Not by those of us old enough to remember "The Blob" and that X-Men is about prejudice, bigotry and racism, not about traveling to other worlds or saving the universe. The fight for equality is a more identifiable theme the world over than what you're asking for. That void is filled by Michael Bay and Transformers. X-Men has an important message and that message comes first, that's why Singer's X-Men is so good because he understood that.
I'm kinda glad Singer didn't come back to X-Men
- Thread starter blockaderunner
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What I meant by Spider-Man and Venom was that people kept complaining how a space alien didn't belong in Raimi's more "Realistic" Spideyverse wherein all the villains (up til SM3) were just humans with technology and the like.
As for Singer, I doubt he'd even bring the Hellfire Club into the series since a group of aristocratic Mutants with a secret society manipulating industries and governments would be seen as "too far out" for his X-Men movies and how the evil mutants are characterized solely by Magneto's terrorists. Dark Phoenix would be boring as hell if it was just Jean going nuts for the sake of plot.
Seriously, as soon as I heard about how fans want a Superman movie in the same vein as "Dark Knight" (a low-key crime drama with little to no wonder or heroics) I knew we're on the verge of a new dark age for Superhero movies.
As for Singer, I doubt he'd even bring the Hellfire Club into the series since a group of aristocratic Mutants with a secret society manipulating industries and governments would be seen as "too far out" for his X-Men movies and how the evil mutants are characterized solely by Magneto's terrorists. Dark Phoenix would be boring as hell if it was just Jean going nuts for the sake of plot.
Seriously, as soon as I heard about how fans want a Superman movie in the same vein as "Dark Knight" (a low-key crime drama with little to no wonder or heroics) I knew we're on the verge of a new dark age for Superhero movies.
darkwing_duck1
Vice Admiral
We'll still have the DTDVD animated film getting ready to come out later this year....90% of the story is OFF earth.
darkwing_duck1
Vice Admiral
By that reasoning, the Punisher films should have been Marvel's BEST...and we all know THAT isn't the case.
If Marvel goes "minimalist" on the big Avengers movies getting ready to roll, they're gonna SUCK big time. I'm thinking "Captain America", but especially "Thor".
If EVER there were characters who wholeheartedly "embraced the cape" it's those two.
I think you're assuming too much.
They are? Really? Wow, I didn't know I wanted that.
It's more that other worldly aliens and humans gaining super powers (through naturally evolving or artificial means) are two separate fantastical elements. The audience can suspend their disbelief for something if it's the initial premise, but it strains that ability when you introduce something else unbelievable much later on.
I don't know, we saw Mystique impersonating the previously anti-mutant Senator Kelly in X2, I don't think it's much of a stretch from there. It just needs the right delivery. Of course, I'm only familiar with the X-Men through TV and Film, so I'm not too knowledgeable about the Hellfire Club.
Dude, the audience and critics alike would complain that secret societies who dress up in outfits and manipulate events from the shadows belong in James Bond and not in Singer's X-Men. I'm starting to think most fans of the X-Men films are snobby types who are ashamed of the fact that X-Men began as a comic and are contemptuous of the term "Superhero".
Same with "Dark Knight" fans, I mean even Nolan himself sometimes seems like a guy whose ashamed that Batman is a comic character and says stuff like "Dark Knight isn't a superhero film, it's a down-to-earth crime drama!". There's no room for the fantastic with these folks.
It's not just Venom, they complained about Sandman too because his powers were more than just having advanced weapons or technology and it "didn't belong" in a more realism-based Universe (never mind that Peter himself got powers without technology...)
darkwing_duck1
Vice Admiral
You think correctly, esp in the case of the X-Men. The "coffee shop commandoes" have taken over. You have them to thank for utter s*** like Morrison's X-Men and Civil War.
Honestly, your argument sounds like a similar sort of "snobbishness", just directed against naturalism in superhero movies.
Speaking as a fan of naturalism in superhero movies, I'd have no problem with the idea of mutants influencing the government and the like. It's just exodus said, it's all in the execution. If done well (eg X-men 2), it'd be well-received--remember that Stryker, a US Colonel had a massive secret underground base in Canada, which stretches belief a fair bit if you think about it.
If not done well (eg X-men 3), then the audience will not accept it. I mean, is Magneto lifting the Golden Gate bridge really that much worse than Storm summoning half a dozen tornadoes at once, on the face of it? But people deride the former and at least accept the latter, because the overall presentation of the movies help in that regard.That said, I'd have no issue with some of the more fantastical elements of comic books in superhero movies if done right. Even aliens would be acceptable as long as they're portrayed as interesting characters with decent motivations in their own right.
darkwing_duck1
Vice Admiral
Why can't we have both? There was more legitimate kick-ass superhero action in X3 than BOTH the others combined, AND they spent much time on the "mutants as minorities" plot.
Honestly, your argument sounds like a similar sort of "snobbishness", just directed against naturalism in superhero movies.
Speaking as a fan of naturalism in superhero movies, I'd have no problem with the idea of mutants influencing the government and the like. It's just exodus said, it's all in the execution. If done well (eg X-men 2), it'd be well-received--remember that Stryker, a US Colonel had a massive secret underground base in Canada, which stretches belief a fair bit if you think about it.
That said, I'd have no issue with some of the more fantastical elements of comic books in superhero movies if done right. Even aliens would be acceptable as long as they're portrayed as interesting characters with decent motivations in their own right.
The only way Superheroes can be "done right" these days is by squeezing all the super right out of them, and most of the "hero" as well. It's the Watchmen thing all over again: People are so obsessed with making things "gritty" and "down-to-earth" they basically say that anything that ISN'T gritty (as it, doesn't let itself be so consumed with darkness and grime) is immediately garbage and anyone who enjoys those things aren't "mature" enough for anything. Include Aliens and you get an immediate thumbs-down by fans of the first two movies, so would the Hellfire club in ANY incarnation (in fact, they'd likely suck the Hellfire Club of anything interesting any just make them some random cabal of businessmen and not even mutants).
Also, Stryker's base was in Alaska, not Canada. They sucked anything interesting out of Weapon X too, because "realistically" the government wouldn't be turning Mutants into Super-Soldiers (except Logan and Deathstrike, they was just for sake of plot).
It isn't that the lifting of the bridge was over the top, so much as that the execution was stupid. Magneto was playing around with many, many tons of steel and concrete. Instead of using it as a bridge for his army, he could have just dropped it on the facility and avoided the entire fight.
Magneto isn't stupid, and having characters act stupid just for the sake of a big fight scene is itself stupid. Good superhero movies work when the characters are treated like real people, rather than caricatures in tights.
That was also an essential problem with Superman Returns, Lex Luthor's great money-making scheme requires him to confess to several billion counts of first degree murder. At least in the first movie, as stupid as his plot was, he had plausible deniability.
If memory serves, Singer was interested in casting Sigourney Weaver as the White Queen in what would have been his follow-up to X2--so the Hellfire Club was certainly a possibility for the film had he directed it.
That's basically my point. Both movies have on-the-face-of-it equally unrealistic actions taken (and the first, arguably, even more so). However, in the first two movies, the actions come realistically out of the characters and their motivations. In the third? Not so much, especially when you factor in the first two.
That's what superhero movies should be, that's the realism that I crave. Movies with realistic characters with motivations that flow from their experiences are far more interesting than movies which are gritty for grittiness's sake (Watchmen) or ones that are fantastic for fantasticness's sake (Fantastic Four). The Dark Knight works not because it's gritty, but because the characters generally have motivations that flow from who they are and their actions reflect those motivations. Likewise Iron Man, with one or two exceptions, just in the other direction.
The rest of it is just trappings.