21
Finally got to see this one (I get by with a little help from my friends :wink: ) and I must say I was very pleased. The story seamlessly rolls from the first film into the second, although they could probably exist independently of each other too, which is a testament to some good forethought in the storytelling. Makes me curious how much better (not to say it was bad) the first one would've been had Singer had more time to assemble his footage instead of rushing a summer release; I've never been more impressed with his filmmaking than I was here. Not a bit of new character introduction feels disjointed or rushed, and I was extremely happy that they worked the remaining villains from the first one into this story without missing a beat--Mystique is quickly becoming my favorite character of the franchise. I hadn't even caught graphic's comment about Phoenix, but when Jean goes down I just KNEW they were going to hint at something, and boy did they. Cannot wait for the third one!

[DVD] 'X2: United' news

22
DVD Answers wrote:Title: X2: X-Men Reunited
Starring: Patrick Stewart
Released: 25th November 2003
SRP: $29.98

Further Details
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment have just announced the region one release of X-Men 2 which is also known as X2: X-Men Reunited. This boxoffice hit stars the likes of Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen and Halle Berry and will be available to own from the 25th November this year. The two disc set will arrive in both anamorphic widescreen and fullscreen editions and should set you back somewhere in the region of $29.98 each. The X-Men 2 release will also be bundled in a two pack collection with the first X-Men 1.5 disc. This will be available to own from the same date. The full disc specs are attached below along with another look at the artwork for the various editions:

Disc One
  • Anamorphic Widescreen Transfer
    English 5.1 DTS Track
    English Dolby Digital 5.1 Track
    French Dolby Surround Track
    Spanish Dolby Surround Track
    Commentary by Bryan Singer, John Ottman and Tom Sigel
    Commentary by Lauren Shuler Donner, Ralph Winter, Michael Dougherty, Dan Harris and David Hyter
Disc Two
  • The Secret Origin of X-Men Featurette
    Nightcrawler Reborn Featurette
    Four Multi-Angle Fight Sequences: Night Crawler Attack
    Evolution in the Details: Designing X-Men 2
    United Colours of X Featurette
    Wolverine Deathstrike Fight Rehearsal
    The Second Uncanny Issue of X-Men Making X-Men 2
    Introducing the Incredible Nightcrawler
    Nightcrawler Stunt Rehearsal
    Nightcrawler Timelapse
    FX2-Visual Effects
    Requiem for Mutants-The Score of X-Men 2
    X-Men 2 Global Webcast Highlights
    Eleven Deleted Scenes:
    - Extended Wolverine/Deathstrike Fight
    - Wolverine Kills The Intruder
    - Mystique In Stryker's Files
    - Nightcrawler Bamfs To Save The Students
    - Jean And Storm In The X-Jet
    - Jubilee At The Museum
    - Pyro Starts The Campfire
    - One Of The Children Is Sick After Bamfing
    - Rogue Helps The Children Escape
    - Professor X And Cyclops Escape
    - Arriving To An Empty School
    Eight Static Image Galleries
    X-Men 2 Trailers (x3)
    DVD-ROM Features
cover art at the link. i hope to pick up the four-disc set, since i only have the first release of the x-men right now, which i'll sell.

X3: Vaughn out....Joss in?

23
from ain't it cool:
Did you hear that sound just now? I think that was the other shoe finally dropping...
In talking to people in and around the X-MEN camp over the last month or so, it became obvious that Matthew Vaughn was really excited about making an X-MEN movie, but that he was also feeling a lot of pressure regarding this particular X-MEN movie’s production schedule. As with any film of this size, there were a lot of people exerting control over the film, and Matthew dug in for a series of important fights. He managed to convince the studio to cast Kelsey Grammer as The Beast, something that he was very proud of, and together with Zak Penn and Simon Kinsberg, he worked on the script that has evidently had the actors all excited about what they’re going to get to do. It looked like Matthew had finally reached a point where he was confident that the film could be made the right way in the time they had to make it, and he sounded ready to go. Now, nine weeks out, we’ve got word that Vaughn is off the film and on his way back to England. As soon as I heard this, I called Marvel Studios to get their reaction, and I ended up talking with Avi Arad, who confirmed that Vaughn has indeed left the film.
”This is not a case of creative differences,” Avi said. “This is a personal decision by Matthew, and I can tell you that he is heartbroken. He loved this material, and he wanted to make this film.” Vaughn has evidently already left to deal with whatever personal issue requires his attention, and Marvel and Fox are expected to make an announcement in the next few days regarding both the casting of Angel (who plays “a major role” in the film, according to Avi) and the new director, who may actually be someone who had circled the film earlier but who wasn’t available at that point.
Hey... didn’t Joss Whedon just finish SERENITY?
Excuse me. Just thinking out loud. Whoever steps in, they’re going to have to hit the ground running. Avi says that they’re still committed to starting work on the film in nine weeks in Vancouver, and they’re still planning to have the film in release on Memorial Day 2006. “We think this is better than either part 1 or 2,” Avi said. “This is the most controversial, classic X-MEN story we may ever tell, and I can’t wait until people hear the big idea that holds this all together.” At the rate these guys are moving, we’re not going to have to wait long at all. More as the story develops...
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

24
Since Joss is preping Wonder Woman, I don't know if he'd have the time for X-men. Honestly, I haven't been all that crazy about his Astonishing X-men series, so I don't know if he's really the right one for the franchise anyway.
Just cut them up like regular chickens

25
He said in an interview last week that they have no sense of urgency/hard-and-fast timeline for WW, which is one of the main reasons he took the job. Said he was just starting to toss around ideas for the script, so they can't be too far into the process. And he could always quit Wonder Woman, it's happened before. I only read the first two issues of Astonishing and then lost interest, but I don't really read comics anymore anyway so I might not be the best judge. But I've heard similarly underwhelming things too.
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

26
Oh boy...AICN reports today that chances are good that Brett Ratner's going to take over X3. Whoopie.
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

X-Men: The Last Stand

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I guess I have to turn in my Geeks Worldwide membership card. I just don't get the X-Men movies. They're all too dully plotted and boringly filmed to hold my interest. And what kills me is they're based on comic books, so you would at least expect some semblance of style and panache. Nope, none. Everything's so darn self-conscious and self-serving and overly serious. And like the first two movies, this feels like an extended TV pilot -- solely concerned with introducing more and more characters without really DOING anything with them.

What's funny is the guy next to me in the theater was this 300-pound guy who apparently got permission to stay out late from Mom and Dad and check out the newest movie. He was so stoked. He would cry out "Angel!" or "Rise of the Phoenix!" at all the appropriate (inappropriate?) points in the story.

Oh, and get a whiff of this load of cheese. One of the heroes this round is played by ... Kelsey Grammer. Frasier to the rescue! It's just so hard to take any movie seriously that has Sideshow Bob in a lion's mane and blue kabuki paint while leaping into battle. Egad. Something's seriously wrong with this franchise when they have to give one of the key ass-kicking roles to a hammy has-been sitcom star.

Someone will just have to explain to me what I'm missing.
This is a snakeskin jacket. And for me it's a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom.

Re: X-Men: The Last Stand

29
O-dot wrote:Oh, and get a whiff of this load of cheese. One of the heroes this round is played by ... Kelsey Grammer. Frasier to the rescue! It's just so hard to take any movie seriously that has Sideshow Bob in a lion's mane and blue kabuki paint while leaping into battle. Egad. Something's seriously wrong with this franchise when they have to give one of the key ass-kicking roles to a hammy has-been sitcom star.
Kelsey Grammar is hardcore, yo. Fo'real.

30
hm, not sure how to explain it. if you don't like it, you don't.

i've been off for a week and actually saw two films - this one and the divinci code.

as for this one, and speaking as a complete x-men fanboy from way back (i have two kids with names from the x-men world), i liked this film ok. it wasn't nearly as good as the first or especially second one, and i attribute this solely to the directorial change. had they kept singer, this would have been a much better film (bet you don't hear that one often!) i think the "transition" from what happened in the second film to this one was sloppy, the introductions of many new characters was handled ok at best, and the pacing was not great. i think what probably soured me on this one the most was that they tried to cover a saga that took almost a year to get through in the comics (the Dark Phoenix saga) and a full week in the animated series in one movie while also making some "moral statement" that "being different isn't a disease, we should all love each other" or some such tripe. the source material was there for the taking, and this translation of it just isn't solid enough to get fanboy approval.

again, it's not a bad film, it's just that after the brilliantly handled first two i had hoped for much, much more. casting kelsey as frank "the beast" was brilliant; beast is exactly portrayed in the film as he was in the comics - very intelligent, a scientist with great political interests. excellent choice for the part, as are most of the original characters. storm still bothers me (just don't like her), but the rest are cast pretty damn well.

without spoiling anything, if you haven't seen this yet, MAKE SURE you don't leave when the credits roll - there's a very important scene after the credits.

i'm hoping for more on the DVD release than we saw here, but it's by no means "Halloween 3" bad, it's just not "Evil Dead 2" great. should be enough to keep it going, i hope.

31
oh yeah, forgot to mention that the music pissed me off too. same directory + same composer = great movie. current incarnation = mediocrity.

32
My quick take is this: The first one was a rush job done by a good director. The second one (easily the best) was given proper budget and time to massage the script based on the success of the first. This one reverts to the rush job mentality, but is executed by a far worse director. Ratner's pretty soulless and has no particular feel for the beats of storytelling, i.e. building suspense, releasing it, crafting characterizations that make you care, etc. All three (no offense, Canuck) look like cheapie Canadian shoots, which works best in the second, worst in this one. However, Singer did a respectable job juggling characters and working off some major X-Men story arcs that they were successful. Here, the wheels basically fall off despite some nice touches, like finally chucking the danger room in (and giving us old fans a delightful tease of a Sentinel appearance). That said...why is Angel even in the movie? Can Cyclops possibly be given more short shrift (answer: No)? Are we supposed to care when Jean Grey returns, or when a variety of other characters get knocked off? I can't really tell based on, again, the clumsy feel for storytelling and the rushed script (speaking of which: "I'm Juggernaut, Bitch!" Please.)

An ultimately disappointing finale, and no, there's no chance in hell they reuinite their overall excellent cast to waste their time with the mediocre attention to detail and story given this flick, so I'd guess this is it.
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

33
Alexhead wrote:An ultimately disappointing finale, and no, there's no chance in hell they reuinite their overall excellent cast to waste their time with the mediocre attention to detail and story given this flick, so I'd guess this is it.
to me, this is the only possible explaination of the multitude of newer characters, as well as the answer to your question of why angel is even in this - because most if not all of the core cast from the first two won't be returning so they're trying to keep the franchise alive by giving us a cast that will.

my true hope is that wolverine will get his own spinoff film to go in search of his origins, with possible cameos by other x-men. another x-men film will pretty much either == x-factor or the new mutants, both of which i'm ambivilent to. :|

34
TC wrote:my true hope is that wolverine will get his own spinoff film to go in search of his origins, with possible cameos by other x-men. another x-men film will pretty much either == x-factor or the new mutants, both of which i'm ambivilent to. :|
I believe the Wolverine spinoff is in the works. Hugh Jackman is preparing to make more money than his great great grandchildren can spend, and a room full of screenwriters are figuring out how to retell his backstory for the third time.
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

35
Alexhead wrote:the Wolverine spinoff is in the works.
Oh yippie skippie. I have little confidence that this spinoff will be any improvement on the three crappy movies thus far to feature the character.
This is a snakeskin jacket. And for me it's a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom.

36
O-dot wrote:
Alexhead wrote:the Wolverine spinoff is in the works.
Oh yippie skippie. I have little confidence that this spinoff will be any improvement on the three crappy movies thus far to feature the character.
dude, if there's ever been a more brilliant casting & writing for a character, i don't know what it is. wolvie is perfect. as are prof x & magneto.

37
Casting doesn't matter a whole hell of a lot if the movie itself is fundamentally lame. Hollywood made the first three movies about as exciting as a muffled fart, so there's no reason to expect any different with a spinoff.
This is a snakeskin jacket. And for me it's a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom.

38
O-dot wrote:Casting doesn't matter a whole hell of a lot if the movie itself is fundamentally lame. Hollywood made the first three movies about as exciting as a muffled fart, so there's no reason to expect any different with a spinoff.
disagree. picture evil dead 2 without bruce campbell.

anyway, i liked the films, you didn't, so we're going to disagree on this one.

39
TC wrote:disagree. picture evil dead 2 without bruce campbell.
There's a lot more artistry and style in any five minutes of a Raimi pic than in the combined running time of the three X-Men movies.

And look at Batman Begins: Good cast, sure, but a piss-poor movie just the same. So whoever's wearing the suit is a moot point.
This is a snakeskin jacket. And for me it's a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom.

40
O-dot wrote:
TC wrote:disagree. picture evil dead 2 without bruce campbell.
There's a lot more artistry and style in any five minutes of a Raimi pic than in the combined running time of the three X-Men movies.
agreed there, but i still think it's a valid point.
O-dot wrote:And look at Batman Begins: Good cast, sure, but a piss-poor movie just the same. So whoever's wearing the suit is a moot point.
lol, there we go disagreeing again - loved that flick.