X-Men: Days of Future Past - Discussion Thread - SPOILERS

[Set Harth]

A very fun movie, and an ingenious way to essentially erase the third movie!

While still admitting that it happened in-universe.

 

[Dream]

I STILL don't get what was so bad about X3. I mean, if Singer killed off Xavier and depowered Magneto I doubt there'd be as many complaints.

Except Singer never did that. Stop trying to imply he would go along with that moronic writing.

He actually reversed many of those events with the timeline reset in DOFP.

 

[Anwar]

I STILL don't get what was so bad about X3. I mean, if Singer killed off Xavier and depowered Magneto I doubt there'd be as many complaints.

Except Singer never did that. Stop trying to imply he would go along with that moronic writing.

He actually reversed many of those events with the timeline reset in DOFP.

How is it moronic to kill off Xavier and Magneto? The comics worked just fine without them, it just means the movies would have to give the other characters who never got much to do...more to do.

 

[Reverend]

I STILL don't get what was so bad about X3. I mean, if Singer killed off Xavier and depowered Magneto I doubt there'd be as many complaints.

Except Singer never did that. Stop trying to imply he would go along with that moronic writing.

He actually reversed many of those events with the timeline reset in DOFP.

How is it moronic to kill off Xavier and Magneto? The comics worked just fine without them, it just means the movies would have to give the other characters who never got much to do...more to do.

It's not so much the what as it is the why and the how. Basically if felt like a cheep attempt to raise the stakes. In the case of Cyclops at least, I feel it was done because they didn't have a better idea for the character and were fixated--possibly by studio edict--to make Wolverine the male romantic lead.

Of course the character deaths & depowerments (is that a word?) were just one of several problems with that film. Leaving aside how pointless Angel was, how they pretty much ditched Rogue and how they ended up essentially wussing out on what happened with Xavier & Erik; just the whole way the dealt with the Dark Phoenix story didn't really work.

Part of the problem that it's hard to tell a Dark Phoenix without first properly introducing the Phoenix. Particularly after that flamebird tease at the end of X2, what they ended up going with just felt like a massive let down.

They basically made her the telekinetic equivalent of The Hulk with dissociative identity disorder. Which is not a bad idea in and of itself but they never went anywhere interesting with it. She was basically reduced to a Macguffin. You never really got what was driving her beyond "damn, she crazy!"

 

[MacLeod]

I might be mistaken but the reason why Cyclops was killed off, was because the actor wasn't available due to filming Superman Returns.

 

[Reverend]

I might be mistaken but the reason why Cyclops was killed off, was because the actor wasn't available due to filming Superman Returns.

That did occur to me, but I wasn't sure if that was a fact or just oft repeated fan speculation.

Either way, it was still pretty cheep to kill him off-screen 10 mins in.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Finally saw this a few days ago. Loved it so much.

The future Sentinels really resembled the robot thing from Thor, the way their faces opened up and they shot flames.

 

[USS Firefly]

Indeed that was a little bit cheap, the way the future sentinels looked

 

[Anwar]

It's not so much the what as it is the why and the how. Basically if felt like a cheep attempt to raise the stakes. In the case of Cyclops at least, I feel it was done because they didn't have a better idea for the character and were fixated--possibly by studio edict--to make Wolverine the male romantic lead.

They killed off Cyclops because Marsden bailed to do Superman Returns, he was only on set for 2-3 days.

Of course the character deaths & depowerments (is that a word?) were just one of several problems with that film. Leaving aside how pointless Angel was, how they pretty much ditched Rogue and how they ended up essentially wussing out on what happened with Xavier & Erik; just the whole way the dealt with the Dark Phoenix story didn't really work.

If people were expecting that whole Star Wars knock-off story from the comics they deserved to be disappointed.

Angel wasn't any less pointless than the other wasted characters like Colossus or how we never saw the Brotherhood after the first movie. Rogue was consistently a disappointment in all the movies because she was just a combo of all of Wolverine's little girl sidekicks throughout the years.

Part of the problem that it's hard to tell a Dark Phoenix without first properly introducing the Phoenix. Particularly after that flamebird tease at the end of X2, what they ended up going with just felt like a massive let down.

They basically made her the telekinetic equivalent of The Hulk with dissociative identity disorder. Which is not a bad idea in and of itself but they never went anywhere interesting with it. She was basically reduced to a Macguffin. You never really got what was driving her beyond "damn, she crazy!"

That's actually how it happened in the original comics. She just went nuts after Mastermind messed with her head with no real analysis of what was going on in there.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Far be it from me to play X3's advocate, but I felt that the killing of Scott and Xavier sort of worked in that, if they weren't going to have her be a star system-gobbling cosmic monster in this version, they had to do something like this to demonstrate what she'd become.

Of course, she could have destroyed a city or something....

Has Singer ever talked about how he would have handled Phoenix differently?

 

[Professor Zoom]

I STILL don't get what was so bad about X3. I mean, if Singer killed off Xavier and depowered Magneto I doubt there'd be as many complaints.

It's not the act, it's the execution of the idea. Ratner is all visual and one liners. If Singer had done it, it would've had power and meaning.

X3 is a merely adequate film after a really good one. A great one. And that's the closest to a compliment I can offer X3. I'm glad it's wiped out--and normally, I don't really care about those things.

 

[DWF]

That's actually how it happened in the original comics. She just went nuts after Mastermind messed with her head with no real analysis of what was going on in there.

Mastermind merely took down the barriers that cut back her power. Jean was in reality the Phoenix Force so her "death" wasn't real to begin with. The fault of the storyline was that they didn't build up the universe the movies were set in, so the story didn't come out right no matter who the director was it was still a mess. And truthfully they missed the point of The Days Of Future Past as well, as John Byrne pointed out recently in the comic book story they removed the possibilty of an alternate reality, but the movie created one, kind of missing the point of the original storyline.

 

[DWF]

I STILL don't get what was so bad about X3. I mean, if Singer killed off Xavier and depowered Magneto I doubt there'd be as many complaints.

It's not the act, it's the execution of the idea. Ratner is all visual and one liners. If Singer had done it, it would've had power and meaning.

Without the proper set up the story as an adaptation of the comic book story is meaningless anyway. And really Singer didn't set up the storyline in X2 to allow for it to come out right in X3.

 

[Professor Zoom]

I STILL don't get what was so bad about X3. I mean, if Singer killed off Xavier and depowered Magneto I doubt there'd be as many complaints.

It's not the act, it's the execution of the idea. Ratner is all visual and one liners. If Singer had done it, it would've had power and meaning.

Without the proper set up the story as an adaptation of the comic book story is meaningless anyway. And really Singer didn't set up the storyline in X2 to allow for it to come out right in X3.

I don't know what you mean. What do you mean "right"? It's an adaptation. Things weren't going to be slavish tied to a comic book story. And as far as I know, we don't know what Singer had planned for X3.

I was merely addressing the point if Singer had killed Prof. X why no one would've complained. Again, it's not the idea--I firmly believe there pretty much no bad ideas, that it's the execution of an idea. Ratner isn't an artist, he's barely a storyteller. Singer is both an artist and a storyteller who cares about his characters.

 

[DWF]

It's not the act, it's the execution of the idea. Ratner is all visual and one liners. If Singer had done it, it would've had power and meaning.

Without the proper set up the story as an adaptation of the comic book story is meaningless anyway. And really Singer didn't set up the storyline in X2 to allow for it to come out right in X3.

I don't know what you mean. What do you mean "right"? It's an adaptation. Things weren't going to be slavish tied to a comic book story. And as far as I know, we don't know what Singer had planned for X3.

I was merely addressing the point if Singer had killed Prof. X why no one would've complained. Again, it's not the idea--I firmly believe there pretty much no bad ideas, that it's the execution of an idea. Ratner isn't an artist, he's barely a storyteller. Singer is both an artist and a storyteller who cares about his characters.

How was cn say nobody would've complained if Singer had killed off Prof. X? I didn't see too many people complaining about it and they brought him in the end credits scene anyway. And I haven't seen anything to suggest that Ratner changed the storyline at the last minute, he was a last minute replacement anyway once Singer left to do Superman Reurns. And really IMO Superman Returns turned out worse than X3 did.

 

[Professor Zoom]

Without the proper set up the story as an adaptation of the comic book story is meaningless anyway. And really Singer didn't set up the storyline in X2 to allow for it to come out right in X3.

I don't know what you mean. What do you mean "right"? It's an adaptation. Things weren't going to be slavish tied to a comic book story. And as far as I know, we don't know what Singer had planned for X3.

I was merely addressing the point if Singer had killed Prof. X why no one would've complained. Again, it's not the idea--I firmly believe there pretty much no bad ideas, that it's the execution of an idea. Ratner isn't an artist, he's barely a storyteller. Singer is both an artist and a storyteller who cares about his characters.

How was cn say nobody would've complained if Singer had killed off Prof. X? I didn't see too many people complaining about it and they brought him in the end credits scene anyway. And I haven't seen anything to suggest that Ratner changed the storyline at the last minute, he was a last minute replacement anyway once Singer left to do Superman Reurns.

How can I say it? Because it's an opinion. Since it didn't really happen, we can only imagine what would'v been and the response. And thus: opinion.

My opinion is, the reason why people wouldn't have complained, if indeed Singer had killed off X and depowered Magneto, he would have executed those story ideas better.

Again: it's not the idea itself, but the execution. We often complain about the idea being "bad," but, in fact it was the execution of that idea is why the idea "failed."

And really IMO Superman Returns turned out worse than X3 did.

Ok. So? That doesn't suddenly mean that X3 is a better film in the X franchise. Maybe it's better than Wolverine: Origins. What does that mean? One shitty movie is better than another shitty one?

 

[Timby]

Without the proper set up the story as an adaptation of the comic book story is meaningless anyway. And really Singer didn't set up the storyline in X2 to allow for it to come out right in X3.

I don't know what you mean. What do you mean "right"? It's an adaptation. Things weren't going to be slavish tied to a comic book story. And as far as I know, we don't know what Singer had planned for X3.

I was merely addressing the point if Singer had killed Prof. X why no one would've complained. Again, it's not the idea--I firmly believe there pretty much no bad ideas, that it's the execution of an idea. Ratner isn't an artist, he's barely a storyteller. Singer is both an artist and a storyteller who cares about his characters.

How was cn say nobody would've complained if Singer had killed off Prof. X? I didn't see too many people complaining about it and they brought him in the end credits scene anyway. And I haven't seen anything to suggest that Ratner changed the storyline at the last minute, he was a last minute replacement anyway once Singer left to do Superman Reurns. And really IMO Superman Returns turned out worse than X3 did.

Ratner was a last-minute replacement for Matthew Vaughn, who left after Fox wouldn't let him delay the movie to do a rewrite on the script. Singer had been out of the picture for ages by the time Ratner rolled around.

 

[DWF]

I don't know what you mean. What do you mean "right"? It's an adaptation. Things weren't going to be slavish tied to a comic book story. And as far as I know, we don't know what Singer had planned for X3.

I was merely addressing the point if Singer had killed Prof. X why no one would've complained. Again, it's not the idea--I firmly believe there pretty much no bad ideas, that it's the execution of an idea. Ratner isn't an artist, he's barely a storyteller. Singer is both an artist and a storyteller who cares about his characters.

How was cn say nobody would've complained if Singer had killed off Prof. X? I didn't see too many people complaining about it and they brought him in the end credits scene anyway. And I haven't seen anything to suggest that Ratner changed the storyline at the last minute, he was a last minute replacement anyway once Singer left to do Superman Reurns. And really IMO Superman Returns turned out worse than X3 did.

Ratner was a last-minute replacement for Matthew Vaughn, who left after Fox wouldn't let him delay the movie to do a rewrite on the script. Singer had been out of the picture for ages by the time Ratner rolled around.

I still don't quite get the anger at Ratner, it would've been more or less the same movie under Vaughn as it was under Ratner.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Vaughn wanted to give the script a desperately needed rewrite which could only have improved the final product. But, yeah, one can hardly blame Ratner for the crappyness of the script.

 

[M.A.C.O.]

I think the biggest issue with X3 can be summed up with this photo right here.

X-Men Vol 1 #137.

This was the film we were promised at the end of X2 but we never got. Singer has said that X1 and X2 were Wolverine's story and that his arc was completed at the end of the second film. Singer was going to focus on Cyclops for his version of X3. However things didn't work out. Singer wanted to do Superman first and then X-Men but Fox didn't want the film pushed back to presumably 2008. So Singer jumped ship and took his writing + production team from X2 with him to Superman Returns. Where they managed to cock up the Superman franchise by making a 2 hour and 30 minute fanfic to the Donner films.

However Singer's fingerprints were still on the script that was used for X3. What Fox was missing was a director. Vaghn couldn't work things out with Fox on their time table, so Ratner was brought in to get the production on track. However the intended lead of the movie jumped ship. James Marsden was lured by Singer to come do Superman Returns from X3. Funny when you think about it. Cyclops in the X-Men Trilogy existed as a romantic obstacle for Logan and Jean. Marsden's character Richard in Superman Returns is a romantic obstacle for Superman and Lois. Smh, way to move up there. Singer reportedly also tried to get Shawn Ashmore (Ice Man) on Superman Returns to play Jimmy Olsen. Thankfully Ashmore turned Singer down.

So Ratner is left to rework the film and substituted Logan in Cyclops' place. The decision to kill Cyclops off was allegedly Fox's but Singer (allegedly) blames Ratner for it. I don't see how Singer can be upset. X-Men was his franchise that he abandoned to do another big superhero movie. You gotta be there if you want your vision to be told accurately.


X3 as is, I don't dislike. Ratner made an entertaining action film, I'll give him that. The plot is easy to digest. However the emotional investment/drama of the material was not fully utilized. I could lay the blame at Singer for leaving but I think Cyclops' absence is what cracked this film. Cyclops is the leader of the X-Men. It should've been him leading the team against Magento's brotherhood, not Logan. It should've been Cyclops stepping up as headmaster of the school after Xavier's death, not Storm. It should've been Scott and Jean's tragic love story we saw unfold in the film, not Logan's.

Could've, Should've, Would've but didn't.