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In which the first X-Men film turns 25 (and holds up remarkably well).
X-PLAINED:
- A startling absence
- The X-Men’s big-screen debut
- An X-film that might have been
- X-Men (2000), in general; and related publications
- Some very casting
- What makes a good adaptation
- Wolverine’s hair
- Those costumes
- The cinematic X-Men
- The cinematic Brotherhood
- Sabretooth’s eyebrows
- Condensed backstories
- The movie magic of magnetism
- The worst toy of all time
- Going to school with superheroes
- Things we’d like to have seen in the movie
NEXT EPISODE: The origin of Thunderbird! (Not that one.) (Or that one.)
The visual companion to this episode is the film X-Men (2000).
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Good stuff, guys! Not sure I can watch it again given Singer, but maybe I’ll try sometime. I remember X2 being even better. Trivia: Kevin Feige’s first producer credit. And we had no idea what was to come.
That toy is called Newton’s Cradle. Also, I’ve only seen James Marsden in this and Westworld. Between those roles, he has big runner up energy. Does he have a good starring role anywhere?
Oh, and I just dug out Patrick Stewart’s autobiography. When Lauren Shuler Donner approached him in 1997 he had no idea about the X-Men, and wasn’t interested in more sci-fi. But then he got talking to Singer and aired all his issues. Singer then talked him around by pitching similarities between Picard and Professor X. At that time, Stewart didn’t know McKellen very well either!
Further, he met Hugh Jackman right before Jackman did his test. Stewart, McKellen, Berry, and Marsden all thought he had that ‘it’ factor. Afterwards, Jackman thought he failed until a producer announced that he was Wolverine.
Then Stewart met the rest of the cast. He remembered Paquin from the Piano, but no mention of meeting Jannsen in TNG. Maybe he mentioned that earlier, in the TNG section. Singer was a focussed and borderline authoritarian director, but it turned out great in the end.
Chapters 20 and 21 if anyone goes looking for it.
It’s more of an X2 and X3 thing I think, but I love that neither Patrick Stewart nor Ian McKellan could actually play chess at all, so all their clever (and real) chess games were choreographed beforehand and they just had to remember to move the pieces correctly.