X-Men 3 Discussion Thread

An expanded role for Storm may mean she does something very important for the team and pays with her life. I think they would please everybody. Halle Berry would have something to do and her death would mean she won't be coming back for anymore films.

 

Hey everyone, I'm a long time fan of the X-Men, mostly through the early-mid 90s cartoon, although I occasionally pick up a comic.

My main quesiton is why everyone seems to be so opposed to Storm. Admittedly, I didn't think the acting was stellar, but I didn't see it as noticeably worse than anyone's in the film. And I have rather enjoyed the growth of her character, as she deals with the anger/resentment she has for the discrimination she's faced (first w/Senator Kelly, then w/Nightcrawler). It would be nice to see more of that. And she's an interesting character besides.

Now I can see your point about conflicts with the director, except that Cummings (who played Nightcrawler, if I recall) also had issues with Singer, and no one is yelling for his head. I wouldn't mind a larger role for Halle Berry at all.

So what's the story here? Is it just that people don't find the character interesting? Or is it an issue of providing screen time to other characters? Or is it something about Berry (if so, who would you prefer, Gabrielle Union? Tatyana Ali?)? Have you not liked the way the character has been used in the previous films?

Just interested to know what the deal is.

 

I thought Halle Berry was a bad choice. Storm is a strong, african/egyptian woman. She isn't so young and hot. Halle would have been an ok choice if they wanted mohawk storm, but not flowing white hair storm. She doesn't command the respect Storm is entitled to.

 

If Storm has an expanded role, she's probably going to die. I'd also say Jean Grey could come back as Phoenix and then be killed off. The Sex scene is probably Rogue.

 

AICN has posted a script review for X3. You can check it out here if youre curious, but be warned, there are TONS of spoilers in it.

 

Obi-Ben, I would agree, but what alternatives do we have?

Unfortunately, it seems that Hollywood is only aware of the existence of two African-American actresses: Gabrielle Union and Halle Berry. The former is younger, and does lighter fare like romantic comedies or the love interest in Bad Boys II, while the latter does "older" and "more serious" roles.

Neither really seems appropriate here.

Those are the two most "popular" casting choices at the moment, it seems. From there, you're talking about Jada Pinkett, Angela Bassett, etc or getting a complete unknown. And I really can't think of a better fit for Storm among these others.

So, I mean, do you ahve an alternative in mind? Because otherwise, I agree it's not the best, but it's the best we ahve available.

 

I read the AICN review, and to be honest, it didn't sound as bad as everyone's making it out to be. I admit, that first death they described seemed like a WTF moment, totally out of the blue.

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What is the point of having Jean come back if you just kill off her love interest. Is the love triangle supposed to be Storm, Wolverine and Jean? Not interested. Halle says she hates the franchise, just have her be the one and not Cyclops. Then there's so much more in my opinion that could be done with Phoenix, Cyclops and Wolverine. Have Scott step up and lead the team more determined than ever after Xavier dies, if that is indeed him that they hinted at. All in all, this sounded ok, and there's still time to fix it up a bit and give it a polish. I'm worried that the reviewer said he only read the first two acts. Maybe the third one hasn't been written yet?! If that's true, this could be Alien 3 all over again. That bit with Angel trying to cut off his own wings, that's actually quite brilliant. A nice twist on the suicidal kid trying to cut himself. That's pure X-Men.

 

I agree the thing with Jean killing Cyclops seems totally out of the blue and will probably leave a majority of the audience surprised, not to mention pissed off. I also dont really like the whole Wolvie/Storm hook-up.



Like you said, though, its still early enough for them to make some changes between now and the time they actually start filming.

 

Does anyone remember the cartoon arc Titled " One Mans Worth"?
Bishop has to go back in time and rescue Xaiver from hit-men. One the way he stops by a time-line where the X-Men Institute never existed and Magneto was the mutant leader. Storm and Logan were married, and Storm had a mohawk.

And it had perhaps the greatest line ever.
/A bunch of people leave the bar when Storm sits down.
Storm: They are offended by my color? How quaint.

 

Here's the X3 teaser poster.

[image=http://comingsoon.net/nextraimages/x3teasersmall.jpg]

You can download a larger version at Coming Soon.com

 

Thanks for the pic Gobi.

 

Okay. So I read the summary of the first two acts of the film and now I shall express my opinion.

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What in the blue hell is going on with this film!?!? Phoenix killing Cyclops!?!? I do not like this one bit. Are they just not capable of writing for this character? I mean honestly. The first movie gave him a decent amount of screen time and was worked well into the story. Good start for the character. But in the second film he was gutted. He was only in the begining and the end. The general feeling was that he was the casualty for introducing Nightcrawler into the mix. But that was okay because I really thought X3 would focus more on the relationship between Jean and Scott now that Wolverine realizes nothing will happen between he and Jean. But now this? Having Cyclops killed at the end of the first act? By Phoenix of all mutants? This is clearly a case of the writers flat out dumping a character because they don't know what to do with him. Which to comic fans is almost impossible to accept considering this character has been the backbone of the X-Men for over 40 years. There is so much story they could give this character on screen. The love story between Phoenix and Cyclops is one of the most memorable in the history of comics. I just don't understand it and I know the X-Men comic fans won't be pleased. Even if you're not fond of the way James Marsden plays him on screen (I myself wasn't overly impressed but I didn't dislike it), the character itself has so much potential in the future. We can kiss off any possible X-Force movie. No Nathan Summers for the future. Which means no Stryfe. Very little chance of Mr Sinister unless he becomes interested in the Drake Family Tree. I've never heard of a franchise deliberately cutting off potential future storylines like this. And is Jean going to be killed to? Because there's no point in having her around if Cyclops isn't there. She's certainly not ending up with Wolverine.

Now granted the summary of the first two acts was just that, the first two acts. We don't know if Cyclops returns at the end. But even if he wasn't killed and was instead transported to the astral (sp?) plain, it's still a case of them not knowing what to do with the character. I just don't understand it. Someone help me.

As for the other hinted death. I don't find this one so shocking. They were hinting at Professor Xavier dieing and you know what, he's nearly died a couple times in the films. Plus if there was one X-Man people expect to die for the cause, it would be Xavier to save his X-Children. But to kill him off after Cyclops will completely overshadow his death. Killing off two major good guys before the third act is really extreme.

The other problem apparently is Juggernaut and Xaviers relationship. Apparently it's barely (if not at all) mentioned in this film. He's just Magneto's lacky. While I did't mind not diving into Wolverine's relationships with Sabretooth and Lady Deathstrike, this one is really difficult to ignore. Because these two didn't have amnesia. They know they're step brothers.

Storm. Basically taking Cyclops's place as leader. Not good. Not happy. She basically did this in the middle of X2 and I feel that's enough. First she has an accent, then she doesn't. Halle Berry just isn't Storm. She's Halle Berry. You work in her claustrophobia and maybe something about the Shadow King eventually but after there's not much left. So they decided to kill Cyclops off, have her take his place, and give her a romance with Wolverine when the focus should be on the romance between Phoenix and Cyclops for X3. Talk about missing the target completely.

Then there's this serum. Another plot to turn Mutants into Humans or Humans into mutants. Been there, done that. Bring on the Sentinels. It's time for the humans to get serious about ridding themselves of the mutant problem. Also Sentinels assure us of more action where as a serum doesn't. Maybe they can have both, but at least bring in the Sentinels with Master

 

Earlier in this thread I said that normally script rewrites are never a good thing, but in this case I think that everyone involved would only benefit from just about a complete overhaul.

 

We don't know if Cyclops returns at the end. But even if he wasn't killed and was instead transported to the astral (sp?) plain, it's still a case of them not knowing what to do with the character. I just don't understand it. Someone help me.

I think it's not that they can't write for Cyclops, he's just not as interesting as a character on film. Wolverine's character is much more interesting, and they decided to lay the focus on the series on him, and I'm fine with that, I'm not a purist. Cyclops is fine for a background character, but for a 2 hour film, or even a 6 hour series, just isn't interesting. His character has been done before, but a character like Wolverine doesn't come along very often.

 

*continuing the spoiler discussion*




They could make the character interesting, especially by focusing on his relationship with Jean, and maybe the stresses of X-Men leadership, which in the first movie didn't seem terribly challenging or dramatic. He was given some nice conflict in X2, but not while leading a team into a situation. They could take something like that and flesh out his character nicely.


I don't understand the limited appearance of Juggernaut. I thought the new director brought him in because he felt that the dynamic of Juggernaut being Professor X's brother was intriguing. That makes no sense at all.


I'm hoping that this is a modified script, intentionally leaked to throw off the masses.

 

Just checking if anybody knows yet on who will play angel.

Love Grammer as beast. If they can pull it off, it would be great if beast wasnt cgi but made up the same way as hellboy was.

Someone please agree with me that Adrien Brody would be perfect as gambit.

 

I personally like Josh Holloway (Sawyer on 'Lost') myself.

 

Right there with you!

I believe that, after what's happened in Lost, Holloway will find more and more job offerings.

I am a straight man, and I believe it is safe to say, "Sawyer is my favorite character on Lost"

 

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I think they could easily make Cyclops's character interesting. I agree that he shouldn't be the main hero. Wolverine should get that spot. But killing off the character is not the answer. Then having his death overshadowed half and hour later by the death of Professor X. I know they can do better than this. I've seen X1 and X2. With Phoenix coming, X3 should have been a movie where this character shined. There's alot of story potential between the two characters. He should be the one to stop Phoenix or be a large factor in her downfall. From what we've read in the summary, he's her first victim.

As for who plays Angel, I'm guessing it will be someone younger than Josh Halloway from Lost who is 36. Not a teenager though. Someone in their 20's. Besides, they already have an actress from Lost playing a character (Maggie Grace as Shadowcat). People might think the casting director is somewhat lazy.


EDIT: I am still so pissed with the apparent script of this film I had to edit this post to rant more.

At the very least, if they absolutely have to kill this character, they should have him die at the end in some heroic fashion. Like Jean. Build there love story up throughout the film. Make the audience understand why she chose Cyclops at the end of X2. Make that plot worth more than they're granting it in X3.

Then there's the lack of Sentinels. This part is starting to bother me. With X1 it was quite understandable why there weren't any. The focus needed to be on Magneto and the budget wasn't so great. With X2, we thought maybe they'd enter the picture since according to Magneto "A war is coming." But instead we got one mad human experimenting. Not bad. But now is the time. Though President McKenna at the end of X2 seemed to have been convinced by Professor X, I feel there should be more human politicians ready to act violently. Not with a serum again. This time with Sentinels. We know that computer animation can create them. Robots are alot simpler to create than organic humanlike cgi characters. I really feel the audience is ready for the rise of the Sentinels. I wonder why they haven't gone forward with this plot. What is holding them back?


EDIT 2: Now that I've vented and have somewhat calmed down, it appears as though the AICN script may very well be 4 months old and has gone through changes. But still elements from this version of the script probably remain. I just hope the deaths are altered, the serum plot was dropped, and Sentinels are added.

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I for one don't want to see another film based almost entirely on Wolverine. This is "X-Men", not "Wolverine and some of his buddies".

I'm pretty damn pissed off for a few reasons:

• The plot seems to be craptacular


• Cyke is one of my favourite characters. OK, so he's pretty boring in the films, but the writers of Ultimate X-Men (The only X-Men comic I read, though I haven't read the past 20 or so issues) have already proven they can make him a pretty cool character, what with him blasting Wolverine pretty damn badly after Wolvie leaves him for dead (why not incorporate that cool little scene somewhere?)


• I didn't see Pyro or Nightcrawler mentioned anywhere


• Killing off Cyke. This pisses me off so much that it needs to be mentioned twice


• Storm taking over as leader? No way! I don't like Storm. I actually don't have a problem with Halle Berry, I've just never liked the character - even long before the movies came out.

I seriously hope this guy is a fake, or else the film is gonna be craptacular.

 

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As I said in my third edit as the above poster was posting, the AICN script appears to be at least 4 months old according to official sources. A rough draft that isn't the shooting script. So stuff has changed. Whether or not Cyclops's death was part of those changes remains to be seen. I and many others hope so.

Now that I think about it, James Marsden is in Superman Returns. It's possible that when that draft of the script was written, they weren't certain of his availability for the next flick and thought they could get away with killing him off for shock value. Also the execs may have felt it would be a good jab at an actor thinking he could appear in both comic franchises. I wouldn't put it past it being something as petty as that.

As for Wolverine being the main character, I don't have a problem with this. While he's not my favorite character in the comics, I feel on screen this character connects most to the audience and realize he has to be in the forefront for the film to work. He should still be involved in the love triangle when Phoenix returns but obviously not in a way that overshadows the love story between Cyclops and Phoenix. He should also still be a father-like figure to Rogue. In the 4 month old rough draft, they put him in a relationship with Storm which I felt was a mistake since it seemed like it basically replaced the love story that should be the main focus of the film. But there are still plenty of ways to keep him in the film. Have him still interact with Mystique. Have him be a teacher at the school. Give him some cool action sequences.

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I recommended Josh Holloway to play Gambit, not Angel.

 

Nightcrawler NOT in X3

AlanCumming.com is reporting that Fox has NOT picked up his option to play Nightcrawler in X3. So no Nightcrawler. I guess he just went back to the circus. Or they're getting another actor to play him. Though that would be ridiculous and I give them more credit than that. So he's just basically not in X3.

So what does that mean? Not sure. The AICN summary mentioned nothing of Nightcrawler. But that was a 4 month old script. Though it looks like nothings changed. Honestly I don't really care per say. I mean at least we got to see him and there are plenty of other X-Men to show. But another part of me somehow feels like he ate up too much screen time in X2 to not not return. This will make the first main character in the X-Men franchise to not return and not have been given a visual reason why they're not returning.

It's too bad they couldn't at least have given him a cameo in X3. It also kinda takes away from that feeling of the X-Men team growing. Like one day they'll be together in the end fighting one villain.

I was honestly looking forward to the movie having an X-Men Team in X3 of...

Professor Charles Xavier
Wolverine
Phoenix
Cyclops
Storm
Rogue
Iceman
Beast
Angel
Shadowcat
Colossus
Nightcrawler
Jubilee
and Gambit

Looks like we're one X-Man too many in the shooting script. I wonder which others are not appearing. I fear for Colossus.

 

Hmm, no Nightcrawler, eh ? Interesting. I wonder how they'll explain hsi absence on-screen ?

Either way X3 is starting to look like a real cluster****.