PoSeiDon said:
i kinda look back now and wish each x-men films was sort of a stand alone film...with a new villian each time
I don't. I like how the movies interconnect with each other. It makes the franchise as a whole a lot better.
With that said, even with the whole interconnecting and everything, ideally, this movie could have gone at least 4. I think 4 would have been ideal for this franchise.
Obviously, we would have had
X-Men and
X2....
X-Men 3 would have been about Jean's rising as Phoenix. New characters introduced would have been Beast and Emma Frost (as well as other Hellfire Club members). The whole movie would have focused on the Dark Phoenix, with build up to this whole cure idea. Perhaps, Beast would inform the X-Men that a cure was being developed, but not yet completed. Magneto would spend the movie in the background developing his army. But there'd be no war yet. The conflict would be about Phoenix, with a build up to this cure war (with Phoenix and the destruction she'd cause being a catalist for this cure).
X-Men 4 would be all about the war. The cure would finally be developed. Magneto and his Brotherhood would cause their terrorist attacks. And finally, Trask would see that something more drastic than this "voluntary" cure would be needed, and try to convince the President to unleash Sentinels (another build up from
X-Men 3). New characters in
X-Men 4 would be Gambit and Angel.
The thing that got me was all this talk about writing
X-Men: The Last Stand to end the trilogy. Once that happened, in my opinion, any chances of a 4th movie went out the window.
I know there's more characters and stories to use from the comics. In fact, my FAVORITE CHARACTER EVER has yet to be used, in Gambit.
But these films work best as a trilogy, the way they've been made.
Of the 3 movies we have, despite the fact that they do have their own stand alone plots within themselves, none of the 3 movies are a complete story. What is
X-Men: The Last Stand without
X-Men and
X2, to explain the buildup to Jean's fate and ressurection, and to explain Magneto's motives and why he feels so extremely about this cure? What is
X2 without
X-Men's introduction to Wolverine, and his shady past, all the details that motivated Stryker to have Nightcrawler attack the President, and go in to the mansion to capture mutants and Cerebro? And what is
X2 without the resurrection of Jean, and this war that seems to have been started by Stryker and Magneto in
X-Men: The Last Stand? And what is
X-Men without the exploration of Wolverine's past in
X2, to pay off all the explanation done about him, and the payoff of Magneto's coming war in
X2 and
X-Men: The Last Stand that he keeps rambling on about in
X-Men, and tells Xavier he will fight every step of the way, because "their" plastic prison can't hold him forever?
Regarding the bigger picture story (the story told over all 3 movies):
X-Men = Big buildup, little payoff
X2: X-Men United = Some payoff, some more buildup
X-Men: The Last Stand = Little buildup, big payoff
The payoff of all the ongoing storyarcs seeded since
X-Men has been resolved now. There wasn't build up in
X-Men: The Last Stand to anything else to come. Magneto's moving the chess piece, and Xavier's waking up in another body
AFTER the crerdits, don't count as build up to something greater.
Unlike
X-Men and
X2, I don't have a sense of "I need to see what's next!" with
X-Men: The Last Stand, because it's all been resolved.
There's no Brotherhood anymore. They've all been cured or killed. Magneto coming back to build up another army would just be repetetive.
Half of the X-Men are either dead or cured.
And mutants have found at least official, if not total, acceptance in the world. Sure, there isn't total acceptance yet, but there never will be.
But Beast's admission into the U.N., and Angel flying around San Francisco, specifically Golden Gate Park, both symbolize that the world is getting better for mutants.
So yea there's comic characters and stories that have yet to be used. But in terms of the movies, there isn't. It's done.
I'm not saying a trilogy was the ideal way to go. But after they treated this film as a conclussion to all the ongoing story arcs, a trilogy became the way to go.
I really hope Fox sticks to their guns on this. A 4th movie won't be the same. The ongoing story arcs in the trilogy has been completed, so there won't be much of a connection to the 3 movies we have, except for name. Whereas the 3 movies are all interconnected with each other, a 4th movie would just be some random threat, some random fight, for the X-Men. I don't want that to happen.
With 3 under the belt now, who knows if the cast could come back as a whole this time out. I don't want recasts. I want continuity. Recasting breaks the continuity.
And in the case of not being able to get the right actors back, I don't want the X-Men movies to continue without such characters like Storm and Wolverine. It's bad enough that Jean and Cyclops WON'T be coming back, because they are both dead.
IF a 4th movie ever does happen, they'll be skating on thin ice, and there will really be no room for error. The ressurection card has been played with Jean already. And they are pushing it with the Xavier thing. I know these movies are based on a fantastic comic book world, but I do like some kind of realism to my films, and anyone and everyone who dies, comes back to life, that's not realism. That's lame. Jean can do it. It's a major part of her character arc. But I don't think anyone else should.
They are also walking a thin line with the cure thing. Are they gonna keep the cure in tact? If so, you lose out on characters like Rogue, Mystique, and Magneto. Are you going to make the cure temporary to get those characters back? Okay, cop out. Makes the 3rd movie utterly pointless, and is just a really lame cop out just to get recognizable characters back.
I think a 4th movie has too much chance for error, and too little room for it, to be effective. And in terms of movie making, these reasons for NOT making it are much stronger than "Gambit still hasn't been used!" in favor of making it.
Gambit won't neccesarily make a movie good.
But bad plot points, that go back and contradict and un do what previous movies have done, while breaking continuity,
WILL make a movie bad.
