After a lengthy fallow period, the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase Six is set to start soon, with the arrival of The Fantastic Four: First Steps on July 25. The 37th movie in the MCU (no, really) has just received its first trailer, giving us our first look at the retro-futuristic 1960s setting, as well as everyone’s favorite daddy, Pedro Pascal, playing everyone’s favorite comics daddy, Reed Richards.
The Fantastic Four haven’t had much luck when it comes to cinematic outings. Fox’s three films across two attempts to bring the characters to the big screen have all been absolutely dreadful, the most recent 2015 effort a colossal flop that saw the characters put back in the toy box. Disney’s acquisition of Fox in 2019 paved the way for the possibility of the characters becoming part of the MCU, along with the X-Men, but it’s taken another six years to see this come to pass.
The new trailer is clearly an attempt at a fresh start, its exposition-heavy dialogue entirely dedicated to introducing the four characters, perhaps at the cost of being interesting in any other narrative ways? Obviously the aesthetic is the real star here, elevator doors opening into a Jetsons-like home, complete with a floating robot, before we’re hammered over the head with who everyone is (“Before we went up the first time, you couldn’t turn invisible,” is the clunkiest line of dialogue I’ve heard in a while). Then we’re hit with standard moments of trailer bombast, finishing on a teasing glimpse of the majesty of Galactus. But no sign of the Silver Surfer, due to appear as well.
As you may suspect, this isn’t a 1960s from the established MCU. This movie is not set on Earth-616, or at least, it doesn’t begin there. Marvel has chosen to say the X-Men and the like are all in another reality, hence their lack of prior appearance before Disney had the rights, and The Fantastic Four are in the same situation. It’ll be intriguing to find out if the film ends up being about their reaching “our” Earth, or if that’s a post-credits event.
Marvel sums up the movie thus:
Set against the vibrant backdrop of a 1960s-inspired, retro-futuristic world, Marvel Studios’ “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” introduces Marvel’s First Family—Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm/Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm/Human Torch (Joseph Quinn) and Ben Grimm/The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) as they face their most daunting challenge yet. Forced to balance their roles as heroes with the strength of their family bond, they must defend Earth from a ravenous space god called Galactus (Ralph Ineson) and his enigmatic Herald, Silver Surfer (Julia Garner). And if Galactus’ plan to devour the entire planet and everyone on it weren’t bad enough, it suddenly gets very personal.
What do you reckon? I think this trailer is so clearly aiming to be a primer for an audience unfamiliar with the characters as to be—hopefully—unreflective of the movie itself. It didn’t work for me at all, but I suspect it was never supposed to.
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