X-Men: Dark Phoenix (06/07/19)

[ET80]

6 minutes ago, kingseanjohn said:

The biggest difference is that more people know the X-Men and the characters involved. The 90s animated series exposed way more people to their universe. The vast majority don’t know who Balder is or many, or any, others in the Thor universe.

That's pretty spot on - there's an entire generation that had their first experiences with that Saturday morning cartoon (myself included). 

Remember when Saturday morning cartoons were a thing? Legit the 2nd best thing about the weekend as a kid (going to Blockbuster to rent a movie and some video games on Friday after school being #1).

[kingseanjohn]

31 minutes ago, ET80 said:

That's pretty spot on - there's an entire generation that had their first experiences with that Saturday morning cartoon (myself included). 

Remember when Saturday morning cartoons were a thing? Legit the 2nd best thing about the weekend as a kid (going to Blockbuster to rent a movie and some video games on Friday after school being #1).

Honestly I think the cartoon is a big reason why I didn’t like Apocalypse. Issac’s look and voice just didn’t hold a candle to the animated series and the voice of John Colicos. 

Edited June 11, 2019 by kingseanjohn

[ET80]

1 minute ago, kingseanjohn said:

Honestly I think the cartoon is a big reason why I didn’t like Apocalypse. Issac’s look and voice just didn’t hold a candle to the animated series and the voice of John Colicos. 

YES!!!!

I honestly think Fox should have spent the big bucks and brought in The Rock - I don't think anyone would doubt he has the size for the role (can you imagine how he'd look next to McAvoy or Fassbender) but he's also got the perfect voice for the role; Very deep with a low rumble to it, one that can get very loud and very intimidating when he lets it loose. 

Had he still been alive, Michael Clarke Duncan would have also been an ideal casting. Size, deep booming voice and presence - it was so good, they once casted him as Kingpin (and HE wasn't bad in that movie - everything else was).

Oscar Isaac cast in this role is about the same as Raul Julia getting cast as M. Bison in that disasterous Street Fighter movie with JCVD...

[AlexGreen#20]

55 minutes ago, kingseanjohn said:

The biggest difference is that more people know the X-Men and the characters involved. The 90s animated series exposed way more people to their universe. The vast majority don’t know who Balder is or many, or any, others in the Thor universe.

I really don't think that's a fair comparison to be making. 

None of the other Superhero movies are held up against any other form of medium when being evaluated. 

If comic book readers are expected to leave those expectations at the door when watching these movies, surely cartoon fans should be expected to do the same?

[AlexGreen#20]

55 minutes ago, ET80 said:

That's pretty spot on - there's an entire generation that had their first experiences with that Saturday morning cartoon (myself included). 

Remember when Saturday morning cartoons were a thing? Legit the 2nd best thing about the weekend as a kid (going to Blockbuster to rent a movie and some video games on Friday after school being #1).

So you dislike a 2 hour movie because it didn't live up to a nostalgic memory you have of what was basically a full season of a cartoon when you were a kid?

Talk about needing to be catered to, Yikes.

[AlexGreen#20]

30 minutes ago, kingseanjohn said:

Honestly I think the cartoon is a big reason why I didn’t like Apocalypse. Issac’s look and voice just didn’t hold a candle to the animated series and the voice of John Colicos. 

Apocalypse was bad because it played like a filler episode of Supernatural. 

[ET80]

1 minute ago, AlexGreen#20 said:

So you dislike a 2 hour movie because it didn't live up to a nostalgic memory you have of what was basically a full season of a cartoon when you were a kid?

Talk about needing to be catered to, Yikes.

No... I didn't like it because it wasn't good.

[AlexGreen#20]

5 minutes ago, ET80 said:

No... I didn't like it because it wasn't good.

What about it wasn't good?

[ET80]

1 minute ago, AlexGreen#20 said:

What about it wasn't good?

 

On 6/6/2019 at 11:02 AM, ET80 said:

I feel as if the production crew got caught in the middle of making Apocalypse a "comic book" character or a "realistic" character - and you really can't do both, you gotta go one another:

- In the MCU, Thanos wasn't downsized to fit to a realistic scale; He was well over 8 feet tall, just a massive monstrosity. That worked, because we've seen such monstrosities walking around (Hulk, Korg, Hulkbuster, Ant Man, "final" Ultron, etc). If you go this route, go this route; Don't try to build to a realistic scale, just leave him as that, let his character live up to that and surround him with other monstrosities.

- If you go realistic, you have to win with dialogue, presence, gravitas...much like how Tom Hardy owned every single room as Bane in TDK:R. Hardy is maybe a generous 5' 10" 205lbs, as opposed to the 6' 10" 500lbs Bane; They didn't run to equal the image, but they built up the presence of an ominous and nearly invincible man, a guy who was the embodiment of brutality and chaos. That's done via expert writing and set moments that create the feeling, something all the movies in TDK did very well. 

Apocalypse tried to do both - realistic size, but comic book presence - and missed on both in a spectacular fashion. 

One thing that's never really mentioned when bashing Apocalypse - they equally ruined the Angel/Archangel character and story arc. I literally had zero interest in Warren Worthington III, and that's a damn shame... because his arc with Apocalypse as the lead Four Horseman is absolutely great; you could probably do an entire movie on that rise, fall and redemption arc on him and have a franchise that would kill it.

Missed, just MISSED the mark. So sad.

That's part of it. The more I think about it, the more I feel as if they botched the Archangel angle in a horrible way. The dialogue was utter crap, the forced connections to all of the "new kids" at Xavier's School (hey, we just met - let's all steal a car and go to the mall, because we need to find a way to give Scott and Jean some alone time) the seemingly random and sudden reveal of The Phoenix, the "mental fight scene" between Xavier and Apocalypse was arguably the worst comic book movie scene ever made in any comic book movie (and it was the only time we saw Apocalypse's ever grow to a size he SHOULD have been).

The movie had some redeemable parts - Fassbender was pretty great through all of the movie, the Quicksilver save and I personally liked Weapon X and Jean (setting up that storyline) but those moments weren't nearly enough to save this effort.

Apocalypse is an alpha bad guy - on par with Thanos, Galactus, Dr. Doom, etc. His story should have been a three arc movie, not a single movie that didn't capture enough while trying to do too much.

[AlexGreen#20]

1 minute ago, ET80 said:

 

That's part of it. The more I think about it, the more I feel as if they botched the Archangel angle in a horrible way. The dialogue was utter crap, the forced connections to all of the "new kids" at Xavier's School (hey, we just met - let's all steal a car and go to the mall, because we need to find a way to give Scott and Jean some alone time) the seemingly random and sudden reveal of The Phoenix, the "mental fight scene" between Xavier and Apocalypse was arguably the worst comic book movie scene ever made in any comic book movie (and it was the only time we saw Apocalypse's ever grow to a size he SHOULD have been).

The movie had some redeemable parts - Fassbender was pretty great through all of the movie, the Quicksilver save and I personally liked Weapon X and Jean (setting up that storyline) but those moments weren't nearly enough to save this effort.

Apocalypse is an alpha bad guy - on par with Thanos, Galactus, Dr. Doom, etc. His story should have been a three arc movie, not a single movie that didn't capture enough while trying to do too much.

Everybody thought Apocalypse sucked. I agree with everything you wrote.

I was asking about Last Stand

[ET80]

2 minutes ago, AlexGreen#20 said:

Everybody thought Apocalypse sucked. I agree with everything you wrote.

I was asking about Last Stand

I barely remember Last Stand, to be honest - but what I do remember, I thought of it as an OK movie. I didn't HATE it like I hated Apocalypse... but I didn't like it as much as I liked DoFP.

I guess I didn't LOVE it because X2 was another great movie, and it didn't quite hit that same mark. That's not on Last Stand, TBH - in a vacuum, it was a good movie.

[AlexGreen#20]

10 minutes ago, ET80 said:

I barely remember Last Stand, to be honest - but what I do remember, I thought of it as an OK movie. I didn't HATE it like I hated Apocalypse... but I didn't like it as much as I liked DoFP.

I guess I didn't LOVE it because X2 was another great movie, and it didn't quite hit that same mark. That's not on Last Stand, TBH - in a vacuum, it was a good movie.

This has always been my take. 

[ET80]

34 minutes ago, AlexGreen#20 said:

This has always been my take. 

I guess...one take that I could get out of it is that they could have hit on the same "good parts" of the story without Phoenix.

If you removed the Phoenix storyline, you'd still have a compelling story about the Mutant Registration act/Mutant Cure, the rise of the Brotherhood as the opposition to the X-Men, could have focused on Storm taking over as the leader of the team... Granted, you'll get a bit of a paradox on what to do with Jean and Scott (and Xavier, for that matter) but there's plenty of ways to address that - both from Canon and "artistic liberty" if you will. Scott was wasted simply because of the egos in Hollywood; He took that small role in Superman Returns (that was QUITE the cluster, BTW) and so his character was going to be wasted no matter what - Brett Ratner is petty like that.

A Last Stand movie without Phoenix eliminates the biggest gripe about the movie, while hitting the good parts of the movie - that movie could have been better received.

[AlexGreen#20]

17 minutes ago, ET80 said:

I guess...one take that I could get out of it is that they could have hit on the same "good parts" of the story without Phoenix.

If you removed the Phoenix storyline, you'd still have a compelling story about the Mutant Registration act/Mutant Cure, the rise of the Brotherhood as the opposition to the X-Men, could have focused on Storm taking over as the leader of the team... Granted, you'll get a bit of a paradox on what to do with Jean and Scott (and Xavier, for that matter) but there's plenty of ways to address that - both from Canon and "artistic liberty" if you will. Scott was wasted simply because of the egos in Hollywood; He took that small role in Superman Returns (that was QUITE the cluster, BTW) and so his character was going to be wasted no matter what - Brett Ratner is petty like that.

A Last Stand movie without Phoenix eliminates the biggest gripe about the movie, without hitting the good parts of the movie - that could have been better received.

Working Storm in as leader was always going to be next to impossible with the three you mentioned already there. 

I thought they did good work with the cure without getting preachy. I'm not sure more screentime would have necessarily made that better. The way they contrasted Rogue with the rest of the X-Men (and got the abortion message in) I thought was extremely well done. 

Scott had problems beyond the political. They had too many great actors to give an average one screen time. 

While I think that movie was far from perfect, that was an ambitious film, and I have a hard time getting on them for not trying to do more.

[43M]

5 hours ago, AlexGreen#20 said:

Working Storm in as leader was always going to be next to impossible with the three you mentioned already there. 

I thought they did good work with the cure without getting preachy. I'm not sure more screentime would have necessarily made that better. The way they contrasted Rogue with the rest of the X-Men (and got the abortion message in) I thought was extremely well done. 

Scott had problems beyond the political. They had too many great actors to give an average one screen time. 

While I think that movie was far from perfect, that was an ambitious film, and I have a hard time getting on them for not trying to do more.

I dont think anyone is arguing they should've done more....more like they should have done LESS.  As @ET80 stated, take out the Phoenix storyline and you would have a more focused story that didnt butcher and waste a beloved comic arc.  If there needed to be a secondary story, they could have gone a different way. However, I think just expanding the cure storyline and the war between mutants and humans and the XMen trying to restore order would be perfectly fine.