yes. Batwoman is another thing. It's the other kind of like great modern examples. And why do Coyote vs. Acme? That's another movie that was filmed, edited and canned. Where's that? I want to see that movie. Well, at least we saw this movie. Yes. So I think as for what really happened, I don't know, there's elements. I think all of these things are true to an extent. Yeah. Certainly, Arad bought the film because it's currently owned by Disney. Yeah. Right. It did sell the rights to Fox. And, you know, there's some truth even in the not... It was not meant to get made camp because Corman withdrew support for it in post. Right. Why would he do that if it was going to be made? Yeah. I just felt something in the wind by that point. And he does not spend money when he doesn't have to. I don't know. What do you think, Tim? Yeah. I mean, since you would think that he... Yeah. He stopped paying for cutting film and for promotion or whatever. Yeah. He must have known something was in the air. So, I mean, I think that he intended to release it until whatever it was happened. I think so. But he didn't want to tell anybody for maybe because it was unclear what was happening or because I don't know why he didn't tell anybody. Strange. Yeah. Why not tell the actors and the director? Yeah, until the actors had been like doing all this promotion and finally they were just told stop promoting it. Well, they went right. You know, they were booking events and they ended up booking the like the world premiere at Mall of America. Yeah. Like in the documentary, it's not clear who booked this. It was the actors, right? They went full Ryan Reynolds. Or BJ Trimble in 1967 for Star Trek, the original Star Trek. But in this case, it didn't pay off or as in those two cases it did. More of the pity because the actors are quite bitter. Bitter is not quite the right word. It's bittersweet. They're happy about the experience, but they're upset because lots of people worked on hormone stuff and went on to great things. He's famous for discovering talent. Oh, absolutely. That's his... It's his thing. Yeah. I know that for it. You know, Jack Nicholson. Yup. Cough plus for Sazy. Cough plus. Joe Dante. John of the Demi. Peter Beck Donovitch. Robert De Niro. Bruce Stern. Ron Howard. Oh, yeah. 13. Shatner, as I mentioned earlier. Peter Fonda. Yes. Everybody started under Corman. These people have not had sparkling careers in the years after and they can't help but wonder if this film had had a release. My name had got out there. Maybe things would have been different. And they're a little upset about it. With some reason, I think. There's no real reason I can see that this film wasn't. There was no reason not to release this film. Yeah. Who was it in the documentary? I think it was the director who was saying that he thought he knew how it leaked out. That he had gotten a copy made. The copying place probably made an extra copy. Yes. Then it just leaked out from there. Yeah. That's great. So soon the director, they were passionate about this. He knew his career was going to depend on getting this film out there. It was his first feature film. He couldn't go to studios and say, "I've directed a film." And they say, "What is it?" It's like, "Well, Marvel bought it and won't release it." It's like, "Well, you don't have a film then, mate. There's the door." Yeah. He apparently went broke into the vault at the vault. It broke into the safe room at, well, I'm sure it wasn't very safe. Yeah. At the Venice studios. Right. And no bullshit. Rummaging around with a torch, looking for the film can. Yeah. But it was already gone. It was already gone. And he had sort of like a VHS rip or whatever the technical term is for it. So the versions of EC like on YouTube and stuff are hundredth generation from that copy? That's what he believes. Yeah. He believes it all comes from a copy. He took to, you know, lightning fast VHS in 1993 and asked for a couple of copies. Because I don't personally use anything to someone on the staff leaked it. Wow. And because of that, that's why we've seen the film. Right. So is Batwoman going to come out the same way? Yeah. Okay. Is it time for our boats? Depends. Do you want more trivia? No. We're like two and a half hours. Yeah. I still haven't eaten dinner and it's eight, three. Okay. All right. All right. If you, if you just let me briefly return into the, the thing outfit and the, and the stuntman that worked in the thing outfit. All right. So they, for whatever reasons, they decided they didn't want to put the actor in the suit. They wanted to stunt guy in the suit. Probably because he's thrown around stuntman a lot of the time. So they got this guy, Carl Cio, Carl Cio. As I said, he's worked in everything. It's a good thing. We don't count stunt men. Yeah. Because he's been in so much, stunt men must be in lots and lots of things. Like we, we count what's called creature actors, right? So like Doug Jones and that, but we don't count stunt men. But if we did stay up, count stunt men, come on. I think you would be surprised to hear that Carl Cio Folio worked as the stunt coordinator on a film we've covered on the podcast. Okay. He was the stunt coordinator on last week's movie, Drifting School. Whoa. That is shocking. He also played a policeman in that film. He's been in all sorts of Batman, rather than the Rocketeer, you know, all sorts of things. Okay. The suit, they did a full body plaster cast of him and the head plaster cast of him. They, of course, didn't have the money for a, what they call a cool suit where they run warfare underneath to cool him off. So he was always very hot. Yeah. It took him at least, it took three people and five minutes to get him out of it whenever he needed to get out. And so, you know, like they'd be pouring water in him in there, they'd be blowing a fan. They put a fan in the mouth, just trying to get some air into him. So they didn't pass out, but he said he had a great experience and apparently filmed a, on super eight footage of the suit being made. And you can apparently buy this DVD from his website. Okay. So support our Patreon if you would like to hear more about this video. All right. That's fine. We'll move on now. All right. Let's get to our vote. So how do we feel about these early issues of Fantastic Four? Yeah, your name. I would say, yeah, I enjoyed reading them more than I kind of even expected to. Okay. They were pretty meaty, really condensed and a lot happens in an issue. And I thought they were interesting for all of the things that don't make sense in them. Yeah. I'm going to go nay, maybe because I know how good it gets a few years down the line. And once there's like a fuller cast of characters and once Joe Sinat comes in to do the inking, it really gets pretty amazing. So I kind of, I think these ones are a bit awkward, I think, but you can see the, you can see the formation of the brilliance that's to come kind of in the background a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I agree with Kamara. I'm also a nay. I'm aware of its significance. I can see that this is kind of like, we've got some early flashes of genius with the personal problems with superhero antics combined, which is a winning formula. Kirby's arts. All right. But, you know, it's not as good as it's going to get. You did the Captain America comics. They looked really good. It's early. Jack Kirby. Early Stan Lee. It can be dull at times as you say, I just, it's going to get so much better. Yeah. So, yeah, I would start somewhere in the middle. It's a night for me as well. How do we feel about this movie? This is a tricky one. There are things I like about it. I appreciate the effort of the actors and the sincerity of it. But, I mean, this is, this is clunky, this is clankier than the revolutions of Fantastic Four, so I have to say nay. There's no way I could say you hated this. Okay. What do you think, Tim? Yeah. I mean, there were things I liked about it. I mean, besides Rebecca's job. But, but I never watched, I've never watched a movie where I had so constantly had the feeling I wanted to say, turn the lights on. 'Cause I guess you see anything. And I also couldn't make out some dialogue, especially from Dr. Du. Yeah. Those are my biggest problems with it. I don't feel like I should judge the special effects by MCU standards. That would be fair. But... It's in which case it's perfectly normal, what you expect. Yeah. But I guess I'm going to have to say nay. I feel like I don't really want to, but I'm going to have to say nay. All right. I'm going to Descent and say yay. Okay. I not only did I enjoy this film, but I feel like you can't separate it from the mystery and the environment in which it exists. It's been cleaned up with AI. It's a bit like when I talked about heavy metal. If you want to watch this film, you know you're watching something you're not supposed to be watching. There's that excitement to it. You're seeing a hidden thing, something people don't want you to see. That, to me, makes it fun. Also, there's the fact that it's a corpsman. I mean, the film even begins with Roger Corman presents Fantastic Four. So this is a Corman movie. If I view it in the Corman overlap, it's a, it's a, you know, it's a Corman movie through and through stock footage crappy effects. Yeah. Tiny stages. Yeah. These things are all true. Yeah. I love that it's short. Yes. I did love it. It was 90 minutes, 85 minutes with credits. Yeah. And I really liked the, the thing. Yeah. I think the movie is shorter than some MCU just credit sections. Yeah. But I think to reiterate my, my years contingent sort of on the fact that this is a lost movie. Yeah. And the actors have different opinions on this or they've come to have different opinions upon this very recently, just in May of this year. Alex Hyde White, who was one of the most aggressive promoters of it back in 1993. He said that as to whether or not it should be released, he thinks no. He says, it's a nice sleeping dog. It's still alive and I'm happy to let it lay where it lays. I think the reason it keeps getting better and better is because it's never been released to the math. Once it's released, the story ends. Then it becomes the early version of Fantastic Four that now people have judgment about. Right. So there's mystique about it because some people, most people still haven't seen it. Yeah. Only people who are seeking it out have seen it like us. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. Okay. Adaptation. Yeah. The powers look so bad. The powers are so. Yeah. Is this a good adaptation in any sense? I mean, I think they made a lot of effort. The scriptwriter made a lot of effort to make it true to the comics. Yes. I mean, I can imagine it going much further off the rails in terms of being true to the material. Yeah. Yeah. I think I'd go yay on that. Yeah, I'm going to go yay compared to like the issues we read for this episode. It's actually pretty similar in quality and tone and themes and plot points. Yeah. Plot points, especially even even going moving aside from like quality, something. I mean, you've got the, you know, optic nerve, the special effects studio that made the things suit. They said they went back to the Kirby art and this thing looks more like Jack Kirby's thing than any of the things that we've seen in the years since. In the live action rooms. You know, it's got that big, beatling brow, you know, the blue eyes, human eyes, like a teeth, the tongue. It really looks just like the character. And then there's all the plot points that you said, you know, the thing runs off on his own. It's booksy. It takes a bit out of this. Yes. It's clobbering time. It's clobbering time. It's clobbering time. Alicia Masters is in it. Yeah. You know, flame on and flame off. That's in it. Yeah. I'll quote again, this, I'll quote, once again, the stunt man, Carl Ciofaleo in an interview in 2016. He said, I think it has a really strong fan base because it stayed so close to the characters in the story of the original comic. I think it tells the story better than the new ones do. I also think that the characters are more true to the way they were written. So I think that's why it has the fan base. It does. Okay. All right. So, Tim, shall we come back in a few months? Yeah. Get to the 2005. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we can untangle a little more about. Yes. Yes. What the hell happened? Yes. Let's kind of space these out and get to the all four of them before July when the new one comes out. Which we won't be covering, but deconstructing comics might. Yes. Definitely. So please like, rate, review and subscribe. Follow it. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/comicbookmovie, oblivion, all one word. Come and see our Facebook page. I've pretty much abandoned it. It's just Kumar shouting into the wind now. Yeah. There's lots of fun stuff on there. That we're on Instagram. Come see the Reels that Kumar made months ago. Send us a DM on Twitter. Yes. Or you can comment on the Facebook or the Instagram or DM us on the Instagram. And you can email us at the email address in the show notes. Oh, yes. And that's it. Okay. Next week. I didn't even warn you about what we do. I'm finding out when the audience is. Next week we are going to do atomic lawn. All right. We're going to do it based on the coldest city because I was like, I think we've had like seven stinkers in a row. And we kind of need a good one in there. And I've seen it once. My memory was pretty good. I'm excited. But before we go. Fantastic. For 1993. Is it worse than Veronica? Oh, no. It's worse. No way. I really like this movie. Yes. Yes. This has a lot going for it. Veronica just laughs for all the things that are not going. Laughs and porn. Yeah. I just feel pretty. See you next week. [Music] (upbeat music)
