Darren Aronofsky's Wolverine movie
- Thread starter genjiglove
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I really don't have the time, energy or patience to submit myself to taking that particular stroll down memory lane.
Suffice it to say it sucked for a LOT of reasons. A shitty movie in general and a shitty X-Men movie in particular.
The first one is the only one that got it right. At all.
Gavica
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X2 is an excellent movie even better than X1
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You're crazy. X2 is very good for what it is, and much better than I thought Singer was capable of (not to mention, much better than the first movie).
Does it stay completely faithful to X-Men comic continuity? No. But does it stay very faithful to the spirit and message of the comic? Yes.
And it had characters I could believe in and care about. Magneto and Mystique were wonderfully morally ambiguous, and the seduction of Pyro was handled a million times better in the 15-20 minutes he got dedicated to him than poor Anakin got in three 2 hour movies of which he was the star. And Rogue in the first two movies is a better character than she's been in the comics since about Uncanny #185 or so, which was about 25 years ago.
And for the record, while God Loves, Man Kills is my all-time favorite (and, imo, the best ever published) X-Men story, I don't need and never want to see God Loves, Man Kills the Comic: The Movie. I already have the comic, and they're not going to improve on it. So I have no complaints whatsoever about their taking elements from it and exploring them in their own way.
I actually would like to hear your reasoning on your hatred for X2, because I think you are way off base on this one. In fact, I rewatched it a couple months back, and it held up better than I remembered. Actually, both of the first two movies did (and I was surprised about the first movie, because I remembered it as being more awkwardly put together).
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I don't care if it stays close to the comics or not, to be honest. X-Men, as a comic, has been over to me since issue #138.
I'm not crazy. It just sucks. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't shed a tear if the movie were wiped from the history books (ironic, that.) And I'm definitely not going to recount all the ways in which it's shitty for two reasons:
1.) I don't care enough about the movie to write a better review
2.) I'm certainly not going to subject myself to it again.
Good characters in a bad movie is still a bad movie. And comparing bad to worse does not elevate the bad to some immune status.
I would welcome it if it were a new message. But that graphic novel, its tone and theme, were so ingrained into everything that came afterwards to the point where the two are synonimous. I remember reading X-Men and being legitimately wierded out when they fought Dr. Doom or Arcade or something. I was like 'this is odd, it isn't about how much people hate mutants.' That is a theme that's always been a PART of X-Men, but God Loves, Man Kills, as awesome as it was, sort of BECAME X-Men for a long time. It might still be that, but I wouldnt' know because I haven't read it in ages outside of the Whedon/Cassady run. Which was awesome and I wish it would have never ended.
God, no. I won't do it and you can't make me
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Now I know you're crazy. "My" era of X-Men ends at #175, but even I have to acknowledge there's good stuff after that.
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And post-Claremont:
(the entire Morrison run, not this issue specifically)
(the entire Morrison run, not this issue specifically)
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Oh yeah? OH YEAH?! Well the X-Men cartoon is worse than the Scrappy-Doo episodes of Scooby-Doo, and animated more poorly than a second grader's flip book.
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In regards to the good X-Men material that came after 138, I really don't care.
At all.
To clarify, I think the Cockrum and Smith runs after Byrne left were eminently satisfactory as comic runs (and yes, I know Byrne was on X-Men until 143.) I didn't need to read them. I'm pretty sure I don't ever have to go back and read them again. Good stories that ultimately didn't matter to me.
I don't recall saying they were shit stories. I don't know why you're drawing that parallel. It's a stretch, honestly.
At all.
To clarify, I think the Cockrum and Smith runs after Byrne left were eminently satisfactory as comic runs (and yes, I know Byrne was on X-Men until 143.) I didn't need to read them. I'm pretty sure I don't ever have to go back and read them again. Good stories that ultimately didn't matter to me.
I don't recall saying they were shit stories. I don't know why you're drawing that parallel. It's a stretch, honestly.
genjiglove
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I loved Morrison's New X-men.
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Worse than Good Burger?
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I didn't say you did. I said you are crazy for drawing an arbitrary line and disregarding anything good that came after (which includes God Loves, Man Kills). Byrne was revolutionary for his time and I agree with you that he did a lot to prop up the X-Men, but that era was not the end-all, be-all you hold it up to be. Outside of a few seminal stories, like Hellfire Club/Death of Phoenix and Days of Future Past (which falls after your arbitrary line, anyway), that run really wasn't any better than the original Cockrum run, or a lot of the stuff that followed it. From a plot & characterization standpoint, it probably even gets beat by the Smith/JRjr eras combined with the first 50 issues of New Mutants. Even Magneto was still a 2-dimensional mustache-twirler during Byrne's run. So unless Byrne's art is the overwhelming deciding factor for you, your arbitrary line makes no sense to me.
On the other hand, I re-read the second Cockrum run I grew up with not too long ago, and other than a few gems, most of it is difficult to get through -- some of it, nearly impossible. And that is even with the benefit of nostalgia.
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The Savage Land arc, Mariko Yashida, Alpha Flight, Arcade, Proteus, Hellfire, Sh'iar...all of it was pretty good, fresh and character driven material. I really got a sense of identity for the characters, their relationships with each other and the world around them, their lingering doubts about their own identities and the team dynamic. They were fleshed out with more precision and genius than anything that followed it. It was really brilliant stuff, and hasn't been topped since.
I disagree.
The line is not arbitrary.
Jean Grey died.
Cyclops left.
Story over.
That is not based on Byrne leaving the book but on the major arc of the comic coming to a proper and magnificent end. You're stretching again, probably because you remember me citing my love for Byrne's work in some other thread. I don't recall saying 'When Byrne left X-Men, it got bad.' I don't think I've said that in this thread. I think I said 'I didn't care what happened after 138.' Which, as I cited in my last post, I knew wasn't Byrne's last issue on the book. But it was the last one I truly cared about.
And as it regards Magneto, that storyline was, what, three issues into the run (not counting the filler issue 110.) Yeah, he made an appearance on the last page of issue 111. They hadn't reached their creative apex as a team by that point. That arc, told later, would have shown Magneto as more complex. But I still wouldn't read an X-Men comic to learn more about Magneto because I'm not so sure I care about his motivations beyond 'strike back at a world that hates and fears us.' That's really all I need out of that character. The best things that ever happened in the X-Men comic happened without Magneto waving his red cape in a single panel.
Byrne and Claremont seemed to pretty much take him out of the equation at the end of that arc. Which led to (but was not directly responsible for) some truly magnificent stuff.
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Yeah, that is pretty much it. I had meant to rebut your post in the other thread, where you had put Byrne up on a higher pedestal than I think he objectively deserves, and had elevated the importance of his contribution to that of Claremont's, which I think is way out of proportion (as much as I did like the Claremont/Byrne run, and do agree it was what first pushed X-Men to real prominence). I meant to make that post and never got around to it, because it would have been long, even for me, and I've been kicking myself for it.
I guess I don't see the X-Men as the Scott & Jean show. In fact, Jean was always one of my least favorite characters. To me, that wasn't what the comic is about. For me, it's more about the overall theme and message than any single character. A theme and message that -- despite some fun and exciting stories -- got touched on pitifully few times during the Claremont/Byrne run. It only really started to get fully explored once Magneto stopped being a Silver Age cardboard cut-out villain. Which, unfortunately wasn't until about 20 issues after Byrne left.
I couldn't disagree more strongly. I don't think that's even a supportable argument. If you want to say they were your favorite, that's one thing. That run is part of my favorite era, too. But objectively, plot-wise and character development/exploration-wise, better stuff came later. Like I said earlier, #175 is the end of "my" era. But going back recently and reading the series while holding my nostalgia in check, there is a lot of great stuff -- and some of it better -- after "our" eras.
For you, Jean's death marked the end of something. For me, it marked a beginning: The beginning of an era when things were less safe, an era where characters and themes could be explored in a way the earlier, safer comics couldn't.
And for the record, the Shi'ar stories tend to bore the fuck out of me, other than the first Brood saga. Having Arcade in an issue is another thing that will make me skip a comic (although he was much more tolerable in the Byrne 2-parter than he's ever been since). Never not boring and stupid, imo. And I liked the first dozen or so issues of Alpha Flight's own series, but their appearances in Uncanny are kind of whatever.
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aria
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I agreed with a lot of this.
I never cared for that kind of comic, but I was familiar with the themes (from the cartoon, which I was lukewarm about), and I felt the same way --especially about Magneto. Then again, that's what happens when you spend the money on a great actor and know how to direct him.
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Why kick yourself over it? Because someone on the internet has an equally valid but different opinion about a comic book? Seems needlessly obsessive to me to sweat it.
For the record, it's Byrne's run on Fantastic Four that I hold up on another level due to creator genius, not his run on X-Men. But this is a team you've called 'boring' a number of times, and you're welcome to that opinion too.
The Claremont/Byrne run was about Scott & Jean and a conflicted relationship that could not have ended well. You see the writing on the wall from a mile away and there's a sadness in knowing that this upstanding guy, Cyclops, has to live with the fact that he loves a woman who murdered an entire galaxy. There's a dark side to her that turns up time and again in those last few issues, and that is compelling stuff to explore.
I don't think, overall, I like the character of Jean Grey so much as I liked her during that time. She was the perfect character to tell those particular stories through.
And you keep bringing up Magneto like he should mean something to me when he doesn't. I never needed him to be more than he was. So that's probably another reason for the difference of opinion here. You apparently need Magneto to be more complex and layered. I obviously don't, and never did.
Come on, man. You're better than to make obtuse comments like this.
I was happy with the 'down' ending. The inevitability of it felt more fitting to me. No matter how much good the X-Men do, they'll always be the black sheep of Marvel and suffer unfortunate things.
There. Argument capably supported
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No, no nothing like that. I just thought it would have been an interesting conversation but I let the moment pass. That's all.
And none of that has anything to do with the core concept of the series (and, in fact, whenever they expand X-Men to involve the entire galaxy, I generally start to tune out). If that's what drew you to the book, that's cool and I guess explains why you were ready to check out as soon as it was over. But there has been just as compelling drama handled just as well with other members of the cast, imo, post-Dark Phoenix. I guess I just don't understand why it interests you with just those two characters and no one else.
As for the Byrne FF, yeah, I bought it, too (Byrne being my favorite artist at the time), and liked it a lot back then. I dropped off at some point not long after She-Hulk joined the team following Secret Wars. I wouldn't say it was ever my favorite comic, but those earlier Byrne issues were as good as it got for me. Especially #236-262...that was "my" FF. Any time I've tried the book post-Byrne, it has bored the living shit out of me.
But then I started reading some of the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby issues.
oh.
After that, any and all issues of Fantastic Four produced by anyone who wasn't Kirby and Lee suddenly seemed completely pointless, redundant, and boring. Of everyone else, I still think Byrne was by far the best. But he's the best of a pointless bunch.
fmdof
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Nolan's Batman movies blow. Heath Ledger looked and acted almost exactly like Beetlejuice, not the joker. And don't get me started on Christian Bale being miscast.
