X-MEN Storyboards Reveals Alternate Alaskan Fight Scene Between Wolverine & Sabertooth
Storyboard artist, Raymond Prado, has uploaded some of his artistic contributions for Bryan Singer's X-Men (2000). Of note, there is an alternate Alaskan fight scene between Sabertooth (Tyler Mane) and Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). Hit the jump to check it out.
Storyboards created by Raymond Prado
Below is an excerpt from Ed Solomon and Christopher McQuarrie 1999 X-Men script, featuring the fight scene between Wolverine and Sabertooth.
EXT. SHOW COVERED WXLDERBESS - DAY
PLACID SNOW, mountains in the distance. A magnificent vista,
suddenly disturbed by movement below.
A FIGURE RUNNING AT INHUMAN SPEED. A moment later ANOTHER
FIGURE ENTERS FRAME. Larger... moving slightly faster.
TITLES:
CENTRAL ALASKA
THE NOT TOO DISTANT FUTURE
CLOSE UP ON:
An anomaly, to say the least. A man whose features are so much like an animal, one would think he had animal in his blood. His hair is course and black, sprouting wildly from his head. He is LOGAN. We will come to know him well. As well as we can.
Then to the thing following him. So much like an animal himself, he makes Logan look perfectly human. Larger, fiercer, somehow inherently more savage. This is called SABERTOOTH. The reasons are obvious'.
Teeth like said animal and clawed fingers to match.
Mutants of course. Two who must certainly be members of a class "remote in the extreme."
EXT. WOODED HILLSIDE
Logan hits a slope at full speed, making it most of the way proper before sliding the last of it on his heels.
At the bottom, he comes to an awkward skid on the frozen bed of ice that is a lake at other times of year.
He makes an agile footed run across the ice, but adjusting has closed the gap.
SABERTOOTH LEAPS and leaps far, overtaking Logan and landing on his back.
FEROCIOUS TEETH SINK DEEP INTO LOGAN'S SHOULDER. A scream fills the wilderness for miles. Blood flows.
Sabertooth, in a bloodlusting rage, slams Logan down only to smash a whole in the ice with his prey.
Logan clamors free and dives under, caught instantly by the current and swept away.
SILENCE
Sabertooth stares at the hole in the ice in frustration. Like the cat he resembles so closely, he watches carefully, suddenly making out bubbles under the surface, trailing away. Be is quickly after them, clawed feet working as cleats in the ice.
UNDER ICE
Logan struggles, already short of breath and at the same time trying to swim madly from the shadow above. The muffled sound of feet pounding like a heartbeat.
ABOVE ICE
Sabertooth stops again... Listening, looking, searching with senses sharpened beyond that of human comprehension. Be smiles.
WHAM
He droves a monstrous fist through the ice and reaches in up to his shoulder.... searching....
SILENCE AGAIN.
Then a violent yank. The ice gives way to the soaked and naif frozen Logan who struggles to free himself from Sabertooth' s grasp. A large creature dwarfed by a larger one, he is hoisted in the air, claws tearing his neck.
ANGLE ON:
Logan's right hand. His skin ripples and pulsates, trembles from cold... or perhaps something else.
SUDDENLY, three steely claws, some nine inches long, spring from the very flesh just above the knuckles.
A stunned pause as both he and Sabertooth look down at the menacing rake.
Then Logan drives it home, sinking up to his hand into Sabertooth's side.
A HOWL unlike anything ever heard and Sabertooth throws Logan away from him, the claws tearing across his ribs as he does so.
Logan flies several yards before hitting the ice and sliding several dozen more. Be is stopped by his head as it hits a rock on the far shore.
Sabertooth skulks over to him, taking a hand away from the gash on his side in time to watch the fatal-looking wounds heal as quickly as the sealing of a Ziplock bag.
With the sound of Sabertooth's breathing comes the rising of the wind...
Snow from the ground begins to swirl in the bitter cold air.
Sabertooth is nearly upon Logan now and the wind rises further, until he must shield his eyes from the bitter, icy
As he approaches, we see the fresh claw marks on Logan's face healing before our very eyes, leaving not so much as a scratch.
A SUDDEN FLASH OF LIGHT .
Lightning? No. Lightning is not red.
Sabertooth looks around, puzzled, then down at Logan's motionless body. Then to his feet where a hole in the ices spouts bubbling water.
The wind blows so violently now that he nearly misses two figures standing only a few yards away - mere silhouettes in the icy haze.
A closer look tell us it is a man and a woman, THEY WEAR STRANGE UNIFORMS of form-fitting material - the man wears a reflective visor that hides his eyes. The woman's face is bare, revealing dark skin and penetrating eyes.
ANOTHER FLASH - one that seems to come from the visor itself. An intense beam of red light. Sabertooth looks down and sees the ice at his feet has melted - more accurately been melted - away.
Be plunges through the ice like a mark in a carnival dunking tank. The more he claws at the edges f the hole, the more the flashes of li-jht make the hole t ger. Hi* massive weight and hairy coat quickly suck him down.
The TWO FIGURES - CYCLOPS AMD STORM - obviously two of the children we saw earlier now grown - stand over the whole and calmly watch Sabertooth gather himself and swim back to the surface.
Storm looks down at the hole, concentrating her intense gaze. The wind whips further, and her skin dimples with goosebumps as the temperature drops and the water in the hole begins to freeze.
Sabertooth manages to smash through and again, Cyclops fires a beam of light to rob him of an edge to grab on to.
Storn then further forces the temperature down, freezing the ice thick and thicker.
UHDER THE ICE
Sabertooth pounds violently as the ice above him drives him further and further down, becoming more and more a wall between him and his prey.
Finally, he wisely concedes.
With one last look at the two mysterious figures now nearly obscured by the ice, he tuns his body and swims away with the same agility he had on land.
ABOVE ICE
THE SNOW AND WIND ARE NOW VIOLENTLY RAGING
Cyclops and Storm walk over to Logan and look down at him curiously, observing the metallic claws that seem to grow out of his flesh. More puzzling is the way in which they retract, vanishing into holes in his flesh which heal as quickly as the wound in Sabertooth's side.
LOGAN'S P.O.V.
They look at one another, wondering. Logan's eyes begin to close as they obscure the last of all perceptible detail.
Visit FilmSketchr's for More X-Men art from Raymond Prado
X-Men (2000) was directed by Bryan Singer, from a screenplay written by David Hayter. The cast included: Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Famke JanssenJames Marsden, Bruce Davison, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Ray Park, and Anna Paquin. The film had a budget of $70 million, and earned a stellar $290 million at the worldwide box office.