X-Men: Apocalypse (Bryan Singer)

[Henry Gale]

Do you all tolerate these timeline contortions because you're comic book fans? As a non-comics reader, it's a huge turn off.

I dunno, maybe I just don't care that much? If it's continuity within the film at hand doesn't work, then sure, it's irksome, but beyond that, if it's emotionally compelling, I'm not going to let myself over-think it to ruin that. I know this is the complete opposite of what the MCU has trained our brains to do with modern superhero movies, but I kind of admire Singer, Kinberg & co. just going "Fuck it, what do we actually want to happen here?", unrestricted by what's already been done.

It might also come from the fact that one of my biggest turn-offs with prequels is knowing certain things can't end up detrimentally different from what we already know, so the fact that these more recent X-Men movies clearly have no real desire to sync up perfectly with the original trilogy is much more interesting to me and freeing from a storytelling point of view.

[transmogrifier]

I dunno, maybe I just don't care that much? If it's continuity within the film at hand doesn't work, then sure, it's irksome, but beyond that, if it's emotionally compelling, I'm not going to let myself over-think it to ruin that.

But none of it is. None of it. The X-Men series or the MCU. It's all just nonsense. But at least the MCU has a game plan that may pay off eventually. The X-Men series is a mess.

[Henry Gale]

But none of it is. None of it. The X-Men series or the MCU. It's all just nonsense. But at least the MCU has a game plan that may pay off eventually. The X-Men series is a mess.

I think this is the issue. As much as things have undeniably changed with the increased serialization of big-budget filmmaking, I still think it's best to go with committing to each movie (as an audience, anyway) as its own fully-formed, self-supported thing to assess instead of sitting in a hammock between a bigger beginning and end.

If you're looking for Marvel Studios' to all to lead somewhere but haven't already felt fulfilled by each movie on their own terms and aren't moved by anything they offer in the moment, then I can't imagine any destination (which I don't see either of them or X-Men having in any clear terms in even the foreseeable decade other than with stars and certain key players behind the scenes moving on from the properties) magically elevating everything that's come before.

All I know is that I can't deny Days of Future Past and Guardians of the Galaxy are among the few recent blockbusters that moved me to tears (in the same summer, even!) so I can safely say I don't need what comes next to them to justify those emotions in any way.

Well, you should have told me that before I went and watched it. I just wasted 2.5 hours deluding myself I was being emotionally compelled.

Haha, exactly. Like shit, now I gotta tell the pre-teen me he was an idiot for liking Singer's first two movies because their continuity would be betrayed in over a decade.

[transmogrifier]

I think this is the issue. As much as things have undeniably changed with the increased serialization of big-budget filmmaking, I still think it's best to go with committing to each movie (as an audience, anyway) as its own fully-formed, self-supported thing to assess instead of sitting in a hammock between a bigger beginning and end.

If you're looking for Marvel Studios' to all to lead somewhere but haven't already felt fulfilled by each movie on their own terms and aren't moved by anything they offer in the moment, then I can't imagine any destination (which I don't see either of them or X-Men having in any clear terms in even the foreseeable decade other than with stars and certain key players behind the scenes moving on from the properties) magically elevating everything that's come before. .

I watch them for the action and the jokes, pretty much. I'll watch Thor 3 because I want Waititi to do well. The possibility of it paying off is just something that I kid myself that might happen. All I know is that my ass felt every second of the speechifying in The Avengers 2 and CA3, and it's getting clunkier and more stodgy each time all of them get together. The best bets are now the movies in the sidelines doing their own things (Antman, GotG).

X-Men, though, has always just been kind of cut-rate and messy, not very funny, and kinda one-note.