OroroGambitFan
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In the late 80's my family was having dinner w/a friend of my moms. I was somewhere between 8-11 yrs of age and bored out of my mind- my mom's friend had an older son so I was hanging out in his room and he had a collection of X-men comics. I spent the next three hours consuming them like they were crack. That's what started my love of comics-- growing up I never read Spider-man, Avengers, Batman or anything other than X-men (well i did read New Warriors too). As luck would have it a few months after that 'The Pryde of X-Men' debuted (an X-Men Cartoon) and it pretty much cemented my love for X-men.Maybe in this site, and recently (some years ago you would be banned for not praising the mcu, to put an example), that does not mean that most of the people from most other sites do. Reddit for example, thanks to their completely broken and ironically called "karma" system, you cannot say one flaw about the mcu or you get downvoted to hell, stopping you from even being able of making comments.
I like, and this is gonna sound crazy, but i like... Good movies, you know, the kind we barely get because hollywood is a factory of prefabricated products that have been assembled by a marketing team with a template to be as generic and formulaic and possible to get your money in an instant but lefting you with zero artistic satisfaction?
Logan was barely "dark", and it was a just ok movie with a lot of flaws, overall it was a wasted chance.
DP is a NOT FUNNY comedy, it is pretty stupid and a wasted chance of what could have been an actually good superhero satire, but they were content with making it in the laziest way possible. And the "comedy" segments or movies in the mcu are beyond cringe worthy.
I love comedy and funny stuff, i just dont like it when the comedy is bad, forced, and just not funny. I like my funny stuff to be actually funny, crazy to say that in a world where people actually laugh with a movie like Deadpool 2 or Ant-Man & The Wasp, i know.
Now, WW and Aquaman are just ok movies, i like them, but they are nothing special and since i watched them at theaters once i dont feel like watching them again, they dont have replay value.
Regarding the mcu, since i was a kid that i watched Iron Man in theaters i thought to myself: "That was not bad, but it was too simple and too humorous" Interesting enough, they have gone backwards with the tone, unlike by example the Harry Potter saga.
Instead of the mcu turning more dark and mature with the years, it became more childish and comedic, with the climax being Thor Ragnarok as THE shining example of everything wrong that disney gets and does with Marvel.
Is not that they made "pure light-hearted adventurism", is that they made light hearted movies mainly targeted at kids, where nothing happens, they are all the exact same movie, there are constant awfully forced jokes in the narrative that detract for the movies to have any kind of weight or emotional resonance (which includes twisting the characters just to fit one more joke), they all feel like a big tease to somehing that never comes, and a long list of etceteras.
This is my problem, to sum it up: All studios have mishandled the franchises they got. The one comic book based live action superhero franchise that gets what the source material is about and have wondefully translated that into the screen is the fox X-Men. In terms of quality, they are at the top. Everybody else is just doing random movies and then slapping a random franchise brand name on its movie title, specially disney.
Edit: And believe me, this is the short answer.
Everyone has their own story and everyone has their own reasons why they personally connected with the X-Men for me it was quite a few things. There was the main overarching story of not being accepted cuz ur different and being gay that was definitely something I could connect with--- that is the most obvious reason and the one that most people reference, but for me there are some key things I really responded to and things that make the X-men feel like the X-men:
Team Dynamics: Everyone has their favorite X-men character and while Wolverine may have been a long time favorite he never overshadowed the team. The team dynamic is at the core of what I think of when I think of X-men- how they work together, how they fight together, how they problem solve together. Singer and Fox FAILED miserably at that. Wolverine is a one man show and sadly it was at the expense of everyone else. They got it in their head that they had to make him front and center to pull in the audience. They never challenged themselves to develop the other characters and to trust in the team dynamic. That's a problem MCU doesn't have. Iron Man may be the star, but they do an excellent job sharing the spotlight and making all the other characters feel needed and relevant---and more importantly they all get a chance to shine. This is just one example of how Fox got this one wrong-- i have a lot more to say and plenty more examples of their shortcomings specific to this point but this is going to be a long rant so I'll save it for later (if needed).
Portrayal of Women: I've always been drawn to strong female leads-- and when I say strong I'm not necessarily referring to brute strength. X-Men has the best gallery of female characters in all of comics by far, and it's not even close! They did an excellent job of pushing women to the forefront before it was popular to do so. They had women in positions of leadership and never regulated them to simply being objects of the main male characters desires. I actually think they played a HUGE role in how women in comics were subsequently featured. Fox and Singer FAILED miserably at that! Storm was portrayed as meek and reserved and although she was later promoted to leader of the team, she never demonstrated great leadership skills. Jean was a hot mess and Rogue was a sad shadow of herself. It's painfully obvious that Singer didn't have any plans to honor this theme that is one of the X-Men's greatest accomplishments.
Science: My love of science as an adult has its root in my early x-men readings. Science played a huge role in most stories. It helped to define limits, explain powers, and surfacefd when characters were having to overcome obstacles. Bringing in more science elements to the characters also showcases how smart and creative they can be--- having Storm come up with creative ways to use her powers was a HUGE missed opportunity by Singer and Fox-- she ever only floated in slow motion...LAME! So I give fox and Singer a FAIL! (I've got ton more examples ready to go if you would like)
Interpersonal Relationships: This fits in w/the team dynamics but it's at the heart of the essence of the team I wanted to highlight it. The interpersonal dynamics was the unified glue of the team. I simply don't recognize any of those characters. That wasn't the Cyclops, Storm, Jean, Rogue, Iceman, Colossus, Emma Frost, Gambit, or Psylocke I grew up with. And please don't misunderstand, I'm not commenting on how franchises take liberties with storylines and character bios-- I'm perfectly fine with them changes things up to best fit the medium they are in. You can switch things around as long as you keep intact the essence of each character. I got a grade for how I feel Fox and Singer did.... F as in FAIL!
To me the points that I highlighted are the ones that I most identify as essential to telling a good X-men story. I'm thankful for the first two X-men movies and I think Fox needs to be credited for leading the way and where we are today so that has to be pointed out but with that said Fox and Singer have had the X-men property for 20 years- that's more than enough time to get there sh!t together, so with that said I am counting down the days till the X-men can fold into the MCU and I'm hoping I will finally get a movie that honors the X-men in a way I feel they haven't been yet.