Days of Future OH MY GOD THIS IS AWESOME

October 29, 2013 6:33 AM

The first official trailer for 2014's X-Men: Days of Future Past. (slYT)
posted by Kitteh (190 comments total)

I just re-read this a week or two ago and discovered it's set in 2013. I stopped reading, took a quick look out the window and let out a sigh of relief. Wonder what Chris Claremont would have thought if you told him what would actually be happening right now.
posted by yerfatma at 6:34 AM on October 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

Do want
posted by Uncle Grumpy at 6:37 AM on October 29, 2013

Needs more Kitty Pryde.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 6:38 AM on October 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

Needs more Kitty Pryde.

Yeah, I get why they send Hugh Jackman back from a box office perspective, but what makes this such a good story is that they send back the most vulnerable team member and someone whose powers are defensive in nature.

FYI, the thing hung up for me in HD no matter what I did, so dial back to 360p if you get stuck.
posted by yerfatma at 6:40 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

Wonder what Chris Claremont would have thought...

"By the white wolf!"
posted by Iridic at 6:40 AM on October 29, 2013

Wonder what Chris Claremont would have thought if you told him what would actually be happening right now.

"Wow. I never would have imagined how my vision of the future would look when compared with the reality. After some consideration, I've decided to alter my story in light of what I've learned, and taking into account the complex geopolitical environment of 2013, the story will now feature women (especially Storm) getting mind-controlled and dressing all sexy."
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 6:44 AM on October 29, 2013 [10 favorites]

I do like that they make it look like a Xavier vs. Magneto setup, rather than the actual arc. Something of a surprise for a trailer.
posted by postcommunism at 6:45 AM on October 29, 2013

Wait, I may be getting it mixed up with the one with the Fantastic Four, or the God Loves, Man Kills arc.

Been a while since I read any of them.
posted by postcommunism at 6:48 AM on October 29, 2013

I can't load the damn trailer, so is the continuity weirdness of Scott Summers being in the original trilogy and Alex Summers being in First Class going to be addressed? It doesn't look like Scott or Jean are in the credits which is, honestly, probably the best idea.

Also is it Singer who writes his scripts in that hilarious irreverent/colloquial way where he speaks directly to whoever is reading it?
posted by griphus at 6:54 AM on October 29, 2013

...no Sentinels?

Apparently these are days of some other future past.
posted by delfin at 6:58 AM on October 29, 2013 [3 favorites]

There will definitely be Sentinels.
posted by griphus at 6:59 AM on October 29, 2013 [4 favorites]

I really want it to be awesome, but...I'm still mainly looking forward to it for the cast. The last thing the X-Men franchise needs is fresh buildup for Wolverine as the one man who can save the world, and "We need you to hope again" is not a line to go out on.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 7:00 AM on October 29, 2013

So just to clarify: Xmen First Class, Xmen origins, Xmen wolverine, the Xmen trilogy, and this one all take place in the same universe, correct?

And Marvel Avengers, Marvel Spiderman, and Marvel Xmen never the twain shall meet due to licensing issues. Do I understand this right?
posted by Think_Long at 7:02 AM on October 29, 2013

Is it my imagination or did the music sound almost identical to the score from Kick-Ass?
posted by Jacqueline at 7:04 AM on October 29, 2013

This has 'taken way too seriously' writ large upon it, and I have to say it doesn't excite me at all. Tell you what, though, as someone who never liked Captain America as a character in the comics, the Winter Soldier trailer gave me chills repeatedly, and my Inner Child now wants to see that movie at least as bad as the new Godzilla.

Also, I'm going to have a really hard time seeing Anna Paquin in this, and not thinking, "Sookeh," the whole time.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 7:05 AM on October 29, 2013 [8 favorites]

Avengers is its own thing. Pretty much any Marvel character that's never been in a movie before is fair game for that universe. They've also regained the rights to Punisher, Blade and Daredevil, all of whom were in other studios' movies before but could start fresh under the Avengers brand if Marvel wants.

Sony owns the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man, including the Venom and Namor side characters. These properties could cross over, but Sony's given no sign of planning to.

Fox owns the X-Men and all associated characters.

All the X-Men movies are in the same universe, but First Class has some incompatibilities with the earlier movies, which this next feature intends to resolve with time travel.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 7:06 AM on October 29, 2013 [6 favorites]

Is it my imagination or did the music sound almost identical to the score from Kick-Ass?
posted by Jacqueline at 10:04 AM on October 29

The music is originally from the movie Sunshine, and has since then been used in Kick-Ass, the trailer for the new Cosmos, and about a hundred other things. I can't really fault them for using it - It's a fantastic piece, and really compelling in its original usage.
posted by lizzicide at 7:07 AM on October 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

...First Class has some incompatibilities with the earlier movies, which this next feature intends to resolve with time travel.

And you know what that means...

Fifty Different Cables vs. Ten Thousand Versions of Jean Grey
posted by griphus at 7:13 AM on October 29, 2013 [20 favorites]

And Legion is involved somehow.

...dammit, now I kiiiiiiiinda want this to end with everybody completely fucking up their attempt to save the past, followed by a teaser for X-MEN: AGE OF APOCALYPSE.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 7:16 AM on October 29, 2013 [9 favorites]

Needs more Kitty Pryde.

Yeah, that's about the one thing that stops me being 100% super excited about this. I'm sure they could have found ways to make it all about Wolverine without doing that.
posted by Artw at 7:18 AM on October 29, 2013

Eh, it's not a terrible trailer, but nothing spectacular. Hugh Jackman is fine actor, but considering the number of other very fine actors in the cast, it's a shame to focus on just him. Hopefully, the movie doesn't do that.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:19 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

Because of the last X-Men FPP, I've actually been re-reading Age of Apocalypse and I think it would make a great film, assuming they tempered the aesthetic. A lot. Like a whole lot. What the fuck is up with Cyclops? Jesus.
posted by griphus at 7:19 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

It's been a while since I've seen it put I assume they give him braids, a soul patch or piercings or some shit?
posted by Artw at 7:21 AM on October 29, 2013

Long, flowing locks, a five o'clock shadow, and a monocle.

Also, any such film would have the feature the full majesty of Mr. Sinister's goatee-and-leotard combo.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 7:23 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

Look upon his locks, ye mighty, and despair.

On preview: beaten to it.
posted by griphus at 7:24 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

Long, flowing locks, a five o'clock shadow, and a monocle.

oh god it's horrible


It is still Cyclops though, so I wonder if the stick up his butt was given a nineties man-over too.
posted by Think_Long at 7:27 AM on October 29, 2013 [3 favorites]

Truly a dark timeline.

Though if they were going to go full awful I would suggest a bug budget motion picture adaptation of X-Cutioner's Song.
posted by Artw at 7:28 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

I hear that they're going to re-boot the whole X-men movie franchise in about 2016, but this time, Wolverine will be played by Hugh Jackman
posted by memebake at 7:29 AM on October 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

oh god it's horrible

"So the entire fanbase hates Cyclops because he's a huge wiener. We have the opportunity to make him cool in this alternate universe. Any ideas?"
"The kids today love Fabio. Can he look more like Fabio? But, like, a pirate-y Fabio. Long hair, an eyepatch, stuff like that."
"Done and done."
posted by griphus at 7:30 AM on October 29, 2013 [8 favorites]

"And put some pants on Beast!"
posted by Artw at 7:31 AM on October 29, 2013

Trask Industries: solving tomorrow's problems today.
posted by scalefree at 7:33 AM on October 29, 2013

It is still Cyclops though, so I wonder if the stick up his butt was given a nineties man-over too.

Yes, it was wearing a puka shell necklace.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 7:34 AM on October 29, 2013 [3 favorites]

Got to admit, I am in the opposite end from Sing or Swim. As much as I love Captain America I was mostly confused by the Winter Soldier trailer. But this. THIS! It promises so much good, if only because they somehow managed to round up some of the best actors currently working.
posted by kalimac at 7:34 AM on October 29, 2013

Jacqueline: standard Hollywood soundtrack recycling. It happens a lot for trailers, especially early ones.
posted by edd at 7:37 AM on October 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

As I grow older and crotchetier, I've come to respect the consistent portrayal of Cyclops as an asshole middle-manager who happens to have superpowers. Leading the X-Men (or whatever X-team they shunt him over to when the writer gets sick of him) is just a job to this guy. He's Super Bill Lumbergh.
posted by Etrigan at 7:38 AM on October 29, 2013 [19 favorites]

An interview with Cyclops, the leader of the X-Men.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 7:40 AM on October 29, 2013 [34 favorites]

I think you are forgetting his awesome ability to mourn Jean Grey while glaring at Wolverine. Ughhhhhh Cyclops.
posted by kalimac at 7:43 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

Oh a superhero movie? Very good! We haven't had one of those in a while.
posted by schwa at 7:49 AM on October 29, 2013

I gotta say that the influx of Winter Soldier and Days of Future Past animated GIFs and photos coming my way are the only thing that are going to get me through my current Tumblr dashboard's obsession with that horse-fucking whining bitch Loki.

Jesus Christ, people, I love you all, but you are driving me insane and I am fucking sick of his pinched inbred face.

(meanwhile, holy shit, Bobby Drake, what is with that beard? Do you just shave by turning into ice and then scratching the beard off? And I didn't think you could be any more attractive!)
posted by Katemonkey at 7:50 AM on October 29, 2013 [3 favorites]

On the one hand, I agree with the criticisms re: making Wolverine the time-travelling protagonist. It falls into the usual Singer trap of Logan worship and discounting large parts of mythology for The Shiny and The Serious. OTOH I feel like if he can keep the momentum from New Class (which I really liked) in the 70s timeline and bring it into the relationships in the DOFP timeline, I'll be satisfied. I'm really hoping they give JLaw and Dinklage serious screentime, since IMO they work more on the level of Stewart and McKellan than most of the supporting cast.
posted by zombieflanders at 7:50 AM on October 29, 2013

I still feel a little sorry for Cyclops for the way he gets killed about 15 minutes into X-Men 3 and is then never spoken of again, so they can have MOAR WOLVERINE.
posted by Artw at 7:51 AM on October 29, 2013 [4 favorites]

that horse-fucking whining bitch Loki.

Hey, Loki is awesome! Also he fucked that horse for spy-reasons.

I am totally psyched for Loki: Agent of Asgard.
posted by Artw at 7:53 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

I like Cyclops; he's one of my favorite X-Men besides Wolverine (natch) and Nightcrawler. (There, I said it.)
posted by entropicamericana at 7:53 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

It worked out okay for him, though. I mean, he was still in Superman Returns, but it beats being in that and X-Men 3.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 7:53 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

I still feel a little sorry for Cyclops for the way he gets killed about 15 minutes into X-Men 3 and is then never spoken of again, so they can have MOAR WOLVERINE.
posted by Artw at 10:51 AM on October 29

If we could have X-Men movie where Cyclops and Wolverine both die and the actual interesting characters take center stage that would be great.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 7:54 AM on October 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

I just hope there is more Storm in this one.
posted by KokuRyu at 7:55 AM on October 29, 2013

I actually really like Wolverine, just think he works better without the ALWAYS WOLVERINE ALL THE TIME thing.
posted by Artw at 7:56 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

Yes, more talk about frogs and lightning, please.
posted by entropicamericana at 7:56 AM on October 29, 2013 [3 favorites]

Your body is my Garden of Eden

I HATE YOU
posted by Think_Long at 7:57 AM on October 29, 2013 [3 favorites]

Also, they've recently been re-showing the original X-Men on Film4, and I keep on slipping into watching it, and it just amazes me how excellent everyone is in it.

I mean, except for that giant vacuum of characterisation and personality that is Halle Berry's Storm (I know she can be a very good actress - I just don't think this is the right role for her), you've got a cast that just knocks it all out of the water without losing sight of, hey, you're in a superhero movie. Let's gnaw a bit on the scenery.

So now I'm excited all over again. Bring on my mutants! Make everything amazing!

But bring back Nightcrawler plz
posted by Katemonkey at 7:58 AM on October 29, 2013 [3 favorites]

You know how the Spider-Man movies keep finding excuses to get Peter's mask off? I'd like to see an X-Men movie wherein Cyclops spends the whole time without his visor. Not squinching his eyes shut, either. He'll just casually do whatever while torrents of extradimensional energy spew from his head and plow furrows in the walls. Occasionally he'll jink his neck up to let Colossus duck under the beam.

And he'll speak, but you won't be able to hear anything beneath the constant VURMMVURMMVURMMVURMMVURMMVURMMVURMMVURMMVURMM
posted by Iridic at 7:59 AM on October 29, 2013 [22 favorites]

Yes, more talk about frogs and lightning, please.

I think my only problem with that line is that it is so clearly rhetorical, but she still feels the need to answer.

"You know what happens to a toad when it gets struck by lightning?"

Well, not exactly, but I can probably figure it out from context and your threatening demea-

"The same thing that happens to everything else!"

oh.
posted by Think_Long at 8:00 AM on October 29, 2013 [6 favorites]

But bring back Nightcrawler plz

In an interview a long time ago, Alan Cumming said that he's not going to reprise the role because of the stress of having to be in the makeup chair for something like three hours a day. I guess they could just get a different actor but ehhhh he was so good.
posted by griphus at 8:00 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

But bring back Nightcrawler plz

Alan Cumming has said he never wants to go through the makeup process to turn blue and swirly again, so if we could get Patrick Stewart in to give his brain a little push that would be just lovely.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:01 AM on October 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

I like ti pretend he's Nught rawer when he's presenting Masterpiece Theater.
posted by Artw at 8:02 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

Also re: frogs and lightning, supposedly that was a running gag in Whedon's version of the script, where Toad kept bringing up the physical abilities of his namesake until Storm eventually decided to shut him up. Then they cut all his lines but Storm's call-back in because editing's for chumps.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:02 AM on October 29, 2013 [3 favorites]

See if Cyclops was around to lead our commenting, things like this would never happen.
posted by griphus at 8:02 AM on October 29, 2013 [4 favorites]

I still feel a little sorry for Cyclops for the way he gets killed about 15 minutes into X-Men 3 and is then never spoken of again, so they can have MOAR WOLVERINE.

James Marsden was committed to Superman Returns. It wasn't a conscious choice to get rid of Cyclops.
posted by Etrigan at 8:04 AM on October 29, 2013

Meh.

And I am still going to see it because it is a movie that involves TIME TRAVEL and X-MEN so as a comic book geek, I will march in a fuge like state to the cinema.

But one thing bothers me - lots.

The 'bad guys' - at least as they are cinematically framed - in the trailer, are mostly non white, whilst the 'good guys' - again at least as portrayed in the trailer in the post - mostly being whiter than white, urgh.

And yes I know the exception is Storm. Storm it appears is always the exception.

Enough of this trope already.
posted by Faintdreams at 8:07 AM on October 29, 2013

Someone above mentioned the music being from "Sunshine" but in fact the main music which swells loudly in the latter portion of the trailer is by Hans Zimmer and was composed for The Thin Red Line, specifically the scene when they finally ambush the village and mow down a bunch of people as all the gunshots and other sound effects slowly fade away and the music takes over. Very powerful film score! Good for trailers.
posted by ReeMonster at 8:10 AM on October 29, 2013 [3 favorites]

You know, it may be possible for Singer to do something with the 2,000 pound Wolverine of Marvel mutant continuity by just ignoring everything about the comics and delivering a screenplay. Of course the last guy who did that brought us the pain of straight, kid-sister Mystique and dumb Emma Frost, failings that were only partly compensated by a devastatingly stylish Kevin Bacon in a beautifully decorated submarine.

But my feelings about Days of Future Past are spoiled by the fact that they didn't leave it as a one-off alternate possibility ala the X-Men/Conan crossover where NYC was put into the Hyborean Era. It's become an editorial plot cancer. And I'm no longer willing to put time into trying to figure out the current state of it.

The Temporal Cold War was a dumb idea that producers stretched out over 4 seasons. DoFP was a brilliant idea that editors made dumb over 30 years of revision.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 8:10 AM on October 29, 2013

and a monocle

Which actually had some pretty fan-servicey back story (No, not that kind of fan service):

Scott and Logan got into a fight over Jean, and because it's the AoA and not the standard 616 universe, they really go at it (something a small but rather vocal segment of the fanbase was constantly requesting, especially in the 90s).

Scott looses an eye (but finds his codename even more relevant), and gets claw scars down the side of his face (precipitating the unfortunate hairstyle choice), but not before his optic blasts shear off Wolverine's hand at the wrist bones, and before the healing factor kicks in, someone caps the stump off.
posted by radwolf76 at 8:10 AM on October 29, 2013

Wait, there were bad guys in the trailer? Tattooed Black Guy is Bishop, who is generally a hero.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:12 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

I refuse to get excited over any X-Men movie after Fox broke my heart with the utter shitshow that was X3.
posted by fight or flight at 8:15 AM on October 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

I see an awful lot of orange and teal.
posted by Slothrup at 8:17 AM on October 29, 2013

There hasn't been a decent X-men movie since X2 and conversely, Brian Singer hasn't made a good movie since then either. So I have some hope that this may bring back the magic.
posted by octothorpe at 8:21 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

I'm not entirely certain what it means that I am all in on the Avengers side of the movies, when I never read the comics, and have mostly ignored the X-Men movies past the first one, since those were the ones I was actively reading during my comics phase. (A phase that doesn't really exist now except for picking up Hawkeye when I remember to.) I have lots of nostalgic affection for the X-Men books but something about the movies just doesn't work for me. Sadly, Halle Berry's Storm might be a big part of what put me off them, because I really, really disliked how she played the character.
posted by PussKillian at 8:22 AM on October 29, 2013

Did other people not love First Class? Because I really loved First Class.
posted by Artw at 8:22 AM on October 29, 2013 [19 favorites]

I liked First Class a lot, but am not sure that I'm people.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:25 AM on October 29, 2013 [4 favorites]

I thought it was fun but a bit of a trifle, pretty much an excuse for set designers to play Mad Men with good looking teenagers.
posted by Think_Long at 8:26 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

The 'bad guys' - at least as they are cinematically framed - in the trailer, are mostly non white, whilst the 'good guys' - again at least as portrayed in the trailer in the post - mostly being whiter than white, urgh.

What trailer did you watch? The only non-white characters I saw in it were Storm, Bishop, & Blink, unless we're counting blue people. Either way, they're all X-Men (at least in the comics).

The only unambiguously bad guys I saw were all white: Bolivar Trask, William Stryker, and the three dudes shooting at Wolverine. Maybe the younger Magneto is taking a villain turn as well.
posted by snottydick at 8:28 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

The only non-white characters I saw in it were Storm, Bishop, & Blink, unless we're counting blue people.

Don't blue people matter too?!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:39 AM on October 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

And how the hell did they NOT manage to show Quicksilver? Really?
posted by Samizdata at 8:42 AM on October 29, 2013

First Class didn't stink. I'm probably a bit overly miffed at the way that Magneto's backstory tends to be preserved, while Mystique's same-sex relationship (one of the first and longest in mainstream comics) gets erased for the sake of a sappy love triangle that never really clicked on-screen.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 8:43 AM on October 29, 2013 [4 favorites]

My pet theory is that Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch aren't actually going to be in any movies, and the whole thing has been a giant joke by Whedon and Singer.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:43 AM on October 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

...a sappy love triangle that never really clicked on-screen.

Jesus I really enjoyed First Class and I completely forgot that was even a subplot.

Also, I think someone brought this up in the First Class FPP we had when the movie came out, but an Erik Lehnsherr: Nazi Hunter movie would be the best thing.
posted by griphus at 8:55 AM on October 29, 2013 [12 favorites]

I'm Team Cyclops, all the way. If your mutant team of super heroes DOESN'T have Cyclops on it, then its not really the X-Men. Guy's all about the mission and getting shit done. Poor bastard's tragic flaw is that he's the only person who believes in Charlie's dream more than even Charlie does and consistently pays the price for that in his personal life.
posted by KingEdRa at 9:02 AM on October 29, 2013 [9 favorites]

John Murphy's Adagio in D. A bold choice. Also considered, I'm sure: Lux Aeterna, Oh Fortuna, Mind Heist.
posted by Lazlo Hollyfeld at 9:03 AM on October 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

What's up with Cyclops in the comics lately? Last I heard he's all Magneto Was Right.
posted by griphus at 9:14 AM on October 29, 2013

Fallout from some crossover or other. I kind of like the X-face costume - suprised nobody thought of that before.
posted by Artw at 9:17 AM on October 29, 2013

Looks alright, but I have a hard time believing I'm going to enjoy it as much as I enjoyed First Class without Kevin Bacon's cartoonish supervillainry (complete with submarine lair! With a bar!).
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:19 AM on October 29, 2013

Looks alright, but I have a hard time believing I'm going to enjoy it as much as I enjoyed First Class without Kevin Bacon's cartoonish supervillainry (complete with submarine lair! With a bar!).

It was like a Roger Moore Bond Movie, and the best thing about that film.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 9:27 AM on October 29, 2013 [5 favorites]

And how the hell did they NOT manage to show Quicksilver? Really?

"Actually, if you slow down the video, I think you'll find that I saved Wolverine's life on three separate occasions, that ungrateful sow."
posted by entropicamericana at 9:37 AM on October 29, 2013 [8 favorites]

I do like that they make it look like a Xavier vs. Magneto setup, rather than the actual arc. Something of a surprise for a trailer.

Except it's sort of pointless after the (disappointingly lame) teaser at the end of The Wolverine.
posted by straight at 9:40 AM on October 29, 2013

1970s Antihero: "An interview with Cyclops, the leader of the X-Men."

Now THAT is "Best of the Web"!
posted by IAmBroom at 10:06 AM on October 29, 2013

Yeah someone really ought to FPP that.
posted by griphus at 10:27 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

Quibble, bitch, quibble, quibble. The takeaway is that they are moving along without barely a nod to the abomination that was X3. And that is a very good thing.
posted by Ber at 10:34 AM on October 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

The torture of having an uneven internet access at work. I'll have to watch it in a beautiful non-interrupted awesomeness later tonight.

I was really hoping to see a glimpse of a Sentinel, but I reckon they're holding that back for trailer number 2 or something. One of my first X comics was Uncanny X-Men 300 with Bishop on the cover, so I'm pretty excited to see how he's portrayed.

I won't talk about X3, either. Brett Ratner, I hope you get caught in the rain without an umbrella!
posted by Atreides at 10:40 AM on October 29, 2013

Yes, it was wearing a puka shell necklace.

If only it had been a pukka shell suit.

Also: Dear Magneto, you may be Michael Fassbender now, but I am going to grow up to be Patrick Stewart while you will be looking like fricking Gandalf. X.
posted by biffa at 10:41 AM on October 29, 2013

I know it's not some sort of unique thing to shit on X-Men: The Last Stand but I realized the other day when I came across it on TV that I had completely blocked it from my memory. This is a movie that I saw when it opened at midnight and had been thrilled about for the months leading up to it. And I just didn't remember what had happened on screen at all.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:43 AM on October 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

> "Quibble, bitch, quibble, quibble."

Complaining that the movie versions of the comics simply erased one of the earliest and longest-lasting queer relationships in comics history, and now seem poised to switch things around so that the major plot-crucial task performed by a woman is handed off to a man, doesn't exactly seem like bitching and quibbling.

I mean, I've enjoyed some of the X-Men movies as movies, but surely I'm within my rights to be *tired* of this kind of shit.
posted by kyrademon at 10:47 AM on October 29, 2013 [12 favorites]

Yeah, I was just reminded up thread that Cyclops died in that, I guess? I have literally no memory of that happening. Something with Dark Phoenix and a lake happened too?
posted by Think_Long at 10:48 AM on October 29, 2013

My mutant power is being literally the only person on earth who enjoyed Last Stand
posted by griphus at 10:49 AM on October 29, 2013 [4 favorites]

I have a similar power with SW Ep.6

We should form an Evil Brotherhood.
posted by rahnefan at 10:54 AM on October 29, 2013

DAILY BUGLE

DARING DAYTIME ROBBERY!

Who Stole NYC's Entire Supply of X-Men: The Last Stand DVDs?

Our sources confirm: nobody cares.
posted by griphus at 10:57 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

I didn't think the Crystal Skull was as bad as everybody said it was.
posted by Think_Long at 10:57 AM on October 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

I didn't think the Crystal Skull was as bad as everybody said it was.

My spouse and I got hit by a drunk driver on the way back from Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and I maintain that it was only barely the worst thing that happened to us that night.
posted by Etrigan at 11:00 AM on October 29, 2013 [16 favorites]

I wish all the Marvel movies were set in the 1960s. Especially Fantastic Four.
posted by The Hamms Bear at 11:07 AM on October 29, 2013 [3 favorites]

And I just didn't remember what had happened on screen at all.

THAT'S YOUR SOLUTION FOR EVERYTHING JUST THROW FLAMING CARS AT THE PROBLEM!
posted by The Whelk at 11:09 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

I wish all the Marvel movies were set in the 1960s. Especially Fantastic Four.

A 60s and 70s Fantastic Four series with all the Kirby/Lee weirdness, including Skrull cows and the original Mole Man.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 11:11 AM on October 29, 2013 [5 favorites]

Oh for a non-terrible Fantastic Four movie of any kind...
posted by Artw at 11:19 AM on October 29, 2013

Nobody's gay excited for original Mole Man.
posted by zombieflanders at 11:20 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

A 60s and 70s Fantastic Four series with all the Kirby/Lee weirdness, including Skrull cows and the original Mole Man.

That's what I've been wishing for with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - I want someone to slash their budget so they are forced to just go super weird and cheesy, and just stop caring. Instead we are left with a cheap-looking expensive show that is, most criminally, boring.
posted by Think_Long at 11:26 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I get why they send Hugh Jackman back from a box office perspective, but what makes this such a good story is that they send back the most vulnerable team member and someone whose powers are defensive in nature.

Kitty's not exactly the best offensive character, but I wouldn't call her vulnerable. Wolvie gets tied up and tortured every few months, but it's really difficult to do that to Kitty. Plus she hasn't got Logan's amnesiac tendencies, and why risk sending him back if he's likely to forget why he's there? If I were gonna send a mutant back in time, Kitty's totally the one I'd pick.
posted by asperity at 11:29 AM on October 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

Falcon was in that Winter Soldier trailer! Groovy!
posted by vrakatar at 11:46 AM on October 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

That actually makes me really happy.
posted by Artw at 11:50 AM on October 29, 2013

The Winter Solider trailer pretty much made me happy all over.
posted by The Whelk at 11:53 AM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

It's also a bit unfortunate for Agents of SHIELD that the SHIELD heavy Cap trailer is exciting and interesting in exactly the way it isn't... Part of that is budgetary but a lot of it js acceptance of being in the Marvel universe and actually having stuff going on.
posted by Artw at 11:54 AM on October 29, 2013

Everything about the Winter Soldier trailer is amazing.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:04 PM on October 29, 2013 [3 favorites]

Also Marvel comes off as way more pro-fascist in the tv show than I would have expected. I suppose I just haven't given them enough time yet, but still, some parts of last week's episode were disgusting.
posted by Think_Long at 12:04 PM on October 29, 2013 [3 favorites]

I suspect recent events have made their toothless "hactivism" plotline somewhat problematic.
posted by Artw at 12:12 PM on October 29, 2013

One thing re: giving Kitty's role to Wolverine (which I agree is highly problematic in a vacuum, for all kinds of reasons both gender-related and not) - given that they're using DOFP to mash-up the First Class and Singer-era casts, you need somebody who was around in the 60s/70s, and still around in the future, for the job. That's Wolverine, Mystique, Xavier and Magneto, unless Kelsey Grammer is reprising his tour de force as Hank McCoy and nobody told me.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:12 PM on October 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

Looks alright. Nice to see the old X-regulars.

I'm not good on my X-Men so although I can see that iconic DoFP cover in my head, all I can remember plot-wise when I hear the name is Grant Morrison's final New X-Men story. Because it's in the future, so that's totally the same thing. Also: Bishop from the classic X-men cartoon maybe? Plus side of which brainfailures being that at least I've got something to look forward to/be spoiled on.

griphus: There will definitely be Sentinels.
Thanks for that! I clicked, saw the article and top half of the picture, thought "Meh, not big enough", scrolled down and... I may have squeed. It could do with being a bit more Kirby, but what couldn't?
posted by comealongpole at 12:12 PM on October 29, 2013

Also Marvel comes off as way more pro-fascist in the tv show than I would have expected. I suppose I just haven't given them enough time yet, but still, some parts of last week's episode were disgusting.

To be fair to the show, it certainly seems like Winter Soldier is basing its story on a SHIELD that represents the worst excesses of the surveillance and "anti-terrorism" communities. That's the SHIELD that we're getting in the show right now, and it seems kind of like the long game that Whedon would be playing. And I could see where a blatantly anti-status quo storyline is fine for movie audiences but needs to be made more subtle for the more skittish sponsor-based TV markets.

Unfortunately, the show doesn't really do a good job of making that a compelling reason to watch it, which is where it falls flat. I'm assuming ABC gives it a chance to improve to at least to the end of the full season they've already committed to, if for no other reason that it will be killer for movie tie-ins. So if they can start making the links between the SHIELD in the show and the SHIELD in the movie, including any splintering or ideological differences amongst the characters, it may be (mostly) worth it. They really need to let Clark Gregg stretch himself, though, and the supporting cast needs to be able to keep up.
posted by zombieflanders at 12:19 PM on October 29, 2013 [3 favorites]

Nobody's gay excited for original Mole Man.

Now I'm pining for a Charles Nelson Reilly Mole Man performance that will never be.

Also Marvel comes off as way more pro-fascist in the tv show than I would have expected

Glad I'm not the only Marvelite put off by the show. I think much of it is defined by the limits of TV and TV budgets, but I gave up after a couple of episodes because the insistence on playing the nerds for laughs and focusing on the hunks and babes seemed so anti-ethical to the spirit of Marvel's golden age (Stan & Jack) that it felt like a mean joke. And Agent What's His Nuts is nice as a recurring character popping into movies; he kinda stunk as the lead.
posted by yerfatma at 12:23 PM on October 29, 2013 [3 favorites]

Complaining that the movie versions of the comics simply erased one of the earliest and longest-lasting queer relationships in comics history, and now seem poised to switch things around so that the major plot-crucial task performed by a woman is handed off to a man, doesn't exactly seem like bitching and quibbling.

So true. Claremont was putting female superheroes in central roles as powerful protagonists long before Joss Whedon came around. Comparing movie Rogue with comics Rogue (either with or without a dose of Carol Danvers) or movie Storm with comics Storm makes me sad.

I'd love to see Ellen Page tackle a role where she has to play a naive young girl and her older, competent and battle-weary self, and then portray body-switched versions of both characters.
posted by straight at 12:24 PM on October 29, 2013 [7 favorites]

given that they're using DOFP to mash-up the First Class and Singer-era casts, you need somebody who was around in the 60s/70s, and still around in the future, for the job

True, and it's hard to complain too much about a movie that's gonna give us All the Xaviers and All the Magnetos, and at least Kitty Pryde's apparently still in the movie (and Blink! Even though she's not in the original story! Yay!) I just wish they'd give Wolverine the musical spin-off franchise he's clearly destined for and leave him out of this.
posted by asperity at 12:24 PM on October 29, 2013

God I hope the prominence in the WS trailer means we're getting All The Natasha.
posted by The Whelk at 12:30 PM on October 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

WS looks fine and all but I am aching to dive back into the disco roller-rink that is Thor's Asgard.
posted by Think_Long at 12:52 PM on October 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

The Winter Solider trailer pretty much made me happy all over.

Not me. Cool to see Falcon, not so cool to see them going with that whole Bucky was alive all that time nonsense Brubaker introduced to the comic, or seeing the hideous modern costume on Cap.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:09 PM on October 29, 2013

Also Marvel comes off as way more pro-fascist in the tv show than I would have expected

Marvel has been proto-fascist ever since they let Mark Millar let the wrong side win in Civil War.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:15 PM on October 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

Someone please identify the architecture in that trailer -- what kind of columns are those?
posted by rahnefan at 1:36 PM on October 29, 2013

I like to think the idea of Kitty being the one sent back was a sly narrative device to tell the story of a Jew going back in time to stop the Holocaust.
posted by mkultra at 1:46 PM on October 29, 2013 [10 favorites]

Halle Berry is a bad Storm. She comes off like an agreeable guidance counselor who is surrounded by CG, except not even as interesting as I've made that sound.

The trailer seems otherwise good, though!
posted by Sticherbeast at 2:09 PM on October 29, 2013

I have to admit I have no idea WTF is up with Rachel Summers these days.
posted by Artw at 2:10 PM on October 29, 2013

She was last seen not being any help whatsoever when the Phoenix Force showed up on Earth, which makes complete sense because she has no experience with anything like that.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:18 PM on October 29, 2013 [3 favorites]

I have to admit I have no idea WTF is up with Rachel Summers these days.

She was unceremoniously replaced with a newer and plainly derivative character that largely serves the same purpose.
posted by entropicamericana at 2:22 PM on October 29, 2013

Halle Berry is a bad Storm.

I prefer to think that Storm never appeared in any of the Wolverine and the X-Men movies.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:45 PM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

I don't know about you guys but to me that second orchestral piece sounds a lot like it's from The Thin Red Line.

My girlfriend and I rewatched the first three X-Mans recently. Storm is portrayed as absolutely useless in the first (taken down by Toad) and then pretty much doesn't do anything for the next two. And the dude who played Cyclops must be fucking pissed at how badly his character was treated. Also Vinnie Jones as Juggernaut is a joke. Literally the only good things about those films are Jackman, Stewart and McKellan.
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:58 PM on October 29, 2013

Also Marvel comes off as way more pro-fascist in the tv show than I would have expected

The SHIELD as presented in Agents of SHIELD seems like it's going to have the same problem that UNIT had in the 10th Doctor days of Doctor Who. They seem like they are supposed to be the heroic good guys until the Doctor comes in and says "You are bad and you should feel bad."

Except UNIT wasn't ever asked to carry story on its own. And in this situation, at least according to the Winter Soldier trailer, Captain America is the Doctor so likewise the hero of the franchise that people actually give a damn about. And while I think it would be really awesome to have a whole TV show based around a group that is suddenly seen as despite their original intent inherently flawed because of their proto-fascist ways, I'm not at all holding my breath.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 2:59 PM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

I would love for a Dr. Strange franchise to be to Doctor Who what Tony Stark is to Bruce Wayne.
posted by Sticherbeast at 3:01 PM on October 29, 2013 [7 favorites]

Oh, yeah, Agents, what an awful, boring show. And I can't take Captain America seriously even though I guess the trailer looks pretty sweet, because the whole idea of such a character is just laughable. Same with Man Of Steel, where at the end he's like "I grew up in Kansas, I'm as American as crop smut" or whatever. Yawn.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:01 PM on October 29, 2013

Marvel has been proto-fascist ever since they let Mark Millar let the wrong side win in Civil War.

Boo hiss. Liberals should have been on Tony Stark's side: being pro-vigilante and refusing to register dangerous weapons is for the conservatives, man.

Halle Berry is a bad Storm.

I still think Angela Bassett would have knocked it out of the park.

And I can't take Captain America seriously even though I guess the trailer looks pretty sweet, because the whole idea of such a character is just laughable.

He's FDR as King Arthur. It's really not that much of a stretch, IMO.
posted by Amanojaku at 3:07 PM on October 29, 2013 [3 favorites]

Complaining that the movie versions of the comics simply erased one of the earliest and longest-lasting queer relationships in comics history, and now seem poised to switch things around so that the major plot-crucial task performed by a woman is handed off to a man, doesn't exactly seem like bitching and quibbling.

My quibble and bitching comes from an extended history of frustration with how the big two handle gender and sexuality, which was oodles and oodles of subtext during the "no gay" eras, followed by minor characters coming out of the closet in marginal titles or adult imprints who were retconned, rewritten, rebooted, erased, killed, or just shuffled in and out of production hell.

At some point, I got sick of seeing favorite characters re-written for the sake of developing a-listers, and tragic little sister Raven stuck out as a bad example of that. What that tells me is that I'm watching an X-Men movie where most of the X-Men don't really matter except as an opportunity for an effect shot.

In contrast to Avengers, which nailed the concept of a superhero team.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 3:10 PM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

He's FDR as King Arthur. It's really not that much of a stretch, IMO.

King Arthur? You mean...Britain Man?
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:18 PM on October 29, 2013

I still think Angela Bassett would have knocked it out of the park.

Possibly, but the half the problem is that Storm isn't written to do much of anything, which is stark contrast to the comics. That's the infuriating thing about the X-movies, that have such a wealth of characters at their disposal, but don't do anything with them. Well, except for show them for 30 seconds and then move on.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:23 PM on October 29, 2013 [4 favorites]

If only Forge was in this, and actually played by a Native American.
posted by Apocryphon at 4:00 PM on October 29, 2013 [3 favorites]

I haven't read the series much since the mid-80's but Storm was the leader of the X-Men for a while (when Cyclops led X-Factor).
posted by KokuRyu at 4:00 PM on October 29, 2013

Yeah Storm is ...barely in those movies, which is a shame, I loved Storm in the animated series. She flies! She can control the weather! She can't use contractions! She was always having these huge operatic emotions! Stately, TV Storm was stately.

And I identified with Cyclops, cause I had a younger brother and EVERYTHING WAS WRONG ALL THE TIME CAN'T YOU JUST FOLLOW ORDERS NO STOP IT AAAAAAH
posted by The Whelk at 4:15 PM on October 29, 2013 [7 favorites]

"Also Marvel comes off as way more pro-fascist in the tv show than I would have expected"

I get the feeling that's deliberate and that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s increasing willingness to do bad things for good reasons and the fallout from those moral compromises will become one of the major arcs of the show.
posted by Jacqueline at 4:17 PM on October 29, 2013 [4 favorites]

So just to clarify: Xmen First Class, Xmen origins, Xmen wolverine, the Xmen trilogy, and this one all take place in the same universe, correct?

And Marvel Avengers, Marvel Spiderman, and Marvel Xmen never the twain shall meet due to licensing issues. Do I understand this right?

Just call me if Spider Robot Chewbacca shows up.
posted by VTX at 5:12 PM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

My girlfriend and I rewatched the first three X-Mans recently. Storm is portrayed as absolutely useless in the first (taken down by Toad) and then pretty much doesn't do anything for the next two. And the dude who played Cyclops must be fucking pissed at how badly his character was treated. Also Vinnie Jones as Juggernaut is a joke. Literally the only good things about those films are Jackman, Stewart and McKellan.

First of all, there were only two X-men films, not three. The third belongs in that same wretched universe that insists there were more than two Alien and Godfather movies, that there was a fourth Indiana Jones, or that George Lucas actually made prequels to Star Wars.

Second, how dare you not include Famke Jansen that group of notables. Especially considering how she sizzled anytime onscreen with Jackman. Sorry Cyclops

Joss Whedon still has issues with Halle Berry punting one of his favorite lines in the first film. Yeah, she sucked as Storm.
posted by Ber at 5:17 PM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

For some reason I feel terrible saying that Halle Berry was a bad Storm, but ya'll are right. Comic book Storm was a leader, even before she joined the X-Men. Berry in the movies was cosplay with SFX.

In fact, all of the X-Men movies so far felt like references to the source material rather than movie versions of it.
posted by postcommunism at 5:41 PM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

My girlfriend and I rewatched the first three X-Mans recently. Storm is portrayed as absolutely useless in the first (taken down by Toad) and then pretty much doesn't do anything for the next two.

Nah, she was initially frightened of Toad, because they were all new at being superheroes. Later she kills him. The only thing I remember about her from X2 was the cool hairstyle and her forming cool mini tornadoes to fight the Brotherhood.

This was a problem with writing, directing and editing. Halle Berry is not a bad actress and the character of Storm has a rich history. But none of the creators of the movie gave a damn about that. Frankly, if I was Berry, I'd refuse to do anymore X-Men movies, unless there was a sweet, sweet paycheck.

Literally the only good things about those films are Jackman, Stewart and McKellan.

What about Sookeh?!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:37 PM on October 29, 2013

I get the feeling that's deliberate and that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s increasing willingness to do bad things for good reasons and the fallout from those moral compromises will become one of the major arcs of the show.

This may be a bit of a derail, but I still remember the moment when I realized that my beloved Buffy the Vampire Slayer was ~gone:

I was reading a TWoP recap of Angel. I didn't follow the show faithfully as I did Buffy, and I was only reading the recap because Willow was crossing over to help. In one scene, someone in Angel's crew was repenting over some Awful Thing he/she had done, and Willow quipped, "I flayed a person alive."

The TWoP recapper didn't like Angel much, and I didn't like her recapping style, but I understood her comment that the quip embodied the reason why she liked Buffy even less. I'd always loved Buffy, but by that point, the Buffy crew was militant. The morbid jokes that used to be made by adolescents poorly equipped to deal with life's horrors were now coming from battle-hardened ~warriors who had Seen It All, so lol flaying. Willow deserved to live freely and fight for good while quipping about the atrocities she'd committed (like attempting to destroy the world) because 1. she was The Hero's friend, 2. she had helped in numerous Good Fights, and 3. she possessed tremendous power.

In hindsight, that was a perfect warning to me about the superhero genre. I could feel its allure, especially in the nascent stage, but it would start to repel me sooner or later. On a fundamental level, I loathe exceptionalism. I hate powerful individuals/entities using their own metrics to make crucial decisions about Other People's lives, excusing or downplaying their own mistakes in the process. I'm downright repulsed when I consider the parallels with the way America has acted on the world stage.

All that said, I did love the Buffy crew for a long time. The girl was only sixteen and didn't want to die, but went to fight and die anyway. Her friends had no powers and were barely trained, but chose to stand by her. They were my heroes. Those were the days.
posted by fatehunter at 7:08 PM on October 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

Fuck Sentinels. They're just robots that either (a) do what they're programmed to do or (b) fail to do what they're supposed to do. Either way results in a big showy CGI battle with no real consequences (outside of maybe a minor character's death for forced emotional resonance-- sorry Blink a/o Bishop)

And the only time I've ever liked Scott Summers is when Joss Whedon wrote him as Dark Wesley Pt. Deux
posted by elr at 8:31 PM on October 29, 2013

See, I think there is a real place for character like Scott (warning I followed the TV show relisiously as a kid, read a few comics, loved the first movie, so ...gain of salt). You need a hard working, rules-laywer yuppie stick in the mud. Those are the type of people you need to keep an operation going. Hell, leaving aside the fact that you can't run what amounts to military operations with teenagers and live wire rebels, you need someone to be the face of Mutant Assimilation. Scott is Just Like Us - he probobly shops at Whole Foods and wears Lands' End. You need a decent middle-class values acceptable face on The Mutant Problem. Scott Summers has the boring job of being competent and professional, cause without that you're a weirdo paramilitary group with a school attached.
posted by The Whelk at 8:39 PM on October 29, 2013 [6 favorites]

So excited that Singer is back. I'm one of the four or five people who really liked Superman Returns (whatever its structural problems, it's certainly the most thoughtful take on the Superman mythos) and I think X2 is the only super-hero flick that's actually great cinema. I was enraged when Fox pulled him from X-Men over some petty jealousy bullshit, and delighted that they came crawling back.
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 9:14 PM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

What about Sookeh?!

I just want to note that the fact that after the first 3 X-Men movies, Anna Paquin was quite vocally annoyed about not getting to fly/have any of the awesome parts of Rogue's superpowers, which makes me a little bit hopeful that Rogue will get to fly &tc in DOFP*, cuz otherwise, given her success from True Blood I like to think she'd just have told everyone to piss off. This is assuming, of course, her role will amount to more than a cameo; sadly, with the size of this cast, you pretty much know a bunch of folks who maybe even thought they were signing up for meaty roles will find themselves almost-entirely on the cutting room floor to keep the running time down. X2 was pretty densely packed already and this adds a lot more characters than it removes.

X2 btw was a fantastic movie, with an extremely strong cast all around (yes, except Halle Berry who does a much better job with non-costumed non-superheroes and should stop doing superhero movies, BUT as bad as her Storm was at least it wasn't Catwoman) and as much as I love Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan, those of you dismissing everyone else's work in that movie are, I hate to break it to you, just being snobs.

And X-Men: The Last Stand is not a thing which exists. It never happened. If it had happened, the introduction of Ellen Page would be that movie's only redeeming feature, but that doesn't matter, because it doesn't exist. Never made it out of pre-production. I refuse to hear differently and we shall never speak of it again. Looking forward to seeing Ellen Page in this upcoming movie, though; assuming, again, that 99% of her performance doesn't end up on the cutting room floor, I think she could really work well as Kitty Pryde. Just a gut feeling.

Lastly, yeah, watching Agents of SHIELD I was surprised to find just how quickly a work of fiction being totally dismissive of Snowden/Manning/hacktivism could get my hackles up. I'll give it a season because I'm willing to believe Whedon's playing a long game (and maybe is a little restricted by having to coordinate with movie schedules - e.g. is he not allowed to start in on "corrupt SHIELD" plotlines until post-Winter-Soldier-release? With Marvel, such things seem possible) but the so-far un-ironic authoritarianism annoys me almost as much as the depiction of hacktivists as some combination of cluelessly naive and fecklessly opportunistic.
posted by mstokes650 at 9:15 PM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

Yeah I'm just kind of assuming, given WS's apparent "SHIELD may be not so great RE: freedom" *slant that the show is playing the long game/showing us the villain's POV but I've gone from watching every week to ...letting it wait and see.

X3 never happened, of course, never did, although I still don't feel like we got payment on all the promise of the first movie, which is like a masterclass in setting up a universe. Seriously, that movie is the amazing pilot episode we all want and never see. And I feel like First Class was kind of a Hail Mary save of a series - and a great lesson on how you can have a kind of bad script (seriously, it's all over the place) but make it work through character and direction. The Fassbender/MacAvoy chemistry basically carried that movie uphill in the snow both ways. The retro setting was nice but the visuals felt tacked on (oh and looked, quite frankly, a bit cheap) but actually setting a superhero movie in the historical actual events past felt really...X-Men-y to me?

I guess that's why it worked despite all the stuff, It felt like an X-Men story. Friend of mine said how much he liked how "playfully queer" the first two movies are, and I think that's a big thing brought to the movies. The difference between "Have you tried not being a mutant?" and "I will not answer to my slave name!" is vast and almost entirely in tone.

So, I'm excited about this even though I have a gut feeling it'll be way too long with like a thousand characters that aren't explored at all and not resolve anything and feature too much Logan but I'll SEE IT ANYWAY cause Singer seems to be able to make X-Men movies that feel like X-Men stories even if I'm arguing over the detailing.

*And my own personal conviction that SHIELD is fucking scary and it's only the involvement of someone supernaturally moral and ethical as Steve that it doesn't turn into a version of Stross' Black Chamber aside.
posted by The Whelk at 9:35 PM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

We've all seen this, right? Tom Hiddleston as Owen Wilson as Loki
posted by Artw at 9:44 PM on October 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

No I had not seen this, as you may also have known because I was not a puddle before this moment.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:09 PM on October 29, 2013

I have a friend with mysterious french aristocrat by way of the Caribbean and Texas family back-story that is a dead ringer for Tom Hiddleson. We call him The Most Beautiful Boy In The World as an honorific.
posted by The Whelk at 10:15 PM on October 29, 2013

Thor 101: Meet Malekith, the New Villain of the Dark World Movie

Other Loki fun: Loki will be bisexual, occasionally a woman in ‘Agent of Asgard’
posted by Artw at 10:33 PM on October 29, 2013

Finally watched this thing. The emperor isn't nude, but it's wearing the cheesiest cinematic superhero costumes since those direct-to-video crappy movies Marvel licensed in the 90's.
posted by Apocryphon at 11:46 PM on October 29, 2013

Watching the Winter Soldier trailer, I'm left with the thought, "Why the hell do we even HAVE a Helicarrier?"
posted by Elementary Penguin at 2:55 AM on October 30, 2013

Yeah I'm just kind of assuming, given WS's apparent "SHIELD may be not so great RE: freedom" *slant that the show is playing the long game/showing us the villain's POV but I've gone from watching every week to ...letting it wait and see.

The pilot was on last night. Yes, they're playing the long game with several things, including what happened to Coulson, long term threats and the nature of of SHIELD. It needs to work on the characters though.

Watching the Winter Soldier trailer, I'm left with the thought, "Why the hell do we even HAVE a Helicarrier?"

Because it's an aircraft carrier that can fly.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:41 AM on October 30, 2013

Mostly.
posted by Artw at 3:48 AM on October 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

BTW if you want to see the most fucking amazing Patrick Stewart work?
See 2009 BBC's Hamlet. With David Tennant as Hamlet.
posted by angrycat at 4:44 AM on October 30, 2013

> I didn't think the Crystal Skull was as bad as everybody said it was.

I watched it (and a ton of other movies) during a series of flights from Toronto to Sydney to Hong Kong and back to Toronto. The best thing I can say about it is that, of all the films I watched, it was the second-worst (even on a trans-Pacific flight I had better things to do than watch G.I. Joe).
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:35 AM on October 30, 2013

Holy crap that first GI Joe movie (I hate that I even know there was a second): for the entire 15 minutes we made it through I kept wondering if the Amazon video feed was making it look like an old pan-and-scan VHS tape or if it was filmed by a soft-core porn crew on off-days. Which would make sense given it was written by similar talent.
posted by yerfatma at 6:47 AM on October 30, 2013

From a demographics perspective, there are three Captains America in my son's prek4 class (he's the sole Iron Man, girls seem to be all princesses and witches, meh). No mutants.

I'm giving Agents of Shield a shot but it's a struggle. It feels a lot like a first season of other shows that have turned out good (Buffy) but remains to be seen if it can grow. My thought after the first episode was "Well, is Joss going to kill Fitz or Simmons at the end of the season?".

It's great that they get to do location shooting, I wish they could do more with that.
posted by These Premises Are Alarmed at 6:49 AM on October 30, 2013

Ah come on, GI Joe promised the Eiffel Tower getting dissolved by acid, JGL in a mask, and Channing Tatum being Channing Tatum, and god dammit it delivered!
posted by Think_Long at 7:14 AM on October 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

I don't care what anyone says about X3; at the end of the day it still has Ian McKellen standing on a tree stump shouting 'They say they can cure us. I say WE ARE THE CURE'. And that will always be playing in my head for EVER. As far as I am concerned the film was just a mediocre delivery mechanism for the one scene. That, and the scene where the politician's kid fucking flies out of the window. Actually, you know what: I am talking myself around to liking the whole damn thing. What you need to understand about X3 is that the X-Men are the villains, with their willfully stupid response to the 'cure' ("It will never be weaponised and used against us... oops, it just was... let's use the weaponised cure against our own kind... let's ignore the impossibility of making a 'free' choice of whether to take the cure or not, and watch Rogue trade what's most distinctive about her for the sake of being more 'normal', along with thousands of other mutants") and the increasing revelations of Xavier's awful mind-invading ways. It's called 'The Last Stand' because it documents a last, failed attempt on the part of Magneto and his crew to preserve the reality of mutanthood as a genuine challenge to what it means to be human. For some reason they stuck a load of extraneous scenes with Wolverine in, but that is just the Wolverine Tax all X-franchise media must pay.
posted by Acheman at 7:56 AM on October 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

watch Rogue trade what's most distinctive about her for the sake of being more 'normal', along with thousands of other mutants

I'm with you except for this. Rogue's mutation is a horrible thing that could only be considered desirable from a min/maxing RPG standpoint. Xavier or Magneto might not want her cured because she's such an effective weapon, but any sane person in her shoes would take that cure as soon as she could get it.
posted by straight at 8:17 AM on October 30, 2013 [5 favorites]

Yeah, the only thing that separates Rogue from, say, Xorn's Special Class in Morrison's New X-Men run is that she's, well, pretty. As far as fitting in with society (human or mutant) past that goes, as long as her powers work the way they do, she's no better off than the Morlocks.
posted by griphus at 8:23 AM on October 30, 2013

The 'bad guys' - at least as they are cinematically framed - in the trailer, are mostly non white, whilst the 'good guys' - again at least as portrayed in the trailer in the post - mostly being whiter than white, urgh.

The non-white characters shown include Bishop (African, actor is actually French but of African parentage), Sunspot (Hispanic), Warpath (Native American), and Blink (Chinese) and are all 'good guys'. They're practically a Benetton ad.
posted by tetsuo at 8:43 AM on October 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

Sunspot (Hispanic), Warpath (Native American)

Totally missed them the first time I saw it. Awesome.
posted by snottydick at 8:49 AM on October 30, 2013

I completely failed to identify Sunspot, Warpath and Blink in my first two viewings, but I credit that to the fact that each dramatic close-up lasts for about one fifth of a second. It took me three viewings to notice that it actually did feature Peter Dinklage's Bolivar Trask.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:52 AM on October 30, 2013

Warpath? Oh boy.
posted by Artw at 8:53 AM on October 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

Sunspot, Warpath, even Blink...but never shall it Rahne. :(
posted by rahnefan at 9:13 AM on October 30, 2013 [2 favorites]

What's W.R.O.N.G. with 'Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'?
posted by Artw at 11:46 AM on October 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

S.H.I.E.L.D is a little too self-serious; I'd like to see it take more of a goofy seventies vibe, something more like the Six Million Dollar Man or the Bixby Hulk.
posted by octothorpe at 12:01 PM on October 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

I wonder if SHIELD has the same problems as James Bond these days. The whole premise of superhero spy was more fun with the cold-war backdrop where you could have Russians cheekily waving when pushed into a draw, or the even more comic SPECTRE trying to start WWIII because reasons. With gitmo, drones, kill squads, and the NSA it looks more like apologia. I suspect that Scorpion is going to be Hydra or something similar by mid-season, pitting super-spy against super-spy, but that hasn't happened yet.

But then again, I suspect I'm only watching the series because I'm a deep-cover Skrull and the revelation of what's really up with Coulson will be the post-hypnotic trigger for the invasion.

For a while, I was watching MI-5/Spooks, which was a lot more grey about their spy plots, but it's also a fairly brutal series over the long run and probably goes a bit too far in punching audience buttons.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 12:25 PM on October 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

Make my words, once it's revealed that Coulson is the Vision and the backdoor reasons he put them specific people together as as team, ya'll will be screaming and throwing bagged issue#1 comics at Wheadon.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:01 PM on October 30, 2013 [4 favorites]

I do hope that the show sticks around long enough for use to find out what Tahiti really means.
posted by octothorpe at 3:06 PM on October 30, 2013

Tahiti is the cover story for when Odin took Coulson to Asgard to heal him. Memory block spells put in place, because Fury doesn't want anyone knowing about the alliance between Earth and Asgard or the secret back door, but Coulson knows something strange is going on with saving him, hence the "It's a magical place" crack.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:21 PM on October 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

PLus he came back with like 50 pounds of brushed metal knickknacks.
posted by The Whelk at 3:24 PM on October 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

Wouldn't Coulson have gone to Valhalla instead of Asgard?
posted by 1970s Antihero at 3:40 PM on October 30, 2013

Late to comment, but: as long as we get lots of McAvoy and Fassbender together (and preferably a fair share of the Sirs as their older counterparts), the rest of the movie can be crap and they'll carry it. Dinklage should be good enough to hold up on the villain end, and if the rest of the X-Men suck in this movie, it's not like most of XMFC was actually great. Most of it was "okay" to "actually don't think about how much it sucked and how badly it treated female and POC characters if you want to keep liking it".

Tumblr is building up a high resistance to Winter Soldier for me. I'm potentially interested in SHIELD outside the TV show, which got better last week but is still the weakest thing I'm watching, but I'm kind of meh on some of the choices they made with the Black Widow and I'm not looking forward to the effort to set Sebastian Stan up in the bad-guy-we-love slot to replace Hiddleston. (Bring Anthony Mackie as the Falcon RIGHT ON, though!) And Thor has basically no excitement for me at all. I mean, I'm going to see it, most likely, but I expect it to be disappointing, and for them to make some plot/cast choices that will have me throwing things at the screen.

The thing is, as a heavy former X-Men reader, I can't let myself get attached to what they do with characters I liked. I made that mistake with DC. Marvel may have the better stable now, but the problems with the SHIELD tv show make it clear that the run of good stuff--and there have been weak points in the Marvel movies already--could come to a grinding halt at any time. Keep expectations low, don't buy too much hype, and don't expect it to match the comics in my head: these are the secrets to a good superhero movie experience.
posted by immlass at 4:22 PM on October 30, 2013 [2 favorites]

Coulson is an LMD, obviously.
posted by mkultra at 4:28 PM on October 30, 2013 [4 favorites]

Make my words, once it's revealed that Coulson is the Vision and the backdoor reasons he put them specific people together as as team, ya'll will be screaming and throwing bagged issue#1 comics at Wheadon.

Stockholm syndrome.
posted by Artw at 4:28 PM on October 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

Coulson is an LMD, obviously.

I've been on that train since the first episode.
posted by immlass at 5:01 PM on October 30, 2013

Yeah I'm just kind of assuming, given WS's apparent "SHIELD may be not so great RE: freedom" *slant that the show is playing the long game/showing us the villain's POV but I've gone from watching every week to ...letting it wait and see.

I'm optimistically assuming that SHIELD is doing something similar to what I started to see in The Clone Wars, where they showed that the Republic and the Separatists were both as bad as each other, and they did so slowly, over time, without making a big deal about it too often.

DoFP was a brilliant idea that editors made dumb over 30 years of revision.

And now we have Battle For The Atom. God help us.
posted by Mezentian at 5:09 PM on October 31, 2013

And now we have Battle For The Atom.

Wait. So they decided to do a book about the original five X-Men as they were when Kirby and Lee created them fifty years ago, and they call it All New X-Men?!
posted by straight at 8:50 PM on October 31, 2013

I like Professor Xavier's new costume.
posted by homunculus at 3:20 PM on November 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

What about Sookeh?!

I hope someday there is an X-Men vs. Avengers movie so Rogue can absorb the Hulk's power and scream "Sookeh smash!"
posted by homunculus at 3:24 PM on November 2, 2013

the main music which swells loudly in the latter portion of the trailer is by Hans Zimmer and was composed for The Thin Red Line

Journey to the line
posted by homunculus at 4:01 PM on November 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

Speaking of trailers: RoboCop Official Trailer #2 (HD) Samuel L Jackson, Gary Oldman
posted by homunculus at 4:52 PM on November 7, 2013

My pet theory is that Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch aren't actually going to be in any movies

TMS Exclusive: Elizabeth Olsen on Playing Scarlet Witch
posted by homunculus at 10:39 PM on November 12, 2013