THE MEN OF THE X VARIETY AND OTHER FOX BS (spoilers)

[FilmNerdJamie]

I gotta defend Jones here. They needed an ice-blooded bitch for Frost, and that's exactly what she gave it. She might be terrible in other stuff (Wouldn't know since I've only seen her in this and on Mad Men), but she was fine here.

[Matt]

She wasn't 'ice blooded', though...she was a block of wood with absolutely zero presence or range to her. ZIP. NADA. I've seen summer-stock actors with more ability. Her rack is the only thing getting her work.

[Martin]

Just came back from seeing this. I really enjoyed it, but it felt like it was missing about 5-10 minutes of plot to really make the characters come alive, especially Magneto. His character felt fully developed one minute and then minimalized the next; I wanted more philosophical shit, because I really REALLY dug the relationship between Charles and Erik. It's fully formed and believable, and the scenes between them where they're just TALKING are completely enthralling.

I rank it above X2 for the simple fact that Vaughn knows how to do a fight scene.

Same here. I rewatched X-men and X2 this weekend, and First Class is the best. If anything, X-men deserves praise for starting the superhero movie craze again, in a much better way.

[BillyG]

I gotta defend Jones here. They needed an ice-blooded bitch for Frost, and that's exactly what she gave it. She might be terrible in other stuff (Wouldn't know since I've only seen her in this and on Mad Men), but she was fine here.

Yeah, she's terrible, and she was basically the exact same character from Mad Men, but it worked fine for Frost.

[Anderson]

Hell yeah, Genosha. Since the timeline is all over the place, maybe they'd use something like that in the sequel. It'd be a nice change of tone as well, so there's no retread of what happened here. They could explain Xavier rescuing some young major players for his team there also. Kind of like they tried to do with Wolverine, except good.

Ruckus, I'm barely tracking your issue with the movie aside from "It's not like the comics." Singer's pacing was arguably better, but he seemed to deal with less plot threads and character arcs.

Missing the point of what I said. I'm saying that they have a world of material to develop a film worthy franchise. What they're doing is building a film based on a 1/3rd character and the rest is formulaic plot movement. There's no oomph. It's visual pop with no support outside of paper-thin basics.


Still, it was well directed. It's just that the script suffered from six different writers (four credited) who fought over where the film would go. Hell, the whole project started in 2008 with Singer saying he wanted to do a Silver Age film. That's about all he did. He said keep in the 1960s and work off X1 and 2 ignoring the other films.

[FilmNerdJamie]

I give more props to Singer for making this work than Vaughn.

[Anderson]

I give more props to Singer for making this work than Vaughn.

I have a problem with that, since Singer was kind of hands-off. Vaughn really worked his ass off and he's forming a tighter creative unit with Goldman.

In a really weird way, some of the Batman Begins comparisons are apt. As both productions were eventually forced to use elements that had already been bought and paid by the time a creative team was cemented.

Would I like to see a sequel? Sure, but the finances have to be there for this to happen.

[Matt]

Also, I know that everyone is busy sucking Fassbender's cock at the moment, but McAvoy is JUST AS GOOD in this as Fassbender. Seriously. He went up quite a few notches in my book.

Also, the big CAMEO? That was PERFECT, and it earned huge laughs from my theater audience. 'Get the fuck away from me' indeed...

[Nathan]

Just gonna leave this here

[FilmNerdJamie]

I have a problem with that, since Singer was kind of hands-off. Vaughn really worked his ass off and he's forming a tighter creative unit with Goldman.

In a really weird way, some of the Batman Begins comparisons are apt. As both productions were eventually forced to use elements that had already been bought and paid by the time a creative team was cemented.

Would I like to see a sequel? Sure, but the finances have to be there for this to happen.

I loved it but even I don't want a sequel frankly. And I've been hearing fanboys trying to spin these numbers and say how it's "guaranteed" all weekend long.

[Matt]

This doesn't NEED a sequel.

Also, I must have completely missed the memo that said that we're totally ignoring the existence of X3 in this continuity. WOW. Was that Singer's influence or what?

[FilmNerdJamie]

If the intention from the start was to reboot, then yeah totally go for a sequel. But it's crystal clear they chose to adhere to Singer's continuity. They told a complete story. Yeah...there's like a 40-50 year gap between First Class and X-Men (since it's set in the "not-too-distant future"), but they'd be pressing their luck to push further in this direction.

And...do we really wanna see Fassbender essentially do the Pryde of the X-Men Magneto because that's where he was going from the looks of it.

[Captain Russ]

All signs point toward Juggernaut Cat morphing into Magneto Cat

[Anderson]

If the intention from the start was to reboot, then yeah totally go for a sequel. But it's crystal clear they chose to adhere to Singer's continuity. They told a complete story. Yeah...there's like a 40-50 year gap between First Class and X-Men (since it's set in the "not-too-distant future"), but they'd be pressing their luck to push further in this direction.

And...do we really wanna see Fassbender essentially do the Pryde of the X-Men Magneto because that's where he was going from the looks of it.

Again, there's more material than what the average public has seen. You can do Magneto vs. the Russians. Magneto discovering The Savage Land. Magneto finding his kids (which probably won't happen. Rights issues to Pietro and Wanda belong to Marvel/Disney). Do a pastiche of Days of Future Past. Use Magneto on Genosha.

Hell, if they can't use Magneto's kids...they could always say Legion is his kid. Then, you've got the whole Gabi Haller angle plus dangerous mutant kid that can't control his powers.

I'll drop Wiki-links for background.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legion_(Marvel_Comics)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabrielle_Haller
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genosha
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Savage_Land

I was looking for some background on Uncanny 150 to share, but Wiki doesn't have any.

[FilmNerdJamie]

Said on the podcast yesterday (should be up...Wednesday-ish) if they were to go for a sequel they could either continue with the 60s or take each one into a new decade. Have a 70s-era First Class sequel with a more The Spy Who Loved Me angle.