What was the problem with the fire bird?

[The Ones]

Maybe Rothman's daughter chimed in saying she thought fire was scary.

And Zombies are all laughs arent they

 

[ntcrawler]

And Zombies are all laughs arent they

Cuddly..


Maybe they had a similar dilemna as with the human torch. Didn't want little kids to start thinking that fire is cool and try to ignite themselves.

 

[WideAwake]

Cuddly..


Maybe they had a similar dilemna as with the human torch. Didn't want little kids to start thinking that fire is cool and try to ignite themselves.

That line of thinking from studio's always make me laugh. Basic Instinct 2 for example: there was a lot of fuss about Sharon Stone smoking a lot in the movie. People were afraid the movie might endorse smoking, while nobody's worried about Stone "endorsing" serial killing.

And why couldn't the studio have NOT have had enough time or money to do the firebird? It may sound rediculous to you and me, considering what some fans can come up tinkering around with After Effects, but due to X3's short production time, a lot of the budget was spend on pulling it all together in time. This included hiring 6 FX studio's to get the job done. So, because of time restraints, they had to put a lot of money in this movie, but not all of that money may have been spent effeciently.

 

[javon]

Did they make a 'creative decision' not to do it?

Thats the thing...why wouldn't they wanna do it?

 

[Retroman]

OOh nice Shots Retroman

Thanks

Very cool, Retroman.

But I mean they wouldn't have the budget to do the Phoenix Effect as a character essentially. Jean flying around with the full firebird and grabbing people with it and stuff like that. That would get rather complicated.

It should also have been within their budget to do something like the classic Byrne Phoenix Effect from X-Men 135 when Jean came out of the water.

It didn't even need to be the full firebird all the time.At the very least they should have had it when she rose out of the lake and when she goes all crazy on Alcatraz.

Basically heres what happened.
They choose not to make the Phoenix effect a top priority off the bat, and thus when it came down the line they didnt have enought time to do it good. Additionally Ratner and Rothman which was stated months ago believed it didnt fall into realistic X-Men world, to which i respond ITS A COMIC BOOK MOVIE...
See thing with X3, even before anyone saw the script any X-Fan knew Jean didnt die. So the first FX i would think would be a priority is the phoenix, they choose differently, thus no phoenix

When Simon Kinberg and Zak Penn came on board they were told that by Fox that they didn't want Phoenix or Cyclops.So right from the get-go they had the completely wrong approach.

I don't believe the X3 script has been made public, yet. I was hoping they would include it with the 'Art of X3' book, like how they did with X2.

Me too. The one for Superman Returns was sold seperately.

Maybe she was the Phoenix at the end of X2 and Dark Phoenix in X3?

Doesn't make any difference. They've both got the firebird.

 

[Retroman]

Thats the thing...why wouldn't they wanna do it?

According to the writers Ratner did not think it was realistic enough to have firebird Phoenix. The podcast was posted here somewhere.

 

[Retroman]

I knocked this up in 1/2 an hour a few days ago and its not finished:

http://media.putfile.com/Flame-86

So clearly budget wasnt the problem.

WOW Amazing work.
This makes me happy and sad at the same time.

So all of you who think that it was a budget issue better look at this.

 

[Bastila]

WOW Amazing work.
This makes me happy and sad at the same time.

So all of you who think that it was a budget issue better look at this.

Yeah, but also Fox didn't really want a 'Phoenix' story either, if you get the new issue of total film, they talk to the writes and state why they didn't have it as well. It was because it was unbeliveable it was fox.

 

[X-Maniac]

Yeah, but also Fox didn't really want a 'Phoenix' story either, if you get the new issue of total film, they talk to the writes and state why they didn't have it as well. It was because it was unbeliveable it was fox.

Which issue of Total Film is this interview in?

I can't see it on the magazine's website http://www.totalfilm.com

 

[Retroman]

Yeah, but also Fox didn't really want a 'Phoenix' story either, if you get the new issue of total film, they talk to the writes and state why they didn't have it as well. It was because it was unbeliveable it was fox.

Yeah they wanted X-Men vs Magneto with no Phoenix. Didn't Neil Gaiman say that when Vaughn was on board they were going to thinking about having the final battle with Magneto vs Wolverine or something?

Which issue of Total Film is this interview in?

I can't see it on the magazine's website http://www.totalfilm.com

http://www.superherohype.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10050304&postcount=3553

 

[britrogue]

I would have rather had no Phoenix in X3 and then have a seperate film about her

 

[Mistopurr83]

The script reveiw on AICN was very accurate. Jean was not truly Dark Pheonix, she was just Jean walking around like a psychotic corpse. IMHO that's a big insult to the original Pheonix saga. Chris Claremont should feel offended that a classic story arc he wrote/created was butchered on screen!

 

[the a1ant]

I'm guessing Bryan Singer fought very hard with the studio to have that Phoenix stuff in X2, huh? It wasn't even in the original script the studio signed off on, so it makes me wonder if he went behind there backs to get that done, and then after-the-fact they decided to just keep it in there What do you guys think?

Yeah they wanted X-Men vs Magneto with no Phoenix. Didn't Neil Gaiman say that when Vaughn was on board they were going to thinking about having the final battle with Magneto vs Wolverine or something?

Did a little search. Good memory, Retro

"I spent about 45 minutes a few days ago in the X-Men 3 offices, seeing what they'd planned for the movie, watching animatics of some of the sequences, admiring the concept art. I heard people there muttering about the fact they'd got a movie coming out in May 2006 and they didn't seem to have the budget to make the film they were planning, and how they'd probably be reduced to a pulse-pounding tiddlywinks battle between Magneto and Wolverine in the final sequence -- but they all seemed very committed to the project, while hoping that their budget and time issues could be worked out with the powers that be. So I was sad to see from Ain't It Cool that Matthew's left the film. If it's true, then I suspect it means that the Stardust film may be happening rather sooner than anyone expected."

http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2005/05/assortment-of-bits.asp

 

[Retroman]

Did a little search. Good memory, Retro

"I spent about 45 minutes a few days ago in the X-Men 3 offices, seeing what they'd planned for the movie, watching animatics of some of the sequences, admiring the concept art. I heard people there muttering about the fact they'd got a movie coming out in May 2006 and they didn't seem to have the budget to make the film they were planning, and how they'd probably be reduced to a pulse-pounding tiddlywinks battle between Magneto and Wolverine in the final sequence -- but they all seemed very committed to the project, while hoping that their budget and time issues could be worked out with the powers that be. So I was sad to see from Ain't It Cool that Matthew's left the film. If it's true, then I suspect it means that the Stardust film may be happening rather sooner than anyone expected."

http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2005/05/assortment-of-bits.asp

Thanks

 

[N_z0]

I've said this before, but this shot has some resemblance to the final scene at Alcatraz in which tendrils of water are pulled up around the island...

This goes with the Ratner's "...every scene is ripped straight off of the comics..." and "...these two writers are the biggest X-men fans..." doesn't it?

 

[ntcrawler]

The script reveiw on AICN was very accurate. Jean was not truly Dark Pheonix, she was just Jean walking around like a psychotic corpse. IMHO that's a big insult to the original Pheonix saga. Chris Claremont should feel offended that a classic story arc he wrote/created was butchered on screen!

To add insult to injury, he wrote a book based on the film an the Carrie on steroids / psycho walking corpse that used to be Jean and how she was killing off the same people whose lives she just saved in the previous film. Sheesh!

 

[ntcrawler]

This goes with the Ratner's "...every scene is ripped straight off of the comics..." and "...these two writers are the biggest X-men fans..." doesn't it?

Oh yes. Pure, 100% fans and geeks at heart. Peter Jackson and Sam Raimi watch out. I get the impression that the only reading these characters did did was looking at the cover artwork.

Actually, I think they're more fanboys than fans now. Considering how obsessive they were with fire and explosions and ultra-powerful psycho death-characters-from-hell blowing everything up with no depth or subtle nuances, only fanboys could pull something like that off.

 

[MJB]

I'm sure in the sequel to bring Jean back will be that it wasn't Jean at all but Madalyne Pryor. Sinister will have gotten the real Jean or either the Hellfire Club. Who knows.

 

[Sunstar]

I think they didn't want it, because the movie version of Phoenix wasn't the cosmic entity, the firebird, so, why add a firebird without a solid reason?

Actually the Firebird can be explained without bringing in the whole Alien entity thing! The flames that Jean creates could be explained as an illusion that Jean manifests to represent her power (a sort of psychic aura) and the reason why it forms into a firebird is b/c her alter ego is called the Phoenix and she can manipulate the psychic flames into any form she wants to! So basically when Jean is at her most powerful her flames appear and as her power intensifies the flames grow brighter and when she is at her maximum it takes on a phoenix form. So the Firebird doesn't have to be a self thinking being like in the comics to work! If it didn't they wouldn't have used it in X2.

Jean had the power of fire...as seen at the end of X2...she had a fire aura. Well she died and laid in a lake for quiet a while. Phoenix was then born from water. Phoenix looked like a lady that had been rotting in a lake for a month...freaky as hell.

That’s a contradiction b/c mythologically a Phoenix is a creature of fire not water! Also the water 'killed' Jean so in this case the water is symbolic of death. If Jean rose out of the lake in flames it would symbolise fire overcoming water which in turn symbolises life overcoming death which is what the Phoenix represents! Also rising out of the water in flames would be unusual and amazing b/c the last thing you’d expect to see is fire rising out of water since it is, in reality, impossible but of course in X-men almost anything is possible.

I think it would have confused the casual viewer thinking if she came from the lake...why does she have fire. I think if the Phoenix had been a spectacular fire being...great...but then again they don't want to mix each character's powers. I think it was fine.

But Jean's flames are psychic not real fire! It might seem confusing at first to the general audience but then again Jean rising out of the lake all clean and perfect might also be very confusing since she was under water and presumed dead. Her resurrection was of course explained to us by Prof X. The same could've been done for the Firebird. They could've had a scene where they show Prof X enters Jeans mind and in there he confronts the Phoenix persona who has taken on the form of a Firebird and basically when Jean creates a Firebird outside her mind it is symbolic of the fact that the Phoenix has escaped from within Jean and is now in control. As to how she creates the flames they could've shown Jean flamed up when she kills Prof X and then Magneto could ask Callisto how she can create fire and she could tell him that it's psychic flames, used to represent her power and alter ego, and not actual fire that burns!

Much like some comic interpretations of Dark Phoenix, the "fire bird" was used for Phoenix as a symbol of light, and a much darker aura for Dark Phoenix to show the drastic differences between them. I think the movie went for a very similar representation. The veiny, creepy look probably came from Dark Phoenix's first appearances where she looked emaciated and bony. And, when we all get the DVD, you should check out Jean's eyes when they go "black." As I spotted when the first preview of X3 with her and Magneto in the woods, Her eyes aren't solid black - there is a dull orange/yellow flame in them.

Yeah, when we usually think of any incarnation/interpretation of Phoenix/Dark Phoenix, we picture the fire bird. But it makes a much better contrast with the Darker Look they gave her in X3, which is more comic-literate than what most think.

This annoys me about how Ratner and co. chose to make the Phoenix look in X3. They choose to make her look like a zombie, which makes it contradictory that she chose to emulate death, when she never really died and a Phoenix is symbolic of life, power and immortality: having immense flames would show that she is powerful and intimidating b/c fire can also represent destruction and doesn’t have to always represent light and goodness. I agree with what you said about the Phoenix being symbolic of light so I think that if they did use the ‘Firebird’ they could've probably used the darker flames to show her more destructive, chaotic form like in the comics.

 

[ntcrawler]

Actually the Firebird can be explained without bringing in the whole Alien entity thing! The flames that Jean creates could be explained as an illusion that Jean manifests to represent her power (a sort of psychic aura) and the reason why it forms into a firebird is b/c her alter ego is called the Phoenix and she can manipulate the psychic flames into any form she wants to! So basically when Jean is at her most powerful her flames appear and as her power intensifies the flames grow brighter and when she is at her maximum it takes on a phoenix form. So the Firebird doesn't have to be a self thinking being like in the comics to work! If it didn't they wouldn't have used it in X2.

Exactly! that's what we were thinking as well. The firery aura is a natural manifestation of her power, just like nightcrawler goes "BAMF" and leaves behind that dark smoke. When jean wants to do something trivial like lift a book or vial or a person, it's just her. IF she needs to call forth more power, you see the aura. And if she gives into anger or really needs her powers at their max levels, it's the firebird aura.

And yes you are correct it's not real fire, only a representation of fire. If you want to step into it and she lets you, it most definitely will not hurt you. Probably feel warm and comforting instead of flaming you to a crisp.

Nicely thought out! nice to see other people who feel the same way too!

 

[AznBABYBANDIT]

i think the budget was the real killer, but the writers decided to make it "realistic"...

 

[thegameq]

i think the budget was the real killer, but the writers decided to make it "realistic"...

Yeah, I think once they realized it wasn't in the financial and time budget, the "realistic" excuse came into play.

It's going to be real interesting to see how Marvel attempts to get this property back. I have a feeling Fox is going to milk the X-men license until it's dead.

 

[ntcrawler]

^^^ By the time they give it back it will look and feel like a worn out, broken down police car?

 

[Boba_Fett_123]

i think the budget was the real killer, but the writers decided to make it "realistic"...

I think the Ones' clip speaks for itself on this matter.

EDIT: And let's not lose sight of the fact that Zak wrote the Phoenix effect into the Alcatraz scene. Something about a "second sun", IIRC.

 

[thegameq]

^^^ By the time they give it back it will look and feel like a worn out, broken down police car?

quite possibly. Fox knows they have a money maker on their hands and I think the X-franchise is the closest thing Fox has right now to a mega-franchise ala SW. Unless Marvel (and perhaps another studio) make Fox a major monetary offer to buy back the license, I don't see Fox letting their deal with Marvel expire.

In other words; I don't think the fans will see a reboot of this franchise in the distant future either. If Fox does an X4 in the distant future odds are the "vision" won't deter much from the already well established Singerverse. Furthermore, the spinoffs will be the link between (not continuity wise) X3 and an X4. Thus, providing viewers with a reference to the past films. If X4 were to suddenly go the route of GR or SM it would be the odd man out, so to speak, in terms of vision and possibly continuity.