The Inhumans Marvel/IMAX

[Anwar]

How is that messing up its status quo

It tosses out a vital component of traditional superhero values, something X-Men wouldn't have the guts to do.

While probably the case, the film does not present itself as an alternative future just as the future.

It's an alternate future, that they keep making X-Men movies is proof of that.

Exactly, nothing in the MCU so far has rewritten past movies and rewriting history is the biggest shake up you can do within any universe, you are literally replacing the foundations.

Not if the sole purpose of the rewrite is to reset things back to the way they were in an earlier movie. If the entire reality was different it would be one thing, but it was SOLELY to get rid of X3.

FC/DOFP retools the entire X-Men universe far more than any MCU movie has ever done.

No it hasn't, it was purely to get things back to the way they were before X3.

 

[Christopher]

DOFP was all about undoing everything since X2 and resetting things.

Yes, in order to do it completely differently. The characters are all younger, it's now a period piece, and -- once more -- Apocalypse shows mutants being largely accepted by the public due to their heroic actions in DOFP, a massive change from the status quo of the previous trilogy.

Logan is set in some alternate future, so killing everyone one there doesn't count.

That's arbitrary cherrypicking to ignore anything that doesn't fit your false premise. It doesn't matter what timeline it's rationalized to be in, what matters is that they made the movie at all, which proves they're willing to tell stories that are not all the same. Analyzing fiction exclusively in terms of in-universe continuity policing is forgetting the most important thing, that it's fiction, and that the decisions that shape it are made by creators in the real world. The "Status Quo is God" trope reflects the mentality of a series's creators, their unwillingness to vary the formula and take chances. The creators of the X-Men film series have proven themselves quite willing to experiment, make changes, and tell massively transformative stories.

Last Stand is disliked BECAUSE it messed up the status quo.

What the hell has that got to do with anything? Again, what we're talking about is the creators' willingness to take risks and tell stories that leave things different than how they started. Whether the audience likes them or not has no bearing on whether the creators had that willingness in the first place.

The MCU has consistently messed up its status quo more than the X-Movies ever did. It just doesn't feel that way because there are just that many more MCU movies.

They've evolved their status quo, but they haven't completely reset it with time travel. And it's silly to try to pit them against each other in some sort of fight. Yes, they're different, but difference does not require opposition. It doesn't require picking a winner and a loser. We're all winners because we have a diverse body of superhero franchises to choose among, and because they're different enough from each other to keep things interesting.

 

[StCoop]

I love how they're now complaining about their own advertising campaign and basically saying, "Don't judge us on the material we're releasing to allow you to judge us on."

 

[Christopher]

I love how they're now complaining about their own advertising campaign and basically saying, "Don't judge us on the material we're releasing to allow you to judge us on."

To be fair, the creators of the show don't make their own ads. They're created by the network or by separate ad agencies. So it's not uncommon for creators to be unhappy with the advertising for their creations. A notable case was the trailer for How to Train Your Dragon 2, which blatantly spoiled a key plot development that the filmmakers wanted to be a surprise.

Also, with productions that are heavy on CGI, it's quite common for the early trailers to be released before the CGI is done, which means either we get trailers that barely give a glimpse of the meat of the story (e.g. the teaser trailer for last year's Power Rangers feature film, which gave only a brief glimpse of a Ranger costume and nothing of the Zords or monsters) or we get trailers whose CGI shots are not fully rendered and thus don't look as detailed as they will in the final work (I think at least one of the Hulk movies had this problem with its trailers). So there's precedent for all of this.

This is why I think they should've tried to find some way to create a live, practical element for Medusa's hair in combination with the CGI, even if it's just a full-bodied wig with a lot of bounce to it, instead of going for this totally flat wig and relying exclusively on CGI to create the effect of its prehensility and movement. They just made it too hard for themselves that way, especially on a TV budget and schedule. As I said before, the best way to do a visual effect is to mix techniques so it's harder to spot the illusion. Anything you can do practically to make the CG animators' work simpler is a plus.

 

[Anwar]

Yes, in order to do it completely differently. The characters are all younger, it's now a period piece, and -- once more -- Apocalypse shows mutants being largely accepted by the public due to their heroic actions in DOFP, a massive change from the status quo of the previous trilogy.

It doesn't change that instead of accepting that X3 happened, Jean and Xavier and Scott are dead and many others depowered and moving on with OTHER characters, they chose to undo all of that. It's utter cowardice.

And Apocalypse didn't really show the mutants being accepted, otherwise we wouldn't have scenes Mystique saying so to Charles. And Magneto being forgiven AGAIN for mass murder.

That's arbitrary cherrypicking to ignore anything that doesn't fit your false premise. It doesn't matter what timeline it's rationalized to be in, what matters is that they made the movie at all,

It still doesn't change that instead of just saying "This is the inevitable future, this is how it will all end" they make a movie and say "Yeah, this might happen. We really just wanted an excuse to get Logan alone and old so we could kill him and not feature many others."

The creators of the X-Men film series have proven themselves quite willing to experiment, make changes, and tell massively transformative stories.

Not on par with the MCU, they haven't. They're still stuck in an older mindset of how to do CBMs. Especially with that sell-out "grounded" aesthetic.

What the hell has that got to do with anything? Again, what we're talking about is the creators' willingness to take risks and tell stories that leave things different than how they started.

Which is what X3 did, and the resulting dislike of it is why they eventually made a movie to UNDO it all instead of accepting it happened and moving forward with the consequences of that film.

They've evolved their status quo, but they haven't completely reset it with time travel. And it's silly to try to pit them against each other in some sort of fight. Yes, they're different, but difference does not require opposition. It doesn't require picking a winner and a loser. We're all winners because we have a diverse body of superhero franchises to choose among, and because they're different enough from each other to keep things interesting.

I'd rather the FoX-Men movies be ended and the MCU gets some kind of cosmic alteration after Infinity Wars to infuse the X-Men in there but with the MCU Aesthetic.

That way we'd get X-Men movies where the focus was always on the X-Men, have the conflict be generated from internal problems and not everything be drive by the villains.

 

[JD]

The only problem with what you're saying about Logan, is that when Logan came out they did say that this was the future, not an alternate future. The reason they did that and we are still getting movies is because so far all of the movies are either in the past or the present, although I do wonder if New Mutants might either after or right before Logan. The description talks about it being about a group of kids in a secret government facility, so I'm wondering if these are more kids like the ones we saw in Logan.

This is why I think they should've tried to find some way to create a live, practical element for Medusa's hair in combination with the CGI, even if it's just a full-bodied wig with a lot of bounce to it, instead of going for this totally flat wig and relying exclusively on CGI to create the effect of its prehensility and movement. They just made it too hard for themselves that way, especially on a TV budget and schedule. As I said before, the best way to do a visual effect is to mix techniques so it's harder to spot the illusion. Anything you can do practically to make the CG animators' work simpler is a plus.

I see what you're saying about the wig, and I do agree. I was a little surprised when I saw just how straight and flat the wig was, I was expecting it to at least have some curl to it, or at least have more body. Even when it isn't moving, I would have still expected it to not be totally straight.

 

[kitik]

So apparently the IMAX version is 75 minutes long, compared to the regular tv length of 2 episodes clocking in at 84 minutes.

So obviously the benefit here is that if you pay money to buy a movie ticket, you get to skip 9 minutes of it.

Presumably there will be some IMAX-sized scenes that won't fit on your tv screen? So at least it should look more cinematic in the theater as compared to your living room.

 

[Starbreaker]

I'm gonna skip this at the theater. I can't really justify what is probably going to be a $13 ticket based on the footage I've seen so far. None of it looks at all cinematic.

 

[Skywalker]

Apparently the IMAX version is 75 minutes long and the ABC verison is 84 minutes long.

EDIT: Totally missed kitik revealing the same information just two posts before mine. Sorry!

 

[Anwar]

The only problem with what you're saying about Logan, is that when Logan came out they did say that this was the future, not an alternate future.

And as soon as that can't be the case anymore and the timeline divergences can't be ignored, they'll just write off Logan as an AU.

 

[Christopher]

And as soon as that can't be the case anymore and the timeline divergences can't be ignored, they'll just write off Logan as an AU.

And? So? Continuity is nice, but I'm bewildered by the attitude of some modern fans that it's the sole, exclusive standard for judging the value of a work of fiction. If you can tell a compelling story that isn't tightly bound by prior continuity, then that's what you do, because the primary goal of storytelling is to tell stories, not to play continuity bookkeeping. Heck, Marvel has always taken a flexible approach to continuity, especially with its sliding timescale and its constant retconning of period details (e.g. Tony Stark was originally injured in Southeast Asia, now it's Afghanistan) as well as origin-story details (hey, Pietro and Wanda are Magneto's children -- no, that's a hoax -- no, it's genuine -- no, it isn't -- yes, it is -- no, it isn't).

As I've been saying, the differences between the Fox and Marvel approaches to their film universes are a good thing. It gives them individuality and variety, so it's not all the same thing. The X-Men films have always had a flexible approach to continuity, with later films disregarding problematical details in earlier films or ignoring throwaway versions of characters in order to do their own new versions (e.g. Angel, Emma Frost, Deadpool, Jubilee, or Caliban). And after explicitly creating a new timeline in DOFP, they seem to have embraced the idea that their films represent a multiverse. That's what the producers of the upcoming The Gifted TV series are saying, that their show is in an alternate timeline of its own, sharing concepts and background elements with the films but with events unfolding differently. So it's no longer a relevant question which is the "right" or "real" timeline. They're all "real" within the cinematic multiverse. And that helps distinguish the Fox Marvel franchise from the MCU, where everything's supposedly in a single continuity even when the movies and TV shows do their own separate things and largely or totally ignore each other.

 

[Gaith]

Apparently the IMAX version is 75 minutes long and the ABC verison is 84 minutes long.

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[JD]

And as soon as that can't be the case anymore and the timeline divergences can't be ignored, they'll just write off Logan as an AU.

Not necessarily. With the way the backstory was revealed, and the way it ended there are plenty of ways they could continue the series without having to push it off into a separate reality.

 

[crookeddy]

I'm gonna skip this at the theater. I can't really justify what is probably going to be a $13 ticket based on the footage I've seen so far. None of it looks at all cinematic.

You can watch an IMAX movie for $13??? Hard to find one under $25 these days here.

 

[JD]

Sorry about the derail, time to get back on topic.

So apparently the IMAX version is 75 minutes long, compared to the regular tv length of 2 episodes clocking in at 84 minutes.

So obviously the benefit here is that if you pay money to buy a movie ticket, you get to skip 9 minutes of it.

Presumably there will be some IMAX-sized scenes that won't fit on your tv screen? So at least it should look more cinematic in the theater as compared to your living room.

That's bull, I'm not going to pay to see a shorter version, especially since last time I tried to do an IMAX movie I couldn't even make it through the previews before I got overwhelmed by the volume and we had leave and get our money back. I've been thinking about giving it another try, maybe with ear plugs this time, but if I do I definitely won't be seeing this.

 

[Christopher]

Not necessarily. With the way the backstory was revealed, and the way it ended there are plenty of ways they could continue the series without having to push it off into a separate reality.

Logan was deliberately vague about what timeline it was in, although there is a deleted scene that explicitly references the events of The Last Stand (the alternate version of the dinner scene with the Munsons). As I said, though, I don't think it matters. If it's in its own alternate timeline, fine. I think Deadpool is implicitly an alternate timeline too; it's unlikely the more serious X-films will ever acknowledge it, and its version of Colossus is certainly quite different from the previous version (although that version was strictly in the pre-DOFP timeline). And the TV arm of the X-franchise is actively embracing the idea of a multiverse. So it would be silly to say a film doesn't "count" if it's in a different continuity. Fox's philosophy seems to be that there are multiple X-Men continuities and they all count.

That said, I would certainly be happy to see Dafne Keen take over as the new Wolverine in future movies. She did a pretty amazing job as a kid -- imagine how effective she'll be once she grows up. Although we'd have to wait a while, since she's younger than I thought.

 

[Anwar]

And? So?

I wouldn't mind if this was the deliberate intention, but the real reason is just that the writers can't get along and decide on a way of keeping things together so they all do their own thing and then excuse with a "Well...uh...we're a multiverse! Yeah, that's it!"

It's just a little disheartening considering how well put together the MCU is compared to the XCU.

 

[Christopher]

All that matters is whether the movies are good. Logan is a hell of a movie. How it fits with other movies is beside the point, because you're not watching those other movies, you're watching this movie. Too many people today prioritize continuity over the value of the individual parts, and that's getting it backward. The merit of a story is about the story itself. Its connections to other stories are just a bonus. The whole doesn't work unless the individual parts are worthwhile -- something that tends to get forgotten with today's obsession with serialization.

Strong continuity is just one style of storytelling. It's not fundamentally superior to other styles, it just happens to be currently fashionable, and too many people mistake fashion for quality.

 

[bbjeg]

There are X-Men threads out there guys. You won't find me in them because other than Deadpool, I'm personally loosing faith in the property all together.

Sorry about the derail, time to get back on topic.

That's bull, I'm not going to pay to see a shorter version, especially since last time I tried to do an IMAX movie I couldn't even make it through the previews before I got overwhelmed by the volume and we had leave and get our money back. I've been thinking about giving it another try, maybe with ear plugs this time, but if I do I definitely won't be seeing this.

I figure scenes that can be shown in IMAX whole might have to be split in two to fit home screens.

 

[Christopher]

I figure scenes that can be shown in IMAX whole might have to be split in two to fit home screens.

Rather, the IMAX aspect ratio (1.43:1) is only about 24% taller than the 16:9 ratio of HDTV. Either they'd deliberately compose the shots so that the top and bottom 12% of the image was expendable, or they'd "pillarbox" it with black bars on the sides to get the whole image in at a slightly smaller size.

The ironic thing about IMAX is that its aspect ratio is pretty close to the 1.375:1 "Academy ratio" that was standard for films from 1932-52, and to the 1.33:1 (4:3) ratio used by pre-HD television. So it's basically reversing the past half-century's trend toward wider screens, but it's making the screens bigger to compensate.