... what’s up with the X-Men?
by Sturdy
When I first heard that they were seriously considering doing an X-MEN FIRST CLASS film, I passed it off as one of those ideas that float around some circles and then eventually dies when someone with a brain has to make a decision. But when news surfaced last week that it might actually happen, you can consider me officially concerned. My disdain for Fox is well documented, but their choices with the X-Men franchise really have me scratching my head.
Why not start from the VERY beginning with X-Babies?
So the last X-MEN film came out in 2006 and suffice it to say, it was a bit of a disappointment. We can bash X3 and Brett Ratner all day, but when it’s all said and done, I don’t think he did anything that wasn’t repairable. Yeah, it was a hodgepodge of a story and he killed off some characters that we liked, but the good thing about the X-Men is that there are a lot of cool characters to pull from. And many of them haven’t even been ruined used yet.
X3: No permanent damage
I have a hard time believing that they can’t come up with a storyline post-X3 that’s good enough. Just pick it up a few years later with the school rebuilt and a new batch of characters coming to the school. Develop a new villain and there’s your movie. Add in Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart and everyone will forget about X3. Pick one of the hundred or so storylines already written in the X-Men comics and the movie will be fine. There’s no reason to start over less than three years since the last film.
Do we really need a Magneto movie?
But since we’re on the subject, I have concerns all around for every character involved with the X-Men. If the early reviews are any indication, WOLVERINE is going to be a colossal failure (although, I still have hope). So if Wolvie can’t survive on his own, there is zero hope for any other character. Making a Magneto standalone movie just doesn’t make sense to me and there are only a handful of other characters that would even merit their own film. Fox needs to find a director that understands the source material and has a vision on where to take the characters. With the X-Men, it’s more about story than it is about action. It takes talent to mold all the different stories and characters in to a coherent film.
If Wolvie can’t make it, no one can.
At this point, we really don’t know what Fox has planned for the X-Men franchise, but from the sound of things, it doesn’t sound good. I know this is asking a lot, but they need to step back from the decision process and give it to a creative mind that has a love for the X-Men stories and will do them justice. The current X-Men world is fine and shouldn’t take that much to fix. So let’s get going with a fourth one already.
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C'mon Hollywood... archives here
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2:07PM on 04/21/2009