What do you want to see in the next X-Men movies?

Right after X2 came out I was hoping that Fox would take the series to a total of 5 films.  X-Men 3 would have been similar to Last Stand but a version that wasn't mediocre.  Basically Dark Phoenix and the introduction of Havok and Mr. Sinister.  Scott and Jean would disappear at the end leaving Havok and Storm in charge of the team.   X-Men 4 would be called "The Rise of Apocalypse" or something along those lines which would end in a cliched cliffhanger to be picked up the following year with X-Men 5 and the return of Scott and Jean.  It would be an epic tale of sacrifice and heroism where the deaths of certain team members would be handled with more care then Ratner and his team managed.  

Cameron Hughes, I would set the next X-Men in the Bicentennial of...1976!  It is a year marking the...200th birthday of America.  I would add Cyclops and Jean Grey to the team. I would also bring in Wolverine if there is a...2nd sequel to First Class in a couple of years.  The villain to go with is...Genosha!  Make Cameron Hodge the villain. Continue this story in another film.  Hodge is wounded severly in next years film, and tries to capture as many members of the team that he can.

 

Not for me. For me the next movie should be all about Magento vs Xavier. Battle of wills, powers but most of all Ideologies. Have then both recruiting, all the while the US government is planning to take down all mutants. Hell have Magento based in South East Asia, and tie in all the US action in the 60s and 70s to their attempts to stop a supervillian. Hell Sabretooth and Logan coul dbe in the Govt's strike team. 

 

There's so much potenial in Magento as the lead villian that, both in terms of characters and action, that these movies have yet to even scratch at.

There is, but they've taken advantage of almost none of the other good X-Men villains. I'd say it's about time.

Someday I'd like to see this series totally rebooted just so that we can get the Nightcrawler/Wolvie/Colossus buddy movie that we all deserve.

Sentinels.  That is all.

 

Really? Don't we enough Big Robots Smashing things in our blockbusters already? I'd take Sinister and his hench team over the tall Terminators every day.

The brood.

Also, bring in the Shi'ar.

For coolness: Apocalypse.

 

For storytelling: The Legacy Virus.

 

And both could happen very, very easily.

 

Not in any good movies.

 

Admittedly, Pacific Rim is likely to change that.

 

I was just coming here to say this. And I don't want no updated, shiny, convoluted Transformers-esque Sentinels, I want big, lumbering pink and purple Sentinels who shoot lasers out of their hands.

 

Also, amen to the Colossus mention. In fact, if I can get Sentinels and a Fastball Special to kill one of them, I would be happy as a clam.

 

I also wouldn't mind seeing Morlocks. I always liked them.

 

Umm....

You're right. I'll be more specific. I'd like to see that in a movie where Colossus doesn't look terrible, the whole scene is not shrouded in mist, and the movie is not completely godawful.

I am surprised how many folks here want the super SF elements bought to life.

 

After all, that path leads to Cable /shudder/

Love Machine, No love for...Cable?  I guess you prefer his son...Optimum Online!  Yes, I would add...Cable, Major Christopher Summers aka Corsair and the rest of The Starjammers too!  Though, I would also want to have Scott Summers/Cyclops leading The X-Men.  Since Banshee is in the X-Men, then Black Tom Cassidy should be there along  with his buddy Juggernaut, whom was criminally underused in X-3!  Psylocke, and a Rogue that flies and has superstrength would be great in a 2nd sequel to First Class.

 

Richard Dickson, I...2nd your love for Sentinels.  

I know that it's pretty famous but no Days of the Future Past.  Please no time travel in the X-Men movies.  And obviously no Cable...or Bishop...or any other time traveling characters introduced since I stopped reading X-Men in the 90's.

 

They're top of my list, although I've no idea how you'd make them work live-action on screen. I do feel like Sinister would be alright with a bit of a character retool (ie not this, much as I love the cartoon).

 

I'd also like Days of Future Past, although I completely understand the no-time-travel thing. Mostly I just want to get Bishop in a movie.

Problem with some of the ideas listed above: although they were classic X-Men stories, they are all also ripoffs of movies or obviously very, very similar to movies that are well known. The Brood are Aliens, pure and simple. Days of Future Past came out before Terminator, but tells a very similar story. Made into a film, both stories would induce much eye-rolling amongst audiences.

 

Both Apocalypse and Sinister would be great villans. Both take the idea of Humanity vs Mutants and turn them on their head. The Big A wants to cull the "unfit" from Humanity, leaving only the strongest Mutants, while Sinister wants to tinker with the Human Genome, creating the perfect race. Having the X-Men caught between these two and Human foes would be cool.

 

I also think the Hellfire Club still has lots of potential. Emma Frost is still out there, and could recruit her own team of Mutants (like in the comics). Plus we could see Donald Pierce, AKA the Black Bishop, a human who's enhanced with cybernetic implants, and (ironically) a man who hates Mutants!

I would like to politefully decline the Brood. The Xmen have enough issues without going interstellar. Keep it here on Earth (unless we are on Asteroid M. Then I am okay. Moonraker and Xmen!)

 

I would love to see an Apocalypse story.  En Sabh Nur's genetic purity and genocide would ping Magneto's story, but would also make him sympathize because his people are being superior.  It would give Magneto conflict. Set it in Egypt, late 60s, you get all the fighting with Egypt and Israel with Apocalypse pulling strings to start WWIII, and you get to meet Storm. Toss away mention of Wakanda to set the footing for The Black Panther. Plus you get a nicely, diverse setting.  You could have Colossus sent to Egypt as part of the Russian 'advisors' and he could defect then.

 

If we are going to see Sinister, I don't think Magneto can be involved. A Sinister story would be more of a murder/mystery story.  It hits harder because he is tracking Scott and Jean, Xmen's family, and is less about teaming Magneto in.

I suspect if Apoclyspe is in the new movie he'll be behind the legacy virus, which would kill "undesirable" mutants, leaving only the strong ones alive for his army. Having Apocalypse wanting to start WW3 is exactly the same plot that involved Kevin Bacon in First Class.

 

This is one thing I've really missed in the X-Men films. All the characters are American! The New X-Men were kind of groundbreaking in that you had a Russian, a German, an Irishman, (for a brief time) a Japanese, etc. Storm in the movies is never identified as Kenyan and she sure doesn't act like one.

 

Although I'd like to see Sinister in a movie I hope to God they re-design him. He'd look worse on screen than Bane if they'd stuck to his Lucador mask from the comics.

 

Sinister can probably be redesigned pretty easily but still be identifiable - essentially just pale, maybe with that red diamond/gem thing in his forehead.

 

I could see them waiting on Apocalypse. At some point, someone will pull the trigger on one of the further-out cosmic villains - Thanos or Darkseid are the most likely, with Avengers making Thanos likely - and if that works on screen Apocalypse has a chance. Fox has generally played this series so safe in some respects I kind of doubt that they'll be the trailblazer on it.

 

I'd really like to see more classic mutants though. Admittedly, I stopped following the books much not long after Claremont left, but I had to look up who half of the characters in First Class were.

If it's set in the 70's they could go "Spy-Who-Loved-Me" mode and use Arcade as a villain.

Christ, I will NEVER understand people requesting the thematic and creative black hole that are Sentinels.

The ONLY place to go with that is to have the X-Men brawling with giant robots. Which, in that case, is great. Put it in a video game.

 

The most interesting moments in all the films are the clash of ideologies, so you have very politically-compromised heroes and villains who have different outlooks on mutants within society. In the comics, that's provided a host of villains from Big Bads like Apocalypse, to smaller threats like Stryker and Graydon Creed. Why ignore them for the juvenile concept of giant robots?

 

Though I hope they don't echo the League of Shadows, I see no reason why the Hellfire Club couldn't still be active with someone new in charge. First Class really only utilized the Club in name only.

 

Plus, if you cast one of the X-Men's classic baddies, you're almost guaranteed to get a great actor slumming. With Sentinels, it's just a CGI orgy. And given that the actor who plays, say, Apocalypse, would be bouncing against Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy, I think that's something that could be far more exciting than a Transformers redux.

I would like Magneto to be in hiding like a Bond villain mixed with Brando's Kurtz in some secluded south east Asian jungle layer. From there he would plot Manchurian Candidate style mutant powered schemes, sending assassins and provacateurs out into the world, which Xaiver and his team would be forced to thwart. Final battle would be like Platoon, only with X-Men.

You do realize there's more to the Sentinel storyline than "Giant robots show up, they fight," right?

Yes. Much more. And none of it will translate, and/or the studio won't even be interested in translating it.

Okay.

 

Wrong

Come on, we all know that the only reason the studio green lit the last 5 X-Men movies was as an excuse to explore the Holocaust parallels and homosexual subtext inherent to the premise.  Because that's all studios are interested in.

Not my point.

 

I can see Fox using the Sentinels, and I can see why they would use them.

And I can see how it would be redundant, stupid and fucking boring. Waiting on the stirring explanation otherwise.

 

Mostly, as far as requesting stuff from the new movies, I want to see something very unusual and non-canon. Surprise me, Fox.

The Sentinels were created by MAN (sorry).

 

They were Humanity's answer to the Mutant threat: beings powerful enough, and intelligent enough, to (in theory) counterbalance the power of individual super beings. And once activated, they 1) immediately disobeyed orders, kidnapping Xavier (while he was in the midst of a televised debate on Mutants no less!) 2) turned on their creator 3) decided the only way to really wipe out Mutants was to wipe out Humanity.

 

That's just the first Sentinel story arc. They were also used by the unholy combo of the HellFire Club (run by Mutants! Irony!) and the US Federal Government (Project Wideawke) to capture and "study" Mutants.

 

Then there was the "Future Sentinel" Nimrod who was Human sized and killed off several Hellfire Club members, got turned into a Human being/robot, and tried his best to wipe out all Mutants, all while trying to learn what it means to be Human.

 

There are plenty of good stories to be told with the Sentinels. And yes, a knock down drag out fight between X-Men and Sentinels can be great. You are reacting to the shitty Transformers films. Given a strong plot and good acting, an X-Men film can shine with....Sentinels!

Cylon, you make okay points (even if, in film form, those stories would still feel INCREDIBLY familiar).

 

But I ain't budging. I will remain forever on the FUCK SENTINELS train.

 

FUCK SENTINELS.

Well also consider the symbolic significance of Sentinels in the context of the X-Men movies.

 

Essentially what you have is a group of Humans "outsourcing" a new Holocaust. Washing their hands of responsibility. And then getting a nice big bite in the ass as a result.

 

There is also the rather horrific idea that we've reached a stage were we can mechanize genocide to the extent of, in effect, pushing a button and having machines take over for us.

 

 

Hard to give a "stirring explanation" when you don't have a coherent point. Are the Sentinels a "thematic and creative black hole" and "juvenile concept", or is the problem just that Fox wouldn't use them well? The latter is just a silly assumption. Could the Sentinels being redundant and boring? Sure, but so could any number of other storylines. X3 combined two of the better X-Men storylines (Dark Phoenix and the cure arc from Astonishing X-Men) and turned out to be an abomination. If you're just going to be resigned to a studio ruining things, then maybe this thread isn't for you.

 

Edit: Cylon Baby handled the explanation as to why they aren't a "thematic and creative black hole" better than I could have.

I'm on this train:

 

*Pew-pew-pews at Gabe T's train as it thunders past*

The best way I can think for using Sentinels--since the original run of films missed the best opportunity in the wake of X2--is to do a Genosha storyline. Have the Sentinels be the security on the island--they don't have to be the skyscraper sized tin cans, but large and able to counter several of the more basic mutant abilities.

 

That, and I think thematically, Genosha makes a lot of sense when it comes to portraying the plight of the mutants to get accepted. 

I always thought it'd be cool to, with the seventies era, combine the "Ancient Astronaut" theory of the time with some of the more out-there X-Men stuff. Have Magneto and Xavier racing from Easter Island to the Nazca lines to find a millenia-old Shi'ar ship, only for them to dig up a Brood hive. 

 

Oh, and it's been four movies: Can Magneto and Xavier cuddle? Not making a joke, seriously now. It's gotten to the point where a platonic reading on their relationship is ridiculous. First Class has Xavier ruing his break-up with a man he's known a few days for the rest of his life and never mentioning his adopted sister again. Let's just be mature enough to admit the man-love and move on.

I guess the idea of the X-Men fighting giant robots being GODDAMN FUN isn't going to fly?

I know I take time out of every Superman thread to say how him fighting giant robots would be boring as hell. That, however, is due to the character, as a superhero, being boring as hell.

 

The X-Men, however, there's ALWAYS something else going on where the giant robots have purpose, even a creepy factor. Even the 90s cartoon got that right, where they ran with the idea of the government using soulless robots to exercise superiority over intelligent superhumans had a dread built into it, and then when Mastermold showed up, it went full on into technological horror.

 

Simply, these characters, and the reasons they would be involved would MAKE Sentinels worthwhile. Not the other way around, as people seem to think for Superman.

Also, the Sentinels come with a required human figure to make/order them, a la Stryker.  There's your slumming Oscar winner role. 

 

You have to understand for some of us, Giant Robots means we recall the likes of recent trash such as TRANSFORMERS, SKYLINE, BATTLESHIP.  No good memories.

 

Hell, maybe this time next year, when we are all basking in the glow of PACIFIC RIM, we'll be able to relax, trust in Matt Vaughan and Jane Goldman and dream of fun scenes involving the Sentinels.

Rule #1: NO. ALIENS. WHATSOEVER. The only time I've ever felt aliens worked in this universe was when Whedon and Cassaday did them, and that was because they tied those characters into a lot of the main themes and concepts of X-Men.

 

Screw the Shi'ar. Or the Kree. Or the Brood. This playing field doesn't need to be interstellar. Leave that to the Avengers. Or the Fantastic Four, although honestly I've always felt the Four dipped into that well a little too often myself.

 

Rule #2: Start bringing some of the big names back in. I'd love to see the likes of young Cyclops, Storm or Jean Grey growing up in the mansion. While I liked First Class overall, the young mutants on either side largely being C-listers (with the obvious exceptions of Beast, Mystique, Emma Frost, and the two male leads) didn't really help. The most compelling characters were the ones I already knew something about. Guys like Havok, Banshee, Pixie, and stupidest-power-ever Darwin? Not so much.

 

Rule #3: I totally agree that a good Genosha storyline would be aces.

I kinda thought Darwin would be cool onscreen. Also, he can adapt to anything, so he's probably the easiest superhero resurrection to explain.

 

Plus, ain't a lot of black X-Men, so, might as well.

 

I kinda like that actor, would prefer to see more of him than that driftwood that played Havok.

I have nothing against the actor or more black X-Men. I just thought the way he was used in First Class was extremely lame.

Well, come on! That's because dude has NOTHING TO DO!