X-Men

Reply with quote...Yay!

Anyway, I'll be happy as long as that idiot Gambit is not in the film. I'll be ecstatic if they get Nightcrawler in there.

I think the next film really needs more money, and the freedom to have at least a two hour running time. They also need enough time to polish the script some more this time around - no more baaaad one-liners please. Just give Singer enough time to polish things up before, during, and after the shoot, and we should be fine.

Two words.

Dark Phoenix

I've said it before and I'll say it again, X-Men is less a movie than it is a feature length TV pilot.

I enjoyed it but I don't see what the fuss is about.

Dark Phoenix couldn't be done properly in one movie, I agree with Mr. Singer, Sentinels are the best way to go.

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Veni Vidi Castratavi Illegitimos
~I came, I saw, I castrated the bastards~

X-Men is a fine introduction. It's the key to a good franchise. If you leave plenty of characters and elements out, you can introduce them later.

Plus, if you make a 'Slap-Bang-Wallop-There's-No-Way-We-Can-Top-This' film, you'll have a rather disappointing second installment.

For me, the fuss was all about how the movie didn't completely and utterly SUCK. Three outta four comic book movies will be horrible wastes of time (I think that ratio also applies to Stephen King flicks). The fact that someone made a heavy hitter like X-Men into a good and faithful-to-its-source-material movie is simply amazing.

So far, my list of good comic book movies is as follows:
X-Men
Batman
Batman Returns
Conan the Barbarian
Heavy Metal
Blade

Out of all those, X-Men is the second-closest (Conan being the first) movie to capturing the feel of the comic. It stayed true to the characters (the main ones, anyway). That's an even rarer thing. And the differences in character it did have were not that far off.

I like to argue about Mystique. In the comics, she's a top-notch assassin who's extremely hard to catch-up with. The big arguments I've heard against her movie counterpart are that she's a wire-happy kung-fu-slingin evil bitch. I bet she could do a lot of that stuff anyway (though that is rationalizing, I admit). The only difference I really saw was a lack of guns and clothes...But do ya really miss em?

Sabertooth was a bit...lacking, though. He's not exactly chatty in the comics, but I always looked at him like I do Hannibal Lector: something evil behind those eyes. Not just a physical rage, so much, but a devious intellect. Check out X-Men #32, I think. Sabes is in the custody of the X-Men and he reveals a bit of Gambit's past. The whole thing reminded me of Silence of the Lambs. Face mask and all. Wolverine #92 had more of that in it. He and Logan duke it out and Sabes is just pushing Logan to murder. The frosting on the cake, though, has gotta be his 4-part series (with Mark Texiara's beautiful cover art). Sabertooth is a f*cking bad man, there.

Anyway, Toad was way-off base so far as looks go, but not enough of his character was shown to pass judgement.

Storm was kinda wasted. Not even delving into that whole "what happens to a Toad" line...African goddess makes it into a movie, and all she does is get her ass kicked by every bad guy she sees. Sad.

Continuity was way off, but they didn't exactly have 30 years to play with, did they?

So far as the sequel goes, I'm not sure how far audiences are willing to go with giant robots with jet boots smashing around New York...

Unfortunately, we've heard nothing about the Fuzzy Elf or Colossus or Kitty as developed characters (can we get Ilyanna? OoOooO), just Gambit & Beast...while I like them, I prefer the others.

Ermmmmmmm...Ok, kinda. They've got balls where they count, but lack in logic from time to time. Dated, too.

Why am I not surprised that it's you who points this out?

[This message has been edited by DJEvil (edited 02-25-2001).]

I think some people are a little hard on the XMen movie. It is one of the best comic movies ever made. It's main flaws being that the story was thrown together too quickly, and most of the characters weren't developed as well as their ink counterparts. Sabertooth, poor Sabertooth. He was really one of my favorite villains. In the comic Sabertooth was far more intelligent and complex, in the movie he's portrayed as just magneto's henchmen.

But it was still a great summer movie. The two greatest things they can do for the sequel(s) are take the time to craft a better story, and spend more time on the character development (which seems to be the way they might go since the ending of the movie suggested that the sequel would focus mostly on Wolverine)

No, you don't devilf! Don't answer that! Batman Returns is better!