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In which we do a thing and are not even sorry.
X-PLAINED:
- X-Men Origins: Wolverine
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Look, I’m just impressed you managed to hold off for this long.
Love and episode dedicated to this movie 😀
This movie proposes that penises always cause people to have heart attacks when viewed
A sitcom with Logan and the hudsons!
Yeah so strange for a big budget movie to not make sure his CGI claws such a big part of the character look better.
His cylinder-shaped bone-claws would have to be reduced\reshaped down to the shape that they end-up-as, minus the thickness of the metal-coating, for the final-shape to make sense
Each part of bone would have to have all material removed around it, (the rest is like the process of casting concrete) some form of form-work positioned around the bone minus the desired thickness, pouring the boiling lol metal into it,, after it dries remove form work, replace removed-material or let regrow.
.
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That’s a optional, free surgery, all Canadians are allowed to get anytime, here.
I actually have a mild retcon to explain Romulus which kinda actually ties into the rest of his episode via Wolverine’s credulity: Romulus’s main mutant power is he just suspends disbelief of anyone who meets him and just really wants Wolverine to think he’s badass so keeps making up more and more stuff.
As far as claw shape goes, Byrne used a mostly cylindrical cat-claw design, though you can see a bit of definition to them at times.
The first knife-claw design I can notice is in 1982, with Frank Miller on the Wolverine miniseries cover (no surprise, going for a katana feel) and Sienkiewicz in X-men vs. Dracula (you get a good look when Logan is trying to make a crucifix symbol).
Love the Runaways shout at the end
A few years ago I made a music video with my band inspired by Runaways and midway through preproduction with the director who’d been recommended to me I discovered he was also a massive Runaways fan and it’s still my favorite video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgUC9ygZAkw
Have Romulus and Stryfe ever hung out? I feel like those are two guys that would get on like a house on fire.
TIL that Saint Sebastian is in R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion” video, at 1:10. Thank you for the education! And yes, the arrows are very much placed not to mar the person’s torso.
I have seen this movie, many, many years ago, but don’t recall much.
One bit I DO remember is the disappointment that Bolt didn’t have a shining moment that jumped into my mind as soon as I saw his trailer.
The fact he was one who could casually move electricity around made him instantly the most deadly of them all, but it’s never addressed. Have him be faced down by the kill squad in his trailer and as the bad guy monologues Chris demonstrates that he can turn the lightbulbs off and on and the electric toys move, then looks a little sad, says “You know what else needs electricity? The brain” then just waves his hand the entire squad falls dead instantly, and then he just walks away and out of the movie on his own terms.
Even if that doesn’t happen, and he was taken out long range or something, we’d get a nice moment of him showing that they had been idiots to underestimate a power like that, and that when he wasn’t killing people on missions it wasn’t that he couldn’t, he just didn’t want anyone to know he could.
Excalibur’s Meggan has mentioned that, as an elemental, she could subtract elecricity from brains if she wanted to (She doesn’t) so maybe that’s what made me think of it.
Ah yes, the howling of the weasels, how well I remember it from those long summer nights of old. What WERE they thinking?
I actually rather like Gambit having his cards be under some sort of telekinetic control for cool effects during a live action fight scene. Given his whole power is about charging objects with kinetic energy and controlling it’s release, I can see it through that lens.
Also makes me think of married couple, stage magicians, mutants and professional thieves “Glamor and Illusion” from the old Scarlet Witch/Vision series in the 80’s. They secretly used their powers for their routines, and to rob from the wealthy, and Illusion’s power was that he could telekinetically control objects for a short time after he had touched them, so his card tricks were amazing!
I might try and No-Prize the smouldering ruins after Scott’s optic blasts by suggesting they’re down to friction, as the beams forcing their way through the solid walls and anything on them would generate heat via friction, even if they are force beams in and of themselves.
Romulus just seems like the “mutant power of murder” guy in X-Force, so over the top he’s just… not a character any more, he’s an instant running joke.
Logan – Ramin Karimloo
Sabretooth – Steven Pasquale or Timothy Hughes
Silverfox – Brook Simpson
Wraith – Elijah Malcomb or Joshua Boone
Deadpool – Jordan Litz (or Matthew Doyle if you want to give Wade the world’s hardest patter song, though I think Jordan Litz would be better for the dancing needed by the end)
Stryker – Connor Wilson
David – Marcus Choi
Bradley – Max Jenkins
Fred – Greg Hildreth
Gambit – Aaron Tveit (while I’d cast Karimloo for any X-Men musical, this is ONLY for origins Gambit. Normal x-men gambit I would go for Orville Peck because I’m sure he’d do an amazing and over the top accent and gambit is basically a cis male drag king)
Susan Stroman directs. A lot of her choices are questionable and THAT’S the charm. Book by Alex Timbers who is 100% in on the joke. Music by either a Simple Plan or Brandon Urie, who are not in on the joke.
I worked with Stroman once. She’s incredible.
She had a strong, clear vision and knew how to articulate it.
Oh don’t get me wrong. I love Stroman (you don’t direct The Producers to be the juggernaut it was without an assload of talent). She definitely takes bold and definitive swings and MOST of the times they connect. But when she misses, that can make it more noticeable (granted, that’s the case with most great theatre directors when they miss). But again, with a musical of this magnitude, I’d want something like that.
My favorite tidbit of this movie is that IT’S TROYE SIVAN WHO PLAYS YOUNG LOGAN. I’m really now dying to hear Miles dramatically read the lyrics to “Rush” in his Logan voice.
The odd thing is that my brother kept comparing the opening of Watchmen TO the opening of Logan in a “time moves quickly” montage back in 2009…so at least he could imagine Zach Snyder’s Logan.
I feel like “take an iconic character and take away what makes him iconic” is VERY late 00s superhero movie. Like, imagine the Joker but not really laughing or making jokes or having weird gag weapons….
“Actually I’m drinking to remember” is an amazing stupid movie line and I love it so hard.
I started listening during the pandemic and I finally caught up today!
I stopped reading X-Men after the Morrison run, and spent this whole time looking forward to hearing about the comics that followed.
🙁
Any chance of you folks doing an episode on Grand Design?
I’d love to hear you guys’ take on the comic itself and the situation surrounding the cartoonist.
We did have Ed Piskor talking about it as an upcoming series in episode 174
https://www.xplainthexmen.com/2017/11/174-ed-piskors-grand-design/