The brand new teaser for The Fantastic Four: First Steps dropped today, and I think this is going to be the real Marvel movie. Thunderbolts is coming out. Captain America is coming out, obviously. But this is the first family of Marvel Comics, and if there’s anything that’s going to genuinely usher in the beginning of a new era, or a new phase so to speak, it’s going to be the Fantastic Four, regardless of whatever storylines get put together around it.
If you haven’t watched it yet, go watch it and come on back. The link from Marvel itself is in the description of the video above. And spoilers from here on, if you want to go in blind.
A 4:3 Elevator Into the Baxter Building
The thing opens with an elevator opening into what the voiceover introduces almost immediately as the Baxter Building. And this opening part is in 4:3, the smaller TV aspect ratio from back in the day, before we had the 16:9 wide frame we know today. It already sets a really great stage, at least from a nostalgia standpoint. I thought it fit really well, especially as the first thing you see.
Then there’s no preamble. Just bam, we get to see Ben Grimm as the Thing, and you hear the voiceover talk about what happened. So we get a little bit of their origin story, sort of in flashback, and I think that’s probably how we’re going to experience it in the movie. I can’t imagine they’re going to spend the time to reinvent that story again. Then you see the moment of Ben standing there looking at himself, and the early interviews for their very first mission, which is the mission they got their powers on.
A Character Trailer That Keeps Its Story
I do love the fact that this is what we consider in the industry to be a character trailer. It sets the mood and tone without full-blown giving away any of the story beats. We don’t really know what’s going to happen story-wise.
There are several people who said the teaser of the teaser, the one based primarily in the 1960s USA, was strictly there to set up this teaser and wasn’t actually going to be part of the movie itself. I don’t know if I believe that.
Galactus Over the Statue of Liberty
As it continues you get to this really interesting place where I didn’t think we were going to go. You see the crown of Galactus, and it leans over the Statue of Liberty. That’s way more than I expected to see.
Then it’s Ben Grimm and everybody getting ready, all of them doing their thing. We didn’t see a whole lot of stretchiness from Pedro, and I’m wondering if that’s because they want to perfect that effect before giving it to us full-blown. Either way, seeing the team come together and find that dynamic I think we’re going to be enjoying? I’m down for it. I’m totally here.
Superman and the First Family
Some people have been trying to compare this to the Superman trailer. For me the comparison isn’t this or that. Both of these are scratching an itch for us as a society that’s very nostalgic, very yesteryear. Both of them have an upbeat, very positive energy, and I’m here for that. I think it’s going to be fun, and I think it’s going to help the storytelling they’re doing in all of this.
Obviously the numbers are going to tell, and everyone and their mom out there is going to be like, oh, this one did better, or that one did better, or this one did better in households of women of a certain age with peg legs. They’re going to make a weird comparison. Either way, enjoy them. I’m looking forward to both of these movies, and I think both of them hold a very special place in the narrative of their respective studios. Superman, of course, is setting the pace and tone for DC. And this one is the first family.
I’m looking forward to Thunderbolts, and Captain America for sure. But I definitely want to watch this trailer again.
Your turn. Was that 1960s teaser of the teaser only there to set this one up, or is it part of the movie? Do these two trailers even compare? And what are you most excited for out of everything coming? I’d love to find out where Know-It-All Nation stands. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.
