X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019)

[BetterButter]

Quote

Jean Grey begins to develop incredible powers that corrupt and turn her into a Dark Phoenix. Now the X-Men will have to decide if the life of a team member is worth more than all the people living in the world.

[Wiendish Fitch]

I'm very forgiving when it comes to the new X-Men movies (Apocalypse was wet garbage, but it was my wet garbage), but I am putting my foot down and not seeing this. Nope, not happening. Why? I already saw X-Men: The Last Stand. Once was too much. I don't want a repeat experience. If I can name one genuinely good thing about Apocalypse, it's that Charles encourages Jean to embrace her powers fully, and as a result she saved the day. And now... he's doing the exact same shit he did in The Last Stand???!!! I get that Charles isn't perfect, but why is everyone so hellbent on making him either completely ineffectual or an outright villain? And Magneto's "You always make the big speech, no one cares!" rant? Dude, you don't exactly shy away from making the big speeches, so pot meets kettle. And did Zack Snyder and a bunch of embittered fanfic authors write that dialogue? Magneto has tried to commit mass murder and/or world annihilation numerous times, he doesn't get to stand on the soap box!

It basically looks like the moral of this movie is: hope is stupid, powerful women are evil and untrustworthy, heroes are villains and villains are right. And Wonder Woman did just come out a year ago, right?

[Spartan Girl]

Yeah I'm disappointed they're going to have her go all evil again. I thought this would be a solo project so that she could finally be the badass powerful heroine she should've been all along!

[starri]

A)  Hard pass.

B) "Professor Xavier is a jerk!"

[benteen]

The pity is that they don't have more movies to work with when it comes to Dark Phoenix.  Phoenix was a hero before she became Dark Phoenix.

Hell, I wish they could do a high-budget Netflix series.

I'm glad certain things have been retained from the original story, particularly the space angle.  They've avoided X-Men in space for far too long.

Edited September 27, 2018 by benteen

[ursula]

The Originals fan here so it was nice to see little Hope Mikaelson get to be another kind of dangerously powerful red-head. And this is a great career move for Sophie Turner, another favorite of mine.

But other than that ---- isn't this basically an adaptation of the The Last Stand set in the 80s and with a younger cast? Why did anyone think it was a great idea to repeat the same storyline?

(Considering that they pushed it to a February release, I'm guessing they realized this, too but too late).

[Racj82]

On 9/27/2018 at 5:31 AM, Wiendish Fitch said:

I'm very forgiving when it comes to the new X-Men movies (Apocalypse was wet garbage, but it was my wet garbage), but I am putting my foot down and not seeing this. Nope, not happening. Why? I already saw X-Men: The Last Stand. Once was too much. I don't want a repeat experience. If I can name one genuinely good thing about Apocalypse, it's that Charles encourages Jean to embrace her powers fully, and as a result she saved the day. And now... he's doing the exact same shit he did in The Last Stand???!!! I get that Charles isn't perfect, but why is everyone so hellbent on making him either completely ineffectual or an outright villain? And Magneto's "You always make the big speech, no one cares!" rant? Dude, you don't exactly shy away from making the big speeches, so pot meets kettle. And did Zack Snyder and a bunch of embittered fanfic authors write that dialogue? Magneto has tried to commit mass murder and/or world annihilation numerous times, he doesn't get to stand on the soap box!

It basically looks like the moral of this movie is: hope is stupid, powerful women are evil and untrustworthy, heroes are villains and villains are right. And Wonder Woman did just come out a year ago, right?

You are entitled to your feelings but I think you may be overthinking this. 

This plot isn't a assault on powerful women. The Dark Phoenix is a power far beyond Jean's already incredible power. A power that even Xavier doesn't even fully understand but knows how much damage it could do the world regardless. He's working in fear. Not trying to stamp down a powerful woman.

The actual problem with this arc is they are, again, doing the cliff notes version of the saga. Bypassing most of the space stuff (the writers already said this) and more importantly not establishing these characters enough for anybody to care. 

This arc is supposed to be huge for Jean and Cyclops. But, we hardly know either of them. I'm not invested in this team. Imagine the avengers fighting thanos after one movie together as a team and no individual adventures. Who gives a fuck? 

At the end if the day, they put themselves in a box. If they explored more of the space angle, they wouldn't have to put so much focus on Xavier being the one in the know and trying to control her power. But, this is where we are. I don't personally want to make it so much about the gender politics. Because that's not what it's about. Not on the whole. Xavier would do this any of the mutants. That's why I have the push back. This is about his need to control. There has always been a bit of arrogance to Xavier that's about to be exposed again. I really do think he wants all the x men to reach the fullest extent of their powers but it just so happens that Jean's has the potential to end the world. What do you do in this case?

Edited October 1, 2018 by Racj82

[GHScorpiosRule]

I’m still stuck on the fact that they made Scott Alex’s younger brother and that Havok/Alex was killed off!??????????

Here’s my initial reaction to hearing about this arc:??????????????

Edited September 28, 2018 by GHScorpiosRule

[Racj82]

4 hours ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

I’m still stuck on the fact that they made Scott Alex’s younger brother and that Havok/Alex was killed off!??????????

Here’s my initial reaction to hearing about this arc:??????????????

I've never seen a trailer not make me feel anything. Just literally all I feel is indifference.

I dont need Disney to run everything but get this shit away from the fox people asap.

[VCRTracking]

It's just so strange that the movies take the position that mutants are being unfairly feared and hated by human society but keep on demonstrating that they should be at least feared!

Edited September 28, 2018 by VCRTracking

[SimoneS]

The trailer looks pretty good. I am looking forward to seeing where they take Jean. I am tired of the mutants always being extreme, either pacifists like Charles or over the top violent like Eric. Surely there is a happy medium where the mutants show humans that they are powerful and should be feared so they should not attack them, but want to live in peaceful co-existence.

[BooBear]

I thought that was a terrible trailer. Even in a movie called Dark Phoenix it is all about Xavier, Jennifer Lawrence, and Fassbender.  I hate the Last Stand plot line that it is all about Charles not controlling her enough. Why can't Jean be the main character in her own movie?

[JessePinkman]

The release date has been changed...again. It’s coming out June 7, 2019 now. Allegedly. Supposedly. Hypothetically.

https://m.ign.com/articles/2018/09/28/x-men-dark-phoenix-reportedly-delayed

[Wiendish Fitch]

3 minutes ago, JessePinkman said:

The release date has been changed...again. It’s coming out June 7, 2019 now. Allegedly. Supposedly. Hypothetically.

https://m.ign.com/articles/2018/09/28/x-men-dark-phoenix-reportedly-delayed

Re-shoots? Constantly shifting release date? Oof, that is never a good sign. Not that I was rooting for it to succeed, mind you...

[SeanC]

11 hours ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

Re-shoots? Constantly shifting release date? Oof, that is never a good sign. Not that I was rooting for it to succeed, mind you...

Reshoots are commonplace in studio tent poles these days.

It was moved into the summer because they needed more time to do the VFX.

Edited September 29, 2018 by SeanC

[benteen]

This is the second delay for the movie though.  That's never a good sign and the delay is questionable at best.

[Matt K]

I'm not buying the idea that they needed more time for VFx.  It's also worth noting that the Disney deal is supposed to be finalized early 2019 (i.e. Disney owns Fox then).  So a Feb release would mean that the movie would most likely come out, as either Disney doesn't own Fox yet or they just recently did and its kind of too late to stop the movie from coming out.  A June date though pushes the movie well into Disney's ownership of Fox so I wouldn't be surprised to see it shelved beginning of next year (and never see the light of day).  Until the ownership changes, Fox is still its own entity so while they might make things easier for Disney, they still need to run their own business until they change hands (which I imagine is why the movie is still on the schedule at all).

[Racj82]

On 9/28/2018 at 9:46 PM, SeanC said:

Reshoots are commonplace in studio tent poles these days.

It was moved into the summer because they needed more time to do the VFX.

Nope. It has been said that they noticed the overwhelming amount of views for trailer in China are chasing that overseas money at a better date in the year.

Which also points to then not having any faith in this movie.

On 9/28/2018 at 7:34 PM, BooBear said:

I thought that was a terrible trailer. Even in a movie called Dark Phoenix it is all about Xavier, Jennifer Lawrence, and Fassbender.  I hate the Last Stand plot line that it is all about Charles not controlling her enough. Why can't Jean be the main character in her own movie?

This isn't her movie, it's a x men movie. You can't do this arc without focusing on how this affects the team anyway. She's still the most important character in the story. The dark Phoenix was never really ABOUT her anyway. There is another power taking over her. She's always being used or controlled by someone in this arc. At least part of it.

[Dandesun]

Jean matters very much for this story... not that it seems to matter to the actual makers. Why would anyone care about Jean having trouble dealing with these powers when we really don't care about Jean in the first place? There was four years of comics storytelling between Jamaica Bay and the Blue Area of the Moon. And in that four years, you had Jean dealing with a huge upgrade in powers, wondering how it was that she died and then resurrected herself, becoming more and more comfortable with these phenomenal new powers (even as Moira and Charles worried a bit about the jumpstart... though they both said throughout the storyline that they always knew Jean had the potential for such power.) Then a bunch of shit happens that really shatters her foundations, she believes she loses Scott and the rest of the team, Charles decides to fuck off to space to be with his bird girlfriend and Jean is trying to mourn the loss of her lover and friends and gets targeted by Mastermind and the Hellfire Club. So as she becomes even more powerful and more comfortable with those powers, she's being very subtly manipulated by some really vile people...

But none of this ever seems to matter to the movie people. The original Dark Phoenix storyline is about a mortal having the powers of a god and deciding, in the end, that rather than live with being completely corrupted by those powers that she would rather die as a mortal and not put those she loves in danger. She ultimately went out on her terms... they weren't great terms but they were hers. And since then, it's been even more annoying because writers either can't deal with Jean sans Phoenix despite her existing in comics without those powers for far longer than she ever had them, or have decided that a cosmic power of life, death and rebirth is somehow really evil all the time or something.

And this trailer? Ugh. It's still all about 'OMG! Charles, you're like the LITERAL WORST!' and, seriously, MAGNETO is going to lecture Charles about being an over the top drama queen? REALLY?! And why the fuck am I still being subjected to the Worst Mystique That Ever Was? If Jean kills off Mystique she will be my hero FOREVER.

[VCRTracking]

27 minutes ago, Dandesun said:

Jean matters very much for this story... not that it seems to matter to the actual makers. Why would anyone care about Jean having trouble dealing with these powers when we really don't care about Jean in the first place? There was four years of comics storytelling between Jamaica Bay and the Blue Area of the Moon. And in that four years, you had Jean dealing with a huge upgrade in powers, wondering how it was that she died and then resurrected herself, becoming more and more comfortable with these phenomenal new powers (even as Moira and Charles worried a bit about the jumpstart... though they both said throughout the storyline that they always knew Jean had the potential for such power.) Then a bunch of shit happens that really shatters her foundations, she believes she loses Scott and the rest of the team, Charles decides to fuck off to space to be with his bird girlfriend and Jean is trying to mourn the loss of her lover and friends and gets targeted by Mastermind and the Hellfire Club. So as she becomes even more powerful and more comfortable with those powers, she's being very subtly manipulated by some really vile people...

But none of this ever seems to matter to the movie people. The original Dark Phoenix storyline is about a mortal having the powers of a god and deciding, in the end, that rather than live with being completely corrupted by those powers that she would rather die as a mortal and not put those she loves in danger. She ultimately went out on her terms... they weren't great terms but they were hers. And since then, it's been even more annoying because writers either can't deal with Jean sans Phoenix despite her existing in comics without those powers for far longer than she ever had them, or have decided that a cosmic power of life, death and rebirth is somehow really evil all the time or something.

 

And what's crazy was it was all an accident. At least the ending was. Writer Chris Claremont wanted to make Jean more powerful because she was written very weak in the 60s(as were most Marvel heroines like Sue Storm in the Fantastic Four). John Byrne when he took over drawing and co-plotting from Dave Cockrum, thought Jean was getting too powerful. To the point where she was making the other X-Men relevant. So they came up with a story where she would become corrupted and evil and The end they had planned was the Phoenix Force would be exorcised and she would be depowered:

Then she and Scott would live happily ever after:

However, before that ending went to press, Jim Shooter, Marvel's Editor in Chief at the time, had seen that Jean when she was Dark Phoenix annihilated an alien planet, killing billions of innocent people. Even though he okayed the original ending when it was pitched to him, didn't know about this part. He thought Jean should therefore be punished for committing genocide. He said the ending was like "taking the German army away from Hitler and letting him go back to governing Germany,". Claremont admitted he didn't make it clear that Jean was possessed and not acting on her own. Shooter thought Jean should be put in space prison for eternity. Claremont argued if that happened the X-Men would never stop trying to break her out. Wikipedia:
 

Quote

According to Shooter, Claremont out of frustration suggested that they kill off Jean completely. Although Shooter suggests that the proposed plot point was a bluff by Claremont, playing on the unwritten rule that main characters were not to be killed permanently, he accepted it, even over later objections by both Claremont and Byrne. Ultimately, it was decided by Byrne and Claremont to have Jean commit suicide after her Dark Phoenix persona resurfaces at the climax of the fight against the Imperial Guard

That ending is why that storyline is regarded as one of the greatest in comic book history and a classic. If they had done the original ending as planned it wouldn't have had as big an impact.

Writer Kurt Busiek(Marvels, Astro City), who was a college student at the time the story came out, came up with the idea how they could bring Jean back, without having her be responsible for Dark Phoenix' actions(essentially the real Jean was in a cocoon at the bottom of the ocean healing while the Phoenix entity assumed her body and personality). Years later at a comics convention he told his idea to Marvel writer Roger Stern, who told it to his friend John Byrne who had now moved on to writing Fantastic Four.

Edited October 4, 2018 by VCRTracking

[BetterButter]

[benteen]

It really does just look like a new version of The Last Stand.  And it reaffirms the fact that for a true Dark Phoenix story to succeed, you need either a series or three movies.

[GHScorpiosRule]

On 12/22/2018 at 9:54 PM, BetterButter said:

 

She looks hideous in that still shot. And if that's the costume, it looks very ill-fitting.

[VCRTracking]

On 10/4/2018 at 10:13 AM, VCRTracking said:

And what's crazy was it was all an accident. At least the ending was. Writer Chris Claremont wanted to make Jean more powerful because she was written very weak in the 60s(as were most Marvel heroines like Sue Storm in the Fantastic Four). John Byrne when he took over drawing and co-plotting from Dave Cockrum, thought Jean was getting too powerful. To the point where she was making the other X-Men irrelevant. So they came up with a story where she would become corrupted and evil and The end they had planned was the Phoenix Force would be exorcised and she would be depowered:

Then she and Scott would live happily ever after:

However, before that ending went to press, Jim Shooter, Marvel's Editor in Chief at the time, had seen that Jean when she was Dark Phoenix annihilated an alien planet, killing billions of innocent people. Even though he okayed the original ending when it was pitched to him, didn't know about this part. He thought Jean should therefore be punished for committing genocide. He said the ending was like "taking the German army away from Hitler and letting him go back to governing Germany,". Claremont admitted he didn't make it clear that Jean was possessed and not acting on her own. Shooter thought Jean should be put in space prison for eternity. Claremont argued if that happened the X-Men would never stop trying to break her out. Wikipedia:
 

That ending is why that storyline is regarded as one of the greatest in comic book history and a classic. If they had done the original ending as planned it wouldn't have had as big an impact.

Writer Kurt Busiek(Marvels, Astro City), who was a college student at the time the story came out, came up with the idea how they could bring Jean back, without having her be responsible for Dark Phoenix' actions(essentially the real Jean was in a cocoon at the bottom of the ocean healing while the Phoenix entity assumed her body and personality). Years later at a comics convention he told his idea to Marvel writer Roger Stern, who told it to his friend John Byrne who had now moved on to writing Fantastic Four.

[Sandman]

On ‎2018‎-‎10‎-‎04 at 12:48 PM, Dandesun said:

But none of this ever seems to matter to the movie people. The original Dark Phoenix storyline is about a mortal having the powers of a god and deciding, in the end, that rather than live with being completely corrupted by those powers that she would rather die as a mortal and not put those she loves in danger. She ultimately went out on her terms... they weren't great terms but they were hers. And since then, it's been even more annoying because writers either can't deal with Jean sans Phoenix despite her existing in comics without those powers for far longer than she ever had them, or have decided that a cosmic power of life, death and rebirth is somehow really evil all the time or something.

Just ... this. This is what's going wrong already with this movie.

On ‎2018‎-‎10‎-‎04 at 12:48 PM, Dandesun said:

And this trailer? Ugh. It's still all about 'OMG! Charles, you're like the LITERAL WORST!' and, seriously, MAGNETO is going to lecture Charles about being an over the top drama queen? REALLY?!

Mystique is far from my biggest problem with the series as a whole, or even with the reboots, but, yeah. She is irrelevant to this one. And why does the trailer have to be all about Charles and his failings, again, and Magneto's capacity for (simultaneous) self-aggrandizing self-pity, again, some more. I mean, good lord -- why do you want to me hate James McAvoy, movie?

[VCRTracking]

On 10/4/2018 at 9:48 AM, Dandesun said:

But none of this ever seems to matter to the movie people. The original Dark Phoenix storyline is about a mortal having the powers of a god and deciding, in the end, that rather than live with being completely corrupted by those powers that she would rather die as a mortal and not put those she loves in danger. She ultimately went out on her terms... they weren't great terms but they were hers. And since then, it's been even more annoying because writers either can't deal with Jean sans Phoenix despite her existing in comics without those powers for far longer than she ever had them, or have decided that a cosmic power of life, death and rebirth is somehow really evil all the time or something.

 

4 hours ago, Sandman said:

Just ... this. This is what's going wrong already with this movie.

One of the main reasons John Byrne left the X-Men was he and Claremont had very different takes on the characters. When Jean returned in Fantastic Four six years after the DP saga he had written and drawn the flashback explaining how the Phoenix replaced Jean and took over her identity. Byrne wrote(left) but TPTB didn't like it and was unpublished and re-written by Claremont with art by Jackson Guice(left):

Byrne's version of the Phoenix was an evil force that only saved Jean out of a selfish need for a host and it only kept her body safe in case it was destroyed. It was stopped because Jean deliberately gave it all her humanity so that she would later kill herself rather than hurt the people she loved. Claremont's version is that Phoenix was a benevolent entity who saved Jean and was corrupted by Mastermind and the Hellfire Club into the Dark Phoenix. It was Jean's borrowed humanity that made it choose to sacrifice itself.

So, basically to Byrne, the Phoenix Force was the devil, while to Claremont it was God.

Edited January 2, 2019 by VCRTracking

[Sandman]

7 minutes ago, VCRTracking said:

So, basically to Byrne, the Phoenix Force was the devil, while to Claremont it was God.

And Marvel's been back and forth over that duality (... and back and forth, and over, and over, again) for nearly forty years, practically as regular as clockwork.

[Sandman]

On ‎2018‎-‎10‎-‎01 at 11:45 AM, Matt K said:

A June date though pushes the movie well into Disney's ownership of Fox so I wouldn't be surprised to see it shelved beginning of next year (and never see the light of day). 

I would, actually. With the trailers released, it already has the light of day at least peeking in the windows. I would think it would be hard for any studio to pull it completely. (But I've been wrong before -- and am certain to be so again, at least in theory ;) )

Also: Snyder is a putz.

Edited January 2, 2019 by Sandman
My disdain for Snyder is a veritable phoenix, eternal and self-renewing.

[JessePinkman]

All of this makes you scratch your head as to WHY they want to tell this story.

They know it's important to the X-Men mythos so it's a name for comic book fans but Phoenix Saga devotees don't enjoy their interpretation of it and the general audience doesn't know what Dark Phoenix even means so just...why? Why adapt a story no one in production particularly cares about and has to know the people who DO know the real story won't like (because this looks like almost a remake of X3)? What's the point?

[benteen]

I understand that adapting this story exactly like the actual storyline just isn't possible but Fox *cough*Tim Rothman!*cough* seemed determined to tell their shit version of the story and make fans like it.

Also, there's no reason for Magneto to be in this story.  He played no role in the Dark Phoenix comic storyline and was a very minor part of the Days of Future Past storyline.  So you see, Fox, the two greatest and most famous X-Men stories had NOTHING to do with Magneto at all.  I would say try to remember that before you make another 7 movies dealing with Xavier and Magneto but thankfully they won't be getting another chance to beat this dead horse after this.

Edited January 2, 2019 by benteen

[Linderhill]

Mystique had no roll in Future Past or Dark Phoenix either. I was a hard core X-Men fan in my college days and used to have the entire run. I still can not believe that they have to shoehorn her into every X-Men story they adapt (or rather that they attempt to adapt) whether its Jennifer Lawrence or not. Mystique has never been a hero in any sense of the word. Just like in the original Xmen movie when they completely ignored the fact that Rogue was a villain and only came to Xavier because she was going crazy from absorbing Ms. Marvel's mind. I'm quite sure that the Fox folk decided they had to do the Dark Phoenix story just because it was used in the animated series. I could only stand a couple of those episodes before giving up on them.

[benteen]

Mystique had a huge role in the Days of Future Past comic.  She had been introduced by Claremont in Ms. Marvel but this was her debut in the X-Men universe as one of their top villains.  She's absolutely no hero in the Days of Future Past storyline but their main villain in the future. 

The mistake in the movies is making her a hero when she's always been one of the X-Men's main villains.  Even when she has worked with the X-Men, she was always an anti-hero at best.

[VCRTracking]

1 hour ago, Linderhill said:

Mystique had no roll in Future Past or Dark Phoenix either. I was a hard core X-Men fan in my college days and used to have the entire run. I still can not believe that they have to shoehorn her into every X-Men story they adapt (or rather that they attempt to adapt) whether its Jennifer Lawrence or not. Mystique has never been a hero in any sense of the word. Just like in the original Xmen movie when they completely ignored the fact that Rogue was a villain and only came to Xavier because she was going crazy from absorbing Ms. Marvel's mind. I'm quite sure that the Fox folk decided they had to do the Dark Phoenix story just because it was used in the animated series. I could only stand a couple of those episodes before giving up on them.

I don't mind because Rogue's backstory not fully being adapted because it's so complicated and by the time the movie was made she had been a good guy and a stalwart member for two decades. What is weird is that when she's introduced early in the movie it seemed that like Kitty Pryde in the 1989 animated X-Men pilot and Jubilee in the Fox animated series she would be the audience surrogate into this crazy world of mutant superheroes. Instead once she meets Wolverine he becomes the POV character and audiences learns about Xavier and his school through HIS eyes! I get that you need a cynical character like him to be like "This is stupid."  but it's like if in Star Wars you introduce Luke as the main character but once they meet Han it becomes his story. Also, can you imagine if Dougray Scott hadn't still been filming Mission Impossible 2 and was able to play the part instead of Hugh Jackman?

 

45 minutes ago, benteen said:

Mystique had a huge role in the Days of Future Past comic.  She had been introduced by Claremont in Ms. Marvel but this was her debut in the X-Men universe as one of their top villains.  She's absolutely no hero in the Days of Future Past storyline but their main villain in the future. 

Sabretooth first appeared as a villain in Iron Fist, which Claremont also wrote in 1977. Surprisingly he doesn't get introduced into the X-Men books until a decade later. One of the reasons I wasn't that upset in hindsight that Claremont left the book was his idea that Sabretooth was Wolverine's real father. Wikipedia:

Quote

Claremont, when asked what he had intended to be the relationship between Wolverine and Sabretooth, stated:

Father and son. That's why Sabretooth always considered Logan "sloppy seconds" to his "original" / "real deal." The other critical element in my presentation of their relationship was that, in their whole life, Logan has never defeated Sabretooth in a knock-down, drag-out, kill-or-be-killed berserker fight. By the same token, on every one of his birthdays, Sabretooth has always managed to find him, no matter where Logan was or what he was doing, and come within an inch of killing him. For no other reason than to remind him that he could.

I'm so glad that never became canon! Wolverine had enough going on without adding "father issues" to the mix!

Edited January 3, 2019 by VCRTracking

[Linderhill]

On 1/3/2019 at 12:15 PM, VCRTracking said:

Mystique had a huge role in the Days of Future Past comic. 

I stand corrected.  Its been umpteem years since I read those books.  After I lost my entire collection in a fire I've never had the heart to replace them or reread the full story again.  I have vague memories of Mystique posing as someone else so she could assassinate someone or other.  Of course that was the story of so many Mystique stories.  I still get so annoyed that Fox felt it necessary to try to make her into a hero.  

I still get annoyed about how they flipped the ages on Havok and Cyclops that they killed off Havok. I never liked the way Halle Berry played Storm either.  For such a badass character, she was pretty much meh.  I could go on but I won't.  There's been so much that's been said before about this franchise and Fox's treatment of it.

I am curious how bad this movie will be.  After having the release being bumped back twice, its not a good sign.  I'd never seen Sophie Turner in anything before seeing her as Jean in these movies and I can't help but have trouble seeing her as Jean Gray. 

I highly recommend "Chris Claremont's Xmen" produced by Rennert and Meaney.  It gives a great background to the whole series of comics and characters.

[Bruinsfan]

My local cineplex had the trailer playing on the screens above the concession stand, so I guess this actually will be released at some point in the next few months?

[Anduin]

I hate to be a downer, but this just doesn't inspire me. Reminds me of the previous movies, except worse. Unless I hear that it's better than expected, I'll give it a miss.

[Bill1978]

I'm a tad confused to be honest. I know Days of Future Past effectively wiped The Last Stand from history, but did it also make a time change in the earlier timeline. Cause if it didn't that means Jean went Phoenix before the original movies, meaning that they would have known how to 'fix' Jean before she went nuts in The Last Stand? Just because The Last Stand didn't happen, doesn't mean you get to repeat yourself franchise and have it make sense. Or should I just not care about the timeline for these movies?

[Anduin]

1 hour ago, Bill1978 said:

I'm a tad confused to be honest. I know Days of Future Past effectively wiped The Last Stand from history, but did it also make a time change in the earlier timeline. Cause if it didn't that means Jean went Phoenix before the original movies, meaning that they would have known how to 'fix' Jean before she went nuts in The Last Stand? Just because The Last Stand didn't happen, doesn't mean you get to repeat yourself franchise and have it make sense. Or should I just not care about the timeline for these movies?

I seem to remember that time travel in DOFP caused some kind of energy flair that caused Apocalypse to wake up. Making this a third timeline? I may be entirely wrong there. Someone's going to um actually me, and I deserve it. 🙂

[benteen]

There's some familiar comic book imagery from this trailer but I just don't know.  Seems a lot like The Last Stand.

[benteen]

EW has a long interview with Kinberg, where they discuss a BIG spoiler from the trailer. 

It was mentioned in the interview that Dark Phoenix is a very female-focused movie, which Kinberg confirms because it's Jean story.  One of the great strengths of the X-Men comics has been their female characters.  So why has it taken Fox and the production team behind them 12 movies to actually realize that?

Edited February 28, 2019 by benteen

[Dandesun]

If Jean kills Mystique it might make it all worthwhile.

[blackwing]

I think it looks decent.  I'm confused about the timeline of the movies and the various retcons and whatnot, but I will just try and enjoy it.  The thing I hated most about the trailer is overrated Jennifer Lawrence and her irritating voice.  Mystique was always a minor character in the comics but now because she's Jennifer Lawrence she is suddenly the wise and sagacious leader who is going to be Jean's anchor to humanity?  Pffftttt.

[Dandesun]

I have a visceral reaction to Mystique now. She's worked but not in this setting. She's a duplicitous, manipulative, shady as fuck character and turning her into a heroic caring mentor drives me up the wall. Even in 616 canon where she loves Rogue very very much, she's still a manipulative, shady bitch. Even when she's been on the side of good she's never one to trust. So the fact that they've changed pretty much everything about her character infuriates me. Not only that, I absolutely despise her character design, particularly that hideous shake and go wig. I mean, if they're going to change everything else about her why not that as well?!

And there are too many things here that stir up X3 memories which I do not approve of at all. Fuck the duster! Fuck this all being Charles' fault for 'protecting her' or whatever. One of the best parts about the Phoenix storyline was how little Charles had to do with ANY of it. Yes, he was there for some moments but Jean becoming Phoenix wasn't due to him, and his participation came after she had been fully corrupted and took her on himself (except that Jean was also fighting Dark Phoenix along with him) and then his space-bird girlfriend showed up to declare mak'gora or whatever. "You killed all the people on one of my spaceships! Oh, and also a planet that was in my territory so, yeah. Majestrix rules require me to KILL YOU!!"

This should be something I am so excited for but Fox has burned me regarding Jean too many times now. All I hope for is that Mystique fucking DIES and Jean stops crying about it.

Edited February 28, 2019 by Dandesun

[benteen]

Yeah, Charles had nothing to do with Jean becoming Phoenix and Magneto had nothing to do at all with the Dark Phoenix storyline.  Charles suppressing her telepathic power was a later retcon and Charles suppressing Phoenix never happened...except in The Last Stand.  So yeah, this movie hitting the same notes as The Last Stand. 

Charles didn't create or suppress Phoenix.

[Dandesun]

36 minutes ago, benteen said:

Yeah, Charles had nothing to do with Jean becoming Phoenix and Magneto had nothing to do at all with the Dark Phoenix storyline.  Charles suppressing her telepathic power was a later retcon and Charles suppressing Phoenix never happened...except in The Last Stand.  So yeah, this movie hitting the same notes as The Last Stand. 

Charles didn't create or suppress Phoenix.

Well, if you want to get REALLY technical... Magneto's fight with the X-Men in his volcano lair in the Savage Land (yeah, I know) and particularly Phoenix taking him on with her extreme power resulted in Magneto desperately trying to escape alive and bringing down the volcano on top of everyone. And that resulted in Jean and Hank thinking that everyone else was dead while Scott, Ororo, Kurt and Logan thinking the other two were dead. And then when Jean and Hank returned to the Xavier mansion and told Charles he got despondent and fucked off with his space bird girlfriend to mourn and Jean was left without her tethers which is when she went to Greece for a vacation and that's when Mastermind got a hold of her and started his seduction.

So Magneto and Charles being... THEM did contribute but it was really believing that she had lost Scott that really rocked her and she didn't have her regular support network around her and it all went pear-shaped from there. And it's fine because it's still about JEAN struggling with this new power and then the emotion turmoil of these losses she endured and Charles taking off TO SPACE rather than sticking around and helping Jean and Hank deal with the grief. Jean dealing with the emotional turbulence of her cosmic power upgrade was a major part of the whole storyline.

As opposed to this shit, where it's Charles putting some sort of 'psychic dampener' in Jean's brain to keep her 'under control' and then she gets all mad at him or whatever. Because of what HE did.

And while I can't say that Mastermind as Jason Wyngard seducing Jean to the dark side ages well it's still about JEAN and her coming to grips with shit. It's the thing that continuously peeves me about how they try to do this storyline. Jean spent a lot of time as Phoenix (look we all know that Jean wasn't actually Phoenix and they retconned the shit out of that and then she always had the potential for that power and then took on the memories after Inferno and then became the Phoenix for realsies and then died and then came back and then rejected the Phoenix and blah blah blah comic books) before the Hellfire Club showed up with their ruffles and weaponized lingerie to get at her. We barely know this Jean at all much less know her powers or anything like this. So catapulting immediately to the Dark Phoenix irritates the living shit out of me.

And the idea that this is mostly going to be a retread of Last Stand with a little extra SPACE thrown in while Erik and Charles swan at each other and everybody blames Charles just puts me right off.

Also, I remain annoyed as hell in the original comic storyline that no one in the group of Everyone But Hank and Jean thought to use a GOD DAMN PHONE and maybe call the Professor and be all 'We fought Magneto in his volcano base and... Hank and Jean are DEAD!' and Charles would be all 'No... they're RIGHT FUCKING HERE thinking that YOU ALL are dead! Don't we have protocols for this?!'

And everyone would fly back... except Logan because I'm pretty sure that's when he met Mariko.

Edited February 28, 2019 by Dandesun

[GHScorpiosRule]

5 minutes ago, Dandesun said:

Well, if you want to get REALLY technical... Magneto's fight with the X-Men in his volcano lair in the Savage Land (yeah, I know) and particularly Phoenix taking him on with her extreme power resulted in Magneto desperately trying to escape alive and bringing down the volcano on top of everyone. And that resulted in Jean and Hank thinking that everyone else was dead while Scott, Ororo, Kurt and Logan thinking the other two were dead. And then when Jean and Hank returned to the Xavier mansion and told Charles he got despondent and fucked off with his space bird girlfriend to mourn and Jean was left without her tethers which is when she went to Greece for a vacation and that's when Mastermind got a hold of her and started his seduction.

So Magneto and Charles being... THEM did contribute but it was really believing that she had lost Scott that really rocked her and she didn't have her regular support network around her and it all went pear-shaped from there. And it's fine because it's still about JEAN struggling with this new power and then the emotion turmoil of these losses she endured and Charles taking off TO SPACE rather than sticking around and helping Jean and Hank deal with the grief. Jean dealing with the emotional turbulence of her cosmic power upgrade was a major part of the whole storyline.

As opposed to this shit, where it's Charles putting some sort of 'psychic dampener' in Jean's brain to keep her 'under control' and then she gets all mad at him or whatever. Because of what HE did.

And while I can't say that Mastermind as Jason Wyngard seducing Jean to the dark side ages well it's still about JEAN and her coming to grips with shit. It's the thing that continuously peeves me about how they try to do this storyline. Jean spent a lot of time as Phoenix (look we all know that Jean wasn't actually Phoenix and they retconned the shit out of that and then she always had the potential for that power and then took on the memories after Inferno and then became the Phoenix for realsies and then died and then came back and then rejected the Phoenix and blah blah blah comic books) before the Hellfire Club showed up with their ruffles and weaponized lingerie to get at her. We barely know this Jean at all much less know her powers or anything like this. So catapulting immediately to the Dark Phoenix irritates the living shit out of me.

And the idea that this is mostly going to be a retread of Last Stand with a little extra SPACE thrown in while Erik and Charles swan at each other and everybody blames Charles just puts me right off.

I wish we had the ability to like and laugh posts, because this one had me doing both!

[Wiendish Fitch]

4 hours ago, Dandesun said:

Also, I remain annoyed as hell in the original comic storyline that no one in the group of Everyone But Hank and Jean thought to use a GOD DAMN PHONE and maybe call the Professor and be all 'We fought Magneto in his volcano base and... Hank and Jean are DEAD!' and Charles would be all 'No... they're RIGHT FUCKING HERE thinking that YOU ALL are dead! Don't we have protocols for this?!'

And everyone would fly back... except Logan because I'm pretty sure that's when he met Mariko.

How could Charles think one of his students is dead? Not only is he telepathic, he has friggin' Cerebro, a magical computer thing-a-ma-jiggy that aids him in locating other mutants! He could have used it to find the others to verify if they were alive or dead! Did he not have Cerebro at this point in the story? Or was it conveniently MIA for dramatic purposes?

Going back to the original Dark Phoenix trailer, I nearly clenched my teeth to dust when Charles reveals what he did to Jean (groan), and Mystique monotones "There's a word for that, Charles!"

Hell. No.

I appreciate that certain issues regarding women are being addressed, both in life and in fiction, but I take serious, serious issue with the Rape as Drama trope, even if it is only in an abstract, metaphorical form in this case. It's sexist, cheap, manipulative, and 9 out of 10 times done very badly. Is this supposed to be a cautionary/empowerment tale? Because if it is, it looks like they failed dismally. People continue to grumble to this day about X-Men: The Last Stand (myself included), so I don't know why they'd have the whole "it's all Charles's fault, because REASONS!" song and dance again. It's not empowering, because Jean still gets violated by someone she trusts, still gets corrupted by her powers, and is still  just an emotional prop throughout the whole thing.

I agree with everyone that the Dark Phoenix storyline is unforgivably played out, but I'll take it a step further: it offends me to bits that, barely 2 years after Wonder Woman's release, we're getting an X-Men story that's not about a young woman embracing her powers to save the world, but about how a young woman cannot possibly control their powers without a man mentally raping her to keep her in check. But, oh no, she gets corrupted anyway! We even get the cliched image of her sobbing in the rain.

No, I'm not implying that we can't have stories featuring super-villainesses, but in all the crappy versions of the Dark Phoenix storyline, Jean isn't a super-villain of her own agency or volition: she's just a poor, unsuspecting girl who couldn't handle her powers, got corrupted by them because, golly gosh gee, she just couldn't help herself, and now we have to kill her and her stupid Gap duster from 2002 (or use the Power of Friendship, or some such garbage).

Hero, villain, I don't care, as long as the characters actively choose their path after the appropriate arc. Charles chose his path, it makes sense. Magneto chose his path, it makes sense. Jean? She's basically a puppet, and it's getting really old. When goofy-beyond-measure X-Men: Apocalypse handles Jean's character better than any X-Men film so far, something is wroooooong.

By the by, I just watched the latest trailer, and, yikes, what is up with Mystique's makeup?! I realize Jennifer Lawrence's makeup/bodysuit has been a little dodgy in the past, but it never looked this bad! She's less blue than grey! She looks like she has a vitamin deficiency! Damn, even the makeup artists are over this franchise. 

Edited February 28, 2019 by Wiendish Fitch

[Spartan Girl]

This is officially getting a HARD PASS from me. Both Jean and Sansa Stark deserve better.

Edited February 28, 2019 by Spartan Girl

[Wiendish Fitch]

23 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

This is officially getting a HARD PASS from me. Both Jean and Sansa Stark deserve better.

Is Sophie Turner just doomed to play redheads who get crapped on by men and life?

[Craphole Island]

I appear to be in the minority but I’m still looking forward to this.

I think the international trailer is better though: https://vimeo.com/320599488

Edited March 1, 2019 by Craphole Island