The X-Men films may be pretty divisive (if not wildly inconsistent in quality), but they almost always stayed focused on their mutants-as-the-outsiders allegory. From their interpretations of God Loves, Man Kills, of Apocalypse, the Phoenix, Joss Whedon's 'cure' storyline, Days of Future Past, Wolverine in Japan, Old Man Logan, their trash Weapon X film - they covered a fair bit of ground but still stayed centered on that approach.
It's one thing with the Fantastic Four since Doom never reflected the real Doom. It's one thing with Spider-Man since that character's context in the world around him never matched his position in the comics as an underdog superhero. That, and they had to tell a Goblin storyline literally every other movie.
But Fox never strayed that far from the X-Men's key allegory, however clumsily done. Apocalypse may have been woefully unimpressive and boring and tonally off-putting (*insert shot of Psylocke in her leotard as Magneto blows up Auschwitz). But... waking back up, gathering a bunch of X-Men as his four horsemen in order to decimate huge swaths of the planet so that only the strong survive... I mean, that's Apocalypse. Days of Future Past still gets the point of the story and is still pretty good. It'd be hard to justify ever doing that again. Do you tell another sentinel story, just... I dunno, with Master Mold? As if we haven't already had a "self-replicating robot army that has a twisted idea about saving the Earth" plot in the MCU? I mean it's been over a decade since Last Stand, but even divorced of who was directing it, there's this feeling of redundancy when you hear about them doing another Phoenix movie.
Is it enough to carry a franchise on the notion of a version of Cyclops that isn't a useless dork? As wonderfully silly as Sauron is, how interesting can your "X-Men get lost in a dinosaur jungle" movie be that it won't feel like a one-off episode of a TV show? There's a ton of potential for Mr. Sinister, but does he stick around or is he another one-off? Asteroid M? You can't really start with a House of M movie. Genosha brings up interesting questions but that feels like something you have to build up to.
What can the X-Men movies do to make some worthwhile adaptations without just retreading the Fox films and going "Oh but this time we'll get it right because... Emma Frost is here?"
It's one thing with the Fantastic Four since Doom never reflected the real Doom. It's one thing with Spider-Man since that character's context in the world around him never matched his position in the comics as an underdog superhero. That, and they had to tell a Goblin storyline literally every other movie.
But Fox never strayed that far from the X-Men's key allegory, however clumsily done. Apocalypse may have been woefully unimpressive and boring and tonally off-putting (*insert shot of Psylocke in her leotard as Magneto blows up Auschwitz). But... waking back up, gathering a bunch of X-Men as his four horsemen in order to decimate huge swaths of the planet so that only the strong survive... I mean, that's Apocalypse. Days of Future Past still gets the point of the story and is still pretty good. It'd be hard to justify ever doing that again. Do you tell another sentinel story, just... I dunno, with Master Mold? As if we haven't already had a "self-replicating robot army that has a twisted idea about saving the Earth" plot in the MCU? I mean it's been over a decade since Last Stand, but even divorced of who was directing it, there's this feeling of redundancy when you hear about them doing another Phoenix movie.
Is it enough to carry a franchise on the notion of a version of Cyclops that isn't a useless dork? As wonderfully silly as Sauron is, how interesting can your "X-Men get lost in a dinosaur jungle" movie be that it won't feel like a one-off episode of a TV show? There's a ton of potential for Mr. Sinister, but does he stick around or is he another one-off? Asteroid M? You can't really start with a House of M movie. Genosha brings up interesting questions but that feels like something you have to build up to.
What can the X-Men movies do to make some worthwhile adaptations without just retreading the Fox films and going "Oh but this time we'll get it right because... Emma Frost is here?"
