Fant4stic: The Unaired TV Pilot

The editor has done a brilliant job coaxing a decent story from some pretty shoddy material. It felt much more true to the source than the movie. By the end of this edit I was wanting more and wishing that the rest of the film had given anything else worthwhile to use. Turning this into a pilot to a TV series was a great choice and worked as a foundation to use my imagination to complete the story.

The edits were all smooth and seamless but what really stood out to me was how much livelier everything felt. It takes a real master of pacing to pull excitement from monotony. The audio was good and the color grading was perfect for the new tone. All in all this is likely the best anyone could do with this mess and was really enjoyable to watch.

Good job and thank you, ironman23!

At first I had absolutely no interest in watching this edit. While I saw some promise in Fant4stic in theaters, it was ultimately awful and I knew there was no way that this "pilot" could possibly have a satisfying and fitting conclusion based on what the description was, and what I knew of the movie. But, after watching a few of ironman's trailers for it, I was one over. It showed just enough promise that it seemed worth spending 50 minutes going through.

I can now say that I am thoroughly glad I took the time to watch it. The promise that I saw in theaters shines through to a shocking level in this edit, with nearly every scene making the most of its purpose and its characters. The editing is tight, and since it's been two years since I've seen the theatrical version, I couldn't even tell you what or where the film was cut, it was that smooth, it was that logical, and it was that narratively strong.

Most surprisingly, even though the pilot does indeed end on a cliff hanger, without any real "conclusion" it feels appropriate and strangely satisfying all the same. Much in the same way that you don't mind when the first episode of a really great show ends in a cliffhanger, this too left me satisfied with the first installment and my only nagging criticism being that we couldn't see more "episodes" of this series. If it was a show, it would probably be one of my favorites, and certainly on par - if not better than - the Netflix Marvel shows.

All in all, it's something I'd definitely say is worth watching. While the material will never capture the FF as comic accurately as a lot of other properties, ironman does everything he possibly can to make this altered, modernized version of the FF work.