X-Men: Apocalypse trailer

[Underseer]

Honestly, I have no idea what to expect from this upcoming movie. While I generally enjoy the X-Men movies, they have a nasty habit of butchering the underlying themes of the comic book source material.

For instance, God Loves, Man Kills explores the dark connections between religion and racism. Two decades later, X2 came out, and FOX decided to strip out all of the references to religion, thus nullifying the whole point of the story. The villain was changed from a preacher into just another shady, covert military/intelligence operative, and so the resulting movie doesn't actually have anything interesting to say about the nature of racism. FOX didn't have the balls Marvel had two decades earlier, the wussies.

On the other hand, the movie version of Days of Future Past was pretty damn good. The story is about unintended consequences and how we can create the thing we dread by not properly considering the consequences. Trask created the Sentinels in order to prevent genocide, and ended up causing the very genocide he was trying to prevent. Magneto's faction tries to stop the Sentinel program by killing a politician, and those actions could lead to the Sentinel program becoming a reality. The movie properly preserved that aspect of the story.

The thing is, Apocalypse came out around the time my interest in comic books was waning, so I'm not even sure what themes would need to be preserved in the story, and so nothing in the above trailer gives me a reason to have better or worse expectations.

So for those of you who actually read all the Apocalypse stuff in the comic books, what do you think needs to be in the movie, particularly thematically?

 

[Underseer]

My admittedly poor understanding of the point of the Apocalypse character follows.

Xavier's followers often argue with Magneto that if he is successful in conquering humanity, then nothing really changes except that mutants go from being the victims to being the oppressors. Nothing actually improves if Magneto succeeds. Magneto counters that this would never happen because mutants are intrinsically morally superior, and would never treat humans the way humans treat mutants. This is of course an ad hoc fallacy to rationalize his actions; Magneto doesn't have an ounce of evidence proving that mutants are morally superior to humans.

Thus the point of the Apocalypse character: a mutant whose very existence challenges Magneto's excuses. Apocalypse is a social Darwinist of the most extreme sort who wants to kill all humans and most of the mutants, then create a nightmare future in which the surviving mutants have to constantly fight each other to the death for the right to live.

Magneto, displaying more human flaws than he would ever admit to, continues to insist that mutants are morally superior despite the obvious evidence of the existence of Apocalypse and the fact that Apocalypse has plenty of mutants willing to follow him.

Am I getting the point of the story wrong? Is there some other theme you think is more important? It seems to me a story about how easy it is to rationalize bad moral choices.

 

[Jaecp]

Kind of groaned at the "I've never power like this before" line, but I really dug the whole Katnis Everdeen leads the new tributes against the gamesmaster vibe I was getting during most of the trailer.

Bald Xavier is kind of silly :-/ We have Patrick Stewart for that.

 

[prideandfall]

Am I getting the point of the story wrong? Is there some other theme you think is more important? It seems to me a story about how easy it is to rationalize bad moral choices.

i always thought the point of Apocalypse was "this is what would happen if a libertarian were a superpowered immortal"

seriously though, i know that the writers have all these themes and such, but i always saw Apocalypse as a grand exploration of what could happen to a normal human psyche after being around for 5,000 years and having demigod powers.
if you think about it, our concept of morality and good and evil and how you live your life are all defined by our being constrained by the human condition - what would a person become if they were unshackled from that and then left to sit and watch humanity for 5,000 years?
one issue i've always had with x-men comics (and comics in general really) is how they only portray 3 scenarios for being superpowered: 1. you become a hero, 2. you become a villain, 3. you cry and just want to 'be normal'.
there's rarely ever a more cerebral portrayal of just a normal (re: flawed) human who finds themselves suddenly unaccountable to the restraints of what it means to be a member of society, and running with it to its logical end point.
except for Apocalypse - which is maybe why he's always been my favorite marvel villain. and also why this trailer looks incredibly disappointing to me... seriously, i'm expecting this movie to be (from a comic nerd's perspective) utter and complete crap.

also, side note:
it's completely ridiculous from a narrative or characterization perspective that mystique would be showing up at all, much less helping out or leading the x-men.
that is a story arc completely derived from the fact that the actress is on contract to be in these movies and they're trying to bank on the belief that she's popular. i find it rather lame and forced, personally.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Also, is it just that I have some kind of weird fetish or is Jennifer Lawrence a hell of a lot hotter when she's blue? I can see her normal anywhere, but when I watch an X-Men movie, I expect to see her prancing around in blue body paint. Da fuck is with her being some kind of blonde girl here?

 

[KeepTalking]

I never read the original Age of Apocalypse run, but do have most of the second half of the 2012-13 run. IIRC it dealt more with the fallout from the original Age of Apocalypse, and did not even feature Apocalypse himself, as I think he was still dead. I have been planning on going back and reading through the original run on Marvel Unlimited since they announced the movie a few years ago, but have not gotten around to it yet. The X-Men movies have been such a mixed bag, who knows how this one will turn out.

 

[marc]

The movie will have nothing to do with the original Age of Apocalypse storyline, though it may draw some characters from it.

What happened was Xavier's son went back in time to kill Magneto, so his dad would have time for him. He ended up killing Xavier by mistake, leading to a timeline where Apocalypse took over the Americas, and Magneto was put into the position of creating the X-Men to oppose him. The heroes eventually found out their timeline was a mistake, and took action to reverse the change in history, though at least four characters from that timeline managed to slip over to the main Marvel timeline. (Dark Beast, Nate Grey, Sugar Man, and Holocaust)

 

[Underseer]

Am I getting the point of the story wrong? Is there some other theme you think is more important? It seems to me a story about how easy it is to rationalize bad moral choices.

i always thought the point of Apocalypse was "this is what would happen if a libertarian were a superpowered immortal"

seriously though, i know that the writers have all these themes and such, but i always saw Apocalypse as a grand exploration of what could happen to a normal human psyche after being around for 5,000 years and having demigod powers.
if you think about it, our concept of morality and good and evil and how you live your life are all defined by our being constrained by the human condition - what would a person become if they were unshackled from that and then left to sit and watch humanity for 5,000 years?
one issue i've always had with x-men comics (and comics in general really) is how they only portray 3 scenarios for being superpowered: 1. you become a hero, 2. you become a villain, 3. you cry and just want to 'be normal'.
there's rarely ever a more cerebral portrayal of just a normal (re: flawed) human who finds themselves suddenly unaccountable to the restraints of what it means to be a member of society, and running with it to its logical end point.
except for Apocalypse - which is maybe why he's always been my favorite marvel villain. and also why this trailer looks incredibly disappointing to me... seriously, i'm expecting this movie to be (from a comic nerd's perspective) utter and complete crap.

also, side note:
it's completely ridiculous from a narrative or characterization perspective that mystique would be showing up at all, much less helping out or leading the x-men.
that is a story arc completely derived from the fact that the actress is on contract to be in these movies and they're trying to bank on the belief that she's popular. i find it rather lame and forced, personally.

Really?

Because that is exactly what Kilgrave was in Jessica Jones. He wasn't interested in conquering the world, or amassing wealth, he just had an extremely flawed understanding of morality because of the nature of his power.

I'm not sure your trinary categorization of Marvel characters is accurate. Marvel's whole shtick is that their characters are generally more flawed, so there's a wide gamut of responses to the acquisition of superpowers.

- - - Updated - - -

Regarding Mystique, her future changed with the events of the previous movie. She's no longer in Magneto's ideological orbit, remember?

- - - Updated - - -

The movie will have nothing to do with the original Age of Apocalypse storyline, though it may draw some characters from it.

What happened was Xavier's son went back in time to kill Magneto, so his dad would have time for him. He ended up killing Xavier by mistake, leading to a timeline where Apocalypse took over the Americas, and Magneto was put into the position of creating the X-Men to oppose him. The heroes eventually found out their timeline was a mistake, and took action to reverse the change in history, though at least four characters from that timeline managed to slip over to the main Marvel timeline. (Dark Beast, Nate Grey, Sugar Man, and Holocaust)

I think what bugs me about Age of Apocalypse is that unlike, say, God Loves, Man Kills, it's not explicitly about racism/prejudice.

 

[Jaecp]

Is Kilgrave a good example? Alias was a great comic, from the early 00's and he isn't all that indicative of the x-stories.

 

[prideandfall]

Because that is exactly what Kilgrave was in Jessica Jones. He wasn't interested in conquering the world, or amassing wealth, he just had an extremely flawed understanding of morality because of the nature of his power.

two things:
1. an exception to the rule does not disprove the rule. i said "rarely ever", not "never"
2. kilgrave still irked the shit out of me (at least in the TV portrayal) for being another hand-waved cry-baby with mommy issues who just wanted to be loved.

I'm not sure your trinary categorization of Marvel characters is accurate. Marvel's whole shtick is that their characters are generally more flawed, so there's a wide gamut of responses to the acquisition of superpowers.

it's not accurate for every character that exist in comics, but it's accurate for a good 98.7% of all characters present in all stories regarding super-powered humans.
being "flawed" doesn't negate being in one of the 3 categories i mentioned.

Regarding Mystique, her future changed with the events of the previous movie. She's no longer in Magneto's ideological orbit, remember?

.. huh? sorry, not seeing how you response relates to the thing you were responding to.
at the end of DOFP she had told charles to go fuck himself and was impersonating stryker, and in an Apocalypse scenario she's completely useless since she's not the gun-toting mercenary from the comics.
if your power's only use is making you super awesome at spying and subterfuge, you're basically useless against a cultist demigod.
from the perspective of the narrative within the movies there's no justification for her to be showing up to help lead the new generation of x-men, and from a practical standpoint she's utterly useless in the context of a battle against Apocalypse and the 4 horsemen (which, per the trailer, are: storm, magneto, archangel, and psylocke) - if not for the obligation to put jennifer lawrence in a prominent role in these movies, there's no reason for mystique to ever have much of anything to do with any of this.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

2. kilgrave still irked the shit out of me (at least in the TV portrayal) for being another hand-waved cry-baby with mommy issues who just wanted to be loved.

I don't know if it's totally fair to be irked with Kilgrave about having those kinds of issues, since his is a power which, by its very nature, leads to those kinds of issues. He wants something real in his life but the power he has pretty much prohibits him from ever being able to have something real. He can never know if someone he's with really loves him or is just being told that she loves him since it would be so difficult to parse his words in such a manner that even he could tell the difference. When he finds that he could have the chance with that with Jessica, it causes an insane obsession due to it being the one thing in life that he can't force others to give him. Then, due to how his power has made his life, he has absolutely no fucking clue how to even start going about that.

His character was done brilliantly.

 

[prideandfall]

I don't know if it's totally fair to be irked with Kilgrave about having those kinds of issues, since his is a power which, by its very nature, leads to those kinds of issues.

true, and this is actually a far more reaching gripe of mine with a television cliche that i just didn't randomly spew into a post, and not just about that one character.
(irrelevant derail, but for the sake of completeness, i find it annoying that every 'bad' character needs to have some sympathy-inducing traumatic backstory just to assure all the jittery proles that psychopaths don't ever develop on their own without warning or cause, that if you're a not nice person it's due to buried parental issues or some other easily exploited emotional vulnerability. it's just stupid and cliche and inaccurate and it bugs the piss out of me)

His character was done brilliantly.

i disagree, but then i often have a lot of umbrage with the portrayal of psychopathic or amoral characters on television and in movies for how hilariously wrong they get it.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

true, and this is actually a far more reaching gripe of mine with a television cliche that i just didn't randomly spew into a post, and not just about that one character.
(irrelevant derail, but for the sake of completeness, i find it annoying that every 'bad' character needs to have some sympathy-inducing traumatic backstory just to assure all the jittery proles that psychopaths don't ever develop on their own without warning or cause, that if you're a not nice person it's due to buried parental issues or some other easily exploited emotional vulnerability. it's just stupid and cliche and inaccurate and it bugs the piss out of me)

That's just because of your parental issues and it isn't really something you can do anything about.

Seriously, though, I do understand your gripe here and it is generally just a lazy and cheap way to add depth to a villian. Kilgrave is an exception to this rule, though.

His character was done brilliantly.

i disagree, but then i often have a lot of umbrage with the portrayal of psychopathic or amoral characters on television and in movies for hilariously wrong they get it.

Well, the point of most villians isn't to be a villian in and of themselves, but to be a foil for the character development of the hero. Their issues are meant to be mirrors of the issues that the hero faces or the result of failing some past character test which the hero succeeded in so as to help the audience better understand the hero better and to play up the storyline that by defeating the villian, he's also defeating the darker part of himself. They're secondary characters who are there for the primary characters and their characters often suffer as a result.

 

[Jayjay]

2. kilgrave still irked the shit out of me (at least in the TV portrayal) for being another hand-waved cry-baby with mommy issues who just wanted to be loved.

I don't know if it's totally fair to be irked with Kilgrave about having those kinds of issues, since his is a power which, by its very nature, leads to those kinds of issues. He wants something real in his life but the power he has pretty much prohibits him from ever being able to have something real. He can never know if someone he's with really loves him or is just being told that she loves him since it would be so difficult to parse his words in such a manner that even he could tell the difference. When he finds that he could have the chance with that with Jessica, it causes an insane obsession due to it being the one thing in life that he can't force others to give him. Then, due to how his power has made his life, he has absolutely no fucking clue how to even start going about that.

His character was done brilliantly.

I agree it was brilliant, but for completely different reasons. I don't think Kilgrave was obsessed with Jessica just because he couldn't control her. He risked his life at the end trying to get powerful enough to get that control back after all. Kilgrave's obsession was completely selfish, he wanted Jessica because she had powers and as such was the only one "worthy" to be his companion. He didn't give two fucks about what Jessica thought of it, just like he didn't give two fucks about anyone else's feelings. He was a sociopath and whether that was due to his innate brain damage or just a side effect of his powers never forcing him to care about other people, that's how he was portrayed and I think it was executed wonderfully.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I agree it was brilliant, but for completely different reasons. I don't think Kilgrave was obsessed with Jessica just because he couldn't control her. He risked his life at the end trying to get powerful enough to get that control back after all. Kilgrave's obsession was completely selfish, he wanted Jessica because she had powers and as such was the only one "worthy" to be his companion. He didn't give two fucks about what Jessica thought of it, just like he didn't give two fucks about anyone else's feelings. He was a sociopath and whether that was due to his innate brain damage or just a side effect of his powers never forcing him to care about other people, that's how he was portrayed and I think it was executed wonderfully.

That was after she rejected him, though. His original plan was to buy her old house and have her come live with him and fall in love with him of her own accord. It was a terrible plan due to his internal perceptions being completed unrelated to external reality and not his not having the slightest understanding of how his previous control of her damaged her. It was only after this plan failed that he raged out and wanted to control her again.

 

[Underseer]

2. kilgrave still irked the shit out of me (at least in the TV portrayal) for being another hand-waved cry-baby with mommy issues who just wanted to be loved.

I don't know if it's totally fair to be irked with Kilgrave about having those kinds of issues, since his is a power which, by its very nature, leads to those kinds of issues. He wants something real in his life but the power he has pretty much prohibits him from ever being able to have something real. He can never know if someone he's with really loves him or is just being told that she loves him since it would be so difficult to parse his words in such a manner that even he could tell the difference. When he finds that he could have the chance with that with Jessica, it causes an insane obsession due to it being the one thing in life that he can't force others to give him. Then, due to how his power has made his life, he has absolutely no fucking clue how to even start going about that.

His character was done brilliantly.

I agree completely.

If you take a child, then suddenly have every single person obey every single whim for the rest of that child's life, why wouldn't he end up a demented and confused psychopath? How could he possibly learn right from wrong as the rest of us know it? He is not out to conquer the world, nor to steal vast wealth, he just lives his life the only way he knows how, and that is why he destroys so many lives.

He blames his parents unreasonably. He honestly doesn't understand why his parents were terrified and wanted to flee him.

 

[Shadowy Man]

The movie will have nothing to do with the original Age of Apocalypse storyline, though it may draw some characters from it.

What happened was Xavier's son went back in time to kill Magneto, so his dad would have time for him. He ended up killing Xavier by mistake, leading to a timeline where Apocalypse took over the Americas, and Magneto was put into the position of creating the X-Men to oppose him. The heroes eventually found out their timeline was a mistake, and took action to reverse the change in history, though at least four characters from that timeline managed to slip over to the main Marvel timeline. (Dark Beast, Nate Grey, Sugar Man, and Holocaust)

This was all at the time I started losing interest in collecting comics (X-Men was my primary). One of the big reasons was all the time travel. The other was that more and more characters were wielding guns.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So, what is Apocalypse going to become in this film, a Class 6 mutant?

 

[Underseer]

The movie will have nothing to do with the original Age of Apocalypse storyline, though it may draw some characters from it.

What happened was Xavier's son went back in time to kill Magneto, so his dad would have time for him. He ended up killing Xavier by mistake, leading to a timeline where Apocalypse took over the Americas, and Magneto was put into the position of creating the X-Men to oppose him. The heroes eventually found out their timeline was a mistake, and took action to reverse the change in history, though at least four characters from that timeline managed to slip over to the main Marvel timeline. (Dark Beast, Nate Grey, Sugar Man, and Holocaust)

This was all at the time I started losing interest in collecting comics (X-Men was my primary). One of the big reasons was all the time travel. The other was that more and more characters were wielding guns.

I'll be honest, I started losing interest in comics about the same time, and I found Apocalypse to be rather silly.

So I hope they aren't too worried about staying close to the source material, but I do hope they bother to have a real message about racism or human nature. I'm still pissed that they stripped out the whole theme from God Loves, Man Kills like that.

 

[Jaecp]

Isn't omega level the usual title for most powerful mutants?