Was the movie series close enough to comics for you?

[Panthro]

Originally Posted by Chris Wallace

Attention isn't justice. So they upgraded her powers & gave her a couple of additional fight scenes. As far as I'm concerned she got screwed. I'm surprised they bothered to include her at all.

In the bold: so true. Cyclops got more attention than Iceman, Beast, Kitty, Forge and Storm combined on "Wolverine & the X-Men" but it didn't really matter because his overall storyline & character was handled wrong.

Storm got screwed over on that show too, but in a different way: Cyclops ended up a lousy character, Storm had virtually no character. Anyone sensing a pattern here?

[katie_girl09]

Originally Posted by Chris Wallace

Attention isn't justice.

Obviously not. But my original post was talking about marginalization. And I am of the opinion that Storm was not marginalized in X3. Especially when compared to other characters.

Originally Posted by Panthro

In the bold: so true. Cyclops got more attention than Iceman, Beast, Kitty, Forge and Storm combined on "Wolverine & the X-Men" but it didn't really matter because his overall storyline & character was handled wrong.

I actually liked Cyclops more in WATXM. He might not have been leader, but you could tell that underneath the grief he was a deeply intelligent and assertive person.

[PsyJ]

i hated the character of rogue, though. she was so whiney and demsel-in-distress-y.

Comic Rogue's always been whiney, not that I could blame her. If anything I think Movie Rogue is the least whiney incarnation of Rogue and she was only "damsel-in-distress-y" in X1. In X2 she used her powers to save people from Pyro and she would've used them to get back at Mystique and Magneto if Bobby hadn't talked her out of it. I think that's at least somewhat badass. I don't like Movie Rogue that much but she wasn't nearly as messed up people make her out to be.

[Panthro]

Originally Posted by katie_girl09

I actually liked Cyclops more in WATXM. He might not have been leader, but you could tell that underneath the grief he was a deeply intelligent and assertive person.

Wait, what?

[Wefflehouse]

I think the idea that these films are lacking in some way because they don't reflect exactly what we see in the nearly 50 year old comic, is a weak and tired argument at best.

You have solo character films like Batman Begins, Spiderman and their respective sequels--whose entire feature length is dedicated to the development of the title character and any subsequent villain (if we're lucky) and even then, their histories have been forged quite differently at times, than the histories of their comic-book counterparts. Is this the way to go? I think the qualities of some of these films say, "it certainly doesn't hurt."

The X-Men are an ensemble cast of characters, so many of whom are fiercely beloved. So many of whom don't appear in the comic history until decades down the line from the origins of this mutant group. So what are filmmakers to do?

I'd say it's foolish to think of these X-Men films, their story-lines and their characters, as existing within the same universe as the Earth-616 characters and world. To take that history and try to represent it onscreen would be impossible. It would. This isn't Thor or Captain America, these are dozens if not hundreds of characters--all of whom interact with one another and change the fate of the world one way or another.

The only way one could include so many characters is to create a new history, a new timeline, a new universe that allows so many of these characters to appear together. The X-Men films aren't the comics, they are their own entity, one that was well-forged at the beginning. It was well on it's way in creating a new, but recognizable mythos. This isn't to say the films didn't draw heavily from the comics. What made the series so successful initially was what it managed to extract from the comics, what made the comics successful enough to warrant a film series.

These films managed to distill the comic series and inject that air of persecution and fear, but also the camaraderie and hope. Was this series close enough to the comics for me? No, it wasn't. But I thank the creative team behind those decisions, otherwise I'm not so sure we would still be talking about the films now.

[PsyJ]

^ Your post is awesome!

[Hellion]

Originally Posted by Wefflehouse

I think the idea that these films are lacking in some way because they don't reflect exactly what we see in the nearly 50 year old comic, is a weak and tired argument at best.

You have solo character films like Batman Begins, Spiderman and their respective sequels--whose entire feature length is dedicated to the development of the title character and any subsequent villain (if we're lucky) and even then, their histories have been forged quite differently at times, than the histories of their comic-book counterparts. Is this the way to go? I think the qualities of some of these films say, "it certainly doesn't hurt."

The X-Men are an ensemble cast of characters, so many of whom are fiercely beloved. So many of whom don't appear in the comic history until decades down the line from the origins of this mutant group. So what are filmmakers to do?

I'd say it's foolish to think of these X-Men films, their story-lines and their characters, as existing within the same universe as the Earth-616 characters and world. To take that history and try to represent it onscreen would be impossible. It would. This isn't Thor or Captain America, these are dozens if not hundreds of characters--all of whom interact with one another and change the fate of the world one way or another.

The only way one could include so many characters is to create a new history, a new timeline, a new universe that allows so many of these characters to appear together. The X-Men films aren't the comics, they are their own entity, one that was well-forged at the beginning. It was well on it's way in creating a new, but recognizable mythos. This isn't to say the films didn't draw heavily from the comics. What made the series so successful initially was what it managed to extract from the comics, what made the comics successful enough to warrant a film series.

These films managed to distill the comic series and inject that air of persecution and fear, but also the camaraderie and hope. Was this series close enough to the comics for me? No, it wasn't. But I thank the creative team behind those decisions, otherwise I'm not so sure we would still be talking about the films now.

You should post this in every comic film thread on the Hype.....it really can be applied to all of them......and I do agree with your sentiments.