Why You Should Give Fantastic 4 A Chance on Video

I don't know or care much about the Fantastic Four or their legacy as superheroes.  I thought their prior two movies were dumb and that they weren't particularly interesting as characters.  Then I saw the the trailers for last summer's Josh Trank directed Fantastic 4 movie and was intrigued by the sci-fi take on the material and the dark tone.  I had also read that he was looking at Cronenbergian body horror as an influence which seemed interesting.

Then before the movie was released there were an avalanche of stories about the movie's troubled production such as Trank's "out of control" behavior on set and lots of reshoots.  The media smelled blood in the water and the movie got a ton of bad press.  When it was finally released all of the reviews and press seemed to feed into that narrative.  It now has the reputation of not only being a flop but an embarrassingly awful movie.

I finally saw it for myself on Blu-ray recently and it is definitely a better movie than you would believe from its reviews and reputation.  Now, it has some serious problems most of which are due to areas where it seems to have been significantly altered in editing with reshoots.  There are some glaring inconsistencies in visuals, tone, and pacing but I am convinced that there is a good or at least more interesting movie buried in here.

I particularly like the way the movie shows how horrible and burdensome it would be to have super-powers.  It seems like in every other superhero movie, the characters get off light.  If you really think about it, being Spider-Man would be a gross and horrifying experience.  Fantastic 4 actually spends some time on how disturbing and terrifying the character's powers would be and I really like that.  I also dig the premise of the these characters working on a project that seeks to uncover the mystery of inter-dimensional travel.  This is a fun idea, and a neat way to replace the 1960's era space origins of the characters.  It's an interesting idea that actually works well cinematically and adds something unique to the movie.

Also, I don't know if this is a factor of the post-production fiddling but the movie is under two hours long, which feels fresh and wonderful when every super hero or genre movie aims for a butt-numbing two and a half hour run time.  For this reason alone, the movie's reputation is puzzling.  The short run time helps offset some of the movie's issues.  A flawed long movie is one thing, but a flawed shorter movie can still be enjoyable.

In any case, I definitely recommend checking it out.  It's not the trainwreck  it is made out to be.  I, for one, would love to see a director's cut or alternate cut of the movie.


Patrick Garone
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The Force Awakens: Who Is Snoke?

If you are like me, you may have been a bit disappointed by the reveal that the mastermind behind Kylo Ren and the big boss of the First Order in The Force Awakens turned out to be yet another desiccated old dark side mummy. What's worse is that we find out very little about him in the movie and we are generic genre movie villain.

We know that he is a pale humanoid with deep scars on his face and head.  We also know that Han and Leia are aware of him and that he was involved in turning Ben Solo into Kylo Ren.  It was he who presumably ordered Ren to kill Luke Skywalker's Jedi trainees.  He is not a member of the Knghts of Ren, but his apprentice Kylo leads them.  Despite his gigantic holographic projection, he has been described as being about seven feet tall by people associated with the production. Strangely, for a movie that fetishises "practical effects," Snoke is a motion capture CGI character performed by Andy Sirkis, although from what we see in the movie he could have been realized with make-up.  For an alien, he is extremely human-looking.

We learn some interesting facts from the movie's novelization such as the fact that he was active during the Clone Wars and that he has had other apprentices, if he is not a Sith Lotd he certainly operates like one. He was drawn to Ben Solo because of his Skywalker lineage.  In fact, the book seems to emphasize Snoke's interest in the Skywalker family.

The above is literally all we know about him.  A popular and convincing fan theory going around proposes that Snoke is the assumed-to-be-dead Sith Lord, Darth Plagueus, described by Palpatine in a chilling monologue from Revenge of the Sith.  Palpatine hints that Plagueis had been his master and that he had been able to manipulate the force to survive death and create life.

Plagueus has an interesting history in Star Wars.  Because he was described at some length and associated with the saga's most interesting character, fans have always been curious to learn more about him.  Over the years, he has been the subject of a lot of fan art and speculation.  He was the subject of an oft-delayed novel, Darth Plagueus which detailed his backstory and relationship with Palpatine.  Of course, this was all wiped from canon during the Great EU Purge but he remains an interesting figure in Star Wars mythos.  Most interestingly, it is strongly theorized that his experimentation and manipulation of the Force caused the virgin birth of Anakin Skywalker.  In fact, this subplot was likely the whole reason that the idea of midichlorians was created, to give the Force a biological manifestation in order to explain how a Force user like Plagueus could use it to create life.  This is one of Star Wars' most interesting and significant unexplored storylines.

So what is the evidence that Snoke is Plagueus?  Plagueus was a Muun which are tall thin pale-skinned humanoids, seen briefly in the separatist meeting in Attack of the Clones.  While, he doesn't exactly look like the Muun's we have seen on screen, he's close. We know Snoke was active around the time of the Clone Wars, which could be consistent with him being Plagueus (in his novel, Plagueus was killed toward the end of the events of The Phantom Menace but, again, this is no longer canon).  Perhaps the best evidence is that the musical cue that plays while Palpatine tells Anakin the tale of "Darth Plagueus the Wise" is almost identical to Snoke's theme in the Force Awakens.  Remember, John Williams has composed the scores for all of the Star Wars movies and it is doubtful he would just recycle an old piece of music for no reason.  The music strongly implies a connection between these scenes.

So, let's say it is Plagueus, what does that mean for our story?  It means that instead of a generic villain, we have a character who has already has an important stake in the saga.  If we are picking up that interesting thread of Plagueus having essentially triggered Anakin's birth all those years ago, it would explain his interest in the Skywalker family. It would also provide some payoff for the long stranding mystery of Anakin's conception and birth.  It would be a terrific reveal for the end of the next movie.  Instead of "I am your Father" it would be "I created your whole family using the Dark Side!"

Now, according to interviews and info that has leaked out since the movie's release, we know that the Snoke character was one of the last things to be finalized for the movie.  It was even revealed that the filmmakers had considered making Snoke a female character, so if he is Plagueis it was not the original plan for the The Force Awakens.  It may be that in developing the character, Abrams and co stumbled upon Plagueis as an interesting piece of unexplored material with story potential.

So why are people pushing the Plagueis angle?  Why can't Snoke be a new and original character?  It's probably because Snoke is widely regarded as one of the weakest parts of the movie.  A lot of us are hoping for the reveal that makes him a more interesting and important character instead of how he seems: a warmed over version of Palpatine and another powerful force user who just happened to be hanging around during the prior six movies.

Patrick Garone
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