found footage, avi arad, cheese, fantastic four, marvel, roger corman

The Fantastic Four Movie Marvel Doesn't Want You To See

Here's the action-packed climax of Roger Corman's Fantastic Four, which Marvel reportedly paid millions to suppress. In this version, Reed Richards' main superpower is the ability to telegraph his punches worse than Tom Selleck. And the Thing's greatest gift is the ability to move as though he were in a full-body cast. As B movies go, Fantastic isn't so bad, but it makes some very questionable story choices.

The biggest mistake in this movie? The inclusion of an evil leprechaun named The Jeweler, who somehow becomes crucial to the FF's mythos. It's the Jeweler who steals the crucial crystals that power the Four's spaceship (while dancing a jig across a laser security system). Later, he adopts the Thing into his family of freaks and also kidnaps the Thing's girlfriend. Finally, he has a thrilling stand-off with Doctor Doom. If you've ever wanted to see the evil Latverian genius face off with a comedy leprechaun, this is your chance. Oh, and Doom's "I will destroy New York" speech is campy in a very, very bad way.

How did this disaster happen? A German production company owned the rights to make a Fantastic Four movie, but was unable to raise the $40 million it needed before the rights were due to expire. So the company turned to Roger Corman, who said he could make the movie cheap and quick. (As commenter ManchuCandidate points out, Corman was willing to take chances.) At $1.4 million, this movie had a huge budget compared to a usual Corman spectacle. After the film was completed, Marvel paid a few million to suppress it. The team worked in secret to complete post-production on it, but then Marvel ordered all prints destroyed. So it's a minor miracle that you're able to suffer through this clip.

11:23 AM on Fri Feb 1 2008
By charliejane
20,924 views
42 comments

Comments

Epaminondas at 11:32 AM on 02/01/08
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Doesn't look any worse than the two they did release.
BadUncle at 11:35 AM on 02/01/08
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All it needs is Louis Jourdan
deckard97 at 11:35 AM on 02/01/08
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Holy crap!!! That is right up there with Shazam! or better still Electro Woman and Dyna Girl!
CMG at 11:36 AM on 02/01/08
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I like the Thing's underoos. And nothing/no one could be worse than Jessica Alba (as anything), so bonus points for this version.
extracrispy at 11:37 AM on 02/01/08
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I have the entire movie somewhere on a VHS bootleg that I bought at DragonCon. Truly, truly dreadful.
edgyspice at 11:38 AM on 02/01/08
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I've seen this all the way through and I have to say that the recent versions pretty much feel exactly like the Corman one, just with bigger budgets. Maybe it's just the source material, but they all suffer from the cheese factor.
El_Bandito at 11:39 AM on 02/01/08
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oh that was awful
Garrison Dean, King... at 11:42 AM on 02/01/08
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Connectedness Index: 140

@extracrispy: Thank god for conventions eh? We should do a festival with that and my copies of Justice League and Captain America.
Seth L at 11:47 AM on 02/01/08
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I like Corman. He's a terrible action director, obviously, but who else would tell the story of the loyalty and love between a mad scientist, his wife, Peter Graves, and a Venusian Pickle-being that wants to take over Earth?
7Zark7 Iz In Ur Internetz at 11:53 AM on 02/01/08
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"The Fantastic Four Movie Marvel Does Not Want You To See."

If only Marvel editorial could have done this with Spider-Man: One Last Day/Civil War/House of M/etc...
NefariousNewt at 11:55 AM on 02/01/08
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Connectedness Index: 695

The Thing sounds like The Hulk.
ShockTerminal at 12:01 PM on 02/01/08
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This was made to keep thier contract, basicly a movie had to be made by a certain date (regardless of how good it was or not) for them to be able to make the new ones.
Plague at 12:09 PM on 02/01/08
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@deckard97:
Ah, yes. "Electro Woman and Dyna Girl", the stuff of my (numerous) childhood fantasies...
shehanum at 12:19 PM on 02/01/08
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Heh, they had Doomettes!!!
Marcus117 at 12:22 PM on 02/01/08
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Well it certainly doesn't look any worse than the shit we did get.
cde at 12:22 PM on 02/01/08
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Hmm... Storm looks like the new Flash Gordon... Just as gay too...
workingonyourinvoice at 12:28 PM on 02/01/08
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Flame on!
Apply directly to the forehead.
Flame on!
Apply directly to the forehead.
Flame on!
knyne at 12:39 PM on 02/01/08
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Truly craptastic. To give Corman his due, one of the constants of his films has been an ability to maintain pacing with great editing and propulsive plotting. As bad as this vehicle is, it still MOVES compared to the lackluster direction and lazy writing of the last two cinematic horseapples.
schmid4brains at 01:01 PM on 02/01/08
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love how the human torch throws fireballs underhand COMPLETELY missing the bad guys and blowing up the same wall 3 times. and you HAVE to love the evil lair strobe lighting. that's just classy.
tweezy at 01:12 PM on 02/01/08
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I have this on DVD. The whole movie! I bought it off eBay almost 3 years ago.

It's so bad that it's good again. The guy who plays Doom is so campy that it's hilarious. He keeps wiggling his fingers in a desperate attempt to emote without using his face (metal mask). There's this one scene that always gets us laughing were he caresses this scientist's face and plays with his lip. Classic.
phoenix at 01:55 PM on 02/01/08
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This movie looks AWESOME. The clip should have been longer! Will he make it in time to stop the destructo beam from hitting its target?! Will he be able to travel faster than light? Will their state of the art graphics save them from Doom's nylon cape? Will those two guys who keep playing the same minions finally break something after throwing themselves at the floor!? Will the thing finally manage to move his lips!? ALL THIS AND MORE NEXT TIME!
Frozen-Tex at 01:59 PM on 02/01/08
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@deckard97:

I remember Shazam! And how 'bout "Isis"?

@CMG: Don't be hatin' the Alba! Ahhhhh, Jessica...
cybergrunt at 02:01 PM on 02/01/08
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this looks more like the comic book i remember, the new movies sucked IMHO and this looks a lot more fun.
Spiral at 02:09 PM on 02/01/08
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Shockterminal is right. This was a movie that HAD to be made contractually to keep the license, and was never intended to be released. I don't think they told the actors, but it seems like some of them are figuring it out during the movie and decide to have fun with it.

I love the Dr. Doom actor throwing out gangsigns.
ashadowcastinred at 03:22 PM on 02/01/08
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I've got a bootlegged DVD of this on the way along with the Justice League fiasco. I've already got Birds of Prey...
mechno at 03:29 PM on 02/01/08
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I remember reading in some fanzine about this movie! The only thing that I remember is that The Human Torch was played by Jay Underwood who was in "The Boy Who Could Fly"
Nutty!
cde at 03:29 PM on 02/01/08
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@phoenix: Aww man, you should have gone into the "Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel" at the end :D
phoenix at 03:49 PM on 02/01/08
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@cde: I knew I was missing something! ;)
Robert Isbell at 05:43 PM on 02/01/08
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I happened to get a copy of this, I hope this isn't the one a lot of special effects people donated their time into making, if it is, rather harshing judging the movie over a decade after it was made, I wonder what the author of this was like a decade ago, and how they would handle being critiqued about themselves back then.
strider_mt2k at 06:46 PM on 02/01/08
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Connectedness Index: 717

Harvey Corman's what now?
vjmurphy at 07:00 PM on 02/01/08
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I haven't seen this in years, but isn't there a POV scene from Alicia Masters: the blind girlfriend of the Thing? Now that's comedy!
hageesheart at 08:05 PM on 02/01/08
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I love Ed Wood. I seriously appreciate his movies, am glad they exist. But there is something about Corman's output that has always left me feeling nauseous and a little soul-sick. I'm not sure what it is. I know that he's given a lot of important folks their start, that his flicks have a certain camp appeal. Did anybody see Carnosaur? There's this mad scientist, and she makes this thing that makes women become impregnated with dino eggs, which ultimately makes their stomachs explode. Just. Just. Ick. Soul-sick, I'm telling you!
freznel at 09:51 PM on 02/01/08
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I'd pay to watch this after a very excruciating final exam just to get my mind on something else :)
moff at 11:02 PM on 02/01/08
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Connectedness Index: 583

Yeah, I kinda liked that better than the 2005 movie. And I say that as someone who enjoyed the 2005 movie. On the other hand, it is two o'clock in the morning now.
raincoaster at 11:26 PM on 02/01/08
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Connectedness Index: 337

"Roger Corman's Fantastic Four"??????

I haven't even watched the clip yet, and I just came. A LOT.
Arconna at 11:39 PM on 02/01/08
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Honestly, I like that version better than the ones I've seen recently. Yeah, it's campy, ridiculous, and comic book-ish, but at least it has a sort of awesome feel to it. It's not so idiotic that you just want to walk away. It doesn't look too bad...
Sharpless at 10:40 AM on 02/02/08
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I used to have a copy of this on my computer. (Look around on some torrent sites. I'm sure you can find a copy somewhere.) It's truly a horrifying sight to behold. The whole thing is goofy as hell, and this Johnny Storm is nearly as intolerable as the current one. In fact, the new Fantastic Four movies are only marginally better than Corman's.
Hypenotist at 11:29 PM on 02/02/08
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the whole movie is just like that clip posted but more boring. If you seek you will find. Or just get it from IRC where it still lingers xdcc form after making it's flash vid and divx rounds over a year ago right before silver surfer came out.
92BuickLeSabre at 07:55 AM on 02/03/08
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Connectedness Index: 558

Normally I hate the Human Torch, but I empathize with this one.

I too cannot hit a single bad guy with a fire ball.
And I too have been wanting to take out the destructo ray since I was a kid!
Benjo at 10:59 AM on 02/04/08
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Wow, thank you so much for a clip from this. I've been hunting around for some video from this disaster for a while, and haven't been successful.

So awful...
dirtybacon at 01:01 PM on 02/27/08
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@ashadowcastinred: Where oh where did you get Birds of Prey? I need to pick that up.

My fave part: the fist cam. I'm thinking of building a prostetic fist that I can hang from my neck so I have FIST CAM ALL THE TIME!!
dirtybacon at 01:02 PM on 02/27/08
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@dirtybacon: hmmm...re-reading my comment it sounds like this comment may belong more on Fleshbot.