• Registered: 2015-06-21
  • Posts: 4,668

Topic: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

I enjoyed X-MEN APOCALYPSE, but it isn't a great movie. There are great scenes and great sequences and great moments, but they somehow don't add up. The film has a perfect set of competing values. Apocalypse declares that the strong need to take the world for themselves, that our governments and societal structures exist only to support the worthless and powerless. And then Xavier declares that the role of the strong is to protect those who aren't. Elitism versus compassion for the weak.

Somehow, that message gets a bit muted in endless action sequence upon endless action sequence -- all of them very exciting and filled with great uses of mutant power, none of them scoring that point that compassion for the weak is true strength. There is almost no sense of location by the end -- it's Cairo, but it might as well be one of ARROW's many abandoned factories.

Magneto's plot is pitifully repetitive -- once again, his family is killed and he goes on a grief-stricken homicidal rampage until Xavier talks him out of it and we end waiting for it to happen again in the next movie. In this continuity, Magneto has gone crazy on three separate occasions and then Xavier shakes his hand and wishes him well on his way to his next nervous breakdown? Seriously?

The film desperately needed to wrap up Magneto's arc at least for the film -- ideally, by putting Erik in a dreamworld or wiping his memories and giving him a civilian life. The film does a nice job of showing that Apocalypse and mutants have something resembling a grain of truth in considering themselves a superior race -- but the counterargument never quite lands -- in the end, Apocalypse loses because while he's superior, Jean Grey turns out to be more superior.

The best way would have been for Jean to have worked with Nightcrawler and Scott enough to see their powers in action, perhaps in a mishap or two at the shopping mall. Then, in the final fight scene, Jean's telepathy somehow coordinates their powers to use against Apocalypse in a way that gives them victory.

The bizarre thing is that this is more or less the approach used in the first X-MEN movie: Magneto confiscates Cyclops' visor and immobilizes all the X-Men; Jean uses her telepathy to get Cyclops' visor back and aim his optic blast to take out Magneto and free the other teammates, yet Singer completely missed the chance to put his formula into practice.

I mean, as an X-MEN fan, this is a perfectly solid X-MEN product, but as a feature film, it doesn't really work as a standalone piece of cinema much in the way an episode of THE FLASH wouldn't work if shown in theatres without the surrounding context.

There's also some peculiar continuity choices, including an error: Mystique replaced Striker in DAYS OF FUTURE PAST and took custody of Wolverine. That plot seems to be forgotten entirely in APOCALYPSE with Striker running Weapon X and holding Wolverine captive. Looking back at FIRST CLASS, FUTURE PAST and APOCALYPSE, it's kind of shocking to see that FIRST CLASS introduced a new lineup of X-MEN only for FUTURE PAST to disband the team and kill most of them off camera in the Vietnam war with a refocus on restoring the lineup of the first two X-MEN films -- with APOCALYPSE serving as a second FIRST CLASS, this time for the Cyclops/Jean/Nightcrawler team plus Wolverine.

The trajectory of this second trilogy has been truly bizarre and largely due to Matthew Vaughn backing out of DAYS OF FUTURE PAST and Bryan Singer reworking the film from being focused on the FIRST CLASS characters into a Wolverine film that would undo the deaths of Xavier, Cyclops and Jean Grey so that he could use the characters in the next film without the shadow of LAST STAND having killed them off.

I don't fault Singer for saving his people the second he could, and it was great for FUTURE PAST, but it leaves APOCALYPSE in an odd situation of trying to wrap up what's essentially an aborted trilogy. Imagine if the STAR WARS prequels set up Anakin and Obi-Wan as the leads for the trilogy -- only for ATTACK OF THE CLONES have Luke return and take over as the lead through time travel, relegating Obi-Wan and Anakin to background roles.

Ideally, the FIRST CLASS sequel and the DAYS OF FUTURE PAST repair job should have been two separate films, and after the FIRST CLASS team hit a natural endpoint, then Bryan Singer should have done the Cyclops/Jean/Xavier story.

The continuity of the series is hilariously incoherent at this point. X-MEN establishes that Xavier met Magneto in his teens, that Magneto helped him build Cerebro and that Magneto only started using the mind-blocking helmet in the 90s -- and Mystique clearly doesn't know Xavier personally. FIRST CLASS has Xavier meeting Magneto in their 30s, the government already built Cerebro, the helmet exists in the 60s and Mystique and Charles grew up together. Emma Frost, shown as a teenager in the 1979-set WOLVERINE film is in her mid-30s in the 60s-set FIRST CLASS.

One might think that FIRST CLASS is a reboot with the first trilogy references existing as Easter eggs. However, DAYS OF FUTURE PAST has Wolverine interacting with the FIRST CLASS characters while flashing back to footage from the first three X-MEN movies and the first WOLVERINE film.

Which leads us to baffling timeline issues where Jubilee and Angel, teenagers in the first trilogy appear as teenagers in APOCALYPSE which is set over a decade before the first X-MEN. There's also some incomprehensible discrepancies where Magneto is free to wander about in anonymity in the first three X-MEN movies but is shown to be public enemy number one and convicted as John F. Kennedy's murderer in DAYS OF FUTURE PAST even before he tries to take out Nixon.

None of these errors can be explained by the time travel plot of DAYS OF FUTURE PAST because the discrepancies (births, reputations) originate well before Wolverine was transported to the 70s. The only explanation I can think of would be to say that Wolverine made an initial attempt at time travel but vastly overshot the 70s and had an adventure at some point between 1880 (the year he was born) and 1944 (when Xavier meets Mystique) and somehow created ripples that altered history.

These ripples would have to result in certain family trees producing children named Emma, Warren (Angel) and Jubilation (Jubilee) earlier, Mystique meeting Xavier as a child, Erik not being in the right place to meet Xavier as early as they originally did, the government being more aware of mutants at an earlier point and thus building Cerebro, etc..

Probably something for a comic book to do at some point?

  • Registered: 2015-06-21
  • Posts: 802

Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

The movie was so-so for me, but falls on the side of liking it more than hating it.  But the best thing about the movie is the fake 80's tv ad used as a viral promotion:

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2016/05/19/ … gsters-ad/

And even better, if you call the 800 number at the end of the ad, you'll get a postcard concerning your application for the school:

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2016/05/29/ … nail-mail/

But for me, the foundational problem with the movie is that I never cared for Apocalypse.  In the comics he always seemed to me as a means to an end in changing other characters; and the movie team deserves some credit for recognizing that and using him the same way.

There also may be something to your thought about Jean and her coordinating the team.  There was some missing footage from the mall including a scene at the arcade with some kind of powers mishap and a scene at the record store where they find one of Dazzler's records.  Fox will probably end up double dipping again with a second blu-Ray release called "The Mall Cut" or something.

But on continuity matters, I give a lot of slack to X-men.  From the comics, it's almost a part of X-men's charm how wrecked its continuity is.  At least they seem to be setting up their Wolverine replacement in the post credits scene.  Jackman would be nearly impossible to replace, so they're making the right move if it goes as expected:

http://www.comicbookresources.com/artic … ise-debuts

Sinister could also give the avenue for Havok to return given Sinister's obsession with the Summers family in the comics.

  • Registered: 2015-06-21
  • Posts: 802

Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

Also regarding Magneto, this was the perfect set up for the storyline where an overpowered Magneto withdraws from humanity and creates a mutant sanctuary in earth orbit called Asteroid M.  I'm not sure why they didn't take things there; it could have given Magneto a plausible reason for being on the sidelines in case they can't get Fasbender for another movie.

  • Registered: 2015-06-21
  • Posts: 4,668

Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

I dunno. Having read quite a bit of your writing, you seem very good at sudden tonal shifts where you can integrate absurdity into your story. I don't know if Bryan Singer is as good at it. The X-MEN films he's helmed along with the FIRST CLASS film were largely grounded in a realistic setting that just happened to have mutants. Any advanced technology existed in relation to mutants. The idea of Magneto raising a chunk of rock into orbit with a breathable atmosphere and converting it into a full fledged space station is something I would find very difficult to justify myself.

That said, Singer wants the next film in space, so you may be onto something.

Mark Millar, in ULTIMATE X-MEN, had Magneto subjected to a mindwipe where he lived as a normal human, a teacher at a school for handicapped children -- and Xavier would visit him once a month to reinforce the telepathic blocks that prevented him from accessing his memories or powers.

The only way I can justify the onscreen events -- Xavier letting Magneto traipse off into the world to have another nervous breakdown of deadly consequence -- is that Xavier let everyone think Magneto went off to his happy ending except Xavier planted a hypnotic suggestion for Magneto to return to the campus later under cover of night, hook himself up to an IV drip and remain sedated and under lock and key in the basement infirmary indefinitely. I have plenty of sympathy for Magneto, but the X-Men are crazy irresponsible to let him off the hook so easily.

I love X-23, the female Wolverine. For anyone not familiar with her -- she's River Tam from FIREFLY. With Wolverine's claws.

  • Registered: 2015-06-21
  • Posts: 4,668

Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

Watching the first X-MEN movie, I'm reminded of the complaints about Bryan Singer clearly not liking the fantasy elements of X-MEN comics, eschewing the yellow spandex, the sci-fi fantasy world building, the hyperstylized action spectacle. It was incredibly ignorant; the costumes needed texture and weight to work in live action and yellow was a flickery, ugly colour on film. The grounded tone of the film made the X-Men feel like they existed in our world as opposed to a superhero universe. The combat had a sense of brutal intimacy and were expressions of the characters. The first X-MEN film also didn't have the money to do widescreen fantasy action; it was made like it was a low-budget TV drama that required imagination and creativity to work past any shortages of resources.

Looking at X-MEN APOCALYPSE, most of what made the first X-MEN special is absent. The budget has rocketed to the point where Cairo can be reduced to rubble and the X-Men battle in a devastated cityscape and the costumes can look comic book crazy now without looking like cheap Halloween costumes -- and the result is that APOCALYPSE, despite some good location shooting and Singer showing normal people react, seems to take place in an exaggerated superhero universe. The limitations that made the first X-MEN film oddly plausible in its absurdities are gone.

I still enjoyed APOCALYPSE plenty, of course, but I would have preferred that Bryan Singer stick to what he's good at -- intimate character pieces. He's not really a crazy action director.

  • Registered: 2015-06-21
  • Posts: 802

Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

To make it somewhat more realistic, they could have instead went with the creation of the island Genosha; but Magneto wasn't really in the right place for that.  He created that new nation when mutant youth were attracted to more radical ideas and made Magneto their hero (sporting t-shirts and propaganda that said "Magneto was right").   Asteroid M was less political and more "just leave me alone", but I suppose they could combine the two ideas.

Though we'll likely never see it, my favorite thing from the Genosha period was Xorn - the mutant who had a star for a brain and could manipulate gravity.  Turned out it just Magneto in an iron mask punking Xavier.  On the reveal, Magneto laughed about it - "I can't believe you thought someone could have a star for a brain; you're so stupid!"

  • Registered: 2015-06-21
  • Posts: 4,668

Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

I've been re-reading X-MEN comics and I've hit the Xorn era -- really the Grant Morrison era where the civil rights metaphor of X-MEN was updated to being about youth versus age. Xorn was a fascinating creation and revealing him to be Magneto was a serious gut-punch. It's funny how this era of X-MEN wasn't really that different from a storytelling perspective.

While all the characters cast off their costumes for movie-inspired black leather and the X-Men were outed as mutants now operating in public as part of the X-Corporation -- in the end, Grant Morrison wrote his one series, NEW X-MEN, and the other titles simply carried on as they had in the past, albeit with the NEW X-MEN costumes. Wolverine continued with his solo adventures, UNCANNY X-MEN was an incoherent mess as it had been since the 90s, X-TREME X-MEN had veteran X-writer Chris Claremont doing his usual stuff -- Grant Morrison's radical reinvention of X-MEN seemed entirely restricted to NEW X-MEN.

And yet, when Morrison left the book, he seemed to have effectively told the final chapter of the X-MEN. The issues that followed struggled to reverse Morrison's finale and then floundered cluelessly for years with no direction. Xorn was particularly baffling; UNCANNY later had the X-Men find Xorn -- the real one -- suggesting that there was a real Xorn whom Magneto had been impersonating. Except this Xorn claimed to be the brother of the Xorn who'd betrayed the X-Men -- except how could Magneto's false identity have a brother? EXCALIBUR later showed that Magneto had been trapped on his island during the entire Xorn storyline, meaning the Magneto impersonating Xorn had also been impersonating Magneto.

In an issue of HOUSE OF M, Dr. Strange wondered if the Scarlet Witch's reality warping powers had caused some of the confusion here.

An issue of NEW AVENGERS later revealed, quite incomprehensibly, that Xorn (brother of Xorn-2) had joined the X-Men but then decided to falsely reveal himself as Magneto in order to unite the mutants in an army -- a line of logic so confusing that Marvel just gave up and used the HOUSE OF M explanation in the Marvel Handbook. Magneto would later declare that he wasn't Xorn, but he liked people being afraid of him and knowing that he was capable of all the things Xorn did even if Magneto hadn't done them.

Comics.

  • Registered: 2015-06-21
  • Posts: 4,668

Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

Having rewatched X-MEN and DAYS OF FUTURE PAST -- I think the problem is that Bryan Singer is just burnt out on X-MEN but perhaps didn't realize it until APOCALYPSE was underway and it was too late to quit.

DAYS OF FUTURE PAST comes off as Singer's final statement on the series, specifically in the scene where Patrick Stewart and James McAvoy meet. The Professor tells Charles that strength comes not from refusing to feel pain but being able to bear both your own and the pain of others and that it will make Charles stronger than ever.

Then there's the blatant metatextual moments where young Charles reads Wolverine's mind, sees flashes of THE LAST STAND and ORIGINS and starts screaming, "I don't want your suffering! I don't want your future!" with compassion and empathy proving to be powerful enough to change that future to Jean Grey and Scott Summers alive and well in a future where the X-Men and their students thrive in a world without Sentinels.

And APOCALYPSE ultimately feels like it's trying to say what DAYS OF FUTURE PAST says with Xavier declaring: "Those of you are strong -- protect those who are not" -- except Singer seems to have used up all the different variations with which he used physical action, mutant superpowers and vivid fight scenes to express those values and that mindset -- or he somehow lost his sense of how to fine-tune the action to reflect these views. It feels like half the film is action and it's largely detached from characterization.

But I think, in addition to being burnt out and having already said everything he had to say about and with X-MEN, Singer also wanted to change his style for APOCALYPSE.

Having done X-MEN, X2 and DOFP as the more intimate action thrillers, he declared in Variety that for APOCALYPSE, he wanted to do a "mass destruction" superhero film that X-MEN movies had never done before. I think he wanted to do a TRANSFORMERS style X-MEN film with his skill and characters -- except this style is simply not suited to Singer's strengths as a director. He was tired out on X-MEN, he tried to reinvigorate himself with a new approach, but he's deeply unsuited to it.

Maybe he should have quit while he was ahead. It's really sad to me, because my fondness for Bryan Singer's work on THE WOLVERINE's tag scene and DAYS OF FUTURE PAST really fuelled SLIDERS REBORN. I'm currently finishing up a script featuring Quinn and Mallory and it's basically inspired by the Charles/Professor scene of DOFP. Singer's been an inspiration.

  • Registered: 2015-06-22
  • Posts: 3,291

Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

I watched this movie today.  I thought it was fun.  There wasn't any point where I was bored, and it entertained me enough to ignore some of the goofier elements.

The continuity errors I've just chosen to ignore.  It doesn't fit, and it won't fit.  Characters exist in multiple timelines for no reason.  The time travel doesn't help or hurt the process in my opinion because things have already been ripped to shreds.  There are two Trasks, two Angels, two Emma Frosts, two Hank McCoys.  Some of it could possibly be the result of time travel, but a lot of it can't. 

The most bizarre thing about the series is the power that Jennifer Lawrence has had over it.  The series hit the jackpot with Lawrence a) being a pretty great actress and b) being a superstar.  But the problem with that is that she ended up being such a superstar that they had to make her the focus of the whole universe.  In DOFP, she's the key to the whole sentinel project.  In this one, she's basically a messiah figure for the mutants.  It's a wonder she wasn't chosen to be one of the horsemen.

The other bizarre thing is how little understanding I had for Apocalypse, his motives, or his power set.  It's almost a little bit like Scarlet Witch.  I could probably write a paragraph about what I think his powers are, but it's just a guess.  Apocalypse seemed really powerful, and the movie said he was really powerful.  But he never seemed to really put anyone in any danger.  He seemed powerful enough to hold people off, but it was Magneto who was really destroying the world. 

And his plan seemed a little confusing.  If the plan is steal Charles' power and control everyone, why would he want/need Magneto to destroy everything?  If the plan was to destroy everything in some sort of "only the strong survive" scenario, I don't see how some mutants would have any more ability to survive than normal humans.  Charles, for example, is crazy powerful, but Stryker would be much more likely to escape the chaos caused by Magneto. 

I was also surprised that we saw Wolverine as much as we did.  And I was also surprised that the Mystique twist at the end of DOFP didn't go anywhere.  I mean Singer made both films.  Did he just forget?

But it seems like the movies are going in a cool direction.  They have a big enough / young enough cast that they really just need McAvoy to keep coming back.  If they can get Gambit off the ground, then maybe he can be the new Wolverine to appear in most movies. 

But, yeah, I'd maybe like to see another voice get to do this.  I don't know if Singer is burned out, but Matthew Vaughn did a great job with First Class.  Having him do another one or letting someone young give it a shot could be cool.

  • Registered: 2015-06-21
  • Posts: 802

Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

Singer is throwing hints about what he wants the next X-men movie to be, so he seems to want to be involved.  His hints indicate we may see a proper Dark Phoenix saga with the alien Shi'ar introduced:

http://www.slashfilm.com/x-men-sequel-in-space/

The interesting bit about that could be the Shi'ar Imperial Guard.  Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum created the Imperial Guard as an analog to Superman and the Legion of Super-heroes (Dave having formerly been an artist for the Legion - in fact, Nightcrawler was conceived to be a Legion character, but Dave took it with him to Marvel before using it at DC).

  • Registered: 2015-06-21
  • Posts: 4,668

Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

Singer said in interviews that he doesn't want to do the next X-MEN movie and that he needs to do a different genre and refresh himself -- and APOCALYPSE gives me the impression that this burnout took place during as opposed to after APOCALYPSE. As for the Wolverine plot from DOFP -- the original plan was that APOCALYPSE would have Wolverine in a very central role as the team leader, much as he was central in the first three X-MEN films and DOFP.

However, scheduling and the desire to elevate Jennifer Lawrence resulted in Singer deciding to isolate Wolverine to one sequence where the kids are imprisoned in Weapon X and Wolverine helps them escape. This resulted in setting aside the idea that Mystique had saved Wolverine from Weapon X -- so presumably, she failed or was found out and had to escape without him.

**

Apocalypse's motives seemed pretty clear to me? He wanted the strongest of mutants to be the dominant species (which is in contrast to Magneto simply wanting mutants to kill their exterminators) and destroying the world would leave only the most powerful. Those who weren't equipped to survive weren't of any interest to Apocalypse anyway. A bit like Amara on SUPERNATURAL being appalled by these human rodents ruling existence instead of gods like herself.

  • Registered: 2015-06-22
  • Posts: 3,291

Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

ireactions wrote:

Apocalypse's motives seemed pretty clear to me? He wanted the strongest of mutants to be the dominant species (which is in contrast to Magneto simply wanting mutants to kill their exterminators) and destroying the world would leave only the most powerful. Those who weren't equipped to survive weren't of any interest to Apocalypse anyway. A bit like Amara on SUPERNATURAL being appalled by these human rodents ruling existence instead of gods like herself.

I mean I get it but it doesn't make sense to me under scrutiny.  The plan in X2 to kill all the humans makes sense. The plot in the original movie to turn all the powerful humans into mutants to shape the world makes sense.

My point is that causing a bunch of earthquakes and buildings to collapse doesn't ensure that the strongest of mutants survives.  It ensures that the people (humans and mutants) with the best ability to survive earthquakes and buildings collapsing survive.

For example.  Let's say that the heroes were one step behind the entire time.  Charles doesn't find Moira so she doesn't get in the fray.  Mystique misses out on the fight between Angel and Nightcrawler so he never gets the info on Magneto.  Quicksilver (and no other mutant) happens to see the news about Magneto.  Presumably, nothing about Apocalypse's plan would change.  He'd gather his horsemen, and he'd have Magneto destroy the world like he destroyed Auschwitz.

With no info on Eric, Charles wouldn't have any reason to find him on Cerebro.  So Apocalypse wouldn't have learned of Charles' existence and so the mansion wouldn't have been destroyed.  The school would've gone on like normal.

(Funny thing.  In the final battle, it's shown to be daytime in Egypt, New York City, and Australia.)

Xavier's school would presumably have the highest concentration of mutants, but I think most of them would've been killed right alongside any humans.  Jean might've been able to stop some of the debris with her telekinesis, but she might not have.  Same with Scott and his energy blast.  Debris could easily kill Jubilee.  Nightcrawler could teleport, but he could also easily teleport to a place with more debris (or, hypothetically, teleport himself *into* debris). 

And, of course, Charles himself is both powerless to stop debris and less mobile than most people.  If the building collapsed on him, he's dead.  And that would've happened before Apocalypse even knew he existed (which ended up being his primary plan).

I get that he wants to destroy the world and rebuild a better one.  And he seemed less "mutant rah rah" as Magento is in the original trilogy so maybe he's cool with killing some mutants in exchange for some wily humans who could survive Magneto's attack.  But it just seemed odd to me because, from the looks of it, humans and mutants had a similar chance of surviving (unless you're a mutant who can take extra punishment like Colossus).

  • Registered: 2015-06-21
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Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

I guess, to me, Apocalypse seemed like someone who would be perfectly happy ruling over corpses and rubble. It struck me as a failing of the villain rather than the plot, although I suppose it could just be the latter. While I might theorize that Apocalypse planned on using Rogue, Multiple Man and Wolverine to find and heal all the injured mutants, that's not in the film.

Sebastian Shaw's plan for nuclear war in FIRST CLASS seems to have the same problem.

**

I wonder what can be done with you're a director of a film budgeted at several hundred million and you're burnt out. I wonder if Singer could have asked someone like Roland Emmerich, a veteran of mass destruction films, to work with him as a co-director to devise the big action sequences while Singer focused on the detailed characterization he's so good at. Finding a collaborator when you're tapped out isn't a bad idea.

Another response is to demote yourself, which Allison Mack did for Season 10 of SMALLVILLE where she was so exhausted from playing Chloe that she wanted to back off before her lack of interest in the role became apparent onscreen (at least that's my read on her from a podcast interview where she talked about having a midlife crisis during SMALLVILLE) -- and doing six episodes instead of 22 meant she could fake it without phoning it in.

I don't know if Singer is the sort to do that. Judging from FIRST CLASS and DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, Singer either takes full control of a project or benches himself. FIRST CLASS was more a reboot of X-MEN than a prequel. Singer was disinclined to interfere and just offered thoughts on how to make the mutant powers awe inspiring and exciting. DAYS OF FUTURE PAST was a FIRST CLASS PART II until Vaughn quit and Singer took over and decided to make it X-MEN: THE LAST STAND: PART II; he wasn't going to facilitate Vaughn's vision.

A third route is to accept that you are tired and just hack out the material, knowing that due to rushing, it will lack detail, subtext, purpose and clarity -- and then go back later and put that stuff in afterwards. Probably not an option for a film director.

  • Registered: 2015-06-22
  • Posts: 3,291

Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

Has there been any indication on what Vaughn was going to do differently with Days of Future Past?

And, yeah, I think there's always some vagueness and confusion to any villain's plot.  But I just never really understood what Apocalypse's motivations were.  In the opening scene, he's ruling peacefully over Egypt.  He definitely saw normal humans as expendable and inferior, but I never got the idea that he was as hardcore about mutant superiority as Magneto was in the first three films.  If he wanted to exterminate the Egyptians, he could've.  And while they certainly feared him, he still had devout followers thousands of years later so they must've also loved him a bit.

I just found his character vague.  Which I thought was odd in a movie that was 150 minutes long.

  • Registered: 2015-06-21
  • Posts: 4,668

Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

http://www.blastr.com/2015-2-16/matthew … -wolverine

According to Vaughn, had he stayed aboard X-MEN for a second film, that second film wouldn't have even been DAYS OF FUTURE PAST. It would have been FIRST CLASS II with a recast Wolverine, a younger actor playing him in the 70s. The plot would have involved Magneto assassinating John F. Kennedy (for real). Then his third X-MEN film would be DAYS OF FUTURE PAST with the recast Wolverine meeting Hugh Jackman.

From what I can tell, Vaughn made FIRST CLASS as a reboot, not a prequel. Hugh Jackman and Rebecca Romijn's cameos were simply easter eggs; just because SMALLVILLE uses an ice fortress and the John Williams score doesn't mean it's in continuity with Richard Donner's SUPERMAN.

However, FOX marketed the film as a prequel instead of a reboot. Vaughn intended to continue treating his sequel as a reboot, unconcerned that Wolverine joining the X-Men in the 70s would contradict him joining the gang in 2000. But then Vaughn decided to leave FIRST CLASS II to do KINGSMAN. Singer decided to do DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, the studio supported him, and the result was X-MEN: THE LAST STAND: WE TAKE IT BACK.

  • Registered: 2015-06-23
  • Posts: 2,054

Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

It should be interesting to see.

I am completely unfamiliar with the character. The movie looks fun enough, but I also started to get annoyed with his voice by the end of the trailer.

Please be informed that the political, scientific, sociological, economic and legal views expressed in Informant's posts and social media accounts do not reflect any consensus of Sliders.tv.
  • From: The Floating City of Laputa
  • Registered: 2015-06-22
  • Posts: 229

Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

There is a User on Spacebattles dot com with the Deadpool username and.... You could almost believe it is the Character breaking the Fourth Wall as the "Voice" and Tone etc is spot on and what posts are made make you go Whut!

He even has Yellow Writing as a Nod to the Marvel Yellow Boxes.

I'll have to ask for what they think about the new film.

It should be funny smile

"It's only a matter of time. Were I in your shoes, I would spend my last earthly hours enjoying the world. Of course, if you wish, you can spend them fighting for a lost cause.... But you know that you've lost." -Kane-
  • Registered: 2015-10-21
  • Posts: 103

Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

Deadpool was awesome. I laughed constantly, the action was great, and it just hit all the right notes. Well done. I read that a lot of the original script was cut out to reduce costs and such, but it doesn't matter, the end product worked well with the smaller-scale staging.

  • Registered: 2015-06-22
  • Posts: 3,291

Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

I saw it for the second time tonight.  I really liked it.  It's a simple plot, but it's really well done.  The humor works, and you can tell they had fun making it.

I don't know if I want another Deadpool solo film.  But I would like to team him up with a couple characters to make the plot a little less dependent on him.  But it definitely worked at least one time.

  • Registered: 2015-06-21
  • Posts: 4,668

Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

Hmm. I guess I really am done with going to movies in theatres. I'm quite a fan of the DEADPOOL comic and I'm not going to see this until it's ready for view on demand. Haven't even seen STAR WARS.

  • Registered: 2015-06-21
  • Posts: 4,668

Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

Just got around to seeing DEADPOOL II and it occurred to me that Deadpool's time travel antics may account for the discrepancies between X-MEN I-III and the FIRST CLASS trilogy as well as why LOGAN is totally at odds with DAYS OF FUTURE PAST.

  • Registered: 2015-06-23
  • Posts: 2,054

Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

Deadpool II! I need to see that before the MCU movies. smile

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  • Registered: 2015-06-22
  • Posts: 3,291

Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

Yeah I need to make sure to rent this before all the TV shows kick back into gear. I still can't believe I didn't see this in theaters.

  • Registered: 2015-06-21
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Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

I just realized I haven't gotten around to watching LEGION or THE GIFTED, either. I am a bad superhero fan. FOX's output shouldn't be ignored. I just merged the X-MEN and DEADPOOL threads and now I wonder if we'll end up having to merge this thread with the Marvel Cinematic Universe thread given the Disney acquisition.

**

I haven't seen LOGAN. I don't know if I will. I'm sure it's very good, but I've read the script and -- I just don't agree with it. I don't agree with a sequel to DAYS OF FUTURE PAST declaring that mutants are nearly extinct. After all the heavy lifting to restore Professor Xavier, Scott Summers, Jean Grey and Magneto, it is truly insulting to have a sequel saying that Xavier follows up on this by killing all the X-Men off camera.

I don't agree with a film that presents itself as the sequel to DAYS OF FUTURE PAST but has Wolverine and Xavier making reference to battling Magneto in X-MEN and Logan killing Jean in X-MEN: THE LAST STAND when DAYS OF FUTURE PAST overwrote those events. I don't agree with a film declaring that the X-MEN franchise is ultimately a dead-end when it was followed by a DEADPOOL II and now a DARK PHOENIX movie is coming next.

It makes no sense for this film to be any kind of conclusion to the first three X-MEN films (in which Xavier died and couldn't have appeared in LOGAN) or to the new world of DAYS OF FUTURE PAST (as LOGAN undermines that film).

And I don't want to see it. So long as it's just a screenplay, it's conceptual and hypothetical, a mere possibility. I don't want to see Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart perform it. I don't want to see LOGAN. I'm glad it did well and that Hugh Jackman got a finale he was happy with and that people enjoyed it, but it's not what I'm looking for in an X-MEN story. Thanks but no thanks.

  • Registered: 2015-06-23
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Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

Legion is a pretty interesting show, but I don't think we can view it as being in the same universe as the X-Men movies.

If Disney is really going to own Fox properties, they should probably just retire the X-Men series as we know it and move on with a fresh start. The continuity is, as you pointed out, so twisted and convoluted that it's just nonsense at this point. Some of it has been so poorly done that it looks like a kid's show from the 90's. And while I don't think it's really fair that so many people are choosing to vent their frustration with the actress who now plays Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), most of the people I've seen talking about the Dark Phoenix movie just want it to be shelved, or released as some obscure bootleg in a few years.

Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart were the biggies for that franchise anyway. It might as well just be over now.

That leaves Deadpool, who already exists in that universe... and yet could just be plopped down in the MCU, blatantly commenting on what's happening, and nobody would think twice of it.

Maybe they can sprinkle X-Men characters in other MCU stories, both in movies and on TV, and then work around to an X-Men movie at some point down the line. But the Singer X-Men should just go away. They no longer fit into the comic book movie landscape.

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  • Registered: 2015-06-21
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Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

The well-received X-MEN movies fit into the comic book film landscape just fine; they just don't fit into the Worlds of DC and Marvel Cinematic Universe being set in heightened, exaggerated superhero realities. Most comic book movies are larger than life like SMALLVILLE. The Bryan Singer and Matthew Vaughn X-MEN films put the X-Men in our world -- but our world with mutants. Every fantasy element added to our world, whether technological or paranormal, existed in relation to mutants. Christopher Nolan would take this real-world-except-for-a-specific-element aesthetic and apply it to his Batman trilogy, but it started with X-MEN.

The X-MEN series has lapsed in this approach. After Singer left the series with X2, FOX's Tom Rothman was the steward for X-MEN: THE LAST STAND and X-MEN ORIGINS WOLVERINE (actual title) which weren't concerned with depicting the real world with mutants only becoming prominent in the 2000s, and those became garish B-movie action thrillers.

Vaughn restored the original style when he merged the X-Men with the 60s and the Cuban Missile Crisis in FIRST CLASS, Singer returned and merged the X-Men with Watergate, James Mangold focused on quiet character study in his two Wolverine features -- but then Singer's APOCALYPSE, strangely, tried to jump on the mass-destruction summer blockbuster bandwagon and lost all realism. Simon Kinberg, directing the upcoming DARK PHOENIX, says he thinks this was a mistake and wants DARK PHOENIX to return to the real-world approach.

The Marvel Netflix shows have tried to capture a real-world look similar to Singer's first three movies through filming and dialogue and locations, but the writing is decidedly set in a crazy superhero universe. FOX's best X-MEN movies were set in our universe. There's something worthwhile there if Marvel wants to retain that.

  • Registered: 2015-06-30
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Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

I think attempting to merge or even view all these Marvel properties as some sort of continuity is a BAD BAD idea!  Too confusing.  I love Legion and The Gifted, and I could care less what universe they're in.  It's highly unlikely any movie actor appears in them, so what's the difference?  Similar to Marvel Netflix, unless you have actor crossovers, I don't even think about it.

  • Registered: 2015-06-23
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Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

Watched Deadpool 2. Solid sequel. I could probably nitpick some flaws, but I don't think the movie was meant to be taken too seriously, so I won't do that. It had me laughing. The last was solid. The directing was solid. It's a pretty good way to sit back and relax for the night.

Just make sure that you read the opening credits. I was watching with someone who wasn't paying attention to the credits, and he had no idea why I was laughing.

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  • Registered: 2015-06-22
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Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

I really liked it.  Fun cameos.  Exciting actions.  Solid jokes.

I could definitely nitpick how the end credits completely undermines the entire emotional impact of the story, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't matter in a movie like this.

I was shocked that Hugh Jackman didn't have a cameo, though.

  • Registered: 2015-06-23
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Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

I don't think that I saw all of the end credits parts. I saw one, but I think that was it.

Crap.


I need to find that. Also, movies REALLY need to stop with this crap.

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  • Registered: 2015-06-22
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Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

Oh yeah you need to find those.  There's even a deleted one that they put back in which was pretty funny.

  • Registered: 2015-06-23
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Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

I wish they'd at least put up a notice that there is more to come. Some movies do it. Other movies don't. Some do one. Some do ten. Even after it should be safe to assume that there aren't any, some movies have them. It's not clever anymore, it's annoying.

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  • Registered: 2015-06-22
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Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

http://aftercredits.com/

I use this when the credits start no matter what movie I'm watching.  They have a spoiler warning so you can easily see if a film has mid or end credits sequences without spoiling what they are.

  • Registered: 2015-06-21
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Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

I haven't seen DARK PHOENIX and I'm not eager to see it. I have nothing against it. But in a world of Netflix and Google Play and widescreen home TVs, I don't feel driven to dive down the street to the cineplex. I'd rather watch movies and TV shows on my tablet with Bluetooth eadbuds while on the treadmill in the gym.

Still, DARK PHOENIX is shaping up to be an interesting failure, a $100 million loss for FOX and the franchise leading up to DARK PHOENIX has been bizarre. X-MEN and X-MEN II were terrific, depicting a realistic world with mutants as a hidden subculture only beginning to receive global awareness. The world of these movies was a plausible, grounded reality with any advanced technology or superhuman phenomenon linked specifically to mutants.

X-MEN: THE LAST STAND and X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE, however, changed this. The world became extremely exaggerated and the new directors didn't have a strong sense of physical reality; there was no sense of terror from civillians when Pyro and Iceman started shooting off fire and ice; only muted reactions to Magneto moving bridges. Everyone in the ORIGINS film was a superpowered assassin or soldier. It's a bit like Bryan Fuller's criticism of Season 2 of HEROES: the powers no longer represented internal conflict and characterization.

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS attempted a reboot with easter egg references to the previous films via Hugh Jackman's cameo as Wolverine and refilming the original X-MEN's opening scenes. FIRST CLASS was plainly a reboot set in the 60s, blatantly contradicting the original films with Xavier and Magneto meeting as adults rather than teenagers. FIRST CLASS was to kick off a new series of X-MEN films with the 60s cast. Meanwhile, there was another WOLVERINE film that continued the grounded aesthetic.

But then FOX made some strange decisions; they rehired the original director of the first two films to do the sequel, and rather than continue the 60s cast's adventures, the DAYS OF FUTURE PAST sequel killed the majority of the FIRST CLASS characters off camera and featured the 2000s-era Xavier and Magneto. It served as a finale story for the franchise. Director Matthew Vaughn would later express dismay that his sequel to his reboot became a conclusion to the original films.

With DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, the X-MEN franchise had come to a logical end and yet sought to make more films after having wrapped up their series. LOGAN offered what can only be an out of continuity finale for the Wolverine character that doesn't sync with DAYS OF FUTURE PAST's conclusion. I didn't see it, but I did read the script and the movie was, it seems, so well-made that viewers didn't care about the continuity. And then we came to APOCALYPSE which was simply peculiar.

DAYS OF FUTURE PAST declared that FIRST CLASS and the original films are set in the same timeline. The original films featured Cyclops and Jean Grey in their 30s in 2000. APOCALYPSE introduces the teen versions of Cyclops, Jean Grey, Angel, Storm and Nightcrawler in the 80s. Cyclops, Jean and Storm should have been around 10, Angel shouldn't have even been born yet.

Worse, APOCALYPSE largely cut down the scenes with these incoming characters, focusing entirely on the FIRST CLASS versions of Xavier and Magneto re-enacting their tired conflict for yet another round when DAYS OF FUTURE had situationally and thematically laid it to rest. APOCALYPSE featured lavish action sequences that were completely divorced from reality and were reminiscent of the video game aesthetic that marred X-MEN: THE LAST STAND and X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE.

And now we come to DARK PHOENIX. The Dark Phoenix storyline depends on an audience invested in Jean Grey and Scott Summers -- who were barely present in APOCALYPSE. The Dark Phoenix storyline depends on having fully established the X-Men team and seen them in numerous adventures together before they find themselves having to fight Jean, the compassionate center of this group. We've barely seen these characters together.

I just don't think this series is capable of telling this story in this format with these versions of the characters who have been underserved, underwritten and underfeatured. APOCALYPSE was a painfully mediocre, uninteresting film with nothing meaningful or important to say and I don't see how DARK PHOENIX can offer a climax to a series about Scott Summers and Jean Grey that never really started. If the X-MEN films formed any kind of a series, that series ended in DAYS OF FUTURE PAST. APOCALYPSE made me feel like the X-MEN movies had ended one film previous.

Which is probably why I stayed home and watched ONCE UPON A TIME in the gym instead.

35 Reply by Grizzlor (edited by Grizzlor 2019-06-21 12:59:16)

  • Registered: 2015-06-30
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Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

Well basically after this next season of Legion, they'll be down to Deadpool only.  My favorite comic continuum was always X-Men, and I'm not sure where Disney will take it.  I've enjoyed Legion and The Gifted, but they're on the way out or gone already.  There's also New Mutants coming but I doubt Disney promotes it any.

  • Registered: 2015-06-22
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Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

Apparently Matthew Vaughn wanted to do First Class, then Apocalypse, then Days of Future Past.  He wanted the First Class people to get their own movie as a team (after coming together in First Class) before doing Days of Future Past.  Fox apparently heard the plan and demanded they flip DoFP and Apocalypse to take advantage of the money grab to get the old cast and the new cast. 

And, honestly, that makes more sense from a story perspective.  If you end the series with Days of Future Past, the future sequence with Wolverine could've been the end.  Everything worked out and sorta tied together.  Instead, they tried to do more with the younger versions even though they'd already established that they'd saved the future.  It's hard to fear for Scott and Jean and Charles and Hank in Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix when we saw them okay in the future.

On the Weekly Planet podcast, one of the hosts likes to talk about how the X-Men films' continuity is as simple as "do you remember the last movie?  That's good enough" - if you ever try and remember passed the previous movie, the continuity sorta falls apart.

It's just crazy that the X-Men films were fine, broke their continuity with prequels, and then had a movie to fix the continuity....before trashing it all over again.

I don't know what the legacy of the X-Men films is.  The three movies I like the most (X2, First Class, and Logan) don't feel like they exist in the same universe despite the fact that they all have a lot of the same characters, mostly played by the same people (Wolverine is in all three).  It's a series that technically has two finales (Logan and Days of Future Past) but doesn't end either place.

  • Registered: 2015-06-21
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Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

One thing Matthew Vaughn said that confused me: he said he would have cast Tom Hardy as a younger Wolverine for a FIRST CLASS sequel. Except Hugh Jackman was in FIRST CLASS as Wolverine -- so what's that about? 

Aesthetically, X-MEN (2000) came out in the post-BATMAN AND ROBIN era when, fairly or unfairly, live action superheroes were thought to be silly. BATMAN AND ROBIN looked like a MAD TV spoof of an actual film. X-MEN and SMALLVILLE (2001) were part of the era of 'superhero-realism' (much like magical-realism), presenting a realistic environment with superhumans existing in isolation and in opposition to the mundane world around them.

Productions didn't have the technology to make skintight clothes look like anything but Halloween costumes, so this was the "No flights, no tights" period of superhero media that was ashamed of superheroes. Eight years later, IRON MAN (2008) came out and showed that technology had advanced to allow multi-coloured superheroes to look convincing in live action. Both IRON MAN and CAPTAIN AMERICA demonstrated how movie and TV costumes could add texture and weight to bring a 2D design into live action while retaining the lines, colours and recognizability of the comic characters.

SMALLVILLE joined IRON MAN in 2008 and its eighth to tenth seasons embraced superheroes as an exaggerated, hyperstylized reality. HEROES (2010) was the last gasp of superhero-realism and then AVENGERS made it clear that superheroes could indeed wear their costumes and be successful. At this point, it looks like superhero-realism is no longer dominant, but the low budgeted Netflix shows still use it.

Slider_Quinn21 wrote:

I don't know what the legacy of the X-Men films is.

The legacy of the X-MEN films is that FOX tethered their X-MEN ship to a talented but crazy, violent, unreliable, unprofessional filmmaker. When they fired him, he dragged the franchise down with him on his way out; when they re-hired him, he righted the ship but then crashed it again on the rocks of APOCALYPSE. 

According to two performers who worked on APOCALYPSE and spoke with me off the record, the director was having daily temper tantrums at cast and crew as the press reported his victims accusing him of rape and pedophilia. Eventually, he stopped showing up to set, leaving second unit and producers to try to wrap up the movie – which explains why APOCALYPSE was so thematically incoherent and unfinished. Xavier's message of protecting the weak never comes together; the teen mutants had all their scenes cut; they never use their powers in tandem to defeat Apocalypse -- in hindsight, it looks like the director jumped ship without finishing his own movie.

But, to be fair, every movie franchise finds a sword to fall on. 

JEFF: "I treat my body like a temple!"

NURSE: "I can't be the first person to tell you this, but the temple doesn't last forever. This is a Temple of Doom, and you know what? Like the real Temple of Doom, it represents the fact that all good things -- be it people or movie franchises-- eventually collapse into sagging, sloppy, rotten piles of hard-to-follow nonsense."

(I haven't seen DARK PHOENIX and I'm sure it's fine; Kinberg is nothing if not competent, but I think we can all agree that the continuity is nothing if not hard to follow.)

  • Registered: 2015-06-22
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Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

Legion is a really fun show to watch, even when I don't know what's going on or remember any of the characters' names smile

  • Registered: 2015-06-21
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Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

I finally saw DARK PHOENIX and I thought it was one-half of a really excellent movie. But, because it's only one half, it doesn't work at all. Simon Kinberg's writing and directing are excellent, but his splendid script and filming are contained within a flawed framework. The problem: DARK PHOENIX needs to be two movies. Part 1: the X-Men and Magneto, after a lengthy conflict with the US Government and mutant terrorists, finally succeed in presenting themselves as heroes, but Jean Grey's mental health issues are becoming a concern. Part 2: Jean goes insane from her power and human-mutant relations are shattered; Xavier and Magneto are at odds in whether to kill Jean or contain her. The plan was for two films -- but FOX suddenly declared that DARK PHOENIX was to be compressed into one film.

As a result, there's too much going on. Simon Kinberg writes every scene with tenderness. He directs every moment with care and detail. The action sequences are a return to the original 2000 aesthetic: confined spaces, brutal intimacy, the X-Men trying to contain the conflict, each shot of mutant powers in use infused with emotion and meaning. But with two movies packed into one film, the emotion and meaning have no context.

There is no sense of Cyclops, Jean Grey, Storm, Nightcrawler and Beast having any kind of rapport between them, no characterization for Jean, so Jean becoming dangerous is meaningless. Cyclops insists Jean can be saved; Storm declares she can't -- there is no rationale for why either one takes either position. Beast teams up with Magneto to kill Jean, then Beast tries to save Jean later into the movie -- there is no explanation for what changed.

All the actors perform these scenes well, but without additional scenes (or a movie) to establish the relationships and why each character might choose each opinion and then change their minds, it feels random. I have no doubt that Simon Kinberg knows why Beast when from wanting Jean Grey dead to wanting to keep her alive -- but he has been denied the space to show what happened.

The scenes of the Phoenix power and the mutants battling are tense and troubled and directed with a perfect sense of choreography, of geography, of presenting each mutant as a character and their power as a manifestation of their inner mindsets -- except the movie is too rushed for us to know who these characters are.

The movie looks beautiful. The small scale of the film is a wonderful contrast to the Marvel Cinematic Universe films. At one point, Xavier exclaims that the mutants cannot fight or they'll be "freaks battling on the streets of New York," a hilarious rebuke of the first AVENGERS movie. Later in the film, all the mutants are imprisoned and thrown aboard a train, taken away by the Mutant Containment Unit -- the MCU. This is Kinberg's first film as a director and there is a remarkable clarity and immediacy to his work, an intensity of emotion in all his visuals -- except that the story just isn't there.

It's a bizarre paradox: every scene has meaningful, stirring dialogue, but the surrounding context is absent. The X-Men are declared to be celebrities now, but there isn't enough screentime devoted to really sell it. The lead X-Men are declared to be friends and teammates, but there aren't enough scenes to make them feel like anything other than neighbours living in the same apartment complex. FOX was insane to compress DARK PHOENIX into one film.

DARK PHOENIX feels like the end of year three part finale to a 22 episode season of an X-MEN TV show except they filmed the finale first and never got around to producing episodes 1 - 19. And FOX's mishandling of this project really shows how they have no business making superhero movies and Disney was right to shut them down and start over.

  • Registered: 2015-06-30
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Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

Slider_Quinn21 wrote:

Legion is a really fun show to watch, even when I don't know what's going on or remember any of the characters' names smile

Really enjoyed it, wound up watching Seasons 2 and 3 together in a big binge.

  • Registered: 2015-06-22
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Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

I finally saw Dark Phoenix.  I actually sorta liked it.  I thought it was much better than Apocalypse and about as good as Days of Future Past.  The train scene, while stupid, actually had some fun parts as they got to really use the X-Men and showcase their powers.  The villains were dumb, but at least they didn't waste a ton of screentime on them.

I agree with the idea that they should've kept all these movies in the 60s and 70s.  I don't know why they jumped a decade for each movie but didn't make any attempt to age anyone.  Charles and Erik should be in their 60s, and they (obviously) don't look anywhere near that age.  And while I think that they did need more from the team to show that they're a team, I would've probably seen another movie from these guys, whether it was the original two-parter or some sort of follow up.

But yeah the movie covers way too much ground for one movie.  Genosha, which should be a big deal, is glossed over.  The X-Men as celebrities is sorta too.

It wasn't as good as First Class or Logan or X2.  But it was far from the worst X-Men movie.

  • Registered: 2015-06-21
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Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

I don't think DARK PHOENIX was the worst, but it felt fractured and incomplete -- like it was Episodes 21 - 22 of a TV show where Episodes 1- 20 were somehow never filmed due to a viral outbreak that shut down filming.

  • Registered: 2015-06-22
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Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

Yeah, I can see that.  We've mentioned it, but the plan originally was to do two movies. The first movie would've been about the X-Men fighting the Hellfire Club (bringing things back around to First Class) and showing the team working together.  From what I understand, the movie would've culminated with Jean getting the phoenix force, which would be the main problem in the second movie.  So, yes, you'd get more team building and character development.  The way I think it was proposed was to have the audience fall in love with Jean in the first movie and then break their hearts in the second one.

But like so many things (the Seer included), asking for a two-part X-Men movie at this point was a little crazy.  They might've been able to pull it off after First Class or even Days of Future Past, but coming off the clunker that was Apocalypse and coming up on the sale of Fox to Disney, it was crazy to think they could get a two-part movie greenlit. 

With all that being said, with Fox's waning interest and Kinberg having to edit a two-part movie into a one-part movie, I think the fact that the movie is as coherent as it is impresses me.

  • Registered: 2015-06-21
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Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

Though the original comics were a serialized epic, the Phoenix saga had a natural break that made it a two part story; and it suffers without that.  I thought the Fox movie was okay, but it did feel a bit hollow to me.  It felt like a direct to video sequel if I had to qualify it.  For the type of story it was, it felt small - limited by something.

I’m looking forward to what Disney does with X-men now, but I don’t think they’ll revisit Phoenix, Days of Future Past, etc any time soon (if ever).  Watching the comics right now and knowing Feige is  in no hurry for X-men, I’m wondering if they’ll follow the road map Jonathan Hickman is laying out.

The House of X storyline presents many interesting ideas, but the core is the mutant story as they embrace that they stand apart from humanity and walk this gray line between heroes and villains.  After Disney uses a movie to introduce the characters and give us the alternate timelines leading up to House of X, the story could then explain a lot - mainly why we haven’t seen mutants in the MCU before now (because they were hiding on Krakoa until they were ready).  It could also easily set up the Avengers vs X-men movie rumored to be a goal for the MCU.

This is also one of the times I’m 100% behind a race swap on characters like Xavier and Magneto (rumor that they want Denzel Washington for Magnus).  In my mind, those were already black characters wearing white skin - the veiled allegory to the 60’s Civil Rights movement had defined those characters in many ways (Martin Luther King vs Malcolm X).

In any case, we’ll see.  There’s a lot of potential with X-men left; Disney doesn’t even have to touch the ground Fox already covered.

  • Registered: 2015-06-22
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Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

I always thought they had their built-in explanation for the mutations - Hulk's snap.  He brings everyone back, but some people come back changed.  You could even blame it on Hulk's "mutation" messing with his mind when he thought about bringing everyone back.

For the vast majority of the X-Men, I think it works.  Most of them are kids/adolescents and they'd already have to deal with coming back several years younger than the rest of their classmates.  Now they have the ability to freeze or burn stuff on top of that.

For Charles and Erik, maybe you have them be powerless friends who get a second chance after the snap.  Charles was an inner city schoolteacher who came from money but never really used his family fortune to help anyone because he was too depressed about the accident that cost him his legs.  Erik was a former Black Panther who finally gets the power he needs to even the score.  Their powers are new, but their baggage isn't.

It wouldn't work for everyone.  Wolverine is a big problem unless you make huge alterations to the character.  Same with longtime mutants like Apocalypse.

But I think you could fix all that by saying that there were a very small number of mutants before the snap.  Charles, Erik, Logan, and a select few of the X-Men, but the snap made it where they were impossible to hide anymore.  Maybe you rationalize it by saying that Hulk was researching mutants in between Endgame and they were in the far reaches of his subconscious when he did the snap.

  • Registered: 2015-06-21
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Re: X-Men/Legion/The Gifted/Deadpool

Temporal Flux is right. The movie does feel small. The movie IS small. It's deliberate. After the widescreen lunacy of APOCALYPSE, Simon Kinberg decided to go for something small and intimate. That's why the fights are often one-on-one matchups or are set in interior locations or residential areas. That's why the confrontations are small. But -- with the best will in the world -- the story of a phantasmagorical psychic force from the dawn of time landing on Earth to possess Jean Grey and wipe the planet clean -- that is not a small, intimate story. That's an interstellar, globally scaled story -- which suggests that Kinberg would have been better off selecting a storyline more scaled to his wishes.