Is there a good quality version of the Fantastic Four movie starring Alex Hyde-White available on DVD?
I see a lot of VHS and DVD versions of this movie floating around on Ebay, but the sellers often admit that the quality isn't very good, and sometimes feedback from previous buyers indicates that the quality is actually quite BAD.
This will certainly receive a legitimate DVD release SOME day after all the "rights" issues have disappeared. I'm just wondering if I should wait or if I should shell out the money for a copy that isn't very good.
You won't find a good quality copy of this movie because it is totally bootleg. Right after they made it the rights were sold and the prints locked away. I have been tempted to buy a VHS of it, but I have seen a bit of it on the web and it was so dark you couldn't tell what was going on . If someone is offering a DVD it is probably just been made from the many times recopied VHS tape.
If you search around the web there are tons of stories about how bad this movie is. It was made by Roger Cormans company. I think a German company had the rights , but were required to make a movie at the end of a certain time period before they reverted, so they commissioned a cheap-o (2 to 4 million depending on who you choose to believe) so they could hold on to the rights hoping they would be worth a lot one day. I think Speilberg and company bought the rights and the finished movie from them right before it went to theaters. The movie supposedly got locked away, but evidently a copy got out . I think all the tapes out there a copies of copies of copies.
I have an old Cinefantastique magazine with a story about it from 1994. The Thing and Dr. Doom looked really good (this is probably where the budget went), but the rest looked pretty dumb in their spandex suits.
I gleefully recieved a DVD bootleg of this for my birthday a few weeks ago. It's as bad as they say. The Thing is...okay, but he's not huge. He does, however, say "It's clobberin' time!" Doom seems too small as well. I think he should be all huge and robo-augmented, but he's just a dude with a mask and a green cape, probably no taller or more built than I am (6 foot, 175 pounds or so). And the EXTREMELY bare-bones CG effects they use to realize the Human Torch....holy crap.
Brother R
The way I heard it, the parts about the rights is correct, except that I heard they never intended to release the movie, they only made it to take advantage of a loophole in the contract.
I've never seen it myself, but I knew someone who had and he said it was horrible. He even acted out some of the dumber parts of the movie for me. :)
I am very, very jealous Brother R. No matter how bad it is I am dying to see it.
You are a lucky man.