If We’re Rebooting Everything, It’s X-Men’s Turn

future past

Three core X-Men movies. Two Wolverine solo features. One First Class quasi-reboot and now one more film that binds them all together.

Despite all this, only a handful of X-Men movies can truly be considered “good.” I’d argue the first one meets that mark, if only for its expert casting. The second had its moments, and First Class was the best of them all. Last Stand and Origins were abysmal while “The Wolverine” was the definition of mediocrity.

While I’m excited that First Class’s Matthew Vaughn is sticking around for Days of Future past, the idea of tying all these universes together and adding even more is worrisome. X-Men starts getting bad when there are too many mutants around, which is why First Class was the best of them all. Now, we have not only that cast, but the one from the original trilogy, Wolverine in a starring role again and now a new future group of X-Men as well.

I think this is where it ends. The series have overloaded itself enough.

last stand

It’s weird, because I thought First Class was the reboot. The plot seemed very much disconnected from the original trilogy, and only made the barest of attempts to tie the plotlines together. Now, by intertwining all these worlds, the idea seems less ambitious and more overcrowded and jumbled.

Perhaps I’m wrong, perhaps it won’t be and Vaughn will deliver again. But either way, after this? The X-Men need a break. Update: Bryan Singer is directing this, not Vaughn, I’m told. I’m a bit more worried, then.

Honestly? I think the best course forward might be a TV show after this, rather than a movie reboot. Every DC property under the sun is heading to TV, from Arrow to The Flash to Gotham. Marvel is doing it too with SHIELD, Agent Carter and all its new Netflix shows. I think the time is ripe for a quality live action X-Men show.

heroes

The likely scenario is that it would take place with good looking teens at the X-Academy, but they could also take it a darker direction by putting it somewhere like FX or Netflix. Imagine X-Men branded Heroes, if Heroes didn’t suck.

While the X-Men movies have been perfectly passable superhero fare, they’ve been largely outclassed by their competition from Batman to Iron Man to Spider-Man to The Avengers. If I was making a top ten superhero movie list, only First Class might make the cut.

After seven movies in the same universe, it’s time to move on. Hopefully they can end on a high note.

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16 Comments

  1. I would rank X2 as definitively the best of the films, with the original, First Class, and the Wolverine ranked closely together behind it, Origins coming up next as a big ol’ “meh” and Last Stand as the only actual bad movie in the lot. I’m very much looking forward to Future Past and see no need for a reboot.

  2. I wish Marvel Studios could get the full movie rights back for X-Men. We are missing out on so many good story lines involving them and the Avengers. I have always wanted to see a live action, aka CGI, version of the Hulk and Wolverine fight!

    1. Hugh as wolverine is “ok”, and he’s created the character as his own. For that fight though, you need a more true to character actor, someone shorter, with more dexterity – not just muscles and a haircut.

      1. Agreed… I think they kind of tried to portray that fight in the Incredible Hulk, though, with Tim Roth fighting the Hulk on the college grounds.. I always try to imagine that scene with Wolverine, (not Jackman), fighting Hulk… the leaping, reflexes, arrogance/confidence, and speed of Roth(as Blonsky) in that scene.. the only things missing were the claws and Blonsky saying “bub” at least once. 🙂

  3. I too was/am worried about cast overload, you see it on tv shows if the writers are not careful. As much as I love Stewart & McKellen, I think it may have been better if the original cast where left out of it. The First Class crew did a fine job on their own, let them carry the next movie.
    At most, perhaps have ‘future Prof X & Magneto’ somehow able to communicate with their past selves, almost in an advisory role-like Dungeon Master.
    Wolverine I think has had too much airtime, like his work but again, let the new cast carry the movie.
    A decent X-men show would be awesome, the 90s cartoon was great, modernise it, maybe a bit gritty and boom. Job done.

  4. X2 is still one of the top 5 superhero films ever, but the rest of the series is hot and cold. The best possible thing to do would be for Marvel to get the rights back, but don’t hold your breath. The franchise is too much of a cash cow for FOX to let go of.

  5. Although I’ve always enjoyed these movies (yes, even X3 and Origins), I’m starting to tire of them. I want to see new adaptations of the characters, such as a non-douchey Cyclops and a short, beastly Wolverine. Unfortunately, I feel as though this is a long ways off, considering they’re already planning a sequel to Days of Future Past.

  6. This article is irrelevant and poorly researched. DOFP is a Bryan Singer film, and Fox has already greenlit a sequel, X-Men: Apocalypse. And just as an extra note, Wolverine is not the star of this film. He is a major player and will move the plot forward as a macguffin, but this is Xaviers story.

    1. How is this Xaviers story? Because of what you saw in the trailer? I’m sorry, and I wish you were correct, but Fox is in charge, and they are riding Wolverine hard. Don’t believe me?

      Xmen 1 was essentially Wolverine and the Xmen.

      X2 was about Wolverine and Stryker, and how Xavier and his students got caught up in it.

      Last Stand? Wolverine learned to lead and he was the one to make the (gulp) sacrifice by killing Jean, and in the end, on whom did the camera focus? On Logan, congratulating Hank and looking out on the grounds of the school. (Intimating that he was going to take over with Storm).

      What individual mutant was the focus of 2 solo movies made with a 3rd to follow? Not Magneto.

      And First Class? While I agree it was a great movie, and was in part Magneto’s origin story just as much as Xavier’s, Fox just couldn’t resist a cameo by its leading mutant star. (Hint: the cameo I’m talking about was not Stan Lee.)

      The point here is that, dollars to donuts, Wolverine is going to be the main character here. I would bet money that in some way or another he is involved in the resolution of the film.

      Frankly, if it were me, I would make sure he was killed in the future, preferably in an attempt to make sure another character (Kitty anyone?) succeeded in the time jump.

      BTW, the pics and trailer show old man Logan, but at the end of The Wolverine, there is no hint of gray in his hair, and no indication that he has suddenly starting aging faster. I’m wondering if Singer is actually going to show THREE time periods… The seventies, the time with old Xavier and Magneto, and then a period even farther in the future, perhaps with old man Logan, Bishop, and other “New Mutants”.

      I want some sort of credit if that’s what happens 🙂

        1. OK, for the sake of discussion and debate, (cuz I love a good debate lol), are you taking about this quote from that article? It’s from Hugh Jackman..

          “Well, what is amazing is, with this story, I’m not talking about the actors, but the character of Xavier, it’s very much at the center of the story. Ian, Michael and Jennifer are really very much in the center here, and Nick, so playing with the younger character, you really get a chance to see a much broader range of that character then we never really got with Patrick, because he was a much more set character in a way. So his journey is huge and I get to follow it through, with both actors and both are… all four are incredible actors.”

          1. That’s a huge part of the arc for him,” screenwriter Simon Kinberg mentioned. “Accepting, in some ways embracing the chair, as opposed to being condemned to it. It’s something that by the end of the movie he’s really taken his place in. I’m not to talk much about this, but it’s in the Hank/Charles relationship that they’ve discovered a way to help him walk, but at the cost of other things. And over the span of the film, he embraces those other things and lets go of his legs.”

            “It’s a movie about all of us, about all the guys in the X-Men,” McAvoy said when prompted that this was a film about Charles Xavier. “But I suppose the person with the biggest journey is arguably me. Because I change more than anybody by the end of the film compared to the beginning of the film.”

          2. Wolverine is obviously a big part of the movie. Hitchcock would call him the mcguffin. He is essential to moving the plot forward, but not the main character.

  7. Agree with you on First class. From what I have seen so far, this movie just looks like it is going to be confusing. 50 mutants and then you’re going to factor time travel in there somehow. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll see it, but the promos scream “CONFUSING!!!”

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