henzINNIT
Superhero
- Joined
- Oct 25, 2009
- Messages
- 6,040
- Reaction score
- 3,553
- Points
- 103
Howdy. I've toyed with fan edits of X-Men: The Last Stand for years to mixed results. Of all the weak entries in the series, this one stands out as necessary to the franchise and therefore impossible to ignore. There is some good to be found in the film, but a lot of bad. My most recent attempt borrowed some scenes from Apocalypse and while I found some success in that, I decided to put it on hold until 'Dark Phoenix' dropped. Now that I've seen it, I'm starting to put some ideas together.
Dark Phoenix SPOILERS below....
The events of The Last Stand will play out more or less the same as the theatrical version with minor tweaks to improve continuity and character. A proposed list of my changes for this:
- Reinstate Xavier Voice-Over
- Altered opening credits with X3 title card
- References to Secretary Trask cut
- References to Moira Mactaggert cut
- Charles' lesson on Mutant Ethics is not interrupted by Storm affecting the weather (shots of this used later)
- Reinstate deleted scene: Pyro informs Magneto of the mutant cure announcement
- Love triangle between Rogue/Bobby/Kitty cut to remove jealousy from Rogue's choice.
- Restructure to move Magneto's war preparation further up and remove downtime after Jean has returned.
- Partially reinstate the extended fight at Jean's family home (including psychic battle between Charles and Jean)
- Move Xavier's funeral to the end of the film.
- Reinstate deleted scene: Jean senses a scared girl on the Golden Gate bridge
- Partially reinstate extended fight at the cure facility.
- Cut the infamous Juggernaught line
- Reinstate deleted scene: Magneto tortures Logan.
- Replace Rogue's return sequence with the one where she refused the cure.
- Reinstate deleted scene: Logan returns to Canada (to better tie into The Wolverine)
But then we come to the spicy additional material. Using a mixture of flashbacks and 'psychic events', I plan to add in Jean Grey's backstory as such:
[One last Dark Phoenix spoiler warning]
-Young Jean causes her parents' car crash
-Charles locates an unconscious Jean with Cerebro (using his search for Moira from Apocalypse)
-Charles visits young Jean in hospital
-Charles shows young Jean the mansion
-Jean bumps into Scott as he is taken in to the mansion
-Jean practices archery while Scott demonstrates his powers
-Scott introduces himself to Jean after receiving his glasses
-Jean struggles with her powers (crying in the rain scene with added shots of mutant kids in distress, including young Angel trimming his wings)
-Jean apologizes to Scott for his bruise
-Xavier comforts Jean after a nightmare. He sees something horrible in her mind (shots of Apocalypse replaced with Famke's phoenix)
Along with this, I'm planning a few sequences to visualize Jean's enormous psychic powers. This stuff will be kind of trippy (and the most difficult to achieve) but I will add shots to Scott and Jean's final kiss and Charles and Jean's confrontation if it works. When Logan and Jean get close in the sub-basement, I want to harvest Jean at Weapon X from Apocalypse to suggest she's probing around his mind. Later when Logan ultimately stabs Jean at her request, I want to splice in the tender moment when Jean removes Logan's Weapon X gear.
Finally, once Dark Phoenix is out, I want to take a look at splicing Jean 'evolving' in space into Jean's death in TLS. The finales take place in very similar looking locales so I'm hoping I can make this work somehow.
There's probably a bunch of ideas I'm forgetting, but I'm eager to get this out to hear peoples' thoughts and suggestions. Let me know what y'all think, and if you've got any cool ideas please drop them in. Cheers
Dark Phoenix SPOILERS below....
The events of The Last Stand will play out more or less the same as the theatrical version with minor tweaks to improve continuity and character. A proposed list of my changes for this:
- Reinstate Xavier Voice-Over
- Altered opening credits with X3 title card
- References to Secretary Trask cut
- References to Moira Mactaggert cut
- Charles' lesson on Mutant Ethics is not interrupted by Storm affecting the weather (shots of this used later)
- Reinstate deleted scene: Pyro informs Magneto of the mutant cure announcement
- Love triangle between Rogue/Bobby/Kitty cut to remove jealousy from Rogue's choice.
- Restructure to move Magneto's war preparation further up and remove downtime after Jean has returned.
- Partially reinstate the extended fight at Jean's family home (including psychic battle between Charles and Jean)
- Move Xavier's funeral to the end of the film.
- Reinstate deleted scene: Jean senses a scared girl on the Golden Gate bridge
- Partially reinstate extended fight at the cure facility.
- Cut the infamous Juggernaught line
- Reinstate deleted scene: Magneto tortures Logan.
- Replace Rogue's return sequence with the one where she refused the cure.
- Reinstate deleted scene: Logan returns to Canada (to better tie into The Wolverine)
But then we come to the spicy additional material. Using a mixture of flashbacks and 'psychic events', I plan to add in Jean Grey's backstory as such:
[One last Dark Phoenix spoiler warning]
-Young Jean causes her parents' car crash
-Charles locates an unconscious Jean with Cerebro (using his search for Moira from Apocalypse)
-Charles visits young Jean in hospital
-Charles shows young Jean the mansion
-Jean bumps into Scott as he is taken in to the mansion
-Jean practices archery while Scott demonstrates his powers
-Scott introduces himself to Jean after receiving his glasses
-Jean struggles with her powers (crying in the rain scene with added shots of mutant kids in distress, including young Angel trimming his wings)
-Jean apologizes to Scott for his bruise
-Xavier comforts Jean after a nightmare. He sees something horrible in her mind (shots of Apocalypse replaced with Famke's phoenix)
Along with this, I'm planning a few sequences to visualize Jean's enormous psychic powers. This stuff will be kind of trippy (and the most difficult to achieve) but I will add shots to Scott and Jean's final kiss and Charles and Jean's confrontation if it works. When Logan and Jean get close in the sub-basement, I want to harvest Jean at Weapon X from Apocalypse to suggest she's probing around his mind. Later when Logan ultimately stabs Jean at her request, I want to splice in the tender moment when Jean removes Logan's Weapon X gear.
Finally, once Dark Phoenix is out, I want to take a look at splicing Jean 'evolving' in space into Jean's death in TLS. The finales take place in very similar looking locales so I'm hoping I can make this work somehow.
There's probably a bunch of ideas I'm forgetting, but I'm eager to get this out to hear peoples' thoughts and suggestions. Let me know what y'all think, and if you've got any cool ideas please drop them in. Cheers
