Dark Phoenix Dark Phoenix vs The Last Stand

[Detective Conan]

Both are pretty piss-poor films but if a gun was held to my head and I was forced to choose then I guess I will barely give the edge to Last Stand since I had more fun watching that than Dark Phoenix where there were parts where I did nearly fall asleep.

Dark Phoenix attempts to tell the story of the source material to varying results. I feel that in some places things move too fast and not a lot of time is allowed for the viewer to properly digest the events as they occur which makes things feel rather rushed. Dark Phoenix doesn’t tell its own story organically; often times relying on contrived melodrama to hide the fact that it barley has anything going for it in terms of substance. There’s a lot of hollow speechifying about themes that it never really engages with in any meaningful manner. And it’s just hard to muster any type of empathy for this version of Jean since she was just introduced in the last film(where she wasn’t even a focus in it). The film’s biggest downfall is failing to get the audience to care about what Jean is going through

Last Stand felt more like an actual film even if it was really disjointed, and uneven I still felt the characters came alive more and the spectacle was overall superior. I think the action and direction is overall superior. I have a feeling if the movie didn’t try to awkwardly sandwich the Dark Phoenix saga with Whedon’s “Cure” storyline from his Astonishing X-Men run and solely focused on telling that story then I think Last Stand would’ve ended up being much better received.

 

[Lip]

Like I said, I think DP is less sexist, but that doesn't mean it's a beacon of feminism.

The movie is about Jean' agency in a really heavy handed way. Raven and Chastain are (supposed to be) important people to Jean in the film. Raven gets some ok lines critical of Xavier's assimilatory and liberal project. I mean, I think this is all fine. I don't trust Kinberg (or any dude) to write about the gendered and sexual power behind Jean's violation in the Dark Phoenix Saga, so I think it's fine that Kinberg wanted to replace it with Xavier's paternalism and Chastain's whatever (lol). A lot of Jean's story becomes Xavier's story in this film, but it never reaches the toxicity of Wolverine murdering Jean for her own good.

Obviously, the movie does nothing for transwomen, nonbinary people, and women of colour.

Yeah, but even when it comes to Jean's agency, for me, it's still underwhelming. In her first heroic action in the movie, saving the astronaut, the scene seems to suggests that she was insecure, but did it because Charles pushed her. Her last heroic act lacked... everything. She said "emotions make me strong", but that's a character basically defined by her powers. What did we know about Jean, her life and her relationships to feel and understand her decision?

The few positive interactions she has with a female characters are with Raven. They don't last long and she kills her later. Her talks with Chastain are about... empowerment, I suppose? But Jean's being manipulated and, IMO, too easily. Also, those talks end up involving men or Charles anyway. But I guess it passes the bechdel test?

I'm not sure if things in the FC timeline improved much over the OT timeline. The treatment of Mystique certainly did. She's now not naked anymore. She has lines, a personality, arcs. She's a full character. But she's constantly being disputed by three men. She, and Jean, were actually used as source of conflicts to cause distrust between men. That doesn't look good for me. Not to mention the old "powerful women go crazy" narrative, that in this case needed a proper treatment.

I feel like the female characters from OT were better treated than Emma Frost, Kitty Pryde, Storm, Psylocke, Jubilee, Blink, Dazzler and Rogue in the FC timeline. The idea of Logan killing Jean was certainly ****ed up, but I despise the way the killed Emma, Kitty, Storm, Blink and Rogue in DoFP, since they were treated less than human beings.

I have no intention of making the treatment of Jean in TLS less disturbing, but in general I'm not sure if the treatment of women got better over time. We can argue that they got a little better with Jean and Raven, I guess. But I think it's fair to say this franchise always had a very serious problem with female characters.

If anything, to me, it's kind of "too little, too late".

 

[The Batman]

I voted DP solely because original cast or not, no one's treatment in DP is as abhorent as how Cyclops was treated in TLS.

 

[psylockolussus]

Dark PhoeniX should have been better by default. X3 was rushed, juggled and shoehorned/introduced way more characters, it was a shorter movie yet X3 ended up being more entertaining, had better action/music/visual effects/casting/acting. It had cringey dialogue but not as the cringey as Dark PhoeniX, a movie that was took itself way too seriously. Also with so many lessons from the previous bad cb films, Dark Phoenix could have learned a lot more but nope. The only real argument that I could agree about Dark PhoeniX is that they focused on the title character more, but if we make a checklist, X3 wins by a large margin, in my opinion.

 

[The Infernal]

Dark Pheonix is terrible at pretty much everything it does. At least with X3 there are some bits and pieces I can pick out as a highlight like Kelsey Grammar's beast. I can sit through X3 again if I were doing a marathon of X-men movies.

 

[psylockolussus]

Dark PhoeniⓍ also had to reshoot the third act which X3, a rushèd film didn't get to do. Kinberg had the time to polish the film but still couldn't even a better film than X3.

 

[Lip]

Dark Phoenix and TLS had also two different purposes and ambitions.

The creative team, especially more recently, liked to talk those movies in a way that subtly demeaned the "superhero genre" as something "less" and their product something superior.

Dark Phoenix was supposed to be a "hitchcockian-character-piece-psychological-thriller-drama-genre-revolutionizer".

TLS got closer to what it was supposed to be.

 

[halo10]

the dark phoenix character played by Sophia turner easily was much better but it didn't have the xavier vs dark phoenix epic battle that i was so much hoping to see in DP.

plus wolverine being a lead in it and the oen to end the dark phoenix threat easily surpasses the ending in DP.

but both have terrible direction and story writes and horrible character development. Last stand great box office opening ran off the great reputation of xmen united and xmen, even the bum bad reviews didn't stop it's record box office opening and overall total

needless to say, Last Stand will vastly outweigh Dark Phoenix in the long term

 

[Hand Banana]

the dark phoenix character played by Sophia turner easily was much better but it didn't have the xavier vs dark phoenix epic battle that i was so much hoping to see in DP.

plus wolverine being a lead in it and the oen to end the dark phoenix threat easily surpasses the ending in DP.

but both have terrible direction and story writes and horrible character development. Last stand great box office opening ran off the great reputation of xmen united and xmen, even the bum bad reviews didn't stop it's record box office opening and overall total

needless to say, Last Stand will vastly outweigh Dark Phoenix in the long term

I wouldn’t exactly call that a battle.

 

[The Original Bamfer]

They’re both so deeply disappointing that I don’t think I can choose.

 

[LaughingSnowman]

Last Stand because Famke. I'd could watch her do nothing for 2 hours and be content.

 

[The Guard]

I wouldn’t exactly call that a battle.

The real battle in that scene was Logan trying to get into the room.

 

[psylockolussus]

Last Stand because Famke. I'd could watch her do nothing for 2 hours and be content.

Sheis That fierce!

 

[Hand Banana]

After my second viewing of Dark Phoenix I’m going to have to say its the better movie. It’s far more focus and knows want the story it wants to tell.

It also has some of the best action in the scenes while the action was pretty weak in this regard.

 

[henzINNIT]

I watched both on the same day (which I do not recommend). The Last Stand certainly feels more like a movie, but it can not be under-stated just how appalling its treatment of Jean is. Its worse than just having her standing around inactive. It's worse than boiling the Phoenix down to a split-personality disorder. I'm sitting there trying to get into Jean's head, and there is nothing going on there. Famke brings all she can to that role but she was given nothing. No goals, no agenda... Jean has no thoughts or feelings about anything.

I've long thought that Phoenix/Cure could have co-existed with some more time and imagination in the script, still do in fact. But it only just occurred to me that the plots are so badly merged that I couldn't tell you what Jean thinks of the cure. That kinda blew me away in the moment. I thought with 13 years to mull it over I must have had a full understanding of the film's failings.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

I would have to with Dark Phoenix, I have warmed slightly to TLS over the years, but I outright hated its existence for over a decade, and only after the likes of The Wolverine and DOFP gave TLS a better place in the franchise did I start to eventually warm to it.

I actually enjoyed watching Dark Phoenix and certainly didn’t hate it, I look forward to seeing it again in fact.

 

[Charzhin0]

I've long thought that Phoenix/Cure could have co-existed with some more time and imagination in the script, still do in fact. But it only just occurred to me that the plots are so badly merged that I couldn't tell you what Jean thinks of the cure. That kinda blew me away in the moment. I thought with 13 years to mull it over I must have had a full understanding of the film's failings.

The merging of the 2 stories is done okay imo as the basic premise is similar to when Mastermind wants to use Jeans power to make the hellfire club unstoppable. In X3 Magneto pretty much sums it up when he says, ''they have their weapon (the cure), we have ours (Jean). Jean is a silent pawn in both more or less up until she breaks free of Jasons illusions and Magnetos manipulation.

And I agree with the notion that the cure and dark Phoenix stories are compatible and would have been workable given a better screenwriter and a longer runtime.

 

[Hand Banana]

I watched both on the same day (which I do not recommend).

I think watching all the Kinberg written X-films(X3, DOFP, XA) before Dark Phoenix. I think it enhances the story a bit because it helps you understand what that movie is going for.

 

[Milk Tray Guy]

I don't hate The Last Stand and I enjoyed Dark Phoenix. DP for me.

 

[henzINNIT]

The merging of the 2 stories is done okay imo as the basic premise is similar to when Mastermind wants to use Jeans power to make the hellfire club unstoppable. In X3 Magneto pretty much sums it up when he says, ''they have their weapon (the cure), we have ours (Jean). Jean is a silent pawn in both more or less up until she breaks free of Jasons illusions and Magnetos manipulation.

And I agree with the notion that the cure and dark Phoenix stories are compatible and would have been workable given a better screenwriter and a longer runtime.

I believe it could have worked out pretty well, with Xavier and Magneto battling for Jean's soul with the Cure as the motivating factor, however TLS makes everyone stupider for the sake of plot. Xavier has such limited screen time that we never get to understand the extent of his actions. Jean immediately kills Scott, establishing her as out of control, beyond reasoning and barely a character. Magneto ends up holding the grenade after she kills Xavier, but Mags should know by then that he's got no chance guiding Jean at all. He is told that she is completely unstable and he shrugs it off even after he watched Jean disintegrate his oldest friend. There is no indication what-so-ever that Jean cares about his cause. She even threatens Magneto, with the cure of all things, and he still carries on.

*sigh*

 

[Spider-Fan]

After careful consideration, I would say the Dark Phoenix story itself is better in Dark Phoenix. But, as a movie, The Last Stand is better. The Cure subplot trumps anything in DP.