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Post by moviemouth on Jul 25, 2020 0:17:32 GMT
I am watching this fascinating documentary and what is probably the most famous non-released movie ever made.
Has anyone here seen Doomed: The Untold Story of Roger Corman's Fantastic Four Movie?
The bootleg version of the 1994 movie is available on Youtube btw. The only Fantastic Four movie that got the characters right at least. Doctor Doom is practically ripped right out of the comic book in terms of appearance.
For those who don't know, Fantastic Four was a movie that had marketing for a theatrical release back in 1994, but as it turns out, the movie was made with no intention of being released for some strange reason. According to the documentary, this wasn't even told to the actors in the movie.
Available on Amazon Prime.
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Post by Prime etc. on Jul 25, 2020 0:29:45 GMT
The film was better than I expected.
They don't mess around with it too much. The guy playing Doom is good--got the voice and attitude.
I assume the Mole Man was originally supposed to be in it? Because that other villain sure looked like him.
Hampered by the cheapness and FX (even though the Thing costume would have been state of the art for 1994). The Torch fire FX--yikes--but that was probably hi tech for the time too.
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Post by moviemouth on Jul 25, 2020 0:33:21 GMT
The film was better than I expected. They don't mess around with it too much. The guy playing Doom is good--got the voice and attitude. I assume the Mole Man was originally supposed to be in it? Because that other villain sure looked like him. Hampered by the cheapness and FX (even though the Thing costume would have been state of the art for 1994). The Torch fire FX--yikes--but that was probably hi tech for the time too. Nothing about this movie was high tech for the time. The movie had a budget of 1.5 million dollars. For context, Howard the Duck had a budget of 36 million dollars. |
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Post by Prime etc. on Jul 25, 2020 0:55:02 GMT
Nothing about this movie was high tech for the time. The movie had a budget of 1.5 million dollars. For context, Howard the Duck had a budget of 36 million dollars. The spfx were. The creature suit, the CGI (bad fire effects but in those days it had hardly been attempted before).
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Post by moviemouth on Jul 25, 2020 1:03:56 GMT
Nothing about this movie was high tech for the time. The movie had a budget of 1.5 million dollars. For context, Howard the Duck had a budget of 36 million dollars. The spfx were. The creature suit, the CGI (bad fire effects but in those days it had hardly been attempted before).
I am not convinced. The vfx looks laughably bad and not just the human torch. Superman vfx look far better 17 years earlier. I realize that they had never attempted a completely on fire person flying through the sky, but there is no way the vfx were the best they could be at the time considering the budget. I see no way around this fact. It is hard for me to imagine vfx looking worse than they do in this movie. Are you seriously trying to tell me that a movie with a 75 million dollar budget wouldn't have had more state of the art Human Torch effects? That is like saying that if the T-1000 was in this movie he would have looked equally as good as he does in T2.  15 years earlier  |
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Post by Prime etc. on Jul 25, 2020 1:12:50 GMT
I am not convinced. The vfx looks laughably bad and not just the human torch. Superman vfx look far better 17 years earlier. I realize that they had never attempted a completely on fire person flying through the sky, but there is no way the vfx were the best they could be at the time considering the budget. I see no way around this fact. It is hard for me to imagine vfx looking worse than they do in this movie. Are you seriously trying to sell me that a movie with a 75 million dollar budget wouldn't have had more state of the art Human Torch effects? Superman never had a flaming flying character. If a 75 million dollar budget film wanted to do a flying flaming guy in 1994 they would either have to make due with something similar to the CGI we got or due it with old fashioned pyrotechnics (which would have been a better idea for quality).
The fire effects in Relic were a few years later and still looked kind of sucky. It didn't get better until Lord of the Rings.
Animatronic rock man wasn't going to be much more sophisticated in 1994 either since the face had to be attached to a costume so there was limited room to do things with it. The lumpy guy in the 2004 film wasn't an improvement.
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Post by moviemouth on Jul 25, 2020 1:19:04 GMT
I am not convinced. The vfx looks laughably bad and not just the human torch. Superman vfx look far better 17 years earlier. I realize that they had never attempted a completely on fire person flying through the sky, but there is no way the vfx were the best they could be at the time considering the budget. I see no way around this fact. It is hard for me to imagine vfx looking worse than they do in this movie. Are you seriously trying to sell me that a movie with a 75 million dollar budget wouldn't have had more state of the art Human Torch effects? Superman never had a flaming flying character. If a 75 million dollar budget film wanted to do a flying flaming guy in 1994 they would either have to make due with something similar to the CGI we got or due it with old fashioned pyrotechnics (which would have been a better idea for quality).
The fire effects in Relic were a few years later and still looked kind of sucky. It didn't get better until Lord of the Rings.
Animatronic rock man wasn't going to be much more sophisticated in 1994 either since the face had to be attached to a costume so there was limited room to do things with it. The lumpy guy in the 2004 film wasn't an improvement.
You are seeing something much different than me. The fire effects in The Relic look much better imo. |
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Post by Prime etc. on Jul 25, 2020 1:21:21 GMT
You are seeing something much different than me. The fire effects in The Relic look 100 times better. It didn't look like real fire. The worst thing about the 1994 Torch was that the cgi figure was very simplistic. The fire effects sucked but they would have sucked for any movie. Just like the cgi monkeys in Jumanji looked terrible even in 1995.
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Post by moviemouth on Jul 25, 2020 1:23:59 GMT
You are seeing something much different than me. The fire effects in The Relic look 100 times better. It didn't look like real fire. The worst thing about the 1994 Torch was that the cgi figure was very simplistic. The fire effects sucked but they would have sucked for any movie. Just like the cgi monkeys in Jumanji looked terrible even in 1995.
The are much better in The Relic. Disagree all you want. They don't look good, but they look much more convincing than Fantastic Four. That is the point I am making. There is no point in arguing further, because I simply think you are objectively wrong. |
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Post by Prime etc. on Jul 25, 2020 1:34:39 GMT
The are much better in The Relic. Disagree all you want. They don't look good, but they look much more convincing than Fantastic Four. That is the point I am making. One of us is clearly in denial and it isn't me. Four years made a big difference in CGI in the 1990s. You probably weren't old enough to remember how early CGI was received back then. And Jumanji was ILM-yet the monkeys still sucked. The dragon in Mortal Kombat 2 also looked bad.
So, for 1994, the fire cgi in Fantastic Four was at least mid budget quality. And if it had been ILM, they would have needed to do a lot of R and D.
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Post by moviemouth on Jul 25, 2020 1:41:09 GMT
The are much better in The Relic. Disagree all you want. They don't look good, but they look much more convincing than Fantastic Four. That is the point I am making. One of us is clearly in denial and it isn't me. Four years made a big difference in CGI in the 1990s. You probably weren't old enough to remember how early CGI was received back then. And Jumanji was ILM-yet the monkeys still sucked. The dragon in Mortal Kombat 2 also looked bad.
So, for 1994, the fire cgi in Fantastic Four was at least mid budget quality. And if it had been ILM, they would have needed to do a lot of R and D.
Mortal Kombat does look bad...compared to other movies at the time. I was old enough to compare cgi, because I did compare cgi. The Mask has better cgi than Mortal Kombat, T2 has better cgi than The Mask etc. All of them have far better cgi than F4. It isn't just about the Human Torch either, the explosion in the sky in F4 looks like a cartoon, and when you compare it to cgi explosions in movies with a much higher budget at the time it looks terrible by comparison. The ice cgi looks quite good in Mortal Kombat for example. For the time I mean. Partof the issue is that there is no shadowing or background blending. That is why Superman looks far more real, because of shadowing and blending Superman in with the sky and Earth in the background. Add the same Human Torch into the shot from superman and it automatically looks significantly better. VFX are more than just cgi. |
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Post by dazz on Jul 25, 2020 1:57:07 GMT
I am watching this fascinating documentary and what is probably the most famous non-released movie ever made. Has anyone here seen Doomed: The Untold Story of Roger Corman's Fantastic Four Movie? The bootleg version of the 1994 movie is available on Youtube btw. The only Fantastic Four movie that got the characters right at least. Doctor Doom is practically ripped right out of the comic book in terms of appearance. For those who don't know, Fantastic Four was a movie that had marketing for a theatrical release back in 1994, but as it turns out, the movie was made with no intention of being released for some strange reason. According to the documentary, this wasn't even told to the actors in the movie. Available on Amazon Prime. It not being made to be released isnt odd, it's very straight forward, the guy who had the rights legally had to make a film or the rights reverted back to Marvel, they knew at the time they didn'thave a partner who could or would make the movie for a theatrical release so rather than risk 10's of millions or give up the IP they made a low budget version with the sole purpose of fulfilling their legal requirement to do so to retain the rights for several more years, which they did and eventually sold or partnered with Fox to make the mid 00's films and the Trank version. This isn't an unusual practise it even has roots in comics, ashcan comics where comics made for the sole purpose of establishing trademark rights, or with films as stated to maintain the rights of licensed properties, this was also the case for the 1960's The Hobbit animated short and one of the recent Hellraiser films, use em or lose em as it were. |
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Post by Prime etc. on Jul 25, 2020 1:57:41 GMT
The Mask has better cgi than Mortal Kombat, T2 has better cgi than The Mask etc. The Mask was state of the art ILM for the time, just done with a squash and stretch cartoon mentality. It made the 3d-style animation in Who Framed Roger Rabbit look dated overnight (since that film employed many pre-digital enhancements to make the cel animation seem 3-dimensional.
The CGI in Terminator 2 was fairly primitive--they also used practical fx quite a bit too, even a guy in a tin foil costume
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Post by moviemouth on Jul 25, 2020 2:06:41 GMT
I am watching this fascinating documentary and what is probably the most famous non-released movie ever made. Has anyone here seen Doomed: The Untold Story of Roger Corman's Fantastic Four Movie? The bootleg version of the 1994 movie is available on Youtube btw. The only Fantastic Four movie that got the characters right at least. Doctor Doom is practically ripped right out of the comic book in terms of appearance. For those who don't know, Fantastic Four was a movie that had marketing for a theatrical release back in 1994, but as it turns out, the movie was made with no intention of being released for some strange reason. According to the documentary, this wasn't even told to the actors in the movie. Available on Amazon Prime. It not being made to be released isnt odd, it's very straight forward, the guy who had the rights legally had to make a film or the rights reverted back to Marvel, they knew at the time they didn'thave a partner who could or would make the movie for a theatrical release so rather than risk 10's of millions or give up the IP they made a low budget version with the sole purpose of fulfilling their legal requirement to do so to retain the rights for several more years, which they did and eventually sold or partnered with Fox to make the mid 00's films and the Trank version. This isn't an unusual practise it even has roots in comics, ashcan comics where comics made for the sole purpose of establishing trademark rights, or with films as stated to maintain the rights of licensed properties, this was also the case for the 1960's The Hobbit animated short and one of the recent Hellraiser films, use em or lose em as it were. It isn't the fact the movie was made to not be released that is strange, it is that it was marketed as a theatrical release and had trailers that was strange. I have never seen that before. Maybe it has happened in the past here and there, but I have never seen it happen. Yes, like there are a lot of microbudget Eric Roberts movies that do that, but these are movies that have no marketing whatsoever. |
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Post by moviemouth on Jul 25, 2020 2:19:59 GMT
The Mask has better cgi than Mortal Kombat, T2 has better cgi than The Mask etc. The Mask was state of the art ILM for the time, just done with a squash and stretch cartoon mentality. It made the 3d-style animation in Who Framed Roger Rabbit look dated overnight (since that film employed many pre-digital enhancements to make the cel animation seem 3-dimensional.
The CGI in Terminator 2 was fairly primitive--they also used practical fx quite a bit too, even a guy in a tin foil costume
They use tin foil in one shot in T2. The rest of it is very convincing cgi and better than the same cgi in Terminator Genysis imo. We are just going to have to agree to disagree on this. I also think the effects in Roger Rabbit are excellent. Practical FX are VFX. You said FX in your original reply, not cgi. There is a big difference. Best visual effects has been an Oscar category since at least the 1960s. Anyway, I just got to the part in the documentary where they are talking about this and the crew said the vfx guy was an amateur who was way out of his depth and had no idea what he was doing. |
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Post by Prime etc. on Jul 25, 2020 2:29:07 GMT
They use tin foil in one shot and that is it as far as I remember. The rest of his cgi is state of the art and better than the same cgi in Terminator Genysis imo. We are just going to have to agree to disagree on this. Practical FX are VFX. You said FX in your original reply, not cgi. There is a big difference. Anyway, I just got to the part in the documentary where they are talking about this and the crew said the vfx guy was an amateur who was way out of his depth and had no idea what he was doing. Was Optic Nerve amateur?
Check their credits to see if you think they were amateurs. The on set VFX coordinator may well have been an amateur, but not Optic Nerve--they did the makeup for the Night of the Living Dead remake in 1990.
As I said, the CGI figure animation was not impressive, but I was speaking of the fire. For 1994, it was at least tv quality and good luck trying to find examples of CGI fire in 1994. The Jan De Bont Godzilla was supposed to be the film to advance fire FX in CGI but it got scrapped.
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Post by dazz on Jul 25, 2020 2:34:13 GMT
It not being made to be released isnt odd, it's very straight forward, the guy who had the rights legally had to make a film or the rights reverted back to Marvel, they knew at the time they didn'thave a partner who could or would make the movie for a theatrical release so rather than risk 10's of millions or give up the IP they made a low budget version with the sole purpose of fulfilling their legal requirement to do so to retain the rights for several more years, which they did and eventually sold or partnered with Fox to make the mid 00's films and the Trank version. This isn't an unusual practise it even has roots in comics, ashcan comics where comics made for the sole purpose of establishing trademark rights, or with films as stated to maintain the rights of licensed properties, this was also the case for the 1960's The Hobbit animated short and one of the recent Hellraiser films, use em or lose em as it were. It isn't the fact the movie was made to not be released that is strange, it is that it was marketed as a theatrical release and had trailers that was strange. I have never seen that before. Maybe it has happened in the past here and there, but I have never seen it happen. Yes, like there are a lot of microbudget Eric Roberts movies that do that, but these are movies that have no marketing whatsoever. My guess is it's another contractual thing, they couldn't just openly make a bullshit movie no one could see and let Marvel know thats what they were doing, if they could every studio that owned Marvel IP rights would be making a $2m pile of schlock every 5 years as a TV movie just to appease their contracts and keep the films in house but they didn't, most probably due to Marvel being more on the ball after the Fantastic Four incident. But also lots of stuff gets marketing and never materialises, I mean Friday The 13th had print advertising before they even had a movie, Sean Cunningham just thought the name worked and could sell so he took out ads for a movie he didn't even have a script for yet. Question is how much advertising did they have? they could have blown $500k on advertising just to sell the ruse that they were trying to make a real film, if they spent $2m on the film and $500k on fake ads they would be in the money once Fox picked up the rights to make and distribute the films. It's no more odd than when people option the rights to a book, TV show, foreign film, video game or even just normal scripts and what have you, then still don't do anything with them and let their option run out, so then the IP or script can be optioned to someone else by the rights hold. |
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Post by moviemouth on Jul 25, 2020 2:38:02 GMT
They use tin foil in one shot and that is it as far as I remember. The rest of his cgi is state of the art and better than the same cgi in Terminator Genysis imo. We are just going to have to agree to disagree on this. Practical FX are VFX. You said FX in your original reply, not cgi. There is a big difference. Anyway, I just got to the part in the documentary where they are talking about this and the crew said the vfx guy was an amateur who was way out of his depth and had no idea what he was doing. Was Optic Nerve amateur?
Check their credits to see if you think they were amateurs. The on set VFX coordinator may well have been an amateur, but not Optic Nerve--they did the makeup for the Night of the Living Dead remake in 1990.
As I said, the CGI figure animation was not impressive, but I was speaking of the fire. For 1994, it was at least tv quality and good luck trying to find examples of CGI fire in 1994. The Jan De Bont Godzilla was supposed to be the film to advance fire FX in CGI but it got scrapped.
Night of the Living Dead has no cgi. They did make-up. You are comparing apples to oranges. That is a bad argument. You are saying that it must be the best it could have been for the time because it was the first to do it. That holds no water. If the first movie to do fire cgi (I highly doubt this is the first btw) is a movie with a 1 million dollar budget then of course it isn't the best that it could have been. You are now saying that a 50 million dollar movie would have had equally good fire cgi at the time and that makes no sense. It was at least good for tv quality. Okay, that isn't even the same argument anymore. You went from saying that F4 had the best fire cgi that a movie could have at the time to it at least has good cgi if it were a TV movie. What the actual fuck? |
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Post by Prime etc. on Jul 25, 2020 2:48:50 GMT
Night of the Living Dead has no cgi. They did make-up. You are comparing apples to oranges. That is a bad argument. You are saying that it must be the best it could have been for the time because it was the first to do it. That holds no water. Just look up all CGI fire characters from 1994 and get back to me. I'll wait, because you won't find much if anything. There was very little need for cgi fire in those days.
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Post by moviemouth on Jul 25, 2020 2:48:52 GMT
It isn't the fact the movie was made to not be released that is strange, it is that it was marketed as a theatrical release and had trailers that was strange. I have never seen that before. Maybe it has happened in the past here and there, but I have never seen it happen. Yes, like there are a lot of microbudget Eric Roberts movies that do that, but these are movies that have no marketing whatsoever. My guess is it's another contractual thing, they couldn't just openly make a bullshit movie no one could see and let Marvel know thats what they were doing, if they could every studio that owned Marvel IP rights would be making a $2m pile of schlock every 5 years as a TV movie just to appease their contracts and keep the films in house but they didn't, most probably due to Marvel being more on the ball after the Fantastic Four incident. But also lots of stuff gets marketing and never materialises, I mean Friday The 13th had print advertising before they even had a movie, Sean Cunningham just thought the name worked and could sell so he took out ads for a movie he didn't even have a script for yet. Question is how much advertising did they have? they could have blown $500k on advertising just to sell the ruse that they were trying to make a real film, if they spent $2m on the film and $500k on fake ads they would be in the money once Fox picked up the rights to make and distribute the films. It's no more odd than when people option the rights to a book, TV show, foreign film, video game or even just normal scripts and what have you, then still don't do anything with them and let their option run out, so then the IP or script can be optioned to someone else by the rights hold. Strange means something out of the ordinary. So it fits imo. As I said, this is the only case I have ever seen of a movie that was never meant to be released having a trailer on theatrically released films. That is the only point I am making. Sure, there is print marketing for movies that never materialize, but that isn't the same as having theatrical trailers. When I say strange, I mean strange to me btw. Isn't that what everyone means when they say strange. Someone says they think a foot fetish is strange they are saying it sounds not normal. They have no stats on it and don't claim to. I now know something I didn't before and is a little less strange to me now. |
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