So here’s a thing you don’t do: make a movie that gets 28% on Rotten Tomatoes, and then make a sequel that assumes that we adore the characters. But 20th Century Fox is not always adept at reading the room.
So the 2007 Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer begins with a full half-hour of preparations for the painfully traditional wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm, two characters who we have not and do not intend to grow to love. Once that’s out of the way, everbody gets upset about the Silver Surfer, a galactic herald who flies around digging inexplicable holes, and not actually telling anybody what it is that he’s supposed to be heralding.
It’s a difficult movie to get your head around, so luckily I’ve got Becca Petunia of the blog The Daily Fantastic and the Muppet quiz show podcast Hubba-Wha?! to help me make sense of it. We discuss Chris Evans’ destiny, what the film is trying to do with Doctor Doom, and whether the ancient Israelites went surfing, among many other fascinating conundrums.
The podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, YouTube, Overcast, Audible, Stitcher and lots of other places. Come check it out!
Here’s Act 2 of the episode:
And here’s Act 3!
Next week:
Green Lantern!
— Danny Horn
Superheroes Every Day 
Still waiting on Superman 3.
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Yes! I’m with you! I do really enjoy the podcasts…but they’re not a patch on the blogs. I’d even be happy with just one a month as I appreciate they’re probably a massive time drain.
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Happy National Superman Day!
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“Whoever’s involved with this movie should not be making more movies.”
Unless it’s Chris Evans.
Actually, they’re not bad actors. They’re just badly cast in this movie.
I enjoyed Becca’s funny and knowledgeable input.
The Fantastic Four was the first comic I read as a kid. I always found Reed and Sue fairly dull but I sympathized with Ben. There’s Pixar movie material in the group helping Ben adjust to being The Thing. And there’s space and dimension-hopping to tie in with the multiverse, not to mention a legendary villain with Doctor Doom. I would think there’s the foundation for a really good movie there. I hope Marvel does better with it than Fox did.
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I went to see this believing I’d see Galactus, even if the movie was as bad as the first. Or to see what they’d do with Galactus, at least. They’d done stuff I kind of hated with the character in the Ultimates comics, but, yeah, they couldn’t even really give me Galactus after sitting through all that. Great job getting through the film, team. It’s a mess and you persevered.
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I love doom so, so much (mad scientist / wizard – yes!) but this show just hurt me so deep in my guts. I know Julian MacMahon was having a moment there with “nip/tuck,” but Doom? Him?
And oh god the “get loose…..” no. Nonono
I watched it on a flight and at some point I think I started watching my neighbors historic “Girl with the Pearl Earring” which was slow and not very good, but Y’know. Scarlett Johansson.
And for those wanting some sweet tunes, Joe Satriani’s magnum opus “surfing with the alien” features a track “back to shalla-bal“ – presumably Norton Rad’s heartache ballad to his far-away, but still alive, love.
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If memory serves, Galactus uses a machine to help absorb the life energy of planets. His heralds serve as scouts to help him find planets with life on them to consume. I’m not sure about the previous heralds, but Silver Surfer tried to avoid planets with sentient life at some point, but I’m not sure if that was before or after encountering Sue Richards.
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Oh! Danny, I think, pondered about a herald wearing skates. There was one. The Dazzler. :-O
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