Re: The official X²:Mutants United (Spoiler) Thread
Originally posted by
PsionTen:
... my problem is with the constraints of the medium itself.
In my mind, X-Men simply has way too many characters, with way too much backstory for a 2-hour or 2-hour and 30 minute movie to do it complete justice...
I can only imagine what kind of movie this would have been had there been another hour and a half for Singer to play with ... if you've ever read "God Loves, Man Kills," the graphic novel this was loosely based on, you'll know how powerful this story really is ... much better than the script, but when you have such a limited time to tell a story, there has to be sacrifices.
It looks like the next movie might focus on Jean Grey and the Phoenix Force, which is another powerful story ... X-Men has countless numbers of great stories to pick and choose from, but I still wish we could see a three-and-a-half or four hour X-Men movie... but it'll never happen
As with me when
X² finished off and the end credits faded on, I too was thinking how I could sit through another 2 hours of both story and action. Then again in context of the movie franchise, that is what
X² essentially has become in being a continuation of its prequel. That is why I think that
Singer and his team did a great job at molding the two movies into one to make them both seem like one big story, together.
When one has over 40 years of history and tight continuity to look back upon like in this particular scenario (not even to begin to discuss such a confusing one such at hand), one doesn't really have a choice in the matter when you are forced to draw a cut-off line somewhere which naturally brings forth a chain effect of having to include huge sacrifices. Unfortunately as well in this exact same scenario one can't use each and every mutant ever written either, there had to be decided on a hand full of main characters which meant that some fan somewhere would miss out on his or her favorite mutant. But even so we ended having a pretty big ensembled cast again whom all had plenty of character screen time to an almost equal level. So, I would have to state again that under all this pressure and with the full amount of limited time that was put available to
Singer's use and disposal, he and his team did a fairly decent job of having cramped in as much story and mostly continuity as they did. The general moviegoer doesn't know this or couldn't even begin to quite possibly realize or understand this concept. Unless one reads the comics or you know the franchise fairly well, how many of an audience would actually know/realize that the figure being observed floating through the water at the end of the movie is a representation of a phoenix form. Most people I have spoken to think that '
Jean Grey' is dead and they do not have a single clue as to why
Jean Grey's eyes grew burning red in power throughout the whole duration of the movie. They can't even begin to understand why
Jean Grey's mutant ability overpowered and burned out at the end.
All of this would bring me to believe that not that many people except for true fans would actually have realized by now that the main theme which
X²'s foundation has been based on represents the ideas and concepts from the work of mostly
Chris Claremont. Once again though one can't have an exact representation and makeover of any graphic novel without adapting and grooming its story so as to making the material seem as realistic as possible for the big screen medium, without messing up the essence of the
X-Men and their history. With "
God Loves, Man Kills" one had an extremely powerful and overwhelming story that worked convincingly for its medium as a graphic novel, but for a movie one had to find other ways of portraying these ideas since they are very dark, cruel and disturbing of nature. The screenplay brought across these written concepts in a very fashionable but smooth flow, without having had the movie scenes seem cruel or overexposed. Somehow I have to believe that if we had
Xavier crucified half naked onto a cross, the whole procedure would not have been in favor at all to the movie... though, I would have to admit into saying that I can only begin to imagine how such a dramatic and powerful illusion sequence would be enacted and presented to fit the profile for a big screen medium.
X-Men kicked off the story with having had us being introduced to the world of mutants through the eyes of both
Wolverine and young innocent-like
Rogue, which led us to the exposure of who and what the
X-Men represents and their mutual and rival struggles. Therefore in
X² there was no need for any explanations which meant the writers could jump straight into a balls to the wall action packed but character driven story.
X² is an interlinked second chapter saga of both the continuation of
Wolverine's struggle to establish the reality and truth of his past and present as well as
Stryker's compulsive obsession to annihilate all mutants through abusing and ultimately manipulating
Xavier into using his telepathy to destroy everything he holds dear by enforcing an illusion upon him. It also turned out that
Stryker was responsible for
Wolverine's eluding past where
Stryker was responsible for having given
Wolverine his adamantium skeleton and claws, and this worked really well for me personally since the concept worked well for the movie when you had the two diverse themes combining into one. Even though in the comic franchise, or more specifically in "
God Loves, Man Kills",
Stryker was a religious "zealot" reverend with a plan of genocide for mutants (quoting the synopsis more or less on the back of the graphic novel). This was only one of the changes, but I found for every change they had to make that there was five continuity-wise things that made up for it... especially when
Wolverine started slicing and dicing up a body count all over the place.
After having waited almost a good 3 years since the release of X-Men (which I just happened to have watched last night with 4 of my friends on a widescreen tv with 5.1 surround sound *drool*), I have just under 6 more hours to go and counting! 
