FF:WA X-Men 3 Meet - Who's In?

Steve, Aaron and myself all made it tonight.

Was kinda weird only having about 8 people in the cinema. I quite liked the film, I went in expecting a completely unbelievable popcorn flick with some good laughs, and thats what I got.

May have been a completely different film if Singer was running the show, but it was still good anyway.

The problem with these adaptations is they are being watered down for the morons that know nothing of the original concepts.

I dont know much about X Men or most of the other superhero stuff. For me it has been always over the top, and very idealistic looking people in skin tight outfit which have a place in bondage/fetish arenas.

Recently I watched V for Vendetta and I LOVE IT. Not long after I got the graphic novel of the V and the film became a very pale contrast.

In the case of both these films, the morons of the world dont take into consideration the nuances and for lack of a better word, "meaty" content. They dont get anything apart from "OOOh some dude can shoot ice or fire outta his hands"

I would see the movie just to see Anna Pacquin and Famke Janssen alone, but I'll leave it to the fans, or the morons to make this francise sink or swim.

Symm

It's franchise, and if you followed the comics to the letter when making that movie, it just wouldn't have worked. Especially the skin tight bright blue costumes. eeck!

And to that end, remember X1?

Wolverine:(fidgeting with the collar of his black catsuit) You guys actually go out in these things?
Cyclops: Well, what would you prefer? Yellow spandex?

4. Ian Mckellen's characterisation along with Wolverine was all wrong. He's not evil- he's supposed to be the Malcolm X to Charles' Martin Luther King Jr. He wouldn't dump his lover for being human, nor would he refer to his mutant brothers as pawns.

There I'd have to disagree. Magneto routinely disposes of mutants who are of no further use to him; his kidnapping of Rogue in X1 necessarily has that endpoint. When he tells the X-Men his plans to unite the world's leaders as mutants, Wolverine counters along the lines that "If you were really so righteous, it'd be you in that machine, not her." Magneto makes no reply to that but simply departs. In X2 he doesn't free Jason Stryker or Xavier, but simply reverses Cerebro 2 to make it target humans rather than mutants, then leaves them to die.

Magneto does retain some humanity in the sense that he regrets Xavier's death as an old friend, but at the same time he makes no attempt to stop it happening, once again capitalising on the event for his own purpose: the dominance of the brotherhood. We feel empathy for Magneto because of his background, his motivation, his drive and focus on his goal, but it doesn't make him any less evil, or amoral. He simply disposes of people who are of no further use to him, which is what happened in Mystique's case. Magneto by the time of X3 has no room in his heart for love; it's implied he sees it as a weakness, and secondary to his goal. Mystique might drape herself over him and make it look like she loves him, but his own attitude to her doesn't reflect that; he might have room for lust, but love's another matter. As for the 'pawns' remark: that might be just Magneto being metaphorical, but I think again he is, in character, using people to achieve his own goal. To that end I think Ian McKellen has the character right bang on.

I liked it.
Realistically, just about any movie I've seen which is based on a novel or comic series I like has always been dumbed down. Typically there is far too much emphasis placed on adding more action which often introduces all sort of plot holes that didn't exist in the original. I'm not talking about shortening the story to make it work in a short movie but more about completely changing parts of the story and making entirely new parts that don't fit with the rest of it. For example, I'm a big fan of Tom Clancy and the only one of his books that I think was made in to a good movie was Hunt for Red October. Wasn't impressed with the others since they took far too many liberties with the story for my liking when I thought the original stories would have made far better movies. I know I've been flamed before for criticising LOTR but I think that's another perfect example of that. I think generally the only way you can possibly make a movie work well for a wider audience while still being faithful to the original is to have the author directly involved like in the Harry Potter movies. That's not feasible in cases like LOTR and Narnia where the author's no longer alive so you'll always get fans of the original who aren't happy with it. With x-men that's even less of a possibility since AFAIK there's no one author in charge of that franchise.
With comics I think it's different from novels though. With comics it's a lot more common to have storyline, characters etc. that are more far fetched than what a novel can get away with. You can see that by contrasting some of the starwars eu novels with the comics. I'm no x'men expert but the x-men comics I've read don't really seem to have the consistency that a series of novels would demand. You get the spinoff series, the crossover series, etc. Some of the ones I've read contradict other ones that I've read. Add the cartoon to that and I think it becomes far less important for the movie to remain consistent since the original source material itself isn't that consistent.

I think some of the complaints about the movie posted above are valid, but I feel that it's not a terribly bad thing that the movie doesn't follow some kind of x-men 'canon'. For the record, my one big complaint was that none of the movies included Gambit who I was really looking forward to seeing on the big screen. Beast rocked though. Psylock would have been good too if they could have found an actress with an impossibly sleek body like that.

Actually, I was watching the credits for X3 (waiting for the big postcredit scene) when I noticed someone was playing Psylocke. I think it was the 'new Mystique' chick with the tattoo who could sense other mutants' powers and phase-shift, but I could be wrong...

I finally went to see this on monday, and I enjoyed it. It's far more action based then the first two movies, but I'm not complaining. There were a few things I would have liked or didn't like, but that's the same with any movie I see these days. Overall though, it was a solid ending to this trilogy, and considering how many characters in the X-Men franchise didn't make it on screen (I'm thinking Gambit and Havoc in particular) then there's plenty more that can be done with it, in the right hands of course.

I think you're right saint. I checked one website and apparently there was a character in there called mystique though she seemed quite different from the comic version, so I guess not many people would have recognised her. She was definately part of that ragtag group so she looked very different. The same website also pointed out that another one briefly seen in the group bore a strong resemblance to gambit which may have been coincidental. Psylocke was an asian looking actress from the picture I saw on the web and didn't have the same powers as the one in the comic. No psi blades etc. Not like beast where he was unmistakable to anyone who knows the comic. I'd be interested in what deleted scenes we might see on the DVD.

Gambit was to have been included, but the actor who was offered the role thought the character was too similar to the role he plays in "Lost" so turned it down. As a result scratch Remy.
Callisto was included although her powers were added to, Quicksilver type speed along with her "sense mutant ability" ability.

still yet to see this filem

So, not being informed of something equates to lower intelligence, as implied by your term "moron"?

Well, you learn something new every day.

Ah, so you're a moron then? Good to know.


Anyway, about the film:

I thought it was ok, but not great. I remember saying I was expecting a huge steaming pile, so I wasn't expecting much in the first place.

I guess this film for me was like going to the dentist for a root canal, and finding out you only had to have a filling.

I can forgive some things, like making all the "bad" mutants look like goths, or the light touch all the characters got, such as the minimal character development. Perhaps Ratner should have asked Bryan Singer how he handled character development in such an ensemble cast? Couldn't have hurt the guy to at least ask for some pointers.

However, that aside, what really bugged me about this film was the cinematography, everything was so flat and centred. I've seen better DOP'ing in TV commercials.

I wouldn't be surprised if there was studio pressure to film this for the US DVD market (Where 4:3 ratio is still, for some unkown reason, a marketable aproach) because this was lensed by the same man who DOP'd Interview with a Vampire.

In any event, this was just 2 hours of brain popcorn, nothing spectacular, memorable or even re-watchable.

A very poor let down after the first two. I bet Fox really misses Singer.

Bring on Superman Returns...

Abso-friggin-lutely.

It seems respectful of Donner and spiteful against Lester! (being that it's supposedly set after Superman the movie and dismisses the dud Salkind hijacked sequels!)

Singer actually pitched his idea for Returns to Donner first, got his blessing, and then went to WB.

I re-watched Superman 2 the other night. It's a relic of an era when blockbuster films were followed up with cheap sequels to maximise return with nothing like the internet for people to tell each other it's crap.

What, you mean like Exorcist and Exorcist 2?

Yes, but nothing like Star Wars and Empire.

EDITED AFTER THE LOCK:

Any reason?

But like Empire and ROTJ! Oh wait, that's eighties...

I still say the worst sequel I've seen is Highlander 2.
I don't know much about the new superman. I've heard it follows on from the older movies but is that all of them? 'Cause I really hope they ignore the 4th one.