Over on the Superman Board, Gambit1024 asked this about Superman. I thought it was a fun question to ask, & I'd like to do the same thing with the FF. 
 
I love the FF. One of my favorite comics of all time, for a number of different reasons. And yet, those movies were bad. Were they Catwoman-bad? Well, no, but they were far, far from good. They may not have been as bad as Catwoman or Batman & Robin, but at best the FF movies were bland, uninteresting, unexciting, and thoroughly forgettable. 
 
I hear they're rebooting the FF (as they should). 
 
What sort of things/elements/themes, or type of story would you like to see in an FF movie? What would you not like to see?  
 
Here's a few of my thoughts: 
 
1. The Origin 
 
In 20111, obviously we need a slightly updated origin story. Stan & Jack's original origin doesn't work these days, & the Tim Story origin was oh-so-lame. An origin has to be believable, cool, and it also has to be simple so we can get it over with get to the fun stuff.  
 
I'd stick with Stan & Jack's basic premise, but with a few tweeks/moderninzations: 
  
Reed's not working for the g'vt. He's a private entrepreneur. He operates kind of like Burt Rattan (the guy whose company built Spaceship One & won the X-Prize). Since he's a private entrepreneur running a relatively small enterprise like Burt Rattan, we don't have to do anything stupid like make Jonny a military pilot, or make Sue a super-scientist like they did in the Tim Story flick. We can keep the characters, their histories, and the relationships between them basically unmodified.  Reed's big project is a Faster-Than-Light drive. They test it, something goes wrong (doesn't matter what or how exactly, as long as it's not face-palmingly stupid like the Tim Story movie) & the ship crashes. They get super-powers. On with it.  
 
On Reed: I hated the way the FF movies (& the Ultimate FF comics, for that matter) make Reed out to be a total nerd. I've been rereading the comics lately (I've got that FF PDF set of like 40 years worth of issues), and Reed was never nerdy on the levels they made him in the movies or in Ultimate FF. Yeah, sometimes Reed might drone on about sciencey-stuff no one else understands (or cares about), but other than that he's not a Peter Parker-type at all. He's tall, athletic, handsome, and very confident in just about any situation. He's a charismatic, natural leader. 
 
On Dr. Doom - if they must have Doom in the reboot, keep him exactly how he is in the comics. I, like every other comic fan on the entire planet, hated the character they came up with for that dumb movie. They obviously hated everything about the character, because they changed everything about the character, which prompts the question, "Then why not just call your Julian McMahon villain something else? Why are you calling this character 'Victor Von Doom' ?". No. Screw all that. Keep Doom exactly the same - his origin story is great, his megalomaniac personality, just everything about Stan & Jack's Doom....the whole thing. Dr. Doom is the total package....he truly is the Gold Standard of Super Villainy. Hands off Doom. And get someone appropriate to the role - someone with presence & gravitas....Julian McMahon was awful as Doom...."Marco.....Polo!" Honestly...what were they thinking?  
 
The third thing I'd do might be a bit controversial with my fellow FF fans:  
I'd back off of the whole "family"-angle. I think one of Tim Story's movie's problems was that it couldn't decide if it wanted to be a superhero-adventure movie, or a family sitcom. Pick one, and go with it. Yeah, the Incredibles managed to do both, but apparently pulling that off is really, really hard - like catching lightning in a bottle. So they shouldn't bother with writing scene after scene centered around the disfunctional family-thing. Just worry about deliving an exciting and adventuresome superhero movie first.