Spoilers Dark PhoeniX - Review and Discussion Thread

[M.A.C.O.]

Shame to hear Dark Phoenix is doing so poorly critically.

Hilarious to hear that X3 is considered the "good" Phoenix movie.

I posited this question in the XCU Thread last week.

Thought experiment, how would you judge the current X-Men trilogy vs the original X-Men trilogy?

If we use DOFP as shared movie/tie breaker for both. There is an eerie symmetry to them.

X-Men vs First Class - Group forms and has their first adventure.
X2 vs Apocalypse - Mutants unite to fight a common enemy. Also Xavier is kidnapped to be used by the baddies.
X3 vs Dark Phoenix - Jean loses it and attacks friend and foe alike.

Guess the original trilogy can be judged the superior of the two incarnations.

FC> X1
X2> Apocalypse
X3 > Dark Phoenix
Share and share alike with DOFP.
Jackman overeXposure > JLaw overXposure.

 

[OCD Geek]

Yowch. I was expecting a fair amount of "It's okay, I guess" reviews, but it's a bummer to hear it's (likely) shit. Even being relatively disinterested, I still hoped it would be good.

Couple this with the good chance that New Mutants will be reshot and edited into oblivion, the FoX-Men universe really is gonna go out on a whimper. A shame, but maybe that will help make their eventual MCU debut all the more triumphant.

Yeah, this is how I feel, too. I was really hoping all of the bad press was just that and it would turn out to be at least an enjoyable film. I normally don't pay attention to early reviews but coupled with the bad press and the way these bad reviews correlate with what we've seen in the trailers doesn't sound promising at all. I'll still go see it since I've seen every X-Men film in theaters except for the first one, but my expectation keep sinking, unfortunately.


I'm also disappointed by how this franchise appears to be closing. I was really looking forward to New Mutants not just for its stellar young cast, but also because it appeared to be taking a genuinely unique take on the superhero genre. But now we may never see it in the form it was intended and quite possibly never in the theaters. That just plain sucks, not just for the fans, but for the cast and crew of the film itself. They deserve better.

Believe it or not, the New Mutants reshoots are a good thing. Fox forced Josh Boone to tone down his original vision, but after positive screenings for executives and test audiences they decided to delay the film and give Boone the money to make the film the way he intended to in the first place.

The really cool part about all this is Disney the other day announced that they are keeping Fox's commitment to Boone. He will still get his funding, and the movie will be released when it's ready. They even got the Marvel Studios people to coordinate the reshoots since they're masters at it.

 

[JD]

So I guess we can probably expect Simon Kinberg's directing to career to be pretty much DOA at this point.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Believe it or not, the New Mutants reshoots are a good thing. Fox forced Josh Boone to tone down his original vision, but after positive screenings for executives and test audiences they decided to delay the film and give Boone the money to make the film the way he intended to in the first place.

The really cool part about all this is Disney the other day announced that they are keeping Fox's commitment to Boone. He will still get his funding, and the movie will be released when it's ready. They even got the Marvel Studios people to coordinate the reshoots since they're masters at it.

Oh, that's right. I did know that. Thanks for correcting me on that point.

Still, I worry that we'll never get to watch it on the big screen and it'll be shuffled off to Disney+.

So I guess we can probably expect Simon Kinberg's directing to career to be pretty much DOA at this point.

Gods willing. His writing career, too, but that seems less likely.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Disney has given New Mutants a release date: April 3 2020. I don't know the insider stuff like some people here but I think that's a pretty good sign it should come out along with the word of getting the Marvel team working on the reshoots.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Another sign of the merger: I noticed last night that ABC/Disney had the entire cast of Dark Phoenix as guests on The Jimmy Kimmel Show the same as has been done for all the other Marvel movies. From what I can see online the cast did Conan for Apocalypse with only Evan Peters doing the Kimmel show.

Of course, Jimmy drops the big spoiler much to the shock of the cast which probably didn't do it any favors.

 

[Turtletrekker]

@Mr. Adventure What spoiler? Feel free to code it, please.

 

[StCoop]

Disney has given New Mutants a release date: April 3 2020. I don't know the insider stuff like some people here but I think that's a pretty good sign it should come out along with the word of getting the Marvel team working on the reshoots.

Given the young ages of the cast and the two year or more gap between shooting, maybe Marvel will lend them their de-ageng software or else it's going to look pretty silly.

 

[StCoop]

@Mr. Adventure What spoiler? Feel free to code it, please.

It's not even really a spoiler since it's in the trailer and was confirmed as being real by Kinberg ages ago.

 

[Tosk]

Believe it or not, the New Mutants reshoots are a good thing.

I'll believe it when and if I see it.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

It's not even really a spoiler since it's in the trailer and was confirmed as being real by Kinberg ages ago.

True but it's one of those things that a casual person might not have picked up on. To be honest, I had forgotten myself until he said it.

Spoiler: SPOILER

Concerning Jennifer Lawrence's fate, as said it's fairly common knowledge but still kind of odd to just drop a couple days before release. Still he gave Sophie a start when he said it.

You can see it here, moment is around 3:24

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[Turtletrekker]

Given the young ages of the cast and the two year or more gap between shooting, maybe Marvel will lend them their de-ageng software or else it's going to look pretty silly.

The deaging process is not proprietary to Disney/Marvel. Lola Visual Effects is the house that has perfected the technique, and they've worked on X-Men films before. Their first attempt at deaging was in fact in X-Men the Last Stand and the deaged Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. They've come a long way and gotten a lot better since then.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lola_Visual_Effects

ETA: and I could see what you're suggesting being done. In Endgame, when the actors were playing 2012 versions of themselves, they were digitally deaged.

 

[Turtletrekker]

True but it's one of those things that a casual person might not have picked up on. To be honest, I had forgotten myself until he said it.

Spoiler: SPOILER

Concerning Jennifer Lawrence's fate, as said it's fairly common knowledge but still kind of odd to just drop a couple days before release. Still he gave Sophie a start when he said it.

You can see it here, moment is around 3:24

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Accept third party cookies

Okay. I actually knew about that.

 

[Tosk]

I guess they think that getting that spoiler out there, it might bring more people in? Like, "I have to see it, it's the one where (SPOILER)!"

Either way, I hate when people say "This is not a spoiler, but..." and then go on to say what is absolutely a spoiler. It's a grade A bullshit move.[/SPOILER]

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Honestly, I'm surprised anyone is treating it as a spoiler. Most people guessed it months ago based on the trailers and interviews.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I guess they think that getting that spoiler out there, it might bring more people in? Like, "I have to see it, it's the one where (SPOILER)!"

Either way, I hate when people say "This is not a spoiler, but..." and then go on to say what is absolutely a spoiler. It's a grade A bullshit move.[/SPOILER]

Ever read an article that drops one and then doesn't even follow up and talk about it? Like "oh here's a spoiler but anyway about this other thing that happens...". as if they are just obligated to throw it out there for some reason.

 

[DonIago]

That this could be considered worse than "Last Stand", which I still haven't seen on general principle, despite owning a copy of it, is...deeply distressing.

 

[M.A.C.O.]

That this could be considered worse than "Last Stand", which I still haven't seen on general principle, despite owning a copy of it, is...deeply distressing.

It's crazy to think that the Last Stand and Dark Phoenix are 13 years apart and written by the same guy.

At the time, X3 was flamed for combining too many story lines, under-utilizing characters and being a step backwards from X2. The Cure, Xavier dying and the Phoenix wrapped into one movie. With characters like Rogue, Angel (who was featured heavily in promotion but did nothing in the film) and Cyclops getting the shaft.

Wolverine, Storm, Kitty, Iceman and Beast all get their moments to shine. On the Brotherhood side, Pyro, Magneto, Juggernaut and Callisto were a lot of fun and demonstrate what irresponsible super powered being would be like.

From what I'm hearing about DP, Kinberg (the writer of both) seemed to repeat his mistakes but with different characters and the same source material. Real shame given the talented and enthusiastic cast.

 

[Starbreaker]

Several critics are calling it the worst X-Men movie ever. And Wolverine Origins exists.

 

[OCD Geek]

I saw someone on the X-Men subReddit talking about how (to them) the mainline series ended with Days of Future Past/Logan and Apocalypse/Dark Phoenix is just an unessential mediocre spin-off.

Or, as they brilliantly put it: "Logan was the last episode of Friends. This is the last episode of Joey."