Originally skeptical... now officially stoked. If they can match the flavour of this new trailer, it is going to be awesome. Can't wait. Looks like there will be many, many geek-out moments.
Originally skeptical... now officially stoked. If they can match the flavour of this new trailer, it is going to be awesome. Can't wait. Looks like there will be many, many geek-out moments.
I don't know if I'm stoked, but I do feel better about the film. Those initial production stills had a "Joel Schumacher" vibe.
I don't know if I'm stoked, but I do feel better about the film. Those initial production stills had a "Joel Schumacher" vibe.
Maybe "Stoked" wasn't the right term. I have been less than a fan of the X movies (didn't even bother going to the theatre for the last two releases), and "Days of Future Past" is one of my all time fav X-Men stories... so I had my reservations about how this will play out on the big screen.
But this definitely looks like it could be upping the game in order to keep step with Marvel Studios. That could be a win for us!
I see a lot of Terminator 2 in this movie. Also, they're using more of their breakout stars, I see, and getting them out of the blue makeup as much as possible.
Well, to be fair, that is basically what the X-Men have been like since 1975.
There was still a lot of fun in the book at least through the Paul Smith days.
I don't know. I mean, there was hella great art, and some fun and baseball. . . but also a lot of brood, Morlocks, and heartbreak. And I think the Paul Smith days of X-Men, unfortunately, accounts for little more than one thick TPB. Some baseball games, sure, but also a lot of the usual Claremont era angst and melodrama. I feel like the baseball games and date nights throughout X-Men history are often so fondly remembered because they were brief respites in an ongoing saga of a species facing discrimination and even genocide that could be pretty self-important and heavy (and, don't get me wrong, I ate it up, but it could be a bummer.)
Well, to be fair, that is basically what the X-Men have been like since 1975.
There was still a lot of fun in the book at least through the Paul Smith days.
I don't know. I mean, there was hella great art, and some fun and baseball. . . but also a lot of brood, Morlocks, and heartbreak. And I think the Paul Smith days of X-Men, unfortunately, accounts for little more than one thick TPB. Some baseball games, sure, but also a lot of the usual Claremont era angst and melodrama. I feel like the baseball games and date nights throughout X-Men history are often so fondly remembered because they were brief respites in an ongoing saga of a species facing discrimination and even genocide that could be pretty self-important and heavy (and, don't get me wrong, I ate it up, but it could be a bummer.)
Up THROUGH the Paul Smith Era. So Cockrum, Byrne, Smith. The Golden Age. Before insane mutant proliferation and the ensuing angst proliferation. (and Mutant Title Proliferation)
Sure, they were always in trouble, but it wasn't nearly as pompous as it got later.
Well, to be fair, that is basically what the X-Men have been like since 1975.
There was still a lot of fun in the book at least through the Paul Smith days.
I don't know. I mean, there was hella great art, and some fun and baseball. . . but also a lot of brood, Morlocks, and heartbreak. And I think the Paul Smith days of X-Men, unfortunately, accounts for little more than one thick TPB. Some baseball games, sure, but also a lot of the usual Claremont era angst and melodrama. I feel like the baseball games and date nights throughout X-Men history are often so fondly remembered because they were brief respites in an ongoing saga of a species facing discrimination and even genocide that could be pretty self-important and heavy (and, don't get me wrong, I ate it up, but it could be a bummer.)
Up THROUGH the Paul Smith Era. So Cockrum, Byrne, Smith. The Golden Age. Before insane mutant proliferation and the ensuing angst proliferation. (and Mutant Title Proliferation)
Sure, they were always in trouble, but it wasn't nearly as pompous as it got later.
Ah. Got it.
I don't know, though. I am still not sure I agree. The Hellfire Club. The Dark Phoenix Saga. Heck, the death of Thunderbird seemed to be Claremont's shot across the bow.
It certainly got even more ponderous and sometimes overwrought later (and, at least to the end of Claremont, I should note that I still absolutely ate it up), but it was all often pretty serious (to my memory). Which is why, to me, that movie trailer feels very on-tone to me as far as what I think of when I think of the X-Men.
Well, to be fair, that is basically what the X-Men have been like since 1975.
There was still a lot of fun in the book at least through the Paul Smith days.
I don't know. I mean, there was hella great art, and some fun and baseball. . . but also a lot of brood, Morlocks, and heartbreak. And I think the Paul Smith days of X-Men, unfortunately, accounts for little more than one thick TPB. Some baseball games, sure, but also a lot of the usual Claremont era angst and melodrama. I feel like the baseball games and date nights throughout X-Men history are often so fondly remembered because they were brief respites in an ongoing saga of a species facing discrimination and even genocide that could be pretty self-important and heavy (and, don't get me wrong, I ate it up, but it could be a bummer.)
Up THROUGH the Paul Smith Era. So Cockrum, Byrne, Smith. The Golden Age. Before insane mutant proliferation and the ensuing angst proliferation. (and Mutant Title Proliferation)
Sure, they were always in trouble, but it wasn't nearly as pompous as it got later.
Ah. Got it.
I don't know, though. I am still not sure I agree. The Hellfire Club. The Dark Phoenix Saga. Heck, the death of Thunderbird seemed to be Claremont's shot across the bow.
It certainly got even more ponderous and sometimes overwrought later (and, at least to the end of Claremont, I should note that I still absolutely ate it up), but it was all often pretty serious (to my memory). Which is why, to me, that movie trailer feels very on-tone to me as far as what I think of when I think of the X-Men.
I remember that era as exciting and fun. (No light-hearted, but fun) Yes, lots of really dangerous enemies, but tons of "Yeah!" moments, too.
There was still a lot of fun in the book at least through the Paul Smith days.
Maybe they will have a scene with all those new characters playing baseball!
Slightly off topic, but when I go back and re-read some of those comics from the '80s, it's surprising to me just how much they used to show superheroes lounging around back then. The X-Men always seemed to be going to New York City to catch a show, the Teen Titans were always hanging around a pool, the Fantastic Four apparently spent an inordinate amount of time walking around parks.
Maybe I'm just not paying attention, but I don't see that as often. Which is strange, since most stories take several issues to tell, you'd think there would be more time devoted to moments like that, not less.
Slightly off topic, but when I go back and re-read some of those comics from the '80s, it's surprising to me just how much they used to show superheroes lounging around back then. The X-Men always seemed to be going to New York City to catch a show, the Teen Titans were always hanging around a pool, the Fantastic Four apparently spent an inordinate amount of time walking around parks.
Maybe I'm just not paying attention, but I don't see that as often. Which is strange, since most stories take several issues to tell, you'd think there would be more time devoted to moments like that, not less.
The "downtime" stories were always my favorites.
I tend to care more about characters than action, I don't need a fight scene in every issue.
I am apparently in the minority, or at least perceived to be.
Slightly off topic, but when I go back and re-read some of those comics from the '80s, it's surprising to me just how much they used to show superheroes lounging around back then. The X-Men always seemed to be going to New York City to catch a show, the Teen Titans were always hanging around a pool, the Fantastic Four apparently spent an inordinate amount of time walking around parks.
Maybe I'm just not paying attention, but I don't see that as often. Which is strange, since most stories take several issues to tell, you'd think there would be more time devoted to moments like that, not less.
I've made some complaint about that in the past, especially where the New52 is concerned. Every title there seems to be always 'on' all the time, focusing on events and fights, but with no time at all dedicated to any life the heroes may have had when the mask and costume comes off. It seemed that Bruce Wayne only appeared in the Morrison written Batman Inc, and made only token appearances in the other books, if at all. (I quit buying the Batman books over a year ago, so I've no idea if that's still the case or not.) The Green Lantern books were even worse: Hal Jordan seemed to have had regained his life and career after his Rebirth, but as soon as the action shifted to space Hal wasn't seen again out of his costume until Flashpoint -- I can only assume he was declared AWOL by the Air Force and court-martialed in absentia -- and then, again, briefly at the start of the New52. Frankly, I miss the secret ID sequences; they not only give the reader a break and a breather from the main action, but give more insight to the man or woman behind the mask, completing the character.
Frankly, I miss the secret ID sequences; they not only give the reader a break and a breather from the main action, but give more insight to the man or woman behind the mask, completing the character.
A-fucking-men.
I hadn't really thought about it, but I think that's one of the biggest reasons most superhero comics bore the crap out of me these days. (Especially DC, not only have all the spouses gone away, so have the supporting casts and the characters' lives. It's just fight, fight, fight.)
@Chuck_Melville I didn't know that, about it being Wein's plot. Thanks- today I learned something early!
Re: downtime stories of characters. I can't be sure my math is right on this, as it is just an impression, but I feel like those sort of stories never went away when it comes to X-Books. Sure, there are a lot of crises, fights, and time travel to get to. But I feel like the tradition of 'these characters go on a date' or 'these characters go out shopping' or 'Wolverine and this person go to the bar and hang out before inevitably bumping into Juggernaut at the same bar' stories have continued to be around. There have been some of those recently.
There are also a lot of issue-that-focuses-on-one-character-and-something-about-their-past stories that tend to focus more on character than a big action set piece.
I would say that, even despite all the big events wrapping in and out of the book, that Bendis' All New X-Men has been a *very* character focused book. A lot of that book has had a relatively simple plot element (the original five come to the present) but most of the page space has been spent on the consequences of that from more of a character point of view than "...and then they fight the WRECKING CREW!"
@Corwin could probably speak to this better than me, as he is an X-Savant. But my sense of it is that even though the X-books don't have a history of many secret identities and supporting cast people outside of costume, they do have a continuing history of a lot of time spent on character driven stories and subplots. (Even if these days the character scenes tend to be played out with everyone standing around talking IN COSTUME so that the artists can more easily sell those pages later)
@David_D: I have to confess that my impression of the X_Men experience since the mid-80s is just that, an impression. I quit all the Marvel books half-way through Secret Wars II, and with the exception of Whedon's Astonishing X-Men, never got lured back into the X-verse. It appeared to have become cumbersome.*
*Bonus points for me if you've got Seven Mary Three in your head now.
I haven't read the X-titles with any consistency since the '80s, so I'm not entirely up to date on things in that area.
I still see character moments, but as David_D said, it's more often with them in costume, and frequently in the middle of an adventure. The days of the first few pages involving, say, The Thing taking Alicia to the zoo or the Teen Titans having a pool party seem to be behind us. And, like WetRats, I think that's a loss. These days, if a character appears out of costume, it's not atypical for me to not know who they are at first.
I wonder if we had more of it back then because a lot of the writers and artists actually lived in New York, whereas today they can work from anywhere. Particularly with Marvel titles from that era, I often get the sense that those personal moments sprang from whatever the creator happened to have done that weekend, or wished they had done instead of working on a comic to meet a deadline.
I haven't read the X-titles with any consistency since the '80s, so I'm not entirely up to date on things in that area.
I still see character moments, but as David_D said, it's more often with them in costume, and frequently in the middle of an adventure. The days of the first few pages involving, say, The Thing taking Alicia to the zoo or the Teen Titans having a pool party seem to be behind us. And, like WetRats, I think that's a loss. These days, if a character appears out of costume, it's not atypical for me to not know who they are at first.
I wonder if we had more of it back then because a lot of the writers and artists actually lived in New York, whereas today they can work from anywhere. Particularly with Marvel titles from that era, I often get the sense that those personal moments sprang from whatever the creator happened to have done that weekend, or wished they had done instead of working on a comic to meet a deadline.
I think there was more emphasis on more story per issue. Short scenes, smaller panels, less action for action's sake.
Yes, you did have the density of dialogue and narration that now seems ornate at best, cumbersome* at worst, but, by God, you got a lot more happening in any given issue, hence there was time for secret real identities and supporting casts.
Although I truly believe that returning original art to the artists was the right thing to do, I also believe that the commodification of original art hurt storytelling in comics.
It takes me a much longer time to read a comic from the '60s - '80s than one today. And I understand why some readers dislike a heavy reliance on text, but I don't see why narration has almost been entirely done away with. Sure, it's ridiculous when you see things like "He smashes open the door" above a drawing of a character smashing a door open, but most of them provided details or inner thoughts the art couldn't convey.
All in all, it was much more well-rounded reading experience than I get today, and as I read contemporary comics alongside older ones, I find that month to month, I have no problem recalling the ongoing stories in the older titles, but can scarcely recall what's happening in most titles published today. I can't count how many times I've opened a new title in the last few years to find it in the middle of a fight scene on page one, with me trying to remember if that was the cliffhanger in the previous issue, or they just decided to start things in the middle of a battle with no sense of why we should care.
If it weren't for the fact that I'm having no trouble recalling what's going on in Badger, '80s Alpha Flight, '90s Justice League International, or any of the other older titles I'm currently reading through, I'd have thought my memory was starting to go.
Is 42 too young to start sounding like a grumpy old man?
Comments
I'm half convinced he'll be walking again at the end of the movie.
M
I have been less than a fan of the X movies (didn't even bother going to the theatre for the last two releases), and "Days of Future Past" is one of my all time fav X-Men stories... so I had my reservations about how this will play out on the big screen.
But this definitely looks like it could be upping the game in order to keep step with Marvel Studios.
That could be a win for us!
Exciting, perhaps, but, oh so serious.
Sure, they were always in trouble, but it wasn't nearly as pompous as it got later.
I don't know, though. I am still not sure I agree. The Hellfire Club. The Dark Phoenix Saga. Heck, the death of Thunderbird seemed to be Claremont's shot across the bow.
It certainly got even more ponderous and sometimes overwrought later (and, at least to the end of Claremont, I should note that I still absolutely ate it up), but it was all often pretty serious (to my memory). Which is why, to me, that movie trailer feels very on-tone to me as far as what I think of when I think of the X-Men.
Maybe I'm just not paying attention, but I don't see that as often. Which is strange, since most stories take several issues to tell, you'd think there would be more time devoted to moments like that, not less.
I tend to care more about characters than action, I don't need a fight scene in every issue.
I am apparently in the minority, or at least perceived to be.
I hadn't really thought about it, but I think that's one of the biggest reasons most superhero comics bore the crap out of me these days. (Especially DC, not only have all the spouses gone away, so have the supporting casts and the characters' lives. It's just fight, fight, fight.)
Re: downtime stories of characters. I can't be sure my math is right on this, as it is just an impression, but I feel like those sort of stories never went away when it comes to X-Books. Sure, there are a lot of crises, fights, and time travel to get to. But I feel like the tradition of 'these characters go on a date' or 'these characters go out shopping' or 'Wolverine and this person go to the bar and hang out before inevitably bumping into Juggernaut at the same bar' stories have continued to be around. There have been some of those recently.
There are also a lot of issue-that-focuses-on-one-character-and-something-about-their-past stories that tend to focus more on character than a big action set piece.
I would say that, even despite all the big events wrapping in and out of the book, that Bendis' All New X-Men has been a *very* character focused book. A lot of that book has had a relatively simple plot element (the original five come to the present) but most of the page space has been spent on the consequences of that from more of a character point of view than "...and then they fight the WRECKING CREW!"
@Corwin could probably speak to this better than me, as he is an X-Savant. But my sense of it is that even though the X-books don't have a history of many secret identities and supporting cast people outside of costume, they do have a continuing history of a lot of time spent on character driven stories and subplots. (Even if these days the character scenes tend to be played out with everyone standing around talking IN COSTUME so that the artists can more easily sell those pages later)
*Bonus points for me if you've got Seven Mary Three in your head now.
I still see character moments, but as David_D said, it's more often with them in costume, and frequently in the middle of an adventure. The days of the first few pages involving, say, The Thing taking Alicia to the zoo or the Teen Titans having a pool party seem to be behind us. And, like WetRats, I think that's a loss. These days, if a character appears out of costume, it's not atypical for me to not know who they are at first.
I wonder if we had more of it back then because a lot of the writers and artists actually lived in New York, whereas today they can work from anywhere. Particularly with Marvel titles from that era, I often get the sense that those personal moments sprang from whatever the creator happened to have done that weekend, or wished they had done instead of working on a comic to meet a deadline.
Yes, you did have the density of dialogue and narration that now seems ornate at best, cumbersome* at worst, but, by God, you got a lot more happening in any given issue, hence there was time for
secretreal identities and supporting casts.Although I truly believe that returning original art to the artists was the right thing to do, I also believe that the commodification of original art hurt storytelling in comics.
*Cumbersome is apparently my word of the day.
All in all, it was much more well-rounded reading experience than I get today, and as I read contemporary comics alongside older ones, I find that month to month, I have no problem recalling the ongoing stories in the older titles, but can scarcely recall what's happening in most titles published today. I can't count how many times I've opened a new title in the last few years to find it in the middle of a fight scene on page one, with me trying to remember if that was the cliffhanger in the previous issue, or they just decided to start things in the middle of a battle with no sense of why we should care.
If it weren't for the fact that I'm having no trouble recalling what's going on in Badger, '80s Alpha Flight, '90s Justice League International, or any of the other older titles I'm currently reading through, I'd have thought my memory was starting to go.
Is 42 too young to start sounding like a grumpy old man?
Mow that lawn afore them kids try to get on it.
Awesome.
M