Originally Posted by
Ascended
I'm not the biggest FF fan out there. In fact I like most of the adjacent stuff, like Namor, Doom, Wakanda and the Panther, the Negative Zone, all that stuff, more than I like the Richards clan. But you can't discount the pedigree of the franchise and the MCU has churned out a lot of good films about characters I didn't care about.
So for me, not being too invested in the FF but being invested in the MCU.....
Adventure over Action. The FF aren't super heroes, right? They're super scientists, super adventurers. They're not supposed to be beating up criminals, they're supposed to be exploring the deepest corners of reality, expanding humanity's knowledge. I don't know if the first film even needs a "villain" in the classic sense, just some major obstacle they need to overcome; returning home from some exotic location, or trying to stop some kind of big sci-fi natural disaster or something. I won't complain if there's a villain (Mole Man!!) but I feel like this is a IP that isn't going to be served by hero-villain violence, it should take inspiration from stuff like Lost in Space and Twilight Zone more than the Avengers or JLA.
Don't be ashamed of Doom. I feel like previous films have halfassed Doom, ignoring his skill in magic, or his royal lineage, downplaying the armor, or whatever, and that's unforgivable. If you use Doom, you go all-in; he's wizard enough to challenge Strange, smart enough to out-tech Tony, rules a nation of his own...Doom's a legit threat on any scale, an easy choice for "next multi-phase big bad" and if you can't get him right, you shouldn't bother doing the FF at all. I don't need Doom to be the main villain in the first film, but whenever he shows up, he's gotta be done right.
Doom speaks in the third person. This is non-negotiable.
Don't "Ninja Turtles" the FF. I feel like modern writers often boil a character down to a couple traits that're mostly there so they can be juxtaposed against their immediate peers; you have the "smart" one, the "angry" one, the "fun" one, whatever. You see it with Ninja Turtles, you see it now with the Robins over in Gotham, and you even see it with Drax, where most of the depth and nuance gets lost in favor of goofball zingers. Don't do that with the FF; yeah everyone loves how Ben and Johnny bicker, they love how the grumpy vet and the young hot head are always pranking each other....but these characters have to be more well rounded than that; if each member of the FF isn't a fleshed out and interesting character on their own merits, then the family dynamic is going to feel thin and cheap. But at the same time.....
It's about the family. This can't be Reed's movie. Or Sue's. Or anyone else's (except Doom's! All things are rightfully Doom's!). Each character has to stand on their own, but end of the day the FF are about family and that should always be front and center.
Crazy settings. Do not give me a movie where the most interesting place the FF go is lower orbit. Give me something wild; the subterranean tunnels and caves of the Mole society, the Negative Zone, the Savage Land....something truly fantastical.