I think you misinterpreted my post, I wasn't saying it should never be rebooted, I was just commenting on those suggesting going back to the original five... I was saying if/when they reboot it should be with a new team that we haven't seen (but, still should be a reboot in theme, tone, an over all feel) I'd differently would want them to break free of the OT set universe
which down the line could lead to reintroducing characters that were used in the OT, but, I think it'd be important to reestablish the universe over all first, then reintroducing those characters into that universe, so the changes to the characters don't feel as forced (change for the sake of change) which so, many reboots suffer from
I sometimes wonder if X-Men is too stale to reboot. I mean, we're 6 films in, and we've got at least 3 more to go in this established continuity. Is Joe Public going to be hankering for a new take on X-Men after 9 films, and 20 years of Hollywood presence? It might require a lengthy hiatus. (Of course, Fox needs to make movies, so that will never happen...)
Martian Manhunter, Vision, now electro turned blue and the Spectre at one point too, just to name a few. Everytime there is a team without a character who wasn't originally black, they turn into black the one with fewer human characteristics and where therefore, the changed ethnicy will not be as obvious.
It's partially unintentional, but it still looks kind of shady, not very different than the usual rule of "Token Black Guy"
I'd be down for the Ultimate X-Men route
That is a possibility though it might be harder to do with an ensemble cast
Wasn't Magneto pure evil in the Ultimate Universe and didn't Wolverine try to murder Cyclops just to get with Jean Grey? I'm not sure what things you would take from the UU, but there are lots of things from the UU that would not work for the general audience.
My fantasy is the X-Men franchise rebooted as a TV series. With it's cast of thousands and long winding story lines, X-Men is much better suited for television than the big screen anyway. A TV series would certainly allow for more X-Men characters to share the spotlight, and it would make it easier to get into the really weird epic stuff, like Apocalypse and a proper Dark Phoenix Saga.
I think a live action X-Men TV series should initially focus on the original 5 X-Men. Save Wolverine for season 2.
As for the race issue, I think if any of the original X-Men should get a facelift, it should be Cyclops. Young minority actors rarely get the chance to play dorky conservative stick in the muds unless it's in a sitcom.
My fantasy is the X-Men franchise rebooted as a TV series. With it's cast of thousands and long winding story lines, X-Men is much better suited for television than the big screen anyway. A TV series would certainly allow for more X-Men characters to share the spotlight, and it would make it easier to get into the really weird epic stuff, like Apocalypse and a proper Dark Phoenix Saga.
I think a live action X-Men TV series should initially focus on the original 5 X-Men. Save Wolverine for season 2.
As for the race issue, I think if any of the original X-Men should get a facelift, it should be Cyclops. Young minority actors rarely get the chance to play dorky conservative stick in the muds unless it's in a sitcom.
I would KILL for a live-action X-Men television show but it would be so incredibly expensive to produce that I don't think any network would be able to keep it running. Heroes got through four seasons with limited power displays and it was still like 4 million+ per episode.
We'd either get limited power displays like on "Heroes" in order to keep the fx and budget down or get very Saturday afternoon-esque fx like on AoS.
A proper Dark Phoenix Saga...on TV? Good luck with that budget wise.
My fantasy is the X-Men franchise rebooted as a TV series. With it's cast of thousands and long winding story lines, X-Men is much better suited for television than the big screen anyway. A TV series would certainly allow for more X-Men characters to share the spotlight, and it would make it easier to get into the really weird epic stuff, like Apocalypse and a proper Dark Phoenix Saga.
I think a live action X-Men TV series should initially focus on the original 5 X-Men. Save Wolverine for season 2.
As for the race issue, I think if any of the original X-Men should get a facelift, it should be Cyclops. Young minority actors rarely get the chance to play dorky conservative stick in the muds unless it's in a sitcom.
That's actually quite doable if you focus on the human moments, and don't try to spend an inordinate amount of time in space. The only significant challenge would be that whole fight against the Shi'ar Imperial Guard. That might have to be reduced to just a fight against Gladiator. In the end though, it's easier to do the Dark Phoenix Saga in 10 hours on 100 million dollars than 2 hours on 200 million dollars.
Except a lot the stuff you mentioned would not work on a TV budget. The Phoenix Saga and Apocalypse would not work on a TV budget, no way. There is a reason why there were more human Cylons then robot ones in Battlestar Galactica or so many of the aliens in Star Trek are humans with bumpy fore heads, because you would blow your budget for the entire season on one episode otherwise. Having a character like Apocalypse, who's powers would eat up the budget for an X-Men series in one episode, would not be feasible.
You would not spend a 100 million dollars on a couple of episodes though, that's not how TV works. I don't think X-Men works on a TV budget period. When they did the Battle of Black Water Bay in season 2 of Game of Thrones, that one episode cost far more then any other episode that season, so even just fighting Gladiator on a TV budget, would be pretty tough though, because the effects involved would far more involved then the ones in "Blackwater". No offense, but I do think some people have unrealistic exceptions about what you can do with a live action TV series, in terms of special effects.
Except a lot the stuff you mentioned would not work on a TV budget. The Phoenix Saga and Apocalypse would not work on a TV budget, no way. There is a reason why there were more human Cylons then robot ones in Battlestar Galactica or so many of the aliens in Star Trek are humans with bumpy fore heads, because you would blow your budget for the entire season on one episode otherwise. Having a character like Apocalypse, who's powers would eat up the budget for an X-Men series in one episode, would not be feasible.
You would not spend a 100 million dollars on a couple of episodes though, that's not how TV works. I don't think X-Men works on a TV budget period. When they did the Battle of Black Water Bay in season 2 of Game of Thrones, that one episode cost far more then any other episode that season, so even just fighting Gladiator on a TV budget, would be pretty tough though, because the effects involved would far more involved then the ones in "Blackwater". No offense, but I do think some people have unrealistic exceptions about what you can do with a live action TV series, in terms of special effects.
Exactly!
Also, while I haven't read the books, I hear the Battle of Black Water Bay was incredibly weak and really trimmed down from the books. I enjoyed the hell out of it but as you said, that one episode was the most expensive that season and they still had to cut out a lot from the book.
I don't mind if they were to try the Phoenix Saga again in a film or a couple of films cutting down some of the stuff from the comics but for a TV show, even going on for multiple episodes that would turn out to be longer than the run time of a few movies would still be hard to do.
That's not the way films work. If you have 6-10 classic X-Men stories, you can't take one and spread it across two films. Do the same with Apocalypse? Days of Future Past? God Loves Man Kills? In order to do the story for films, you have to cut out a lot of what made the story good and go with the strengths of films: showing off people's powers. And honestly, films don't really do all that great with that, do they?
I already mentioned that you have to cut some things out to bring some of these larger stories to the big screen. With that being said, you don't have to cut out everything that "made the story good" and only go with showing of the mutant abilities the whole time.
As for "films don't really do all that great with that". I heavily disagree. I felt the drama aspect of the first two X-men films as well as First Class and The Wolverine were pretty good and at the same time they were also able to "show off people's powers". Yes, when you adapt a big story like the Phoenix Saga it would take 2-3 films to do it justice where a TV show could give it numerous episodes but once again the budget limitations on a TV show would involve cutting out a lot from the story as well.
And again, for X-Men, these stories have already been done, so in doing the Phoenix Saga for film, you come across as rehashing X-Men 3 (shudder) instead of expanding on it, and showing how shallow it was, all you can do is give it better special effects. That's not impressive to me.
This is on top of how the films can never capture the feeling of the X-Men because they don't have time for more than 2-3 characters.
What powers are these? Most of Apocalypse's powers: super strength, size changing, regeneration, telepathy, telekinesis, technopathy and being a big blue skinned armoerd guy have been done on TV well and cheaply for decades. Why would it all of a sudden eat up a budget?
If Apocalypse were a CGI character, or non-emotive, the BSG comparison would make sense. If he were anything more than a bumpy forehead alien, the Star Trek comparison would make sense.
Why would spending 100 million over 10 episodes mean spending 100 million on a couple episodes? What is your vision for the X-Men? I think you're imagining something a little flashier than the books actually come across. Just because someone can blow up the world, doesn't mean that you have to show it over and over and eat up your budget. When you deal with the high powered characters, they're not on screen maxing out their powers constantly.
Gladiator has super strength and super speed. These powers are extremely cheap to make happen on television. You have him fly in (your big SFX shot) you have him wreck shop with super strength and speed (minor FX, some stunts and prop work) and you have a big epic fight for less than the cost of Blackwater.
Duplicating the comic book panels would be expensive, but doing the story, and all the emotion that goes with it is absolutely doable on a TV budget. It would not be easy, but it's far easier than doing the story justice in film, where you can have Gladiator fly around, but you can't tell half the story of Jean's journey because you only have two hours and the movie has to cater to 3-4 other characters.
Same concept goes for Phoenix and Apocalypse.