The final trailer for Dark Phoenix has arrived, and the X-Men will never be the same.
The X-Men do missions in space now. Cool. (If you like X-Men comics, you already knew that, we know.)
We get a better sense of the film’s arc in this one, as well as the beginnings of the plot, which is useful for context. We also see Magneto getting ready to absorb a few important life lessons in terms of his own limits. Yikes.
Dark Phoenix is coming to theaters on June 7th.
I kind of preferred the idea that Dark Pheonix was a metaphor for Jean’s own internal struggles/power but…maybe it will still play out that way.
@1 Lisamarie, one of the trailers I saw implicated that she’s directly responsible for killing her parents, so I didn’t get a feeling that they were claiming whatever was going on with Jean is external, but is internal. But it does seem to be driving that Charles closed her off from that part of herself, instead of addressing it and moving on, which is much similar to how X3 played it out. And if there is one thing I dislike about stories with a woman villain, it’s how much it tends to be built around the idea that the woman doesn’t have any agency in turning evil. It’s always because of what is done to them, instead of any decisions they make. That’s why a villain like Atia of Julii from Rome rules.
I literally haven’t kept up with any of these since First Class, as aside from Logan, they all seemed to be received with a small sigh of disappointment that they weren’t as good as they could have been. I don’t have time for ALL THE SUPERHEROES in my life(though I wish I did, I have to share my television with a partner who does not share my passion for them), so I chose to pass on them.
I don’t know the right way to do the Dark Phoenix story, but I’m pretty sure none of these have gotten it right yet.
Pout. I was so hoping at some point, we’d get to see the cinematic version of the Shi’ar, the disco bird people from SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!!!
@2 I think Emily did an essay for Tor about how the recent X-Men movies (which I’ve mostly enjoyed although Magneto has manpain to a ridiculous degree) have a tendency of forgetting their lessons. It had seemed to me in Apocalypse that Jean had embraced and come to terms with her power (and thus could avoid the Dark Phoenix) which I thought was cool. But…I guess not. Because….something something space. I mean – maybe it will end up being a bit more cohesive in the film :)
Hae you seen Solo? Your comment about women villains with agency is making me think of something, but I don’t want to spoil :)
Not sure if this movie will play out the same as in the original comics but there Jean chooses to bond with a cosmic force know as the Phoenix to save the rest of the team while in space. She becomes the most powerful Mutant on the team but as the story progressed the villain Mastermind messed with her mind to convince her to be the black queen of the hellfire club. After that she lost control of the Phoenix force & became dark Phoenix. Sorry if I spoiled a story that is like 40 years old now
@@.-@, Yes, I’ve seen it. I even called it with her character, because my partner was all “She’s gonna die, or how else do you explain why she’s not in the series” and I was all “People break up you know”.
Again, it’s questionable how much agency she has, given that she’s sold to the Crimson Dawn, but I did like she made the conscious decision NOT to run away with Han, and how it made you question her actions through the whole movie, and whether Harrelson’s character was right about her.
@5billiam
I know I’ve been told that story, and I vaguely recall watching it play out in the 90’s cartoon. I don’t know why the movies have avoided the cosmic side of the story, and instead made the Phoenix story wholly about Jean’s internal turmoil. I guess they’ve felt it was too cumbersome to fit into one story. But a better way to play this out, would have been to do a movie where Jean bonds with the Phoenix to defeat the villain, like perhaps Apocalypse, and then have the following film be about dealing with repercussions of that.
In the original comics Phoenix was the ultimate expression of Jean’s potential, with a smattering of quasi-mystical symbolism regarding death, rebirth, and destiny, both to save and endanger the universe. The closer they came to a “phoenix force” is when the Watcher says in the end of the Saga that through her death and rebirth Jean had become part of a universal force of passion/creation/distruction. The Phoenix Force as wholly separate entity was only introduced with the 1986 retcon in Fantastic Four/X-Factor.
I think with regard to Jean, I guess I just really enjoy character study type stories that are more about what we face inside ourselves, especially when it comes to darkness and power (and power is NOT the same as darkness, especially not in women). Regarding agency, I don’t know which is better in that regard, honestly. To me the whole ‘taken over by an alien entity’ to me has less agency but of course both types of stories can be done poorly or well.
Regarding Qi’ra – yup, exactly. I was actually pleasantly surprised, because honestly, I assumed she’d be disposed of/fridged in some way (because, yeah, of course people break up but that wouldn’t have the same emotional punch, and of course they disposed of Val despite her being one of the most interesting characters, imo). I’m in general not a fan of arcs that go towards evil, BUT I still appreciate that she was shown to have other parts of her life/personality that really had nothing to do with Han at all, and made what choices she could. And I agree there’s actually a lot of possible explanations as to her own agency there, which to me makes it interesting – is she acting out of fear? Or does she really want that power and has ambitions to run Crimson Dawn now? Or maybe she’ll go full on Dany and tear the whole system down ;) Is she just trying to make the best of a bad situation with what choices and power she DID have? We know when she was sold, she didn’t have any agency and her relationship with Dryden was obviously toxic and gross but she also had SOME influence and authority so to me it’s interesting to think about how she got there, and I wish they WOULD make a follow up because I want to know what she’s doing now, and what her motivations are.
I wouldn’t even classify her as a ‘villain’ yet at this point though. Possibly my favorite female villain recently has been Hela since she basically owns it. I mean, she’s a little less developed/nuanced than some of the other more favored Marvel villains, but I can also empathize with her rage at basically being shunted aside once Odin wanted to rewrite his narrative. “Whoever I am? Did you not listen to a word I said?”
@9, I liked Val a lot, and was sad her role ended abruptly, but in the end her death didn’t feel like fridging to me. But imagine the story if Beckett had died, and Han had teamed up with Val instead. Plus, HER warnings about Qi’ra’s would have taken a different tone than Becket’s, which came across to Han as rooted in bitterness over his own loss.
SIGH
And yes, Hela is another great example of a villain who owns it. (SPOILER for GOT S8Ep1, like despite how it made Sam fell, I REALLY liked that Dany owned what she did, instead of trying to soften it). Hela reveling in her evilness was refreshing, especially as played by Cate Blanchett. That performance certainly made up for her more lackluster villain in Crystal Skull.
And totally unrelated, have you seen Christopher Robin? I absolutely LOVED it when I watched it on Netflix.
I’m a Stargate fan, but the Goa’uld’s “KNEEL BEFORE YOUR GOD!” will now forever take second place in evilness to Hela’s “Kneel, before your queen.”
Cate Blanchett can chew the scenery with the best of them.
I wasn’t much looking forward to this film, despite being an die hard X-Men fan, but this looks pretty good… though I’m still not very excited. I do like that it looks like we’re getting some sweet, sweet Nightcrawler action.
Plus, I was hoping that Jessica Chastain was a version of Lilandra, but it looks like she’s more of Mastermind?