The New Fantastic Four Cast Is Less Than Fantastic

Well, they’ve cast the stars for the new reboot of The Fantastic Four movie. I don’t mean to be a Debbie Downer but wow. I’m not really too excited.

It seems like the default reaction to any comic book movie casting is to throw your hands up and say “really?!” Like when the news of the new actor to portray Batman came to light everyone lost their minds. Ben Affleck?!!! No way!! It’ll be a horrible movie!! I hate comic books now!! I’m burning all of Nolan’s movies now!! Nerds everywhere hiked their pants up a little higher, grabbed their torches and pitchforks, and went on a good old fashioned lynching squad rant. The internet erupted with hate and rude comments. Whether you think Affleck will do a good job or not became the water cooler discussion of the day. It was crazy.

But lets not forget that there have been a lot of actors who came into rolls that no one thought they could pull off and they rocked the heck out of them. Heath Ledger as the Joker was one of them. A lot of people including myself didn’t think he fit the part but then he was awesome. The difference is, now I’ve learned. I don’t judge right away. I’m going to wait and see how the new Batman is done. Ben is a good actor and I have faith in him. I no longer freak out over which star is going to portray a superhero. Until now….

They’ve announced the new cast for the Fantastic Four reboot and I’m not really too excited. Number one, I don’t REALLY care all that much for The Fantastic Four to begin with. I mean they’re cool but they were never my favorite. Secondly, I think they’re using a really old trick that seriously needs to be retired.

It’s Hollywood’s ‘go to thing’ to take a character that everyone knows and turn them into a woman or, in the case of The Human Torch, turn him into a black person. Nothing against black people, obviously, but why turn the character black at all? Do they think minorities are stupid and they’ll now go to the movie because there is a black character in it? Would someone honestly select a movie to go see just because of the race of one of the actors in that particular film? They need to stop using black people as gimmicks like this. Its sickening.

Not to mention the fact that Sue and Johnny are siblings. Soooo this just got awkward. Was their mom sleeping around or something? Or are they changing that too? Maybe in this version they aren’t related? Or one of them was adopted?

This isn’t a big deal because he’s black. It would be just as weird as changing The Human Torch to a woman. Imagine they made a movie about your life and the actor playing you was completely different than you. It wouldn’t make sense would it? (Shake your head NO)

The bottom line is, you can take certain liberties when translating a comic book into a movie but don’t take it so far that the characters aren’t even recognizable anymore. Don’t change the things that make them who they are. That’s just annoying.

Also, the actors all seem too young for the parts. Except Sue. She might be a little too old.

The actors are as follows:

Miles Teller is playing Mr. Fantastic. Does he still wear diapers? How is he going to pull off the grey patches of hair by the ears? He probably doesn’t even shave yet!

Kate Mara is Sue Storm.

Michael B. Jordan as The Human Torch. (Sue’s brother)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And Jamie Bell as The Thing. Seems like another young choice if you know anything about Ben’s back story.

The casting won’t stop me from seeing this but I may wait until it comes to DVD and just rent it. I’m pretty disappointed. The cast in the older (but not old enough for a reboot) Fantastic Four movies wasn’t terrible. I thought they all did well. It was just the movie itself that was written kind of bad. They just seemed kind of empty.

Comic Books Are Not Nerdy

What is it about certain things that makes them so ‘nerdy’ that people grab their children’s hands and speed-walk them in the other direction? Why are certain things labeled as taboo?

Comic books. Oh my gosh! I said comic book!! In this day and age if you’re caught with a comic book, that’s the end of your social life. No one wants to hang out with a comic book nerd. Well, guess what? They’re awesome so get over it. That’s right. I said awesome. Some of the greatest stories are told in the pages of those forbidden books. Socially awkward, cardigan wearing, pocket protector equipped nerds have been made fun of for reading comics ever since comic books were a thing. Why is that? Why are we made fun of for reading a comic book but praised by our peers for saying, “Why so serious” at a party? That’s a Batman reference. You quote something from a Batman movie and its cool but you quote something from a Batman comic and people look at the floor and slowly inch away from you. Why?

If a story is good, then its good. Why does the general public choose to accept one format of storytelling but frown on another EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE TELLING THE SAME STORY? It honestly doesn’t make sense to me.

I’ve always sort of thought that people are made fun of to ‘keep them in line’ so to speak. Small minded people fear a thinking brain. Since small minds always outnumber large ones there’s a good chance the smart people will be shoved out of society. They become outcasts because they thought for themselves instead of keeping quiet about their thoughts so that they would fit in with the majority. People who read are (I think its safe to say) generally smarter (or at least WISH to be smarter) than the average person. Comic books are a form of reading. If you read, BOOM OUTCAST!! No one wants to feel stupid so having a smart person around is unacceptable. We can’t just let them run free. What if we learned something from them or something horrible happened like our pride got hurt because they show us something we didn’t know before. The horror.

Superheroes are becoming more and more main stream with each new Marvel or DC blockbuster they crank out and now that the sheep are being told that it is in fact cool to enjoy these awesome movies, now superheroes are okay. Not before. When they were just in comic books and on our underwear that was unacceptable. But now they’re in movies so everyone can join hands and sing kumbaya while you all untwist your mind’s panties and ‘fit in.’

I guess I’m just trying to start a conversation here. What are your thoughts?