Earlier this week, a new trailer for Dark Phoenix was released and it didn't receive the most positive of responses. While it definitely managed to win over quite a few fans, the majority are just anxious to see the X-Men arrive in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and that's not exactly something that bodes well for the upcoming movie.
Now, some spoilers have started doing the rounds (which hail from a well-known scooper on social media) that spell out pretty much every major plot beat in the Simon Kinberg-helmed release.
The final act was supposed to take place in the UN where Jessica Chastain's alien character - who reportedly won't get any sort of origin story - would have tried to kill the world's leaders, but reshoots have moved the final battle to the train crash site seen in the trailer. Chastain's character ultimately dies at the hands of Jean, who sacrifices herself (again) to wipe out the powerful alien.
Finally, Charles Xavier leaves the school to go and live with Magneto in Genosha, while Cyclops reopens the school as "Jean Grey's School for Gifted Youngsters." So, unless Kinberg had plans for a movie set in the 2000s to get us to that future-set scene in X-Men: Days of Future Past, it looks like this is something the director has just thrown out of the window.
For now, it's obviously important to take this with a pinch of salt but it lines up with a lot of what we've heard in the past and sounds suitably underwhelming. Nothing has been confirmed and this is just a rumour, but we'll be sure to bring you guys more as and when we have it.
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They're Selling The Movie With A Spoiler
Well, if this doesn't stink of desperation, what does? Director Simon Kinberg has attempted to justify this by claiming that showing Mystique's death in the trailer is a way of telling moviegoers that deaths matter...you know, like when he killed off Professor X and then brought him back in a different body.
The audience isn't dumb and doesn't need to be told in advance that people will die because, well, this moment just lost any dramatic weight it might have carried. Plus, look at how well Avengers: Infinity War handled this sort of thing.
Ultimately, showing this moment in the trailer tells us that it doesn't matter, otherwise it would have been saved for the movie itself. By dropping a major spoiler so soon, Dark Phoenix is trying to sell itself with a scene that is now meaningless, and if a fan-favourite (among the general audience, at least) like Mystique can be knocked off so casually, why should we care about everyone else?
We've Seen It All Before
While it's clear that the Dark Phoenix storyline is being handled somewhat differently here, the general plot appears to be identical to what we saw in The Last Stand. Those flashbacks to her childhood might as well be deleted scenes from that movie, and Charles' guilt over not being able to help Jean (and possibly repressing her powers) is a total retread.
So too is her costume - that may even be the same red jacket - and the entire premise of her losing control and being taken over by the Phoenix Force is old news at this point.
Sure, an argument could be made that this is the only way to handle the character, but you need only look at the comics for proof of that being nonsense. Kinberg could have taken this story arc for Jean Grey down some interesting and unexpected routes but it feels like he's basically just rewritten half of The Last Stand's screenplay. Even the way her powers are portrayed is nearly identical!
Nonsensical Continuity
At this point, it's redundant to complain about the lack of continuity in these movies because Fox, the producers, and filmmakers simply don't give a f***. X-Men: Days of Future Past created a new timeline but there's still a lot here that really doesn't make any sense. For starters, no one has aged, and when is Charles supposed to have recruited Jean...twenty five years ago?
It also appears as if any plans to get to that point in the future we saw in DOFP have been totally abandoned and fans hoping to watch this movie and try to link it up to any past releases will obviously be sorely disappointed. We might as well just view this as a standalone story because it's hard to imagine it making sense as a sequel or prequel.
The Same Old Mistakes
There was a lot wrong with this trailer, but perhaps the most disappointing thing is seeing that Kinberg is repeating the same old mistakes that fans have rejected on multiple occasions now.
For starters, Beast is still able to transform from his human form to the blue and furry version at will, something which completely misses the point of the character. Plus, let's face it; while Nicholas Hoult may have been a relatively hot commodity back in 2011/2014, his face isn't needed to sell this movie. Can you even remember what else he's done outside of X-Men lately?
It gets worse, though, because despite how things wrapped up in X-Men: Apocalypse, Charles and Magneto will once again be butting heads - something we've been watching play out for 19 years now. When Marvel Studios shelves Magneto for their rebooted series of X-Men movies, you can thank Fox for overusing him.
Terrible VFX
The explanation given for why Dark Phoenix's latest trailer took so long to arrive was that the visual effects needed to be finished.
Well, if this is the best they could do given all the time they've had, God help us. While they do look perfectly fine in some scenes, they're absolutely horrendous in others. Take the shot of Storm above, for example; this is equivalent to something you'd see in a fan film (and the less said about Storm's dodgy accent later in the trailer, the better).
Visually, there's a lot here that doesn't click and while that's somewhat understandable given the fact it's still three months away from release, the sheer amount of time spent on post-production/reshoots makes this inexcusable.
Oh God, They're Going To Kill Cyclops Again, Aren't They?
Kinberg has promised more character deaths in Dark Phoenix and, well, it certainly looks like he's going to kill Cyclops again, doesn't it? I would say that he's learned from the backlash The Last Stand received but this movie's entire storyline is proof that's not the case! Honestly, it's hard to imagine us getting a happy ending for Jean and Scott, and things may well end poorly for them both.
"I really felt on this one I couldn’t imagine where else to go with these characters after what they’ve gone through in this movie," he said during a recent interview. That may say it all...
It's An Ego Trip
Simon Kinberg has said on multiple occasions that he wants the opportunity to retell the Dark Phoenix Saga after dropping the ball with The Last Stand and, well, why should he get the chance?
It all boils down to him wanting to finally take control of the franchise behind the camera (an opportunity which presented itself when Bryan Singer stepped down after X-Men: Apocalypse underperformed; a movie that Kinberg wrote and was equally responsible for). Now he's got the chance and his insistent to make up for past failings doesn't seem to be paying off.
Kinberg's desire to tell this story again has cost a huge amount of money and clearly wasn't good enough even then, hence why such extensive reshoots took place. Rumour has it that the train sequence has replaced a final act that originally took place at the UN!
Do you think Dark Phoenix is destined to be a flop or should we give the movie a chance when it's released this June? As always, share your thoughts in the comments section below.
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