I will not be seeing the movie, "X-men : Days of Future Past", for a few weeks after its release rendez-vous amoureux, date as per usual for me. Giving the theaters time to clear out and all that. However, when thinking about it, I realized that I was both extremely excited and nervous for this movie and I wondered why.
Potential. This movie has a lot of it and the fate of the rest of the series is riding on this movie. Let's review the series history for a second.
X-men - This movie started not only the X-men series, but also the boom of the superhero movie. It was a good movie, but it wasn't mind blowingly great. It was a fantastic starting point though, as proved by...
X2 : X-men United - At the very least, Singer understood what he was doing with the X-men he had. He knew the X-men were relecutantly willing to rejoindre Magneto on certain circumstances and he knew the Phoenix saga. He pulled off this sequel with less of a bang, plus of a boom. The ending wasn't as much of a twist as it was emotional. It was a brilliant movie, which still left some wiggle room for a final installment.
X-men: The Last Stand - Ratner, why?!! This movie divided fans and left a bad taste in the series' mouth which it has never fully recovered from. This movie marked the beginning of the downfall and the beginning of what Days of Future Past would attempt to solve. Most of the trouble was attributed to the bad ripoff of Phoenix, too many characters, and poor screenwriting.
X-men Origins : Wolverine - Hello spin-off #1. This movie gave Wolverine fans what they wanted, but unfortunately in a disappointing way. Nothing was as it seemed. It was like X-men had taken a bad trip. There were a few people who enjoyed the movie, but most fans of X were rather disappointed and angry about this.
X-men: First Class - Now, at first glance, this was a good film and felt like what it was supposed to be : A prequel X-men film. But upon multiple viewings, many of the fans began to notice what others noticed the first time. It didn't fit. The continuity was all messed up after this, conflicting heavily with X-men: The Last Stand.
The Wolverine - Hello spin-off #2! Again, a Wolverine central film, it was actually pretty agreed upon par the X-audience to be a damn good film. It oozed comic/Japan-Wolvie. It was a nice movie and gave us the final piece of the things Singer would have needed for Days of Future Past.
Excited :
Obviously I'm excited first of all because it is a new addition to the series, but that alone isn't enough. We've had sequels, prequels, spin-offs and the like, but I've never felt this excited about it.
Like I've already stated, this movie has lots of potential. Days of Future Past is one of the most iconic and emotional X-men storylines over their long years, and it led to even better characters, like Rachel Summers and Nimrod. That means it unlocks many plus potential movie plots.
Also, the character liste looks interesting. Not only are there old favoris for the apocalyptic future like Iceman and Shadowcat, and favoris from First Class like Havok and Beast, but new faces as well (Quicksilver, Blink, Warpath, Sunspot, etc.). The X-men are made of many faces and it's always fun to see plus rejoindre the crowd.
It would also help give some finality to the crap shoot many of us saw in the films since X2. It's going to bring everything together.
People are comparing this to The Avengers, calling it the X-men's version. However...
Nervous :
One of the haut, retour au début things that makes me nervous is this franchises record with characters. The X-men are known for their wide usage of mutants. It's one of the things toi can expect if toi read them, that you'll meet someone knew within a few issues.
One of the main problems of The Last Stand was attributed to having too many new characters involved. I think this may have some serious weight to it. Let's look at The Avengers a moment.
The movie was hugely successful and was a really good movie, BUT the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a franchise. One of the reasons they were successful was how they connected all of these movies. How many main characters in The Avengers actually needed introductions.
Iron Man? No. Hulk? No. Thor? No. Captain America? No. Black Widow? No. Nick Fury? No. Coulson? No. Selvig? No. Loki? No. Who are we left with? Hawkeye (who we had a cameo of), Maria Hill, and the Chitauri, none of which really needed deep exposure. That movie also used much of the time to use all of the characters equally.
First, it's pretty damn obvious that not all of the characters in X-men are used equally. It's a sad truth, but one that doesn't look like will be fixed in DOFP, especially since they had Wolverine take Kitty's spot. It may work in their favor, but I'm a little tired of metal claws.
Second, many of these characters we don't know. Some we know, but we don't know. The fact that it looks like we won't know them and it's mostly going to be fighting, Wolverine, and emotion, not necessarily in that order.
Conclusion :
I'm not sure what to think about this film until I see it. Part of me doesn't want to see it because I don't want to be disappointed, but most of me knows I will see it anyway.
Potential. This movie has a lot of it and the fate of the rest of the series is riding on this movie. Let's review the series history for a second.
X-men - This movie started not only the X-men series, but also the boom of the superhero movie. It was a good movie, but it wasn't mind blowingly great. It was a fantastic starting point though, as proved by...
X2 : X-men United - At the very least, Singer understood what he was doing with the X-men he had. He knew the X-men were relecutantly willing to rejoindre Magneto on certain circumstances and he knew the Phoenix saga. He pulled off this sequel with less of a bang, plus of a boom. The ending wasn't as much of a twist as it was emotional. It was a brilliant movie, which still left some wiggle room for a final installment.
X-men: The Last Stand - Ratner, why?!! This movie divided fans and left a bad taste in the series' mouth which it has never fully recovered from. This movie marked the beginning of the downfall and the beginning of what Days of Future Past would attempt to solve. Most of the trouble was attributed to the bad ripoff of Phoenix, too many characters, and poor screenwriting.
X-men Origins : Wolverine - Hello spin-off #1. This movie gave Wolverine fans what they wanted, but unfortunately in a disappointing way. Nothing was as it seemed. It was like X-men had taken a bad trip. There were a few people who enjoyed the movie, but most fans of X were rather disappointed and angry about this.
X-men: First Class - Now, at first glance, this was a good film and felt like what it was supposed to be : A prequel X-men film. But upon multiple viewings, many of the fans began to notice what others noticed the first time. It didn't fit. The continuity was all messed up after this, conflicting heavily with X-men: The Last Stand.
The Wolverine - Hello spin-off #2! Again, a Wolverine central film, it was actually pretty agreed upon par the X-audience to be a damn good film. It oozed comic/Japan-Wolvie. It was a nice movie and gave us the final piece of the things Singer would have needed for Days of Future Past.
Excited :
Obviously I'm excited first of all because it is a new addition to the series, but that alone isn't enough. We've had sequels, prequels, spin-offs and the like, but I've never felt this excited about it.
Like I've already stated, this movie has lots of potential. Days of Future Past is one of the most iconic and emotional X-men storylines over their long years, and it led to even better characters, like Rachel Summers and Nimrod. That means it unlocks many plus potential movie plots.
Also, the character liste looks interesting. Not only are there old favoris for the apocalyptic future like Iceman and Shadowcat, and favoris from First Class like Havok and Beast, but new faces as well (Quicksilver, Blink, Warpath, Sunspot, etc.). The X-men are made of many faces and it's always fun to see plus rejoindre the crowd.
It would also help give some finality to the crap shoot many of us saw in the films since X2. It's going to bring everything together.
People are comparing this to The Avengers, calling it the X-men's version. However...
Nervous :
One of the haut, retour au début things that makes me nervous is this franchises record with characters. The X-men are known for their wide usage of mutants. It's one of the things toi can expect if toi read them, that you'll meet someone knew within a few issues.
One of the main problems of The Last Stand was attributed to having too many new characters involved. I think this may have some serious weight to it. Let's look at The Avengers a moment.
The movie was hugely successful and was a really good movie, BUT the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a franchise. One of the reasons they were successful was how they connected all of these movies. How many main characters in The Avengers actually needed introductions.
Iron Man? No. Hulk? No. Thor? No. Captain America? No. Black Widow? No. Nick Fury? No. Coulson? No. Selvig? No. Loki? No. Who are we left with? Hawkeye (who we had a cameo of), Maria Hill, and the Chitauri, none of which really needed deep exposure. That movie also used much of the time to use all of the characters equally.
First, it's pretty damn obvious that not all of the characters in X-men are used equally. It's a sad truth, but one that doesn't look like will be fixed in DOFP, especially since they had Wolverine take Kitty's spot. It may work in their favor, but I'm a little tired of metal claws.
Second, many of these characters we don't know. Some we know, but we don't know. The fact that it looks like we won't know them and it's mostly going to be fighting, Wolverine, and emotion, not necessarily in that order.
Conclusion :
I'm not sure what to think about this film until I see it. Part of me doesn't want to see it because I don't want to be disappointed, but most of me knows I will see it anyway.