So, it seems that Star Wars is finally getting around to making that new Trilogy they've been talking about. Okay, I'm open to this idea, sure I haven't been the biggest fan of the Disney Era of Star Wars but it's had some great shows and games so I'll give it a chance. The writer of this new Trilogy will be Simon Kinberg, okay what has he worked on before?
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Sherlock Holmes
Okay, those are two movies I really enjoy, what else did he do?
XXX: State of the Union
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
X-Men: The Last Stand
Jumper
This Means War
Fant4stic
X-Men: Apocalypse
Dark Phoenix
The 355
The Killer's Game
stryke wrote: ↑Fri Nov 08, 2024 10:53 am
I quite liked Mr. & Mrs. Smith, hell I liked it more than Days, but yeah the rest not so much.
I also liked Mr. & Mrs. Smith but that is entirely due to the actors and their chemistry and not because of how well written it was. I will say that from what I understand Kinberg himself is apparently a really nice guy and is willing to take his hits, like with Dark Phoenix when he put the blame for how the film turned out purely on himself feeling his skills as a director were to blame for all the films shortcomings.
I liked Mr and Mrs Smith and even X-men Apocalypse. In regards to Apocalypse, the movie would have been better if his design was better and actually be a big guy. And maybe not have Jean Gray show off some proto Phoenix powers.
McAvoy wrote: ↑Fri Nov 08, 2024 11:51 pm And maybe not have Jean Gray show off some proto Phoenix powers.
I do get it as it's such a potential hit with the audience.
One of the moments that's burned into my memories still to this day, is seeing X-Men 2 in the cinema when it came out, watching in awe to see that pheonix form beneath the waters just before the credits, and thinking that not only that this right here is absolutely incredible, but that surely on such a promise of what will be coming up next that X-Men 3 is going to be even better!
Course we all know how that worked out. Hell, I think X-Men 2 is pretty flawed these days outside of the stuff it knocks out of the park like Nightcrawler's one mutant assault on the White House.
McAvoy wrote: ↑Fri Nov 08, 2024 11:51 pm And maybe not have Jean Gray show off some proto Phoenix powers.
I do get it as it's such a potential hit with the audience.
One of the moments that's burned into my memories still to this day, is seeing X-Men 2 in the cinema when it came out, watching in awe to see that pheonix form beneath the waters just before the credits, and thinking that not only that this right here is absolutely incredible, but that surely on such a promise of what will be coming up next that X-Men 3 is going to be even better!
Course we all know how that worked out. Hell, I think X-Men 2 is pretty flawed these days outside of the stuff it knocks out of the park like Nightcrawler's one mutant assault on the White House.
This is where I would suggest my version of how it would go down. But I just don't know how I would. Apocalypse is supposed to be a very powerful foe the X-Men. But at the same time I don't think showing off Jean Gray having these super-duper powers like a proto-Phoenix was the right idea either.
All I am saying is that I did enjoy the movie but there were certain things that could have been improved on or changed.
X-Men 3 should have been about the mutant cure - I mean ACTUALLY about the mutant cure, not as a mcguffin.
Storm berating Rogue for wanting to be ''normal'' is an infamous scene now but one that I think really could have carried the entire movie. ''There is nothing wrong with us'' is easy to say when you are a hot Halle Berry with the powers of a goddess. But when you cannot even touch another human being without killing them the discussion changes wildly. And Rogue in this movie is not some emotionless introvert either. She loves, she feels, she wants to touch and kiss and be with the boy she loves. Storm is applying external pressure to her in a way that disregards her personal suffering.
And plus, Iceman does leave her for Shadowcat over this. This is character assassination imo but nevertheless, it drives a wedge between them. It has planted the seed in Rogue's mind that there will always be another girl ready to give the men in her life what she cannot provide - her accusation of "you're a man, Bobby" is proof enough of that.
There is so much to say here, so much potential for conflict and examination.
Regarding The Phoenix in general, I feel as if this is an impossible story to adapt without a succesful three movie long MCU-style movie arc. The reason for this is because Phoenix was popular in the comics not just because it was an unstoppable force. It was popular because it was an unstoppable force that had stolen a beloved character from us with decades of history behind her. The reader wanted to see Jean be rescued, wanted Phoenix to lose, wanted the X-Men to win.
You could MAYBE have pulled this off with Famke Janssen's Jean Grey because those films were popular, but the First Class version of Jean Grey? Forget it. She wasn't nearly established enough for anyone to care. And it is also worth noting as well that the original Phoenix story in the comics was a galaxy spanning affair involving interstellar empires. It has an epic scale to it that is lost when you restrict it to ''a forest'' or ''a mansion''.
Yeah a lot of those movies do give me the impression of stories that are a bit collapsed and could really benefit from more substance, maybe over a trilogy like clearspiray is saying.
What I felt when I saw the list is that these movies all have pretty decent character focus but don't really bring it all together for a cohesive tone and theme. Bbbut that's really not a deal breaker for the aim of Star Wars imo. Star Wars movies stand out for their confection tone that keeps things in this buoyant flow balancing easy going people getting into extreme situations for a fantasy epic.
Simon Kinberg was hell-bent on doing the "Dark Phoenix" storyline in a more grounded, "down to Earth" style and he tried it twice- neither time worked and neither time did it even make sense to try. The Phoenix Saga worked in the comics as an epic space opera, not just some angsty drama about a girl going nuts.
The mutant cure was the more logical route to take given the "humans vs mutants" theme of the first two movies, but apparently that was studio mandated and Kinberg and Singer wanted to do Phoenix.
It would have been better to leave Jean out of it entirely and then have Scott leave the X-Men at the end...only to meet and fall for a lookalike, who turns out to be Madelyne Pryor, which could have set up another three X-movies with Sinister as the main vilain.
And from there, you do the return of the real Jean and the actual Phoenix saga as a third trilogy, and. / or an Apocalypse trilogy.
X-Men: Apocalypse was flawed because they made Apocalypse way too powerful- for instance, the internal timeline was all jumbled because he could teleport to the other side of the planet at will, so you get weird things like the X-Men doing a side-quest in Canada then going to Egypt while Apocalypse is in Cairo presumably waiting for hours for Xavier to wake up while the X-Men do that, rather than just wake him up and just win...but this is all to set up the Dark Phoenix saga and show how strong Jean is, so they don't really care.
