X-MEN: FIRST CLASS - Grading+Discussion **SPOILERS!**

It's a prequel to the movies, not the comics. Iceman was in the original line up in the comics, but was merely a young student at the school in the original trilogy.

 

He's not in Tinker, Tailor... and Shame has already been completed.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1055413/

However, he's apparently taking the rest of this year off.
http://www.rte.ie/ten/2011/0919/fassbenderm.html

 

It seems to me, that at this point at least, they plan on setting the sequel in the seventies.

 

Yup. Angel didn't show up until the 3rd movie as a youngin', too. And Xavier's relationship wasn't even close to Erik's in the comics. Even Magneto's name was changed! The changes were made in the first movie.

Shouldn't cause too many headaches when you realize it's not scans of a comic book on the screen.

 

I got this and Thor from ITunes today, and I am glad to say I enjoyed it just as much the second time as I did the first. It came with some special features, bu I haven't gotten a chance to check them out yet.

 

I totally forgot to mention that I finally got my copy earlier last week...still disappointed that Vaughn or Singer didn't record an audio commentary for the film, would have been really interesting to get their insights on the story and characters. They've both done them before for their films but I guess they weren't available or Fox chose not to put the money towards recording one.

 

I didn't think I'd see this thread again! Yay!

Somewhere I did see some numbers out, something like 13 mil units sold and now in second place behind Thor. But that was a while ago, so I don't know.

MF has been doing the festival circuit now and is taking the rest of the year off from making movies. A Dangerous Method and Shame will be out this year, with Haywire and Prometheus next year. The only film that he is signed on for to film next year is the vampire thing with Jim Jarumush. He backed out of several projects supposedly for scheduling, so he might have been told to keep his calendar open. He and McAvoy already said they were signed on for two more.

My fear is that if we get a sequel, we are stuck with whoever was in the First Class, and my only problem with First Class was the lesser mutants. I really hope they make room for a few new ones and lose Angel and Emma Frost. Riptide wasn't that bad, so long as they keep him like Jaws or Oddjob in the silent Bondian style.

Whew.

 

Don't I know it. At least 2 more months of waiting here...

 

There will only be a sequel if this thread makes 1,000 posts.

 

D
On the bright side, Mystique and Beast were pretty well-played and Fassbender did well despite some awkward lines. Otherwise ...

My main complaint was it was so unrestrained and rushed, from three plot strands in the beginning, an excessive amount of characters and plundering of history (the prologue from the first film was very somberly done, especially in comparison).
Though I'm not very into the comics, the point of the Hellfire Club is that they're not ideological and in any case Shaw turned into too much of a mustache-twirler version of Magneto from the first film.
Xavier and Magneto should have been distinctive, the creators and core of the team, rather than meeting with the former already on a mission for the government. Xavier felt like neither a commander nor a colleague of the others.
Most of the powers were uninteresting-bad guys with powers like Nightcrawler and Storm, a female Angel, the ability to grow gills, Havok with a power similar to Cyclops, Mystique being underused and Emma Frost mostly just looking good (what benefits did the crystal form give her?). Moira looked too similar to Ellen Page's Kitty and acted too much like Jean Grey. They were recruited and then set aside ("We'll have to train, all of us" too much later).
Banshee's flying (gliding?) was pretty bland, as was his, Havok and the villains' personalities.
"Just following orders"-Could Xavier have chosen worse words?

Too much like a remake to be a restart (especially the HQ being attacked and the line-repeating) and too inconsistent to be a prequel (Frost being older than in Wolverine, Hank discovering a cure (or thinking he had) early and apparently easily, Xavier knowing the helmet can block his powers).

Rankings
X-Men
X2
...
Wolverine
X-Men: The Last Stand
X-Men: First Class

 

Agreed.
The friendship of Charles and Eric is nearly non-existent due to them rushing the story. For what should have been years, they're only "friends" for less than a month and neither seemed very interested in the others agenda. Plus it was a great missed oppertunity to make the film about so much more by bringing in issues of the Civil Rights movement. The film takes place during the height of it and completely ignores it in favor of a who has the best powers to beat the villain story. It robes the film of depth and turns it into an average good superhero fights bad superhero story.

They should have stuck to the idea hinted upon in X-Men 1 and Wolverine, that man was putting mutants into secret concentration camps and experimenting on them. It would give perfect reason for Magneto to continue to hate humans. Him suddenly hating human because Shaw said so makes Mag's seem like just mindless misdirected anger.

 

Yes, a prequel should have been about Charles and Erik's partnership and differing philosophies, especially in the backdrop of actual discrimination, not paying vague, odd homages to James Bond and fighting a prototype of Magneto.

With Last Stand, Rogue and Iceman were OK but McKellen and Jackman were putting in less effort, Cyclops should have had a bigger role and Phoenix and Juggernaut were underwhelming. BTW, I'm surprised they didn't make another sequel after Page became a bigger star (I assume she was contracted for more than one film, but it's too late now).

 

I'm sure they wouldn't just up and make a movie because Ellen Pages' star was rising. That would be ridiculous.

 

"First Class" was about those things though. As I've stated before in the thread, I think that the script seemed "rushed" and the friendship portrayed as long as it was because Fox probably wasn't sure if this would be the only film they would do. It really hasn't been until after the film that a talk of a sequel or possible trilogy has happened. It would have ultimately been nice had we seen them remain friends but in order to get the story Singer wanted to tell out they did it the way they did and I have no problem with it. Nor do I have a problem with it being action oriented and with Bond style homages. This could have easily turned out to be another "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" which I think a lot of fans feared going into the movie but it turned out not to be. At least in my opinion.

 

In my opinion it turned out worse, but there you go. At least Wolverine didn't put me to sleep.

 

Maybe you were just tired that day.

 

No, I just thought it was a terrible movie. Worst comic book movie I've ever seen.

What's very bizarre to me, though, is that the TrekBBS is the only place I've found people who like it. Everybody I know in real life, people who are big comic book fans, hated it, too.

 

That is strange since it is one of the most critically acclaimed of the X-Men films to date.

 

I know, and I don't get it. My friend and I pretty much share the mainstream opinions about the other X-Men movies, so I don't know what happened this time around.

It just turned out to be a very different movie than the trailers made it out to be, and I was ultimately very disappointed. It didn't help that, aside from Xavier, Magneto, and Mystique, that I didn't remotely care about any of the other characters.

 

That's funny because everyone I know who saw it loved it, people here included. Even my Dad liked it and he hates superhero movies and refuses to go to any that aren't the Christopher Nolan Batman movies.

As for you saying that comic book fans who you know hated it... I find comic book fans to be some of the worst people to get opinions on comic book movies from. They are an insanely fickle group of people. Who generally take an attitude when seeing a comic book movie that it starts out bad and then has to prove that it's good. So yeah, I don't take much stock from comic book fans when it comes to movies. And I say this as a comic book fan.