Fox’s X-Men Universe Has Come to An End: Will You Miss It?

[SwordOfMorning]

To be honest, just knowing the MCU X-Men are going to be primarily drive by Feige and not... you know, a filmmaker, instantly takes most of the fun out of it.

Unless we get real lucky and whoever gets X-Men gets the kind of leeway Gunn and Waititi and Coogler seemingly get.

 

[psylockolussus]

After Dark PhoeniX and X-Men Apocalypse, I don't know how Feige could make it worse. After the success of the mcu, he is really much better than most filmmakers out there, well at least in filmmakers that worked on cbms. There's really no need to dismiss him like that.

 

[SumT]

To be honest, just knowing the MCU X-Men are going to be primarily drive by Feige and not... you know, a filmmaker, instantly takes most of the fun out of it.

Unless we get real lucky and whoever gets X-Men gets the kind of leeway Gunn and Waititi and Coogler seemingly get.

didnt most Fox filmmakers already took the fun out of the X-Men?

if there is something Marvel Studios and Feige are smart at, its nailing the fun aspect of these movies, so none of us can be worried about that. Actually, the X-Men movies will finally be cool and entertaining again, and not only that, but this time with the actual X-Men as the lead characters.
Unlike Fox.
Unless you dont want to have fun with the X-Men, but with someone else.

 

[Fincher]

didnt most Fox filmmakers already took the fun out of the X-Men?

if there is something Marvel Studios and Feige are smart at, its nailing the fun aspect of these movies, so none of us can be worried about that. Actually, the X-Men movies will finally be cool and entertaining again, and not only that, but this time with the actual X-Men as the lead characters.
Unlike Fox.
Unless you dont want to have fun with the X-Men, but with someone else.

Not everyone thinks the same things are cool or entertaining or fun.

 

[SumT]

but most people agree that Fox didnt make justice to 90% of the X-Men, which was basically my real point.

 

[Erzengel]

I think the X-Men movies were missing a bit of spectacle. X-Men characters have powers that rival some of the Avengers and JL.

 

[Iceman]

I think the X-Men movies were missing a bit of spectacle. X-Men characters have powers that rival some of the Avengers and JL.

Yep. no reason for an X-Men movie to not have visuals on the level of the other big teams. Budget cuts and a lack of ambition will do that though.

 

[Shinobi Shaw]

To be honest, just knowing the MCU X-Men are going to be primarily drive by Feige and not... you know, a filmmaker, instantly takes most of the fun out of it.

Unless we get real lucky and whoever gets X-Men gets the kind of leeway Gunn and Waititi and Coogler seemingly get.

I mean since 2000, the X-Men movies were just full of black leather, Hugh Jackman ass shots, popular characters being used as background and VFX, and characters and stories taken out of context. They've truly never been fun.

Feige on the other hand, at least loves and respects the source material. I'd rather have him at the helm than what we've had with the FOX regime.

 

[Duran Man]

Given the direction they had been heading in since DOFP, hell no!

 

[T-Ray]

I'm a big fan of the first 2 movies (and, for some odd reason, I kinda enjoy X3, as silly as it is ). DOFP and FC were good, but they were lost in the overall mess of soft reboots/prequels/alternate timelines thing. The casting was awesome for the most part, and Stewart's Xavier, McKellen's Magneto, Romijn's Mystique, and Jackman's Wolverine are still some of my favorite live-action adaptations ever. Subdued enough, so they could be taken seriously but theatrical enough not to be boring. Just perfect, IMO.

They really messed up after X2, though. To me, it feels like lazy movie making. Put in characters and story beats you've heard fans like and if you get a negative review, just say it is an alternate timeline and no longer canon (a.k.a the worst copout ever) and that's why I have lost all respect for Fox-verse. Maybe it is good that Fox-verse is over and I hope that MCU X-Men will be awesome.

 

[psylockolussus]

As a previous fan of the series starting in X2. It was hard to see in the last 17 years to realize that characters like Iceman, Rogue, Storm, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Gambit, Angel, Colossus, Beast, Emma Frost, Psylocke, Jubilee were so underutilized then you have characters like Magneto and Mystique appearing in every team movie to the point that Mystique became a X-Woman barking orders to the actual X-Men. Wolverine gets a role in siX team movies and a trilogy for himself. Then in Deadpool movies -out of all the mutants they could have chosen as students, they went Negasonic Teenage Warhead and Yukio. How in the world Gambit only appeared 1 movie and its not with the X-Men gang? There are characters like Beast and Jean who appeared in at least five movies but eh, as a whole, their role could have been so much better. Polaris and Legion would have cooler in the movies instead of appearing in tv shows nobody really watch. And they butchered Dark PhoeniX twice.

Like if someone have predicted that a movie franchise movie from 2000 would last until the 2020 pandemic, I would have thought a dozen of X-Men already gotten a decent role in a handful of films. Back in 2003, I was imagining if they could make it to X-Men 7 and I was thinking of which characters are going to standout. FlashForward to now, its just the Wolverine, Magneto, Mystique, the Professor and Deadpool that were really utilized.

For a movie production and for an ip with a rich history even in other media like cartoons and videogames. The movies could have been more inspired. X-Men is literally the greatest superhero team of all time. It isn't similar to Jl and Avengersin which the most popular superheroes just grouped together to save the world. The X-Men aremore compleX.

 

[Triklops1975]

Honestly? No.

Some fans are pointing out the confused timeline as the first issue, but in fact, it was the REPETITIVITY that killed the Fox's X-Men Universe.
It started well with a movie that changed the superhero genre forever, but chapter after chapter I felt frustrated with the storylines revolving around the same characters as well as the abused plot "why society hates mutants/minorities"... it really baffles me when some MCU detractors complain about the so called "sameness" of Marvel Studios' movies, ignoring - or pretending to ignore - that Fox gave us TWICE the Phoenix Saga, with equally deeply disappointing results.

Yes, Logan and Days of Future Past were great and they are still among the best cbm ever (never get the love for First Class, sorry), but the MCU has never reached the abysmal lows of Wolverine, Dark Phoenix, The New Mutants and Apocalypse.

 

[T-Ray]

As a previous fan of the series starting in X2. It was hard to see in the last 17 years to realize that characters like Iceman, Rogue, Storm, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Gambit, Angel, Colossus, Beast, Emma Frost, Psylocke, Jubilee were so underutilized then you have characters like Magneto and Mystique appearing in every team movie to the point that Mystique became a X-Woman barking orders to the actual X-Men. Wolverine gets a role in siX team movies and a trilogy for himself. Then in Deadpool movies -out of all the mutants they could have chosen as students, they went Negasonic Teenage Warhead and Yukio. How in the world Gambit only appeared 1 movie and its not with the X-Men gang? There are characters like Beast and Jean who appeared in at least five movies but eh, as a whole, their role could have been so much better. Polaris and Legion would have cooler in the movies instead of appearing in tv shows nobody really watch. And they butchered Dark PhoeniX twice.

This.
They should have made character selections more carefully instead of just adding unnecessary new characters in each movie just because. If the character is added, then there should be at least some story purpose for the choice. For example, Nightcrawler was the perfect choice for X2, because it played with "humans fear mutants, mutant=monster" thingy. Nightcrawler in Dark Phoenix, on the other hand, just there because producers saw that he was mentioned as one of the best things in the original trilogy. It could have been any other mutant.
Rogue did have a good setup, but no payoff. She took the cure to get rid of her powers (for arguably good reasons), and they could continue her arc by her wanting her powers back (turning to the dark side for help and getting her comic book power set in return..). So easy.

Honestly? No.

Some fans are pointing out the confused timeline as the first issue, but in fact, it was the REPETITIVITY that killed the Fox's X-Men Universe.

Agreed.
Every movie kept coming back to Charles vs Eric frenemy thing. It stopped working after X2 and so boring and so pointless and unbelievable in "prequels".
Phoenix twice, 2 versions of Colossus, Deadpool, Psylocke, Angel, Juggernaut, Caliban, Blob... And it is repeating for no reason, just because they are popular characters/concepts.

 

[psylockolussus]

If Dark PhoeniX didn't bomb and there was a sequel (if Fox wasn't sold to the Walt Disney Company), it would have featured Xavier and Erik playing chess again. They only killed Raven Everdeen because the actress was so over the role, but if she wasn't, she would have been brought back. And more of Kinberg's awful take on Dark Phoenix as they intended it to be a 2part film. But maybe Dazzler would have returned with 2 more sentences and screentime longer than thirty seconds.

And oh that recent New Mutants movie.... after all the big and flashy comic book movies that came from Disney and WB, its just baffling that they decided to make a cheaper movie that looked so low budgeted. Birds of Prey looked like it had twice the budget of the Nww Mutants. There were No costumes inspired from the comiXs, the spectacle really felt limited even though some of the power displays looked cool and it looked and felt like a TV pilot for fX. All these decisions are just so baffling. Like you can praise Logan and Deadpool all you want, but things like those aren't forgotten by people like me who is overeXposed with X-Men material from the comiXs, cartoons and videogames.

 

[Marvel united]

The way how most of the X-Men were killed off screen was a disgrace imo.

Imagine if we get a Thor film next in the MCU and its just Thor and Hulk that are returning and the rest of the characters we've seen in previous movies are missing in action for unclear reasons. FoX eXecs only really care about Logan and Xavier, well in terms of the OT cast. Whilethe younger version is another can of worms that I don't want to complain yet again.

To make it short, their plan post DOFP was a mess.

But the original trilogy WAS about Logan. The trilogy is squarely built around Logan's journey of self-discovery, his development into a hero, and finally, a leader. The X-Men are ancillary (supporting) characters who serve his development. And the movies are better for it, becuz it's done well. The filmmakers (writers) had a story to tell, and they knew how they wanted to tell it. They knew who their main players were, and they knew what their stories would be.

Knowing this is an absolute necessity, and that's where Fox went wrong with the PT. Building the story around non-XM. The OT worked because the conflict is compelling, Logan is our in to this conflict, and we grow to care about the characters through him. The Last Stand IMO works better than Dark Phoenix as a conclusion because we care about Jean... Through Logan (and to an extent, Xavier as well). We know how much she means to him, and how much they've been through together.

Whereas with Dark Phoenix, they are trying to mine from a foundation that is shakey at best and nonexistent at worst. When Raven dies (one of your leads) and nobody cares. Nobody feels anything. You have failed at one of the most fundamental aspects of film, making emotion. Making people feel something. A Dark Phoenix adaptation is nothing without this.

Which leads us to Logan. IMO Logan is one of the greatest CBMs ever made (easily up there with the Dark Knight) and the perfect conclusion to the FoX-Men saga. Almost every choice the movie makes is in service of it's emotion. The X-Men function the way they always have in this franchise, and that is to serve Logan's development. The X-Men being dead create the dramatic context of the story. Xavier personifies the X-Men in this film, or rather, the ideals/dream of the X-Men.

Can this dream live on without the X-Men, without Xavier and without Logan? Can hope prevail in this seemingly endless onslaught of loss and tragedy? The answer is



..Yes.

The X-MEN play a very important role in this movie. They aren't physically present in the film but their thematic message is weaved into theme, and what I think the dramatic question of the movie is ^^^ The X-Men live on through Laura and the next generation of mutants.

Logan is the "Endgame" of this franchise.

 

[psylockolussus]

Thats probably the mindset of the people who worked in the franchise, so the rest were disposable and "x-Men" fans should just accept it. They should have just named the original trilogy as the Wolverine original trilogy to be make it more clear, thats it was intentionally a Wolverine movie franchise.

 

[BobJM]

Definitely looking forward to a new chapter for the X-Men on screen with their MCU debut, but there was much of the Fox X-Men universe that I largely enjoyed.

For all the good though, I think the Fox series will largely be characterized by its missed opportunities. A fumbling of spin-off projects; no X-Men/continuation of the main cast outside of cameos in DOFP; and a lack of attention to continuity—in timeline, plot, and casting; ultimately held this franchise back from truly reaching the heights it could/should have.

The focus on a grounded universe isn’t so off-putting—I’m okay that these films never ventured to the galactic or mystical elements of the comics lore, but it barely scratched the surface of the ideas it chose to tackle. Such a heavy reliance on Wolverine’s history and connection to William Stryker and of course Magneto, we barely got time outside of those narratives. And when we did (the cure; Phoenix, both times), nothing felt organic to the story that was already being told.

The casting throughout has been phenomenal; that much should be noted. Which again makes it a shame that so many of these actors were wasted in thankless roles.

 

[BobJM]

Would have loved to have seen Matthew Vaughn or another director come in after X-Men: The Last Stand and reinvigorate the franchise with the remaining cast (Berry, Grammer, Page, Paquin, etc.). After the critical and financial shortcomings of Origins, perhaps even Jackman would have been more interested to join a team film again ahead of 2014’s DOFP.

Imagine it’s 2010 and X-Men: Second Genesis is gearing for a summer release with a name actor as Mister Sinister (Javier Bardem, maybe?) and Channing Tatum finally making his debut as Gambit.

These films would take place concurrently with the First Class franchise and Wolverine spin-offs (reducing Jackman’s role in these main team films, and giving actors like Berry, Grammer, Page, and Tatum more time to develop their characters).

 

[BobJM]

Logan is the "Endgame" of this franchise.

DOFP really should have been the Endgame. And maybe not in 2014, but something the creatives could have built towards after continuing the OT story and building a FC trilogy, with a culmination in a time-traveling 2 part epic. Finish the film in a similar fashion, with Logan (or whoever) waking to a rosy and reset status quo. From there, they could have taken the franchise anywhere.

 

[psylockolussus]

Logan being the Endgame of the X-Men just shows how sad the portrayal has been for the X-Men in the movies. Endgame was like a celebration of the previous mcu movies and is such a fun movie beginning to end.

Logan in the other hand, a bleak and depressing end for the X-Men, so bleak that you will only see FoX's two favorite mutants. No wonder the audience didn't bother seeing the neXt X-Men movie after that (Dark PhoeniX).

 

[EnDz0n3]

Them on a Thread talking about Fox's X-men Universe Will You Miss it?: Move on! Why are you still talking this???

 

[Marvel united]

DOFP really should have been the Endgame. And maybe not in 2014, but something the creatives could have built towards after continuing the OT story and building a FC trilogy, with a culmination in a time-traveling 2 part epic. Finish the film in a similar fashion, with Logan (or whoever) waking to a rosy and reset status quo. From there, they could have taken the franchise anywhere.

That would've been interesting. To have two different timelines continuing at the same time. The past echoing the more comic booky, colorful adventures that FC had, and the future continuing the darker, grounded stories of Singer's world, until both stories converge.

I would've also been completely fine with a new trilogy after TLS focusing on the OT characters. X5 could show the events that take place in between FC and DOFP (The mutants being hunted down and killed by Sentinels) and X6 could be the DOFP story where Xavier & Erik realize that the only way to stop this neverending conflict is to go back in time and end the cycle of violence.

The Sentinels are a direct reaction to Erik's Golden Gate incident at Alcatraz. The public is now convinced more than ever that mutants are dangerous and must be controlled... By any means neccessary.

Logan being the Endgame of the X-Men just shows how sad the portrayal has been for the X-Men in the movies. Endgame was like a celebration of the previous mcu movies and is such a fun movie beginning to end.

Logan in the other hand, a bleak and depressing end for the X-Men, so bleak that you will only see FoX's two favorite mutants. No wonder the audience didn't bother seeing the neXt X-Men movie after that (Dark PhoeniX).

Well, thats becuz the movie feels pointless and uneventhal. Nobody is invested in that version of Jean Grey for her to carry the film. And evidently, people lost interest in Xavier and the FC crew after Apocalypse (another uneventful film) made them feel boring & played out.

Logan is an eventual, emotional, earned final statement to a 17 year journey. It has IMO as much emotional punch as Endgame. The franchise began with Logan and the Professor and it ends with them. Singer was interested less so in the content/characters of the X-Men and more so the themes, that he could relate to and faithfully convey. In 1999, that's a perfectly valid way to represent the X-Men IMO. A franchise isn't guaranteed

 

[Lip]

If we're going to compare I feel like it's more fitting to say Logan was the Endgame for Logan and his journey than the X-Men franchise as a whole.

And I don't think DoFP was an Endgame for anything either. It was meant to reboot the timeline to give them a clean slate to continue (which they ****ed up anyway).

That final scene worked as a goodbye for the OT cast because there were some emotional attachment there, not because the movie was crafted to be that way. Endgame was thought to be the end of several arcs: the infinity saga, Nat's, Steve and Tony's. The characters we say goodbye in DoFP didn't have more than two lines, let alone an arc.

 

[psylockolussus]

And again, Logan the movie only serviced the characters that appeared in it. Not Rogue, Cyclops, Jean PhoeniX Grey, Storm, Beast, Nightcrawler, Colossus and the other character iconic X-Men like Angel, Psylocke, Jubilee, Polaris, Gambit, Dazzler and Cecilia Reyes who have yet to get a decent movie role. Don't tell me as a X-Men fan you finished watching that movie thinking "look at how they handled the Uncanny X-Men so well". Umm no. Like i said, if they were going for a r18 western flick - they have succeeded but in terms of handling the X-Men, just a big No.

So if thats THE endgame of the series, then yikes. The Professor and the Wolverine only got real closure.

 

[SumT]

comparing Endgame to Logan is a big joke to me, sorry.

Endgame was a huge event with absolutley all the heroes of MCU uniting and figthing for their world. with all the excitement, atachtment, anticipation and love to all the Avengers.

Logan was the last movie of just 2 f**** characters of a 17 years ftanchise.

So the comparision is just ridiculous.
One is biggest franchise event of cinema, and the other is the last movie of a solo franchise. And thats it.