The epicness that should be X-Men!
Hello everyone I have returned…and since everyone loved my thoughts on the Bryan Singer “X-men” entries…and now that he has been tacked on to direct the upcoming “X-Men: Days of Future Past”…DEAR GOD HELP US. I have decided that even with his involvement, these 5 things will make the movie AWESOME…or Suck Less!
5. If you are going to add characters that have no business in the movie..at least have AWESOME ones!
With Singer’s track record on the “X-Men” franchise, he likes to add characters to “enhance the story”. If you are going to do that, do it with DECENT characters. Now the rumor is that the cast from the first 3 films is mishmashed with the cast from “X-Men: First Class”, which is an interesting concept, and can fit with the comic storyline (more so than any of the other films). If you are going to deal with time travel and alternate timelines and such, you have some really good characters you can “enhance the story” with. Two such examples of this would be Bishop and Cable, who were in the Days of Future Past story in “X-Men: The Animated Series”. You also have Forge, Rachel Summers and others that can fit into the story if you need to add more characters. So if you don’t stick with the source material, at least you service the fans and they won’t try to burn Singer at the stake.
“Yeah…we are Badasses!”
4. Famke Janssen = Jean Grey or Dark Phoenix?
A lot of this list depends on rumors being true or not. One of the rumors that have been all but confirmed is that Famke Janssen will return in “X-Men: DOFP”. But what form will she take: Jean Grey or the world-ender Dark Phoenix? Unlike most, I enjoyed what “X3: The Last Stand” tried to do with the Phoenix character, whether they succeeded or not, they tried to do the character some justice. I personally think Ms. Janssen should be BOTH in the film, start off as Jean and some traumatic experience happens (hopefully they kill Cyclops again) and she becomes Dark Phoenix. Or what if you find out that Dark Phoenix is the only savior of time and space, which leads her into becoming just regular Phoenix (I know this is backwards from the comics, but the movie continuity is so FUBAR’d, at least they did it).
Which will she choose??
3. Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen
Now with Patrick Stewart all but signed, I feel that this needs to be said: As much as I disliked much of Singer’s first two X-films, where the films shined was the relationship between Professor X and Magneto. This relationship was also very strong in “X-Men: First Class”, and I think that both Professors and Magnetos should appear and be in the new film. You can see the relationship come full circle and it would actually be nice to see the Magneto character become somewhat of a hero in order to save basically ALL of existence…human AND mutant. This inner turmoil was essential to the Magneto character in the 80′s and still lasts today. It would be interesting to see how both Ian McKellen (“Old” Magneto) and Michael Fassbender (“Young” Magneto) deal with this dilemma.
Tolerance vs Obliteration
2. The main villain has to be BADASS!
Before Matthew Vaughn left production, the largely rumored villain was going to be Apocalypse, which would have fit into the animated series storyline, and could be an interesting choice for the film. In the comics, the Sentinels were the main villains due to them wiping out almost all of the mutant population on earth. Now the Sentinels would work but it could be monotonous and would be like “The X-Men vs The Transformers” — awesome, but after you beat one…what else is there? Singer has always said his favorite villain is Proteus, and I am just hoping that they don’t put him into the film, he just wouldn’t fit. Then there’s Master Mold (essentially a Sentinel factory) which would be awesome, plus he COULD be added to the Apocalypse storyline and if done right, could have cataclysmic implications on the human/mutant/space/time scenario. And with Singer making usually longer than usual films, it needs to be a decently long film to fit EVERYTHING in it….but regardless of what they do…one thing MUST be in the film….
You now face….the APOCALYPSE!!!!
1. NIMROD!
One of the greatest contributions the comic storyline had was the introduction of the “Uber-Sentinel” Nimrod. The ultimate mutant hunter, Nimrod had counters to MOST of the X-Men/Brotherhood’s powers. This would relieve the monotony if they chose to go pure Sentinel, or if they went Apocalypse he could be the Mutant-Ender (if they don’t introduce the Horsemen). Regardless, Nimrod must be in the film, if it’s named “Days of Future Past”, NIMROD must be involved.
Uber-Sentinel
The X-Men films are polarized in audience response, either you love them or hate them. As flawed as it is my favorite is “X-Men: First Class” which was the best made. “X3: The Last Stand” was the most entertaining and closest to the comic (which was pretty sad). I have high hope for this film and only hope and pray that it reboots the movie continuity so that Fox can actually do an overall GOOD X-Men film.
