4. It Doesn't Have To Be "Darker and Grittier" To Be Better
This is another thing that's really important to pay attention to when rebooting a movie franchise. While it's important to present a different feel from the last movie, it's even more important to get that feeling right. A lot of reboots make the mistake of going darker and grittier than the previous iteration just because it's worked with some movies (by which I mean movies that have the words "Batman", "Dark" or "Knight" in their title). Fantastic Four is not and shouldn't be an inherently dark series. While some of the best loved story lines have had incredibly dark content, part of the reason they're so loved is that there's the lighter material interlaced through out that let those dark moments stand out. The last thing that Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm need to talk about is the deeply troubling ramifications of their actions on the social fabric of New York City and the USA and how they should best present themselves as archetypal champions of the common people. Unless that scene ends with a fart joke, then it's okay. One of the best things that happened to the X-Men franchise was spinning Wolverine off into his own movies, because it got the darkest grittiest character out of the way. While the Wolvie prequel was a let down (though not as much of a let down as the internet remembers) it still left an opening for the next X-Movie to have a lighter feel. The decision to take the story back to the 1960's and go with the more colorful costumes of the earlier eras of comics was a refreshing change of flavor from the dark palate of Singer and Ratner. In fact, if Singer and Vaughn had been willing to fully embrace the power of a reboot and make a clean break from the previous films in every way, First Class would have served as a much better opening to an X-Men franchise than X-Men did, instead of teasing the audience with cameos of actors from the previous movies and leaving fans like with the continued hope that we'll someday see a resolution to the end cap from X-3 and finally find out who the heck Charlie Xavier jumped inside of when Jean destroyed his goddamn body (seriously, if that lingering plot thread isn't resolved I am going to find everyone responsible after I die and haunt the hell out of them). Speaking of colorful costumes, First Class has another important lesson that Fox should learn from themselves for the next FF movie...