Why the Fox X-Men Universe Is Not Exactly in a Good Space

A long time back, Marvel sold the rights to X-Men movies to Fox and Fox gave us the first team based superhero movie at the turn of the century.

Except they did one thing wrong – they played around with characters so much they either made them unrecognizable or erratic in behavior. Hugh Jackman as the Wolverine is still one of the most celebrated actor-to-superhero conversions on the big screen (though he is nothing like his comic book counterpart) but the need for a central figure destroyed a lot of X-Men films.

The first movie charted Logan’s induction into the X-Men, and in the process destroyed Rouge. From a southern gal with a complicated family and love story she became a plot device for Magneto’s plan. And over the course of three movies, it just got worse.

X-Men 2 is still my favorite X-Men film, mostly because it dealt with the Weapon X programme and for once – it actually made sense for Wolverine to be the main focus. It was a great exploration of the character’s backstory and set up a mouth-watering cliffhanger of the Phoenix.

Then it all went to hell. In one movie, they destroyed the X-Men universe in such a way that is basically got rebooted a few years later in X-Men DOTF. In between, we got X-Men First Class, my second favorite X-Men movie, which explored Charles Xavier and Eric Lennserr quite in detail. But a seed got planted in that movie and it got more aggravating with the next two films.

Yes. I’m talking about a blue skinned shapeshifter who was revised to be a childhood friend of Charles and a follower of Eric’s mutant superiority philosophy. Except she didn’t. The entire DOFP film was centered on stopping her from shooting a scientist that led to mutant extinction in the future and in the rebooted universe, Apocalypse had her playing a warrior like mentor to the first group of classic X-Men.

Also, by the way – guess who was the guy to be sent back to the past to stop Mystique? Yup. Wolverine.

Despite its critical acclaim, DOTF did not endear itself to me as some great facets of the X-Men mythos like Kitty's time phasing ability, Sentinels, Bishop and Trask all got the short stick.

One of the biggest problems the X-Men universe had always struggled with is direction and juggling an ensemble cast. Individual movies like Wolverine I can agree with a single protagonist, but X-Men has always been about a strength of unity – not Wolverine and his guys or Mystique and her guys.

So many characters got lost due to this. Cyclops went from leader to a nobody, Jean Grey got bastardized while some like Gambit did not even appear (unless you count the X-Men Origins Wolverine movie, which gave a serviceable Gambit – but otherwise was a terrible terrible movie. Deadpool…shudder).

Banking on Jennifer Lawrence has been a big issue. We see a big problem of actors keeping their masks or costumes on due to a need for more face time, but the beauty of Mystique is that you can keep an actress willing to sacrifice that. Sounds strange to see a character sprout ‘Mutant Am Proud’ and then decide to keep her human look for the maximum time – even when she doesn’t need to.

Coming to the Gambit movie, I’m in favour of it…not exactly a fan of Channing Tatum playing the Cajun. I thought Taylor Kirsh did a good job and with some training can become a good counterpart to my favourite mutant on screen. The Gambit movie should be a one off to introduce the character to the X-Men universe and preferably with the Guild storyline – and establish a Rogue more confident and powerful than whatever the hell the movie version is, not to forget a classic romance with Remy LeBleau.

But again stressing on something. The Fox X-Men universe has become a mutated version of what the universe should have been. I agree that there is a certain liberty the movies should have to differentiate it from the comics, but never at the cost of destroying characters’ people have loved for decades – or to pander to star lustre.

It’s not too late though - the new team sans Mystique is promising (though again, why did they kill off Emma Frost!). And I hope they listen to fans. It’s doesn’t have to be Marvel to make a good X-Men movie. Fox showed they can do it with Deadpool. Now do the premier mutant team justice.

For reference look up this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Men_(TV_series)