Were the deaths in X3 really so awful?

[Angry Sentinel]

So, did people not want any deaths at all?

Or was it the number of deaths? Or the way the deaths were handled?

Or do you object entirely to the concept of a 'last stand' with sacrifices?

If the X-Men faced a 'last stand' who should die? No-one? Anyone? Random mutants we don't know or care about?

The deaths were not cohesive with either what the previous movies had established, or as Nell pointed out, with what the comics have established.

Any movie attempting to follow the 'swell' of what Singer created could NEVER be 'wrapped-up' in a nice little 3rd installment. That is what they attempted to do and it was a hot mess.

 

[X-Maniac]

Any movie attempting to follow the 'swell' of what Singer created could NEVER be 'wrapped-up' in a nice little 3rd installment. That is what they attempted to do and it was a hot mess.

From a storytelling point of view, you may be right. But there were obviously other considerations - contractual and financial. A large cast including several big names was no doubt expensive and contractually problematic. And, of course, contracts for many who were signed for three movies would require expensive renegotiation after a third movie. The salaries bill alone for X3 was $100m. Removing some of the characters, albeit in a dramatic or shocking way, at least clears some room for other characters to come in, in the future.

 

[Abaddon]

The deaths were not cohesive with either what the previous movies had established, or as Nell pointed out, with what the comics have established.

Was Deathstrke's death cohesive with comics? What about Jason(or rather the character he was based on)? Senator Kelly? Come on, people.

 

[X-Maniac]

Was Deathstrke's death cohesive with comics? What about Jason(or rather the character he was based on)? Senator Kelly? Come on, people.

To that you could also add Toad and Sabretooth's apparent deaths in X1. And, in other superhero movies: Joker, Penguin and Two-Face in the Batmovies, Green Goblin in SM1 and Doc Ock in SM2.

Is it more a case that people don't like their favourite characters dying, not that the deaths are necessarily wrong or 'not cohesive'?

 

[Angry Sentinel]

From a storytelling point of view, you may be right. But there were obviously other considerations - contractual and financial. A large cast including several big names was no doubt expensive and contractually problematic. And, of course, contracts for many who were signed for three movies would require expensive renegotiation after a third movie. The salaries bill alone for X3 was $100m. Removing some of the characters, albeit in a dramatic or shocking way, at least clears some room for other characters to come in, in the future.

In all fairness you are absolutely right, but that is also exactly part of my point Maniac. I should not be watching a movie thinking, "OOhh they had to do this because of all the financial, and productional situations of
this project".... WTF, this is a story, if you can't tell the right story, please don't tell it at all.

Was Deathstrke's death cohesive with comics? What about Jason(or rather the character he was based on)? Senator Kelly? Come on, people.

*Sigh* the Deathstrike thing was a hot mess. But please do not try and tell me that you do not know where the idea of the "All hot-super-kewl-soon-to-be-in-his-own-movie character faces off ALONE against another rival and has some super-kewl action sequences" comes from. Singer?? I think not! Just look at ANY other movie he has done and you know that this is more of a good example of exactly where these same problematic ideas that were in X3 came from.. *cough-FOX-cough*

 

[Nell2ThaIzzay]

So, did people not want any deaths at all?

Or was it the number of deaths? Or the way the deaths were handled?

Or do you object entirely to the concept of a 'last stand' with sacrifices?

If the X-Men faced a 'last stand' who should die? No-one? Anyone? Random mutants we don't know or care about?

the bolded part of your quote closest describes how i feel about the situation.

why are the deaths neccesary? why can't you show struggle and conflict without death? the comic books have done quite a good job of that...

i understand jean's death, because her sacrifice is part of the phoenix arc. but cyclops, xavier, ANY of the x-men, they shouldn't have died.

despite the fact that he, like everyone else, has come back in the comics, if the movies were ever to have done a legacy virus arc, i could see colossus dying in that. because colossus dying is a part of the legacy virus story arc. but if they were to kill off colossus JUST so they could show "sacrifice" and "struggle"? no. that's unacceptable to me.

there are creative differences i am willing to allow. because no matter WHAT you are adapting, you won't be able to adapt 100%. some things that work in a book, or a comic book, don't work as well in a limited, 2 hour, on screen movie. i am okay with such changes as not using the original 5, as making juggernaut a mutant, as not exploring nightcrawler and mystique's relationship, etc...

but there are certain elements that are a bit more -central- to the story, and when you change those elements, you begin changing the story that is being told. cyclops, xavier, they aren't meant to die. to me, those changes are now beginning to change the very core of the x-men mythos. at least to me, and that is why i find the deaths to be unacceptable.

on to another point:

Was Deathstrke's death cohesive with comics? What about Jason(or rather the character he was based on)? Senator Kelly? Come on, people.

To that you could also add Toad and Sabretooth's apparent deaths in X1. And, in other superhero movies: Joker, Penguin and Two-Face in the Batmovies, Green Goblin in SM1 and Doc Ock in SM2.

Is it more a case that people don't like their favourite characters dying, not that the deaths are necessarily wrong or 'not cohesive'?

to me, the deaths of villians are completely different than the deaths of central characters. the main reason being, unlike comic books, movies don't go on forever. so the whole dynamic between hero and villian is a bit different. when a villian is defeated, it needs to be definative, because in order to actually move on with the story line, the next film is going to use a new villian. so while the deaths of lady deathstrike, sabretooth, toad, jason (aka mastermind), etc... aren't exactly canon to the source material, to me, deaths of villians who won't be around in the next installment anyways doesn't exactly tamper with the central core of the stories that i love so much, where as killing off a central character like cyclops or xavier does.

in my mind, it's the level of what you are willing to accept in an adaptation. for myself, i am willing to accept change (and even embrace it), but i still want the core of the stories to remain the same. when you kill off the characters who are vital to the story (and i don't mean just the phoenix saga, i mean x-men in general), you begin messing with what i love about these stories to begin with. and when you do that, it ceases being the same story, and becomes something different altogether. it's why i am so torn about x-men: the last stand.

while on it's own, i think it's a good movie, it's also at the same time a bad x-men movie, because it changes what i love about the x-men. it kills off vital characters, it puts other characters in roles they aren't supposed to be in. so i mean, looking at it as part of the x-men film trilogy, i think it's a great addition. but when you compare it to the x-men stories that i have loved since BEFORE the movies, it is completely different. it is not the same x-men. and it's more than just making some changes to make it better work in a movie theatre than a comic book, it's changing the FOUNDATION of the story, making it a completely different story altogether.

 

[X-Maniac]

In all fairness you are absolutely right, but that is also exactly part of my point Maniac. I should not be watching a movie thinking, "OOhh they had to do this because of all the financial, and productional situations of
this project".... WTF, this is a story, if you can't tell the right story, please don't tell it at all.

I agree to an extent... but the perceptions of fans like ourselves are coloured by what we already know from the internet. The general public out there isn't aware of all that stuff. All three movies had constraints imposed on them by the studio, as happens with any movie in all honesty. If you watch the X-movies with budgetary limits or studio politics on your mind, then some things within the movie that appear to be the result of those will appear to be more obvious or awkward or underachieved or unsatisfying.

The mainstream viewer isn't aware of how budget/politics/studio demands affected the X-movies, or Singer's SR for that matter (he ran out of money at the end, and had to drop a climactic action sequence in which he rescued a train from a tidal wave triggered by the growth of the island).

Now that I know Sentinels were excised from the story of X2, I watch the mansion raid and every time feel the absence of Sentinels there; and watch the dam sequence and feel the absence of Sentinels there. That was the point of Pyro's earlier (but biologically impossible) remark that men carried the mutant X-gene. Sentinels unleashed by Stryker were to have detected he carried the mutant gene and, in vicious irony, they were to have destroyed him. But that comment was never carried to that conclusion when Sentinels were cut from the story.

*Sigh* the Deathstrike thing was a hot mess. But please do not try and tell me that you do not know where the idea of the "All hot-super-kewl-soon-to-be-in-his-own-movie character faces off ALONE against another rival and has some super-kewl action sequences" comes from. Singer?? I think not! Just look at ANY other movie he has done and you know that this is more of a good example of exactly where these same problematic ideas that were in X3 came from.. *cough-FOX-cough*

I also don't think Deathstrike was a 'hot mess'. It was a necessary and excellent action sequence at that point in the story. It pushed Wolverine further towards closure on his Weapon X past, with Deathstrike's death being part of that closure. As fans of the comics, we'd love Deathstrike not to be dead, to be available for inclusion in further movies. But movies are limited and work to a condensed story arc. And it's often more satisfying story-wise to see the villains dead, hence the fates (in other movies) of Green Goblin, Doc Ock, Joker, Penguin, Two-Face, Ra's Al Ghul, Venom, New Goblin, Toad, Sabretooth, etc.

I'd love to have seen Deathstrike's fate left open-ended, but can understand why it wasn't. I tend to view the deaths in X3 in the same way although politics obviously did affect the Cyclops situation and Ratner's choice of Rogue's fate was unwise and indicated inexperience with the material.

 

[TKing]

I think the real question is, were the deaths in X3 really so necessary? As Nell says, you can suggest conflict and struggle without casualties - the writers seemed to opt for the easy way out.

 

[X-Maniac]

^^^ But having said all that, I'd NEVER have written the X3 we saw on screen. I certainly wouldn't have cured Rogue, or killed Cyclops. But then again I wouldn't have written Wolverine as such a screen-hog for the entire franchise! However, what's originally scripted and what appears on screen can be two very different things!

 

[X-Maniac]

I think the real question is, were the deaths in X3 really so necessary? As Nell says, you can suggest conflict and struggle without casualties - the writers seemed to opt for the easy way out.

I think you have to have some sort of casualty scenario. Rogue almost died in X1, Xavier was put in a coma, and Toad and Sabretooth died. In X2, students were captured, along with Xavier and Scott; Deathstrike, Jason and Stryker died; Jean sacrificed herself; Xavier unwittingly killed people (we don't know how many) with the re-aligned Cerebro.

I agree the sense of threat, injury or death seemed more balanced in those two movies. It went a little over the top in X3.

And yet Xavier's death and funeral was a great part of the third movie - for him to be captured or comatose yet again seems a bit repetitive. But perhaps it would have worked for him to have been left badly injured and psychically 'wounded' beneath the collapsed house and carried from it by Wolverine or Cyclops. The best threat that we DIDN'T see would have been Phoenix's attack on SF.

As I said, I wouldn't personally have planned or written the X3 we saw on screen.

 

[TKing]

As I said, I wouldn't personally have planned or written the X3 we saw on screen.

No sane person would.

 

[TKing]

I think you have to have some sort of casualty scenario. Rogue almost died in X1, Xavier was put in a coma, and Toad and Sabretooth died. In X2, students were captured, along with Xavier and Scott; Deathstrike, Jason and Stryker died; Jean sacrificed herself; Xavier unwittingly killed people (we don't know how many) with the re-aligned Cerebro.

Maybe I should have said fatalities. I think 'killing' Cyclops in X3 was just a step too far. After all, the writers really didn't think this would be 'the last stand', did they?

 

[Abaddon]

For the record Toad and Sabretooth did not die.

 

[TKing]

For the record Toad and Sabretooth did not die.

So what happened to them? I know Sabretooth was involved in some nation-wide man hunt. And Toad?

 

[Abaddon]

Toad was supposed to be X2 as a victim of Stryker's brainwashing.

 

[TKing]

But as he wasn't included, we could still say he was incapacitated since Storm's attack.

 

[Abaddon]

incapacitated sure, but she didn't kill him.

 

[TKing]

Still, he wasn't much of an interesting character (at least from what Singer gave us).

 

[Abaddon]

It's a wonder Singer managed to make Mystique interesting. I don't get his love for silent henchmen.

 

[X-Maniac]

Maybe I should have said fatalities. I think 'killing' Cyclops in X3 was just a step too far. After all, the writers really didn't think this would be 'the last stand', did they?

I think it's more a case that the studio wanted it to be the last stand, because it had been a problematic production. It needn't have been of course, if Fox had simply signed Singer on to do X3.

 

[X-Maniac]

It's a wonder Singer managed to make Mystique interesting. I don't get his love for silent henchmen.

Mystique was made interesting by the excellent production design and wonderful atmospheric sense of realism - which is Singer's strong point. By making her reptilian, a human chameleon, she became more 'real' than a blue woman in a white dress and a skull belt as in the comics.

 

[TKing]

Mystique was made interesting by the excellent production design and wonderful atmospheric sense of realism - which is Singer's strong point. By making her reptilian, a human chameleon, she became more 'real' than a blue woman in a white dress and a skull belt as in the comics.

She was one of the highlights of the trilogy, I would say. Although I was disappointed with her lack of involvement/screen time in X3, her curing and abandonment really sent out an important message. That the stakes are higher, and that Magneto is a ruthless dictator who will not lay down his ways for even his most trusted ally.

I think Rebecca played the part so well. One of my fav scenes of the trilogy is when Mystique enters Alkali Lake (as Logan) and takes down the military guys in quick succession.

 

[X-Maniac]

I guess the next question is whether an X4 should 'undo' any events of X3 or merely leave all the deaths and curings alone....

 

[TKing]

If there is an X4, which now I seriously doubt, bringing back Cyclops is a must - simply put, he's the leader of the X-Men and needs to prove that to the audiences.

Despite numerous fans calling out for Jean to return, her story has come to a suitable end. Let her remain dead. This isn't the comics, characters cannot revive/die as they please. And, regarding the 'cure', I think a sensible storyline could be written to allow the front line characters (Rogue, Magneto, Mystique) to regain their powers.

However I think it would make an interesting arc for Magneto to come to realize the error of his ways - the destruction at the hands of the Phoenix (through his bidding/encouragement) could really bring it home for the guy, and guide him onto a path of redemption. Ending up at the Institute could serve the comics well (as Magneto does become a teacher, yes?). Finally, Rogue is in desperate need of a do-over. She must regain her powers, confidence, we need to see a burst of the sassy empowered character that we know from the comics.

 

[Abaddon]

The most consistent thing about Rogue in any medium is that she's a tough chick. Movie Rogue is a *****.