Hello and welcome
T.C.:to the Studio Demands and Creative Thinking where we will challenge ourselves to conceptualize, pitch, and craft the film based on the stipulations of a hypothetical Hollywood overlord. You know what we do? We talk movies all the time.
Jim:All the
T.C.:time. In particular, we complain about the choices made in the films that we've seen that exist because some soulless corporate hacks cobbled together a collection of boardroom mandated buzzwords and test audience approved action sequences and characters. And with more hubris than those shills, we know that we could do better. Even with the demands and restrictions that clearly must have been put on those poor bastards stuck in the position of writing these scripts or this I think this intro is too long. I don't know.
T.C.:I've been thinking about it. Anyway, we will be your screenwriters for this episode. I am T. C. De Witt.
T.C.:And joining me via satellite, not as always, but always joining me is my cohost Jim Burzelic.
Jim:That's me.
T.C.:That is you. But we're not alone today. We are joined today by a guest, a return guest to the show, Leah. Hello, Leah. Welcome welcome back.
T.C.:Hello, world. Is your middle name Tiberius also?
Leia:No. It's Angelique.
T.C.:Oh, Leah Angelique. That sounds that sounds questionable. I don't know if that's true.
Leia:It sounds entirely made up on the spot, doesn't it? I get that all the time.
T.C.:I have Jim's birth certificate. And as we grow in popularity, I will release a t shirt that that that says on it. And joining me as always is Jim, and it'll just be a a checklist of every name I've ever given him. Mean, he's that he was born with.
Leia:Right. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. He has about a thousand nicknames at our house.
Leia:So So you need more names,
Jim:and I'm not gonna be, not be, I don't, I'm not gonna eliminate any, right? I don't think that I have, arrogance to say that one name is better than the other.
Leia:Right.
Jim:I So I I include them all.
T.C.:It's a it's a family you have every family name of your entire family tree represented. Juries? I'm sure there's infighting about the order at which the names came in, and they're like, we should have done alphabetically. It's like, no. We went we went by who we like the most.
T.C.:Actually, the real irony here is that I'm the one talking about too many middle names.
Jim:Yeah. Yeah.
T.C.:Those who know me, I know I have four.
Leia:It you're just like a British lord or something.
Jim:And when you say your full name with all of them, it sounds like way more than four.
T.C.:It does. Because they're all, like, multi syllabled
Jim:and having the weird They're all hyphenated.
T.C.:Yeah. But here we are. Leah, thank you for joining us again.
Leia:You're welcome. If I may have ten seconds, I would just like to say hi, mom. Oh. And I would also like to say hello to my D and D group.
T.C.:Yay. Alright.
Leia:Cool. They ask for a shout out.
T.C.:That's that is excellent. What in the D and D group, do you is it is it nine people? Are you the kind of people that decide this is a good idea of how many people should play D and D?
Leia:No. This isn't one of Jim's
T.C.:groups. Okay.
Jim:No? That's it. How dare you?
Leia:We already we Jim and I talked a little bit offline about how we weren't gonna fight, but now I'm just starting We're gonna fight now.
T.C.:No.
Leia:I am, I round out a fourth. I'm the fourth of a team, but I just started. So I'm a noob. I'm little n zero zero little b. Noob.
Leia:Total noob.
T.C.:What's what's the Jim, you might know. I mean, either you might know. What is the opposite of a noob? Like a veteran? Like, what's the is there
Leia:Internet slangs.
T.C.:Just the Internet slang for someone who's a pro.
Jim:Pro?
T.C.:A pro? Okay. But with a zero. Yeah. Okay.
T.C.:Well, shout out to the D and D group. I apologize for that poner joke. I don't feel good about that. Not a great first impression for new listeners. I apologize.
T.C.:I'm better than that. I know I am. But since we have new listeners, perhaps we should tell them what the heck's about to happen here. Right?
Leia:Wait. Did he you you just did that in
Jim:the that your your intro that you I just okay. I did. I did.
T.C.:But I blow through it so quickly now that I feel like it's worth recapping at this point. If you're just if you're just joining us, if you've walked into the room mid mid intro here and you're like, are you listening to? And the person listening is like, I'm not gonna rewind. Well, lucky for you, Jim's now gonna recap. Go ahead, Jim.
Jim:We talk about movies all the time.
T.C.:All the
Jim:time. And so we we we get ideas for movie. I'm I'm nailing this. Hold on.
Leia:Let me I got this.
T.C.:You got it.
Leia:Our job, the job I've been temporarily hired for from seven to 10PM is to take a movie that like, maybe like the next in a series or, like, I really wanna see a spin off of whatever character and we pitch that movie, but it comes with caveats from the studio.
T.C.:Yes.
Leia:So sometimes they want, I don't I don't know, they want ants four Mhmm. But they're all butterflies.
T.C.:What a what a weird demand.
Jim:I'll do what I got. Ants. Ants four. It's butterflies.
T.C.:And this
Leia:time it's butterflies. And And Woody Allen is
T.C.:still in it. What's that, Leah?
Leia:And then we'll talk about it for four hours.
T.C.:Hopefully not four hours. I do like to try to keep the episodes under two hours for the sake of people's sanity. One million hours. We will talk that long, but that that's a that's a fair recap. So let let's get to our demand for this episode, and those who clicked on it know what it is.
T.C.:For those of you who wandered into the room, we're gonna get to it. Just hold hold your horses there. Our success be it need to rewrite. Why? Why?
T.C.:Our success as either podcasters or screenwriters has given us a lovely growing collection of demands from studios literally all over the world. And these studios are you, the listeners, who have submitted your requests over at studiodemandsit.com. You can also find us on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook, or you can message us privately. You can send us any demand you'd like for a movie or a TV series. We you give us a movie that already exists and and ask us to to remake it or change it with the with the restrictions that were put upon it when it was made or a movie that you think should exist and ask us to to somehow craft it here on the spot.
T.C.:And but so, yeah, we we we I actually just did a quick count of how many demands we have right now, and we have over 100 submissions sitting sitting in our queue. So we'll be doing this for a while because we have to. Have Jim Jim has decided we will do every single demand.
Leia:I like your completionist spirit. Yeah.
Jim:Right? Great. Great. Great
T.C.:or small, Jim, is like we're doing all of these. So today is the DC Super Pets rated r show.
Leia:Wait. Wait. Woah. Woah. Woah.
Leia:I did not agree to this.
T.C.:That's an actual demand. That's an actual demand. And and that that may come up one day. But what do we have today? Jim well, what I'm reading off the script here, and it's I didn't have the comma.
T.C.:So it's just, what do we have today, Jim? The question mark. And I anyway. This episode Whatever
Jim:you whatever you put on the teleprompter, he will read.
T.C.:He will read. Go okay. Well, today we actually come it's a it's a a combination of a couple listener demands because this is this has been coming up since season one for us to come here. And in conversation, I think, Leo, when you were on for Fantastic Beasts, I I think I know you were There there in the was a conversation about doing an X Men episode, which is what we're doing today. But we have had a handful of X Men overlap requests here or demands.
T.C.:The three that I'm drawing from are from Charge and Charles Pictures, Picture by the Slice Productions. I like that one. Actually, this one's really good too. The law firm of movies, TVs, TV, and productions pictures. Yeah.
T.C.:Yeah. And even from general conversation that, Leah, you've been involved in, Jim and I have been involved in. So I'm gonna mash all these together and see what where the conversation gets going.
Jim:So Okay. Assist you. Is there a sure. We can we can just mash them all together. Would it be possible?
Jim:Right? Like like, this could be one of those big budget movies that's a whole bunch of studios all producing together. Yeah. Hear But would it also be possible to to discuss them separately and make separate entries for each each studio?
T.C.:Sure. I that's that's fair. That's instead of just doing one episode where we blow through all the X Men ideas, I'll throw out the top three I
Jim:meant doing them all in this episode. Okay. But first, a movie where it's the X Men, but they're all played by Deadpool.
Leia:Can we do that?
Jim:And then we do another one where it's like, oh, do X Men where I I don't wanna throw out too many ideas because that might be what we end up doing.
T.C.:Well but I'll I'll throw out what the the demands I I snagged here, and and you you offer up some ideas as well. I love some I love our episodes that are more variety than Mhmm. One singular idea sometimes. So I'll put the three here, and and we can discuss it. I also wanna discuss just this franchise in general.
T.C.:So I'll throw the I'll tell you what the demands we have here are, and then we can just find a way to organically come into them. But for one one of the first demands here, and this is combined from two of our listeners, Take a better crack at X Men three and the Phoenix saga. Erase Origins and X Men three's existence. Whatever the case, pinpoint where the franchise flew off the rails and fix it. So so that's that's that's one concept.
T.C.:And that actually works into just discussing the franchise at a whole as a whole. But it also leads to this to our second conversation. You know what? Let's just start there. Okay.
T.C.:Where did this franchise go wrong? So in in 2000 in 2000, the X Men hit the big screen with Brian Singer brought us X Men. And it's one of the godfathers of modern superhero films. The the hat trick of Blade, Spider Man one, and X Men was like the beginning
Leia:Uh-huh.
T.C.:Of blockbuster superhero movies. Yes. I know Superman 1980 '78, Batman 1989 were blockbusters. I mean, hell, Superman 78 is part of the reason the term blockbuster exists.
Jim:I think I think we could actually enough time has passed now. We could actually discuss just superhero cinema sort of in the same way comic books are discussed. We could split it into different ages. Yeah. It's all the proto type of everything that a superhero movie is now.
T.C.:Yeah.
Jim:Even Like the same way twenty eight Days Later ushered in the zombie, the modern zombie craze. What are talking about Jim? Most things aren't zombies. That's another episode.
T.C.:It's a different episode.
Jim:I will talk about it. Currently. The X Men movie, the primarily that first X Men movie, you can look at that and you see a lot of the skeleton of what superhero movies still are. Mhmm.
T.C.:Absolutely. Absolutely. And and X Men two raised the bar for what could be done because of the success of the first one. The and there's a whole mess of behind the scenes fun to be had with why we got X Men three because Tom Rothman, who's the head of Fox, hated Brian Singer for some reason, which in hindsight, I used to hate Tom Rothman, but
Leia:now I'm kinda like, maybe he was on to something. I don't know.
T.C.:We're not gonna talk about that in detail.
Jim:That's a really good point. Because I remember back then, I don't care, I'm gonna talk a little little details. Because at the time, like, right, rumor had it that Brian Singer had at least two more movies planned.
T.C.:Yeah. Yeah. Three and four.
Jim:Just thinking about that, basically, he was already kind of doing a whole Avengers, MCU esque granted just with X Men, but right, he was always already kind of laying that foundation, yes, in a singular movie line, but because it was this ensemble cast every time and the cast was growing every time, it was this full universe that was happening that with that third X Men movie, Brett Ratner was what, charged charged not charged with given the job of ending. Like, as so for all the all the reasons I may not like Brett Ratner and what he did, that was his job. That is what he was brought in to do.
T.C.:Finish off the the trilogy.
Leia:And and and it.
T.C.:Yeah. Well, that that leads to our first question because our the the demand here is where did this franchise go off the rails, and how would we fix it from that point? And one one would say like, okay. Let's imagine a universe where they signed Brian Singer for the third damn movie the opening weekend of X Men two like they should have because the opening weekend of X Men two made the sum total of the entire run of X Men one. It doesn't seem like a big leap of business to go get this guy on for a third movie.
T.C.:They didn't. They waited until he signed for Superman. And then they were like, pick one. And he's like, I'm not dealing with this crap. I'm gonna make Superman Returns.
Leia:So, I just did a rewatch of all the movies. Thank you, T. C. I am gonna begin with my caveat of, I don't think it's I think they've gotten it back on the rails now. I think with the Days of Future Past storylines and especially Days of Future Past, they said everything that happened in the past is now different when Wolverine wakes up.
T.C.:Yeah.
Leia:So I now approach every new movie like this is the new canon, quote unquote, and X one through three may have happened, but it's tweaked in some way.
T.C.:Yeah. And agree. I I have an argument with Chris Scholes, one of our friends and colleagues of of everything we do entertainment wise. I often argue, you should still watch all the X Men movies in the order they came out. He's like, no.
T.C.:No. You don't have to watch three anymore. You don't have to watch Origins. I'm like, you do. To to get the full effect of that final scene in Days of Future Past of like, hey.
T.C.:We erased it all. You gotta see what they're erasing, I think.
Jim:So I see what you're both saying. You don't I don't think you have to. You'll still get a story, but you're not gonna there's something extra special to those good movies. Extra? Extra.
T.C.:We need more of those.
Jim:When know what they've undone. But the problem is we need to know that that's what happened, Cause otherwise you might also just think, wait, now these movies are just undoing themselves. So who cares about any
T.C.:of it?
Leia:Well, Leo,
T.C.:go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah.
Leia:Are you saying that we should do a remake of X one three three? No. I The current timeline?
T.C.:Because you've just watched them all. Sure. Do you do you think there's a point in the franchise you could point it and say, this is where it all went wrong. We should rewrite history here. Because I feel like I feel like they did that.
T.C.:With Days of Future Past, they stepped back and went, okay. We got Brian Singer back. Now he can do the three and four he wanted, which was Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix, which is what came next. So he's going to erase everything that sucked Uh-huh. Maybe, and and reset.
T.C.:So I don't I don't I don't feel like it's necessary for us to say, let's change history at this point. But you would know better than me because you've literally just rewatched all of them.
Leia:Yeah. In doing this rewatch, which is my second or third X Men rewatch, it's I love what Days of Days of Future Past and therefore the entire new timeline sets up and represents and stands for, and how it does fix the problems of where everyone says it went wrong X-three. So I don't think I think they've already done it. They've already fixed it. Also, I don't wanna change anything about Logan.
Leia:So Yeah. Logan needs to stay how it is exactly without changing. I don't wanna erase that at all.
T.C.:You are correct there. Honestly, Logan, it it's one of those Godfather one and two situations. Like, Logan arguably is the best X Men movie, but it does kind of rely on the character having existed for a decade before we got there. Like, Godfather two is arguably the better movie, but does it carry its full weight having if you haven't seen Godfather one? Much like what I was just saying earlier of like, I think you should still watch X Men three as much as I think that's the worst one.
T.C.:More than Wolverine Origins. I know we've had this conversation before too.
Jim:I'm fading the bottom of the barrel.
T.C.:And and and well then then there's like Dark Phoenix and Apocalypse, there's a whole another question of like, well, are those worse? How old are these characters supposed I to
Leia:know. About Dark Phoenix, which I already started yelling at Jim about. So, when we get there.
T.C.:Did did did Jim, did you do what I often do to you, which is you feel a conversation happening and you have to go, wait. Save this for when we're recording?
Jim:Way too late into it.
Leia:But yes. Yes. He said it literally to my face. We really shouldn't stop talking now, but I'm not going to. So
T.C.:so Leah, do do you think these movies are generally consistent or are there big peaks and valleys? Because, like, I I often say if you look at the MCU movies, they are good to great. If you look at the DC movies, those peaks and valleys are a lot bigger. I don't just mean the recent ones. I mean, if you look at the whole of Warner Brothers cinematic releases, it's like, woah, Dark Knight, also Catwoman.
Leia:Yeah. It's it's but it's also hard to separate the epic worldwide hatred of x three from my opinion. Like, it's it's Well, so
Jim:I think just to, you know, cut this wonderful conversation, it's a very interesting conversation short. I think looking at our first demand Mhmm. Fix it at its broken point. I think whether we agree or not, we've all kind of we Yes. Concur that x three is what is decided at at least as the first broken point.
Jim:Yeah. So knowing the demand that was put on that movie, make a third one, make it the last one.
T.C.:Oh, okay.
Jim:Right? At least before that time.
Leia:Yeah.
Jim:Okay. So what is what is wrong with X-three?
T.C.:It's it's oh, go ahead, Leah.
Leia:It's not about Rogue.
T.C.:You think
Leia:it should
T.C.:be about Rogue?
Leia:It's the it's she's the main character of one, so not making her the through line for all of them is problematic. I came to X Men for Rogue. Mhmm. Like Rogue was my entry character. Interesting.
Leia:Rogue and Storm are my my chicks, my gals. Yeah. So, that's my problem. Also, I mean, the the way they handled, quote unquote, dark phoenix, like, I the way she died in two spoiler alert. No.
Leia:I don't think it should have been a dark phoenix story, but I don't I don't know what else it could have been.
T.C.:It I what's problematic for me about it is at its core, it's just doing X Men two again. Have we have a way to get rid of the mutants. Not saying they can't have a similar bad guy in this, but but Stryker Stryker's plan is so much better and so much more twisted that he's going to wipe out the mutants as opposed to someone trying to cure them. Uh-huh. The having the cure being an option, having rogue want it, which makes sense, there could be a little bit of something to that worth worth like, keeping.
T.C.:But the what happens in that movie is everything that happens is nulled null and void by the end of the movie. The whole story is about carrying these characters and killing off the characters, the only thing permanent by the end of X Men three is that Scott's dead. That's it. And he was killed off camera because he chose to do Superman.
Jim:Yep. Okay. So if we if we do an entirely different story, or or maybe not entirely, but sort of refocusing on Rogue. I kinda like that as as a beginning. And and the the thing is it's always about getting rid of the mutants or or or or something.
Jim:That's a through line of X Men.
Leia:X Men is always paralleled politics when it comes to immigrants or just otherness. And so that's yeah. Keeping the core of that is gonna be essential. Yeah.
Jim:I agree. If what if I mean, let's get to the the cure faster because I feel like it took a long time to get to the NADM x three.
Leia:Yeah.
Jim:What if we get to that faster? We're following Roe who basically leave like like, she leaves the school and everyone's like, why? Why are you leaving the school? And she leaves the school, she gets the cure, she starts living her life and she loves it so much more and her friends feel abandoned. Things start right?
Jim:Things start closing in on the X Men. Things start going really bad. Mhmm. Crap. Okay.
Jim:I've kind of painted myself into a corner, but the the the points I wanted to get to is some things happen and the big explosion thing is maybe what if we try to get dark Phoenix in there as well and Jean kinda goes goes off goes goes Phoenix, and the only thing that's going to save them now isn't Wolverine regenerating right before our eyes.
T.C.:Which is kind of cool. It's a cool moment, but continue.
Jim:Somehow reacquiring her power and because ultimate and and ultimately taking taking power. Right? Because she's broke. Feel like the first two movies, she's never actually taken powers. It's just been, if I touch you, I suck your life, and that's it.
Jim:So what we could what can happen
Leia:her level of guilt. So if she's taking power in both the physical sense and these metaphorical, like, womanhood. Sure.
Jim:So, I mean, we Yeah. Maybe in the beginning, we see her take a power or two, and she's like, this is even worse. This is even worse now.
T.C.:I So
Jim:she took care of her power.
T.C.:Yeah.
Jim:And then so but but she has to get her power back, reassert her power to then drain Phoenix to save a world.
T.C.:That's awesome. And we did see Rogue absorb Wolverine's healing ability in the first X Men. We do have a hint to that. Love Oh, the go ahead.
Leia:Didn't she titty she nullified somebody else, like, combatively?
T.C.:She touched she touched a pyro to, like, get in
Leia:his power.
Jim:But she didn't she didn't then use fire. Yeah. But I I guess I'm saying so in the comics, there's a point where she does it to, I believe it's Carol Lambert.
T.C.:Yep. Captain Marvel.
Jim:Captain Marvel. And that's where Rogue gets sort of new permanent powers. Strength. Strength and strength. All all this stuff.
Jim:What we could do with the movie is instead Keezy wants to jump in here. Instead, she kinda she gets all these things through sucking Phoenix's powers. Mhmm. Yeah.
T.C.:I I I think there's an we can maintain beats or or bits of what X Men three actually is. I like the think we have a a kind of a halfway point in the rest of the movie, which is having the mutant cure exist and having the having Magneto's brotherhood of evil mutants trying to attack and and destroy the cure, which is which is still what happens in X Men three, and having the X Men beast is involved now because he's government, to try and stop the brotherhood of evil mutants. Having Rogue be our our through line character of her conflict of I'm a good guy, but I also want the cure. So maybe I need to side with Magneto. And that brings us back to the first movie which Magneto tried to use Rogue.
T.C.:And now she's willingly going to him to say, look. I'm I'm gonna pull traitor here. I will help you get to the cure if I can use it before you destroy it.
Leia:What that does is that pulls in something that we see between, in Days of Future Past, that whole timeline of how they're, doing that to Mystique, that whole, like, which side is she on storylines. So we get a lot of that. I would also say it sets us up for something that I really liked in Dark Phoenix, which is a woman on woman, one on one epic final power plot.
T.C.:Having Rogue versus Jean in the end. And now here's the thing. Having the main plot be the be storm leading the heroes to stop the brother of evil mutants, having rogue be conflicted, your b plot of Scott and Wolverine essentially benching them to just look for gene. Like having having them sort of benched to give these new characters more of the a plot, particularly rogue, we can plant the seeds right from the beginning that dark phoenix is going to come back. So what the big turning point, this might turn into like a five act movie, is stopping the brotherhood of evil mutants, giving rogue the cure, having the good guys save the day, the government still being pissed, the people still being pissed.
T.C.:And then there's the biggest threat we've ever faced in the return of Jean Grey. And now it's like, how do we stop the brotherhood of evil mutants and the X Men have to team up to try to stop Jean Grey and the only person who could do it. We're kinda playing with Superman two territory here of, like, losing a character's power than having to give them back.
Jim:But but I I don't know. I think that's that's actually what that's what Rogue particularly is all about. And I actually really love the idea that the phoenix tries to use her powers. There's like, here, you want the power? Try having it in.
Jim:Yeah. Okay. Okay. That's what I do. I take.
Leia:And I I also like the I like what X-three did where she got the cure, Rogue got the cure, and her power still came back.
T.C.:Yes. Yeah.
Leia:Because that undermines the power of the cure all along. Exactly. Like, hoping that is they just came back to her and she's like, I'm in this permanently now.
T.C.:And and the metaphor civil rights and gay rights that the X Men have always been known for comes down to you can't cure this. This is not something to be cured or want to be cured. So there's some metaphor in there, some parallels to to the civil rights and gay rights movement that can be applied into this film. The the big action sequences of X Men three can still play. We can still have the Alcatraz breakout fight, which in in the original script was halfway through the movie, not the end.
T.C.:We we can still have the truck attack. I making Rogue the main character and then the big threat reveal to be Phoenix is I is cool. I think there's there's not we're not changing the movie so much, but we're we're drawing from what already exists and also what ended up existing anyway with, like you said, Mystique being conflicted as a character. I love the idea of Rogue and Jean just having a throw down like
Leia:It would just be so epic. And do we keep the storyline of the cure coming from the neutralizing mutant and Kitty Pride rescues him and we never find out what happens and all We
T.C.:can as long as we recast that recast that creepy kid because he had he had to run-in, three movies where every time I saw him, it was
Jim:like, yeah. Or we lean into it.
T.C.:Or we can.
Jim:That's the thing. Like I think I feel like that kid got cast not but like everyone ignored the creepy aspect.
Leia:Yeah.
Jim:He's I if you cast him, but you lean into the creepiness, that might work better.
T.C.:He's like he's like a a it he has a similar look to him of Jake Lloyd from Phantom Menace, but, like, evil Jake Lloyd.
Leia:It would I wanna see I wanna see where a scene with him in Rogue, because does she steal his power or does he steal hers?
T.C.:Oh. Like, two two negating powers.
Leia:Right.
T.C.:Who? Oh, okay. Let's let's let's rewrite this. I think I think there might be something to maintaining him as some sort of cure mutant. Right?
T.C.:But Yeah. In actuality, what he's doing is absorbing powers. He doesn't use them. His his ability is to to draw powers out of people, but he can't use them. That's just that he just literally negates people to get in contact with him much like rogue.
T.C.:But he's he's able to like maybe he's the how Rogue gets her powers back, maybe? I don't know. I I babbled that one out without thinking it through.
Leia:Well, I, at one point, was starting to think about X Men genetically, and I went down this rabbit hole of who is whose parent and who is the X gene a male gene or a female gene, does mother or father anyway, don't go down that roll hole. It's not consistent. Let me save you time.
Jim:Did you know that one of the characters has the mutant power of being from heaven? That's not a power.
Leia:Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool.
Leia:Cool. Cool. Well, something that and maybe this is it's something that Logan really touched on is that the mutant gene evolves. Well, in Logan, it stops Mhmm. Evolving.
Leia:So it would stand to reason that this kid is a future quote unquote evolution of rogue. So he would have a more advanced ability than she would rather than a less advanced ability is my argument.
T.C.:Sure. Sure. I
Jim:I I'm I'm I'm I'm not saying no. I just I like I like the idea of a mutant power that is negation, that is Sure. Suppression.
Leia:Yes. That's why I don't know that he needs anything else other than
T.C.:I'm just wondering
Leia:how do we
Jim:get Unless unless we can make it important to the plot. Right? Like, I know you were trying to say maybe that's how she gets her powers back. Yeah. But, like, maybe maybe it's something like, oh, that could be crazy.
Jim:It could be something oh, no. Because if she doesn't have her power I was thinking something like Rogue takes the power so that he no longer has the power to suppress, So the blood that's been put in everyone else stops suppressing. So there's this flare up of everyone getting their mutant powers back.
T.C.:Oh, that's that does draw from what already exists. And we discussed it a moment ago, the cure doesn't work. It is temporary.
Jim:So And and actually, what that would do so so yeah. It it essentially suggests as long as he's alive, the suppressing the suppressant could like, it's gonna it's not gonna wear off the way it does in the movie, which is at plot convenience.
T.C.:Right.
Jim:It could even this this flare up could even be when the jailbreak like, when the jailbreak really occurs, like, they're holding a whole lot of mutants who have all been negated, but they're criminals, so they're in prison. Suddenly, they get their powers back, and it's just chaos.
T.C.:Okay. Let's let's add one beat before
Jim:basically in prison. Yeah. Does that does that make sense?
T.C.:Yeah. I I I but that means the kid has to die. Right? That's what you're saying? Like, if we
Jim:Possibly. There there could be another solution that we're not that I haven't figured out yet.
Leia:Well, you can just say
Jim:Rogue takes it. It could be Rogue just taking it. Rogue maybe Rogue just takes it per permanently.
T.C.:Okay. Or or it could be that could be the like, the jailbreak moment, the big battle sequence on the island to get to that kid, which in the movie, it's the brotherhood has shown up to get him and the X Men are there to stop him. If in the midst of that battle is when Phoenix is revealed to be the big bad villain and she just shows up, gets goes crazy. And if she kills the kid, I mean, that's pretty evil.
Jim:It is. But from what I'm from what from what I'm getting, basically, the prison break or or not prison break, dealing with this whole thing is basically our first act. No? No.
T.C.:I I The seconds. What was that?
Leia:Second act?
T.C.:It's it's the halfway point. I think the the the reveal of Phoenix as the big villain should be about halfway through. So then it's the repercussions of whatever we did with the kid and and the good guys versus the bad guys, and Rogue doesn't have her powers anymore. Everything should about halfway through the movie should be we should reach that point.
Leia:So I I have a proposal. Do it. X Men is all about coming into your power and embracing it or being making it stronger. Yeah. What in in the original X three, he's his power only extends to, like, three feet of him.
T.C.:Right.
Leia:So in this stressor moment of somebody coming to kill him, it expands. And we now watch an X-Men fight where they're just a bunch of dudes punching the gun. We're both normal guys. And it's just like that scene in Love Actually, which we were just talking about before camera, and they're just punching each other in the most awkward ways because they don't know how to fight without their powers. I mean, if we're making this a comedy, that's good.
T.C.:Oh, and as everyone knows, by the third movie, you need slapstick color. No. That's that's not
Jim:a bad idea. I was I was gonna suggest as far as him coming into his like like, he he learns to be selective. Oh. Sure. Sure.
Jim:Well, I don't want you to have your flowers.
Leia:You can. You can.
Jim:You you can't have it and things like that. Yeah. And so then at the like, at the end, because Rogue didn't want it and now she saved the day, maybe the kid's still there, and they're the denouement is basically the two of them being like, so you did it. Do do you still want your power? Do you do you want me to take them away?
Jim:And she's like, no. Right. She would say just like that.
T.C.:No. I think I think I think I will be positioned as Anna Anna Paquin will be positioned as the the most powerful mutant in in at least at the end of this movie of having
Leia:to feed
Jim:a fetus. Honestly, Rogue was crazy. Like, I started reading in the nineties, she already had all those powers. She was crazy powerful. She's great.
Leia:Yeah. And she was neutered. Like, X-one was her origin story, quote unquote. And then just like underutilized and neutered for the rest of the like, just very angry.
T.C.:From a studio perspective, I'm sure that what played a large part in that, it was the success of Hugh Jackman Yes. The Oscar win of Halle Berry. Because Halle Berry basically said, I need a bigger role plot wise in X Men three. And that's why they made her the leader essentially. I I won't go on a rant about my dislike of Hailey Berry because I do like Storm as a character.
Leia:Yes. Storm's hair. I have projects I have problems with Storm's hair in the movies.
T.C.:But I'll You want blowout, don't you? You want the big nineties blowout? Ahead.
Leia:Slap him
Jim:in the wind. I want the mohawk.
T.C.:Go ahead, Jim.
Jim:The giant white mohawk. That's right. I love that. Okay. So that was something I was thinking about, like, we're really sidelining the huge breakout movie star with the X Men franchise here and people, much less the studio, wouldn't be too happy about that.
Jim:So I think what is going to kind of unset what we can now address now that we kind of have the tree trunk of our story and our plot here. Right. I think sort of our main characters split off in three. I think we start the movie, our cold open, similar to Dark Phoenix is some sort of job, some sort of mission that gets Jean in trouble, that gets her the Phoenix force.
T.C.:Well, Jean Jean is dead at the beginning of this movie.
Jim:Oh, I forgot about that.
Leia:She's buried in Crater Lake.
Jim:That's right.
T.C.:That's why I think the the B plot here to get to Jean is we have a side mission of Scott and Wolverine working together, much to their chagrin.
Jim:Was gonna I was gonna suggest splitting splitting them. Have Scott go off on his his walkabout solo quest to find Jean, which everyone's like, no, she's dead. And he's like, no, she's not.
T.C.:Give me my flare jeans and let me go to Canada.
Jim:Yeah. And Wolverine instead, because he's essentially the mentor to Rogue, he goes off after her, right? Sort of the father figure to her being like, are you sure about this? This is not the right thing. Gonna follow you and make sure that you're doing the right thing.
Jim:So that way, Hugh is there for all the major beats.
T.C.:Yeah. That's actually
Leia:what I want
T.C.:to do. Oh, go ahead, Lisa.
Leia:And then oh, I was just I was confirming. That's what I want too, because that is the power of the first X Men movie is their Really? Father not father daughter not daughter relationship.
T.C.:Then then what I would what I would say to to to enforce that idea, because I think it's a great idea to have Hugh with her every step of the way, is when she early early on in the beginning of the movie, first, when she's making the decision of wanting to go after this cure, he could go, is this really what you wanna do? You know Xavier and the gang are not gonna like this. Well, I'm with you. Like, he's not going for the cure. He's just gonna be her bodyguard essentially.
T.C.:He's going to escort missionaries.
Jim:He's there he's there to support her no matter what her decision.
T.C.:Yeah. So then he gets to be there for any action sequence she might face. He gets to kick some ass along the way. Just and even when if she is gonna team up with with Magneto, which is joined from the comics that wolf that Rogue and Magneto would team up, that even Wolverine and Magneto would have some sort of team up. Wolverine would be like, just for the record, I'm not here to help you, Eric.
T.C.:I don't like you, and I'm not here to help you. I'm just here for her. So don't consider me one of your minions.
Jim:And don't and don't think about crossing her. Yeah. Like, double crossing her or something like that.
T.C.:So that gets a cue right there through the a story.
Leia:And it would be really great. And I understand why they did it. It was very relatable to me when I was a teenager, but she got the cure so she could kiss her boyfriend. Yeah. That's kind of a anti feminist bummer.
Jim:Oh, that's not I I you're you're right. That's what she did. I totally forgot about that's not why, in my opinion, she would in my in my writing of
T.C.:this movie,
Jim:that's the reason she would do it. That might be a nice side benefit.
Leia:Yeah. Okay. What's your reason? Because I can't think of another.
Jim:It's just human touch. I mean, like, I don't know how you even explain that in the movie, but just human contact is an important thing.
Leia:Yeah. I mean, I I assume maybe she has an accident with one of the younger kids. Like, another sort of when she gets stabbed by Wolverine, like that sort of like, I can't touch anyone ever shocking, like, turning point moments, but, like, that's kind of traumatic as well.
T.C.:At at its surface level of it seemingly being like, I just wanna be able to kiss Bobby. That's the surface level. And even Wolverine can address that. Like, you really doing this so you can kiss a kiss somebody?
Leia:And she's like, it's
T.C.:more than that. I just wanna be able to touch people. I wanna be Yeah. You know, I miss that. And and even even having a moment embrace between Wolverine and Rogue as a father daughter type mentorship, which goes all the way to Logan.
T.C.:Having having having a moment of that at some point in the movie where he's like there is something awesome about seeing him regenerating on the spot. Yeah. To have a moment of contact between those two where we see that of like, I don't care. I'm not gonna let you go. I'm not gonna let you and he's just like, oh, it's fine.
T.C.:Oh, it's fine.
Leia:Hey, hey.
Jim:Honestly, you could even have that be like a moment in her fight with Dark Phoenix.
T.C.:Yeah.
Jim:Like Phoenix is like shooting power at her and she's like, Oh, I'm dying. And Wolverine's like, No. Okay. It's okay. Ow.
Leia:Oh my God. That's so good.
T.C.:Then puts And
Jim:then and then that's like that's enough that's enough of a a a buffer for her to kinda, like, get her her because she now has his healing factor Mhmm. That people can now go to to her and and
Leia:Then it's also a completion of, Wolverine's storyline because he chooses Rogue over Jean. Yeah. Oh.
T.C.:Yeah. And and himself even. Oh.
Leia:And himself even. Please silence all cell I'm sorry.
T.C.:It's so rude
Leia:to me. To. Except for if you're listening on your cell phone, leave that on. You need to hear us.
T.C.:I'm so sorry. That was so unprofessional. I
Jim:I'm glad it was his and not mine.
Leia:It returned a minute ago. We all heard it.
T.C.:Yeah. I I think there's a lot of of of callbacks to that original. Having the the the final fight involve Famca, Anna Paquin's rogue, and Hugh Jackman's wolverine is really neat. All the while of having Magneto and the and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants essentially, I think, teaming up with the X Men to stop the the government from involving themselves and attacking the Phoenix. Like, there's some other players on the board we need to move to.
Leia:I mean
Jim:So my my idea the other reason I wanted Scott to go off on his his quest to to to find Jean who he did not believe to be dead was because that also takes the X Men that the traditional X Men leader off the board and lets Rogue be or not Rogue, Storm. Mhmm. Be the leader. So she's the one she's now the lieutenant to professor X leading the charge against the evil mutants when they they go to to get the the boy and through throughout. But Storm Storm basically because Storm is Storm is also a leader traditionally in in the comics.
T.C.:If you if you go to the nineties, X Men one, what Jim Lee did the drawing for, they had split the blue team and the gold team. Storm was gold leader, and I think Scott was blue leader, if I'm remembering correctly. I think so. Yeah.
Leia:This it's it having Scott at the final battle still trying to pull great Jean Grey back from Phoenix and him still die like, she kills him also sort of completes that it's it's a tragedy. Yeah. Yeah. Completes their love story because they don't they in in the story in the comics, they have a lot of children.
T.C.:In some variations. Yeah. Futures.
Leia:Oh, in different earths. In different earths, they have a bunch of kids.
Jim:I think it's it's actually always only ever one kid, but they have so many different futures that it's like this giant family.
T.C.:It's it's X Men. It's X Men, Nate Gray. No. No. It's it's it's Nathaniel Summers.
T.C.:It's Nate Summers, and it's Cable, and and no.
Leia:It's No. It's it's Phoenix. Yes. Yeah. Anyhoo.
Leia:But, yeah, he he can still die, and it would be terrible because he's but he's dying for love. It's very Romeo.
T.C.:Yeah. Yeah. I
Jim:Is there anything we could do to not kill Cyclops and also not just sideline him?
T.C.:Well, I I I feel the having him die in the in the final battle before Rogue has to step up and save the day, that that is unexpected. It is it's not like writing him out
Leia:of The the Men. Yeah.
Jim:Sure.
Leia:I'm And and I don't I would argue he's not dying unnecessarily. He's chosen to die for love, not for the cause of the X Men.
Jim:Look, We all agree. Cyclops makes an excellent sacrifice for
T.C.:the story because
Jim:he is not the favorite
Leia:for any of us. You know, for
Jim:some people, he is. And I'm just wondering if there's a way we can spare some people's favorite X Men.
T.C.:I I I do think it's a shame that Cyclops is always relegated to people not liking him because he's the good he is the good soldier. He is Captain America of the X Men.
Jim:He's supposed to be until you read the full run of X Men and you find out he's a philandering jerk. That's a that's a whole other story.
Leia:That's a whole
T.C.:other thing.
Leia:So let's audition this. She Phoenix kills Bobby. Oh. That that really turns rogue.
T.C.:Set set rogue off there.
Leia:It's it would set her her off. We lose one of the quote unquote younger X Men.
Jim:So she kills Cyclops in rogue day.
T.C.:Oh, you killed my boyfriend? Bam.
Leia:She would never be able to leave leave the X Men in that case, so you really set the tone.
Jim:No. Actually, that's that's not bad. She she kills she kills Bobby.
T.C.:I do think
Jim:that I I know people whose favorite X Men is Iceman. Mhmm. But not necessarily the movie incarnation. Interesting. That doesn't mean that there aren't people.
Jim:I just don't know them. Yeah.
T.C.:It there there are a lot of players to move across the board that we're not accounting for. Like, what do we do with Magneto? What do we do with I with I feel that we should sacrifice a few of them to to make this movie really have a have, like, consequences and and an impact. And I think making it to the end and seeing Magneto having Ian McKellen have a death scene as Magneto would be interesting to me. And it doesn't negate Logan because still having live Yeah.
T.C.:Albeit having him. Right.
Jim:Don't know. Future past though. So, well, first of all, the demand technically doesn't acknowledge any of the movies after x three. Right.
Leia:Right.
Jim:Right. So so, yes, this being our end, you guys are right. We can kill off a bunch of dudes. Yeah. So it's super dramatic and meaningful.
Jim:Yeah. So we could do that. However, talking of thinking about the future, if you start killing if you kill Xavier or Magneto, it does change how days the the future of Days of Future Past plays out. Granted, they don't have to be there.
T.C.:Right. I I think keeping Charles alive so we can have Logan eventually is important. But killing off killing off Ian McKellen, Magneto would be like, what?
Leia:Yeah. He's a I mean, he's a big player in the comic books. And especially because that as a metaphor for all these political things that X Men has always stood for, also as the father of Quicksilver and and
T.C.:Scarlet Witch.
Leia:Scarlet Witch. So
Jim:And more Polaris.
Leia:And more yeah. He's prolific. But and no. Not Juggernaut. Juggernaut is Xavier's stepbrother.
Jim:Well, jug Juggernaut Juggernaut's a whole different story. Yeah. The movie made him a mutant. He's not a mutant.
Leia:He's magic.
Jim:He is Xavier's brother.
T.C.:He's magic.
Jim:But yeah. He's a dude who found a magic helmet.
Leia:Oh. He's he's he's Egyptian magic. Says the helmet prevents Xavier from getting in his head.
Jim:Doesn't exist. Also true.
Leia:Sure. It's also true.
T.C.:Here's what here's what think. I think we we have a a really neat through line of of setting this up like it's gonna be the brotherhood evil mutants versus the x men, and the big twist in the middle is like, this is a dark Phoenix movie. And if somehow we could convince Fox to not blow that in the advertising, I feel like that would be a shocking turn in the movie and get us to some an insane climax to knock this off by, at some point in the movie, killing off a couple of, like, the the big key players such as Magneto. Ending this movie with essentially Rogue being the most powerful mutants, a new generation of X Men to come. The next movie that follows this franchise is what we got was Wolverine.
T.C.:X Men Origins Wolverine followed by X Men First Class, which was really Magneto's movie. At least
Jim:you are you moving on? Is that what you're doing right now?
T.C.:No. No. I'm I'm just trying to I'm I'm I we should take a break in a moment here. But I'm just saying, containing this movie as a finale, which then the next movies that follow are two prequel movies is and and that we can still have X Men First Class. We can still play we can still get to days of future past with the combination of the old and the new.
T.C.:Rewriting X Men three doesn't really negate everything that follows. It sort of just reinforces everything that's good
Leia:and what Yeah. And I just
T.C.:wanted to
Leia:say to state everything. Because Days of Future Past says, as soon as he wakes up in our timeline, everything after that changes. So And It negates all that anyway.
T.C.:Having Scott die and sacrifice himself in three and then appearing in the final scene of x of days of future passes really has even it's has more weight to it. Because it's not just like, oh, yeah.
Jim:It's already died by the
T.C.:lake halfway through the first part of X Men three. No. It's like, Jean and Scott are back. Wolverine would have like, that would be a that would definitely be Hugh Jackman's movie in terms of like, oh, Rug's not even involved in Days of Future Past. Like, they had to they cut her scene from the movie.
Jim:Yeah. I just had an idea. Yeah.
T.C.:We'll do that. Oh, go ahead.
Leia:Well, it it well, the
Jim:the idea was it it it's it's it goes back to reimagining the entire X Men franchise, and it's also something a movie studio isn't interested in doing because it doesn't forefront movie stars and surprise characters taking the lead and stuff. And it's instead having each movie be about a different character.
Leia:Yeah.
Jim:Like, having each each movie tell a different character's story.
T.C.:Unfortunately, we it
Jim:just do them all, but, like, each one gets to be the main character. Sort
T.C.:of like the original Back to the Future, Marty is the protagonist or the main character, but George is the main character of the first one. Doc is the main character of the third one in a sense of like who.
Leia:Sorry. Sure.
T.C.:Yeah. No. Sorry. Not not good. Never mind.
T.C.:T. C, edit this out.
Leia:That's also the concede of some of the comics because the comics, you follow different story lines depending on whatever branches you're rolling off of. I mean, I I read the Scarlet Witch storyline. I think that is it seventies or eighties Scarlet? She's wearing those boots and shit. It's too much.
Leia:But, like, we get a Scarlet Witch for its storyline. We wouldn't lose the amazing Quicksilver scene from Apocalypse?
T.C.:Days of Future Past and Apocalypse. Yeah.
Leia:Yeah. Yeah. You've got that's one of the best X Men scenes ever. Yeah. Is that
T.C.:How progressive would this X Men three be that we when it comes down to a chick fight? A boss bitch fight at the end there, like
Leia:It's ten what is it? Ten years twenty years ahead of its game. It's only a game. And that's what I've always wanted. When I started watching the X Men TV show, it was Storm and Rogue and women being powerful.
T.C.:Yeah.
Leia:And we live in a modern age of, you know, the rise of feminism and, like, I wanna see that more.
T.C.:Well, the new plot we've created here, which scavenges a lot from the existing X Men three, at least its skeleton and builds off that, it would would be like, hear this this is one of those occasions and we've had many episodes of like this of like, oh, why doesn't this movie exist?
Leia:Yeah. But like, because of that, that's why I'm not super excited about it, a Charles Magneto Professor X fight. I'm like, I don't really need to or want to see that. It would make the movie feel bloated to me.
T.C.:Yeah. Giving them too much of a play. Essentially, sidelining the oldest guard and and and putting the old guard in support roles and our new new young characters to complete this saga of a school essentially graduating. All these characters from the first movie graduating to be the adults. Like, even in X Men two, there's a moment where they're suiting up and and Rogue and Bobby I can't remember which character.
T.C.:They just have a moment of, like, when do we get the suits? And Wolverine has, a snarky remark of, like, when you're older. Yep. It completes that. Yep.
T.C.:So but let's let's take a quick break here. I wanna come back. I'll look at I wanna bring up some of the other demands we got for X Men and see if they're worth jumping off here. But let's let's take a quick break here. Here, a fine message from Six Five Media, and we'll be right back after
Leia:this. What?
David:Hi there, I'm David.
Kate:And I'm Kate.
David:And we're the hosts of another Zelda podcast.
Kate:There are so many good podcasts out there, and some of them in particular concern the Legend of Zelda.
David:That's right Kate, and we are another one of them. That is actually the name of our show, another And Zelda
Kate:in our show in particular, we talk about some of our favorite dungeons, characters, boss battles. We have top 10 lists.
David:Yeah. We do deep dives on game design and production aspects of the different Zelda games.
Kate:And we talk about our own experiences. We do some review episodes, talk about our challenges, our struggles, and our victories.
David:That's right. You know, really just almost anything that has to do with Zelda, we like to talk about it. A new episode comes out every other Friday, and you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and YouTube.
Kate:And you can also check out our episodes on our website, anotherzeldapodcast.com.
David:That's right. Alright. We will see you there.
Leia:Okay. Bye. I'm ready.
T.C.:Oh, good. Because we're back, and that's staying in. Alright. How you how are you how are you two feeling? You feeling
Leia:you're feeling that way? Hydrated.
Jim:Good. I'm I'm feeling, like, I'm I'm feeling good about this this movie that we put together. Yeah. Like, I'm thinking about details that that we that we didn't address that I know people are like, oh, but what about this thing? Oh, we need more Colossus.
Jim:I think he would be in there in the capacity he he is already at or more. Yeah. Right? Because he he, Kitty Pride
Leia:Oh, Kitty Pride.
Jim:Whoever else would wanna really put in there, I think, would kinda be in that that that blue team that that Storm is leading
T.C.:Right.
Jim:Against the brotherhood. So we would get to see the Like, it would be more action packed. I don't think it would be like developing too much story with them.
T.C.:Yeah. I don't like the love triangle that they forced in between Kitty Bobbie and Rogue in X Men three.
Jim:Yeah. I know.
T.C.:It felt really It didn't,
Jim:I don't know. Didn't Because everyone knows eventually it's Kitty and Peter.
T.C.:Right? Everyone knows that.
Leia:Everyone knows.
Jim:Everyone knows.
Leia:I'm super excited because we might get like Rogue in a cape.
T.C.:Oh, yeah.
Leia:That's that's hotness for me.
T.C.:A caped Rogue.
Jim:Rogue doesn't wear a cape. Rogue wears that that green and yellow jumpsuit with the leather jacket.
T.C.:The bobber jacket over it.
Leia:And like, can we have the cartoon? Doesn't she have a cape in the cartoon? I don't know.
T.C.:Storm Storm has the cape. It's connected to her thumbs. And she's like, I call upon the power.
Leia:But if if Rogue is gonna be flying, then by conceit of how you do superheroes, she has to have a cable supply.
T.C.:Maybe she
Jim:gets just isn't the hill I need to die on
Leia:the top. We can fight about this all night long.
T.C.:Well, before we go forward here, I threw a poll out just to summon I'm one of the nerd groups I'm in because the
Leia:Have found a nice way to call them?
T.C.:Oh, no. This is a loving group of nerds.
Leia:Like, everyone's okay.
T.C.:And just out of curiosity, I wanted to know what everyone's favorite X Men movie is. Right? So I just put I put all 12 of them up and said, is the best which is the best one? And what's what's nice here is that as we tried to recraft X Men three with with I don't think we've done this before, Jim. We've recrafted X Men three to not negate everything that follows.
T.C.:Sure. Like we went out of our way to make sure
Jim:There's a lot that follows that we like, so we don't wanna get rid of it. So
T.C.:we successfully did this because and you jumped off right front right up top by saying, we can't get rid of Logan. Logan still needs to exist unchanged. And and we have achieved that because of the let's see. How many votes do we got here? A 163 votes for Logan.
T.C.:Logan is the number one X Men movie.
Jim:So I I need I need to preface this anecdote with I love Logan. I absolutely love Logan. It's it's the best one. Yeah. But I do have a friend who he he has since come around, but he he has reasons for why he didn't enjoy it at the time.
Jim:He did not like Logan, at least when he first watched it. And he has a decent reason for it, and it's because to him, X Men is something near and dear. And for Logan to be the epilogue to all of the X Men, this is this is the future that Days of Future Past saved is really depressing. Yeah. Yeah.
Jim:It's insanely depressing.
T.C.:I I want this to be with you.
Jim:And so it's to him, X Men is supposed to be sort of this uplifting thing. And so Logan was a big old downer for friend of mine.
T.C.:It it is a downer. You are not wrong.
Jim:That that said, it's still a yes. It's it it deserves all those votes. Mhmm. But I just wanted to to note a a somewhat valid notion of dissent.
T.C.:Okay. Okay. Go ahead.
Leia:The metaphor is that everything is monetizable. Human Sure. It's humans are created for money. And, like, it's it's again a a politicizing of our immigrant workforce. Oh, yeah.
Leia:Yeah. It's like it being said in Mexico and you're like, oh, let's just hit that nail on the head.
T.C.:But just all the nails. Well, Logan Logan follows tradition of having a metaphor, the X Men being metaphor, the humans being a metaphor. That is number one by a landslide. Number two was X Men First Class with 63 votes.
Leia:Really? First Class?
T.C.:Yeah. Days of Future Past is third with 30 votes. X two below that at 12 votes.
Leia:Oh, that's so interesting.
T.C.:Deadpool came in at fifth with eight. And then down at the bottom of the barrel here, X Men Apocalypse got no votes. Sure. Dark Phoenix got one vote. Wolverine Origins got one vote.
T.C.:And X Men The Last Stand got one vote.
Leia:So the other wolf the Wolverine can get any votes.
T.C.:The the Wolverine got one, two, three, four votes. Okay. But Wolverine Origins got one vote. So someone out there.
Jim:I I put money down. That that vote was a snarky, ivory vote.
T.C.:Okay. It doesn't even count. Yeah. So and so I I feel like we maintain a vote. The first original X Men only has four votes tied with the Wolverine.
Leia:Yeah. It's interesting that X two is so low because that's the nostalgia favorite.
T.C.:Yeah. Being fourth there, I mean, still still a a good spot for it. But having Logan exist up top and then the two franchise sequel prequel movies with First Class and Days of Future Past existing as the two three spot?
Jim:I think I think because those were so strong and and and newer and like, they they hit also hit really well. They they were really well done that I think X two, really all it has going forward, in my opinion, when comparing to those is that nostalgia factor.
Leia:Well, it makes sense for Days of Future Past because that was a huge comic storyline.
T.C.:Yeah.
Leia:Sure. I don't know if it was the same for Apocalypse. It doesn't it hasn't resonated with me pop culturally.
Jim:Well, Apocalypse was also a huge story, but it didn't get the the votes as favorite because it didn't do like, it didn't touch so, like, for example, the reason I read one of one of one of the reasons I really love First Class is because they did a whole bunch of iconic imagery from the comics and they made it make sense. Right? Like the original X Men movies, they have a whole joke that they lamp shade. Why are we wearing black leather? What do you wanna do?
Jim:Wear some gold and blue? Right. Right.
T.C.:And then
Jim:we're all like, no. Black leather is obviously the way to go. And and then First Class comes out and they do the blue and gold. And they they made, like, it's like, my god. Yes.
Jim:Obviously, this works as sixties fashion. This is phenomenal. And it it just it literally brought the X Men comic books to life. Great. Yeah.
Jim:Like, it even went as far as to make the Hellfire Club where all the women where all the men are wearing these suits and the women are wearing lingerie, which is clearly just cheesecake.
T.C.:It's just Chris Claremont working out his fetishes is what it is. Yeah.
Jim:They made it work as in the context of of that world. Mhmm. Like, this this this illegal gambling den where they're gonna have all sorts of crazy, lustful Boxing. Things happening. It just it it brought it brought the comic books to life in a way that the previous X Men movies, the five previous didn't.
T.C.:Didn't have the guts to do.
Jim:Yeah. Yeah. Or or didn't know how to approach. And I think that was a huge factor for that one. Sure.
T.C.:Well, I I I wanna thank everybody for voting. That's we had, like, almost 300 votes here, and I I appreciate people jumping in so late in the game to to discuss that. I'm sure once New Mutants finally comes out, and it never will, it'll
Leia:be it'll be real high on the list too. Oh my gosh. But but this
T.C.:go ahead, Lee.
Leia:I was just gonna point out the it it's interesting to it's interesting to me. I consider Apocalypse to be a a storm origin story. And Yep. First Class is a mystique origin story.
T.C.:And making
Leia:it And, like, I it it they do a good job of at least giving some origin story there. Sure. Sure. And and No. No.
Leia:No.
Jim:You're you're you're not wrong. I would have loved to see way more Storm.
Leia:Oh, sure.
Jim:The the apocalypse kind of I know we try not to swear on this, but it kind of shits the bed
T.C.:Yeah.
Jim:In in regards to a lot of elements. Mhmm. And then and then the the the overall apocalypse himself. Oscar Isaac is great, but but that's probably his worst role. Not through all that makeup.
Jim:I didn't even know it was him.
Leia:Yeah. It's
T.C.:it's such a it's such a downward step from what even came before. First Class is one of the best move X Men movies for a lot of what Jim just said, for a lot of what we've been discussing here. And and Apocalypse does have some cool Storm origin stuff, which makes me think.
Leia:Yeah.
T.C.:The original plan of the X Men Origins series that they set out to do starting with Wolverine was it was gonna be a Magneto origin movie and a Storm origin movie. And I feel like they scavenged all the good ideas for Eric Lentzier, Nazi Hunter in X Men First Class, which is such a great sequence. And then what little they probably had left over for Storm in the Apocalypse situation was utilized. But this goes to our this isn't so much a demand, it was more of a conversation point from another one of our listeners, which I'm going bring up here. Is is this universe worth saving?
T.C.:If so, what is the next movie you make? Is it just Deadpool three? Is it X-twenty three? So
Leia:I'm here. I'm ready. Okay. Be a coach.
T.C.:So there this this is this is a demand in so much as, one, is this universe worth continuing? And and two, what is next? Considering what a mess Dark Phoenix was financially and narratively and unfortunately. So there's the first question. Is this universe, the 12 movies we have, including the two Deadpools, worth continuing?
T.C.:Yes or no? Because the other option is integrating into the MCU, is not a demand we're doing today. Sorry. I'm not we're we're not gonna do that demand. It's a whole episode.
Jim:Okay. I'm gonna Here we go. How do we get into the answer? No. Wait.
Jim:I'm just saying. Mute. Mute. Mute. So
Leia:hard. It's it. Okay. I'm gonna go with absolutely. Here's why.
Leia:It is the most gender diverse of the superhero franchises we currently have. Although we could definitely have some more outwardly non gender bisexual like we can we can flush out the gamut. Sure. But there are more women I will say in X Men than in the MCU. And then as we pointed out in the before the break, every movie is a metaphor for politics, society, and culture at least in America.
T.C.:Yeah.
Leia:And having that be thinly or not so thinly veiled depending on how astute you are as a human being, I think is it's really important. Whole new registration act like that whole through line throughout the what was that? The seventies and eighties? Like, it's it's all extremely powerful things. And it's it's a story about the power of otherness.
T.C.:I I 100% agree. And I agree that especially now in the era we're in, leaning into that. Because though we are not going to discuss it, as I said, when the X Men are brought into the MCU, I feel like they're gonna go for the fun. And certainly with BLACK PANTHER, they've been willing to explore social commentary. But integrating them the way they will and probably will, I feel like that'll be subtextual as opposed to the actual text of the movie.
T.C.:That this universe as it exists already could do more of. Logan proved that. So I I mean, the first two X Men proved that really well, especially the second one. Jim's making a
Jim:I disagree. I I think I think there I don't think it'll be a subtle subtext secondary thing. I think it'll be a main it'll be a main thing.
T.C.:I hope I hope so.
Leia:It's gonna have to be more obvious as audiences are more polarized, I would say. You're gonna have to be a little bit more clear with your metaphors.
Jim:And they also well, also, that's sort of gonna be the big thing that sets sets X Men apart from the other ones that have been done.
Leia:But I don't think studios are gonna back, obviously, political commentary.
T.C.:Right.
Leia:Like, that's not something people are gonna pay for.
T.C.:The the MCU has done a really fine job of creating Tony Stark and Captain America and and and putting them in such a fashion that you could ascribe Yeah. Both political leanings to both of them, you know,
Leia:in a
T.C.:in a way. I yeah.
Jim:Sure. Those characters. Yeah. But but, I mean, if you look at looking at what the other the other Marvel movie if you're okay. If you're talking specifically about, like, the the the red and blue political messages Yeah.
Jim:Even even then, I don't know. Like like, I think I think they're they're getting better. They're they're they're getting clearer about these things. Right? Like, Captain Marvel, for any any flaws that movie had, is still definitely a message about feminism and and a woman being her own person and not Sure.
T.C.:Sure. Sure.
Jim:Being controlled.
T.C.:Well, I I I would love and I'm not trying to curb this conversation, but I do think it's a full episode to discuss X Men's place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So I do wanna come back to that conversation one day. For now,
Leia:I'm I just gonna throw it in in case I'm not on this episode.
T.C.:You will. You will be.
Leia:Is I I can't I don't know if I turn to Jim or if I turn to Finn, but I said, I wanna know who would win in a fight. Phoenix or Captain Marvel.
Jim:Oh, mentioned this. Mentioned this.
T.C.:Jim mentioned that to me and then it it was like, what's what's more powerful? The infinity the power of the infinity gem imbued upon a woman or the ancient Phoenix force.
Leia:Like Right.
T.C.:That's a that is a Right.
Leia:And and because they're both cosmic. Right. Mhmm. You get a space fight between two women to Well,
Jim:could could could could the argument well, when we were discussing it, here we go. Sorry, Neil. It was it was the the Captain Marvel doesn't necessarily have the the entire cosmic cube's power. Uh-huh. She just has sort of this this Layer?
Jim:Secondary coating of it. Mhmm. With still crazy power. So so my argument was initially, I think the Phoenix was, and the Phoenix would win. Mhmm.
Jim:But then T. C. Mentioned in Endgame, Thanos goes, what what is he, headbutted?
T.C.:Headbutted. She doesn't even flinch.
Jim:The headbutted. And and not even, like, it's not even a flinch. Like, she doesn't even, have a physical rag. Right? She just stands there.
T.C.:Like he like he headbutted a wall.
Jim:And and he she's she's the immovable object, which is for to not even get not not budge for for Thanos. Right? Thanos, this living embodiment of death, is tells us she has an insane amount of power.
Leia:She punched through a spaceship. That's all I have to say.
Jim:Yeah. Well, I can knowing that Frank Phoenix couldn't couldn't stand up to to Wolverine healing. Yeah. Ow.
T.C.:You stabbed the
Jim:old you. Well, then Okay.
Leia:Okay. I think So I
Jim:so it might it might be kept I was originally in Phoenix. The But it might be kept in model.
T.C.:This this allows us to answer the question of where to go from from the having the new X Men three in place. Yeah. Agreeing that the X Men universe can be can be rally from the way it pooped out itself. Where to go from there? There there is the the hypothetical of what's the next story to tell because there's three points.
T.C.:There's there's actually three points we can go to. We can just stick with Deadpool who is irreverent and can do whatever he wants, which is fine with me.
Leia:Which one?
T.C.:There is following the results of Logan, which is x 23 and the future mutants who could all be anyone, or it's it's following the end of phoenix which sets us in the early two like 2000 like late nineties as I think where dark phoenix leaves leaves us off. Where where's the the point to conti okay. Deadpool's gonna continue, guess, take him
Leia:off Deadpool the will always continue. When I started my rewatch in in preparation for doing this, I immediately had an idea and this is perfect. This is the perfect studio demand for my idea. Okay. Mine is in an x 23 continuation and it's so in just as a recap, in Logan, new mutants have not been born in, what was it like ten years?
T.C.:Yeah.
Leia:Twenty years? Something crazy.
T.C.:Yeah.
Leia:So there haven't been any new mutants ever and the only new mutants that currently existed were
T.C.:Stuck on Disney plus and will never get released.
Leia:Exactly. They're genetically in vitro, they're genetically made.
T.C.:Right.
Leia:Test tube babies. I audition a new mutation.
T.C.:A new wave of mutation or specific?
Leia:A new wave of mutations. Okay. I really liked some sort of combination of why The Last Man? So maybe it affected all the men negatively and so it's just a bunch of women. Because once again, I'm gonna pose a lot of women on screen.
T.C.:Why not? No one is doing this.
Leia:Right. Or it's just a female mutation like the book The Power.
T.C.:I think there's also a comic called Girls, which is a superhero universe where only females are bestowed abilities. Think that's I
Leia:just read one called Man Eater where all women when they menstruate turn into killer cats. So something like that.
T.C.:Okay, studio here we go. We're pitching you
Leia:an extra They all become kitties. Yeah. So something something that not only it it brings into the current cultural question about gender. Mhmm. And maybe it's maybe it's that and we get X-twenty three back and she's just speaking Spanish because that's a fucking delight.
Leia:Oh, sorry. I No. I You're really sure that's fine.
T.C.:I I I think what though I love that idea. I love continuing past X-twenty three and seeing this this this world that could be which is essentially post the post the mutant apocalypse, not the movie apocalypse. What that resurgence could be. It's it's an it's an opportunity to reset the original X Men opens with in the not too distant future. So by having the following X-twenty three into our new generation and setting it in the not too distant future.
T.C.:Yeah. What's the the difficulty in that is who can the studio use to bring people in? It's not gonna be X-twenty three. We can't use Wolverine. We can't use Cyclops.
T.C.:We can't use all of the familiar X Men.
Jim:How Why can't we use X-twenty three?
T.C.:Well, I'm no. We can use X-twenty three. I just don't think that it's she's not gonna be a draw, like, from a studio perspective.
Jim:Yeah. Yeah. That that that was gonna be my cue. We're we can't we can't just make up a whole bunch of new new Right.
Leia:So here's well, here's the thing is Logan doesn't tell you who Professor X killed in Winchester. You just know he killed a bunch of mutants and they start to say X Men. Mhmm. So you know that some of the X Men are dead, maybe not all of them.
T.C.:Okay. So we could still have, like, Kelsey Grammer's Beast showing up. Sorry. Sure. Or Nicholas Holt's Beast showing up.
Leia:Right. I I mean that entire the entire time I rewatched Logan last week, I was like, how did they kill Magneto? Tell me. Like, how do you kill Storm? Please.
Leia:Like, I wanna I wanna know.
Jim:Okay. Oh, there you go. Yeah. Well, shorthand shorthand, right, I actually think Logan kind of when when they say what have he had the stroke and just killed. That's how you kill most of them.
Leia:Most of them.
Jim:Yeah. Sure. Actually But the
Leia:stroke affects everyone. Mhmm. We see in the movie that it affects humans and mutants.
Jim:Sure. Yeah. Which is which is why which is why everyone but Logan would get killed because Logan would just heal from it. Sure.
T.C.:Sure.
Leia:He's the only one who can move
T.C.:through watch Logan. That movie's so good.
Leia:I mean I mean, I cry every time.
T.C.:There there you go. That's your selling point. That's how you get people back in. That almost capitalizes on what the intention was a decade ago. Storm survived.
T.C.:Halle Berry can come back and play That that should that could be potentially your selling point. And this is coming from an admitted not I don't particularly care for Halle Berry's Storm. But that could be a selling point for the studio to have her reprise her role.
Leia:It it could be a a journey movie. Essentially, the kids we see the kids going into Canada. They can create alpha force, whatever. Yes. You see?
Leia:Uh-huh. Maybe
Jim:don't know if it's Dinklis oh, that's problem.
T.C.:Dinklis can't play puck. Dinklis can't play puck. He was already full of
Leia:our chest. Yeti Isn't it No. It's Wendigo. Wendigo. So they come like, they come across Wendigo.
T.C.:Wendigo smash.
Leia:And then we they travel it's probably years later, obviously, because they've aged. But they go to Doctor. Xavier's school at the shell of it. Like we get that nostalgia of seeing the destroyed building and maybe there's some clothes to Where's the Farm? I don't know.
T.C.:School's like the enterprise. They blow it up in, like, every other movie.
Leia:Right? I I They say that. They say they blow it up every every couple of years. I have
Jim:a I have a different idea.
Leia:Okay.
Jim:It's it's similar. It follows those it follows the kids. We didn't get a list of all the X Men that died. No. So we could have characters we know show up, perhaps the way they re aged Rogue for the original movies.
Jim:We re aged some of the mutants that haven't been mentioned or shown yet. Okay. Because there's plenty of them. And we have it we have them be some of those kids. So the they'll be contemporaries to X 23 instead of her seniors.
T.C.:Okay.
Jim:We can have Storm show up again. Maybe Storm is the one who has been up in Canada at this impossible meeting point. But then when we find out that they're not headed for the mansion, there's actually, if you I guess, an underground railroad to get mutant. I actually forgot my my building term. There haven't been mutants in ten years for a specific reason, not because our genes pooped out on making new mutants.
Jim:What happened is, as Logan pointed out, these corporate interests are powerful and ubiquitous. They're they're they're freaking omnipotent. They're everywhere. And so they're in the hospitals when babies are in vitro and when they're born and stuff like that. So they're just stopping mutants from they're stopping mutants from being born.
Jim:They're giving
T.C.:Oh, there's your villain.
Leia:You're in the womb. Yeah.
Jim:You're Right? They're negating mutant powers.
T.C.:Your your villain is a is potential
Jim:we're we're getting we're getting a peanut gallery interruption.
T.C.:Please please come to the mic, peanut gallery. Who is it?
Jim:Get in here. Get in here. Peanut gallery is always off mic.
T.C.:Finn, what do you got?
Fionn:Off axis. In Logan, they talk about that company, the doctor who tries to calm him down and convince him that this is okay. Yeah. Talks about, they say they poisoned the water supply early on in a news report. He said that originally his goal was not to wipe out bupi pine but to control it, and that didn't work.
Fionn:And so now he's creating them his lab. So we understand in the movie they tell us why there are not mutants for the last ten years.
T.C.:Yeah.
Jim:Because of the water supply?
Fionn:Because he killed the gene.
T.C.:That's that.
Fionn:That's gene and then he captured it all for himself and then he started making his own in a lab so that he could control it. You're not wrong. That's what they say in
Leia:the movie. Now it's gonna be Get through.
T.C.:Think Tina Kelly. But that that lends to who the villain of this movie could be. And it's mister sinister whose goal is the reverse of all the villains we've seen before. The goal is to reactivate an explosion of X genes.
Leia:Uh-huh.
T.C.:If it happened organically
Leia:And it goes wrong and just the women are exploding. Right? Then you have a problem.
T.C.:Mister mister Sinister
Jim:What's stands for?
Leia:Two X chromosomes. X-Moaded people. That's
T.C.:the movie. It's X Men explosion.
Leia:X- explosion.
T.C.:But Mr. Sinister being the villain and Essex is teased at the end of The Wolverine, I believe, is where we see is that right? Which or does The Wolverine have the Days of Future Past stinger? That doesn't make any sense. That is because he he has his claws.
T.C.:Okay. The end of which one is it? One of the X Men movies ends with a stinger. I think it's Days of Future Past has the Essex briefcase that they never pay off. So have I
Jim:don't I don't remember the briefcase. Yeah.
T.C.:Well, having mister Sinister be our big bad.
Jim:Having I'm good with that.
T.C.:Yeah. Because his whole thing is about the perfection of the X gene.
Leia:So one thing one thing I would throw in is that at the end of Apocalypse, there all the X Men again, they're all a big fancy team and they're fighting in the computer room. They're fighting Sentinels. So Sentinels also still exist.
T.C.:Okay. And it's the is it is it an enhanced variation of the sentinels we see in Days of Future Past?
Leia:I think it they looked very similar in my in my recollection. They were very similar to those sentinels. So I don't know if we wanna go down that route. Okay.
T.C.:Having sentinels in the government role, having mister Sinister be involved is like our big bad. Okay.
Jim:Having ideas. Okay. Right. So mutants have been reduced to being a corporate commodity. Mhmm.
Jim:Thus, the sentinels, who we would not have seen in Logan Yeah. Would wouldn't be super common. However, once word gets out that these that there are mutants running amok, running running north of the border, the government the US government would have sent sentinels after them. So one of our one of our scenes could be the kids running, Sentinels chasing them down, and then Alpha Flight comes in to be like, hey. You are violating international borders here.
Jim:Yeah. You back off, robot people. You know, you gotta get the mutants, and so we get to see Wendigo and Puck and North Star and Yes.
T.C.:North Star, who is gay. Yes. Oh, hi. He's an he's
Leia:one of
T.C.:the openly openly gay X Men characters.
Jim:Fight the the Sentinels as as our kids get away.
T.C.:So so then we have a movie of x 23, some young kids. We have Storm coming back in a mentor role, so, like, a Tally Berry on the posters, having Alpha Flight exist, having mister Senister as the bad guy and Sentinels from the government baddies. That's a full film right there.
Jim:And what it is is it's a it's a it's a a road trip again Mhmm. Trying to get these kids. So the the the safe haven they thought they were going to Eden. Was Eden was really just a a way station. And what happens is they gather mutants that make it there and they then secret them off to Genocea.
T.C.:Boom. Love it. Heavy.
Leia:I don't know what that is.
T.C.:That is a great that is a great counter.
Jim:It's a mutant. It's a a mutant island.
T.C.:It's a
Leia:mutant the one that Magneto had Yeah. In Mhmm. Okay.
T.C.:Yeah. It's a it's a country. And, honestly, if we wanna go long distance on this, Genocea then becomes the asteroid base.
Jim:I I there's some crashes that hurts, and then they gotta go make an artificial one off there.
T.C.:That's several movies down the road. But as far as how to follow this franchise to the next next place, this movie sounds great. Like, this sounds like it it's enough of what saw what we had before. It's I do like that Logan does present a very dusty cowboy type future, but we still go to Las Vegas and see that the world is operating. It's not Right.
Leia:It is normal. Yeah.
T.C.:It's not mad max out there.
Jim:It's it's normal to the normies.
Leia:You're right. It's normal to yeah. To the rainbow. Our our our metaphors are like US Canada relations.
Jim:Or just even national entirely. Even national. Right. Canada, I imagine Canada would actually have some sort of restrictions on mutants as well. So Alpha Flight probably kind of under the radar helps the this group of mutants like, well, you're technically illegal aliens.
Jim:So we're going to assist you in leaving.
T.C.:Which is a very Canadian thing to do.
Leia:With the stinger.
T.C.:Oh, no. We're not gonna lock you up. What we're going to do is just find a safe place for you.
Leia:The stinger is obviously Canadian Ryan Ryan Reynolds Deadpool dressed like a mountie. Fighting a bear.
Jim:It quite clearly is. Yeah.
T.C.:Nobody called me.
Leia:We just the last time we see him, he's resurrect oh, no. That's the headcanon resurrecting Wolverine.
T.C.:I do like the ending on Genosha and setting this up for a new school, a new generation.
Jim:Okay. I'm sure I'm sure the movie that's that's been locked in the vaults that they say they will one day get to us will be wonderful. But the movie we're discussing right now really would be deserving of the title X Men the New Mutants.
T.C.:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Leia:However, it does imply that the only safe place for people of another kind Mhmm. Is somewhere else.
T.C.:Well, that that fair enough. That that is But
Leia:there's also the counterargument you make your own world.
T.C.:That's that is true too. I suppose it depends on having a character having one or more character of descent that says, you know, in the end of of, I know this is a safe haven, but I don't wanna hide on an island. I want to be out within the world and having having that supporting character that, maybe it's long shot. I know Jim loves the character long shot, but we'd already had Domino as a character, so I don't know if a long shot works.
Jim:But he's an he's technically an alien, isn't
T.C.:Oh, not a mutant. Okay. Sorry. But
Jim:having you know who's No. Now that you put that out there, the next X Men movie is in the Mojoverse.
T.C.:It's Mojoverse. It's Mojoverse. I just figured out which is the which character would not wanna be on an island. And the fact that his sister is on Alpha Flight two, it would be North Star that says, I'm happy to make sure everyone gets safely to Genosha, but I don't wanna stay. I don't wanna hide who I am, what I am.
T.C.:I wanna be out there in the world.
Leia:Yep. Yep.
Jim:So so I realize you're you're right. So in in our telling of this story, we need to not make it sound like, hey, everyone has their own place away from me. Yeah. I think instead the way I would want to frame it is that these issues, which for so long we have framed as American issues Mhmm. Try putting that on an international state.
Jim:That these are these are world issues, human issues Mhmm. Or people issues.
T.C.:And if if Genosha is not it's the mutant haven, but that it's open to anyone, especially if we have a human or two character in the mix of of the on the road trip. If Storm is working with Beast, so we could have Nicholas Hoult come back. That's another celebrity for the poster. But they have a third member of their of their, like, core group that is a 100% human. Yeah.
T.C.:That having having Genocea be a safe haven for anyone who feels oppressed, that it's a sanctuary country, that that allows an opening.
Leia:It definitely the the whole the concept of how Logan sets up where mutants are, it it makes it very hard for anyone who doesn't pass as human to not get caught. So that may it makes me worry about the lengths they've had to go to to keep beast hidden, essentially. So he's probably taken an emotional toll because he's always been at the front and center politically Sure.
T.C.:Sure.
Leia:For the mutant cause. Like, I mean, he was in the politics game for most of his life. And to not be in that, that could be a very it could be interesting to see the animal he is at this point.
Jim:I also think that just by framing, in in this particular case, The US Mhmm. As so anti mutant, it paints them it paints us as as sort of the bad guys. So Uh-huh. Anyone in Genocea is like, oh, that's what we should be. We should be like this island which is open Yeah.
Jim:And stuff. Yet yet here, this cautionary tale of the future in which we reject those is is a terrible one.
Leia:And there's always gonna be countries in this world who do whatever the opposite of America is doing. Right. So those places will also be safe havens. Long as
T.C.:the island they select is not Isla Nublar right off the coast of
Leia:Oh, no. No. That would be bad.
T.C.:Dude, actually, if Mojoverse isn't on there
Jim:Honestly, what you're describing is the savage.
T.C.:Savage lands.
Leia:Yes. Just have an idea. And it it fits with the third concept that we're not talking about. Safe a safe Wakanda is a safe haven.
Jim:Wakanda is a safe haven. We're crossing over with the MCU.
T.C.:We're not
Leia:crossing over with the MCU. And we do.
Jim:It's a road because if we did, we already know what Storm is up to.
Leia:Oh, yeah. So, yeah.
T.C.:So, pump those brakes because I will say having Mojoverse and the Savage Land as options for future movies is very exciting.
Jim:Oh, I love the Mojoverse. And and
Leia:the only one even knows about it in this room.
T.C.:It's a video game situation. It's like a it's like a battle planet. It's a TV. Sorry. It's a reality TV planet.
Jim:So Mojo is this weird looks yellow thing who has his own dimension.
T.C.:Giamani will be playing him in the movie.
Leia:Excellent. And
Jim:he he steals people from other realities, from other dimensions, and puts them there in his reality show TV contest. Oh my god. It's basically it's like Running Man. Right?
T.C.:Yes. It is exactly right.
Jim:Entire universe that and it's televised. Oh my god. And it's so it's all about ratings. And there there was a story or two where he stole the X Men and he was like, okay, you guys got weird powers. Let's see how that works in
Leia:in this in
Jim:this this long shot, who's who's from the Mojo version.
T.C.:Who's from that planet. Yeah.
Jim:So he's kind he's an alien, but he's also mutant. Uh-huh. So I like, it's not super clear because
Leia:Other planets can have mutants too. No.
Jim:No. Actually, it's a weird thing that Marvel they've never done they truly have never done that. Okay.
T.C.:So we can't. No.
Jim:But his powers is Also, shot gets with Dazzler, and if you follow that, they their son is Shatterstar, who, like, is
T.C.:one of the most ninetieth looking oh, yeah. He's in Deadpool two.
Leia:He's in Deadpool two. Oh, poor Shatterstar.
T.C.:So so I so the what we're what I'm hearing here, and I did not I literally did not expect this to happen, not only were we able to fix X Men three, we are able to continue off of the existing X Men universe.
Jim:Of all the things to continue off of Logan.
T.C.:Logan, not Phoenix and not Deadpool.
Leia:It's definitely an act one movie. Oh, sure. It's definitely all like, everybody's gonna like, this movie was boring. This movie was slow. But it's we're we're a character developing a whole new team of people essentially.
Leia:It's not a reboot, but it's a restart.
T.C.:Yeah. And I don't I don't necessarily think it would be as dour as Logan, but I don't think it would be as bloated as, say, X Men Apocalypse. I think it could be better than Dark Phoenix. That's for sure. At least more coherent, especially if the three of us are writing it.
T.C.:I'll go back to saying there is no one capitalizing on I mean Captain Marvel did it. They had the A Squad in Endgame moments to build a franchise. We rebuilt the franchise around Rogue to finish it off, And now we're establishing a new franchise with X-twenty three and then Storm in the key, like, mentor mentee position. That's weirdly exciting to me, and I did not expect this to happen.
Jim:Yeah. And, again, we can sprinkle in other mutants in there. There's no reason, well, guess aside from an aneurysm that Colossus would have died.
T.C.:Oh, There is every ex every character is still up for grabs because we don't know who died in the mansion. We can assume Jean died because of how sad Wolverine is. Yeah.
Leia:I think it's what in watching Logan again, I was interested in trying to figure out who the other kid's DNA might have been from. And you don't get to see a lot of powers from the other groups. So there's also the potential for a lot of other cool mutant moments.
T.C.:Oh, sure.
Jim:You know,
Leia:you get you get the girl who like, they put grass on top of the guy and bury him alive, essentially.
T.C.:Yeah. You get
Leia:the person who does it wasn't like Sonic Blast. It wasn't like what Havoc. Havoc. Not Havoc,
T.C.:to be the new X version that but that that will also come down to how how how excited people are by the characters, the actors who portray these characters. Right? Mhmm. Like, Evan Peters is so charming, They did such a good job with Quicksilver. They were like, we need another Quicksilver scene in all the movies.
Jim:Yes. Except except the last one? Why would they not do that?
T.C.:They had to nerf him. They had to nerf him because Quicksilver is the can fix everything.
Leia:I agree. Like you get some some really great stars, some yeah. Good kids. Does our movie explain what happens when do we get to see who Xavier kills?
T.C.:It I don't I don't
Leia:You're taking a said no. You can't hear I that in can
Jim:make really good radio Yeah. By just doing a lot of miming.
T.C.:People just sense it. They can sense when Jim's making faces and and making jokes.
Leia:I know. It's the middle of season two.
T.C.:Right? Like people can just hear how much I talk with my hands.
Leia:They hear his wrestler hair slapping his cheeks.
T.C.:Yeah. They know how much I move my hands when I talk. I I what I think it comes down to is, who can who can be capital like, say, don't like, storm live so we can capitalize on Halle Berry coming back and being in the role she's in. So having having Colossus comes back allows us to use the character, but seeing Quicksilver survive lets us bring back Evan Peters. Having Beast survive lets you bring back Kelsey Grammer or Nicholas Hoult.
T.C.:Like, it just comes down to what can we put on the poster. Not
Leia:Yeah. I know
Jim:I know she had a terrible time in in with with that movie, but I actually really think bringing Yeah. Kitty Pride. Yeah. What's her name?
T.C.:Ellen Page.
Jim:Thank you. Ellen Page back as an adult Kitty Pride would be awesome. Because Kitty Pride's story is as she's an since she's been an adult
Leia:This
Jim:I think they've been really strong.
T.C.:This goes to if we may throw up back to our Ace Ventura episode where we had to come up with a way to convince Jim Carrey to do a third Ace Ventura. I think the X Men movie we're creating here, which is which has a very hard message, very deep message, where it's very empowering. That's the sort of thing that Ellen Page allies for.
Jim:Oh, so okay. So okay. This this puts this doesn't put Storm as central. What if Katie Pride is the one who is out collecting from the the the the way stations, from the the the safe havens to bring them back in. Storm is the Xavier who's on Genosha, who's kinda leading the That's
Leia:what she's good at.
Jim:And so then but really, it's it's Storm versus mister mister Sinister. And maybe mister Sinister, he has he has a a nefarious henchmen and stuff out of the field and things. But ultimately, it's the idea is here's Genosha, this this new mutant world and the soul of it is being fought over by these two factions. Storm leading this faction of mutants. We need to integrate with the world and and we need to be a force of good.
Jim:Oh my god.
T.C.:This is great.
Jim:Magneto's point of no. Screw them.
Leia:Yeah.
Jim:This is our world.
T.C.:Right. That that that is great. That, like, takes us all the way back to some of the core ideas of the original X Men film, the original X Men comics.
Jim:And thank you. And and even there on Genosha, then it's this political thing where it's not just, well, we gotta catch that sinister and stop him. No. Like, literally, he's a political force there. And people are like, no, he has the right idea.
Jim:Mhmm. So then it's it's literally this war of or this
T.C.:this Ideology.
Jim:Battle of minds kind of thing, battle of politics there. Meanwhile, they send their agents out into the world that is very wary of them creating all sorts of ripple effects. Right.
T.C.:So so let me just break this down so that I understand. I I I'm happy with how cohesive our X Men three movie became. So this X-twenty three sequel, X-twenty three is our lead character who goes through this world.
Jim:Our point of view.
T.C.:Our point of view character. So we have a couple of young ex ex characters mutants to be with her as a supporting cast. But our other main cast consists of Mr. Sinister as our villain. We have some sentinels for them to fight.
T.C.:Alpha flights has a moment in here, or did they become critical to the overall fight?
Jim:A moment. They're they're the they're the solution to the sentinel scene.
T.C.:And that gets us so they basically are are plat convenience. Not plat convenience, but plat, They're there for the plot to get x twenty three to to kitty pride and storm.
Leia:Yeah. They they open the world. Yeah.
T.C.:Okay. Okay. So then so then we have we're we're bringing Helen Ellen Page and Halle Berry back. Do how do you guys feel about bringing Beast back into the fold?
Leia:I I like it. And for this reason, we get a scene with him and X-twenty three, and he is telling her how long how slowly the Adamantina will kill her.
T.C.:Nice. That's awesome. That's great. So this is a big cast, but I feel like we're we're we're putting everyone in place for force that that works to the structure, that works to the plot we're doing here. What's our big climax?
T.C.:What's the big finale here? Mister Sinister versus Storm. But what's the
Leia:big Yeah. It's like getting to the island is act one.
Jim:Right. Right. What if what if it's an aggressive US action under claim claiming claiming that Genocea has violated some Bullshit. Yeah. Some legally.
T.C.:I think the
Jim:It's it's a sentinel invasion of Genocea.
T.C.:Okay. Then I say then it's the beginning one so first x 23 is trying to get to Eden. They she gets to Eden, but it's a waypoint. It it it's attacked by sentinels. Alpha Flight saves the day, connects X-twenty 3 to Kitty Pride.
T.C.:To Kitty Pride. They have a road trip to get to Genosha.
Leia:So maybe Genosha's act three?
T.C.:Yeah. I think the final the getting to Genosha is the final moment, much like getting to the waypoint in Logan. I don't I don't wanna retread Logan's plot. We are creating a road trip movie, so it is similar. But getting to the island, and having the final battle of the sentinels and mister sinister attacking the island at the same time.
Jim:Well, then maybe the the road trip and all of that is all just act one. Yeah. Like, within the first ten minutes, they're at Eden. Yeah. They get attacked by the Sentinels.
Jim:Alpha Flight show well, they get to Eden. They meet Kitty Pride. Sentinels show up. We have a a scuffle, Alpha Flake shows up, kinda saves the day there, and says, well, go this away, and they go that away, and Canada's not gonna be vicious to them, so we don't need to see their their entire trip. Thus, we do a in Indiana Jones red dotted line.
Leia:I know. I don't know.
Jim:Where they then pretty much get to Genocea. Mhmm. And then we can lay all of that. We meet storm, stuff like that. Shoot.
Jim:I actually would like to lay the groundwork actually before that. Somewhere in that red line, have a a moment where it shows mister Sinister's people, his his agents somehow trying to mess with our Yeah. Soldiers.
T.C.:Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Having him be the the b plot, seeing what his his scheme is, having him intercept and antagonize en route. So we get a a big action set piece that starts all things out as the sentinels even getting attacked.
T.C.:A middle section of mister sinister attempting to make an attack, fighting their way, then getting to the island and having a big climactic battle.
Jim:There you go. More. Something like that.
Leia:What do we pull a Magneto and he's trying to recruit them? I don't know enough about mister Sinister, so I don't know
Jim:who's Moby is. He's essentially trying he's mister so what mister mister Sinister does is he specifically, we're repurposing some stuff. He's obsessed with the Summers family. And so he's always trying to kidnap Cyclops or Havoc or one of their kids or their mysterious third brother that shows up on an order Oh. Or or or or anything like that.
Jim:K. And then once he gets them, he's all like, I'm gonna use your genes to to make better ones and and and and you should also be on my side. Now that I've kidnapped you, you should like me. And we're gonna do we're
Leia:gonna do cool things. I just want a crisp for you. It's no big deal.
T.C.:Said it and forget it. Okay.
Leia:It makes sense that he would try and attack this group of kids if one of them has a power.
Jim:One or any of them because they're literally a corporatized Yeah. Commodity of mutant powers. Right. Like, actually, one of the things I know it sort of undermines what's been done with x 23. A bit of exposition we can get is they actually contain a lot the genetic code for a lot more mutations than what they actually show.
T.C.:Oh, right. It's just what was unlocked when their X
Jim:gene The was rest the rest are all just literally just genetically code locked. Yeah.
T.C.:So you can get upgrades.
Leia:When we get the sentinel invasion of the island, it should be a joint endeavor with the sentinel program and
T.C.:Sinister. The
Leia:the whatever the corporation in Mexico was from Logan that the kid just
Jim:drop off.
Leia:Because they still want those kids back and they would ignore borders as well.
T.C.:Yeah. Yeah. That makes
Leia:That corporation. Yeah. So however, corps corporate's working together to steal their beef.
Jim:Is is still out there.
Leia:Yeah. And it's the corporation that was originally Stryker's Corporation in on Crater Lake. Nice. It's a it's a it's a few generations and shell corporations down, but you see in Logan on the charts, like, they have a logo at the top that said I forget what it's called, Stryker
T.C.:or whatever that That's cool. I didn't catch that. That's awesome. I I do think that that after all is said and done, the Danemois, the final moment here of of setting up the island, setting up the nation, is having rogue, Halle Berry having the final moment of the movie, addressing the UN and declaring sovereignty. Like, we are now a country.
T.C.:Please acknowledge us. It is open to everyone. We're but we're a country now. And having that that that future ready to unfold of it's similar to it's similar to Wakanda announcing themselves, but Yeah. No one's gonna no one's gonna deny that we're we're gonna draw some similarities.
T.C.:It's fine.
Leia:A strong, powerful black woman declaring herself like the leader of a country, I'm here and I will stand for that.
T.C.:Okay, we're
Jim:no longer going to hide. Yeah.
Leia:Well, it seems
T.C.:very similar.
Leia:Of the things I've been background headcanning while we're sitting here is I I desperately wanna know what who died.
T.C.:Like, You keep coming in.
Leia:My here's my proposal. Okay. If you ever see it, Rogue tries to steal professor X's power and the power itself performs the seizure to stop her, but it goes it has like a self destruct sort of mechanism for that. So So rogue dies.
T.C.:Yeah.
Leia:So it turns my most powerful ex man
T.C.:Yeah.
Leia:Person. And and that's what and she she, by touching him, has altered his chemistry somehow.
T.C.:That activated his
Leia:caught back.
T.C.:That activated his defense mechanism, essentially?
Leia:Something something like that or I don't know.
Jim:The only reason I don't like that is because what I really like that was implied by Logan was it wasn't it wasn't any thing. It wasn't even an accident. It was just we get old and things happen. And and unfortunately, right? Like, people have strokes and he had one.
Jim:And when you have a mutant power, it gets affected by
Leia:That's an excellent point because we watch both of them be old and deal with their aging bodies.
T.C.:God. When he has when Wolverine has to pull the the blade out because of his arthritis.
Leia:Yes. And
Jim:I think I think that's also why it's not shown because
Leia:Yeah.
Jim:It's just super sad. Right. Right? You you don't wanna see, like, oh, this guy we love goes and has a seizure. Yeah.
Jim:And all of the other characters we love die as an accident of Yeah. Old age.
T.C.:I I will say by having a couple of these characters still be alive. Yeah. Storm, maybe Beast, Storm Beast and and Kitty. Like, I think we leave it at that and leave it up to the assumption that Will survived, and it's something to explore in the subsequent movies of who Like, has if if, if we're not gonna put Beast in this movie, then maybe he's been existing on the in the savage lands, and he is Feral. If we're not gonna use Storm in this movie, then she's been the queen of the Savage Lands.
T.C.:I'm just saying there's what's the what's the lion the man the Khazar?
Jim:You know what I'm talking about? Right?
T.C.:What's that?
Jim:The hunter.
T.C.:No. Not not Craven the hunter. There's a Oh. There's a guy who exists on on this in the savage land. I think it's Kayser.
Jim:Well, I thought it was Craven.
T.C.:Oh. But anyhow, I do I do wanna wrap up here. No. Men forever.
Leia:Can keep frogging. Hey. That's the nickname of our
T.C.:next movie. X Men forever.
Jim:It did not go well for Batman.
Leia:Oh, shit. No.
T.C.:X Men lives. No.
Leia:Also X-four and it's EVA. X Men four. Yeah.
Jim:Actually, that really should probably be the Deadpool four.
Leia:Yes. Yes. I really like the idea of head of Deadpool skipping three and just going to Deadpool four.
T.C.:Oh my god. It's just Deadpool four.
Leia:Don't know what happened.
T.C.:Deadpool four the third Deadpool. That's the name of the movie.
Leia:Deadpool four Deadpool Forever.
T.C.:Deadpool four. Gonna just say it again that's what they named the third Bad Boys movie even though they knew they were gonna do a fourth one they should just save the title for the fourth one RANGE OVER this worked out way better than I thought it would be we we came up with two movies, and not that Jim and I haven't done this before where we've come up with multiple movies in a recording, but to our original demand of fixing X Men three and, Leah, you saying, you know, letting Logan exist still, like, not affecting that. I'm I'm happy with with that results. And answering the question to our second, demand of is this a is this universe worth saving? I think we've proved that.
T.C.:And now that came up with one solid film that could launch off into seconds and third second and third helpings. So I I I wanna wrap up the episode here, and I but I would love to know what the listeners think of how we handled this. Please let us know by hitting us up if you agree or disagree if we think we missed anything, particularly our three studios that I I drew from here. Two, I'm sorry let's see. I wrote these down.
T.C.:The law firm of movies, TV, and productions pictures, we didn't get to your demand. We we will get to it in the future. I promise you. Probably next season. But Charles from Charge and Charles Pictures and Picture by the Slice Productions are second demand.
T.C.:I'd I'd like to know if we achieved victory, if your studio was happy as well as as the listeners here. But but, Leah, Jim, any final thoughts here about what we've done?
Jim:We did good work.
Leia:I think I really like it. We did not fight about Dark Phoenix. We did not. So that's that's great. We
T.C.:could we could have a fight about Dark Phoenix after we're done here. The end
Leia:the episode. We're calling bonus episodes. That's okay.
T.C.:But you can find us on Apple Podcast and Google Play. You can do reviews in app on on both of those if you'd like to give us a little review and a shout out. We'd appreciate that. Like and subscribe. Share it out there with with other people who might like our babble.
T.C.:You can find us on Twitter and Instagram at Studio Demands It as well as our pod our website itself, studiodemandsit.com, where you can submit your demand to to what's what's what we may or may not do. And I did say we have about a 100 demands in the queue right now. Over a 100. We we basically lottery it. We're we're it's like a it's like a bingo ball thing.
T.C.:We're rolling We're gonna do this one. So you may get you may have submitted one previously that we will get to eventually. You may submit one tomorrow that we get to next. It's a it's all it's all a lottery. We're not we're not playing favorites.
T.C.:It really is as random as we can make it because the whole joy of this is coming up with this stuff on the spot. Uh-huh. If you'd like to reach me find me, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram at t c's big head. Jim's out there in the ether. Jim, where are you up?
Jim:Yeah. I'm on Twitter with Chewbac Waksha
T.C.:That's your mutant name right?
Leia:Yeah that's my mutant name What's your superpower? Gosh Rolling dice
T.C.:Rolling dice is Jim's superpower?
Jim:Probability manipulation?
Leia:Yeah. Who that? Had that? Setback.
T.C.:I mean, that's a little domino That's
Jim:a different universe. I know, but domino. Yeah, look. That's
T.C.:Longshot.
Jim:That's Longshot's color as well.
Leia:Do Longshot and Domino hook up? That would I don't
T.C.:know. No. No. I I think I think because
Leia:Oh, that's right.
T.C.:I think because X-twenty three will age up, it might be worth having her and Longshot have a bit of a romance just because he's he's a very Han Solo esque character.
Leia:Oh. What
T.C.:was your supervisor?
Jim:No. I I was I was gonna say, oh, I have an Instagram account now too, I believe. Oh. Yes. That's right.
Jim:That one's probably gonna be easier to find. I think that's just my actual name.
Leia:You think?
Jim:I don't even remember.
T.C.:You're not gonna say what it is?
Jim:Don't I we'd to go look it up. I don't have that time.
Leia:No one has that time. I'm doing it right now.
T.C.:Don't We got through this whole episode, and I'm just now hearing myself feedbacking through. No. That's
Fionn:good. So
T.C.:mute yourself for a minute.
Jim:Oh, muting muting us.
T.C.:There you go. A huge shout out to six Media for giving us this platform. Go check out everything six five Media is creating. We're very grateful to David and everyone at six five Media for giving us this for for getting us to you, the listeners. So thank you so much.
T.C.:Go support them. Check out another Zelda podcast, the back catalog of the Top Hat Balloon Show, which is Chez Magnifique. It's excellent. Jim and Lee are laughing right now because I've made such a wonderful pun. It's so good.
T.C.:But that does it for this episode. We'll be back again soon. Another you can unmute yourself guys now. We'll be back again soon to challenge and improve the world of cinema using the demands of you and your hypothetical studios out there. Leah, thank you for coming on again.
Leia:My pleasure.
T.C.:If and when we return to the X Men universe or any franchise or picture of it, we'd love to have you on again.
Leia:Well, thank you. But Do
Jim:you have any socials you wanna put out there?
Leia:No. I'm fiercely private. Do not contact me. I will not French.
T.C.:Jim, I must know her better than you because I knew not to ask.
Jim:Correct. That is that is correct.
Leia:Alright. But everyone should go to, at Jim Burzelic on Instagram and look at his one picture. This is how good he is in socials. It's how
Jim:he is in grams. Yeah.
T.C.:It's and it's spelled exactly how you think. So that's it for this episode. We'll be back again soon at Channel seven Improve the World of Cinema. I am T. C.
Leia:I'm Leah Crawford.
T.C.:Yes. And and the and the there we go. That's that's it. That's the end of the that's the
Leia:Talk about fun, Emily.
Jim:Now we're gonna talk about Phoenix.
Leia:Almost done. Okay. You guys cannot hate it.