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X-Men: Apocalypse announced for May 2016

I like all of what I'm seeing except Apocalypse and Psylocke. I knew the Apocalypse wouldn't look exactly like he does in the comics, but that wasn't really what I was hoping for. Psylocke's costume is a good take on the comics costume, but I never really cared for it there and I don't here. The comics have moved away from that kind of look, and the movies have never gone for it, so I'm surprised to see them using that kind of skimpy costume here.
If they wanted to base what she wore on a comics costume, I think her current costume would have worked better.
 
With the exception of Apocalypse, most of the costumes I'm seeing seem to be taken directly out of the 90s FOX cartoon.
 
With the exception of Apocalypse, most of the costumes I'm seeing seem to be taken directly out of the 90s FOX cartoon.

Which, in turn, were taken directly from the comics designs at the time, mostly by Jim Lee, IIRC.

But the '90s cartoon seems to be a lot of people's entry point to the X-Men, myself included. At least a couple of the cast members said during the SDCC panel that they were fans of it. And there's reason to believe Bryan Singer is fond of it too. I don't think it's a coincidence that Michael Kamen's theme to the original X-Men movie is melodically similar to the '90s animation theme.
 
Nope. In the movie it is explained that all Charles has to do is focus hard enough on a particular group in order to kill them. It had nothing to do with device; it would have worked just as well if he had done it using the Cerebro in the mansion.

I believe that's called a plothole.

I don't see how something that is explicitly explained in the movie can be called a plothole.

Um I was agreeing with you... Stewart being aware that focusing on all the mutants would kill them. But then for the climax he wasn't aware it would kill them... That's the definition of plothole.
 
I don't think it's a coincidence that Michael Kamen's theme to the original X-Men movie is melodically similar to the '90s animation theme.

There's very little similarity outside of a few notes at the beginning, and in any event, Kamen's X-Men score is a near carbon copy of his Highlander music, primarily because he was hired like a month and a half before the film was released and had to rush the score.
 
Um I was agreeing with you... Stewart being aware that focusing on all the mutants would kill them. But then for the climax he wasn't aware it would kill them... That's the definition of plothole.
He is being manipulated during the climax.

Kamen's X-Men score is a near carbon copy of his Highlander music
I'd love to see some comparisons, I'm not discerning this carbon copying myself. Not beyond the vague similarity of style that happens with any composer.

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at_x4d_pKzc[/yt]
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WktI7LVNz24[/yt]
 
Psylocke looks amazing! Straight out of the comics! Apocalypse... hmm... he looks decent. Apocy is one of my all time favorite characters and I really, really hope they do him justice.
 
Apocalypselooksawful. I thought they would have gone the CG route for him.

I don't see why they would have. Size and coloring aside, Apocalypse is a human-shaped character with a humanlike face. A CG version wouldn't have looked any different, just subliminally more fake, and there's no way that would've looked better than a real actor. However "cool" the design might've been, viewers could still have sensed that it was just a very elaborate animated drawing rather than a real presence, and it just wouldn't have had the same impact

As a rule, something that's real and physically present, something that has natural detail that artists don't have to remember to create, something that can interact with its environment and with actors in the scene, is always better than CGI if it's possible to do it for real. We're seeing that increasingly as more and more filmmakers (notably Abrams in The Force Awakens) reject the deceptive lure of CG as the answer to everything and return to doing things practically.

This is why it's absurd to condemn the character based on a still photograph. These are actors. What matters is their performance. Even an actor who looks silly can command an audience's attention or respect with the quality of their acting and screen presence. Remember how bad people thought Heath Ledger's Joker looked before they saw his performance.
 
Um I was agreeing with you... Stewart being aware that focusing on all the mutants would kill them. But then for the climax he wasn't aware it would kill them... That's the definition of plothole.
He is being manipulated during the climax.

Kamen's X-Men score is a near carbon copy of his Highlander music
I'd love to see some comparisons, I'm not discerning this carbon copying myself. Not beyond the vague similarity of style that happens with any composer.

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at_x4d_pKzc[/yt]

"Logan and Rogue" is basically the same cue.

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLmaJea4ZoU[/yt]
 
I was looking at the photos again and had a passing thought:

Aren't Lehnsherr and Xavier supposed to be in their late 40s by the time this film takes place?

Fassbender and McAvoy both look young for their ages as it is--and certainly not 15 years or so away from a ~2000 McKellen and Stewart.

Obviously, for all practical purposes, this is one of those thing that's not important in the grand scheme. It's was just an amusing curiosity I had from a meta standpoint.
 
I think buying in to the X-men canon requires a major leap of faith. Just don't think too much about it. DOFP was fan service to remove origins and X3 from existence.
 
I thoroughly enjoyed the Rogue cut although I can see why the scenes were cut. The rescue was a bit twee. It's not clear why Rogue is lying on an exam table instead of in a holding cell while they examine her DNA in a lab somewhere else. That would have looked less daft.

What would have been really really cool would have been if they'd found her in a cell with a power dampening field. They released her and she used her super strength to mash a pursuing sentinel. They could have explained how she got the powers and that she now had more than one personality in her head on the escape flight. They could even have asked Anna Paquin to try a different accent during the action scenes. At least that way Anna Paquin's swan song would have been as something more than a girly victim!

Still, it's so nice to see her return that this still gets a thumbs up from me!
 
"Logan and Rogue" is basically the same cue.
Hardly. It resembles it on a basic level, like I said there are stylistic choices made that can be compared, but they're hardly the same. The cue for Xavier showing Logan around the school also briefly shares a little of that "Highlander style", but calling the X-Men score a near carbon copy of Highlander is some pretty sweet hyperbole. :)
 
Apocalypselooksawful. I thought they would have gone the CG route for him.

I don't see why they would have. Size and coloring aside, Apocalypse is a human-shaped character with a humanlike face. A CG version wouldn't have looked any different, just subliminally more fake, and there's no way that would've looked better than a real actor. However "cool" the design might've been, viewers could still have sensed that it was just a very elaborate animated drawing rather than a real presence, and it just wouldn't have had the same impact

As a rule, something that's real and physically present, something that has natural detail that artists don't have to remember to create, something that can interact with its environment and with actors in the scene, is always better than CGI if it's possible to do it for real. We're seeing that increasingly as more and more filmmakers (notably Abrams in The Force Awakens) reject the deceptive lure of CG as the answer to everything and return to doing things practically.

This is why it's absurd to condemn the character based on a still photograph. These are actors. What matters is their performance. Even an actor who looks silly can command an audience's attention or respect with the quality of their acting and screen presence. Remember how bad people thought Heath Ledger's Joker looked before they saw his performance.

What diatribe.....

Thanos, Ultron, Gollum, the Na'vi, Ceasar, The Terminator, King Kong and Voldermort are just a few examples that show an actor's performance isn't lost and can still shine with the use of CGI enhancements and motion capture.

And Star Wars TFA will have a CG character done motion captured by Andy Serkis. So there! Mr. Smarty Pants.
 
Well, I'm just gonna wait and see untill I actually see the end result in cinemas, or an actual trailer.
 
Thanos, Ultron, Gollum, the Na'vi, Ceasar, The Terminator, King Kong and Voldermort are just a few examples that show an actor's performance isn't lost and can still shine with the use of CGI enhancements and motion capture.

You're missing my point rather profoundly. Most of those are characters who could not be done convincingly in any other way. For such roles, of course CGI performance capture has proven itself an effective technique and I have nothing against it when it's appropriate. But it's still subliminally less realistic and convincing than an actual live actor, and that's why it's a mistake to use CGI for roles that could be played just as well by a live actor. Like any tool, CGI is great when used where it's needed, but the mistake too many filmmakers have made it to use it even when it isn't needed, even when practical effects would work better. This isn't about blanket generalizations, it's about applying judgment in how you handle each specific case. The right tool for the right job.

And Apocalypse is not the same kind of character as Caesar or Neytiri or Ultron. I simply don't see anything about the design of Apocalypse's face that makes CGI a requirement. He's basically just a broad-faced bald guy with some kind of weird blue lip tattoo (which is incredibly stupid-looking and would've been terrible if they'd adapted it literally). Let's face it, he's not a good character design to begin with. Honestly, I'd be happier if they'd just made him more human-looking for the movie.

And Voldemort is a rather poor example. Most of what we're seeing is Ralph Fiennes's real face in makeup. The only digital modifications are the removal of his nose and the alteration of his skin tone. So we're seeing a live performance in that case.
 
Apocalypse's practical effects look terrible. CG couldn't make it any less realistic than it currently is. I'd rather they just left him human looking over that; maybe just some grey skin.
 
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