2011: X-Men: First Class - Bryan Singer to direct!

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Hollywood Z
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Post by Hollywood Z »

Sabin wrote:You're forgetting that this was more of a false-start. Claremont was dropped when the editors sided more with Jim Lee and on Uncanny there was a revolving door of writers culminating Lee and Portacio exiting to Image. The notion of the Blue and Gold Teams stopped after "Fatal Attractions" and was never that well-defined to begin with. I think we all have a lot of affection for the cartoon, but what that show did was represent exactly how the X-Men had gone by the wayside over the years. What are the X-Men? "They seek out and help mutants in a world that hates and fears them." That's it. In the cartoon, they stood around like a bunch of late 20's/early 30's brooding secret agents. Where's the sense in all these grown-ups in complete mastery of their powers training for a coming war? I think Singer actually got a lot correct in rethinking the X-Men as teachers in a school. That's what they should be!


But it was that brooding nature of the X-Men that has helped with their appeal over the years. The comics and cartoons were easily identified with kids who felt like outcasts, most importantly the teenagers who read the comics that easily had those traits. As adults, they act as mentors, but as adults, they had their own storylines that had developed from being teens and that's what the appeal was. The whole notion that they all have to be teachers is just too much of a cop out and, if anything, cheapens the characters in the comics that have so much more potential in encompassing ideals and movements.

Eh. I don't think this was intentional. Rogue was recast as a child for narrative functionality. It's a team book and there's always a lot of give and take. A super-powerful Rogue with a bunch of other powers wouldn't have sat well with "Magneto's Plans to Turn the World Into Mutants". Bleh. Do you want to incorporate Ms. Marvel into the X-Mythos? Or have Rogue encounter other mutants? It works better that mutants are a secret, something underground, one not encountering another until taken in, etc.


If it's such a "team book," why was so much emphasis put on Wolverine? Sure, he's arguably one of the most popular comic book characters of all time, but it was how he interacted with the rest of the team that made him so interesting. Same with Halle Berry and how she wanted Storm to stand out more. In the end, these two characters just overpowered the film and pushed everyone else to the side, completely betraying what made the comics such a success to begin with.

And it was exactly that "narrative functionality" that was just another Singer making the female characters of his movies weak. Look at Superman Returns, The Usual Suspects and how the females act in X-Men 1 & 2. They're either non-existant, in the background as passive wives/girlfriends or panicky and ineffectual. The movie didn't have to completely incorporate the Ms. Marvel storyline, but the aftereffects of a woman looking to join a group after she had seriously hurt a comrade of theirs and she has to earn their trust, which is how Rogue started out in the X-Men. There's your underground story right there and it's made even deeper.

I never really enjoyed the X-Men movies outside of the joy of finally seeing my favorite childhood comic book on the screen. Outside of that nostalgia, it was a bit of a letdown, with the story, the treatment of the characters, how rigid they felt and how one dimensional they were in comparison to the characters I grew up with. Heck, just taking the opening three to four episodes of the early 90s Fox cartoon series are enough of a storyline to adapt into a singular movie that would be both more entertaining than the other movies and also more encapsulating of the feel of the comic books.




Edited By Hollywood Z on 1262144772
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Sabin
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Post by Sabin »

I agree, yes, the original series would be the wrong series to follow. If anything, I felt the 1991 rejuvination of the comics would have been the better series to follow, where there were the Blue and Gold teams, the formation of the Acolytes, Magneto as more of a reluctant villian...there was so much more promise and it would have been more of a vision of the X-Men that the fans come to recognize, which I've always wanted to see.

You're forgetting that this was more of a false-start. Claremont was dropped when the editors sided more with Jim Lee and on Uncanny there was a revolving door of writers culminating Lee and Portacio exiting to Image. The notion of the Blue and Gold Teams stopped after "Fatal Attractions" and was never that well-defined to begin with. I think we all have a lot of affection for the cartoon, but what that show did was represent exactly how the X-Men had gone by the wayside over the years. What are the X-Men? "They seek out and help mutants in a world that hates and fears them." That's it. In the cartoon, they stood around like a bunch of late 20's/early 30's brooding secret agents. Where's the sense in all these grown-ups in complete mastery of their powers training for a coming war? I think Singer actually got a lot correct in rethinking the X-Men as teachers in a school. That's what they should be!

If anything is misogynistic, it's Singer's vision. Think about it, he never allowed Rogue to have ALL of the powers that she had in the comic books, the women heroes in X-Men 1 & 2 were never very effectual as they were in the comics (Storm, Rogue and Jean Grey were such better fighters, there was even Psylocke) and the best woman fighter was Mystique, the villian. That was always something that never sat right with me.

Eh. I don't think this was intentional. Rogue was recast as a child for narrative functionality. It's a team book and there's always a lot of give and take. A super-powerful Rogue with a bunch of other powers wouldn't have sat well with "Magneto's Plans to Turn the World Into Mutants". Bleh. Do you want to incorporate Ms. Marvel into the X-Mythos? Or have Rogue encounter other mutants? It works better that mutants are a secret, something underground, one not encountering another until taken in, etc.
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Hollywood Z
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Post by Hollywood Z »

I agree, yes, the original series would be the wrong series to follow. If anything, I felt the 1991 rejuvination of the comics would have been the better series to follow, where there were the Blue and Gold teams, the formation of the Acolytes, Magneto as more of a reluctant villian...there was so much more promise and it would have been more of a vision of the X-Men that the fans come to recognize, which I've always wanted to see.

If anything is misogynistic, it's Singer's vision. Think about it, he never allowed Rogue to have ALL of the powers that she had in the comic books, the women heroes in X-Men 1 & 2 were never very effectual as they were in the comics (Storm, Rogue and Jean Grey were such better fighters, there was even Psylocke) and the best woman fighter was Mystique, the villian. That was always something that never sat right with me.
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Post by OscarGuy »

Well, obviously they are going to have to make chances. In the current films Iceman is a student at Xavier's, so obviously they have to pull him out. My guess is that we'll feature several "students" who may not have been students at the time. Obviously Wolverine was never a student, nor was Storm. But Storm could very easily be made a student there.

And while I dislike altering of timelines (Star Trek anyone?), I don't think the films as they were made were much of a disservice. Matter of fact, those original X-Men comics were misogynistic, boring and cheesy. They are interesting from a historical perspective, but I think the current X-Men incarnation does well at making it not feel that way.
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Hollywood Z
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Post by Hollywood Z »

If it's made truly the way that the very first X-Men comics were, it will be really chancy, as the only X-Men were Cyclops, Jean Grey, Iceman, Beast, Angel and Prof. X. No Wolverine or Storm, which the movie series came to focus on so much more than what the comics originally intended and that was an ensemble piece. I'm not that enthused about Singer returning to X-Men as I thought while his first two were good, they weren't quite X-Men interpretations. I still think the truly great X-Men movie remains to be made and, perhaps, Singer isn't the one to do it.
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Post by Zahveed »

Screenplay already sounds horrible.
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Post by MovieWes »

Great news! Fans deserve a good X-Men movie after the crap that was X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine!

Bryan Singer returns to 'X-Men'

Brent Lang,
TheWrap.com

Fox has hired Bryan Singer to direct the next installment in the "X-Men franchise, "X-Men:First Class," TheWrap has confirmed. Singer directed the first two "X-Men" movies before ceding the director's chair on the third movie, "X-Men: The Last Stand" to Brett Ratner so he could oversee "Superman Returns."

Though "Last Stand" was a box office hit, bringing in over $450 million worldwide, many groused that it lacked the wit that Singer brought to the films. Singer's "Superman," on the other hand, which cost nearly $300 million and brought in less than $400 million was considered a box office disappointment. Perhaps a return to those tights-wearing mutants will restore some of Singer's box office luster.

"First Class" boasts a script by "The O.C." and "Gossip Girl" creator Josh Schwartz, so expect lots of high-school catfighting mixed in with what is rumored to be an origins story.

Lauren Schuler Donner will handle producing duties as she did on the other three films.
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