Monday, August 23, 2010

X-men First Class Details - Officially Shit

Well after months of speculation, some details about the upcoming X-men First Class movie have finally emerged. It's been a fucked up couple of weeks with new cast members being used that seem like someone opened up a Marvel Dictionary, got a secretary piss faced drunk, spun her around on a chair, and then had her randomly point out characters to use. That list now includes C and D-listers like Darwin, Banshee, Havok, Angel Salvador, and Azazel (Nightcrawlers father) along with more established names like Magneto, Mystique, and Professor Xavier. All the while there has been intense speculation on who will play Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Storm. Because seriously, you can't have a movie called X-men First Class with the characters most associated with the First Class right?

WRONG SHITHEAD!

Those are Singer's (implied) words, not mine. With filming set to begin next month, Singer finally spilled on the details and some of them may disgust fans about half as much as X3 while requiring the others who actually see this movie to have a blood-alcohol content of no less than .15 in order to make it through. Here are some tidbits from an interview by Screenrant.


  • X-Men: First Class is not like the “X-Men: First Class” comics, hence the significant character differences.
  • It takes place in the 1960s where Kennedy is still president.
  • Equality and racism are key issues with Martin Luther King and Malcolm X dominating mainstream media with the Civil Rights movement (foreshadowing (even mirroring) the mutant situation to come).
  • Director Matthew Vaughn is very interested in the setting and what Singer describes as the “James Bond tech of the time”, as Harry puts it.
  • Shooting will begin with Charles Xavier attending Oxford University.
  • We’ll get to see classic X-Men costumes, much more similar to the comics than we’ve seen in previous movies.
  • The movie will be the franchise’s most international yet, with shooting taking place in the U.S. and England, and the story also involving at least The Soviet Union as well.
  • We’ll get a first look at some X-Men: First Class costumes within a month.
  • Cyclops and Jean Grey are NOT in the movie. Havok definitely is and Lucas Till will be playing him.
  • January Jones is Emma Frost and there’s no truth to Rosamund Pike’s involvement.
  • Singer is excited about them getting Nicholas Hoult as Beast because of a fortunate delay in start date for Mad Max: Fury Road.
  • Kevin Bacon’s villain is in fact, Sebastian Shaw. Yes, that means Hellfire Club is in X-Men: First Class.
  • Singer explains the 1960s setting is perfect for the Hellfire Club, from the characters to costumes.
  • There are other characters that will be in the film that they’re keeping secret. Could it be more mutant X-Men or more likely, other members of the Hellfire Club?
So here are a few highlights. This movie takes place in the sixties and Emma Frost is part of the Hellfire Club with Sebastian Shaw. Yet as some will recall, Emma showed up in the Wolverine Origins movie as one of the prisoners. And that movie took place in the 70s or 80s (it's hard to tell because the movie was so fucked up). Also, anybody who knows anything about the X-men characters knows that Havok, Alex Summers, is the younger brother of Cyclops, Scott Summers. Unless someone does a retcon of the Wolverine movie (which nobody will really give a shit if they do), something's gotta get fucked up here.

It's not that these ideas are inherently bad, but why the fuck would anyone call this movie First Class if it's an Origins movie? First Class implies that the story involves the First Class. That's Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Angel, Beast, and Iceman. No way around it. There was a whole fucking comic series about it for over a year! I get that movies take a lot of liberties from books, but you don't call the Godfather books Willy Wonka and get away with telling a completely different story.

Bryan Singer set his comic movies apart by essentially not paying much attention to the source material. This worked to some extent with the first two movies because he set it up to make it novel and fresh for both comic fans and non-comic fans alike. However, that kind of shit has a very low margin for error. It takes only one X3 to render this entire movie universe completely fucked. Add Wolverine Origins into the mix and it's essentially super-fucked if that were an appropriate term. What's the point of another origins story if every movie that comes after it is basically going to end up sucking anyways? Add to that, the assholes making it have the audacity to call it First Class when they could have just as easily called it X-men Origins and nobody would be bitching about it the way I am right now.

Even without Cyclops and Jean Grey in it, there's still a big problem with telling the story of Charles Xavier's origin with Magneto. In X3 Xavier is going to get fucking killed! So again, everything he does in this movie or whatever other prequels Fox shits out mean precisely dick. Because in the end, he's going to get killed by Jean Grey in a way that has no drama, no punch, no impact, and no redeeming qualities. It's not like the death of Darth Vader in Star Wars in that at least his death was a major turning point in the Star Wars movies. Xavier's death, like that of Cyclops and Jean Grey, is muddled in the fucked up horrors that is X3. Until that movie is expunged from existence, all subsequent X-men movies are shit.

There are only a few faint glimmers of hope with this movie. Director, Matthew Vaughn, stated a while back that this movie could draw parallels to the Star Trek movie that came out last year. That movie was not a reboot. It was in continuity with the other films, but the time line was essentially reset because characters from the future came back and essentially altered the past forever in what some call a quasi-reboot. If First Class has something similar then that may open the door for X3 at least being partially forgotten, but the fact it will still have happened requires that this and every subsequent movie be awesome on such great levels that it may have to date rape the forces of the impossible to stand a chance.

Perhaps I'm still overly bitter about X3, but as an X-men fan it's seriously disheartening when the X-men movie franchise feels like the most fucked franchise in all of comic movies. Hulk got a reboot after only one movie and now Superman and Spider-Man are getting reboots without the studios trying to salvage the shitty movies that came before them with prequels. Why is it that the X-men franchise has to go through four movies that imploded with two more in the pipeline (X-men First Class and Wolverine Origins II) to endure? It's like trying to cut your losses at a blackjack table by continuing to bet more and more despite losing with every possible hand.

The only hope for the X-men movies at this point is a reboot, but so long as the studio is obsessed with making prequels it may be years if not decades until that finally happens. By then I'll probably be dead from alcohol poisoning or I'll have long since been committed. And any fans who were hoping for redemption after X3 would have long since stopped giving a fuck. So I think it's safe to say that there's a 95 percent chance that the X-men movie franchise is completely and utterly fucked for the next decade. Nuff said.

9 comments:

  1. I agree with everything said in this, I hate all the X-Men films to, and the worst thing is its one of my favouret comics

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  2. Right on brother! I was just blogging on another sight that this movie would be another piece of shit. I watched the trailer today and was disappointed even know I already knew what to expect. It was still a WTF moment for me though. I seen all three X-Men movies and even know the first was definitely the best, they all sucked balls in my opinion. I wont even get into the Wolverine BS. Like anonymous said, "I agree with everything said in this" but I would like to add this; The most damage is done with the shitty storyline. I know there are several Marvel storylines, just doesn't seem like Fox has researched any of um. I came up watching the Fox's kids X-Men story line which followed the original X-Men comic stories pretty accurately. So of course that's the story I would personally love to see on the big screen but at this point anything would be better then the crap they keep putting out. The X-Men has some of the best charters in Marvel, so why change them for the worst? Look at Rouge for example. She is a awesome charter but in the movie is a charter they could have left out. I'm not saying storylines shouldn't be altered. I'm sure in certain cases, legally they have to but don't totally destroy a great charter like that. Same thing goes for Gambit. Honestly they could have saved that shit, shame on who ever came up with that garbage. Why fix something that's not broke is all I'm saying. It's not ok to slater storylines the way they have with X-Men, Spider-Man, the first Hulk, and the sensative PG Punisher just to name a few. The X-Men is a great story with great charters. I hope the next X-Men film is called "X-Men Reboot" and is produced by Disney!

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  3. I agree completely. I would love to see the X-men series rebooted. Bryan Singer did something pretty remarkable when he started out. He took the X-men and didn't try to follow the comics. He even told his actors not to read the comics. That doesn't always help. Look at the Elektra movie. Every actor on that set had to read the comics and that didn't keep it from sucking worse than an Afghani prostitute on meth. While Singer's vision did have it's faults, he made it work to a point. That point is still limited.

    As much as I want to see a reboot, I doubt it'll ever come from Disney. Fox will NEVER give up the rights to X-men. Why would they? Even if the movies suck, they make money. That's all there is to it. If X-men First class flops, then it's a pretty safe bet that Singer's world may not be long for this world. Fox will have to do something and since they have to keep making movies to keep the rights, a reboot will be their only option. After the injustice they've done to so many characters, I hope that reboot comes soon.

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  4. I just watched the movie in a special screening and it is even worse that you can imagine.

    It makes no sense at all, the special effects are in some places so bad that they have to be funny, and whoever did the editing of the timeline sequences clearly was under trained (oh we're in England, oh where in America, now we're on a boat) I dont know who decided that panning a camera out was the cue for a complete location/event change but they should be fired.

    I have not read any of the x men comics but just going from the previous movies, it has no relation to the timeline at all. I can go so far to say that it actually made me angry and that hasn't happened since I had to sit through "2012" and then "the day the earth stood still" in one seating.

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  5. Thanks for the insight! I appreciate your feedback. I'm still very cynical about this movie, but critics everywhere have been giving it such high marks. But they don't address the pink elephant humping a unicorn in the room. That's X3. If this movie is linked to the other movies, it doesn't matter how good it is. Everything it does will be shot to shit in X3 and Wolverine Origins. I have family in cinema so if they botch something as simple as the effects, there's just no excuse for that shit. I'll wait until I see it, but based on what I've heard I'm still too cynical and jaded (and possibly drunk). Thanks again!

    Jack

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  6. I found this blog by typing, into Google, the words "X-men First Class was rubbish". Why did I type that into Google? Because EVERYWHERE I turn, people are saying what a great film it was. Best film this year, they are saying. I wanted to find out if I was the only one who thought it was turd.

    I'm glad I'm not.

    Also, for the record, I cannot stand films based on comics/cartoons/tv programs/etc that completely ignore the series they are based on and make stuff up purely for the sake of story telling. Beast looked like a cuddly toy. McAvoy was an awful choice as Xavier, and the rewriting of the cause of his back injury made me want to stab myself in the eyes with my drinks straw.


    AAaagh.

    (good blog though)

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  7. Thanks for the comment Dave! I've seen the reviews for X-men First Class as well. Never mind that it completely fucked up the movie continuity and that it was good by essentially ignoring the previous two movies. It didn't make as much money. It called itself first class without using the actual first class. I have many reasons for not liking it. You're not alone in your cynicism towards it. So take comfort in that I don't shy away from calling bullshit on Marvel or Fox when I think they fucked up. Thanks again!

    Jack

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  8. I dont know how sites like Rottentomatoes.com rated this movie so well. Its honestly just terribly layed out in every way. The acting, directing, and script are just so underdone. Its revolting.

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  9. I think after shit like X3 and Wolverine Origins, critics were just happy to see a movie that didn't try to salvage the bullshit that past X-men movies had excreted with astonishing variety. A wad of shit smells pretty good when you put it next to a mountain of diarrhea.

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