Sore Eyes

Very much enjoyed your précis of the film; I was one of the folk who just had to leave work early to catch this one on its opening day (May 01 in the UK), and I certainly wasn't disappointed. Not only that, I've been hearing positive comments from most people who've seen it, whether they're into the genre or not. It is greatly reassuring that Singer has made certain that the film remain accessible to all, and I am pretty sure that we will not be the only individuals anxious for the next one. Especially since he's chosen to alter the Jean Grey storyline - anticipation!

Thanks for the kind words.

As someone who wasn't particularly familiar with the X-Men comics, I just had to do a bit of googling this morning to find out just what that whole Jean Grey storyline element was all about. (I'm deliberately being cryptic, because I don't want to spoil the film for anyone. But I think we both know what I'm talking about.) Having read up on it a bit, I'll be fascinated to see whether they do anything with it in X3.

I just hope young Mr Singer doesn't decide that he wants to do another film before returning to the Mutant Academy...

I used to watch the series only when I was younger, but was brought back up to speed in 2001, when I discovered that a good friend of mine was a covert fan. If you ever watch the 'Phoenix Saga' (there is a DVD version, though I wouldn't assume you'd go that far!), you'll understand why seeing how Bryan chooses to deal with it is interesting. Though now you've read it I suppose that amounts to the same thing.
To be fair, I'm not even certain if my assumptions are correct, but (to remain vague) that 'thing' with her eyes, then arms, Xavier's moment of clarity, and the skimming over the water would all point in that direction. I'm just glad that we've not seen any aliens with triangular hairdos; he's keeping it plausible, insofar as the X-men universe can be, by not sticking to the series, which is nonetheless important when it comes to not taking the venture too far.
And it works. In the series, Wolverine actually used to date Deathstrike, who is not a mutant at all, but trying to keep to all that would have laboured and overcomplicated the whole storyline (that area is covered in 'The Legend of Wolverine' - also on DVD, but never seen it). Hey, look at me going all nerdy on you - I had no idea I had this in me; time to recover the faculties with some sleep.

I agree that Singer has done a good job of keeping the storylines to something that looks believable on-screen. It's much better that the filmmakers concentrate on making the story work in a two hour feature film, rather than stick to what worked on the page.

The trouble with a long-running comic like X-Men is that by now it's got so much backstory that it's very difficult for someone whose interest was piqued by the films to get into it properly. Especially when the films use characters like Lady Deathstrike but completely change their background, appearance and motivations.

I've only ever seen about five minutes of the cartoon series, so my concept of the X-Men is defined (in increading order of importance) by a) what little I remember from having read a couple of pre-Claremont issues of X-Men some thirty years ago, b) what I've read about Chris Claremont's run on the comic, and c) the feature films. I don't think I have the strength to dive into the comics at this point, so I'll just await Bryan Singer's next take on the characters and plotlines rather than try to catch up on what's happened in other corners of the X-Men universe.

It strikes me as rather weird that someone would write about "getting back to speed" as if one of the tv animated series was the source material. Sorta akin to referring to "getting back to speed" on Shakespeare by watching West Side Story.

This is no ill reflection on West Side Story, which is a very fine thing, but who would look at it as something a later version of Romeo And Juliet should adhere to?

(Not to mention that there have been several X-men tv series, and there's no clue which one "Stairs" regards as his canon.)

Of course, being "brought back up to speed" was a reference only to my own experience of having watched only the original series when I was young, not seeing it for a decade, and then watching what remained of the original series by sifting through the many VHS and DVD copies that my comrade owns.

You make a valid oservation, but I don't agree that drawing a comparison between Romeo & Juliet and West Side Story is equivalent.

The "original series" was guided by writers of the comics, and did a reasonable job of sticking to what was already established, as well as furnishing the comics with new storylines, so it isn't inaccurate to regard this particular series as a valid, representative source since the two went hand in hand. On the other hand, you may be aware that Shakespeare was not around to guide the likes of Laurents, Sondheim and Bernstein, so it was up to them to render their own interpretations.

To be frank, I am not fixated upon or obsessive enough about the franchise to really care either way - merely understand that this comment, hardly weird, was an allusion to my own timeline, and my choice of source as being quite suitable for my casual interest, and apparently that of many of the most dedicated fans; in that respect we have a quorum.
Whether or not, as a possible ardent X-Men historian, you feel that this is inappropriate, then I apologise; I'm sure that the X-Men universe is far more complicated than I realise, and ultimately, I'm just in it for the enjoyment factor. Ack, my cornflakes are soggy now - I hope that clears up my position for you.

The complications of treating any one incarnation of X-Men as canonical are emphasised by this page which tries to explain to someone who only saw the film how the characters and plots diverge from the various comic book incarnations. I'm no great X-Men scholar, but even I can tell that this account just scrapes at the surface of a very long and involved history. About the only constant across all versions seems to be Professor X himself.

Which is no doubt the cue for someone to chime in with a description of some incarnation of the storyline where the team was headed up by someone other than Professor Xavier. :-)

I REALY LOVE HUGH jACKMAN I WANT TO HAVE A DATE WITH HIM AND ONCE I WANT TO MARRY HIS SON.

HUGH JACKMAN I WANT TO HAVE A DATE WITH YOU AND ONCE YOUR SON IS GROWN I WILL MARRY HIM.

Hello Lisa,
So we meet again! I can't believe you of all people realised I was going to read this but well done anyway. I'm dissapointed that you're not sticking to the restraining order like you were meant to but I'm willing to overlook it this time.

Mr H Jackman, Esq.

For the record, I'm hardly an ardent X-comics scholar or historian. Indeed, I have only a terribly vague and intermittent knowledge of a few of the X-comics doings in the past fifteen years, and a certainly not encyclopediac familiarity with their earlier years.

My own perspective is that of someone who is 44 years old, and started reading some of the first couple of dozen issues as a single-digit-aged child, and continued to intermittently read them as access allowed, on and off, for a number of years, and still had general familiarity with the majority of storylines through Chris Claremont' and Terry Austin' (both of whom I've had certain degrees of personal contact with in subsequent decades -- Terry as an sf fan artist in the Seventies, and Chris as a fellow member of the NYC sf social scene in the Eighties) revamping/revitalization into the "New" X-Men, and then to some degree though later times into "New Mutant" territory.

But in the last fifteen years or so, there have been more X-books and X-teams than I know to list, let alone sort out, let alone sort out which are (at least even part of the time) in the same "universe." (Though I do know that one of the current universes, the "Ultimate" one, is Separate.) I did just read a couple of my housemates E-X-Iles book (X-people from five different universes travel the multiverse), but I still couldn't really explain, say Wolverine/Doop, though it's very, ah... different.

But, yes, John, Professor X spent years being missing, even back in the Ancient Days, and Scott led the team, let alone decades later when Magneto was a good guy (for a few years) and led the X-Men, let alone when they wound up splitting into about eight or more different groups (12? 16?, altogether?) some government sponsored, some rogue, one led by millionaitre Angel, some misled by Others, some from other universes, some from the future, some from alternate timelines, and on and on, though every conceivable, more or less, possibility.

It makes the head spin. (It's also why a lot of people stopped reading X-books.)

And, oh, yeah, there were also a couple of animated tv series. Also, trading cards and bubble gum. (X-Men Evolution is the most recent tv incarnation, and reasonably -- to me -- enjoyable, as were the others I vaguely recall.)

Oh, my. I just looked at that link you posted, John, and, um, you should disregard everything that person said. Just about all of it is wrong. Even a casual, utterly out of touch, guy like me knows that.

First, Jubilation has been around for over a decade. Second, she only served in Wolvie's life as a replacement for Kitty Pryde, who played his sidekick for many years earlier (this was forced to change when they shipped Kitty off to Britain to be part of the British team, and they invented Jubilee to fulfill a vaguely similar role).

It should have given you a clue that the source you found was clueless when that source wrote of being unaware of Senator Kelly's death in the movie, since this was not exactly a tiny or obscure part of the movie. That source is correct, though, that Kelly wasn't killed in the series (at least, not back then; I couldn't really say about modern times); in fact, he went on to become President of the US, and while originally persecuting mutants for years, eventually Saw The Light (after being rescued enough time by the Good X-People for even an idiot to figure it out).

Pyro was a major member of Magneto's Bad Crowd for upmty years; jesus, that "Swank" is an... er, is utterly clueless. Pyro and Rusty are entirely separate characters, no more the same than Prof X and Jean Grey are.

Nightcrawler is a "new" X-man? That's if "new" means "starting in 1975." And, of course, there were never "two" x-teams, but have been many. I'm not even going to bother reading any more of this junky page. :-)

Hi i wanna say that even tho hugh is way older than me , i watched x - men for the first time the other night and WOW he is so sexy!
especially when he's topless boxing at the beginning!!!!!
LOL x

Hi i wanna say that even tho hugh is way older than me , i watched x - men for the first time the other night and WOW he is so sexy!
especially when he's topless boxing at the beginning!!!!!
LOL x