When Apocalypse was unveiled for the very first time, the response...wasn't great. Oscar Isaac was quickly compared to Power Rangers baddie Ivan Ooze, and while the trailers made him look at least a little better, the voice and his size also came under fire before too long. Well, during a recent press event attended by IGN, X-Men: Apocalypse Bryan Singer had a lot to say to the villain's detractors.
"[The first X-Men: Apocalypse trailer] was simply Oscar using his normal voice -- which is wonderful; his performance is fantastic -- but that was never the intention," he explained. "We just needed those words to govern the first teaser. So people thought, 'Oh, wait, is that going to be his voice during the whole movie?' It's like, no, but to tell the story of the first teaser, we needed the voice, and I hadn't recreated the voice yet." Interestingly, the filmmaker went on to reveal that all of Isaac's lines are being redone in ADR, something we've seemingly heard in recent previews. "What I'm doing is something very unique. It hasn't been done before. We're rerecording his entire performance because the suit's creaky and makes all kinds of noise, you can't really use any of it anyway. But I want his performance. It ebbs and flows and moves through the movie, and changes, so he doesn't just have one single voice. He speaks with different voices depending on different moments in the film. So it's really kind of cool. It's the first time I've ever had the tools to sculpt a performance in post-production, that was already given to me on set and chosen in the cutting room."
Going back to that divisive first image, Singer confirmed what many of us predicted at the time; it wasn't the finished version of Apocalypse. That's something which became evident as soon as we saw the first teaser trailer, but you can't help but wonder what the thinking was behind unveiling a pink En Sabah Nur! The filmmaker explains all. "There was an image released on Entertainment Weekly, where the effect hadn't been put in yet, so everyone was -- the effect has a pink light on it, and everyone got lit up pink, so people thought Apocalypse was going to be pink. I was like, 'No, no, they're all pink. Take a look. Everyone in the picture is pink. It's a pink picture.' They maybe just should have taken the pink out of the picture -- I should have taken the pink out of the picture. I'm going to take some blame for that. My fault, not Entertainment Weekly's. That's the picture I gave them." That makes sense, and pretty much debunks theories that Apocalypse's colour was changed because of the response to that photo (though it's easy to imagine some small alterations being made).
The final big Apocalypse complaint has of course been in regards to his size. The comic book version of the character is pretty massive, hence why many assumed this big screen version would be a CGI creation rather than just Oscar Isaac in a costume. Once again, the director had a pretty convincing explaination as to why everyone needs to calm down. "So then people were like, 'He's small.' I'm like, 'Okay, I got the same s*** when I cast a six-foot-three actor to play five-foot-four Wolverine. I got the same s*** when Quicksilver's very sweet, 1970s costume was released on an Empire Magazine cover.' You know, every time. I could have made him a giant through the whole movie, or some muscle-bound guy who can't act -- I could always do that. But the reality is, among his many powers -- and you will see him change size -- but among his many powers is his power of persuasion, and it was very important that he'd be able to connect with his horsemen, at their level, and that he'd be played by a guy who can actually act like Oscar, who's a fantastic actor." What do you think?