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X-Men: Days of Future Past

Underseer

Underseer

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I'm anticipating and dreading this one.

I liked the previous X-Men movies except for X3, but I have to admit I'm a little miffed at their tendency to mangle classic story lines. I don't mind changing things to fit with a different audience, but Magneto's attempt at genocide in X2 was unforgivable. Every good and every evil thing that character does is motivated by his hatred and fear of genocide. Bah. Anyway.

I did like X-Men: First Class despite its slapped-together nature. I look forward to seeing the old cast and the new cast working together. I'm kind of hoping they'll keep enough of the bones of the original story together to make it compelling.

While I look forward to seeing Bishop (not to mention we finally get to see Iceman use an ice-slide), what I mostly wanted to talk about was the casting of Peter Dinklage as Bolivar Trask. Holy crap, is that brilliant. I have no problem with re-casting Trask as a little person, especially if Dinklage's performance is half as good as what he delivers on Game of Thrones. He should make for a delicious, delicious scene-chewing villain, especially decked out in a cheesy 1970s look. If Dinklage and the moviemakers can make that genocidal maniac even remotely sympathetic, so much the better (I mean, what could be more disturbing and unsettling than that?).
 
I'm looking forward to it. I think with Bryan Singer behind the helm again, we will get a good (if not great) X-Men movie. X3 was a bad movie, and Xmen Origins: Wolverine was even worse, First Class I actually enjoyed. From what I have seen, Days of Future Past looks like it may be as good as the first Xmen movie. I am definitely thinking positive about it, so I can go into the theater untainted. It is a great alternate universe story line to pursue, since they do not have to mesh with the MCU.

I love their casting Dinklage as Trask, he can't do anything but make the movie better, IMHO. Not sure what else I can say in that regard before actually seeing the movie.
 
Dinklage is always a nice addition to a cast, but what stood out the most for me was the Sentinels themselves. I've always disliked the ridiculously huge, clunky "caucasian men in purple leotards" Sentinels from the comics/cartoons, so the sleeker design in this trailer is a relief. Apparently there are at least two designs, a 70s version and a future version. They're both an improvement over the comic book version, but I really like the future versions, with their fluid motion and shifting skin-plates.

 
Trask has been through various incarnations in the comic books, but mostly I found him to be a one-dimensional genocidal/xenocidal maniac. If Dinklage can add layers of complexity to the character, it will be an improvement regardless of what is in those layers. :)
 
KeepTalking:
I'm looking forward to it. I think with Bryan Singer behind the helm again, we will get a good (if not great) X-Men movie. X3 was a bad movie, and Xmen Origins: Wolverine was even worse, First Class I actually enjoyed. From what I have seen, Days of Future Past looks like it may be as good as the first Xmen movie. I am definitely thinking positive about it, so I can go into the theater untainted. It is a great alternate universe story line to pursue, since they do not have to mesh with the MCU.

I love their casting Dinklage as Trask, he can't do anything but make the movie better, IMHO. Not sure what else I can say in that regard before actually seeing the movie.
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I didn't realise that Singer was involved again - that is excellent news! X2 has been by far my favourite of the series - X3 was always going to suck given that he was removed from the project because the studio wanted someone they could kick around. This makes me much more excited about this film.

ETA: Oops, still getting the hang of the new forum.
 
Narapoia said:
I didn't realise that Singer was involved again - that is excellent news! X2 has been by far my favourite of the series - X3 was always going to suck given that he was removed from the project because the studio wanted someone they could kick around. This makes me much more excited about this film.
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Singer and the actor who played Scott Summers were absent from X3 because they ran off to make that Superman movie, not because FOX kicked them out.
 
Underseer said:
Singer and the actor who played Scott Summers were absent from X3 because they ran off to make that Superman movie, not because FOX kicked them out.
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Hmm, I was sure that I remembered reading about a big spat between the studio and Singer. Interesting, that was a bit cheeky of him. I think if he had stayed at the helm we could have had a good third x film. As it stands it was awful and that version of superman was a bit weak as well.
 
Narapoia said:
Hmm, I was sure that I remembered reading about a big spat between the studio and Singer. Interesting, that was a bit cheeky of him. I think if he had stayed at the helm we could have had a good third x film. As it stands it was awful and that version of superman was a bit weak as well.
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I agree. Because of what Singer did, we got a mediocre Superman movie and a truly awful X-Men movie, but I can't really blame him. He's a huge Superman fan and never even read X-Men until he was asked to make the first X-Men movie.
 
As I recall the original Trask was not genocidal. He created the Sentinals to capture mutants, not exterminate. And after using a machine to find out Beast's true beliefs he realized he was wrong, but was killed in the destruction of his base. Those that came after him, like his son, were more the genocidal types.
 
marc said:
As I recall the original Trask was not genocidal. He created the Sentinals to capture mutants, not exterminate. And after using a machine to find out Beast's true beliefs he realized he was wrong, but was killed in the destruction of his base. Those that came after him, like his son, were more the genocidal types.
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Thanks for the correction.
 
I've seen all but one in the series. X3 was the best in the series--the one that came closest to being a great movie; which is why some people, hoping for the shiny mediocrity of your typical well produced comic book, found it uncomfortable.--the first Wolverine the worst I've seen (I didn't bother with the second Wolverine). This one I'm definitely going to see, but the story looks awfully busy with lots and lots of characters played by major actors, who'll all be demnding their screen time, and a seemingly complicated plot that may require a high ratio of explication to action or character interaction. I just hope the regrettable January Jones is not returning, or has her screen time reduced to a walk-on.
 
In the X-Men comics, I never found the human characters interesting, so I never even had a clear idea in my mind of who Trask was, apart from him being another anti-mutant character like Kelly or Graydon Creed. Although the premise of "people with superpowers pop up and society actually reacts somewhat similarly to how humans do, rather than just shrugging and moving on" was probably responsible for my preference for the X-Men franchise over other mainstream superhero comics, I think now that it's a premise better explored outside of the "having superpowers almost guarantees you will sooner or later put on a costume and have violent adventures" genre.

jab said:
I just hope the regrettable January Jones is not returning, or has her screen time reduced to a walk-on.
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Confirmation from January Jones that she is not in Days of Future Past
 
Kelly is more unctuous and Creed more vicious (not surprising considering his parentage).
 
So far, the coolest thing about this film that I've seen is Evan Peters as Quicksilver:

 
I look forward to the movie becuase of Singer + some of the cast. But I have to use my mutant mental powers to try to suppress the godawful source material out of my mind.
 
SPOILER ALERT!!!!!

*** SPOILERS BELOW ***

This was a pretty awesome movie. The futuristic battles with the Sentinels were cool. I liked how they had a bunch of the A-List X-Men just getting ripped apart by these unstoppable mo-fos.

For me, the highlight of the movie was the Quicksilver scene where he just darts around all the people moving in slow motion. Magneto was great and I love how he just fucked everyone over and the battle for the soul of Mystique between him and Professor X was well done. Wolverine spent more time talking and less time slicing people apart than I would have liked, but I loved how he continuously forgot that he didn't have metal claws in the past and did things like trying to slice off the Sentinel's arm, but just has his bone claws bounce off it.

There was also the cool bit at the end where they tore the god-awful X-Men 3 out of the spacetime continuum. It was funny when Wolverine was about to hug Jean and then Cyclops grabs his arm from offscreen and was like "Hey! WTF are you doing, dude?".

A very enjoyable film.
 
I pretty much agree with Tom. They had a lot of plates spinning but still managed to move all the necessary story elements and character development. The action sequences (especially the kitchen scene) were tight, while they kept the themes of minority mistreatment front and center.

Oh, and the fight choreography with Blink must've been a nightmare to plan but worked very well.
 
The opening fight scenes in the dystopian future were also great because they finally showed X-Men using their powers together in a coordinated fashion, something which we ironically have not seen until this movie.
 
Underseer said:



While I look forward to seeing Bishop (not to mention we finally get to see Iceman use an ice-slide), what I mostly wanted to talk about was the casting of Peter Dinklage as Bolivar Trask. Holy crap, is that brilliant. I have no problem with re-casting Trask as a little person, especially if Dinklage's performance is half as good as what he delivers on Game of Thrones. He should make for a delicious, delicious scene-chewing villain, especially decked out in a cheesy 1970s look. If Dinklage and the moviemakers can make that genocidal maniac even remotely sympathetic, so much the better (I mean, what could be more disturbing and unsettling than that?).
Click to expand...

Dinklage is so understated that he almost fades off the screen.
 
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