Tuesday, December 23, 2008

X-Men

Okay, its been quite a while but I am still upset at the horrible job they did with the casting and story line of X-Men 1,2,3. Firstly If/when we play X-Men – I am Rogue. Azra and I have discussed this, and this is more or less what we came up with. I grew up with the X-Men cartoon, which I absolutely loved. So a lot of what I think they should have done in the movie has references to the cartoon. (The cartoon and comic differ slightly from time to time).

Now I do understand that the makers probably had their reasons for doing what they did, but this is how I would have liked to have seen it all go down.


I was mortified when Rouge who in the cartoon is a very powerful adult and equal to Jean-Gray and Storm (in both cartoon and comic), was cast as a Teenager.





Anna Paquin? This is a classic example of – just because you won an Oscar doesn’t mean you can do everything! I liked her in She’s All that but she was horrible as Rogue! Being all week and whinny! It was pathetic! Rogue had a personal anguish with what her powers could do – there is no question about that but to portray her as a “victim” is sad and does no justice to the character. Who was one of the strongest women there.
So we would cast Angie Everheart as Rogue.
Storm also fell flat. Halle Berry is beautiful but she doesn’t fit what Storm was. Her acting was also kak another Oscar case – and that accent!! Don’t get me started…


So we came up with Vanessa Williams instead. But Now that I’m thinking about it, I think Vivica A. Fox could have done a MUCH better job!



Everyone else – I think was perfect for their roles. Magneto and Xavier were born to play those parts. I think Cyclops (James Masters) should have been a little bit more buff – but other than that it was perfect. Jubilee was “the teenager” in the cartoon. They had a good casting but they did not utilize the character as they should have. She should have been in Rogue’s position in the first Movie.



The story line in both the comic and cartoon is complex, interwoven and complicated. As all Marvel comics are and I like them like that. I think by trying to jet pack things in they missed out very valuable story lines. Gambit didn’t even make an appearance – which was very upsetting. The 3rd X-Men was a huge disappointment! Worse than all the other two. Everything looks pretty but there was no substances – it felt like they were trying to rush through the whole story but in some area’s it was so slow! The fighting scene was nothing to rave about either.

They could have got all unknown actors who fit the characters (instead of well known actors who the characters were moulded to) as this would have been cheaper and thus they could have made more movies and given the characters the opportunity to be fully explored and given us more movies to watch.

6 comments:

ZK said...

I'm also an X-men fan [have the comics :) you must read 1906]
anyway i was disappointed with the role of Rogue as a whinny little teenage brat as she and Gambit have always been my fav x-men :)

but over all for such a complex comic they seemed to have pulled the movies off quiet well. I was upset that some of the big names in the comics had minor parts as you pointed out with Jubilee but i guess they couldn't put everything they or we wanted.

For those [like my little sister] who never grew up with the comics and cartoons, the movie was definitly a hit with them. And also they judged it according to what they saw and not how we judge it according to what we know :)

but your analysis is right on my level and for the record Fox would have been better she has that air of bitchyness about her which would suite the storm role better.

Az said...

Your backside!

I AM ROUGE!! Always have been and always will be...we said that you're going to Jean! or Jubilee.

But see, I was right...Angie Everheart would have played the part perfectly! Much better than Anna Paquin...please.

And storm was an older woman...not Halle Berry. So my pick with be Vanessa...an bitchy Vanessa, like her character on Ugly Betty.

M Junaid said...

http://concerningmjk.blogspot.com/2006/11/concerning-x-men.html

:D

those are my thoughts on the third movie so no need to get into that. X 2 was my favourite superhero movie of all time until Dark Knight killed it (although i am still trying to work out whether Dark Knight should be cheapened with the superhero label)

You forgot that Rogue had a deep southern accent.

I agree with your storm observation :)

Tazeen said...

Anna Paquin was a miscast indeed.

Lady T said...

ZK - I'm glad I'm not the only one that got annoyed with Rogue - I forgot about all those people who didn’t grow up with X-Men, so I guess in that case it was okay. I guess I will always prefer it "like in the old days"

Azra - Please sunshine, I was the first to be obsessed with X-Men. You were Jean-Grey because she likes bossing people around too!

MJ - seems like we smoking the same tobacco just in different pipes. But my all time favourite superhero movie of ALL time - actually movie of all time is Spiderman 2.

Tazeen - so true!

Waseem said...

I also loved the cartoons, i have all 5 seasons at home on DVD. So I agree that those who didn't know the cartoons were happy with the movie.
My favorite characters are Gambit and Mr Sinister. I've read Gambit will be in the Wolverine spin off movie, I dont get how he will fit in, I hope he isn't like Angel in XMen3.

My favorite superhero movie is Spiderman 1, it was almost perfect comic canon.