The X-Men Cinematic Universe (General Discussion)

[LJones41]

I don't really like the 2000 "X-MEN" movie that much. I think it was one of the most overrated films in the franchise and one of my least favorites. And I also suspect that "X-MEN: LAST STAND" was condemned by many fans, because it was the first time that Bryan Singer didn't direct an X-Men movie. They had condemned the movie before it came out and continued to condemn it for many years later.

Frankly, I never had a problem with "X-MEN: LAST STAND". It wasn't the best in the series, but I certainly do not regard it as the weakest. And considering Singer's latest entries in the X-Men franchise, I now realize that I didn't miss him when "LAST STAND" came out. Not by a long shot.

And now I hear that they're doing the Dark Phoenix story arc again. AGAIN? Can't they be a little more original? Because frankly, I'm not that interested. Apparently, the producers of the X-Men franchise must have developed an infatuation with Sophie Turner.

 

[Anwar]

The Phoenix story isn't even that GOOD a story to begin with.

The only real reason they keep doing new versions of it is because it's the only storyline Jean has to her name. Without it, her characters has precious little to her.

 

[Gaith]

^ Civil War isn't the most popular comics storyline, either, but its loose adaptation was well-received. I think there were two big problems with Apocalypse: first, throwing the X-Men's most powerful enemy at the group when there wasn't even an established team, let alone an experienced one, to confront him. But the second-biggest problem was it was split between being a First Class movie, a Second Class movie, and an Apocalypse movie.

The next movie won't have Apocalypse, and Lauren Shuler Donner has said "We cannot, once again, explore the Erik/Charles dynamic." Nor will this movie have to mash up the Dark Phoenix plot with the mutant cure one, obviously. I liked the Second Class cast, so I'm cautiously hopeful that they'll be able to carry a movie on their own, and that Magneto and Mystique won't be crammed into the thick of things again.

 

[JD]

The Phoenix story isn't even that GOOD a story to begin with.

The only real reason they keep doing new versions of it is because it's the only storyline Jean has to her name. Without it, her characters has precious little to her.

I think it's also probably the most famous X-Men story, or at least second most famous story after DOFP, so it's probably one of the only stories people can actually come up with to adapt. God Loves, Man Kills is fairly well known to, but I think we got something pretty close to that in X2. Since the Phoenix storyline really didn't get the attention it deserves in The Last Stand, I can see going back to it and focusing on it a lot more this time.

 

[Turtletrekker]

The Phoenix story isn't even that GOOD a story to begin with.

You would be in minority with that opinion. On-line fan surveys rate Dark Phoenix as the best X-Men story ever told and the second best Marvel story ever told.

My personal top 10 lists would differ, but I would rank Dark Phoenix similarly.

 

[DigificWriter]

I noted this earlier, I believe, but even with it having been hinted that Dark Phoenix could introduce cosmic elements, they're also still using the basic framework of there being a darkness inside Jean that is tied to her powers and that she's afraid of losing control of.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I noted this earlier, I believe, but even with it having been hinted that Dark Phoenix could introduce cosmic elements, they're also still using the basic framework of there being a darkness inside Jean that is tied to her powers and that she's afraid of losing control of.

I think the success of GotG has Fox looking to the cosmic side of the X-Men Universe.

 

[Anwar]

You would be in minority with that opinion. On-line fan surveys rate Dark Phoenix as the best X-Men story ever told and the second best Marvel story ever told.

My personal top 10 lists would differ, but I would rank Dark Phoenix similarly.

Fan surveys are usually easily influenced by hype or nostalgia. I didn't find "Dark Phoenix" all that profound when I read it. I thought the Hellfire Club were silly antagonists and the whole "Absolute Power corrupts" thing to be an overdone and cliche plot.

I don't see why they don't try for something like the Proteus storyline or X-Factor or something like that.

I think the success of GotG has Fox looking to the cosmic side of the X-Men Universe.

Sad thing is, if they' hadn't been so stuck in the past they could've made a Starjammers movie long ago and beat MCU to the punch.

 

[Reverend]

There are a lot of "important" stories like Dark Phoenix that are mostly important because they were memorable. Whether or not they were any good is often irrelevant.
For example: 'Crisis on Infinite Earths' and 'The Death and Rebirth of Superman' are both very important stories in DC's history. They're also both bloody awful stories. See also Spider-man's "Clone Saga", "One More Day" and just about every massive crossover event ever from either company.

I'd say 'Dark Phoenix' is somewhere around the middle. Not awful, but only really notable for briefly making Jean Grey interesting.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I'd say 'Dark Phoenix' is somewhere around the middle. Not awful, but only really notable for briefly making Jean Grey interesting.

I'd disagree. It help set the stage for a lot of comics to come. Especially the hero goes bad and must be taken down trope. She, like many Marvel women suffered from exhausted female syndrome. ( I used my powers now I must rest) Claremont, Cockrum and Byrne took efforts to change that. Her rebirth as Phoenix and the Hellfire Club arc made the character more interesting. But they took it too far and Jean had to pay from her crimes.

 

[Anwar]

I'd disagree. It help set the stage for a lot of comics to come. Especially the hero goes bad and must be taken down trope. She, like many Marvel women suffered from exhausted female syndrome. ( I used my powers now I must rest) Claremont, Cockrum and Byrne took efforts to change that. Her rebirth as Phoenix and the Hellfire Club arc made the character more interesting. But they took it too far and Jean had to pay from her crimes.

The Phoenix Saga is the ONLY interesting thing about Jean Grey. Claremont was able to make Kitty Pryde and Storm and co interesting without Phoenix Sagas.

 

[Nerys Myk]

The Phoenix Saga is the ONLY interesting thing about Jean Grey. Claremont was able to make Kitty Pryde and Storm and co interesting without Phoenix Sagas.

Well he killed her off pretty quick in his run. She becomes Phoenix, then the Black Queen and then Dark Phoenix. Then she's dead. Then Claremont starts bringing in Jean 2.0 and Jean, Jr.

 

[kirk55555]

I like Jean Grey (the original, not the boring time traveling one that's in the comics right now) as a character and it really had nothing to do with that saga. She never really had enough character stuff admittedly, but she wasn't really permanently killed off until the 2000s, and between her being revealed at the bottom of the sea after the DP Saga and her death was a few decades where she was involved with the X-Men, helped found the original X-Factor, etc. She's probably one of the less developed of the original X-men, but she didn't just have one story arc. Just one famous one the focused specifically on her.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I like Jean Grey (the original, not the boring time traveling one that's in the comics right now) as a character and it really had nothing to do with that saga. She never really had enough character stuff admittedly, but she wasn't really permanently killed off until the 2000s, and between her being revealed at the bottom of the sea after the DP Saga and her death was a few decades where she was involved with the X-Men, helped found the original X-Factor, etc. She's probably one of the less developed of the original X-men, but she didn't just have one story arc. Just one famous one the focused specifically on her.

Between clones, kids and switch-a-roos they couldn't keep her dead.

 

[Timby]

I don't really like the 2000 "X-MEN" movie that much. I think it was one of the most overrated films in the franchise and one of my least favorites. And I also suspect that "X-MEN: LAST STAND" was condemned by many fans, because it was the first time that Bryan Singer didn't direct an X-Men movie. They had condemned the movie before it came out and continued to condemn it for many years later.

Frankly, I never had a problem with "X-MEN: LAST STAND". It wasn't the best in the series, but I certainly do not regard it as the weakest. And considering Singer's latest entries in the X-Men franchise, I now realize that I didn't miss him when "LAST STAND" came out. Not by a long shot.

My wife and I rewatched the first X-Men movie for the first time in like a decade a few months ago. After what feels like fifteen years of superhero movies having gigantic blue death lasers from the sky or the threat of nuclear Armageddon or whatever, the climax on the Statue of Liberty is actually really rather kind of quaint.

As for The Last Stand, about the only thing about it I can say I genuinely like is John Powell's score. The rest of it is just an over-stuffed mess, much like Apocalypse was.

And now I hear that they're doing the Dark Phoenix story arc again. AGAIN? Can't they be a little more original? Because frankly, I'm not that interested. Apparently, the producers of the X-Men franchise must have developed an infatuation with Sophie Turner.

I don't have any particular objection to taking another stab at Dark Phoenix, but Simon Kinberg is an absolutely terrible writer and I have no interest in seeing another X-movie scripted by him.

 

[Gaith]

My wife and I rewatched the first X-Men movie for the first time in like a decade a few months ago. After what feels like fifteen years of superhero movies having gigantic blue death lasers from the sky or the threat of nuclear Armageddon or whatever, the climax on the Statue of Liberty is actually really rather kind of quaint.

X-Men is so old, it's pre-9/11 old. But I do still love it.

 

[kirk55555]

Between clones, kids and switch-a-roos they couldn't keep her dead.

To be fair, since the (magneto clone?) killed her in Grant Morrison's(?) run, she has only come back in the two X-Men: Phoenix Endsong/Warsong mini series, where she's either only alive in spirit or alive in a different dimension. but, while those were canon (since the Stepford cuckoos having the phoenix split into them was used later), she obviously didn't show up when the Phoenix was unleashed in X-Mewn vs Avengers, so she's pretty much completely dead at this point.

Besides that, she's stayed dead. She hasn't actually come back to life as some people seem to claim. I mean, I guess she hasn't stayed as dead as, say, Mar-Vell (who has only come back as a skrull imposter, a ghost during the Fear Itself event along with people like Dr. druid, and a weird clone the kree made and the Avengers met a year or two before Carol danvers stopped being Ms. Marvel who never died, but I think the writers just forgot about him), but she's stayed fairly dead.

I don't count the time travel Jean grey, because she's really nothing like the main one, and I honestly just find her irritating. She's basically a completely different character who happens to share a name and powers.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Yeah, they've kept Jean-616 dead, though I was out of X-Men Comics when she died so I'm clueless on the circumstances. But currently they have teen-Jean and Jean, jr in X-teams so it's like she back any way.

 

[Reverend]

I'd disagree. It help set the stage for a lot of comics to come. Especially the hero goes bad and must be taken down trope. She, like many Marvel women suffered from exhausted female syndrome. ( I used my powers now I must rest) Claremont, Cockrum and Byrne took efforts to change that. Her rebirth as Phoenix and the Hellfire Club arc made the character more interesting. But they took it too far and Jean had to pay from her crimes.

Yeah, like I said: "important" and "influential" is not the same as "good".

 

[kirk55555]

Yeah, they've kept Jean-616 dead, though I was out of X-Men Comics when she died so I'm clueless on the circumstances. But currently they have teen-Jean and Jean, jr in X-teams so it's like she back any way.

Well, like I said, the time traveling Jean is really nothing like the original in my opinion. I don't know who jean jr is, but if you're talking about Rachel Grey/Summers she is very much her own character and one I enjoy more then her mother because she's gotten a lot more to do (she was especially good in the original Excaliber comic, which was just a great book overall), so calling her Jean jr. is both inaccurate and unfair to the character and the people who have written her.