X MEN FIRST CLASS TRAILER

[Gotham Knight]

The official word is that this is in continuity.  It has had to exclude many of the true 'first class' students because, as we all know, in X-Men 1, most of them appear and are fairly young, Jean and Summers are in their thirties, and Iceman is just a student. Similarly in X-3, Angel is a young man.  This first class film takes place at least 40 years prior. Do the math.

Personally, I think Laura Donner Schuller has had her 'come to Jesus moment' and will undo her mistakes. And I have nothing but optimism at this point. With Singer back, and Wolverine 2 having a shot at being better than it's idiotic predecessor, I can't help but be excited. Furthermore, though WB's Jack the Giant Killer prevented Singer from directing First class, it's pretty much a sure thing that he will direct X-Men 4, and salvage the franchise.

[johnnygobbs]

Ideally, this would be one of the franchises that got a reboot so that we could start with a proper origin story featuring the 'classic' first class (i.e. Cyclops, Jean Grey, Angel, Ice-Man and The Beast).  However, in the absence of such a reboot this will more than suffice.  Judging by the trailer this could be the best X-Men film yet (although to be perfectly honest I was never that taken with Singer's X-Men movies), and although I am fairly ambivalent about Wolverine overall I have high hopes for the second film bearing in mind that Darren Aronofsky will be directing it.

[Furstmobile]

Yeah I can't wait to see what Aronofsky's Wolverine will be like, it's gonna be strange, and hopefully awesome.

My guess is that this new movie is designed to go either way, if it doesn't do well then it's just a another prequel to the Singerverse, and if it's huge success then'll they go their own way in the sequels. Capturing the "spirit" of the first two movies seems to be the main goal.

This movie doesn't look as good as X2 though, or even X1. Singer was the bomb.

Am I supposed to believe that Emma Frost actually got younger over the years? Beast started out cat-like and then turned into Fraiser later in life?

[The Dark Knight]

This movie doesn't look as good as X2 though, or even X1.

I don't know about that.

I'm actually very excited to see this. The reviews have been positive.

[gordonblu]

I'm willing to see it. Time-periods are always good, but without certain characters, I wonder if it will really FEEL like X-men to me.

[BatmAngelus]

I'm excited, too.  I always liked the idea of a Magneto movie that covered the friendship between Charles and Erik and how it fell apart.  Combining that premise with a prequel featuring younger X-Men characters seems like a smart choice since Charles and Erik started the school together and recruited those mutants anyway.  Combining that with the 1960s and having the mutants first form to stop the Cold War from escalating is actually an awesome idea and it's cool that we get to see the blue-and-yellow uniforms from the original comics.

[johnnygobbs]

I'm excited, too.  I always liked the idea of a Magneto movie that covered the friendship between Charles and Erik and how it fell apart.  Combining that premise with a prequel featuring younger X-Men characters seems like a smart choice since Charles and Erik started the school together and recruited those mutants anyway.  Combining that with the 1960s and having the mutants first form to stop the Cold War from escalating is actually an awesome idea and it's cool that we get to see the blue-and-yellow uniforms from the original comics.

Agreed BatAngelus.  This is the first X-Men film I feel genuinely excited about mainly because it appears to steer closer to the comic-books than its prececessors (despite necessary liberties taken with the make-up of the 'first class' in view of the previous films).

I'm particularly excited to see a 'good' Magneto before his descent to the 'dark side', particularly since he is being played by the brilliant Michael Fassbinder, and although this is admittedly very shallow, January Jones does look hot as Emma Frost.

[Azrael]

Yeah, Fassbinder as Magneto sold me to this film.

[gordonblu]

Fassbender IS the major selling point, and a lot of the reviews I've read tend to single him out as the highlight!

[BatmAngelus]

Anyone see this yet?  I saw it a couple days ago and was a little disappointed.  Don't get me wrong, I still liked it, but I wanted to like it more.  The cast is certainly talented and McAvoy and Fassbender play off each other just as well as Stewart and McKellen did (but much differently).  Unfortunately, scriptwise, I was never really as emotionally engrossed in it as I wanted to be and found myself questioning some of the creative choices. 

There's a lot of characters and ideas here for a 2+ hour film and while I appreciated the ambition, I couldn't help but feel like some moments and supporting characters were shortchanged or portrayed in a cheesier manner than I expected. 

Xavier is given more depth and development than in the previous films since he's more of a protagonist, but I'm not entirely convinced that the writers brought him to his full potential in terms of his attitude towards humans and having him be a part of the action (since he can use his legs in this movie).  Still- I love Patrick Stewart, but McAvoy's Xavier was much more interesting for me to watch.

Magneto has been praised the most and suitably so, but I also felt like his inevitable turn to darkness was overshadowed by how they wrote Shaw/Kevin Bacon, who seemed to have a Magneto-like agenda and worldview already, making the future Magneto of these movies seem a little less unique to me.  As much praise as Fassbender's getting, I still prefer McKellen in the helmet.

Mystique is also given much more to do dramatically than in the previous films, but some of the dialogue they gave her came across as corny to me.  Her character's relationship with Xavier is interesting and her interplay with Hank McCoy works well, but her best scenes are with Magneto.

There were three characters, though, that I thought were really shortchanged, to the detriment of the film. 
1) Rose Byrne's Moira character seems to have had an arc or, at least some kind of subplot with Xavier, that was left on the cutting room floor.
2) Alex Summers/Havok is introduced with some interesting elements, but his backstory is suddenly forgotten for the rest of the film, so any potential for him to be interesting or stand out from the others is lost.
3) Angel Salvadore becomes a blank slate about halfway through the film when they stop giving her lines and character motivation.