X-Men, X-Men Origins, Wolverine, etc.

[Sleazer]

Singer should be blackballed as punishment for leaving and doing Supes in the first place...

Just kidding, I'm glad he's back.

But I hope they don't ignore any of the 4 current movies. Personally I liked Wolverine a lot and I thought X-Men 3 was ok (not very good though) but I just don't like movies rebooting and such (unless they use a whole new cast or whatever).

[Diabolical]

Via slashfilm.com:

Bryan Singer Offers Up Many X-Men: First Class Details: ’60s-Set Film Features the Hellfire Club and Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw

There have been a lot of questions about X-Men: First Class over the last week as a great number of casting decisions were announced. Now producer Bryan Singer has offered up the biggest update on the movie yet. In a conversation with AICN, Singer spilled a lot of beans, such as the fact that the film takes place in the ’60s, is inspired by the look and tech of James Bond movies, and that Kevin Bacon will play Sebastian Shaw, of the Hellfire Club.

Here is a set of bullet points that covers the grand scope of the details Singer offered up to AICN:

* Cyclops and Jean Grey are not in the film.
* X-Men: First Class takes place in the 1960s. Real world details are in place: JFK is the president. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X are alive.
* We see how Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr met, and hear of the future they dreamed of for humans and mutantkind, specifically with respect to their ideas for the X-Men.
* Professor X and Magneto are in their 20s when they meet. Xavier will not be in a wheelchair at first, but we will see how he is crippled. And Xavier has hair!
* Director Matthew Vaughn has been inspired by 60s-era James Bond tech, and the costumes will be far more ‘comic bookish’ than we’ve seen in the past.
* The vision of the Hellfire Club will be the classic one, seemingly with the Victorian costumes and men’s club attitude first seen as John Byrne drew them in the ’80s.
* The story begins with Xavier at Oxford in the ’60s, and Singer said the film will have an ‘international’ feel. Shoots in England and the US will double in places for other global locations, including the Soviet Union. Again, that’s working towards the Bond vibe mentioned earlier.

What this all comes down to is that Vaughn and Singer are trying to make a genuine Silver Age movie — that is, a film that represents the slightly more eccentric, pop-art style of storytelling that characterized comics in the ’60s. It’s the time when Marvel Comics as we know it came to be, and when superheroes really began to dominate comics. It’s not an easy thing to get right — there’s so much possibility for camp — but with the cast Singer and Vaughn have in place, it could work.

But the question remains...how are they going to shoehorn Wolverine in the film (it's almost inevitable).

[Rollo Tomassi]

I seem to remember one of the very first things they said about this 'reboot' was that Wolvie wouldn't be in it because they spun that character off into his own franchise.

But between this, the Wolverine movie, and the X-Men trilogy, movie continuity is completely fucked at this point. I mean, its like Sasha Grey's mouth its so fucked.

[Rollo Tomassi]

I'm fairly ambivalent about this movie at this point. At the point when they decided to have Azazel as an X-Man just because they needed a teleporter, I threw up my hands.

[Diabolical]

The trailer calmed my fears quite a bit.
I'm looking forward to it now.

[Rollo Tomassi]

I just got back from seeng this. And I'm prepared to eat a little crow. It was quite good. It helped to have great performances from the cast. Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence were especially good in their roles. Fassbender just OWNS the Magneto role.

There were also a couple fun cameos. Hugh Jackman had a brilliant cameo as "Guy in Bar" in which Erik and Charles are recruiting mutants from the prototype Cerebro. They walk into the bar and say "Hi, I'm Charles Xavier and this is Erik Lensherr." To which the Guy in Bar says "Go fuck yourselves." (that's an exact quote, its the only cussing in the film) then they turn around and walk out, while he requests another shot of whiskey. Awesome. Rebecca Romijn also briefly reprised her role as an older Mystique for a scene.

I would say this one was more naturally dramatic and emotional than the earlier films. Where the other films, the drama seemed forced and artificial, the final schism between Magneto and Xavier feels very real and natural. Sadly, there was no post-credits sequence. Apparently Fox hasn't gotten the memo that those are now derigeur on all genre films. So, I sat through the credits for nothing.

Oh, and Michael Ironside had a small role as the Captain of the U.S. Fleet during the Cuban Missile Crisis. While he's not quite as awesome as Sam Elliot in making everything he's in more awesome, he's still pretty awesome. So, bonus there.

[Diabolical]

I don't know if the sale is still on or not*, but Best Buy had X-Men 1-3 and Wolverine Blu-Rays on sale for $7.99 each and they each have a redeemable code to see X-Men First Class for free (up to $12), which essentially means you can go see X-Men First Class and get a free X-Men Blu-Ray.

I picked up the first two flicks and will probably let a friend use the 2nd code.







*The shelf tag said the sale was on until July...if if I read it right.

[jjreason]

Saw it today, 2 weiners up for January Jones (from the front at least, the rear looked a little flat). Oh, and it was a good comic movie, too, achieving a spot in the "upper pantheon" of Marvel movies. I had to look up a couple of the characters to refresh their inspiration - I didn't recall much about "the weather dude" aka Riptide, or Darwin (who I guess appeared in some Brubaker stuff - likely the 12 issue limited about Scott's other brother taking over the universe or whatever).

For what it's worth, my Marvel Movie tiers are as follows - Great, okay & shit. I don't make things complicated:

Spider-Man (though I must admit I was taken aback upon first viewing)
Spider-Man 2
X-Men
X-Men 2
X-Men First Class

(First) Hulk
Iron Man
Fantastic Four
Fantastic Four 2

(Second) Hulk
Iron Man 2
Spider-Man 3
X-Men 3
Daredevil

*of note, I likely haven't seen the ones you're going to yell about me not ranking*

[Rollo Tomassi]

Darwin first appeared in X-Men:Deadly Genesis. He was part of the ill-fated retconned team to go in and rescue the O5 from Krakoa before they sent in the Wolvie/Storm/Nightcrawler/Colossus team. Eventually he showed up again and joined the new X-Factor.

Angel(the chick with wings) first appeared in Morrison's New X-Men run. She eventually married Beak and had lots of ugly babies. Then both she and Beak lost their powers during M-Day and then joined the shitty New Warriors written by Kevin Grievoux.

Riptide was one of the Marauders. I'm sure he eventually got killed off, but I don't remember when or where.

[jjreason]

Yeah, I recall Angel specifically as I just did a re-read on New X-Men so that was easy - way out of chronological context, but easy to peg. Lenny Kravitz' daughter if I'm not mistaken to boot.

[vynsane]

JJ - i find it hard to believe that you have Iron Man 2 on the 'shit' list...

Angel [...] eventually married Beak and had lots of ugly babies.

funny... he's #2 in today's cracked article the 8 worst x-men ever - also, btw anarky, don't read #3...

[Rollo Tomassi]

Think about the large pile of shrooms Morrison must've ingested before stream of consciousness thinking up that Beak/Angel fuckfest and the resulting brood of creepy flying insect babies.

[jjreason]

It was gross. Really gross. Hats off to Ethan Van Sciver or whichever artist had to render that. ><

Oh, and yeah, Vynnie... Iron Man 2 was just plain awful due to the villain. I hated Mickey Rourke's character from start to finish. Not like you're going to make a story about him hitting the bottle, but they pretty much blew the wad with Iron Man in the first film using up the origin AND Iron Monger stories in one fell swoop.

[mabudon]

Riptide originally was in the Marauders and appeared during the mutant massacre. it was in around issue 211 of x-men when Colossus got hold of him and snapped his neck leaving him actual-dead (riptide had just wiped nightcrawler right the fuck out when he teleported one time too many and collapsed in the middle of the battlefield). Also he had no weather powers, he could just somehow spin real fast and throw a shit-ton of spiky projectiles. maybe 10 issues later and x-men got so bad that I stopped reading it forever.

FINALLY I can say something relevant about a comic book I have read on here

[jjreason]

Very nice Well done mabs \m/