I wasn't as pissed about Rogue displacing Kitty's role in the first movie, mostly because I was a 90s (cartoon) kid and expected Jubilee. I was more upset at Rogue's portrayal. A scared, joyless, sad-sack. And she never snapped out of it!
As for my ideas for the competent team, I've expressed them in previous threads along these lines, but I can't help but feel that my desire for a competent team is now reinforced by my disappointment in the Doom Patrol show, now on HBO Max (and I've read and loved Morrison's run, but no show can live up to that, so that's not the issue). I'm only 3-4 episodes in, but I can't shake the feeling of "been there, done that", from which no amount of Alan Tudyk snark can rescue it. Depressed, insecure, traumatized misfits can't hold it together long enough to get shit done until they bond as a (dysfunctional) family and then sort of get it done. There've already been so many examples in this century in TV and film, even outside the realm of superheroes. The new X-Men doesn't have to follow suit, and I will be profoundly disappointed if it does.
Same here
WW2 is not a good starting point for Magneto anymore unless you want him to be a legacy character, which would be a waste.
I know how /important/ it is, but the message doesn't resonate with the new generation. Hell, some of them are nazis themselves.
Magneto needs a new backstory and that's too difficult to pull off, if even possible.
From that point of view, any new Xmen feature is gonna have to work with the other stories and characters. Which is exciting from a storytelling perspective, but a bit melancholic in that we'll be losing a really strong part of what makes the personal conflict so engaging.
You know what, yeah, just change nazis for neo nazis and we'll be set.I'd say Magneto travelling around and killing Nazis is even more timely than it was back then. Hell you could pretty easily construct a story where todays right wingers are the enemies of the mutants.
WW2 is not a good starting point for Magneto anymore unless you want him to be a legacy character, which would be a waste.
I know how /important/ it is, but the message doesn't resonate with the new generation. Hell, some of them are nazis themselves.
Magneto needs a new backstory and that's too difficult to pull off, if even possible.
From that point of view, any new Xmen feature is gonna have to work with the other stories and characters. Which is exciting from a storytelling perspective, but a bit melancholic in that we'll be losing a really strong part of what makes the personal conflict so engaging.
This is the same sort of shared universe streamlining that the Ultimate Universe did with the X-Men, and personally I never liked it as it takes these allegories for racial and sexual minorities and turns them into unnatural aberrations just like the bigots in universe have always said.Previous versions of this post have killed threads, let's see if it's still cursed.
Keep it simple; Xavier is a young mutant recruited by SHIELD to help track and understand the emergence of mutants in the 80's and early 90's. The taskforce works from an underground base in Westchester, NY, where devices such as Cerebro are built to enhance Xavier's abilities. During his time there, Xavier not only discovers that SHIELD is partially responsible for mutation, but that the world is about to radically change. SHIELD buries the entire project, but Xavier uses his powers to keep the facility for his own purposes; to find, recruit and train mutants for the fight to come.
The first film would be set in the late 2000s; teenage Cyclops, Jean, Ice Man, Beast, and Angel, all in their mid-to-late teens. That's it, keep it simple and don't rush to introduce too many characters at once. Save your big fan favorites for later movies when they can have the most impact and we're past the "origin story" phase, when they can slide naturally into the group dynamic.
Xavier is in his late 30s / early 40s, Magneto is only shown in flashbacks if at all and isn't a presence yet; the movie is solely focused on building the first team. Really emphasize the group's differences; Scott the cocky punk, Jean the introvert, Bobby the awkward youngster, Hank the know-it-all, Warren the rich kid. Show the team struggling and slowly starting to come together so that the Obligatory Third Act Battle is the full team working in perfect harmony. Drama can revolve around the love triangle between Scott, Jean and Warren, with hints towards Bobby's homosexuality (being set in the early 00s it would still be something he would hide) and Hank feeling like a shut-in because he's the least "normal looking" of the bunch (for the sake of simplicity he should probably start off blue and shaggy). Xavier is also kind of a relentless dick and pushes his team harder than he should, which creates more friction.
The third act ties everything together nicely; Xavier has been pushing his team so hard because he starts to see signs of things escalating; the arrival of Iron Man, Hulk, etc. The surprise is that the third act runs directly parallel with the first Avengers, where the X-Men are present "just off camera" at the Battle of New York, helping from the sidelines to contain the threat.
Subsequent movies run parallel as well; Magneto's re-emergence would be triggered by the events of Age of Ultron, for example and Civil War would convince the (obviously anti-registration) Mutants to remain hidden, but it's only a matter of time before they're exposed. To deal with the time difference, Magneto's past is changed from the Holocaust to ethnic cleansing in a Sokovian civil war.
I'd like to see Xavier be a bit more fanatical and less benevolent and grandfatherly than the Fox movies; later comic arcs show how reckless he can be and how it splits the team apart. Both he and Magneto are very "ends justify the means"- types but Magneto is fire and violence whereas Xavier is more cold and calculating, but both are willing to use their powers to manipulate the situation, which can eventually backfire and feed into the anti-mutant hysteria the series is known for (having them emerge right at the same time all of these alien threats are appearing would make people suspicious).
This is the same sort of shared universe streamlining that the Ultimate Universe did with the X-Men, and personally I never liked it as it takes these allegories for racial and sexual minorities and turns them into unnatural aberrations just like the bigots in universe have always said.
Logan is Grape hi-c compared to the 1873 red that is Old Man Logan. Of course they couldn't do it justice, but still it is hard for me to give it props knowing what it could have been
That could be an interesting way to explain why the mutants weren't showing up at all in the MCU before Infinity Wars/Endgame.
I could possibly see them changing Magneto's origin since it's been 80 years since the 1940s and would require Magento to be pretty old for him to have been alive during the Holocaust.Yeah, I can't take credit for the idea, but it would be a very elegant way of introducing them without contradicting anything. However, it would be difficult to keep Magneto's Holocaust origin story intact in a 2019 timeframe, which I feel is essential to the character.