X-men: Revenge of the Jew

[Ouch!]

It's not that the movies are retconning the comics. I fully understand and support that certain things must be adapted when changing the medium (which is also why I have no gripes with the way Halo: Reach changed canon from the Fall of Reach; the original medium supersedes secondary media for canon anyway, though). I didn't have a problem with the way they changed Havok from the comics to be much younger that Cyclops. Also in regards to your comment about different comic book story lines, Marvel is pretty good about that. It's all convoluted, sure, but unless they explicitly recognize it as a reboot (like the Ultimate universe), it's all part of the Marvel multi-verse. While complicated, it does all have a single storyline. At least as I understand it. And either way, Marvel comics have been going for 70 bleeding years. These are only five movies. It's hardly comparable in the sheer volume of content.

The problem isn't that the X-Men movies and the X-Men comics have different canons. That's fine and, quite frankly, to be expected. The problem is that both X-Men: First Class and X-Men Origins: Wolverine have a number of continuity errors with X1-3. This, in and of itself, is not necessarily a bad thing, except that both First Class and Origins: Wolverine have masqueraded as prequels. While Origins: Wolverine is the far more blatant offender, it's still annoying.

Some of the decisions which they've made which have caused these continuity errors are not well justified. Emma Frost's characterization in First Class is almost forgivable because she has such a large role to play as a main antagonist to Charles, but many of the others do not serve a large enough purpose to be so easily excused. I know I'm nitpicking on a lot of the things, but quite frankly it's just lazy. If they wanted more freedom to disregard things from X1-3, they should have just gone full-on reboot instead of this awkward middle ground. It's sloppy writing, and I can't abide sloppy writing.

[Iceglow]

I know I'm nitpicking on a lot of the things

All honesty Zackie boy, this is all that needs saying. You are nitpicking on things and should sit back and enjoy the movie for what it is which is a fairly well written and well made action movie and before you start about the writing, lets point out badly written action movies of the 80s and say those are your comparison points.

[Ouch!]

You can't arbitrarily assign 1980s action movies as my comparison points for writing. The bar has been raised since then. My comparison points are, as I've already said, post-2008 comic book movies such as Iron Man and the Dark Knight. First Class tries to bring the X-Men franchise to that level and falls short precisely because of the little things. I nitpicked because it's that close to being good. First Class had solid pacing, but it hardly ever had me on the edge of my seat. It's a good movie, but it's not great. And after a number of great comic book movies, I'm not willing to settle for good anymore with a franchise that has so much potential.

[Iceglow]

OK This Zack is exactly pretty much what people's beef was with Halo Reach "The storyline was good but never truly had me on the edge of my seat" comments, I mean look at it this way: It's a prequel. You already know the end by the beginning so how can it truly put you on the edge of your seat? We all knew that Xavier and Magneto were never truly in any danger just as we all knew Noble 6 was never going to get off Reach alive. However if you took prior knowledge of the previous Halo Games away and introduced someone just to Halo Reach as a stand alone title then they wouldn't have that same sense of knowing and could be on the edge of their seat during the intense action scenes from one level to the next and it's the exact same with Xmen First Class, anyone who hasn't seen an Xmen film before or someone who doesn't know the comics is going to get a much different experience than you did. You can't say it was a bad film based on the fact that it wasn't what you expected you can only say that you personally was let down because you personally expected too much and had hyped it up in your mind to a much higher degree than you should have. IMO this film was equally on a par with the Iron Man movies in terms of quality of casting, pacing and story. I'm not going to compare it to the Dark Knight because frankly that'd be unfair to any comic book adaptation. It's ridiculously good by the standards of ANY film comic book adaptation or not. Without the prior knowledge of the Xmen movies I would have easily have found this film to be on the same level as the Iron Man movies and watching it with the open view of disregarding and yet still knowing the previous Xmen titles I thought it was brilliantly done.

[charliepanayi]

You're all missing the key question here, which is why did Michael Fassbender's Magneto start talking with an Irish accent in the last section of the film.

[Ouch!]

Steve, you're so concerned with demonizing my position and trying to appear more intelligent than I am that you've completely missed my point. I've never once said it was a bad movie. You should try reading what I write and stop assuming that I feel any other way about it. I was cautiously optimistic about the movie, and I was pretty happy with it, as I said in the very first sentence of my first post. I just think that it could have been better, and I'm disappointed that they got lazy with my continuity. I just would have preferred they went full-on reboot and fully exercised their freedom instead of just going halfway with it.

[Big D]

I found it a fantastic film in every respect. Well written, well acted and well presented. Took itself and its era seriously enough, without getting bogged down in self-importance. Great performances from the core cast, with fine introductions and development to the characters we already knew from the previous films.

Speaking of those earlier films, I'm glad the new movie decided to establish a new continuity by not remaining 100% tied down to the trilogy. The revised details worked well for the new origin stories, giving the writers more room to explore the characters and ideas. Erasing prior continuity is hardly a new thing for comic book storylines, and it didn't bother me this time either; the changes to characters like Havok are much the same as how the earlier films handled the likes of Mastermind, Deathstrike and Beast.

It was good to see both the Second World War and the Cold War being handled respectfully, something that could prove tough when dealing with the often camp or humourous worlds of comics. Also neat to see an uncompromising view of the '60s, complete with casual, institutionalised sexism and nuclear paranoia.

I hear this flick's planned as the start of a new trilogy; if so, things are off to a thoroughly promising start.

[Peegee]

Steve, you're so concerned with demonizing my position and trying to appear more intelligent than I am that you've completely missed my point. I've never once said it was a bad movie. You should try reading what I write and stop assuming that I feel any other way about it. I was cautiously optimistic about the movie, and I was pretty happy with it, as I said in the very first sentence of my first post. I just think that it could have been better, and I'm disappointed that they got lazy with my continuity. I just would have preferred they went full-on reboot and fully exercised their freedom instead of just going halfway with it.

If they rebooted it, the film would be flawless. The only problem with it WERE those continuity errors (other issues are less annoying, like pacing).

I like asking my friends to name all of the characters in the movie. Introducing people like angel and darwin, and Azazel must be confusing to non-comic-book readers.

[Slothy]

If they rebooted it, the film would be flawless. The only problem with it WERE those continuity errors (other issues are less annoying, like pacing).

Continuity errors don't bother me since I read so many comics. If a better story comes out the other end as a result of ignoring or re-writing continuity when needed then I could care less the majority of the time, and this movie was definitely better served by not being held to tightly to existing continuity.

The only flaw I would say it had is the often terrible CG. Those trees on the beach in a certain scene involving a submarine at the end especially were bad. They looked like they were just sitting flat on top of the sand.

The comic fan in me is tempted to be more annoyed by (SPOILER)Darwin dying so easily given I'm a fan of the character and what he's survived in the comics, or Emma Frost not having a fake British accent, but I can easily let those slide given how much stronger the film is given the inclusion of the former, and how utterly irrelevant the latter is.

[Old Manus]

I thought the movie was brilliant. I mean people go on about the retconning of the story and the comics etc in all the movies (heck people do it with games too, remember the fuss about Halo Reach and the books?) all the time and to that I'm going to point out that even the comic books retconn the out of each other. I mean seriously how many different Xmen comic lines are out there now? It's borderline ridiculous.

As a movie it was enjoyable, well filmed the casting was brilliant and the cameos within the movie were excellent. Especially (SPOILER)Wolverine showing up and simply stating "go smurf yourself" (though the line needed "bub" on the end to truly fit with Wolverine's attitudes in life). I was cautious about the idea of McAvoy being Charles Xavier but you can definitely see how he went from the position he is in during the first class movie to the position he went to in the earlier Xmen movies. He portrays the role of young Xavier so very, very well the right amount of arrogance and over-confidence in his own abilities.

The inclusion of Havok was brilliant I know in the comics he's not meant to be older than Scott Summers but frankly when I first heard about the movie I believed they were going to go with the idea of Cyclops which is entirely what IMDB said in it's initial document about the movie. That would have been a mistake for sure, the idea that Havok is in however kinda sets up the whole situation for Havok to actually be portrayed as the father of Scott Summers (which consider the time line, the fact that the film is in the 60s is more than plausible).

The film does a good job of explaining why Wolverine was not present in it and at the same point lends itself to helping the credibility of all the previous Xmen movies including Wolverine to a degree though the inclusion of the ending of Wolverine showing Emma Frost as a child during the escape of the mutants from the Deadpool development center. Is a jarring conflict of information. Personally I prefer the idea of Emma Frost in First Class as it fits in better with the whole fact that until Jean Grey becomes Phoenix she's the most powerful threat to Xavier that he doesn't exactly know how to deal with.

Over all the film is a good movie, if you're a comic geek who is expecting the movies to be the exact same as the comics, get over it because they're not the same and frankly if the movies were the same as the comics or even the old cartoon series it wouldn't be as good because of that fact. And if you consider it as not being as good as the comics are then try viewing it as different. In other words try to watch the movies forgetting what you know. If you can't do that then simply don't watch the movies.

To be honest I would definitely like to see more Xmen movies from the same director, he's done a great job with it. I wouldn't even care if they considered this a reboot point and redone the entire Xmen Trilogy. So long as Hugh Jackman keeps his role as Wolverine.

*rubs eyes* An Iceglow post with...proper paragraphing!? Well, I guess things sometimes -

OK This Zack is exactly pretty much what people's beef was with Halo Reach "The storyline was good but never truly had me on the edge of my seat" comments, I mean look at it this way: It's a prequel. You already know the end by the beginning so how can it truly put you on the edge of your seat? We all knew that Xavier and Magneto were never truly in any danger just as we all knew Noble 6 was never going to get off Reach alive. However if you took prior knowledge of the previous Halo Games away and introduced someone just to Halo Reach as a stand alone title then they wouldn't have that same sense of knowing and could be on the edge of their seat during the intense action scenes from one level to the next and it's the exact same with Xmen First Class, anyone who hasn't seen an Xmen film before or someone who doesn't know the comics is going to get a much different experience than you did. You can't say it was a bad film based on the fact that it wasn't what you expected you can only say that you personally was let down because you personally expected too much and had hyped it up in your mind to a much higher degree than you should have. IMO this film was equally on a par with the Iron Man movies in terms of quality of casting, pacing and story. I'm not going to compare it to the Dark Knight because frankly that'd be unfair to any comic book adaptation. It's ridiculously good by the standards of ANY film comic book adaptation or not. Without the prior knowledge of the Xmen movies I would have easily have found this film to be on the same level as the Iron Man movies and watching it with the open view of disregarding and yet still knowing the previous Xmen titles I thought it was brilliantly done.

[Big D]

Those trees on the beach in a certain scene involving a submarine at the end especially were bad. They looked like they were just sitting flat on top of the sand.

You mean the trees that got completely flattened by said submarine? You may find that's a factor in why they looked flat

The comic fan in me is tempted to be more annoyed by (SPOILER)Darwin dying so easily given I'm a fan of the character and what he's survived in the comics, or Emma Frost not having a fake British accent, but I can easily let those slide given how much stronger the film is given the inclusion of the former, and how utterly irrelevant the latter is.

For all we know, (SPOILER)Darwin's alive and well and waiting for a sequel. After all, we didn't actually see him die - we saw a huge flash of light as his body struggled to adapt to Havok's energy, then he was gone. From the comics, we know that Darwin's adaptations can include extreme stuff like teleporting out of harm's way, or even becoming an energy being.

[Slothy]

Those trees on the beach in a certain scene involving a submarine at the end especially were bad. They looked like they were just sitting flat on top of the sand.

You mean the trees that got completely flattened by said submarine? You may find that's a factor in why they looked flat

No, I meant as in they didn't look like they were rooted in the ground at all. They just fell over like they were just sitting there, rather than being uprooted like actual trees would be. It was a small thing to be annoyed by to be sure, but I notice stuff like that a lot more after seeing a lot of movies with friends who actually do 3D graphics.

The comic fan in me is tempted to be more annoyed by (SPOILER)Darwin dying so easily given I'm a fan of the character and what he's survived in the comics, or Emma Frost not having a fake British accent, but I can easily let those slide given how much stronger the film is given the inclusion of the former, and how utterly irrelevant the latter is.

For all we know, (SPOILER)Darwin's alive and well and waiting for a sequel. After all, we didn't actually see him die - we saw a huge flash of light as his body struggled to adapt to Havok's energy, then he was gone. From the comics, we know that Darwin's adaptations can include extreme stuff like teleporting out of harm's way, or even becoming an energy being.

This is very true and the only thing which gives me some hope, though it will likely never happen since people who aren't fans of the comic may just end up confused if he showed up again.

[Del Murder]

You want them to kill real trees to get the right shot? You cold hearted bastard!

[Peegee]

Those trees on the beach in a certain scene involving a submarine at the end especially were bad. They looked like they were just sitting flat on top of the sand.

You mean the trees that got completely flattened by said submarine? You may find that's a factor in why they looked flat

The comic fan in me is tempted to be more annoyed by (SPOILER)Darwin dying so easily given I'm a fan of the character and what he's survived in the comics, or Emma Frost not having a fake British accent, but I can easily let those slide given how much stronger the film is given the inclusion of the former, and how utterly irrelevant the latter is.

For all we know, (SPOILER)Darwin's alive and well and waiting for a sequel. After all, we didn't actually see him die - we saw a huge flash of light as his body struggled to adapt to Havok's energy, then he was gone. From the comics, we know that Darwin's adaptations can include extreme stuff like teleporting out of harm's way, or even becoming an energy being.

I do not want them to make a sequel of this. It would not make sense and they are better off trying NOT to explain / justify how Hank McCoy becomes human in X2 or how the magneto helmet re-appears as a new artifact in X1 or how Emma Frost ages 20 years but appears younger (maybe she's telepathically messing with our minds) or where the brotherhood of mutants went or or or blah blah blah

[Vivisteiner]

Awesome movie. I'd only seen one X-men movie before (Wolverine), so went into the theatre knowing little about X-men and with low expectations. Really enjoyed it.