--- title: No Fantastic Four Movie Has Ever Lived Up to The Incredibles description: Sorry, 'First Steps.' The 2004 Pixar movie may not technically be a Fantastic Four movie, but it's still the best one. canonical: https://time.com/7305100/fantastic-four-the-incredibles/ author: James Grebey article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-07-25T12:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:50:54.202Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Sorry, 'First Steps,' But No Fantastic Four Movie Has Lived Up to 'The Incredibles' og:description: The 2004 Pixar movie may not technically be a Fantastic Four movie, but it's still the best one. og:url: https://time.com/7305100/fantastic-four-the-incredibles/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfd7f3fde2359e417/6998c8951500fb32acaa6789/the-incredibles-fantastic-4-01.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: the-incredibles-fantastic-4-01 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Sorry, 'First Steps,' But No Fantastic Four Movie Has Lived Up to 'The Incredibles' twitter:description: The 2004 Pixar movie may not technically be a Fantastic Four movie, but it's still the best one. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfd7f3fde2359e417/6998c8951500fb32acaa6789/the-incredibles-fantastic-4-01.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Sorry, _First Steps_, But No Fantastic Four Movie Has Lived Up to _The Incredibles_ ## Video: The Fantastic Four: First Steps | Official Trailer | Only in Theaters July 25 [Watch (HLS stream): The Fantastic Four: First Steps | Official Trailer | Only in Theaters July 25](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/afulTiCk.m3u8) (2:44)  _Published 2025-04-17. Sorry, 'First Steps.' The 2004 Pixar movie may not technically be a Fantastic Four movie, but it's still the best one._ by [James Grebey](https://time.com/author/james-grebey/) ## James Grebey Grebey is a contributor for TIME. Jul 25, 2025 12:00 PM UTC  A still from The Incredibles, 2004. A still from The Incredibles, 2004.Walt Disney Co./Everett Collection by [James Grebey](https://time.com/author/james-grebey/) ## James Grebey Grebey is a contributor for TIME. Jul 25, 2025 12:00 PM UTC The critical consensus on _The Fantastic Four: First Steps_ is that, finally, they made a good Fantastic Four movie. The previous attempts to bring Marvel's First Family to the big screen—a low-budget unreleased Roger Corman movie, a pair of middling films in the '00s, and Josh Trank's universally panned 2015 movie—were all failures, and while _First Steps_ isn't by any means perfect, it's the closest thing we've gotten to a _great_ Fantastic Four movie. Except, that's not _really_ the case, because there was an _incredible_ Fantastic Four movie just over 20 years ago. It just wasn't technically a Fantastic Four movie. The argument that [Pixar's 2004 masterpiece _The Incredibles_](https://time.com/7296051/pixar-movies-ranked/?amp=true) is not-so-secretly a Fantastic Four film is hardly a new one, though it seems especially relevant in the wake of the original foursome making a high-profile, high-stakes, and warmly received (or at least warmly enough) entrance into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The similarities between the Incredibles and the Fantastic Four are obvious; both are families of four people who all have superpowers, including one person with the ability to stretch, another who can turn invisible and make forcefields, and a big strong guy. It's not a one-to-one match; Fantastic Four have the Human Torch while _The Incredibles_' Dash has superspeed. The relations are different, too, as _The Incredibles_ focuses on two parents and their two kids while the Fantastic Four consist of a husband, his wife, his brother-in-law, and his best friend. Brad Bird, who wrote and directed the Pixar film, didn't set out to explicitly make a movie about the Fantastic Four with the serial numbers filed off, and indeed _The Incredibles_ is much more than just that. The Fantastic Four, one of the most famous superhero teams around, are an obvious influence, and there are shades of the X-Men, James Bond-esque spy antics, and Alan Moore's seminal comic [_Watchmen_](https://entertainment.time.com/2005/10/16/all-time-100-novels/slide/watchmen-1986-by-alan-moore-dave-gibbons/)_._ (Bird claims he hadn't read _Watchmen_ prior to penning _The Incredibles_, making it a coincidence that both plots involve superheroes in hiding after the government outlaws vigilantism.) To call _The Incredibles_ a knock-off of any specific superhero story rather than a broad homage is to do the Oscar-winning movie a disservice, especially considering it came out four years before the start of the [Marvel Cinematic Universe](https://time.com/7004392/marvel-cinematic-universe-future-movies-what-to-know/) and the truly modern era of superhero cinema as it exists today.  Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic Courtesy of Marvel Studios Still, it's the Fantastic Four who seem like the most natural point of comparison to the Incredibles. The makers of the 2005 _Fantastic Four_ movie certainly thought so; there were [reports](https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/fantastic-four-undergoes-changes-due-to-the-incredibles/) that they had to reshoot the ending of the live-action movie because they worried the cartoon had already outdone them. _First Steps_ almost seems like _it's_ copying _The Incredibles;_ the movie is set in its own corner of the MCU's multiverse on a retro-futuristic world that very much resembles the stylish mid-century modern vibes of _The Incredibles._ Composer Michael Giacchino provided the music to both films, and in [an interview](https://youtu.be/J4tjga7nrRA?si=ivVmAutTBbZ8EH7l&t=823) Giacchino admitted that it was a challenge for him to differentiate the two scores. _The Incredibles_ is the secret benchmark that _Fantastic Four_ films need to try to live up to, and it's an incredibly high one. Certainly in the conversation for the title of "Pixar's best film," _The Incredibles_ is a rollicking superhero adventure that also digs deeply into familial dynamics, touching on fears of infidelity, the way marriages change, and the way kids fight with their parents (and each other). Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson) misses the thrill of crime-fighting so he goes behind his wife Elastigirl's back and accepts a moonlighting superhero gig. But when his employer, Syndrome (Jason Lee), reveals himself to be a spurned would-be sidekick who now wants to make it so _no one_ is super (except him, of course), Elastigirl (Holly Hunter) and their kids Violet (Sarah Vowell) and Dash (Spencer Fox) must come to his rescue—and get the whole costumed family doing good together. _The Incredibles_ is a remarkably standalone story. All of its influences are just that, influences, rather than homework. You basically just need to know that superhero fiction _exists_ and have the vaguest awareness of the core tropes to enjoy _The Incredibles_, and even then you'd probably be fine going in with a blank slate. Compare that to _The Fantastic Four: First Steps_, which is going to great lengths to _attempt_ to be a standalone story. Despite being the 37th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe—a franchise that is clearly [straining under the weight of its own continuity](https://time.com/6319815/marvel-cinematic-universe-future/)—_First Steps_ takes place in an alternate reality. There are no shared characters, previous plot developments to be aware of, or even any Easter eggs connecting _First Steps_ to the main MCU, and even though the foursome will eventually join the rest of the Avengers in _Doomsday_, out next year, the film ends without any multiversal voyages. Instead, we meet Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Ben Grimm, and Johnny Storm (Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and Joseph Quinn) four years after they got their superpowers and watch them save the planet (and Reed and Sue's newborn son) from a powerful planet-eater known as Galactus. It's a grander plot than _The Incredibles_ and it's executed more sloppily, but the focus is clearly intended to be on _this_ family rather than a larger cinematic universe.  Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm/The Thing, Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic and Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm/Invisible Woman Courtesy of Marvel Studios And yet the looming specter of a continuity and questions about how the Fantastic Four fit into the MCU loom over _First Steps_. Even more oppressive is the sense that, for as much as _First Steps_ tries in its aesthetic and with its marketing to tell audiences that it's a breezy, new kind of superhero movie, _First Steps_ is sweaty. _Fantastic Four_ needed to be good and do really well at the box office to help the MCU recover after an ongoing fallow period in the wake of _Avengers: Endgame_. It's a crucial pivot for the biggest franchise in the world, a superhero movie that's all-but explicitly tasked with reversing superhero fatigue. Meanwhile, _The Incredibles_ is a breath of fresh air; a superhero movie made _before_ costumed crime-fighters reached total cinematic and cultural saturation. (It helps that _The Incredibles_ was made by Pixar during the studio's golden era that saw some of its best creative output. Marvel Studios, meanwhile, [is tired and on the backfoot.](https://time.com/6319815/marvel-cinematic-universe-future/)) To mix superhero metaphors, the kryptonite of _The Fantastic Four: First Steps_ is that it's following in another movie's footsteps. _First Steps_ is a fine enough movie that's under a lot of pressure and scrutiny; _The Incredibles_ is an unburdened masterpiece with similar characters, a similar look, some similar themes, and a similar score. Maybe that's OK, though—another similarity they have is that they're both owned by Disney. You'll be able to watch either of them on Disney+ soon enough. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7305100/fantastic-four-the-incredibles/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7305100/fantastic-four-the-incredibles/"},"headline":"Sorry, First Steps, But No Fantastic Four Movie Has Lived Up to The Incredibles","datePublished":"2025-07-25T12:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:50:54.202Z","description":"Sorry, 'First Steps.' 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