Finally saw X-Men: First Class...

[kiev4am]

Random thoughts:

1. That was a way better film than I was expecting it to be. Mainly because of Michael Fassbender, who carried his own 'totally different movie' field with him into every scene, and then stole that scene.

2. Early 60s decor and fashion, fun. X-kids hanging out and showing off, fun. Evil Kevin Bacon, hell yeah fun.

3. Killing the black man and having the black woman defect to the bad guys in the same scene, less fun. Even for Hollywood that's pretty special. Two infinitely editable, non-essential plot points that do nothing but gratuitously alienate people and make it a lesser film. So much for the 60s civil rights allegory. And it's Darwin. Evolve to survive != die, ffs.

4. The good guys want Mystique to change her body or hide it forever and the future bad guy doesn't. Yeah, I like the future bad guy right now.

5. Oh, so that's where all the Erik/Xavier fic is coming from. I most definitely get it.

6. I want someone to take the scale, style, fun and actorishness of this film, throw away the crap from #3 and #4, and make X-Factor Investigations, The Movie. They can do that silly acronym thing and call it XFI if they want to. Get PAD on the script. It would be awesome.

Comments

[kiev4am.livejournal.com]

Ohhh... yeah, I have to say, after seeing how 'nonessential personnel' i.e. not the 'core X-men' got treated in First Class I think I'd be happier if they just left our crew out of it. I facepalmed so hard at the scene with Darwin and Angel; I couldn't believe the writers made such a clunking, avoidable, offensive misstep. I'd known Darwin died, but I hadn't expected it to be in quite such a jobbing fashion (he just got through explaining he could survive anything and then couldn't survive, what, an explosion?), and I hadn't expected Angel to go over to Shaw without a murmur. It was so weak, and it looked so much like the bad old days of 'OK, here's your minorities, now quit moaning' style of tokenism. Ack. So although there were big chunks of the film I loved, I feel like I'd rather not see Ric and co. than see them getting fridged to make drama for the Big Important Characters :|

OTOH, if Rictor was in it and he was well-cast and got to be mouthy and badass even for five minutes, I'd probably make noises only dogs can hear :lol:

[foreverrhapsody.livejournal.com]

If Darwin doesn't somehow come back, even just a little throwaway line about him re-forming, I will be very angry. Even if it is already my head-canon.

I'd probably make those same noises, too. ^.^ I wonder if they've ever considered using him at some point. I mean, his powers are pretty cinematic, and he seems like a good character to use, at least in my incredibly biased eyes.

OH GOD WHAT IF THE NEXT MOVIE IS SET A FEW YEARS LATER (AT LEAST) AND THEY DO PICK RICTOR AND HE'S IN HIS PUNK LOOK.

[kiev4am.livejournal.com]

OH YES MOHAWK FTW :D

And I agree, Ric's powers would work really well in a modern blockbuster movie context, good special effects fodder and widescreenage. I'd just be worried the whole time that because he's not a Proper Important Core X-Man in the movieverse (or out of it for that matter) he'd get killed in some really stupid headdesking way to provide motivation for somebody 'bigger' cf. Darwin.

But you've got me thinking now how great a sequel could be if they went for 80s nostalgia rather than 60s. There could be a bunch of more-or-less current characters who started out in the 80s and 90s and there would be bad outfits and dorkiness. Now I have to stop being naively optimistic that we may even see 'Star in a movie - he's pretty cinematic too after all XD

(randomly, I'd love to see Warlock in a movie. I love him, and his powers could look fantastic in today's CGI!)