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Logan-First R Rated Wolverine Movie?


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On 3/8/2017 at 2:30 PM, Kalbear said:

Now that I'm at my computer I can go into depth a bit more, since it's pretty heavily spoilery.

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The movie starts out pretty well, establishing the sad pathos of Logan and Charles and the pathetic dream they have, along with the introduction of Laura. The opening fight sequence was great with a lot of largely decent choices, though I don't understand why they weren't attempting to kill Logan more at that point. I love how Laura is incredibly deadly but can't defy the laws of physics, and bigger men can overpower her and use leverage to hold her down. Reminded me a lot of Hit-Girl. 

Getting on the road to Oklahoma and the casino scene was also good, and established more of Charles and Laura, and the seizure/paralysis scene was oddly compelling. 

But then the movie kind of goes off the rails. Logan et al deciding to hang out at a house and never attempting to determine how they're being tracked was stupid; they never once think about how they were followed or why the dudes show up at the casino. Weapon X-24 being the enemy was fine, I guess, but not as satisfying as I'd like; it felt like the only mutations worth a damn in this world were Logan's, and while thematically it worked it wasn't interesting from a combat perspective. Caliban going out with a bang was cheezy, especially when he had done so much to hurt the others. And the only real danger that the thugs presented seemed to be in killing innocent bystanders. 

The next parts - of Laura and Logan fighting and coming to grips with the trip and Logan's mortality - were good. Eden, however, was not. Laura required massive help to get to where they needed to go, but the rest of the kids appeared to be able to travel easily from Mexico to North Dakota without any help or transportation, and most of them aren't remotely as capable as Laura is. We don't even get any exposition on how they did it. We don't even get a hint from Gabriella that they did - the last we saw was them running out of the base haphazardly. But they're all there, at Eden, and ready to go over - and thanks to a fairly stupid clue (why does both the comic book AND the picture have the coordinates?) the bad guys are there at the precise time they're going to cross. 

And instead of grabbing them at the house when they're sleeping, they wait for them to attempt to cross. 

And instead of the kids fighting back at all, they are just running randomly through the forest. The kids have been at least somewhat trained in fighting; why aren't they going after these guys? Why are they running like it's a game of Red Rover? Heck, why is Transgen even interested in them, given that they've shown zero interest in the kids prior to this? At this point everyone is acting stupidly - the villains, the heroes, everyone. 

I don't even mind the adamantium bullet thing, as implausible as it would be (if adamantium could cut/penetrate adamantium Logan shouldn't ever be able to block the claws of Weapon X-24, as an example). It worked fine and was thematic and absurdly telegraphed. Logan dying was good. But the whole fight felt bizarrely capped. Pierce never really materialized as a capable villain or an intelligent one, never was a particular threat, and ended up being just a crap bully. Rice was meh as well. 

It was one of the better superhero stories and the R rating definitely helped. The acting was great, especially Stewart and Jackman. But the plot felt oddly disengaging to me.

 

This guy gets it! Especially that last paragraph. Good write-up on the film overall!

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On 3/9/2017 at 6:34 AM, Calibandar said:

I think I'd agree with this. Though like you I make the qualification that up and including the casino scene, it's fine.

 

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I even liked the scenes at the house. They are aware they are being tracked of course, Logan keeps insisting that they should leave, but Charles just wants to stay because as he says, he hasn't had such a good evening in years. I agree that the kids not fighting back was really surprising, that made no sense to me given their powers. Zombie Logan did not work for me, just choose something else.

 

Which is why he's right that 

Spoiler

he doesn't deserve that night, and he dies.

Clearly a pretty selfish move.

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2 hours ago, Castel said:

Which is why he's right that 

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he doesn't deserve that night, and he dies.

Clearly a pretty selfish move.

I think there is a bigger and much better explanation for this scene. 

Xavier absolutely knows that the family is in real danger and is willing to sacrifice their lives. He is trying to awaken something in Logan so mutants can be preserved and it works. The family was an acceptable causality.

I actually watched a Patrick Stewart interview where he said as much.

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Finally saw it and it hit me much harder than I thought it would. They finally made a great X-Men movie and it's the swan song of the old X-Men movies. They included much that made me very happy: Woverines' brutality, Donald Pierce and The Reavers who were a part of my some of my favorite X-Men comics*, and The New Mutants. I had been so disappointed by the past X-Men movies that I hadn't really read up much on this. But I got really excited hen I saw the Reaver with the mohawk (that's beheaded by Laura) and while he's not named I instantly knew him as Bonecrusher. Also when Rictor was introduced and later Logan said "There are no more new mutants!" I about had a nerdgasm. :P

Ultimately, the ending REALLY got to me. I had tears in my eyes and I looked over and my daughter did, too. It took them to the end, but they finally got the X-Men right. I do hope they make New Mutants movies and have Laura as the new lead. She was fantastic.

*The Reavers were a gang of cyborgs who had taken over  an Aussie Outback town and had a mutant Aborigine teleport them around the world for scores. That was until the X-Men showed up and beat the crap of them. They later returned with Donald Pierce and it was them that forced Havoc, Dazzler, Colossus and Psylocke to escape into a magical devise called the Siege Perilous. That was how Psylocke went from British telepath to Asian Ninja telepath. Later the Reaver captured Wolverine and crucified him to a wooden x. He was able to ecape thanks to Jubilee. Later the Reavers attacked Muir Island trying to kill mutants and were fought off by Mystique's Freedom Force but at heavy loss. Those were great comics. :) 

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17 hours ago, Howdyphillip said:

I think there is a bigger and much better explanation for this scene. 
 

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Xavier absolutely knows that the family is in real danger and is willing to sacrifice their lives. He is trying to awaken something in Logan so mutants can be preserved and it works. The family was an acceptable causality.

 

I actually watched a Patrick Stewart interview where he said as much.

Really? Can you link it? 

I mean, if you just mean that 

Spoiler

 

he wants to show Logan family, a light at the end of the tunnel, then sure, I'd tack that on to his existing selfish goals. 

Either way, I think it's fitting that he eats it there. It was a moment for him (and maybe Logan) and, if the family are going to bite it so he can have a night he "doesn't deserve" then good that he bites it too.

 

 

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On 08/03/2017 at 9:27 AM, red snow said:

Maybe they only heard about Bryan Cranston wanting to play Sinister while "logan" was being filmed and they demoted mad scientist guy so they can have sinister in another film.

I refuse to believe this if only because Richard E Grant was absolutely born to play Mr Sinister.

Saw the film tonight: I give it a solid 4 out of 5. It's good, but I had some issues with it. Such as:

Caliban was a pure plot device with near to zero personality. I never got a sense for who he even was, what he wanted in life, what he felt about anything beyond the really obvious (dislikes being burned). Not Stephen Merchant's fault, he does his best, but the film is pretty much not interested in him.

A problem Caliban shares with Pierce is that they bear only superficial resemblances to the comics characters they're based on, but the film versions aren't really strong enough to stand on their own. The rest of the Reavers are bland goons. Their cyborg parts are window dressing. You have a cyborg gang! Do something cool with that! Or, just have them drive around and shoot guns I guess. The guy with the mohawk probably isn't even intended to be Bonebreaker.

Killing off Eriq LaSalle's family was harsh but I did like that he tried to shoot Logan too at the end. I would have.

More seriously, I think the film overplayed Logan not wanting to get involved with Laura, beyond the point where it was believable. This is a character who has been beaten down by life, yes, but at the same time they keep it going to the point where he begins to come off as not so much conflicted as just being an ass. It undercuts his eventual sacrifice a bit, for me. I'd feel that more if he and Laura had more tender moments first.

The setting is a little weird as I'd expected it to be more of a lawless, chaotic setting for some reason. But the focus on the characters is so tight that in the end I didn't get a good sense of the wider world outside them. Mostly it just seemed like right now, but with random cyborgs.

On the other hand, the film has a lot of good points too. It's well written, pretty well focused on a personal plot, has some great action, doesn't talk down to the viewer (much), deals with some weighty issues of aging and mortality, and takes risks that mostly pay off. I didn't find any of the plot points people have listed confusing - Westchester incident, Eden, mutant shortage. They all came across quite clearly. Logan fighting X-24 was a good idea well executed, IMO. And I like that this is a film that focuses on two aging characters facing their mortality, not just in terms of death but decrepitude, something Hollywood doesn't usually like, and with no romantic sub-plot whatsoever. It was a refreshing take, original, and that gets a lot of points from me.

Still not the Wolverine movie of my dreams, but a solid film I very much enjoyed.

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On 08/03/2017 at 6:27 AM, red snow said:

 

.

Maybe they only heard about Bryan Cranston wanting to play Sinister while "logan" was being filmed and they demoted mad scientist guy so they can have sinister in another film.

 

 

 

 

Sinister is just too damn powerful for a senile Xavier and dying Logan to have any chance of beating them by themselves.

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11 hours ago, mormont said:

I refuse to believe this if only because Richard E Grant was absolutely born to play Mr Sinister.

 

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Still not the Wolverine movie of my dreams, but a solid film I very much enjoyed.

 

Which does raise the question of why the hell he wasn't revealed at least as Nathan Essex. Given the set up from X:apocalypse and the fact Grant looks a plausible Sinister why didn't they? They decided they wanted someone else to play Sinister elsewhere? I'm not sure where they'd have Sinister turn up in other films though. PRobably not in a Dark Phoenix storyline. Maybe in Deadpool 2 because of the Cable Connection? New Mutants - I don't think so. X-force - maybe? Weirdly he may be a better fit in the new show they are developing which seems to have a lot of mutants in it and I could imagine Sinister working as a regular threat. I doubt they'd remove Sinister from a movie for a TV show though.

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9 hours ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

 

Sinister is just too damn powerful for a senile Xavier and dying Logan to have any chance of beating them by themselves.

Also he's a little too silly looking to be in Logan, which on the whole seemed far more grounded and gritty compared to the colourful clownishness of Apocalypse.

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2 hours ago, red snow said:

Which does raise the question of why the hell he wasn't revealed at least as Nathan Essex. Given the set up from X:apocalypse and the fact Grant looks a plausible Sinister why didn't they?

Because there was no real coordination between the people making this movie and the the people making Apocalypse. I read an interview the other day where someone asked Mangold why we got two different versions of Caliban inside of a year and he said as much. 

Quote

“It’s a funny, messy story of how so often these things are not as coordinated as everyone thinks. I actually had written him into our movie, and they didn’t know [he was] in Apocalypse, and then they kind of wrote it in their movie, and they cast someone in their movie and I had not seen it and was working away on mine.”

http://www.slashfilm.com/caliban-in-logan-and-x-men-apocalypse/

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40 minutes ago, RumHam said:

Because there was no real coordination between the people making this movie and the the people making Apocalypse. I read an interview the other day where someone asked Mangold why we got two different versions of Caliban inside of a year and he said as much. 

http://www.slashfilm.com/caliban-in-logan-and-x-men-apocalypse/

to me it feels like the post-credits scene of Apocalypse fits nicely into what sets up the world in "logan" to be a happy coincidence. Although that post credit scene could have been filmed long after Apocalypse was.

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I came into the movie of the opinion that it didn't really tie into any of the other movies, and was simply based on the characters from the comics, using roughly the same actors as some of the other movies. That really helped. I don't even see The Wolverine as having much to do with the Xmen movies, nor does Origins. 

I don't think there is any value at all in trying to view these movies as a single universe. They aren't. They are just individual stories told with the same actors.

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On 15/03/2017 at 4:46 PM, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

I came into the movie of the opinion that it didn't really tie into any of the other movies, and was simply based on the characters from the comics, using roughly the same actors as some of the other movies. That really helped. I don't even see The Wolverine as having much to do with the Xmen movies, nor does Origins. 

I don't think there is any value at all in trying to view these movies as a single universe. They aren't. They are just individual stories told with the same actors.

A bit like virtually every Bond film. I guess an issue is that they try and establish them as joined up. I'm not certain I'd have enjoyed the film as much without the knowledge of Xavier and Logan throughout the franchise though. It adds a lot of weight to where they end up and how they failed. If Logan was just Logan then there'd be an element of "what did Xavier ever do?" We need a feeling of what his goals were to see how badly he's failed. I'd be curious how people who haven't seen an X-men/Wolverine film felt about it.

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Just now, red snow said:

A bit like virtually every Bond film. I guess an issue is that they try and establish them as joined up. I'm not certain I'd have enjoyed the film as much without the knowledge of Xavier and Logan throughout the franchise though. It adds a lot of weight to where they end up and how they failed. If Logan was just Logan then there'd be an element of "what did Xavier ever do?" We need a feeling of what his goals were to see how badly he's failed. I'd be curious how people who haven't seen an X-men/Wolverine film felt about it.

I guess so, but at the same time I didn't ever have the feeling that this was the only final story for Wolverine or Xavier. These movies are so loosely hung together you could go ahead and make another movie that directly contradicts the events of this one and I don't think it would bother me. Having gotten to know the characters already I guess made Logan more powerful, but I didn't really connect them that strongly with their characters in any of the previous movies.

For me they just represent archetypes of characters, rather than feeling like living breathing people.

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2 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

I guess so, but at the same time I didn't ever have the feeling that this was the only final story for Wolverine or Xavier. These movies are so loosely hung together you could go ahead and make another movie that directly contradicts the events of this one and I don't think it would bother me. Having gotten to know the characters already I guess made Logan more powerful, but I didn't really connect them that strongly with their characters in any of the previous movies.

For me they just represent archetypes of characters, rather than feeling like living breathing people.

Without a doubt they can do more stories for both characters and even ones that contradict this one. I think it would be more problematic to chain upcoming films to the depressing future of Logan. I mean Deadpool and New Mutants (will presumably be contemporary?) are going to be set at a time where the shit should have already hit the fan eg not much of a fun setting for either film. So while I fully agree with you that this film is best viewed as a "what if" or a possible future i still think they cash in by having it loosely fit with the others. eg

if we assume this is a continuation from DOFP then Logan is a man who's about 250 years old (he lived from the 1830s to DOFP (2020s) then back to 1970 and through to 2029. Not only a long time but he's had to watch at least several people he loved/cared for die twice and go through weapon x twice (but thankfully only through Wolverine Origins once :P). And he's seen the world fail twice (although I guess Logan future is still better than DOFP at least if you aren't a mutant)

But yes - these characters are archetypes and while seeing them interact with other franchises is fun - I'd much rather Fox, Marvel and DC put out great movies for that character over fitting them into an existing movie franchise. Although they don't have to be mutually exclusive eg Spider-man may fare much better from having other heroes around. With Deadpool and Logan (and their success) I think Fox are the most likley to go for continuity light done-in-one projects. It helps that the X-men films beyond X3 are a bit of a mess in terms of continuity anyhow - it's like fans just assume not to worry about it too much.

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I think the James Bond analogy is a good one, the way they seemed to mix and match actors and characters between movies, using Judi Dench for 2 different Bonds for instance. You just kind of get over it and understand that lack of continuity. 

I guess the difference is that Marvel are seemingly telling one big story and trying to connect all these dots together. The X-Men movies are almost stand alone, I didn't really need to have seen much of the previous movies to understand what Apocalypse was about. 

And like in Deadpool, the way they used Colossus, who was in the original movies but this was a completely different take on the character. I really like that there is the room to just play with these characters and do your own versions of them. I mean it seems to happen with the Comics.

I tried to read the X-Men comics from issue one all the way through past the Claremont era and even some of the recent stuff. There are periods where there is a continuity within them, but mostly there really isn't. I understand that the 6'4 Wolverine I see in comics now has very little relation to any Wolverine I grew up reading, and thats totally fine. 

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1 hour ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

I think the James Bond analogy is a good one, the way they seemed to mix and match actors and characters between movies, using Judi Dench for 2 different Bonds for instance. You just kind of get over it and understand that lack of continuity. 

I guess the difference is that Marvel are seemingly telling one big story and trying to connect all these dots together. The X-Men movies are almost stand alone, I didn't really need to have seen much of the previous movies to understand what Apocalypse was about. 

And like in Deadpool, the way they used Colossus, who was in the original movies but this was a completely different take on the character. I really like that there is the room to just play with these characters and do your own versions of them. I mean it seems to happen with the Comics.

I tried to read the X-Men comics from issue one all the way through past the Claremont era and even some of the recent stuff. There are periods where there is a continuity within them, but mostly there really isn't. I understand that the 6'4 Wolverine I see in comics now has very little relation to any Wolverine I grew up reading, and thats totally fine. 

Does anyone know what Apocalypse was about? :P It's probably a film where the less you've see of it, the more sense it makes.

That's one hell of an endeavour trying to read all the X-men comics. I think Claremont did have continuity (and character growth) but was prone to distraction by new ideas so more a case of him leaving threads dangling than having restarts. Although I guess he did start changing the cast quite a lot.

But Marvel/DC by their nature have to abandon continuity despite claims they maintain it. There's no way they can keep all those adventures and changes canon and it make sense. It's also a reason why the continuity ignoring (in the sense other comics don't have to follow on from them) stories do quite well eg Dark Knight Returns, All star Supeman, even Old Man Logan (although it's harder to find Marvel out of continuity stories).

 

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