f13.net

Trailor now up online (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/dor/objects/034461/wolverine/videos/wolverine_trlr_121508.html)

Looks like it could be good. First big-budget flick for this director though so could go either way.

I like what I see in the trailer.  However, Gavin Hood's imdb has me more skeptical than I'd like.  Can't be worse than X-Men 3, though.

Right?  RIGHT?

Looks fucking awesome.

Dear Director-type peoples: NEEDS LOTS OF FIGHTING! I do not want another Hulk-style introspective origin story. Show us the background info and the transformation and all that. That should take no more than 30 minutes. The rest of the movie needs to be SHREDDING SHIT WITH METAL CLAWS.

The action set pieces look pretty fucking awesome.

Deadpool outfit ... not so much.

That trailer was sexier than any porn I have EVER seen on the internet.

One question.

Who is the character/villian at the end who asks "Do you even know how to kill me?"

That was Liev Schriber as Sabretooth.  I think he'll be awesome at it.  I mean can't be worse then Taylor Mane from the Singer movies.

I love Liev as an actor....but are you fucking kidding me? He was supposed to be Sabretooth? No wonder I didnt know who that villian was.

I thought Sabretooth was supposed to be a big ripped motherfucker.

If onyl Vladimir Kulich from 13th Warrior was still young enough.

(http://www.runewebvitki.com/13thWarrior1.JPG)

Well, this is "origins" of wolverine, maybe they are going with the whole "sabertooth wasn't quite a big and ripped and feral looking back at the beginning" angle.  I mean, it is possible he gets that way later, after the treatment or whatever sets in further and further.

This is directly taken from the graphic novel of the same name, isn't it?  The Victorian scenes looked like the one I perused a few years back when Media Play was still around, at least.

IIRC Sabertooth wasn't big hulking and menacing in that book.  He was just a bit bigger than Logan and looked "normal," not like the X-men lepoard-print hair-metal god.

First off, I'm damn surprised Hugh Jackman agreed to do this. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but he can do anything he wants, and he's doing a spin-off of a series that ended somewhat flatly? Very surprising.

Second, I was thrilled to see little Logan with bone claws. I get into so many insane geek arguments when I try to tell people he was born with those. The X-Men trilogy seemed to imply the claws were implants, but...eeeek little boy with deadly claws. Superheroes should have frightening moments like that; Wolverine doubly so.

Not when you remember that he agreed to do it after the insane success of the second movie.  He probably regrets it now, but he signed the deal a while ago.

That was retconned into his origin when Magneto pulled his Adamantium out. In the Claremont/Byrne X-Men his claws were artificial (see Days of Future Past).

Holy shit. Me wanty.

I want me a masked deadpool, goddammit.

Was it? Dang. Well I like his born-with-them claws better. I don't know why; maybe because it's more of an "OMG!!!" moment.

THE BLOB!

Just because he doesn't have a mask in the .5 seconds he's on screen doesn't mean he won't wear one.

Although I think Reynolds could pull it off, mask or not.

He can't be too picky if he signed up to do Van Helsing, and with that Australia flick having turned out to be a screaming flop, having a big-money superhero project sitting in the can waiting to be released doesn't strike me as something he'd regret. Hell, he doesn't even have to share credit with an ensemble this time, it's his character's name in the title. This is just what his career ordered.

My thinking also.

Unless it's a massive turkey, it'll be fine for him.  And it really can't be, since it's just a cockwrap for fanbois anyway.

In general , the line of thinking seems to be that masks are kinda shitty if you need to character to convey any sort of emotion.  It's why Spider-man frequently has his mask taken off or ripped enough to expose part of his face in each movie.  In fact IIRC the same thing happened near the end of Iron Man also (we also frequently got glimpses of Stark's face inside the armor.

Rumors have gone around that Fox, who are already doing to other X-men spin-off projects, might be looking at doing a Deadpool movie (of course there were also rumors when Blade Trinity came out that Reynolds might star in a Hannibal King movie also).  If that's true, I can see why maybe they wouldn't want to push the "horribly fucked up face" angle with the character right now.

Hmmm.  I would like to think that, given an actor and director with enough talent, a mask wouldn't be more than a minor hindrance.  My only examples to give for this, though, aren't really comic-book movies.  Edward Norton in Kingdom of Heaven, Clive Owen in The Inside Man, maybe Warwick Davis in Hitchhiker's Guide and David Prowse as Darth Vader.

Peter Weller in Robocop. Though since you can see his chin and lips that might not count.

LOL Gambit fights with a staff.  My crappy movie radar is banging off the screen.

He's supposed to fight with a staff.

Yeah, not sure where you're going with that one.  There's a rumour that Logan and Sabretooth will be fighting hand to hand also.  zomg.

I heard some story leak about Wolverine and Deadtooth having some kind of super healing power? Talk about crapping all over canon. What sort of movie magic bullshit is this?

Back to the drawing board I guess /sigh

From memory, Deadpool only wears a mask because he looks gross, and he looks gross thanks to the Weapon X experiments that he underwent. If "Wolverine" is about that program, it makes sense he won't need a mask when he first appears.

And throws cards. And has a Cajun accent.

I can't recall if he spoke during the trailer, but he threw cards that exploded and fought with a staff that glowed (from kinetic energy or whatever it is he does), so it appears they've captured the gist of his fighting style. :)

Do know anything about the Weapon X program?  Wovlerine, Sabertooth, and Deadpool all have healing abilities.  The whole reason Deadpool wears a mask is because of the Healing ability he got from the Weapon X program.

Gambit can fight with anything, his mutant power is charging shit up. He's always fought with a staff though. Seriously, everyone should know this shit. It's common knowledge.

Don't be a retard.

Just wondering, was Gambit part of Weapon-X? He's cool, but a little "after my time", so to speak. I was under the impression that he was just some thief in New Orleans... and not that old either.

Ok note to self: Don't post drunk.  In my defense I haven't read XMen in nearly ten years.  Also I only remember him throwing cards.  Cards? Really?  Why not throw shuriken instead.  Exploding shuriken!  But his name makes sense with the cards.

And finally, I have never liked the bastage.  I prefer Byrne/Claremont XMen.  YMMV.

Cards are cheap and easy to handle and dispense with. 52 to a deck, 1 dollar. Shuriken is pointless, since he charges shit up kinetically and makes them explode. It wouldn't be cool to destroy shuriken, now would it?

It's not that he's throwing cards per se as projectiles. It's just a cheap method for bombing people.

He's a cardshark and gambler (and a professional thief), hence the cards.

What the fuck are you smoking?

Wolverine: Uber healing factor practically defines his character.
Sabertooth: Same thing, he's a brawnier more savage version of wolverine, same healing factor, no claws.
Deadpool: Was dying of cancer and offered himself to the W-X program as a test subject as a potential cure. They gave him a superhuman healing factor, but a side effect of the experiment left him looking like a walking scar, horribly disfigured, hense the mask.

I'm sensing a sarchasm in this thread.

It was a joke.

OK I'm a bit drunk again but I must once again comment.


I don't get the fanboy love for Gambit.  Did he ever tap that sweet Rogue's ass?

Maybe that's the reason.  Anna P. was teh hotness in those movies. 


From previews it looks like Wolvie is a Highlander.  I guess that's OK, he had a great Jim Lee comic with Capn America.
His origin is sooo fucked up.  Where's the goddamn love for Alpha Flight?  The first eleven issues were great.  BTW thanks for KILLING Guardian/Vindicator J. Byrne!  That was sarcasm.  AF was great. Had great potential.  Too bad they killed Guardian and turned Northstar into a tunnel of lover.  Hell, that made natl news back in the day.  The first openly gay superhero.  NTTAWWT.

Shit I should stop before I make a fool of myself.  Oh wait...

fuck

What are you having? I want some.

You're applying logic where none belongs. He uses cards because he's a cardshark and conartist. By your logic he should use pennies.  :oh_i_see:

No-name director, played out franchise, and characters/timeline I don't give a shit about (Gambit, Deadpool, claws as a child, etc).

Yep, this one goes into the "don't even bother renting" along with Ghost Rider and the Fantastic Four movies.  Marvel needs to get it's shit together and realize that if you treat a property with respect and don't hire the Ratner's and McG's of the world you can actually have real blockbusters.  I think Warner/DC has finally figured that out, thankfully.

FF could have been a little better, but really, they did about as much as anyone is going to do with it. It's a stupid comic, therefore you get a stupid movie.

Poorly written. Didn't come across as one at all.

I won't pretend to be even the least skilled of word smiths, but I thought that among everyone who quoted me- you at least knew it was a shitty joke.

It only requires looking at the few posts immediately before mine.

Hey, I heard that [thing that is normal to X-men] was happening in this movie. [Expression of disappointment].

My bad. I guess I was really reaching with the "deadtooth" part, as he doesn't actually exist. But Wolverclopsman may make an appearance.

Not Marvel's fault in this case.  Fox still has the rights licensed to make X-Men movies, just like Sony has the rights to make Spider-man movies.  Both studios are keeping projects in the pipeline so the rights don't revert back to Marvel.

Warner/DC hasn't figured shit out.  They've got one good franchise, consisting of two movies at the moment.  They've been completely unable to get any other project off the ground.  The next project they have closest to completion would be Super Max.  It's a Green Arrow movie that they're too afraid to actually call Green Arrow, involving him wrongly getting sent to a prison for super villains.

I'd like to see a Supeman movie done by G. del Toro set mainly on Apokolips (sp).  He would go nuts with Darkseid.

Superman needs to totally ignore Singer's Stalker-Supes and reboot the reboot.  Brandon Routh can stay as Supes, wasn't his fault.

After that, I don't know.  Nothing off the top of my head I want to see on the big screen for DC.

Somehow, Marvel's canon seems more worthy of movies.

Eclipso could be awesome.

That is so ultra mega retarded as to be beyond belief. They need to give Kevin Smith $50 million and cast the lead from Sons of Anarchy as Green Arrow and call it a day.

Captain America would make a great movie.  Someone needs to get on it. 

Captain America is supposedly in the works already, but as a WWII era movie.  Its supposed to be one of the tie-ins to the Avengers movie.

Thor and Iron Man II are in the works for 2010, Captain America and an Avengers movie are slated for 2011. There's also a Spiderman: The Musical in development with music by Bono and The Edge....

Ahm, no.

They need Cary Elwes. He already did the role once. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107977/)

Despite that possibly being in green - the link was in green and we are talking about the Green Arrow - Elwes wouldn't get the main role because they can't build a franchise around him. He's not a well-known enough actor for DC to pick up for the role.

If you look at how a number of comic book companies / studios doing those movies are working in 2008, what they do is:

1) Get a well-known actor who can physically play the lead role and will also draw a crowd.
2) Get a tonne of solid second tier actors - those who have already proven themselves and are in the twilight of their career or those with a small degree of heat at the time of casting.
3) Get a director who is associated with the kind of film they want to make and has some track record of doing it well.
4) Write up a "true in spirit, but not to the exact letter" script. Feel free to reboot the entire universe if other films featuring the character exist.
5) Spend a lot of money on it, especially the advertising.
6) Realise you aren't making a "comic book film" but a career defining action blockbuster.

This worked for "Iron Man", "The Incredible Hulk", "Batman Begins / The Dark Knight". It didn't work for "Superman Returns" because the script was too all-over-the-shop. I'm sure there are exceptions to this, especially for Marvel properties they don't have full control over.

DC / WB has a ton of films in pre-production hell. "Shazam" has apparently just been cancelled, "Justice League of America" has been prepping for a while under George Miller but still isn't in production, "Green Lantern" has been through numerous iterations (including a Jack Black comedy :uhrr:) - I'm sure there are others. But DC films are vulnerable to what the rest of WB is doing, despite the success of "The Dark Knight". Marvel runs its own dedicated studio which gives it greater control over projects (of course, they've hocked out so many properties over the years there are reasons for why they are often using revised / Ultimate versions of their characters) but were hedging their bets in 2009 in case their two initial films weren't successful, which is why the next major Marvel films are set for 2010.

"Watchmen" was to be the next big comic book film for WB, but Fox is screwing that up.

I wonder if there is any chance we'll ever see a Marvel Zombies movie.  Some suit probably would say "Umm, having our most marketable heroes eating people onscreen damages the brand"  :awesome_for_real:

Still, a man can dream...

Not to mention that Cary Elwes has grown a chucklehead in recent years.

(http://images.eonline.com/eol_images/Profiles/20060929/244.elwes.cary.092706.jpg)


I think Smallville actually presents the Green Arrow in a cool way.. He's similar to Bruce Wayne there. If a movie could do that, but with a more traditional/less high tech take, then maybe you could get a good movie out of it.

I would have liked a Jack Black Green Lantern though.

No it sucked because...
A) It was to "I am Jor-El the Second Coming of Jesus...watch the obvious over the top allusions and be amazed!"
B) ALL the acting sucked other Kevin Spacey. ALL of it.
C) Kate Bosworth? Really? Are you fucking kidding me? With a kid?
D) One little fucking ounce of kyrptonite renders him impudent but then he picks up an entire fucking island of it even if it is shielded in dirt? Fuck that noise.
E) ALL the acting sucked other than Kevin Spacey. Needs to be said again.

Actually, there's little point analysing what went wrong with Superman 3.

The answer is 'all of it'.

What really, really turned me off "Superman Returns" (maybe we need a new thread about it for the nerdrage) was Lois Lane's psychological Munchausen-by-proxy on Superman's kid. SHE MADE HIM WEAK with lots of "you're sick"-type comments and watching what amounts to child abuse on screen - of Superman's kid, no less - sucked any sympathy I had for the character right away.

Spacey was the right actor for Luthor, but I agree with everyone who thought Superman needs another villain to take on in a film.

As for "Wolverine": Jackman really needs a hit to make him look bankable again. I feel sorry for him in doing "Australia" - Baz Luhrman is only good for spectacle and I pity all those who believed that he'd create a film with some substance to it - and like him as an actor.

I'm sorry, but I couldn't help mysssssssssssself.

I would rather watch Elektra then Superman Returns.

That word being chosen was a result of using the spell checker. Now for the life of me I cant figure out how to spell what it is Im thinking of...impedent? impidant? You know as in unable to achieve erection?

Impotent. As in not potent. Not that I would know.  :oh_i_see:

Although I've got to say, I like the idea of Kryptonite rendering Superman impudent.

No, they already did Superman 3. It sucked ass.

Hey, Superman 3 with Richard Pryor was fantastic. Ok, it really sucked, except for that one scene where Superman splits into two and fights himself in the junkyard. Ok, it was gay on all sorts of levels, but a well-done super fight scene, something all the Superman movies had too little of.

Are there any straws left after that last post?

In the Wolverine/X-Men comics that I read for many years it was 100% implants. Originally they were part of his gloves and telescoped out, but that got retconned into being adamantium implants.

Also, what's this WW2 shit? What the fuck? This is why I don't bother with comics anymore. Well said, WUA.

The theory is that his "healing factor" makes him age more slowly, among other things, so he's much older than he appears.

I thought that was always part of his origin story? No one was really sure how old he really was or they were unaware when he was still trying to piece together his own background. Yes?

It wasn't really mentioned in the earlier comics, at least from what I recall. I don't think it was until the late 80s/early 90s that writers started to mess around with the idea of him being really really old.

Kevin Smith can write it, sure.  He must never, ever, ever, ever, ever be allowed behind a camera again, though.

That's what I thought. That's just sad though.

It also appears that in the film he's no longer Canadian? Seems to be storming Omaha Beach dressed in US kit..

Fuck, they may as well make him a Highlander. 700 years old. Fought int he crusades. I guess that might fuck slightly with him being an Americanadian, and decrease his massmarket idiot appeal, so they won't go there.  :why_so_serious:

Kevin Smith previously dropped out of doing the "Green Hornet" movie because he couldn't be bothered doing action films. So a "Green Arrow" film appears unlikely.

As for Wolverine's history: there's probably evidence of him being Abraham Lincoln, King George IV and Aristotle at various points in his life. He's magic that way.

I'm pretty sure he served in WWII in the comics (also that he fought alongside Cap), frankly they tended to play fairly loose with his historic Canadian citizenship. There was the period when he had that big connection with Japan as well (Obviously having been a ninja or something). It became one of the more tired parts of his character (mysterious past=Anything goes!) prior to him being a guest or character in almost every Marvel comic in more recent times.

I hope this manages to be a decent action flick without too much ridiculous Wolverine stuff. I also hope they never make a Deapool film. It wouldn't work, Hollywood would probably make it a generic action film with a vaguely angsty Wade being forced to kill people in order to save the world. I'd basically imagine Spiderman 3 with guns and a few innocents killed (oh and a redepmtion ending!)

Deadpool doing a disco lounge act?  Hrmm...

Couldn't they just get Ryan Reynolds, say "Be that dude from Blade Three, only less sane" and go from there?

Does it really need a plot? It's deadpool. He could stream of conciousnesss it while killing people. Works for me.

I'm not saying it couldn't be done (though I don't think any of the 4th wall stuff Deadpool can do so well would work) but I just expect movie execs to decide that it's an action film and needs seriousness and probably some sort of love interest. He's basically a psychopath and I can't see them wanting him as a big film's lead character so it would either wind up with angsty 'pool or low budget and shitty.

I HATED that "ooohh Logan is a samurai/ninja/bushido warrior" bullshit. It was during that period in the early 90's where every nerd in America was buying cheap reproduction samurai swords and ninja stars from the knife shop in the local mall.  Fucking STUPID.

I'm pretty sure that was more a symptom of the times than the Wolverine character.  At the very least, I know TMNT had more to do with that than a comic book character.

I stopped reading comics then. Don't remember Samurai stuff. The last things I was reading were like the graphic novel "Meltdown". Where Wolverine stopped wearing the suit and started morphing into a Biker. Which is cool with me.

Lawl.  Someone released a workprint of Wolverine and it's all over the torrents.  From what I've read its pretty basic, not all the fx and stuff, and is missing like 20 minutes of new material.

On Wolverine-the-character, the people who think comics themselves have gotten so hopelessly mired in continuity porn should stop by a comics shop and pick up the free "Wolverine Saga" that Marvel has released to try and hype the character.

It is possibly the most convoluted, incomprehensible characterization gibberish I have ever read. The worst possible 11-year old's scrawl about their own totally! awesome! superhero! that they have written a backstory for would look mature, interesting and streamlined compared to the accumulated backstory for Wolverine. The current state of things in the comic is that he participated in most key events in the 20th Century, including fighting in World War II; has been manipulated since he was a teenager by an immortal wolfman; has had his memory erased multiple times; has had relationships with most of Marvel Comics' female characters at some point in the past; has had several children that he's forgotten about, one of whom is now pretending to be Wolverine; has been a ninja AND a pirate. It just goes on and on: the most baroque rococo fanwank stuff you can imagine, it's in there.

And it looks like the film is taking its cue from this mountain of storytelling crud. Get ready for badness.

It was totally cool when he wore that eyepatch.

It was the best disguise ever.

Why would wolverine need an eyepatch?

I'm guessing Escape from New York came out or something at the time.

NERDRAGE! DEADPOOL NERDRAGE! (http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/news/x-men-origins-wolverine-solving-the-deadpool-mystery.php)

(http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/images/wolverine-trailer-mystery2-580x265.jpg)

(http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/images/wolverine-trailer-mystery1-580x265.jpg)

Reading not your strongpoint ?   :why_so_serious:

Seriously, at the time he was faking his death, so he put on an eyepatch.

I'm not kidding.  It was that fucking lame.  He still had the claws and the fucking stupid 'standout in any crowd' hair, but he had a patch.  Totally undercover.

So he's the most powerful being in the universe?

Have you ever seen the skit on SNL where the Rock plays Clark Kent? It's a pretty good rip on how stupid superman's 'disguise' was, with everyone at the daily planet goofing on him.

Didn't he go by the totaly awesome name "Patch" at the same time?

Should have greend it. Green'd? Greened? Green'ed? just said wolverine was a dumb fucking comic.

Everytime I see that footage of Deadpool, I keep thinking "Isn't that Omega Red?"

Omega red is a giant beast of a man. This movie is on the same level of spiderman 3 and X3. If you have no knowledge of attachment to the comic maybe you could enjoy it.

What problems Spider-man 3 and X3 had didn't have anything to do with whether or not one was familiar with the source material.  Also I've always thought the first two X-men movies had a lot of the same issues as X3.  All three of them have some pretty cool scenes strung together by a mediocre plot and bad pacing.  People were able to look past it in the first two movies since it was the comic book movie series that had a ton of super-powered characters on screen rather than just one hero and one villain.  X3 couldn't escape the bad hype it got for being rushed out despite the change in directors.  At the end of the day I don't think it was noticeably worse than the previous movies.

No the problems where much more fundamental than being accurate to the source material. I can watch X1-2 and Spiderman1-2. The third of both series is an extreme decline in quality. Clusterfucks of movies for so many reasons im not really going to get into it. Wolverine Origins if one has no concept or expectations to the content could be enjoyable. If you are even vaguely aware of the comics its neigh unwatchable.

I disagree.  X-Men 1's screenplay was put together by a first-time screenwriter who Singer literally hired to answer the phones initially and it shows.  Mystique was pretty much the only good villain in the movie, and Magneto's plan is dull and nonsensical.  X2 has the two best scenes in the series with the Nightcrawler scene and the attack on the school, but by the time it gets to the second half of the movie it's already used up all its best material.  You can turn the movie off after the scene with Pyro attacking the police.

I can understand your opinion just personally i will watch either of the first X movies. But wont even attempt to watch the third. Thats not me trying to imply either movies are great and without flaw. But X3 and Spiderman3 are completely ridiculous. There is a qualitative difference between them.

By the by, I'd encourage anyone interested in hearing David Hayter talk a bit about how he got the job doing X-Men to check out the Creative Screenwriting podcast on iTunes (in particular the Watchmen Q&A episode).  In fact if you find the writing side of making movies interesting at all, I'd suggest checking all their podcasts out.

Oh come off it Vel.  X-3 was technically far, far worse a movie.

Even if you ignore the laughable 'plot', the actual technical shit wrong with the movie was legion.  The one that sticks out in my mind is sunset over ripped bridge.

Similarly, Spiderman 3 was dire dire dire for much the same reasons.  So many scenes in that could have worked but just didn't.  Especially Parker turning 'Bad'.

Oh god do not remind me of the stupid bridge sunset shot followed immediately by a midnight attack. Um damn magneto is either really slow or they were having a lil dinner and a movie before deciding to actually attack.

I have to agree with Velorath here. X3 had a few more clunker scenes than X1, but not by much. Also, it showed a lot more thought into the movie version of the X-Men world than the previous films, which were just supermodels vs. super-uglies with vague homosexual rights overtones. X2 was probably the highlight of the series.

"Spider-Man 3" was definitely over-burdened with villains and much weaker characterisation than the previous Spider-Man films, but every "Spider-Man" film had its stupid moments. Spidey 1 had "We're Noo Yawkers who stand up for our own, so let's throw trash at the superpowered psychopath" and Spidey 2 had Doctor Octopus throwing a car through the window at who he thought was a normal person. Among others. But then I never got into the new "Spider-Man" films as some people did. To me the only thing they got really right was Spider-Man swinging through the city.

Yeah, thank god no other movie ever makes stupid mistakes like that (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120903/goofs).

 :uhrr:

Awesome.  A list of errors and problems with the film that I DIDN'T FUCKING NOTICE AT THE TIME.

What's your point ??


"Continuity: Character Henry Peter Gyrich's last name is incorrectly spelled Guyrich in the end credits."

Really ?

That's all you got ?

Not that I really know why I'm arguing here.  Dark Knight shit on every other comic book movie out there and this Wolverine is going to be Venom type fanwank of the highest order, so I guess I'm done. 

Hmmm.

That stupid gaffes happen in every movie and the one you mentioned for X3 wasn't really any worse than those listed for X1.  Certainly it didn't have any effect on anything happening in the movie.  It's just the kind of thing you'd see mentioned in the talkbacks on Ain't it Cool from people who were expecting to hate the movie long before ever seeing it (and who probably wouldn't have even noticed it if other people hadn't pointed it out first).

"OMG IT TURNED NIGHT TOO QUICKLY" isn't a reason to think a movie is shit.  Look at some of your favorite movies and I'm sure you can find a list of fuck-ups that somebody probably should have noticed when making the movie, and if that's the best you can do to explain why 3 was worse than 1, than I'm not really seeing your point.  As I've said, I'm no big fan of either one.  I've never had any desire to watch either movie more than the one time I saw each of them in the theater, and I can only sit through the first half of X2.  I imagine Wolverine will be the same.  There will be a handful of scenes that I'll find cool to see in live action on the big screen, and then I'll never need to see it again.

The "X3 sucked" crowd though seems to be comparing the movie to some brilliant director's cuts of the first two movies that I must not have seen.  They were all completely fucking average with a few highlights.


Edit:  If I had to choose between buying all three movies on DVD, or just one DVD with just the best scenes from each movie on it, I'd choose the latter.  I'd be hard pressed to come up with any scenes from the first movie to include though beyond the "you're a dick" line.

Trouble here is, even though I agree with your point that the fact it managed to turn from sunset to midnight in the space of a frame edit was shocking film-making, this wasn't the real problem with the scene.

The real problem can be accurately summarised by saying "What, was it too hard to find a fucking ferry, Magneto?".

Pointless spectacle is pointless spectacle.

A vulgar display of power is a vulgar display of power. Magneto could have had all the Evil Mutants arrive by Greyhound bus if he was looking for efficiency.

Not to speak for every nerd who had issue with "X-Men 3" (and yes, it had some awful scenes - emo Cyclops, the "we're going to close the school, everyone look sad, oh wait Angel wants to join so let's leave it open" bit, that it was suffering from franchise character bloat) but I think a lot of internet rage was built up before the film even came out when Singer departed and Ratner came on board. When it wasn't pure gold, it was easy to stick the knives in. I put X-3 at about the same rating as X-1 - 3 stars, not great, not awful, sometimes unintentionally hilarious.

But it doesn't work when all you're doing is transporting your rag-tag bunch of social misfits and mutant criminals over a body of water, only to have them all be slaughtered by cure-gun toting guards/X-men because you were too damn stupid to use the immense power it took to move the bridge in the first place and just fucking drop it on the pharmaceutical facility.

Magneto wanted a war and he wanted martyrs. He let the pawns go first for a reason although his plan didn't work out in the end since he was defeated.

I'm sure we can argue this until "Wolverine" comes out, too.  :awesome_for_real:

I hated X-3 primarily for the awesome decision that Wolverine was the natural team leader to take charge of the X-Men. Because nothing screams responsible team leader like 'border-line sociopath incapable of forming normal human relations who's never been in charge of a group of people before'. Really, there is nothing about the Wolverine character that seems to make him well suite for a leadership role besides the fact he's 'cool'.

Amen!  Cyclops will always be the leader of the XMen to me.  Hell the dude even saved his family AND Superman.

Cyclops is not an easy character to like or be a fan of because he's generally written so heartbreakingly poorly. Same can be said for Storm.

Read Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-men run. He made Cyclops great again.

I think X3 and Spidey 3 were poorer than the others too.. I don't think it's just a crappy source material problem though. Both of those movies were projects that got hampered by cast/crew changes. X3 lost the Cyclops actor and Brian Singer. So they got a crap journeyman type of director and wrote in a crap Cyclops dismissal, and it suffered for it. Spidey 3 was originally written as a Vulture/Sandman story, with Raimi picking Ben Kingsley to be Vulture. It probably would have been interesting. For whatever reason, it changed, Vulture and Kingsley were dropped, and Raimi caved in to a Venom storyline. Who knows, even that might have been good if it wasn't an afterthought.

Cyclops wasn't well done in any of the "X-Men" movies. "X-Men 3" losing James Marsden to "Superman Returns" (where he was again the guy standing between the main character and his girl, but at least got some characterisation) wasn't that big a deal.

It's not like I give a shit about Marsden or Cyclops particularly. It's just never good to hack in plot and character changes in the way they did. It's not good to do it with even minor characters, let alone a big one.

Anyhow, losing Bryan Singer was the real loss, so I'm only mentioning cyclops as a sidenote to that. In addition to losing Marsden and Singer though, I believe they also lost Singer's two buddies who did the previous X scripts. They were his resident comic book geeks, I think. All 3 together had a decent enough groove going on, I think. I didn't really like the first X-Men when it came out (it grew on me later), but X2 was an accomplishment. I think they could have carried on with that level of quality if they didn't leave.

There certainly were changes, but Singer going to "Superman Returns" certainly wasn't a masterstroke in his career. I'd rather watch "X-3" than "Superman Returns" again (but then I do have an irrational rant for one particular point in the Superman reboot).

Hmm, that's tough. I don't really like either, but I probably would watch X3 more as well. Only because Famke is still cool and gorgeous.. even in her MILFY-emo incarnation.

Another thing missing I forgot to mention though was Alan Cumming. Maybe not crucial, but he was my favorite part of X-2, and just one of my favorite current actors in general. I believe he pulled out simply because makeup was a bitch, and he was a smoker. Haha. Explanation for his disappearance seemed like a hackjob to the storyline too.

Apparently this is really really shit (http://www.sbs.com.au/films/movie/3211/X-Men-Origins:-Wolverine).

http://www.abc.net.au/atthemovies/txt/s2542553.htm

I downloaded the leaked Workprint. If you know the story about Wolverine and anyone else (especially Deadpool) you'll be slightly dissapointed. If you want a movie where he just tears shit up, it does ok on that front. Over all I was left with a very "meh" feeling about it.

If this is shit, don't blame Hugh Jackman. He's an amazing guy.

With an interesting arrangement: Hugh, Deborra-Lee, John (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0657561/) and the kids. Loving life, across from the Opera Center (http://www.theage.com.au/news/entertainment/film/opera-center-message-not-my-fault-jackman/2009/04/08/1238870023093.html).

Edit: Google cache (http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:8A3aagnbaIIJ:www.eonline.com/uberblog/the_awful_truth/b72973_hugh_jackmans_strange_setup.html).

He is, but he's also producer on this and made a lot of calls about the movie. If it is bad then he does take responsibility for it. His production company has got a pretty ordinary record (the US version of "Blackpool" that was cancelled after one show, the erotic thriller with Ewan McGregor and Jackman that I can't even remember the name of).

I've seen really really shit movies, and while Wolverine didn't make it past average, it didn't reach anywhere near say, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull or Eagle Eye on the shit scale, damning with faint praise though that may be.

MEH.

It's a mediocre film that had the chance for being a good movie.  This movie could have been 10x better just with ample time given to Ryan Reynolds, and set up a Deadpool movie.

With hugh jackman and at least a somewhat awareness of wolverines backstory even just focusing on the origins plot. There is no reason what so ever it should not be anything but awesome. And the deadpool ass raping is just the cherry on the top. most people have no fucking clue who he is.

Just saw it.  I'm surprised because the special effects were awful.

The rest is meh.

I liked it.  :grin:

Okay i went and saw it. I went with an open mind and was mildly entertained. The side of me that is a serious x-men nerd is outraged. :heartbreak:

Thats how I felt. They butchered his story.

Also, how is it that 4 movies in and the CGI on his claws was the worst in this one? I mean really? It kind of felt like the movie was sent out to 3 different editing and CGI teams, and then just sort of patched together for release. It felt like some of the movie was really polished and well done, with other bits where done by their interns.

I've only seen the promo stuff and the claws looked awful. Very fake and the color and shading was way off from the rest of the frames. In the promo material!

To be fair, the title character has one of the most convoluted and piecemeal backstories in comics.

 I really didn't like it, at most my experience with X-Men I knew was some of the crappy 90's comics, the x-men movies and the Fox after school cartoon series.

The story was horrible and here's the issues I had.


I still cannot believe how many unexcusable plot holes the movie had, it was worse then The Transporter's second truck of slaves and that was pretty f'n bad.

This. I get annoyed when things stray from the way they should be, or canon, and such, but when it comes to Marvel characters (never read much else for comics, so couldn't expand beyond that) I don't understand much of the hate on not respecting the back story and such. Marvel, especially X-men and Wolverine back stories are.. well, convoluted and often atrocious mangling of the potential.

Never mind all the alternate universe/time line crap they engaged in. You could have Cyclops as the love child of Hitler and Stalin and still have it work out in that universe because of all those alternate this and that bullshit.

That said.. it should be hard to screw up Wolverine. He's a cool character, in my view, in part because he does what "most" good super-heroes won't -- he'll kill people and not be a whiny brat about it afterwards. I didn't dislike the movie, but was surprised/disappointed in the wasted potential.

He also has the advantage of a current series entirely focused on his fucking origins.

Given how good Red Son was, I'd read it.

In fact if they stuck too closely to Wolverine's backstory as it now stands, he'd have learned that he has mohawked son with the same powers except he only has two claws on each hand.  Wolverine also may or may not part of a race of mutants who are descended from wolves, and was fated to come into conflict with Sabertooth because generation after generation, a blond lupine and a dark haired lupine are always destined to emerge from the pack and will fight until one of them is dead.  Also for a long time apparently, Logan's ability to come back from fatal injuries was not due just to his healing factor, but due to him fighting the Angel of Death in Purgatory, allowing Wolverine to come back to life when he wins.

It's kind of hard to fault the people who did the movie for fucking up Wolverine's backstory, when the folks at Marvel already fucked up his backstory so spectacularly.

In four pages there is nothing here that makes me want to see this any time soon. Oh well. I was excited about it.

There is a tiny chance we get a cool Deadpool movie out of this.

Although if I'm going to be optimistic I should keep it realistic and drop ten grand on lottery tickets.

I was never into comics and I thought the movie was entertaining.  It wasn't OMG awesome, but it was still decent.

You guys nerd rage too much, but that's what you guys do.

I always thought it funny (as Velorath notes) that people thought there would be a good Wolverine origin movie since Wolverine's origin is one of the most borked thing in comics.

The weapon x origin book was awesome when I was in my 13's.  :oh_i_see:

Alot of my friends that didn't really read alot of comics, have all liked the movie so far.  They admit it isn't like awesome, but consider it a decent summer action flick.

Which is really all it needs to be.  An action movie that you can forget about worrying too much on and one that makes money for the studio.  Runaway hits that do hundreds of millions of dollars are really more the exception to the rule than anything else - it's what the studios want but usually doesn't get.  Gigli and Pluto Nash-like performances are what you want to avoid really.

Development on a Deadpool movie is officially underway. (http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118003226.html?categoryid=13&cs=1)

I think you meant critically acclaimed runaway hits.  Anywhere from 15 to 20+ movies do upwards of $100 million in sales (27 did over $100 million last year),  but almost all of them are given the 2 to 2.5 stars (ie, mediocre popcorn fare) while some take a critical drubbing while still selling well (Indy).

Really, last year was completely out of the norm as you had a couple of the big "event" summer movies also garnering pretty glowing critical praise,  Iron Man and Dark Knight in particular.  Both those movies showed up on many reviewers "best of 2008" lists.  Even Hancock, Wanted, Get Smart, etc. all reviewed very well for summer movies.

Essentially,  Wolverine is your standard big budget summer event action movie.  As long as it does that well, who cares?  It's not like the other X-men movies were anything but mediocre popcorn fare.

Awesome! I seriously dont understand why this guy isnt making $20 million a movie in Hollywood. He is fucking fantastic. Hilarious. I loved him Blade 3 as well. He is the master of the witty retort, or at least all his characters tend to be and he pulls it off well. Glad to see he will finally get top billing in a movie.

The only good thing about Blade 3 was that it reminded me of Parker Posey's better movies.

This movie was a block of Colby Longhorn.  Pure cheese.

I kept this in mind as much as possible (since it's true) and it was rather enjoyable.  Less so than Star Trek, which I watched immediately after from the handicapped seats (these are the most awesome seats in the theatre), but I didn't feel I wasted my time.  It still helps if you don't think about things too much.

Agreed.  I love Ryan Reynolds.

He is almost as awesome as Billy Zane.

Not even close.

I'd have had Billy Zane play Nero in Star Trek instead of Bana.

Bana was a bit wasted. Zane would be awesome as a Federation Captain with an ego bigger than Kirk's.

Wheres that Easter Egg ending the Deadpool spinoff article talks about? I stayed in the cinema until they kicked me out and only saw the Striker thing and Wolverine taking a drink. Anyway - yay!

On to Wolverine. Mediocre movie, nothing to watch twice or write home about, but you were entertained if you ignored the plotholes you could drive a truck through.

Some prints have Wolverine drinking, and others have Deadpool.

Damnit!

Really, you didn't miss much.

So, I finally saw this last night. Entirely watchable, pretty much entirely forgettable.

Liev Schriber was awesome though.

Just watched it after having already seen the leaked version. I wont even get into the plot and character raping that is 90% of the movie. How the fuck does a movie like this end up with such horrid CGI? It looked to be of substantially lower quality than the original x-men. Jean luc looked like some kind of mix between Michael Jackson and a Thai transvestite

when my friend told me they just copy pasta his head over someone else's body i didn't believe him. But i suppose that may be why he looked so awkward.

Like, Tagliatelle ?