Thank you. Beast going hairy, for example, is a legitimate part of his character arc. Do you start him hairy already with a second gen team already in place? How does that work? You have to be invested in him when he wasn't hairy. Same with Jean/Scott. Are they already in a relationship if you start with the second gen team? Do we get to see their courtship? The O5 as a whole may not be as exciting, but the individual characters themselves are very important to the X-Men mythos. Even boring ass Angel. Becoming Archangel needs to have some groundwork. All this could be assuaged with just one Origin film.
I feel like X-Men has more potential as a longer running franchise within a franchise because they have so many dynamic characters to pull from. It's not the case of GOTG or Antman who will top out at 3 films. X-Men actually have time to breathe. When they retire the first/second generation they have a mountain of mutants to carry the legacy. There is no time limit where it's necessary to condense their history, IMO.
I think that long running is a sort of mark against it in terms of films. It means that in 20 years of MCU X-Men films, they only are going to get 6 mainline movies. That's only enough to cover the barebones of the X-Men mythos.
And it's a good point about how important the O5 are. One of the reasons Dark Phoenix continues to fail to interest at Fox, is because we never see the character grow, and thus aren't invested in her, and thus her turning bad is no more interesting than, say, Agent Sitwell turning bad in TWS. Cool for a scene, but nothing worth a whole movie of drama over. Same with Archangel's resurrection. If we never cared about him as a person when he was alive... he's just another villain and any drama over how he used to be means virtually nothing, because we never saw how he used to be. Who cares about the Scott-Jean-Logan love triangle if Scott and Jean's relationship isn't based on anything we care about? Why is Beast being blue such a big deal if we never see him normal.
I really don't want another X-Men origin story. I want them to be established and the core X-Men are already veterans. Like do you really want to see how Rogue, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Storm joined the team? I don't. It could be better than Fox's version but I want to see them as pros in their first film. While Havok, Polaris, Psylocke, Banshee, Dazzler, Bishop, Angel are already veteran X-Men that could be living somewhere or operating under a different group (X-Factor, X-Force, Strike, Gen X).
Another? What was the first one? First Class!? No, no, no... YES people want to see how the characters join the team, just like they want to see how Cap and Tony joined the Avengers.
I get that you already give a crap about all these characters, but the audience does not. Unless you prove to them otherwise, Wolverine IS the X-Men, and the rest are just off screen doing things less interesting and less important.
Another thing is, in the original X-Men movies Jean Grey and Cyclops are presented as a couple and that's it, you don't get an idea as to why they are a couple, and their status as a couple merely provides an obstacle for Wolverine. If we get X-Men as beginners at least there's a chance to develop that relationship, it's what I wanted from the current prequels but they went from planting the seeds in Apocalypse to... Phoenix inmediatly, so I already feel there's a better job to be done.
I'm not head over heels over an origin X-Men film either but I can see the pros.
EXACTLY. You can skip the O5, but if you do you also have to skip the drama that comes from the O5 being main characters, ie Dark Phoenix, the love triangle, Beast angsting over his transformation more than Nightcrawler, Archangel being a former friend, etc. Or you can pretend the audience cares about an O5 they've never gotten invested in and play yourself.
I chose the 3rd film as the equivalent of the 1st Avengers film. I feel like the majority (not movie goers, but comic/X-Fans) eventually want some version of this:
If they do start off with O5 either with or without Storm as a stand in, the O5 are all in this lineup. Adding Rogue and Wolverine (and Storm if you don't include her in the original) in the second film will pull them closer to this roster. By the third film, you can add (while possibly retiring a member) say Gambit and/or Psylocke and/or Colossus (or some variation that might include Nightcrawler or Kitty). Then if you have too many members by the end of film 3, you can split into 2 teams, or more elegantly, spin off the O5 into X-Factor (which is another reason doing an Origin film might be beneficial).
By then, Scott and Jean will be established as a couple, Angel could possibly become Archangel in the first X-Factor movie, Beast will be hairy (and possibly had done a stint on the Avengers) and Iceman will be in all his gay glory (sorta kidding). The "boring" O5 will be a more exciting version of themselves and the Origin film will have people invested in an X-Factor movie. Then you can start adding more members to the X-Men proper.
I wouldn't be mad at any of this. I think splitting the X-Men franchise, one way or another, could be really cool. I wonder how they might work the team rosters if that happens after the second film.
They don't need to show how they met for the first time, they could develop them as an couple from the start and work from that. Flashbacks or talking about the past are another way to tell the viewers about the past without doing an origin story.
When has this ever worked? Usually when a couple is already together at the start, their relationship stays undeveloped or they break up.
How would people feel if they changed some of the races of characters? Clearly the studio isnt averse to it (see Homecoming).
Scott, Warren and Jean need to stay White, imho. Hank and Bobby are open ethnicity, to me. Obviously you don't want to change them to things that are already really prevalent in the main X-Men (Storm is already a Black woman, Psylocke is already an East Asian Woman, Sunfire is already an East Asian man, Bishop is already a Black man, if you plan on doing time travel as a major thing in your trilogy), but I wouldn't want to see Neal Shaara as one of the core X-Men with a bunch of made up storylines to make him relevant rather than just making Beast, who already has important canon storylines, South Asian because why not?
I agree wholeheartedly. I didnt care when Angel seemingly died or that evil look Psylocke gave them because she didnt speak much or shown to really believe in Apocalypses new world.
Prezactly.
The Giant Size team is objectively superior to the original five. The only reason to do the original team is to stay faithful to the comics
Not quite. The audience being invested in the O5 and the idea of the X-Men gives the series a foundation similar to that of the Avengers franchise. Without this, Dark Phoenix, Archangel and other O5-based storylines lack emotional weight.
The original team are only good for historical value. Their actual comic was pretty dull and boring. The book only took off with Giant Sized X-Men, and then retroactively people began to appreciate the original team.
I think they're better used as legacy characters like how it was done with Ant-Man. If people are interested in them later, they can always go back and do a prequel with them. But to start with, they should go for Giant Sized X-Men.
Turning supporting/legacy characters into main cast usually ends up poorly. No one wants Hank Pym prequel. No one wants a Mordo prequel. No one will want an O5 prequel.
But without the historical value, you can't call upon that history for drama with Dark Phoenix, Archangel, and etc. Those storylines will be hollow.
Comparing the X-men and Spider-man in that regard is flawed, though. One of the main things about the X-men is Lee and Kirby didn't have to come up with elaborate origins for them. The X-men's first appearance is as the O5, and frankly, they're biggest contribution is historical. Besides, The Avengers didn't start with the exact same team from Avengers #1, so why should the X-men?
The argument is deeper than the exact team though. The main contention is should the original X-Men, whoever they are, have six
months experience, or ten
years? Spider-Man is a great comparison in this, in that it shows how you can keep the originals and skip the boring parts.
And, now I'm just repeating myself, the #1 X-Men storyline is Dark Phoenix. If the audience is not invested in Jean Grey as they are with Cap and Tony, seeing her fight the X-Men will not carry that kind of weight, it'll be more like when Cap was betrayed by a supporting backstory heroic character, like Agent Sitwell.
There's nothing wrong with laying a good foundation. The O5 have good storylines: romance, learning out of control powers, transformation, death, fatherhood with Xavier, etc. Doing those storylines, things that weren't done in the issues where the comic was cancelled, could gain all the advantages of the O5 with none of the downsides.
Again, just an option. You could just skip to the most iconic team ASAP though. Even though that's not what the MCU usually does, they could probably pull it off if they wanted to.
