Another Pass at Another Pass at X-Men 3: The Last Stand

Episode Transcript
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Case (00:05):
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Another Pass at Another Pass podcast where we, in these bonus episodes gaze back on the history of the show at a time before were joined by my co host, Sam Alicea.

Sam (00:20):
Hi.

Case (00:21):
So, Sam, today we are talking about an early episode of the show. We are talking about when we had Jeff Moonan on as a guest to talk about X Men 3 the Last Stand, also known as the Last Stand, also known as There's Three Claws from Wolverine's hand.

Sam (00:40):
I will say this is one of my favorite at that episodes.

Case (00:44):
Oh, yeah. Did we win you over in the episode?

Sam (00:48):
Absolutely. Honestly, this one. This one had me smiling from you. To. To be fair, I am very biased. It is a Case and Jeff episode, so. Definitely. But also this is an episode that was made for the two of you. Both of you are very well versed in the subject that you're speaking of, and not just the movie, but also the X Men in general. And so to hear the two of you kind of geek out. But also, I think at this point, you've done this at the establishment, this podcast enough that both of you had actual laser, like, focus on what you were doing. Like, like in previous episodes, you've gotten more carried away.

(01:31):
But I feel like in this episode there was a lot more of, like, oh, we're going to discuss this, and, like, point by point, mention these flaws and how we could fix it. Like, there was, like a real urgency between a Jeff and a case.

Case (01:46):
Yeah. I vaguely recall us actually having something of a ticking clock in terms us recording. I don't remember what the specifics were, but I vaguely recall us having it. And that lends itself to, so the overall audio quality of the episode, I would say. I mean, Jeff always sounds good. He's a voice actor and has a great setup for his recording. Mine has. I think I. I think I sound fine, but I. I sound very enthusiastic. Like, I. I'm very, like, breathy in an excited way in this episode. Except for at the very end of the episode for what is clearly adr. I don't exactly remember this, the details, but I'm pretty sure we did the episode and then realized that we gave no plugs at the end of the episode. And so I had Jeff record his plugs.

(02:37):
And I remember the spot that. Where I took him just having a little bit of a laugh and inserted it into, like, under me, like, saying a thing in order to try to make it sound more like actual natural dialogue as opposed to me at saying, like, here's the lines I'm going to give. Please just say, well, my show is this, that, you know, like, like that whole chunk. So just as a heads up for the listeners, when they get to the very end of the episode, there will be a very noticeable, like, just different sound set up for both of us all of a sudden when we're given plugs at the end of the episode. Aside from that, I think it sounds pretty good.

Sam (03:17):
Yeah, I think it sounds really good. And I think it's. I think it's fun.

Case (03:21):
Yeah, I, I will say it's also, like we said, a very urgent episode. It runs pretty fast. So we get into our conversation about fixes and while we're doing that, we talk about what we liked and didn't like about the movie. So that is, I think, a worthwhile approach. But it is different than the usual way that we frame it, especially now. But I think it's a really solid episode. So I hope you all enjoy.

Sam (03:50):
Yay.

Geoff (03:53):
Welcome to Certain Point of Views, another Pass podcast. Be sure to subscribe, rate and review on itunes. Just go to certainpov.com.

Case (04:06):
Thanks for tuning in to another past podcast, guys. I'm Kay Saken and today I'm joined by Geoff Moonen again.

Geoff (04:12):
Hello, everybody.

Case (04:14):
Thanks for tuning in, Geoff, thank you for having me.

Geoff (04:18):
Once again, Case, it is always a pleasure.

Case (04:20):
It's a pleasure to talk to you today because today we're talking about X Men 3, the Last Stand.

Geoff (04:27):
Incidentally, I discovered while looking all this up, the 3 is nowhere in the title. I kept looking up x Men 3 and it would go off on the randomest tangents. It's apparently just X Men the Last Stand. But we know the truth.

Case (04:38):
I. I looked this one up as well in the posters the way they did. It was Wolverine's three claws.

Geoff (04:45):
That's right. It's right there staring you in the face.

Case (04:51):
Anyway, so let's start talking about X Men 3.
Yes.
I mean, all right, so this is the one where the old joke used to just be, well, they should have had Bryan Singer direct it.
Correct.
Which I think we can do better than that. And that better than that is Matthew Vaughn. But even better than that, because that isn't possible. The rules of our podcast is that it's gotta be a plausible pitch at the time.

Geoff (05:22):
Yes. So one of the big things was they were trying to wait out, or they were. They were rushing the production schedule on this and they sort of time crunched Bryan Singer out of It. He still had interest in working on this, but it was a little bit of executive pressure and it's like, well, we need this out in 18 months. Well, I'm going to be working on Superman then. Work on your Superman. Get the hell out of here.

Case (05:46):
Basically, they also did the same to Matthew Vaughn.

Geoff (05:50):
That's true.

Case (05:51):
I don't think he ever really got into any serious production work on this one. But they told him the timetable and he was like, haha, no. And then later when he did First Class, he had like, I think, an even tighter timetable to put together the movie.

Geoff (06:05):
But didn't he get a little more creative control or a little more say in what happened in the script?

Case (06:10):
Probably. He's also just a better director and storyteller, so.

Geoff (06:14):
Fair enough.

Case (06:15):
Whatever. X Men First Class is my favorite X Men movie.

Geoff (06:17):
Okay, no, hey, no, please, no arguments there.

Case (06:24):
But moving on. So let's actually talk from the standpoint of knowing the limits of the time. Like, there's a lot of actors missing because they either wanted out, they couldn't be paid for enough, they had restrictions on time. So we can't just be like, well, I wouldn't have cut out all these actors and I wouldn't have cut out these things because these are people who weren't available for whatever reason.

Geoff (06:46):
Yes. Which is a very big shame, especially because in my own research for this, I found out that James Marsden, it wasn't just production limitations. He apparently when he found out the change in directors, he asked to be killed. Like, he's like, could you just kill Cyclops? Which is unfortunate because you can still use him in a limited fashion within a film without having to kill him off unceremoniously. But I don't know.

Case (07:16):
Yeah, he deserved better. There's a lot of characters who deserve better than what they got in this movie. The other big one that stands out for me is Rebecca Romijn.

Geoff (07:24):
Yes, very much so.

Case (07:26):
But I assume I actually don't know the exact circumstances for her, but I assume that it has something to do with money and probably something to do with time. I think this is right when she was getting divorced.

Geoff (07:41):
Yeah.

Case (07:42):
So I. But I've got some thoughts about that one, so would you be so kind as let me give mine first?

Geoff (07:51):
By all means. Yours is probably gonna be a lot more complete than mine. I have large thoughts and swaths.

Case (07:56):
Okay, well, like, I've got a lot of problems with this movie and I was trying to get around just being like a bitch fest about this one because the problems are profound. But some of them aren't things that are like fundamental story issues. It's just bad directing by Brett Ratner. So I don't want to just do that. And I could. So instead, now let's assume that we have a competent director working on this movie and not just Brett Ratner done. Because that's kind of a given. Like sort of assuming that we would be, as producers, getting someone good in here. So here's my thought. Rewatching this movie, I was kind of amazed at how much I really liked the first 20 minutes.

Geoff (08:40):
Huh.

Case (08:42):
Like, the danger scene is probably one of the better X Men scenes in the actual franchise.

Geoff (08:47):
I was thinking a very similar thing. I actually felt that should have opened the movie. Yes. No flashbacks, just that well.

Case (08:55):
Because here was my thought. So there's like maybe 3 or 4 x men stories that people know about. And at the time there was definitely three. There's the Dark Phoenix Saga.

Geoff (09:08):
Yes.

Case (09:08):
There's Days of Future Past.

Geoff (09:11):
Yes.

Case (09:11):
There's Age of Apocalypse.

Geoff (09:13):
Yeah.

Case (09:14):
And you could argue House of M, which is really just Age of Apocalypse Redux. Yeah.

Geoff (09:19):
And everything else is just elements. Like people. Yeah, yeah.

Case (09:22):
Like people remember the Weapon X story. People kind of remember the Frank Miller Wolverine story. Eventually Old Man Logan kind of got up there too. But in terms of like actual. In terms of actual X Men stories, people don't know. They don't have like that many big iconic stories. They have a lot of smaller character building ones. Like the Claremont John Byrne run is a famous run and for good reason. It's fantastic.

Geoff (09:49):
Yes.

Case (09:49):
But it's not one story arc. There's one story arc in it that stands out for a reason. The Dark Phoenix Saga is this huge one that people love because of the team working on it and how they were firing on all cylinders. And it was great.

Geoff (10:04):
It played to everybody's strengths and everyone was happy.

Case (10:07):
So here's my thought.

Geoff (10:09):
Yes.

Case (10:10):
We start off, let's do Days of Future Past. Because I know it sounds kind of crazy to do Days of Future Past and tie it in with Dark Phoenix, which was definitely set up in the previous movie. But hear me out on this one.

Geoff (10:25):
Okay.

Case (10:25):
All right, so let's do Days of Future Past. Sure. That shoots us in the foot for a future movie, but this is gonna be cool. So you start off in this future timeline where you have an old Logan and then new older actors playing either children or old versions of characters that we've already established. They're all running around and we can do like, you know, it was cute when they did the actual movie Days of Future Past because we had these older actors who could play those parts, but there's really no need. We can actually do some stuff with other characters, throw in some more cameos. If it was a Bryan Singer movie, we could do the blink stuff. We love teleporting fights. Cool.

(11:09):
And reveal that the whole big thing for how the Sentinels and everything are working is that they have an extremely powerful psychic tied into Cerebro that they're using to hunt down mutants. And that psychic is the Phoenix. She's the Hound. We basically replace Rachel Summers or Rachel Gray and have it just be Jean. Now, here's the weird part. Jean is alive, but she died at the end of the previous movie. So they bust her out and she reveals that she's able to send someone back. And let's say it's Kitty Pryde, okay? They send Kitty Pryde or Kate Pryde, who is now the adult leader of the X Men of this time back in time into her younger body, which is Ellen Page's form.

(11:59):
Now, this makes sense because up until this, Kitty Pryde had been in every X Men movie previously, played by a different actress in each, and was always a background character here.

Geoff (12:10):
Almost a running joke even by that point.

Case (12:12):
Right? So in this movie now, the reason why Kitty Pryde steps forward as a main character is that all of a sudden the adult Persona has taken over her body. So this character who was a wallflower is now this, like, strong, empowered adult form who has, like, come to terms with this horrible future that she lives in. Thrust back in time. And you can do a fake out, which is when she gets sent back in time. She's in the Danger room in that danger room sequence. And then you can have some of the more jokey version of that with a young Wolverine now doing the same thing that she just saw an old Wolverine doing. And there's now young Colossus is right there.

(12:53):
And you can play that more lighthearted danger room scene where she sort of comes to realize what she's in and maybe she freaks out and they have to stop it. And that's when the holograms disappear and we find out she's in the danger room.

Geoff (13:06):
Yeah.

Case (13:07):
Cause at first she just thinks that, like, oh, God. Oh, God. Cause you could even do it, like, POV so we don't get to see her face until she starts to realize what's going on. And that's when you pull back to reveal Ellen Page, who was an aspiring star. Honestly, Anna Paquin would have been A better choice. But she's also one of the actresses who were like, I'm done with this movie.

Geoff (13:28):
Yeah.

Case (13:29):
So she's barely in it for good reason. And she can freak out about Kitty Pryde now because Kitty Pryde is stepping forward. And maybe she has a relationship with Iceman in the future. In the future? Yes, because Rogue is long dead at that point. So that's why Kitty has affections towards Bobby, and that creates this jealousy scenario even more so than just, like, I can't touch you, and let's have bad dialogue about how upset I am about how I can't touch you.

Geoff (13:57):
Yeah, it's. It's a good concept. Poorly delivered on that one.

Case (14:02):
So she's back in time now where Gene is dead, as everyone thinks.

Geoff (14:07):
Mm.

Case (14:08):
But she's like, gene is coming back. And people are like, gene is dead. This is crazy. You're crazy. You're not from the future. The future doesn't exist. Or rather, like, what you're telling us.

Geoff (14:19):
There's no such thing as the future.

Case (14:21):
Well, what you're telling us is crazy. And then people start seeing images of Jean. It's like a. You play it out like a horror movie where Jean just keeps on appearing to people and it's getting freaked, or everyone's getting freaked out about this detail, until finally she appears before Magneto, and she takes over the body of Mystique.

Geoff (14:44):
Huh.

Case (14:46):
And completely comes into her own form. Like, maybe she tries to do something to Xavier, and Xavier, like, rejects her. And then she's trapped in the body of Mystique. But this is how Rebecca Romijn is no longer in the movie. She gets written out by then becoming Famke Janssen. Yeah, but it's Mystique possessed by the Phoenix.

Geoff (15:09):
And because it's a psychic form taking the body, she's able to actually use her powers. Unlike when Mystique turns into anyone else.

Case (15:15):
Right. And between being a psychic ghost and also Mystique not being that nice a person, especially at the time of this movie, our perception of her.

Geoff (15:27):
Yes.

Case (15:28):
Then the Mystique form can actually be influencing Jean, and that's causing her to go even darker and maybe listens to Magneto a bit, because its Mystique is like the voice in the back of her head.

Geoff (15:43):
Huh? Well, because they are occupying the same space. Interesting.

Case (15:48):
Yeah.
So you then play out some of the Days of Future Past stuff where, like, there will be an assassination that leads to them and actually maybe reveal that initially it wasn't Phoenix. That was the psychic they were using to Hunt mutants. It was Xavier.

Geoff (16:06):
Really.

Case (16:07):
So there's this whole weird threat about, like, the government taking Cerebro, building it up, turning it into a weapon, and then using mutants as hounds, like they do in the days of future, past stuff.
Right.
And ultimately you could have a scenario where they have to kill Xavier to stop them from even getting the program off the ground. And maybe in the third act, when it's like, okay, but now Phoenix is back, we can use her. That's when Wolverine has to kill her too.

Geoff (16:40):
Huh. Interesting.

Case (16:45):
So you can use a lot of the same assets because there are good things going on in this movie.

Geoff (16:49):
There's plenty of good in the film, and there's a lot of good resources and ideas, which is one of the more frustrating parts of the movie. A bad movie is just simply sad, but a good potential wasted is infuriating.

Case (17:04):
Yeah. And this movie is actually a big problem with this movie is they jam a lot in and they don't actually have time to deal with some of it. And I know I'm talking about jamming two of the biggest X Men stories together, but I think you can make it work in a way that's kind of interesting. Like a confused, resurrected Jean Grey being manipulated by first Magneto and then the US Government actually kind of works as a story leading to a dark future. And you can make it all flow together. But this whole we have the cure for mutant stuff is a much bigger story that they did not have time to deal with the Phoenix also being around. And as a result, both kind of feel like afterthoughts to each other.

Geoff (17:45):
That was exactly what I was going to say. They both feel as though neither is given enough room to breathe and they're. While they are choking the other one.

Case (17:53):
Yeah. And it also leads to some really bad sequences because they use the anti mutant stuff or, like, the D Mutant stuff to write characters out. But it's kind of a slap in the face. Like Rebecca Romijn as Mystique should have become the face of Magneto's mutant revolution because she lost her powers.

Geoff (18:12):
Yes.

Case (18:13):
It was written being abandoned, and it makes Magneto shitty. And Magneto has already been established in this franchise as not being a shitty guy. And even in this movie, he has lines where he's like, charles Xavier did more for Mutant kind than you will ever know. Like, you can't. Like, he's. He's too good of a character to have him do just shitty things. Where it's like, you're not one of us anymore.

Geoff (18:35):
Meanwhile. Meanwhile, in the same film, he is also doing such things as. That's why the pawns go first. When he sends all of the Morlocks and people that he has recruited to be unceremoniously depowered and murdered.

Case (18:49):
Oh.

Geoff (18:50):
And he's just like, oh, they're just cannon fodder.

Case (18:53):
We don't know their names.

Geoff (18:54):
It's no big deal.

Case (18:55):
Yeah, I'm going to pause for a moment and just do a bitch fest on that. The third act of this movie.

Geoff (19:01):
Can we do it together, please? But the bonds go.

Case (19:04):
First thing is so goddamn stupid, because in actual war, the artillery goes first.

Geoff (19:09):
Step one.

Case (19:10):
Yeah.

Geoff (19:10):
Well, to be fair, he's had no military training, only prisons.

Case (19:13):
His whole thing of lighting cars on fire and throwing them with pyro is such a good opener. Or even the Bridge is a good opener. Like all. Like, they have so much that they could do that wouldn't involve all these people being stripped of their powers, apparently in a very painful way.

Geoff (19:29):
Yeah. I mean, look, it's like, all right, we've lost several dozen people. ArcLight destroy all of those weapons with pinpoint accuracy. Which we could. You apparently couldn't do five minutes ago.

Case (19:41):
Yeah. Oh, also, they referenced that it's very painful when the transformation occurs. It would have been nice to see that before this fight because they almost do it to angel, but we actually never see it to anyone before that point. You could have even done it when they got near Leech, but they just waste the entire thing. It's such a good plot device, but it should be a full movie.

Geoff (20:05):
Yes.

Case (20:06):
And it's competing with Dark Phoenix, and that's a problem. Dark Phoenix can supplement another story. I mean, the Phoenix Saga originally was part of a. There's the Imkron Crystal, which is the nexus of realities, and then we're gonna fight an alien version of the Legion of Superheroes, like all of that stuff. That's a huge story that doesn't need to have the Phoenix in it. But it did, and it worked really well altogether. You can do other big stories with the Phoenix, but. But they need to feel natural.

Geoff (20:36):
Agreed. Now, where I feel that you could still have these two major storylines and keep them in the movie and not run into these same issues, which I like to think of as the third movie problem, which happens in all certainly non Marvel properties. They get to the third movie and they just start throwing every idea they can into the wood chipper, and this is what we get. I think you can use both of these storylines to actually reinforce ideas that have been brought up since. Since the first X Men movie. In the very first film, you have why am I playing on his name, Senator Kelly. You have Senator Kelly talking about like, well, we have this mutant who can walk through walls and can do these things. Who's to say that they're not going to do that?

(21:19):
Yes, they're people, but they also are liabilities, they are dangers. They are all of these sorts of things bringing up the idea of the cure to protect everybody. Okay, cool. You then have the Phoenix. And as an entity, that is the like nth example of look at how dangerous a mutant can be to themselves, to others. And I even like the idea of actually not having the Phoenix emerge before we see Gene. Having there be reports of cities disappearing up in Canada or wherever. It's not a big deal in America because it's not happening in America. But it's later revealed and figured out that it's Gene that's doing this. And I feel that the Cure storyline should have been a front loaded story for this film. It would be sort of the decoy problem.

(22:15):
And it should have been revealed early, maybe about like leading into the third act, that the cure is actually temporary. Rogue goes quickly, gets the cure, comes back, and it's revealed at a whatever, hilariously inappropriate time that it is only temporary. They'd already gotten Magneto with it even, and everything's fine, whatever. But no, it's not. And this leads into a bigger fight, into a bigger issue, into a bigger problem.

Case (22:43):
Or alternatively, what if Gene comes back and they. They peg her with this? And so for the majority of the movie, she's de powered. And then when her powers come back, that's when the Phoenix emerges.

Geoff (22:58):
It's very possible. Yeah.

Case (23:00):
Like all of these are better ideas than what they did. Like, which is just agreed stupid competing.

Geoff (23:05):
Stories and a detail that just frustrates me endlessly. There was no reason to. I find Warren Worthington II to be a pointless waste.

Case (23:17):
Oh my God, yes, you could have.

Geoff (23:20):
Because the thing is, Angel Warren Worthington III as a comic book character, is a business owner, is a legitimate face of all sorts of things. And just as you've established all of a sudden that Hank McCoy, an old student of Xavier's, is working within the government, you can have a public face of somebody who hasn't come out as a mutant and then does in the movie, another old student of Charles's, Warren Worthington iii, could be an interesting dissenting voice in the discussion about this cure during the Front Loaded piece where that is the main focus.

Case (23:50):
It'd be really interesting if he was anti mutant. Now, not that this is in his character, but because he has such a benign mutation relative to Hank's. Hank is very pro mutant and is all about mutant rights, but he's been transformed into a beast and everyone sees him looking like a monster. Meanwhile, angel is this beautiful ubermensch with that looks like a literal angel that is able to fly. And he's the one being like, I've come out with a cure, guys.

Geoff (24:23):
Whether it's. Whether it's him specifically or a scientist within his company. And he is allowing it to happen.

Case (24:30):
Yeah.

Geoff (24:31):
But he then is like, whether it's from the get go or later on showcases himself and it's almost a movie. Early mutant and proud. That idea of do you know what it is to fly? You do not take that away. And because for me, I look at a lot of the cure idea and a lot of what goes on, both when I read the original Astonishing X Men run and when I saw this movie and certainly in rewatching it, the idea of a cure all for an entire group of people, yes, it's terrible. It reminds me, just as the X Men are often used as outsider status, whether it was civil rights or lgbt, the cure makes me think of mental illness and neurotypicality. And you don't make one pill cocktail to serve the entire mental health community. You don't.

(25:27):
You find what works for people. There are folks who are able to, who live with some form of atypical very a neurotypical and are able to do it without medication or anything like that. They live their life one way. Some need it to stem off one thing or another and finding a solution of, okay, well, I have these powers, I have these abilities, I have this physical sense. How do I live a life, you know, not by suppressing who I am, but by accepting who I am and making it work within society. And they introduce Moira Mataggart within the film. And even having a, you know, denouement that publicizes or even founds the Muir island center for Mutant Research, which is one that's kind of like we're finding ways to make mutants and mutant in human society coexist.

(26:16):
These are all things that are there. And it's fucking frustrating that they don't have it there.

Case (26:21):
Yeah, yeah. This movie has a lot of things that are frustrating.

Geoff (26:27):
And as well as the fact that, look, we'd already rung the bell that, you know, Sean Ashmore was being Iceman, you can't have. This is before first Class. You couldn't have the original five be the first class anyway, but you could have four of them be there, and there could definitely be a moment that had all five of them.

Case (26:44):
Yeah.

Geoff (26:44):
Even if that was just like before he's killed. Yeah. Just that little moment of fan service that really isn't even so much fan service.

Case (26:52):
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So speaking of some weird casting choices and things that they could do with this all and wasted opportunities, Vinnie Jones is Juggernaut, man. When they announced him as Juggernaut, I was like, that's a great choice. You know why? Because we've got Patrick Stewart as Professor Xavier. He's British. Vinnie Jones as a cockney stepbrother of Professor Xavier would have been great. That would have. That was such a good choice. And you know what they didn't do have any personal connection between the two.

Geoff (27:30):
To be fair, they've also set that precedent since the first movie. You know, because Sabretooth and Wolverine had such a close thing going on in that movie.

Case (27:39):
You know, I could actually deal with that better than the. Because, like, Sabretooth and Wolverine have had different levels of how well they knew each other. Like, they. If you go back to their earliest appearances together, they had a history, but it wasn't quite as profound. And Wolverine has memory issues. The Wolverine of the first movie, literally not knowing anyone. I could deal with him not knowing Sabretooth. And maybe it's revealed that they had that history together. He just didn't remember him. Xavier's stepbrother. And you could have justified so much. The helmet could just be a modified version of Magneto's helmet. Like, you could have done so many things to make it work in universe, but still be cool. And the casting choice could have been so cool.

(28:28):
But as it was, they just used him for one Internet joke, which wasn't even that well done because it wasn't the same style of character making that joke.

Geoff (28:38):
True. Now, I. And I was. I spent my entire rewatch wondering about. I mean, I wondered a lot of things, but I was wondering about how. How do they justify the helmet in this one? I don't remember. I mean, the others, the kitty face, pretty, but, like. But I saw it when he was running through the center.

Case (28:54):
Oh, yes.

Geoff (28:55):
He uses it to break the walls open and not bust his head open.

Case (28:59):
Yes. Those are. Those are actually great moments. I saw that in the trailer initially, and I was like, oh, that's great. He's chasing Shadow Cat and she's just walking through the wall, and he's being not slowed down at all. Chasing her. So, yes, a great scene. These are all. This is a movie that has a lot of good scenes. Like Kelsey Grammer as Beast hanging from the ceiling, reading a book when they first introduced it.

Geoff (29:21):
What an intro.

Case (29:22):
Perfect. The danger room scene. Perfect. There's a lot of good moments in this movie and then there's some bad CGI that ruins some of it. Like the icing up of Iceman. It was still cool to see.

Geoff (29:33):
But to be fair, they did it briefly. So if it was bad, at least they were acknowledging that is a thing.

Case (29:41):
Yeah. And I was happy to see it. That was cool. I still like Pyro. I thought he was a good character in this movie. Not as interesting as an X2, but.

Geoff (29:52):
Agreed, they made him a little one note.

Case (29:54):
Yeah, he was too mean.

Geoff (29:56):
They filed some edges off on him, which is a shame. And that actually comes to another thing that I have great issue with X Men 3. It's like I was saying with the, you know, the third movie problem of just trying to throw in too many subplots, you're also throwing in too many characters. And I am a comic book fan. I am a fan of the superhero genre. And if I had to pick one franchise to love above all others, it would be X Men. In all of its permutations, in all of its forms and all of its mythology and all of its missteps and triumphs, X Men is a favorite. And some of my favorite X Men. Actually, I would say all my favorite X Men have shown up in these three movies. Some treated better than others.

(30:41):
And the thing is, other people have favorite X Men that are far more obscure and niche. And to simply throw them in haphazardly is a great disservice to fans of those characters and to those characters. Because X Men is such a large world. And I know you're trying to showcase that, but it all just becomes so much cutting room floor.

Case (31:04):
Yeah.

Geoff (31:04):
So I. I would have rather. I don't know if it was introduce few new ones, if there were ones that were being kind of phased out, phased them out completely. But it was another case of just two halfway one way or the other. I mean, also to the fact that introducing some characters, giving them power sets from completely different characters that already existed, you could have brought in Caliban without grafting Caliban's powers onto Callisto. The only acceptable grafting of one mutant's powers onto another mutant in name only that I have seen is Negasonic Teenage Warhead from Deadpool. And that's because they really go for it and they make it, like, pointed. And the fact that Negasonic Teenage Warhead was such a bit character in the X Men comics, there's no personality to speak of, so let's have fun with it.

(32:05):
But other than that, It's. X Men 3 had such a bad too many cooks problem that just a lot needed to be. A lot needs to be cut away. And certain things need room to grow. Which is why my. My push is not so much to add new storylines, but to adjust the. The ratio and the placement of the others. Because I like the cure as a discussion point within X Men, because that is what the original X Men trilogy had been going towards. Especially when you consider in the first movie, Magneto's plan is to make all of the world's leaders into mutants, to make them one of us. And now they're trying to make us one of them. It's very good. Full circle. It's fantastic to have there, however, needed pruning.

(32:56):
And I think making it the big deal that's hiding a far more sinister danger. And I like your. Your change to making Jean the one that is. That is sort of the big danger of, oh, crap. The cure is temporary. And because they did a wonderful thing, whether intentionally or not, by making Storm so sanctimonious within the. Within the movie about, you know, whether or not there needs to be a cure or there's nothing wrong with us, you know. Well, that's easy for you to say. You're Halle Berry and shoot lightning and fly, you know, what about. And adding in a moment or two of somebody who was publicly depowered, then getting attacked by angry mob because they're still seen as mutants.

Case (33:44):
Yeah, that could actually be pretty crazy. If Jean was attacked by angry mob because of stuff she did when she first came back from the dead before she was depowered. And the mob attacking her caused the Phoenix to explode out.

Geoff (33:59):
Yes. Maybe it's even the fact of the Phoenix's path of destruction has come into America. She was depowered, and the X Men find her, and it's like, oh, my God. And it's like, well, and whatever it is to take her in. And the fallout of that both of the cure of Jean being alive, of finding her, of everything else, and then the cure turns out to be temporary, and then the Phoenix, like, reemerges. Because I could even have discussions of, you know, Gene being part of the discussion of what is the Phoenix Persona. And I'm fine with the de intergalactic of the Phoenix Persona.

Case (34:37):
Yeah, that part wasn't required for the Phoenix storyline. Like, I like the original Phoenix story. I don't think we have to do it always as like, it's hidden trauma inside her. But I think that they don't. It's not like you have two versions and only one is the right one. You can do a good version of any of these stories.

Geoff (34:58):
Agreed. And I think that the version they use for X Men 3 is perfect for a cure storyline because even out of Professor Xavier's mouth is the fact that her potential is limitless. She was more powerful than she could handle. It was pure everything.

Case (35:13):
Yeah.

Geoff (35:14):
And that sort of. And that's why he put those barriers up in the first place. He needed to allow her to grow, allow her to become who she is and not be controlled by that and have all of this going on. Which is a fantastic argument for why a cure is necessary. But there, again, something that never gets really touched on in a great way or at least acknowledged, is the arms race of human verse mutant. That happens. Like, you even see in the sense of the Golden Gate Bridge fight or the Alcatraz fight, however you want to look at it. Magneto is Magneto. So they get plastic weapons, and then. Well, we've got somebody here who can bust all those weapons up. All right, well, we've got this. And we've got this thing. We've got this thing.

(35:58):
And it's just everybody adapting and finding new ways of hurting each other, which leads to days of future past, regardless.

Case (36:04):
Yeah. Which. And that would have been better, though, if the. The arms race was smart.

Geoff (36:11):
Correct.

Case (36:11):
You know, like, that third act is so rough in this movie that it destroys a lot of the goodwill that the first act of this movie gives. Like, the first act, I was saying, feels pretty good. Even with, like, the weird, like, unceremonious Cyclops death and all that. Like, when you get to the Golden Gate Bridge being dropped down, and then all of a sudden it's nighttime, and then all of their tactics don't make sense, and then it's like.

Geoff (36:35):
Yeah, a lot of people had to make a lot of bad decisions.

Case (36:38):
Yeah, the whole structure is really bad. There's. Yeah, you could have saved this movie from that point. Like, it wouldn't have been the best X Men movie, but if you had just made a good third act, it would be a lot better than the movie that we get. Like, up until that point, the movie is still redeemable. It's not great. They waste Madrix. They waste a lot of stuff. With Juggernaut, they waste stuff. With Patrick Stewart, they waste.

(37:06):
You know, there's a lot of waste.

Geoff (37:07):
They waste. Everybody in that truck, Everybody they found in that truck, they wasted.

Case (37:12):
But you wouldn't have had to deal with Warren Worthington showing up at their mansion in New York and then flying to California in, like, a few hours under his own power. Somehow. You could have dealt. You know, you could have just had him not be there.

Geoff (37:27):
Yeah, no, that was a little bit of Warren ex machina there.

Case (37:32):
Yeah. You could have had all of these, like, awkward fights and everything. Not be a factor in it. Like, you could have just had, like, if Magneto was this huge terrorist destroying stuff. Like, this movie came out after the Ultimate X Men run by Mark Millar, and right down to the fact that they take sort of his stance on the Phoenix, although not nearly as well nuanced, and run that story. But that story that Millar did, the coolest thing he did was have Magneto be a massive terrorist right off the bat.

Geoff (38:07):
Yeah.

Case (38:08):
And I thought that was really cool, where he, like, actively destroys a huge amount of property and people are scared legitimately. So you could have had Magneto do a terrible, horrible act publicly, like, attacking this cure thing, and then had the arms race go up from there. Like, it doesn't need to be like, oh, we're gonna get to the source of the cure. Or rather, he could have attacked a big facility before that point, and we could have just set these things up better. Like, as it is, it's all like, let's just get to this last fight. Nothing has to really happen beforehand. Nothing really matters before the last fight. And then the last stand is, like, five random mutants and, like, a bunch of human guards who would just as quickly shoot them with darts. And they're not even deaths.

(38:54):
It's just darts.

Geoff (38:56):
Yeah.

Case (38:57):
And then Magneto's gonna be like, I'm gonna play kid gloves with all these people until, like, you're starting to annoy me now.

Geoff (39:04):
Yeah.

Case (39:04):
There's just the stakes of this last fight do not live up to either of the previous movies.

Geoff (39:11):
Correct. And a lot of the stakes they introduce, they just forget. They just. It falls short. It fizzles out. It becomes practically a romp. A pointless romp.

Case (39:27):
Yeah.

Geoff (39:28):
And while granted, I loved getting to see Kelsey Grammer beat people up in blue fur makeup that. That. I didn't know I needed that in my life.

Case (39:40):
Yeah.

Geoff (39:41):
But here we are.

Case (39:42):
When I saw the trailer for this movie, I thought it looked actually really good. And I think that there's a lot going on in this movie that could have made it a good movie. There's a lot of awkward things in it. There's some weird shots. There's one shot that I swear to God came from the first X Men movie when Wolverine rides out of the school on his motorcycle.

Geoff (40:04):
I think you're right.

Case (40:06):
But it's a movie that comes close to being really good. And it's poorly handled, but it has a lot of potential. It has two great story arcs that just compete for screen time the whole time and don't mesh in any way. The fact that Phoenix shows up as the villain at the very end is just this awkward thing that didn't matter. Like, it was unrelated to the threat that was dealing with the rest of the movie. Like, Phoenix could have not been there until that last scene, and it would have made no difference to theoretically theoretical larger plot like the D mutant power thing and all that.

Geoff (40:42):
Yeah. And there are two fine storylines. That is something we keep coming back to. They just needed to be emulsified.

Case (40:49):
Yeah.

Geoff (40:50):
They don't taste good together until you do something with them.

Case (40:53):
Oh, and then also, Trask is a big part of this movie. Like, he's around all the time. And like, I feel that him being around is leading for that Days of Future past. So I. Oh, God. There's so many ways you could have made this movie better. You could have doubled down on the arms race like you're talking about, which is also what I'm talking about with the future timeline.

Geoff (41:12):
The Days of Future past.

Case (41:13):
Yeah, you could have made it more subtle and just focused on the Phoenix stuff. Although that's a little hard because you would be losing all your actors, so you can't do that character piece. You could have focused just on the Cure story arc, but none of it really gets focused on in this movie. And I think it's just a weaker movie as a result.

Geoff (41:34):
Agreed. I think if they had to pick one, I would have picked the Cure storyline over the Phoenix.

Case (41:39):
Yeah, but they already set up the Phoenix. Like, again, the problem is that the previous movie so heavily set up the Phoenix that it's hard to not do the Phoenix story. Like, if they had skipped it completely, maybe they could have teased it at the end, but that's not the movie they were going to make anyway.

Geoff (41:57):
Well, the thing is, they put a sequel hook into this movie that never caught on to anything. If you want to explain James Marsden's absence by saying Scott is dealing with this, Scott went up to Alaska. He's dating this nice Girl named Madeline. Now forget that second part. But, like, he's out of the movie because he's dealing with grief. Okay, cool. Now there's this cure bull going on. Yeah, great. At the very end of things, you can have Scott up in Alaska doing his thing and then suddenly have one of these just like Scott gene, and it's her end of the movie, whether that ever plays out or doesn't. You know what? They only made three of these anyway.

(42:35):
And if they pulled a sequel hook like that and focused more on the cure storyline, maybe we'd have gotten the fourth X Men movie and not X Men First Class. You know what? Maybe we shouldn't remake X Men 3.

Case (42:46):
Well, they also did Origins first, so we. So there's. There's still one movie in between before you get to first class and all the glory that it is.

Geoff (42:56):
Fair enough. Okay. Then there could have been X Men 4. You know what? There we go.

Case (43:01):
Yeah.

Geoff (43:02):
So you know that storyline could have been delayed. It could have been fine. But.

Case (43:07):
But they raced it. They rushed to it, and this movie's weaker for it.

Geoff (43:10):
Every bad way. Yeah.

Case (43:13):
Yeah.
Well, anyway, so this is a movie that was not great. It wasn't even good. It was pretty bad. But it could have been great.

Geoff (43:23):
It could have been great.

Case (43:24):
And what I'm hearing is spend some time with the characters you have, develop a little bit better, don't have out of character ways of dropping people from the story, like Rebecca Romijn getting knocked out as Mystique. Didn't make sense for the character of Mystique or Magneto or the relationship, all of that. This is a movie that should have been a little bit slower, not been jamming so many angles in. Because right now there's no synergy between all the different references.

Geoff (44:00):
Yeah, that's right.

Case (44:02):
But with that, have respect. Yeah, but I think we've kind of covered all the big things. Jeff, as always, it's great to have you on.

Geoff (44:12):
It's great to be here. Thank you once again for having me. Case.

Case (44:15):
Hey, before we go, want to plug your show?

Geoff (44:19):
I mean, I've got my podcast that I do. It's video game related. Fun and games with Matt and Jeff. I do that with Matt Storm. DJ Stormageddon.

Case (44:29):
Where can we find it?

Geoff (44:30):
It's on itunes. We have a Libsyn page. We have a Twitter. We have a social media fun and games pod. And yeah, it's more talking about the culture of gaming. No one specific game or anything. Sort of the bigger idea of things.

Case (44:45):
Like everyone should go Check out Fun and Games.
It's a great podcast.
I've been listening to all the episodes. It's so much fun.
And when you're done checking that out, you should head on over to certainpov.com.
Where where you can find the latest nerd news on our Certain Point of View news show. You can also check out the Scruffy Nerf Herders which is our D and.
D style adventure through the time of the Empire and Star wars where we've got a band of would be rebels.

(45:11):
That I lead as their Dungeon Master.
On this long adventure.
But all that stuff you can find@ certainpov.com Next time we'll be talking about Highlander 2 the Quickening. But until then, stay scruffy my Nerf Herders.

Geoff (45:28):
Thanks for listening to Certain Point of View's Another Pass podcast. Don't miss an episode, just subscribe and review the show on itunes. Just go to certainpov.com.

Sam (46:04):
Are you tired.

Speaker 5 (46:05):
Of watching your beloved characters being tortured by careless authors? Are you sick of feeling like they could have swapped out all of the painful action and the plot would remain untouched? Subscribe to Books that Burn, the Fortnightly Book Review podcast focusing on fictional depictions of trauma. We assume that the characters reactions are reasonable and focus on how badly or well they were served by their authors. Join us for our minor character spotlights, main character discussions and favorite non traumatic things in the dark books we love. Find us on Spotify, itunes, Google Play or wherever you get your podcasts.

Case (46:38):
And we're back. All right, so Sam, we've got the two usual topics to go into when we do these app episodes. So we have your thoughts on the episode and your thoughts on the movie. Okay, which do you want to do?

Geoff (46:54):
First.

Sam (46:57):
Thoughts on the episode. This episode was amazing. It was so good. There were so many really wonderful things thrown out and I think that honestly there are times where we'll listen to an episode and there are things that it's like, oh, maybe that doesn't hold true anymore. But a lot of the things that were said in this episode are still very true about this movie. I rewatched this movie because it's been so long and I was like, yeah. So a lot of what you guys said. There are some very cool moments in this film. There are some very cool like set pieces and things like that, but these conflicting storylines and this just. I just want to give a huge shout out to the conversation about Magneto and the assassination of his character in some way in this film.

(47:55):
Because it was just so conflicting up until now of how his series, the series has betrayed him, to have him say these really, like, heinous lives. And it just didn't really feel and ring true to have him being that heartless.

Case (48:11):
Yeah, it was like this cartoonish villain like, portrayal in a way that the series hadn't really done. They had a much more nuanced character.

Sam (48:20):
Yeah. Which is like. Which made it like, Ian McKellen did such a good job with this character and he was, you could understand, you know, Magneto and all that. And it was wonderful, I think, you know, for the beginning of the series. And then. And then this film just kind of threw a lot of that out. He was incredibly callous and. And, yeah, what he did to Mystique I don't think he would have ever done, I just doesn't make sense. It didn't ring true.

(48:54):
It doesn't ring true for most Magnetos, but especially for this series, Magneto, it just did not make sense for him to be like, oh, she's human now, so we just leave her, you know, like, no, like, for someone who, like, at the very beginning of this entire three movie arc, was basically crying for his mother being ripped away from him, you know, in the Holocaust, I just don't think that he'd abandoned someone he had worked with for so long. So I thought, like, that was very true in the episode. And I was like, yeah, it's true, you guys. You're still right. Even many years later.

Case (49:40):
Well, I appreciate your lauding of our take on everything. There are things that I. I did notice in terms of, like, when this episode came out and, like, what people were aware of, or at least, like, I was. I wasn't really that aware of, like, the Bryan Singer stuff at this. At this point.

Sam (49:58):
Oh, yeah.

Case (50:00):
Now, I mean, fortunately, we already are. Are dismissive of Bryan Singer being the answer anyway. Like, we. We just said that Brian Singer would have been a better director than Brett Ratner, which is true. Like.

Sam (50:15):
Right.

Case (50:16):
He's a shitty guy, but he's a better director than Brett Ratner. That is not, I think, up for debate, but we didn't know about the Bryan Singer stuff. And it feels weird, like, listening to this without it being brought up.

Sam (50:35):
Yeah. Oh, I have to also say that I had forgotten how close him and Marston were. Was. And, like, the fact that he had, like, basically wanted to be killed off because he could, and that was. I was not happy remembering that.

Case (50:55):
Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, it's Weird. It's a thing about the history of this franchise that is uncomfortable and the series didn't learn its lesson soon enough. But. But yeah, we. We didn't know. And I. And I feel like this is like the second movie in a row that we. We've talked about where when the episode originally came out, we just didn't know the stuff that. That.

Sam (51:27):
Right.

Case (51:27):
Kind of dominating the conversation these days. It was Joss Whedon last week. It's Bryan Singer this time.

Sam (51:32):
Yeah, we just. And there's just stuff that's hard to know.

Case (51:36):
Right. Yeah. I mean, Jesus Christ. Like. Like, with our luck, and I know it's not true, but it would be like a Neil Gaiman episode next or something like that.

Sam (51:45):
Oh, my God, that would be insane. Like, if we had a Neil Gaiman. Be like, guys, we did like.

Case (51:51):
Coraline at some point or something, which we did. But like, Jesus Christ, could you imagine.

Sam (51:57):
Three uncomfortable at baps back to back. We're sorry. And listen, eventually there might be a moment where there is a take where we talk about Neil Gaiman in a positive light sometime in the future on an app or someone does. We didn't know. No one knew. We're sorry.

Case (52:22):
Yep. Yeah. Oh, man. It's definitely that. Never, never meet your heroes. And social media kind of has a way of us, like, meeting our heroes.

Sam (52:36):
Yeah, unfortunately.

Case (52:41):
And unfortunately, there's just bad people in the world anyway. So, yeah, calling out that little lack of us understanding at the time, I think that we are doing pretty well. I will also cite that I'm a little dismissive of X Men comic books at this point, this is a period when I was kind of at a nadir in my X Men fandom. So while I felt pretty well informed because I had been a big fan of the X men, like the 90s X Men, I was a huge fan of and had studied, for lack of a better description, the history of the comics. I had this issue by issue, like, cover and like, synopses of each issue kind of breakdown for the entire run of the series up until, like, you know, the mid-90s that I just, like, knew, like, borderline religiously.

(53:34):
So I was, like, aware of, like, what all the. The stories were, even if I hadn't every single issue myself. But at this point, I was fairly on the outs and it sort of corresponds to with the. The period where, like, Marvel was downplaying the X Men. And so I wasn't really being fed anything that was, like, of particular hype that for me to respond to, and I just was on the outset of it. I have reevaluated some of the important arcs of the series and I probably was too dismissive of it because I was saying, oh, the Claremont run is so important.

(54:15):
And I wasn't really taking into account, like, things like Mural island or Genosha or the Mutant Massacre, you know, like, I was too focused on things like the Outback era or the Burn era, you know, stuff like that with the X Men. And I, I, I just want to acknowledge that as I have become more appreciative of the totality of the history of the various X Men characters and interpretations of the characters that I had never really given context for because I'm just very cis. Heteronormative. White male.

Sam (55:00):
Yeah, yeah.

Case (55:02):
You know, there's a lot of, like, the allegory stuff that flew over my head, even though I was a fan of the series. So, you know, things like the Juggernaut, for example, and his clearly being gay with black Tom Cassidy, which I just, you know, for whatever reason, I just was like, they're best friends.

Sam (55:26):
And it just did with her roommate.

Case (55:29):
It just, it was too like, I, I, I, I was too pre pubesic when I, like, established what all the rules were for the relationships between characters and just didn't approach it with a different eye, a more adult eye. And until being exposed to, you know, more informed fans who I just want to shout out are just. There are amazing X Men fans out there who have opened my eyes. People like Connor Goldsmith from the Cerebro podcast, like, yeah, so if I was a little dismissive of the X Men in this episode, I do kind of apologize. I do stand by my thoughts that the Phoenix Saga could be. Is the kind of B plot that could be integrated into a lot of different kinds of stories.

(56:26):
And I think still feel like Days of Future Past was like, probably the biggest arc to combine it with in a way that I thought would have been really fun and a creative combination of Jean Grey and her daughter Rachel in the comics and just God damn it, the possessing mystique concept. I, I just, that I was a, like, I'm just very proud of myself for. Well.

Sam (56:57):
I love that I will say that.

Case (57:03):
I'm not going to say that it was like completely create whole cloth from my imagination. I know exactly where I was inspired to go with something like that, which was an issue of Exiles where they revealed on Nocturne's world, Jean Grey's Phoenix Persona had Possessed the body of colossus and had reshaped the colossus like steel form into a Jean Grey, like, female form. And so that. That did definitely influence my. My thoughts about it and coming to the idea of, like, oh, she could possess mystique and then just be Jean Grey, and, you know, that's how you get around her body being destroyed. So I like that was where an idea stemmed from. But at the same time, God damn, that was a good one. I am so proud of myself.

Sam (57:55):
Like, looking back, it was good. You're like, wow, that was a great pitch.

Case (58:03):
Yeah. And as far as great pitches go, I do have to say that Jeff framing the Cure plotline as being the natural inversion of the first movie's plot, of turning people into mutates, I think was an excellent observation for him and one that I hadn't thought of myself going into this. This conversation initially. So very proud of him for presenting that one and really making a very strong case for keeping the Cure plot line as the A plot for this movie. It's just. It isn't integrated well.

Sam (58:46):
Yeah, for sure. There's so much going on in this film, and I think, you know, I think we. We've seen this before with superhero movies, but also other movies where you have a trilogy going on, where you. Where you have multiple films. Once you get to the, you know, as you start building on your film franchise, people want to build up more. And I think that there are some film franchises that are very successful because they decide that they're going to keep building and not be too serious about the crazy lengths they're going to go. All of the Fast and the Furious series, right, where it's just like we're going to throw everything at the wall and you're just going to. You're going to like that. It's going to be ridiculous.

(59:34):
But in this case, this film actually has a very serious tone to it, which is, like, very interesting. And. And all of these subject lines are supposed to feel very serious. It's, It's. It's very interesting because it's almost like the. The stakes are set up, like, so. They're supposed to be so high, but it just doesn't ever really get to where you think the stakes should be. It's like this weird comedy because the. The whole. The whole. The whole movie has such a serious tone and there's so many, like, dark things really happening in this film. But then, like, the end falls so short of all the stakes that are supposedly there that it's just kind of.

Case (01:00:26):
Well, it's dumb. Like it's very self serious like that. Like I, I feel like that's the what we're going for here. Like it's a movie that is really well built for the trailer. Like the trailer looks really good for this movie where it's like they wish to cure us. You know, like there's this whole vibe of the. What Jeff brought up, like the escalation component of the. The war between humans and mutants in terms of like what weapons each side is developing against each other. So there's that and they have good scenes of the talking points of this movie. But everything is. Is so cartoonishly dumb in how it is handled. Like from the reasons characters fight each other to the lines that they give in the midst of the fight, the quips that they give.

(01:01:28):
You know, the reference to the I'm the Juggernaut bitch. Like, and the way it's inserted into the movie, it's still dealing with this whole legacy of the like what would you expect yellow spandex kind of era of the first X Men movie. You know, it wants to be like we're. We're not like the bright and colorful, you know, comic book characters you're familiar with. Like were in black leather. We're way more serious kinds of stuff. And like our villains are really more badass.

(01:01:59):
They're.
You. You know, they're willing to like sacrifice their own to like get, you know, to succeed. And like their cutthroat is all hell. But again, it's just kind of dumb. Like the whole. The. The whole. In chess, the pawns go first. Like that's just kind of dumb. Like it doesn't make sense for how any of your powers work to. To fight a battle that way. It's. It's someone just not thinking about tactics in any way and not thinking about the characters thinking about tactics in any way. It's just presenting here is an action beat for the sake of an action beat. Like yeah, it just, it. It's just dumb like that. That's the thing. It. Brett Ratner's rationale for everything is just kind of dumb. His use of every character is just kind of dumb.

(01:02:51):
Like we say we note that whole like prisoner convoy like that they break out. You know, they break out the Juggernaut, they break out Madrix.

Geoff (01:03:01):
It.

Case (01:03:02):
It's just all wasted. It's just there for cameo sake and like none of it matters.

Sam (01:03:08):
Yeah, I also. This is something that you Guys didn't touch on. But this has to do with character, so I'd like to talk about that. I was disappointed in general, but even more so now looking back at this film, like, just Storm's relationship to everyone, but also like, specifically like Jean and Storm's relationship in this film. And look, I will say this, the caveat, and I think a lot of people agree with me. Like, for me, I was always very disappointed that Angela Bassett was not cast as Storm. I know that's not the point of our podcast. We don't recast people. But I think because I was a kid that grew up on the X Men cartoon, I just always envisioned Storm to be less of a Hollywood starlet and more of a Shakespearean type actress.

Case (01:04:14):
Yeah. More regal.

Sam (01:04:17):
More regal. More. More commanding. I mean, she controls the weather. It makes sense. But I will say this, that I do think that, like, a lot of what's missing from this film is the real heart and soul and the concentration and just utter and complete focus on just Jean's relationship to the two men in her life and not to the other X Men, even as Dark Phoenix is really disappointing. And I know that Hugh Jackman is the star. I know that he is like the Wolverine, but there were a lot of times and there were a lot of lines that felt very callous from Star Storm. Just someone that she would have spent a lot of time being on a team with, suffering with and trauma bonding with.

(01:05:12):
And it's just another thing that I just want to mention that I really hated about this film. And I hated it back when I saw it originally, but I hate it even more now as someone who has rewatched the cartoon. And also I watched X Men 97 and seen a very healthy and loving and kind relationship between a Gene and a Storm. And it just. I don't know, I just feel like all the female characters in this film live in bubbles, not related to each other and only related to the male characters in this film. And it is very annoying.

Case (01:05:56):
Yeah, it's. It's. It's hack. Like, you know, this movie feels like it's hacked together by German for the sake of creating an X Men movie to finish up the sequel bait of the previous one.

Sam (01:06:16):
Yeah, for sure, 1,000%.

Case (01:06:22):
And it's a bummer because there are good scenes. Like, there's cool uses of characters, there's cool depictions of powers in this movie. It's just a lot of it doesn't make sense. A lot of it's weird choices, like all the Morlock stuff having their powers like, swapped around is like, just like a weird set of choices that couldn't explain why they did it. I can't even think of the best reasons beyond. I guess they just don't care. And then like, come up with like, the characters and then try to like, retrofit existing warlocks into it. I guess. Must be the deal.

Sam (01:07:00):
Yeah, I guess. I guess that I, I, you know, I think, you know, sadly but surely, I think again, this movie definitely suffered from a quick cash grab, you know, with the timeline and you guys talked about that a lot. But it is unfortunate because, you know, the, the cast was not a bad cast. I mean, with my caveat, of course, of just preferring Angela Bassett in my dream casting. But like, Halle Berry wasn't that bad. Like, I know that we people generally, like, were not very fond of her in this role, but she wasn't that bad. And like, it was know. It's just this especially the script is just so bad and it is so.

(01:07:55):
I almost wish that they would have at least pit the Dark Phoenix against Storm and let Hallie have her moment and let Storm have her moment and played up the relationship between the two of them. If Marston was really out, you didn't have to go with the love thing. You know, you could have even made it more interesting by having the X Men kind of challenge each other from within or just stick, as I think you said in the episode.

Case (01:08:28):
I mean, those sound like great ideas.

Sam (01:08:31):
Honestly, it would have been so great because it would have given Storm the chance to show how giant her power is. Right? And like, it's not just like her blowing some wind or anything like that. And you know, God.

Case (01:08:45):
And you know what? She could, we could even have a callback to the first movie with like, you know, what happens to a toad when it's struck by lightning.

Sam (01:08:53):
Yeah, I mean, and that would have been nice. It would have been a nice bookend or all.

Case (01:09:00):
All she has to say is the same thing as everything else, like after she like, fries Jean.

Sam (01:09:06):
Yeah. I mean, like, honestly, like, it would have been so interesting to see it. And I, and I. It would have been also interesting to have her be the one to hold back the Dark Phoenix rather than Logan. Like, this idea that, like, his love is so big that he has to sacrifice himself and, and, but not really, but he'll hold her. And I don't know, like, I know it was early on, but I still felt even then that it Was kind of tired, you know, Like, I just. I. For me, it would have been very cool to see Storm just let go, let Leosh, you know, unleash and fight this big power. Because she really.

(01:09:59):
She's, you know, even though she's not as powerful as the Phoenix, the only one on the team that, like, give her run for money, that was in this film.

Case (01:10:10):
And honestly, you could even do a team up move to. To make it so that, like, it's still Wolverine getting the kill shot. Like, Wolverine stabs Gene and then raises his other claws in the air and then gets, like, electrocuted by Storm.

Sam (01:10:26):
Yeah. And it would have been. It would have given Storm more to do in this film. It would have. Rather than her just be like, it felt like she was like a therapist or the. She was like the best friend that was like, don't do it, girl. You know, she's gonna hurt you. Like, it just like, it just felt like it was just she was there to give advice and to be this wise sage in the background rather than, like, what she is, which is a real leader in the X Men and a huge power in this world. And, you know, I mean, certainly, I know in the episode, it was also proposed that you just go with one storyline and not the other and, like, set up the other.

(01:11:13):
Which would have been also cool because we could have also had a transitional period. And I guarantee you they probably would have had another movie if they had focused one or the other. So if they had decided to, like, focus on the, you know, the cure and. And the complications of that and then, you know, kind of, like, laced in. I think you suggested this could kind of lace in the idea of Gene being in different places, had Cyclops go off somewhere else. You know, really focus this movie on Wolverine and Storm just keeping the home front going while, like, Cyclops is on his journey. Right. Scott is, like, out there because he's so broken hearted and things like that. You could set up for really great Phoenix Saga story the very next movie just by, like, teasing it.

(01:12:12):
And would people still have been kind of annoyed? Probably, because instant gratification. And the last movie definitely hinted at this, but to me, it's just like. So there's so much happening and because there's no real connection between any of the characters and because the characters are also not true to themselves within this cinematic universe as it was created in the first two films, because Magneto is completely butchered. I mean, like, you know, and also, like, we don't even really, like, fully, like, I Think we take for granted that we have knowledge of, you know, X Men and X Men lore. But, like, if I was thinking about it, if I had not really known anything about the Phoenix or anything like that, like, no, if I really would have known what was going on with Jean Grey.

(01:13:07):
Like, I don't know that this movie actually gives an explanation for what's actually happening. And if I was just watching this movie on its own, right? Like, I was just like, I'm just gonna put this movie on. I don't know if I fully would have understood the level to which, like, the, like.

Case (01:13:34):
I hear you. Because, like, I'm thinking back to, like, when the movie came out and because, like, I was there to be the, like, explain it from the comic books guy with my friend groups, right? Like, I was the one who was like, no, you have to understand, the Phoenix is like this cosmic force. Like, I was that guy. So imagine the other side of the conversation and like, not knowing who the Phoenix is. And like, what, like, what is going on with Jean's power? Yeah, that's an interesting point that the movie, like, I, the second movie does set up a, A certain amount of her, like, power scaling, right?

Sam (01:14:16):
Yeah, it does. And.

Case (01:14:18):
And this movie does establish that she's got like, all this terrible power buried within her. I, I guess is that they are going with this like, Mark Millar. Oh, that's the other name that we hadn't discussed. Yeah. So Mark Millar, who is a controversial figure in the comics community himself. Although I would argue that the worst he has done has been to not distance himself from some of the shittier people in comics. Even though, like, he's got kind of some edgelord tendencies in terms of his writing. They go with the Marco, like, take on the Phoenix where it is this, like, psychological barrier that Jean has, like, kept at bay for all this time that is like the true unlocking powers. And that version is fine. I think it's a, It's a perfectly functional version of the Phoenix story.

(01:15:20):
It's just one that, like, begs for an exploration of like, her psyche when you're doing it to really sort of establish a, like a reason for her to be crazy with all this power, you know, because, like, otherwise it's just like, well, what. Why is she dangerous? Like, what. What's the. The problem with this? Like, is she just psychic? The Hulk? And if so, what is all the trauma that is causing that for her? Because, you know, like, it doesn't have the benefit of being like the psych. You know, like the psychic cosmic force that. That goes bad, which is a little bit more. Well, I was gonna say a little bit more pure. That. That becomes corrupt.

(01:15:58):
But even then, like, the comics, like the original comics, like, had this huge, elaborate, like, mind plot where Jean was trapped by Mastermind into thinking that she was like, the. You know, this ancient, you know, ancient, like, colonial times, like, Slaver and who had to, like, whip Storm and, you know, just be, like, a terrible person. And she was, like, forced to play out this whole scenario because she was, like, trapped in this, like, delusion. And that pushed her into going crazy and becoming the Dark Phoenix. So, yeah. Yeah. I guess what I'm saying is, like, you. You have to just, like, if it's just that her powers make her go crazy, like, you have to justify why in this movie. I think you make the right point. Doesn't do that. It.

(01:16:47):
So it doesn't explain how powerful she is and how maddening that power must be.

Sam (01:16:54):
Yeah, it only gives you a snippet, right? Like, it doesn't. So, like, for the person watching who has no idea about the Dark Phoenix or anything in terms of that, or even the different ways that power could be interpreted or even bestowed upon this character because, you know, X Men has so many options. But. And for someone who doesn't have that, this film doesn't actually explain why she's so dangerous. It basically tells everyone that she is dangerous. But it. But it doesn't really give you the full scope of what you need to, like, understand. Like, oh, shit, she. She can end everything. She can end reality. Like, you know, like, it doesn't. It doesn't do that, right? That unra. That unraveling feeling that you should feel. And so I just feel like the story needed more time to cook and you could have.

(01:18:03):
You could have, like. And again, this was the suggestion, like, within. It stuck to the. The cure and then kind of worked your way through, you know, leaving these hints about the Phoenix and about power, you know, and you could even do, like, you know, you don't have to have Marsden in the film to have kind of reports from him coming back, right? To kind of use this exposition to kind of explain what's happening with the Dark Phoenix, right? So we can have, like, you know, Storm reading it off to, like, you know, beast about, like, these crazy things that are happening around the globe that are all tied back to the Dark Phoenix, right? Like, you could have had moments of that, like, her being like, I need your expertise. I need Your opinion on these things.

(01:19:04):
Now that Xavier is no longer here, I need someone to bounce this off. And you're a very smart person, Hank. Like, this is what Scott is reporting. Da da, da, da. Right? And. And in that case, you could have laced in the framework for what you needed for the Dark Phoenix, for really like the layman understanding it while still doing this other thing that's like a crazy. I mean, like, honestly, I actually think that the cure is like a wonder. Like, it's actually a pretty compelling storyline. There is like this idea of like, well, can someone be fixed? Right? And is it our. Is it, is it even ethical to fix someone who doesn't think that they're broken? Like, and you know, that's a even bigger story. Like, just because you don't like what, what's going on with them.

(01:20:05):
Just because you don't like their medical diagnosis or the person that they like or any of that stuff. Like, is it ethical for a government to impose those things? You know, like, there is, there are, there is things to explore there that the X Men usually does so well, but it's just so much going on at once and not enough explanation for any of it. And then character fails. Major, major character fails. Yeah, this movie's a mess.

Case (01:20:42):
Yeah. I mean, like an idea that just sort of like formed for me coming off of what you were saying. Like, what if, as we sort of discussed a little bit in the movie, like, if we kept the cure plot and this was the Phoenix story and not the Dark Phoenix story, and like the end of the movie is she gets like shot with like the drugs to like cure her. And so she's like, not. Her powers are suppressed. And then like the post credits is her like waking up with like psychic screams, like causing nightmares or something like that.

Sam (01:21:20):
Oh, I like that.

Case (01:21:22):
And you know, a flash of the Phoenix imagery or something like that. Like, that way you could use her as a hero who like, is revived in this movie from her death in the, at the end of the previous one. But that would just be a better movie than what we got because this movie is just, it's just kind of dumb and kind of just like expects you to go with what they like the dumbest, most like two dimensional version of every character that they put forth. Which is why there's this character assassination for a lot of characters in this one, Magneto is the big one. But like, Professor X also doesn't do too well in this one. I mean, that said, Professor X is a shitty dude in the comics, but the nuance of him being shitty is.

(01:22:13):
Is not one that is carried over in this one, where in this Professor X just takes over the body. Like, yes, it's supposed to be a person in vegetative state, but it's still kind of fucked up that he just takes over a person at the end of this movie. So that's kind of messed up on the character. We get into the terrible rendition of Pyro, the, You know, the. Just the. The flat version of Colossus in this movie. Just everyone. So. So, like I said, so. So two dimensional. And it's a frustrating take on. On the characters, especially after X2, which is, you know, such a. An exciting movie when it. When it came out.

Sam (01:23:06):
Yeah, it was a. It was a definite letdown.

Case (01:23:14):
Yeah. Anywho, I don't have much more to say about this episode though, because, like, I. I think that it was a good episode, a good conversation between me and Jeff with me being very animated and ready to go. And I. I think part of that was we had some sort of, like, time restrictions outside of recording, but I don't remember what they were exactly. So, yeah. Sam, do you have any, like, final thoughts on this episode?

Sam (01:23:45):
No, I think it was quite enjoyable. I hope that the listeners agree with me. I think it's always nice to have a Case and Jeff episode and both of you were really, like, you're really feeling it. Lots of. Lots of collaborating, but some great ideas thrown out there. So this is my only thoughts. This episode was vibes, so let us.

Case (01:24:11):
Take a look for basic housekeeping. So in terms of app. App episodes, we're actually gonna have an interesting conversation right now. Of course, last time we had the Avengers Age of Ultron, and today we're talking about X Men 3. If we're just going off of the next episodes, what we would be doing is another pass at another pass on another pass. 2017, which is the two. I did a clip show because I just didn't have episodes to go with for the end of the year. Ben and Addie and I discuss episodes and then I like, try to do clips. But, like, it was a difficult process to do that. And like, I don't know, do we want to skip these?

Sam (01:24:58):
Probably. I think we should skip them because.

Case (01:25:02):
Otherwise we're getting really fucking meta on this all.

Sam (01:25:05):
Yeah, it's a little too much, us.

Case (01:25:08):
Doing a framing device about a clip show. That was a lot of framing device. Talking about extended sequences of full or full of another past episodes. Yeah, so I think we're going to skip that two parter there and that means that we're going to go on to Another Pass at the Hobbit trilogy where we did the whole trilogy and discussed it from the perspective of editing it down to, I believe, two movies.

Sam (01:25:37):
Yeah, well, that would make sense. Maybe one movie. Who knows? I can't wait for the episode though.

Case (01:25:45):
Yeah, so we. So like, I don't know if you're ready to rewatch the entire Hobbit trilogy in preparation for this, but.

Sam (01:25:55):
Yeah, I don't know.

Case (01:25:56):
Yeah, but we tackled the Hobbit trilogy and then I was pretty happy with it. Like I said, it's a Ben and Addie episode, so the audio quality is going to be pretty good on that one. So I think that'll be a fun one for us to discuss.

Sam (01:26:14):
Yeah, I think so too.

Case (01:26:16):
Yeah. Meanwhile, in discussing the most recent episodes for the main show, when this drops, the most recent episode of Another Pass will be episode 170 where we discussed Farragut Forward and got interviews with a whole bunch of people involved in the production. So that was a little bit of a different type of episode, but we wanted to promote an independent film and so that was a fun episode to do. And then the next episode that will be coming out is on Super Mario Bros. With Matt AKA DJ Storm.

Sam (01:26:59):
Yay.

Case (01:27:00):
And that is a really fun episode. I hadn't seen the movie before we recorded the episode and it was delightful, but it was still like a lot of fun to discuss the. The other Super Mario Bros. Because Matt had been on previously for the 90s Super Mario Bros episode. So, you know, it's. It's all fun looking. Looking at that wacky Mario franchise and yeah, I think those are all the big ticket items for this. Sam, where can people find you and follow you?

Sam (01:27:35):
You can find me here at our podcast and at our discord when I remember it exists. And other than that, if you also think Angela Bassett should have been Storm, you can find ksat.

Case (01:27:55):
I welcome people to who share that opinion because that is not a bad take. I think a lot of people are going to be very supportive of that take in a really enthusiastic way.

Sam (01:28:06):
I feel like normally I send people's possible hate towards you, so this time I want to send possible love to you.

Case (01:28:12):
Yeah, some Angela Bassett did. The thing is Bee Storm.

Sam (01:28:15):
Yeah, y. Yeah, yeah. She should have been absolutely positively well.

Case (01:28:20):
So I. I'm going to direct people to.
If you.
The Discord server is a great place for it. You can find a link@ certainpov.com or in the show notes for our podcast episodes. The Discord Server is a great place to get in touch with me to talk about this show about Men of Steel, which is my other show to just interact with some cool people. It's a great spot if you want to find me on the. The more public socials. I'm directing most people to my blue ski at the moment, and so you can find me there at Case Aiken and then the dot BSGuy Social or whatever the rest of the thing is like. You know, we've all agreed it's. It's at ksaken. You can find me there. Yeah. And, and then circle back here for our next episode, which, like I said, the.

(01:29:14):
The next full episode is going to be on Super Mario Bros. And the next app episode is going to be on the Hobbit trilogy. And that is all going to be a lot of fun. And until next time, if you enjoyed the show, pass it on. This time I almost said stay Superman.

Speaker 6 (01:29:38):
All right, Josue, let's go through our new comic day stack. We have a lot to review.

Sam (01:29:42):
I know.

Speaker 6 (01:29:43):
Maybe we've gone too far. Let's see. Marvel, of course, dc. I got Image, Dark Horse, Black Mask, Boom. Idw, Aftershock, Vault, of course, Mad Cave, Oni, Valiant, Scout, Magma, Behemoth. Behemoth. Wow, that's a lot.

Sam (01:30:03):
Oh.

Speaker 6 (01:30:03):
All we need now is a name for our show. We need a name for a show about reviewing comic books every week. Something clever, but not too clever, like a pun.

Case (01:30:13):
It's kind of cheesy.

Speaker 6 (01:30:14):
Yeah. Something that seems funny at first, but we might regret later on as an impulsive decision. A few dozen episodes in. Yeah, we'll think of something. Join Keith and Osway for we have Issues, a weekly show reviewing almost every new comedy comic released each week, available on Geek Elite Media and wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Case (01:30:32):
Yeah, the movie episode goes here. Case episode goes here.

Sam (01:30:38):
Just remember, case, it goes here.

Case (01:30:42):
CPOV certainpov.com.

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