Topic: X-Men: The Whole Damn Franchise, by Eddie
So I saw Days of Future Past, and largely liked it. I came out of the theater perfectly happy with it as a film, if not elated. Afterwards, I grabbed dinner with Teague and Cloe and mentioned, "I may have some fridge logic-y issues with it tomorrow, but nothing too bad, I don't think."
The next day, I found myself having some serious problems, but not in the way I expected. I still largely liked DoFP, based mostly on the performances, the sense of fun inherit to a "we're getting the group together to do a thing," vibe, and my god, the editing which I was surprisingly impressed with. The problem arose when I started thinking of this as an actual X-Men movie, because frankly....it isn't. It then led me to this realization, which prompted me writing this review to begin with:
There has been exactly ONE movie about the X-Men. There have been some decent movies with X-Men in it, and some real clunkers with the same amount of X-Men. But an X-Men movie? Yeah. Only one.
In terms of comic book publishing, few comics have been so reactionary to the times as Uncanny X-Men #1 published in 1963. At the height of the civil rights movement, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby made a comic book that was Science Fiction at it's most functional. That is to say, it took a fantastic premise that dealt with timely struggles we as humans face. Xavier and Magneto were thinly veiled analogs to MLK and Malcolm X, and the team Prof. X assembles were literally students fighting against radicalized discrimination. For 100 issues, X-Men grappled with issues of prejudice, discrimination, and institutionalized hate. It often punched upwards, as Stan Lee is a great creator if not a great writer, and lacked the skill to make these stories more meaningful than the average "bad guy in spandex hatches a plan," cliche.
Speaking of Villain of the Month in Spandex, that's all Wolverine was meant to be. If you're not a comic reader, you probably don't remember that Wolverine debuted as a villain in an issue of The Incredible Hulk. If he was labeled as a mutant, it wasn't overt. But to shake up sales, Marvel released, Giant Sized X-Men #1 in the mid 1970's, creating essentially a new X Men team. The original 5 were being held on an island, and Prof X assembled an international crew consisting of Wolverine, Colossus, Banshee, Storm, Nightcrawler, Sunfire, and a couple others I'm sure. Up until this point, the X-Men had a solid dynamic. After this issue, only Cyclops would remain with the team, leading what would be called the "All New, All Different," X-Men. But within a year, it was evident that Wolverine was the breakout star. With the 70's came a shift towards the anti-hero modality (see also another 1970's villain turned anti-hero, The Punisher) and Wolverine became a nice counterweight to Cyclops and Prof. X's sometimes blind optimism and "twice as good," mentality. It was a great balance to the TEAM dynamic, but the unintended consequence was that Wolverine ended up becoming the star of the X franchise, placing him on a singular iconic level, right alongside Captain America and Spider Man. Wolverine got his own series, and by the early 1990's, Wolverine is the defacto leader of a fractured X-Men in the Australian outback (don't ask). All of this coincided to the comic book industry bubble, which by 1993 had reached unparalleled heights. Jim Lee was getting 1k per page to draw X-Men, Rob Liefeld was pooping on pages and calling it "drawing," for roughly a million dollars per scrunchy-face, and you just HAD to buy 5 copies of "The Death of Superman," if you ever wanted to send your kids to college.
I mention all of this at length because I think people wrongly associate Wolverine AS the reason X-Men works. I think he's a great character, but the promise of the X-Men's premise has always been about two diametrically opposed positions to fighting for the oppressed, as represented by Xavier and Magneto. It is because of this, that I feel pretty strongly in stating that the only movie actually about the X-Men, is X Men: First Class. The rest of the films in the franchise have simply been iterations on Wolverine and His Amazing Friends.
While 2000's X-Men starts with a flashback of Magneto's past, and jumps to both Prof. X and Rogue in the present, make no mistake, that movie is ABOUT Wolverine. He drives the movie's agency, he's the one who discovers the world, as it were. He's as much of a keystone character as Rogue is, but Rogue never really DOES anything on her own. Wolverine is the only X-Men to actually have anything resembling an arc. Part of this is due to the complete hamstringing of the budget by Fox, helmed by Tom Rothman at the time, who reached near Peters-ian levels of source material hate. Most of the post-Matrix action movie beats found in the third act reflect this. It doesn't really hold up too well, as I discovered while rewatching for WAYDM, but the clarity of Wolverine's story is still front and center over any other character.
X-Men 2: X-Men United is a much stronger film, while being somehow even less about the X-Men. Wolvie is still the main character, with Jean Grey and somehow Iceman getting more of a clear arc then the rest of the team. Prof. X is practically an after thought. Still, the addition of William Stryker (a military general in this film, a bit different then the fundamentalist preacher from the comic story, X Men: God Loves, Man Kills) brings some of the themes of the Xavier/Magneto dynamic to the forefront better than all but one of the other X-Men movies. Unfortunately, all that is merely a backdrop to the personal struggles of one former Weapon X.
X-Men: The Last Stand is...I mean.....kinda The Dark Phoenix story...I guess. It's hard to say what this movie is when the movie isn't quite sure either. Whereas X-Men 2 had a very focused through line to match Wolverine's arc, this film plays more like a telenovella with it's obsessions over interpersonal betrayals, love triangles, and clumsy psycho-sexual and messianic metaphors. It's the worst of internetty cliches but, quite literally, there's nothing to see here, kids.
Which brings me to my point that X-Men: First Class is the real X-Men film. By no means am I a comic purist. The origin story here is nothing like the comics, quite to it's benefit. One thing I will always give Singer praise for, is that adapting the comic storylines were more like cooking than baking. That is to say, a little of this (Weapon X) some of that (God Loves Man Kills) a dash of this (fuck it, Dark Phoenix) and you end up with something pretty tasty. XMFC follows this tradition with a brand new creative team equally well. By recentering the film's narrative around the relationship between Xavier and Magneto, the film recenters the theme back to what the comics were about. Hiring Fassbender and McAvoy and having them attack the material as if it's MacBeth certainly doesn't hurt either. The lack of Wolverine frees the film up to explore a much more diverse cast of characters, most of whom have enough of a backstory and an arc to make you care about them. I'm sure the Friends in Your Head will eventually cover First Class, and I hope we do. On top of being the only actual X-Men film that's about the X-Men, it's easily the best film of the series.
Which isn't to say that X-Men: Days of Future Past isn't a bad film. I think it's fine (sorry, Dorkman) it just for some reason makes Wolverine and his struggles THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO EVER HAPPEN TO MANKIND, YOU GUYS. He literally has the most important job in the history of mankind. It's kinda hard to build on the really awesome foundation that First Class left us, when Wolverine has to save the day again. I liked it as a movie...just not as an X-Men movie. This ultimately left me not only wanting for a true sequel to XMFC, but with this disappointing feeling that the franchise is going backwards instead of forwards. Which when you think about it, is antithetical to what the X-Men are supposed to be about to begin with.
Last edited by Eddie (2014-05-30 18:48:56)
