X-MEN: FIRST CLASS CONTINUES TO SUCK IN PRINT, EXCEL WITH FOOTAGE

Why does EVERY one of these ensemble posters have one character with that "head down, hands together in mock deep-thought" pose?? The one Beast is guilty of in this poster....

I don't know how else to take it other than FOX has a team of interns in a windowless office making all their posters. That's how they cut corners in this economy.

It's baffling how bad they are, especially since they just look like they've been xeroxed from the X2 and LAST STAND posters, right down to the Dutch angles. And the horrendous cartoon SR-71 tops it off.

 

Saying that, part of me wishes they'd go worldwide with the title X-MEN: LE COMMENCEMENT.

"Didn't ask, so I didn't tell." -- GET IT?!

 

Seriously though, the clips have brought me around to being pretty excited about this. Beast actually looks like a beast now, instead of some dude flipping upside down and gripping that model Blackbird with his shoes still on.

It seems like the print ads are being handled by interns from accounting.
 

 

Those clips removed any last bit of reservation I had about this. The trailers so far had been a little too quickly cut and non student-centric for me to get a good bead on them. These clips were awesome. That Havok clip was all kinds of badass. I'm officially really excited about this.

Wow, these clips were pretty damn great. I'm really loving the vibe I get from this.

Yea, really appreciated the focus on the students.  They've pushed the Xavier/Magneto stuff so hard in the trailers that it started to feel a little played out.  The film feels so much fresher now.

What's the point in even making an X-Men movie unless interesting characters like Wolverine and Nightcrawler are in it? Are audiences really eager to see Havok? And Professor X and Magneto AGAIN? I'm sure America is clamoring for the return of that boring guy who sits in a wheelchair and says boring things. What a waste of a movie.

Haha! You called Wolverine an interesting character! Nice one.

Fine. Enjoy your hotly-anticipated Banshee movie!

I sure will!

Yeah, we sure as fuck haven't gotten enough Wolverine in these movies.

He does have a point about Nightcrawler, though.

 

Yes, because pandering to the fans is the best way to make movies...

Wait, if Havok is Cyclops' nephew...? Eh, fergeddit.

 

Clips look compelling.

Havok is actually Cyclops' brother. Which makes it all the more weird.

 

I'm not going into this, mentally trying to tie this film into the same continuity as the other films.

I think the film (obviously) ties into the continuity of at least the Singer films (and Last Stand to a degree). They've already said this isn't a reboot, it's just a prequel. So, my guess? Much in the same way Sabertooth and Wolverine didn't have a long standing rivalry, Havoc probably isn't Cyclops' kid brother in this.

The Banshee clip is the only thing that worked for me. I like Matthew Vaughn and all, Fassbender and McAvoy are great (Bacon!), and I'm so fucking glad that Wolverine isn't a part of it, but I've yet to be convinced that this is going to be anything more than a nice diversion. Also, I'm not feeling Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique, hopefully she tracks better in the actual film (if I bother).

 

 

NERD! I mean, oops. Yeah still weird. His younger brother too.

I consider THIS crappy-looking movie to be the one that's pandering to fans. Fans are the only people on Earth who care about Havok and Professor X and how they were affected emotionally by the Cuban Missile Crisis. The whole concept of this movie is that of a fan movie. It's not as bad as that proposed "Magneto" spinoff, which was the worst case of nerdy studio guys not understanding AT ALL what audiences would like to see, but it's close.

 

I'm worried that the studio guys who greenlight this crap are nerdier than all of us. We need one of those cigar-chomping assholes who'll just say, "Put Wolverine in it, make it funny, throw in a few cute robots for the kids to laugh at, and make sure the climax is an epic battle on the moon against an intergalactic empire." These movies should be imaginative and gimmicky and kid-friendly. Like Marvel comics was for, oh, what?, 30 years? Before fan-pandering crap like ULTIMATES killed the industry?

 

Just my two cents! I won't be seeing this anyway!

Interesting theory. Not sure I buy it though. A lot of geek properties are getting greenlit but I would assume it's because the creatives are geeks not the studio execs. And of course there's the whole trend of reboots and prequelitis. My guess is that's the overarching trend, not geeks in charge of the studios. Could be wrong though. Also, the fans love shit like Gambit and Venom. Not Havok and Prof X. Yeah, I love Havok as a character but I'm not your typical fan. And that's because he's a interesting character like Rogue I'd like to think that stuff is just smart moviemaking not merely fanwank. Also I'm pretty sure that the comic book First Class doesn't even sell that well anyways.

I think its possible for fan-servicing to crawl up its own asshole and so it is important to take a step back. But your description of what a studio's notes should be sound a lot like making it more like TF2. No thanks.

Or WOLVERINE. This movie looks a hundred times better than that pile. And these trailers are a lot better than the trailers for WOLVERINE.

Should Wolverine fight a giant spider as well?

 

And after LAYER CAKE, STARDUST and KICKASS Vaughn deserves the benefit of the doubt.

I laughed at the idea of a Young Magneto solo film like all the rest, but Fassbender's Magneto is the only thing that has me interested in this.

The generic highschool drama stuff in the character bios made me yawn.

 

-"You don't understand what I would give...."

 

Both at once: "TO BE NORMAL!"

 

*giggling*

 

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Yes. Wouldn't that be awesome and Claremontian? How could it hurt?

Maybe if SUPERMAN RETURNS had Superman fighting a giant spider and had been produced by Jon Peters, it wouldn't have been a boring, awful piece of nerdy shit that nobody was enthusiastic about and that made no money.

 

As indelicately as McCartney has a way of putting things, I can see through it a bit. Thing is, it's about the story you want to tell and finding the best way to tell it. I was thinking about this recently. Take the first X-Men movie, or the second, whatever. Like it or not, if you put Wolverine in that fucking yellow/blue thing that he wears in the comics, you are talking about a vastly different film with a very different feel. It wouldn't necessarily be bad, but like a filmmaker like Branagh decided, you've got to really figure out the tone if you're going with that aesthetic. They decided they wanted to lean on the metaphor and make it more real world, so they did that. You may not like it, but outright calling it the "wrong decision" is, I think, actually less imaginitive than jettisoning the whole possibility of Gladiator and the Shi'ar empire showing up.  

 

The problem I have with Jon Peters is not that he wanted Superman to fight a giant spider (fuck, I'll pay to see that), it's that by all accounts, he didn't understand Superman at all. The problem with Bryan Singer, is that he only understood one specific version of Superman, and failed to check and see if anyone else but a relatively small number of his potential audience actually gave a shit about a film that came out three decades ago.

About a week ago a friend of mine's facebook status was,"There will be a spider fight in the third act.

 

I'd probably actually prefer to see the spider in a Superman movie - but the (slightly throwaway) comment was more about the other side of the execs you mentioned. People like Peters, who will try and cram all sorts of unrelated shit into the world and kill the essence of what it is, like not wanting Superman to fly. I don't think XMFC is fan-pandering myself, more that it looks like it's trying to strike a balance between a couple of audience levels. I'm not a particularly massive X-fan, but of what I do know, how Xavier and Magneto got to the point in their relationship they were in the films after being friends is what makes me want to see the film the most.

 

Not that the credit always means anything, but Jon Peters IS credited for producing Superman Returns.  Someone take the ending of Wild Wild West and cut Superman into it!

 

McCartney throws around "nerdy" like a pejorative as if he has no idea what the "nerds" actually want. As something of a geek, I'm compelled to defend the term. On the topic of Superman there's almost universal agreement that the movies should head in the Brainiac or Darkseid direction. Again the problem with SUPERMAN RETURNS wasn't a problem of too many nerds, it was a problem of playing it way too safe (I guess you could argue emo Clark is a nerdy conceit but really almost all geeks would've preferred him to be punching giant robots or aliens instead, so...)

felix, Major Christopher Summers is...Corsair, not Alex Summers aka Havok, the former younger brother of Scott Summers aka Cyclops!

I keep having a dream about Magneto picking up the Statue of Liberty and chucking it into the White House while Kanye West's "POWER" blares. Not sure if that showing up in a movie would be fan-service, as I am a fan, and I am a nerd.

 

On a non-nerd level, I do wonder how far you can stretch the tenuous metaphor of oppressed mutants after five movies. I mean, these guys are "freaks" and are "persecuted," but even if he couldn't control his powers and was dangerous, Havok, for example, seems like a good looking young white kid who can do some awesome shit. Why would anyone ever persecute someone like that?

That's always been a necessary conceit to swallow to read X-Men. Look at Angel, for instance. No one in real life would persecute a guy for looking like, well, an angel.

 

 

 

This is adorable. I just want to give you a big ol' hug. C'mere, you!