re-goddamn-diculous. ..

To be fair, the OC (when it started off, anyways) was an interesting character study of social rejects/outcasts in what was portrayed as paradise. And then it devolved into male fanservice, shock-jock styled plot contrivances, and sheer stupidity.

Honestly, I think it's time that a new take on X-Men happened. . .the cartoons have bled the creative well dry--Wolverine and the X-Men can only do so much with material that's already been covered and recovered again and again. And the movies have already established and explored the X-Men mythos.

But a "sassy," teen-drama X-Men is something that will not appeal to comic geeks, nor drama-oriented teens. This is probably the worst idea ever. Aside from a Ratner-directed Conan, that is.

And there ain't a Hell hot enough for Rothman...and Philbrick...

or better yet, do the real first class and reboot the whole damn thing, with young non-blue Beast, young Scott, young Jean, Bobby and Warren.

I don't understand why Fox doesn't take the team that originally put X-Men on the map (Storm, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Shadowcat...maybe Rogue) and run with it. Use Shadowcat as the innocent, intangible eyes we see the film through, forget Jean Grey ever existed, cast Serena or Venus WIlliams as Storm and have them beat the fuck out of the Genoshan army (humans), the Hellfire Club (a rival band of mutants), and finally Magneto (former ally) over 3 movies.

I hated that there were students involved in the movies at all. Fanboys got all twitterpated when fucking Siryn was on screen. Siryn sucks. Don't give her a cameo. Don't give Arclight a cameo. Don't do cameos. Develop Storm (a great character) some. Make the team the students. More can be added over 3 movies (as needed), but seeing cameos just to see a cameo was gratuitous.

Also, I'd like to see the powers used. I'd like to watch Storm in action and be frightened. I want to see structure damage. I want to understand the scale of destruction. Play up the fear humans have of them. Because they should be uncanny.

Not quippy and overly emotional.

The first Nightcrawler from X2, the casting of McKellan and Stewart, and their handling of Mystique aside, all 3 of the X movies were painful disappointments. At least from this fan's perspective.

They blew their wad too early.

Reboot.

X-men needs better writing whatever they do. I am surprised they are not shoehorning in Wolverine in this one.

If he does love comics,even though his background is questionable i'll give him a shot, just tell him to get the casting right and stay true to the genre by not making it the x-men version of Twilight.

Even if he is good the man and his army suits will probably find a way to make it suck.

Fillion=Cyclops, Baldwin=Wolverine, Torres=Storm, Doctor guy=Beast, Glau=X-23, Engineer Chick= Kitty.

Hell the character dynamics even sorta resembled the X-Men. I never watched the show though, so I can vouch how truly accurate that is.

Ironically enough, Joss Whedon had said that if he had written the 3rd film he wouldn't have used the 'cure' idea, which was taken from his own X-Men comics. Instead, he would have firmly focused the film on Dark Phoenix, as part of a theme about powers getting out of control. This would have been great for a Rogue arc, where she gets a bit more crazy after absorbing too many powers, maybe even turning her against the X-Men, in homage to her original story arc in the comics. And of course, Wolvie getting a bit too feral. This would have been a great opportunity. The X-Men accidentally hurt or kill people because they (probably Jean) get out of control and the Brotherhood exploits it and adds to it. The public gets confused and no longer sees the difference between a good mutant and an 'evil' one. People really start to fear them, the protests and riots begin, and the government decides to go ahead with Operation Wide Awake, ending with a climactic Sentinel battle, instead of that dumbass throw everything at the wall and see what sticks non-sensical fight scene in X3. The cure could have been introduced late in the plot and still used to put down Jean, but save the cure story and its implications for a later film. It would have even worked if it was saved for the First Class movie, because then you could focus on Beast as a mentor, and have the kids struggle with this. I really wish we could erase the shit stain that was X3 and start over with a REAL continuation of X2.

While Wolverine might be everyone’s favorite member of the X-Men, he isn’t the most important. No one is, they are a team. That to me was the number one reason why the series was bad; they failed to create any other characters in the team that we cared about or would want to follow. Can you imagine a 10-year-old kid wanting to be any other members of the team save for Logan? Hell, when Star Wars came out when I was six, kids wanted to be Obi-Won, Luke, Han, Princess Leia and even frickin’ Chewie. What kid would want to be Cyclops or Storm from the movie?

The great thing about the X-Men is that they make a great metaphor for anyone who feels left out or disenfranchised, so they can work as a stand in for sexuality, race, religion, foreigners, teen angst, women, you name it. Singer’s X-Men was just about being gay. Senator Kelly asking if you want a mutant teaching your kids in X1; name any other group people worry about than homosexuals being around are children. I don’t think I have ever heard someone mention they were worried Asians or Blacks might be teaching their kids. Or how about when Iceman tells his parents he is a mutant, and his mom ask him if he could try not being a mutant? Or how the religious zealot General Stryker planned on getting rid of mutants because he finds them an abomination? Or even the idea of the Cure in the third one seemed like the homosexuals communities fear (and probably a well place one) of the Christian Churches attempts to ‘cure” homosexuality.

Like I said before, I don’t mind the gay metaphor and subtext, but that is all the movies became about (hell, even the casting began to take on a gay sensibility). The X-Men represent much more than just one group of persecuted people.

Having logan and rogue go apeshit along with jean and accidentally kill people works for me as clusterfuck mexican standoff scenario--X-men vs. x-men vs. everyone or least the Hellfire Club. Not only are they outcasts because of their powers, but the problems they have controlling their powers alienates them even further.

Can't agree w/ you on the teen drama though. I was never a big kitty p. fan and don't know much about jubilee. Besides most of the x-men are adults and so are their best characters.

Yes, there is still homophobia and fear directed towards gays, and some of that language was once directed towards other minorities. But first off, the type of language used in the film is no longer used towards them. This type of hateful language is now directed primarily at homosexuals. If they wanted to use mutants as a surrogate for other racial or ethnic hatred, maybe they should have had a variation of the infamous 14 words of White Supremacist groups, or the old Nazi charge against Jews comparing mutants to vermin. But no, I didn’t hear anything like that. Not even a “how mutants and humans shouldn’t mingle.”

And secondly, I have never heard someone asked to stay in the closet like Ice Man save for a gay person. A Jewish person might be felt compelled to hide his ethnicity in public, but not by his own family. Nor would he expect his brother to reject and hate him. Same with the idea of being afraid of a mutant teaching your kids; He might have had Sen. Kelly say they don’t want them to be scoutmaster’s as well. And it is hard to “Cure” being black or Hispanic. I don’t think I have heard of the concept of someone using drugs or gene treatments to eradicate any other group save for homosexuals, Not even Jews since that is not viewed as an ethnicity and a religion and not a genetic predisposition.

As for casting, perhaps that was a poor term to say gay sensibility as much as to say Bryan Singer’s aesthetic taste. One of my biggest faults with the first X-Men movie was that all the heroes were good-looking, and all the evil mutants were freaks. They should have had some of the weirder, less human X-Men in the first movie if they wanted to show how being a mutant can be also be a curse. As it was, I don’t see any reason why any of the X-Men should be whining about being a freak (save for perhaps Rogue).

But as for all the choices being very hetero, I have to disagree with you. Both the male members where definite eye-candy and went against the depiction of the characters in the comic. I mean, James Marsden is a little too much of a male model to be Cyclops in my opinion.

As for Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, I know he is well loved by many fanboys, but I have always thought he was wrong for the part. I used to be a doorman at a biker bar (scared the shit of me) and I have seen the type of tough, mean son-of-bitches that go there. I always imagined that even without his adamantium skeleton and claws, and regeneration powers, Wolverine could mop the floor with most of the guys there. I did not sense that from Hugh Jackman. Even while they were trying to ugly him up, he was way to good looking to be Wolverine.

Ok, maybe in the above examples to use Bryan Singer’s sexuality as a reason for the casting was a bad idea. Maybe it has more to do with his own personal taste of what leading men should look like. But from stories I have heard from people who have worked with him, I can’t help but associate the two (especially when I see the teen X-Men in part 2, Ice Man, Pyro, and Colossus).

As for the rest of the gay subtext in the movies, I can understand why Singer put it in. You make films based on what touches and affects you. If Spike Lee had made it, I probably would have felt more of direct link between mutants and the Black Experience; if Spielberg directed it maybe he would have made it seem more like the Jewish experience during the rise of the Nazi’s; and if Josh Whedon made it I would have only seen the thing as teen drama writ large (and I would have complained about such narrow depictions as well). But Springer did make, and I did notice the gay subtext to the film, and unfortunately it distracted me from enjoying the series. Maybe for you and others it didn’t bother you, or maybe you felt it was a very small part, but not for me. It seemed to have become the entire reason for why he was making the movies. And for me the X-Men aren’t just a metaphor for being accepted for being gay, despite how noble that gesture is.

But like I said before, that is only my opinion.

Sometimes the “gayness” of the X-Men movie had me seeing subtext that probably didn’t exist, such as: does Sabretooth represent “Bears”? Does Mystique represent a fag hag or the cross-gender individual? When did Prof. X and Magneto split up as a couple? And is Cerebro a euphemism for ‘gadar?”

It bothered me that Halle Berry couldn't act...at least Venus/Serena look the part...beautiful and imposing. A decent director paired with a good script could cure that...but...looks like that is too much to ask.

What I meant by the team that put X-Men on the map was the team that brought them from cancellation...Kitty Pride wasn't there right away, but she could be used (as she was in the comic) as a device to draw the reader/audience in. I didn't know she was disliked, but she's a great character. I am concerned that having a movie with Beast, Cyclops, and Jean Grey with the X stamp on it. Those 3 characters are boring...boring because they are good guys. Only good. No struggle with them. Storm was a thief. Wolverine (should be) a maniac. Nightcrawler is frightening to look at.

And, if Jean Grey is going to be included...I would hope it would be as the Dark Phoenix. Although, if they were to do this...the Shi'ar Empire would have to be introduced. There's nothing cosmic about the Golden Gate Bridge. I wasn't saying the Dark Phoenix saga was represented well in the 3 movies...far from it. I hated the way they handled her. It was brutal. If Jean Grey needs to be present (ugh) then the only pay off, for me, would be to see her as the Dark Phoenix. And, I also HATED how she killed herself at the end of X2 before she even was the Phoenix...takes the power away from her doing herself in to save the universe.

I was more complaining about the saturation of underused cameos. Psylocke (one of my favorites) was wasted. Fuck, all of the characters were wasted. It was a bad trilogy.

I think I agree with you, I just didn't state it correctly, perhaps.

And, my timeline wasn't 100% accurate...

They need to take parts of X-Tinction Agenda and God Loves, Man Kills (human fear =hatred) for the films, because that is a unifying thread throughout the X books. However, taking Days of the Future Past, or Mutant Massacre, or Inferno or any of these is biting off more than they can chew. It's too much ground to cover in an ensemble movie where ends needs to be tied up.

Anyway, I love the X-Men. I'd rather there be no movie at all, than a shitty one.

I can stomach things being called "gay" because everyone knows...sometimes shit is "gay." It's a phrase that even the gays have grown accustomed to. I understand and use it myself, even as a "faggot."

But, hey...can it be used sparingly?

There's no need to drop an "F" bomb.

It makes you sound really stupid.

Really stupid.

Really.

Stupid.

Don't be stupid.

Stupid.

And someone mentioned Bay fucking up Transformers. My question is... What the fuck could ANYONE do better when saddled with giant robots duking it out for the good of mankind? Is it because he put flames on Prime? Was it Shia? Transformers was exactly what it had the potential to be. Nothing more. I'll go see the next one, because no one rolls shit off the back of a truck into oncoming traffic quite like Bay!

There, is said it.

But i guess the point of my post was that when X men 1 and 2 came out, 99% of the fans went apeshit over how good they were. When the 3rd came out and it wasn't that good, it seems people decided the whole series was shit. Hell, Terminator 3 was shit. But Terminator and T2 are still fucking awesome. I think the problem is that X3 was mediocre. Not complete shit. All the same actors were there, you could see the possibilities, so you sat there hoping that it would somehow magically be a lot better than it was. I think thats why its become so hated, and Ratner has been the whipping boy, when, as you say, the fault lies with Fox.

It seems Cameron is the only director Fox won't fuck with.

Moving on...

and speaking of Joss, Contintentaltop, you do know that the whole 'have you tried not being a mutant' is a direct lift from Buffy when Buffy's mom asks her if she's tried not being a slayer? That certainly was not about gay subtext. Now I'm saying that Singer's films had no gay subtext. They're full of it. But EVERY superhero story is loaded with gay subtext. The whole notion of a secret identity, dressing in costumes (drag), the list goes on. It all can be read as gay subtext. Where I disagree is the notion that Singer's films foreclosed any other possible interpretation. X-Men are about alienation, pure and simple. And your family can reject you for having different beliefs about anything, not just about gay identity. Hell, when I was a teen I felt misunderstood by my family because I listened to weird music and had friends with weird hair. I think many teens hear a variation of 'why can't you be normal?' Plus, you're also dealing with the notion of 'passing' - which is obviously a big deal in the history of race and ethnicity in this country. And I still call bullshit on the whole casting thing. Jackman may not fit the perfect comic vision of Wolvie, but having someone who is a good actor and very physical (like a Broadway musical actor has to be) is necessary for the role. Look at what happened when they tried to cast a wrestler as Sabretooth! And your whole notion that good-looking actors = gay is ridiculous. So if an actor is attractive, they must be trying to make me gay! (relax, I'm not saying this is your argument, but observations like yours have been used to make such arguments). Look at variations in comic art: you've got Frank Quitely's odd distorted figures in Morrison's run, and then you have the Greg Horn-style airbrushed supermodels in current X-Men runs. It's not a stretch to think super good-looking actors would play the roles. Especially since Singer's films were the beginning of the current superhero movies boom, of course they were going for good looking. At that point, who wanted to see unattractive superheroes? (though I argue they could have gone with even more supermodelly types with Jean Grey, Rogue, or Iceman). As I've said many times before, if Singer wasn't openly gay, people wouldn't be looking for ways to 'gay up' the movies, looking at every directorial choice through a gay lens.

You don’t agree with my viewpoint, than maybe read the review of the X-Men movies in the Advocate, where they point out the massive amounts of gay subtext in the movie, or listen to Ian McKellan when he told an interviewer that Singer explicitly invoked the argument of gay rights when he pitched the role of Magneto to him. Or read Variety’s Justin Chang when he wrote that X3 (ironically not directed by a gay man) is even more explicit when equating mutation with homosexuality. Or maybe X-Men screenwriter Dan Harris when he was interviewed Filmfreakcentral.net where he explains the cultural shift of the X-Men being about race issues to becoming a metaphor more about sexual identity or orientation. Or maybe you should just read Willaim Earnest’s essay, “Making Gay Sense of the X-Men” where he spells it all out.

I do not see anything wrong with making a superhero movie as a metaphor for being gay and dealing with sexual orientation, and in fact you can make a movie that is exclusively about that. I just have a problem when they used the X-Men for that purpose, and EXCLUSIVELY for that purpose; any other subtext or suggestions of discrimination and alienation that could apply to other groups was just a coincidence or happened to be a element that shared similarities with other groups.

And I don’t blame or heat Singer for putting it in there. Like I said in an earlier post, you make films that are personal to you, that you feel connected to, so I would expect to find some themes in this movie that resonate with Singer. I would be more surprised if there was no gay subtext in this film when you consider that besides the director, the two screenwriters were gay as well. Of course, I have always found it amusing that the “gayest” X-Men movie was X3.

In this occasion, I felt that the gay themes were too obvious and were distracting me from the story, while you could see the gay themes as applying to other discriminated groups. Neither one of us is right nor wrong.

I will say, however, that the reason I brought it up to begin with is that I felt that it hurt the X-Men movies because a number of the audience, such as myself, felt disconnected to the material. Obviously, I have no way to prove that, or to prove the opposite, unless I did some sort of massive poll, but that it how I feel. I don’t think of myself homophobe or intolerant, but I do believe in being honest enough to say that sometimes I cannot relate to a character in a movie because of sexual orientation, racial issues or a completely alien experience (movies about mother’s losing their kids do nothing for me). And their are many people out their like me, whether people like that fact or not. Of course, there are those films that take the experience of someone I normally would not relate to (Hedwig and the Angry Inch for you, Brokeback Mountain for me), and make me see the similarity between their characters and their experiences and my own. The X-Men series was not one of them for me.

I will add, so we can close this argument on more agreeable terms that teen angst has long been with the X-Men. I mean, just look at the original team, the entire mutant thing back in the 60’s was just teen angst and the generation gap writ large. Although I don’t think teen angst was the number one issue in the best X-Men stories: to me it was always about intolerance and learning and learning to over come prejudice against those different from the rest (“…protect those who hate and fear them,”).