At this point everyone knows the Fantastic Four movie is a disaster. What's funny is if you go back and look at the trailers, it looks like 20th Century Fox had been trying to mislead people about the film from the start. The movie's three official trailers are packed with clips that aren't in the movie and dialogue and footage that's been edited to suggest non-existent plot points. Let's take a look.
1. Ben Grimm Doesn't Play Baseball in the Movie
The only time we see him hold a bat is when he's still very young, and he goes out looking for an intruder and finds Reed.
2. And He Doesn't Knock Out the "M" in the Grimm Family Business's Sign
It seems like there might have been a whole subplot about Ben being a washed-up baseball player unhappy taking over the family business.
3. Almost None of Dr. Storm's Inspirational Voiceover Is in the Movie
Let's just call it trailer poetry.
4. This Interstellar-Like Shot of an Old Car Racing Across a Dirt Road Near a Corn Field Isn't in the Movie
It wouldn't even make sense. No one lives near a corn field. Between this and Dr. Storm's disappeared monologue about the importance of exploration, it seems like the marketing department was really trying to sell this as Interstellar-meets-Marvel.
5. Dr. Storm Never Tells a Room Full of Suits That 'Reed Richards' Is What's Changed Now
He's not even butting heads with them over Reed. Reed barely comes up in the conversation. They're more concerned that he's going to have Victor von Doom on his team because Doom is a liability and a nuisance.
6. Ben Grimm Never Offers to Beat Up Nerds for Reed
Ben: "Don't let any of these lab coats give you any crap all right?"
Reed: "Well if I do I know who to call, right? The muscle."
Not only is that exchange not in the movie, but it's poorly pieced together with Reed saying "I" instead of "they."
7. All Those Red Cracks Are Green in the Movie
For some reason it was decided all those reds and oranges would look more menacing if they were green.
8. Johnny Storm Never Requests a 'Heat Resistant Workshop'
Not even one with "a big ass sunroof."
9. The Suits Aren't There to See the Team Teleport
The trailer makes it look like the suits are there to see the team off on their first teleportation mission, but they're really there to see a test mission with a chimpanzee.
10. Reed and Doom Never Interact After His Transformation
In the trailers there's a scene where Reed talks to Victor von Doom after he gets back to Earth from Planet Zero. Doom says, "You don't know anything about what's coming." Reed replies, "What is coming?" The answer, of course, is "Doom." It seems like this scene ended up on the cutting room floor.
11. Johnny Storm Never Works on His Car
The only time we see him with his car is when he's racing it when he's introduced.
12. Reed's Stepdad Never Tells Him to 'Focus'
The trailer suggests tension at home as Reed works out the finer points of inter-dimensional travel. But in the movie this scene's gone, and we see so little of Reed's stepfather, we have to wonder why Tim Heidecker is playing him.
13. The Thing Never Gets Shot At
This shot of the Thing taking fire isn't in the movie.
14. And This Entire Infiltration Scene Is Missing
The trailers made use of a particularly cool-looking scene where the Thing infiltrates an enemy location by dropping from the bay of a Stealth Bomber while Reed runs the operation from a base. None of this scene, not even this shot, is in the movie. There is, however, a scene that was cannibalized for the made-up one in the trailer. When Reed arrives on the scene to help finalize the coding in a new inter-dimensional traveling device, he says all he has to do is fix the code and it'll only take him 10 minutes, "maybe less."
Here are the trailers so you don't have to go looking for them.
