In Fantastic Four: First Steps, the decision to depict Franklin Richards—the infant son of Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman—through CGI rather than purely practical effects has sparked a wave of “uncanny valley” reactions from audiences. While the production utilized real-world babies for certain shots, the reliance on digital animation for the character’s more complex, cosmic-powered sequences has left viewers distracted by the baby’s oddly hyper-aware and synthetic appearance.
The Technical Necessity vs. The Uncanny Valley
Marvel’s choice to use CGI for Franklin is primarily a logistical necessity. Given that the character must interact with fully digital entities like The Thing and Galactus, or perform feats consistent with his cosmic lineage, a physical baby would be impossible to direct in those environments. However, despite advancements in visual effects over the last decade, placing a fully rendered human infant into a live-action setting remains a massive hurdle. The result is a character that feels slightly “off,” failing to bridge the gap between photorealism and digital artifice.
A Haunting Echo of Twilight’s Renesmee
The visual execution of Franklin has drawn inevitable, uncomfortable comparisons to the infamous CGI baby from the Twilight saga. For many viewers, the sight of Franklin triggered a visceral memory of Renesmee, the human-vampire hybrid from Breaking Dawn, whose early digital portrayal became a hallmark of early 2010s VFX failures. Much like the Twilight production, where digital faces were grafted onto young actors to simulate rapid aging, the Franklin model suffers from an awareness in his movements that feels distinctly artificial, leading to widespread online chatter about the “ghost of Renesmee” haunting modern blockbusters.
Will Future Marvel Films Improve?
Fortunately, the digital infant is a temporary fixture. By the time the mid-credits scene of Fantastic Four: First Steps rolls around, the film executes a time jump, presenting Franklin as a four-year-old child. This transition allows Marvel to move away from the problematic CGI infant model for future appearances in Avengers: Doomsday. Nevertheless, the situation serves as a stark reminder that even in 2025, the industry still struggles to make computer-generated infants coexist seamlessly with human actors, suggesting that we are likely another decade away from truly perfecting the technology.
