As tough as it was, being an X-Men fan from the '70s, I went to see the movie...taking the advice of others in these forums to simply 'just ignore whatever doesn't fit and go on with my life'.
With that mentality, the film was good. I enjoyed the movie's flow and it's underlying theme of "mutant, and proud of it". It kept moving, was entertaining, and had enough of a hook for some characters to actually make you want to see how said characters would develop in the move (Mystique/Raven, and Magneto/Erik, for example).
In regards to Shaw, I think they could've done more with him; he seemed a bit 2-dimensional. I know Kevin Bacon isn't an A-list actor and they were scripting to his strengths, but I think he could've put off a more air of villany and emotion in the non-WWII parts of the movie.
As has been said, before you go to see this movie, drop your premise of continuity and lore, whether comic or movie canon, and simply enjoy it as it seemed to be made; another great Hollywood tale of the X-Men that unfortunately doesn't have the legs for Marvel's canon or legacy. You'll enjoy the movie a lot more.
Personally, deep down, I am disappointed that canon and lore were tossed out the window, with only the basic idealizations of a a mish-mosh of the X-Men and mutants (some only seen in the comics in the late 90s to early 00s) representing the iconic first step of Xavier's X-Men, but, Hollywood, in its usual 'creative' way, continues to produce the X-characters as merely play-things to contrive their own movie and plot around, allowing the vaguest version of original X-Men continuity (movie or comics) and lore to have any form of premise (i.e., yes, Xavier and Magneto were friends before enemies; yes, the modified Blackbird was the original X-Plane; yes, Xavier had ties to the CIA back in the day; yes, Beast's furry image was a result of Hank trying to modify the X-Gene for his purposes; all the rest is Hollywood).
TLDR version: As others have said, go into the movie with X-Men lore and continuity tossed out the window and simply enjoy this unique nature of this X-Men tale.
Seeing the cover of X-Men: First Class, it reminds me of something I wondered when I saw the movie.
Why does Beast have messed up feet? In the comics his feet were bigger than normal for sure, but they looked human, only larger.
In the movie they felt the need to make them look beastial.
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Considering X3 and XO:W were horrible movies that nearly destroyed the franchise, I'm fine with them ignoring anything from those movies. Why would you WANT that continuity to be kept??|
Originally Posted by Inazuma
Something I just realized...
First Class has Emma Frost, a full grown woman, in 1962. Origins: Wolverine has her as a younger version, in her teens. That would place O:W before First Class, logically. Yet it also had teen Cyclops in it, who is still a young man in the modern day X films. Also, it blames the Three Mile Island disaster on the O:W events, which happened in 1979. My brain hurts now. |
And while Hank does make an appearance in X2, I can forgive he fact that they probably never conceived of a prequel being an option.
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Originally Posted by Amy_Amp
It's a movie that couldn't even get the the X-Men:First Class team right.
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@Rylas
Kill 'em all. Let XP sort 'em out.
"Comic Book Continuity" has been an oxymoron for a long, long time.
Reboot. Ugh. Reboot. Meh. Reboot.
It comes as no surprise that the movie gurus are mixing and matching to suit their fancies, as opposed to continuity. That has been going on a long, long time.
DC has been a far bigger offender than Marvel, and it is not like anyone on the creative teams has worried about what I would like anyway.
Anyone seen Superman's trunks anywhere?
(I suppose I should be grateful that they did not decide to reboot him a la Dr. Manhattan.) 
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I'll just leave this here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multive...nate_universes
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Originally Posted by Rylas
Considering X3 and XO:W were horrible movies that nearly destroyed the franchise, I'm fine with them ignoring anything from those movies. Why would you WANT that continuity to be kept??
And while Hank does make an appearance in X2, I can forgive he fact that they probably never conceived of a prequel being an option. Since Cyclops and Jean are too young in the previous movies to be kids in the 60's, I'm not sure of a feasible way to pull that off. |
Simple. Same way J.J. Abrams did Star Trek. Complete reboot. Ignore the first 4 movies completely and just push the reset button. They could still do the whole Bay of Pigs 60's angle, just do it with the actual First Class and then you can build from there in the future. Handwave the age thing if you have to in the upcoming sequels, comics have been doing it since the 30s (mutants age differently, whatever), throw in some other characters to fill out the story if needed....which you could do at this point, as there's no-one that would predate them (the way Havok does Cyclops in this movie) well, don't throw in characters that are supposed to be the children of the characters already in....so that leaves out Nightcrawler, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, and I think Legion..and maybe Cable and Rachel Summers (damn time-travel)
What's that? Too confusing? They're doing it with Spidey, so I don't know why they felt beholden to even try to acknowledge the complete mess that the first 4 movies made of things
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I'm pretty sure that Wolverine: Origins, mess that it was, is now considered outside the "Singerverse"
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Don't have the main focus be in the 60's, or at least add them in where their ages would be appropriate.
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Originally Posted by Rylas
Since Cyclops and Jean are too young in the previous movies to be kids in the 60's, I'm not sure of a feasible way to pull that off.
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Keep what you can, throw away the rest. Reboots and restarts are always like that, especially in comic books. The whole concept of Hypertime in the DC universe was originally intended to make sense of all the crazy contradictions by saying that in a sense everything we've ever read actually happened, but not in a way you can linearly chronologize. It happens in the same sense we know (or at least Watterson has described) what happens in Calvin and Hobbes happens, but not in a way we can reconcile with reality. Calvin sees Hobbes alive and Calvin's parents see Calvin playing with Hobbes, and both realities are supposed to be correct. Similarly, all the myriad events that have happened to Batman, Superman, Spiderman, and the X-Men are supposed to have happened because those events inform us about the characters in important ways. But they can't have all happened within a linear chronology or they are sometimes ultimately contradictory. Sometimes the stories attempt to explain this with alternate timelines or dimensions or magic. But those are post hoc explanations for the artistic rationale, which is simply keep what you can, eliminate the rest.
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Originally Posted by Furio
Simple. Same way J.J. Abrams did Star Trek. Complete reboot. Ignore the first 4 movies completely and just push the reset button. They could still do the whole Bay of Pigs 60's angle, just do it with the actual First Class and then you can build from there in the future. Handwave the age thing if you have to in the upcoming sequels, comics have been doing it since the 30s (mutants age differently, whatever), throw in some other characters to fill out the story if needed....which you could do at this point, as there's no-one that would predate them (the way Havok does Cyclops in this movie) well, don't throw in characters that are supposed to be the children of the characters already in....so that leaves out Nightcrawler, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, and I think Legion..and maybe Cable and Rachel Summers (damn time-travel)
What's that? Too confusing? They're doing it with Spidey, so I don't know why they felt beholden to even try to acknowledge the complete mess that the first 4 movies made of things |
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I think the timing of the 60s works better. It seems more suited a time (age wise) for Charles and Eric to make the choices they ultimately make. Seeing as Eric is a survivor of the holocaust, that kind of narrows that "age of discovery" window.
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Originally Posted by Amy_Amp
Don't have the main focus be in the 60's, or at least add them in where their ages would be appropriate.
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@Rylas
Kill 'em all. Let XP sort 'em out.
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Like the 2001 Space Odyssey books.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
...which is simply keep what you can, eliminate the rest.
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@Rylas
Kill 'em all. Let XP sort 'em out.
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Trek 2009 isn't a reboot, it's an alternate timeline which shares a common past with the Original Trek timeline (in which I include TNG-era, not just The Original Series), since the timeline didn't split until Nero's attack on Kirk Senior's ship.|
Originally Posted by Furio
Simple. Same way J.J. Abrams did Star Trek. Complete reboot.
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Guess what that common past is.
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The end result of what they did *is* a reboot. They were just considerate enough to add some plotline handwavium. They can continue forward with those movies and completely ignore anything that happened in anything that already has the ST name on it.
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Originally Posted by DarkGob
Trek 2009 isn't a reboot, it's an alternate timeline which shares a common past with the Original Trek timeline (in which I include TNG-era, not just The Original Series), since the timeline didn't split until Nero's attack on Kirk Senior's ship.
Guess what that common past is. |
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He finally figured out how to put his underwear on under his tights.|
Originally Posted by Melancton
Anyone seen Superman's trunks anywhere?
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Then again, he is super-intelligent.
(Honestly, i don't have any problems with them finally discarding that 1930s-circus-strongman red trunks over blue tights look. At least then the fights will be less embarrassing for Man Bull. "So awkward. Can't. Stop. Glancing. At. Red. Groin.")
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I'm not sure why people are hung up over the X-men continuity. It's not like any movie series has ever paid any attention to that before, or any comics for that matter. It would be cool if artists respected the previous work and built upon it -- that's one of the reasons James Cameron's Aliens is as awesome as it is: he took the events of the original movie and added to it. But then he did an about-face and violated his own universe for Terminator 2. So, yeah, expecting continuity is a fruitless endeavor. You just have to take these as individual stories in and of themselves.
That's one of the reasons why the Marvel Cycle is so cool: no one's ever done an interconnected series of films that take into account each other's stories and characters.
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Does that mean they still have to acknowledge the first two seasons of Enterprise, which didn't have the Star Trek name on them? |
Originally Posted by Furio
The end result of what they did *is* a reboot. They were just considerate enough to add some plotline handwavium. They can continue forward with those movies and completely ignore anything that happened in anything that already has the ST name on it.
|
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When could they *not* completely ignore anything that happened with the ST name on it that was inconvenient? Like when they invented a Borg queen for Star Trek First Contact? Or retconed Zephram Cochrane as being from Earth rather than Alpha Centauri? Or invented a whole new previously non-existent Starship Enterprise for Enterprise that was apparently pivotal to the birth of the Federation, except no one seems to have remembered that. The entire animated series is considered non-canon, except the parts that are (i.e. the parts DC Fontana wrote for Spock, just because). Scotty thinks Kirk has come to rescue him in TNG, the guy he thinks he saw die in Generations? They even retconed Star Trek to launch DS9 by making Sisko a survivor of the Wolf 359 fleet. The same fleet the Enterprise flew through in TNG apparently totally destroyed. You'd think they might have mentioned there were survivors when they were passing through, instead of sightseeing the wreckage.|
Originally Posted by Furio
The end result of what they did *is* a reboot. They were just considerate enough to add some plotline handwavium. They can continue forward with those movies and completely ignore anything that happened in anything that already has the ST name on it.
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The irony to Star Trek is that the technical people kept technical continuity fairly clean, but the story writers didn't feel the same obligation not to break continuity if they felt it was important to their story. Orci and Kurtzman put more effort into maintaining story continuity than most Trek movies, actually, insofar as they gave any explanation at all for the situation they placed themselves in.
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All you people upset about the failure of Fox to follow X-men continuity from the comics? Go watch the cartoon, X-Men: Evolutions. Now have fits.
The First Class movie was pretty good. I observed several continuity errors, but just didn't worry about them.
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I think they made that change so they'd have an excuse to, forgive the pun, shoehorn in the blue furry transformation. The beastial feet were the reason Hank felt like an outcast and the reason he wanted to change his appearance. |
Originally Posted by BrandX
Seeing the cover of X-Men: First Class, it reminds me of something I wondered when I saw the movie.
Why does Beast have messed up feet? In the comics his feet were bigger than normal for sure, but they looked human, only larger. In the movie they felt the need to make them look beastial. |
In the comics it was several years before the accident that turned him blue and furry occured, but I guess the producers/director wanted it in this movie... to generate visual interest? to make the otherwise largely normal looking kids more mutanty? Probably the former, which is probably also the reason that Emma Frost was able to access her diamond form in the movie decades before anyone thought of giving it to her in the comics.
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I want to see the movie. But the continuity of the movies thus far really seems to go against the X-men, which I adored.
1) Emma Frost was seen after Prof-X and really made her mark trying to get Kitty Pryde first, and she was a younger woman. Charlse was bald and older when she arrived on the scene. ((Her Diamond form is a very late adition)). She was only created when the Hellfire Club was made in the 80's because they needed to progress the Dark Phoenix saga, which the Helfire Club initiated through the toon Mastermind. So Emma would not do much of anything until well beyond two classes of X-men.
2) Original team was Beast, Angel, Ice Man, Marvel Girl, and Cyclopse. Havoc and Polaris joined just before they were all captured on the island they all got stuck on that was eating them.
3) Storm, Wolverine, Banshee, Night Crawler, Thunderbird. (Banshee, Sunfire, and Wolverine had been introduced in other comics but then joined the X-men) This all happend in the 70's in Giant Sized X-men.
4) Mystique was not even an idea until the 70's and therefore for continuity would never have been in this type of prequal, and she actually started as a Miss Marvel enemy. Well, that was one of her starts actually.
Soooo...the rule is. Nothing on screen can capture 4-5 Decades of comic continuity without using characters that people A) Either don't know, B) didn't like and didn't sell the comics or C) people "Now" Associate with the X-men current roster.
X-men Origins Wolverine, was...other than the Third X-movie, was litterally the most continuity breaking of all the movies.
I think First Class...while entertaining is going to be as breaking. But it does not bother me that much.
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the movies were never going to follow the comic continuity 100%|
Originally Posted by Nyx
I want to see the movie. But the continuity of the movies thus far really seems to go against the X-men, which I adored.
1) Emma Frost was seen after Prof-X and really made her mark trying to get Kitty Pryde first, and she was a younger woman. Charlse was bald and older when she arrived on the scene. ((Her Diamond form is a very late adition)). She was only created when the Hellfire Club was made in the 80's because they needed to progress the Dark Phoenix saga, which the Helfire Club initiated through the toon Mastermind. So Emma would not do much of anything until well beyond two classes of X-men. 2) Original team was Beast, Angel, Ice Man, Marvel Girl, and Cyclopse. Havoc and Polaris joined just before they were all captured on the island they all got stuck on that was eating them. 3) Storm, Wolverine, Banshee, Night Crawler, Thunderbird. (Banshee, Sunfire, and Wolverine had been introduced in other comics but then joined the X-men) This all happend in the 70's in Giant Sized X-men. 4) Mystique was not even an idea until the 70's and therefore for continuity would never have been in this type of prequal, and she actually started as a Miss Marvel enemy. Well, that was one of her starts actually. Soooo...the rule is. Nothing on screen can capture 4-5 Decades of comic continuity without using characters that people A) Either don't know, B) didn't like and didn't sell the comics or C) people "Now" Associate with the X-men current roster. X-men Origins Wolverine, was...other than the Third X-movie, was litterally the most continuity breaking of all the movies. I think First Class...while entertaining is going to be as breaking. But it does not bother me that much. |
They never could.
If they did, Scott, Jean, Beast, Angel, Iceman would all be in their 60's now, and Professor X would likely be dead.
I can see complaints about the movies not sticking to their own continuity, but complaints about the movies not sticking to the comic continuity was always going to be there.
Hell, look at DC movies, they don't stick to continuity at all either.
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Yeah, I THINK we all get that by now.|
Originally Posted by BrandX
I can see complaints about the movies not sticking to their own continuity, but complaints about the movies not sticking to the comic continuity was always going to be there.
Hell, look at DC movies, they don't stick to continuity at all either. |
However, Iron Man, Thor, and Incredible Hulk all managed to make their changes without playing Mad Libs with the characters and history. So obviously it CAN be done. Why is it unreasonable to express regret that the same couldn't be done for X-Men?
It's all well and good to say 'look at it as an alternate history story', but I'm usually not interested in those kind of stories. I might read a one-off Elseworld's story every now and then, but generally I just have no interest in them cause they aren't about the characters I know.
"If you don't like it, don't watch it."
Fair enough. And I've admitted to the movie's quality a couple of times. But it DOES mean that the it's going to be that much longer before I can see the X-Men in a Marvel made movie; possibly interacting with Iron Man and Captain America. Heck, I'd kill to see a tense battle of wills between Nick "Sam Jackson" Fury and Professor X.
Re: everchanging ensemble cast of heroes.
So you are going to do X-men. Which X-men? What era? Who's running the team? Who's not on the team but is at the school? As a student or teacher?
So you end up with a team of everyone's favorites and throw in Storm to give the team a little color. But you can't make the team too large or the general audience won't remember who's who.
Through a dart at the collective 40+ years of X-men and you will get a different answer. Thor, Hulk and Shellhead are solo players. And they did change a few key points with those guys. Where's Blake and his walking stick? What about the Gamma Bomb? Iron-man was the closest to his origins but they messed up his enemies.
Trying to condense so much history and continuity into a trilogy or two simply can't be done and someone won't be satisfied.
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Say what? Iron Man came kinda close, I'll give it that. Thor and The Incredible Hulk don't come anywhere close to the comic book backstories of those characters: they are more "inspired by" than following the origin stories of those characters and their surrounding cast.|
Originally Posted by Cowman
Yeah, I THINK we all get that by now.
However, Iron Man, Thor, and Incredible Hulk all managed to make their changes without playing Mad Libs with the characters and history. So obviously it CAN be done. Why is it unreasonable to express regret that the same couldn't be done for X-Men? |
The X-Men are closer to the spirit of the comic book's backstory than either the Hulk has gotten in two movies or Thor got. Personally, I liked all four movies at least a little, although I think the Ang Lee Hulk really went way off the reservation. But even the Incredible Hulk is closer to the television show than the comic books. And Thor? What I like about Thor the most is that they *adapted* that story for a movie, keeping a remarkable amount of the "mythology" of the story while basically tossing all the parts that really aren't important to telling a Thor story, like Donald Blake for example. In other words, the creative people behind Thor were smart enough to take inspiration from the comics without being beholden to them, because a direct translation of Thor would have probably been a failure. It needed to be grounded somehow, and they managed to do that.
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It's a movie that couldn't even get the the X-Men:First Class team right.
