Pretending The Old ‘Fantastic Four’ Movies Were Good Is Gaslighting

There has been a weird trend lately where in the wake of the Fantastic Four: First Steps trailers and clips, there has been some sort of memory hole of nostalgia pretending that the “real” Fantastic Four movies, the pair that began 20 years ago in 2005, are superior.

This is mostly people not liking the retro-future aesthetic of First Steps, sometimes mixed with actual racism (people do not want a “Mexican” Reed Richards, actor Pedro Pascal is Chilean), or they don’t believe new Sue Storm Vanessa Kirby is attractive enough compared to the (frequently objectified in those movies) Jessica Alba. This Vanessa Kirby:

But people are also trying to say that those films were actually great, and this is gaslighting to the point of delusion, pretty much. Casting may have been on point, but these movies were not good. The actual data we have here very much confirms that at the time, people generally did not think these movies were good. Cases in point:

Fantastic Four (2005) – 27% critic score, 45% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, 5.7/10 on IMDB

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2005) – 37% critic score, 51% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, 5.6/10 on IMDB.

However, no one would argue these two were not better than 2015’s Fantastic Four, one of the worst-reviewed comic book movies ever with a 9% critic scores and 18% audience scores. No nostalgia there.

We don’t have a comparison point on Fantastic Four: The First Steps given that it’s not here yet, but director Matt Shakman directed all nine episodes episodes of WandaVision, an excellent MCU outing. And if you’re looking for an infusion of comedy in the upcoming film, he’s done 43 episodes of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

This idea that the early 2000s Fantastic Four movies were some beacon of quality back then is just not a thing. This was right before the MCU began with the excellent Iron Man in 2008, and during an era where the actually good superhero movies were from the X-Men and Spider-Man. When Fantastic Four was released it seemed dismal compared to those, and to think otherwise is just attempting to either A) hate on the MCU or B) get involved in some sort of culture war that now must infect on every piece of media. It’s just not reality.

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