The Official X-Men 1 (2000) Appreciation Thread

I still love this film <3 There's something very intimate about it.

 

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I love the first X-Men. I just love how it felt. It wasn't this big giant spectacle. It didn't need to be. Ian and Patrick are just superstars and are really the reason why Prof X and Magneto are still so important. Of course those characters are always important but I think Patrick and Ian just did something that worked so well together and I see the same in James and Michael. The chemistry. People might complain about it but I love that the X-Men issues are still about and surround that relationship. The first X-Men showed that but it was X2 and DoFP that really solidified it.

I can always watch X-Men over and over although right now the one hardest part to watch is when Sabretooth throws Wolverine and he spins around the head of the statue cutting off one of the crown parts. Before that looked so damn cool but seeing the cgi now I need to look away hahaha. But besides that it all holds up well still.

 

One of my fav bits from X-Men is when Jean is in Washington trying to stop the mutant registration act. A very small scene that overall doesn't seem important but it sure is. To see how humanity views mutants was all summed up in that one scene. And also my fav line is when Senator Kelly says we license people to drive Dr. Grey and her response is yes but not to live. Great dialogue.

 

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She technically fly during the elevator scene.

 

Also I never understood the hate that Halle got for the toad line lol. I never rolled my eyes at it or thought it was the worst line like everyone says.

 

I get a little annoyed when people say it was Blade. I don't think the Blade movie was nearly as popular as X-Men when it came out. Or maybe my memory is fuzzy.

Nowadays, it's Spider-Man that jump-started it, not the X-Men. People really go out of their way to downgrade these movies.

I think it was her delivery. There wasn't really much behind it. They shoulda just cut it out altogether. It would've more badass if Storm fried Toad without even saying a single word.


But I too, loved the first X-Men movie. There's something special about to me. Despite the poor budget, the several script rewrites, the rushed date, and all the other problems I heard they had with it, they still produced a damn good movie.

The casting was just great all around (even Halle as Storm), the tone was very serious, the fight scenes were pretty good, the dialogue was great, I really liked the dynamic between Wolverine and Rogue, the conflicting ideologies between Xavier and Magneto, and it was the only movie where we saw shades of leadership from Scott. Plus, the banter with Scott and Wolverine was done pretty well.

My only problems with that movie was Toad soloing Scott, Jean, and Storm so easily, and the scenes they cut. That's pretty much it. There was this one extended scene of Jean's talk with Logan in his bedroom, and there was more to his talk with Cyclops which would've given both characters a little more dimension, but they didn't include it.

I think Rebecca Romijn said it best in an X2 interview, and I agree. X-Men was like a dress rehearsal and X2 was like opening night.

 

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Yeah one thing I didn't like is how underpowered they seemed against Toad. And how slow it seemed for them to get their powers going. Now we don't see that. The power displays are great and fun and fast but in X-Men it took Storm forever to just get a bit of lightning. But yeah X-Men was just a pure set up movie because X2 was just WOW. I think X2 and Spider-Man 2 were the groundbreaking movies for comic book adaptations. X-Men and Spider-Man paved the way.

 

Yeah, I never understood the basis for that. Jean had him suspended in mid air and just held him. She didn't throw him back across the room, or anything. It's like this was their first rodeo.

X2 and Spidey 2 are Top 5 IMO. Those movies are just absolutely incredible.

If I remember correctly, the Marvel logo wasn't even in its marketing, right?

Fair enough. I'm not trying to discredit Spidey. He's my favorite hero and I loved the hell outta the movie. It just seems like some people act like the X-Men had no part in the CBM boom and it's a little silly.

 

Her doing that was probably quite impressive for 2000 as it was in the trailers if i remember right

 

Yeah, times were much simpler back then. Nowadays, you have to go above and beyond.

 

People forget the entire genre was looked down after Batman & Robin.

Blade wasn't promated as comic book film.

even with just 75 million budget it was big deal when X-Men went into
production and risk for fox given how genre was thought of at time.

At time many were saying strange a comic book film would open in holcaust and yet that was taken from comics of magneto as boy in camps.

As i say X-Men revived the genre and Spider-man explored it.

MCU fans should show respect to X-Men and spider-man.Look you can think their films are better.That's matter of taste and perference but without X-Men and Spider-man there wouldn't be MCU since they and their success payed the way for MCU.

When you look at comic book films of 1990's X-Men was revelation when it came out.I still prefer first X-Men over first class.

 

I loved the film when I first saw it because I had only watched a small handful of the animated episodes and hadn't read the comics and yet it was so accessible I still understood and enjoyed it ... when I rewatch it after reading more and more comics I still love it .
The tone/story, themes, action and character relationships (especially Wolverine's development) really hold up (although I don't much like the movie version of Cyclops, Storm & somewhat Mystique were underused and a little more action would have been better).

Not terrible but very anticlimactic after the music and effects in the scene had been really good.

 

One of my favorite superhero movies. (#6, behind TDKT and Spider-Man 1/2)

The first half in particular is perfection.