Well, it's been a week, but I finally saw it.

I really enjoyed it. I left the theater feeling like I had been in a war, so I'm good. No, I didn't stay after the credits so I have no idea what you all are talking about. If it ain't Rogue hardcore fucking Iceman and Kitty, I don't want to hear it.

Syd Lexia wrote:

When I look back on X3, I will see a movie that wasn't as good as the first two, that could have been way better, but that I still enjoyed.

Actually, I felt the third was WAY better than the first. I'm still not a fan of "X-Men - The Pilot" as I refer to it. The third is more epic than the second, but less emotional. The second felt like a movie. The third feels like a clipshow recap of a season no one saw and then a movie. I can't tell you which was better two or three, but both are better accomplishments over that first piece of poopie.

S. McCracken wrote:

I enjoyed the deviation from the Marvel Universa plot; I needed to see things a different way. I'm sick of nothing ever being resolved in the comics. There are alternate universes; people are born, reborn, time is rewound to keep them alive; people come back in different bodies, etc... Was Singer better than Ratner?

I agree that the changes (namely the explanation of the Phoenix) were overall good changes from the convoluted comics. It felt like a movie, and sometimes you can't be loyal to the source material to do what's right for the movie. Saying "fuck you" to thousands of fans to tell a good story is always okay in my book.

As for Singer, I don't know. I didn't even notice the new director. The reflection in the glasses seemed like a Singer shot, so it wasn't a big deal to me. The Tribune acused Ratner of not feeling the isolation that gay-Jewish Bryan Singer feels, which I strongly disagree with. I know it didn't feel like a Ratner film, so whatever.

Dr. Jeebus wrote:

The only thing that really bugged me about the movie was Juggernaut. The armor was pretty gay looking, and I hated the casting choice.

There's a flaw in that thinking... It's Vinnie Jones. The coolest thing to come out of Europe since Jason Statham.

DarkMaze wrote:

As for Kitty, I know fans wanted to see more of her, but her suddenly being one of THE core team of X-Men was unmotivated and ridiculous.

Instead of explaining why Kitty became a major player in the last few years between X2 and X3, I'll talk about the love triangle. I really wanted to get into it, because I'm learning to like those wicked teasing relationships. Alas, I didn't feel emotional compelled during those scenes as I wanted to be. Bobby wasn't flirtacious enough, Rogue wasn't nice/bitchy enough, but Kitty was at least someone I'd cheat on Rogue with. She has that whole... "naughty little nympho" thing about her, which I kinda dug... except that during... the unmentionable you'd probably go right through her... Actually, that's kinda hot.

Syd Lexia wrote:

Juggernaut was way underdeveloped... He's Charles Xavier's half-brother, dammit!

Fuck that, Mystique is Rogue's surrogate mother. Who bloody cares.

Off the whole "under developed" issue, the movie had a week of preproduction. For what they did, I think that's amazing. I've seen movies with longer preproduction time not coming together as well as this film. They had a lot to do in 104 minutes and probably could've expanded it further, but to me it felt like a 130 minute film, so I'm glad they didn't.

Besides, this is what new media is for. We need comics, novels, and video games to fill in plotholes now. I've learned to stop worrying and love the bom- er, that concept.

Adapting a multi-hundred issue comic series isn't easy to do, but X3 was a pretty strong adaptation. There's some issues here and there, but overall it didn't suck, it wasn't bad, and better than good.

IMDB wrote:

Josh Holloway was offered the role of Gambit, but turned it down because the character was too similar to his character on "Lost" (2004). As a result, the character was never added to the film since this would have been a special cameo put in later had Josh decided to sign on.

I'm not sure I buy this, but if anyone plays Gambit, I'd be damn happy if they got Sawyer.

DarkMaze wrote:

The second are the massive changes that have political reasons behind them -- and I use "political" loosely. I'm talking about wasting Cyclops in the first ten minutes because Marsden was only available for a few days of shooting. Rather than recasting, they said "fuck you" to the fans and carelessly flushed away an important character and two movies' worth of backstory. For no good reason. Similarly, where did Nightcrawler go? You know, the dude they spent an entire movie setting up? Alan Cumming didn't want to go through the makeup again? No sweat -- RECAST.

Cyclopes had nothing to do in this film. Wolverine was set up from film one that he was going to be "hero" of the franchise. In X2, where Marsden was available he didn't do anything, because he's a character written to be replaced. It wasn't so much that he didn't mesh with their schedule, but that he was a character who had nowhere to grow in the film franchise. The second movie also had no backstory addition to poor emo-Cyclopes. I'm not worried, I know Cyclopes will get his own movie someday and all will be forgiven.

As for Nightcrawler, I didn't miss him. Mainly because Xavior's school is set up to be people come and go. Wolverine alludes to it in X3 and then Picard/Prof. X reaffirms it with Storm. Nightcrawler probably moved along between the years between X2 and X3 taking place.

DarkMaze wrote:

Lastly (although you could probably divide the categories to infinity), there are the tiny changes that serve only to jab at the fans. The ones that have absolutely no good reason to change. For example, Colossus wasn't Russian. Nor, for that matter, was he in X2. Why? Absolutely no reason. Does it hurt the story that he's American? Of course not. But in his combined two lines in the past two movies, they couldn't have given him a Russian accent simply to be accurate? You add up enough of those little things, and what you get is the sense that once a specified level of detail is reached, they no longer care.

I don't give a shit Colossus isn't Russian. As you say, thematically, his character neither improves or diminishes because of it. Do the fans care about nationality? Apparently they do. Honestly, I don't care if Constantine goes from looking like Sting to Keanu Reeves. Batgirl was blonde in "Batman and Robin" and Alfred's niece in "Batman and Robin"... okay that's different... then Batgirl is 16 in the new "The Batman". Characters have many different interpretations. I'm not going to let different perspective ruin the whole character's lifespan for me. Hell, Jim Phelps was fucking evil in M:I, but for that movie it works, so I stand by shit like that.

Fans also should not control a movie; I think Harve Bennett said that and I agree. There's a point where you let filmmakers make films and fans enjoy the artwork. A fan can become the artist, but everyone must serve the public. I'd say all but maybe one of my friends don't read X-Men. They know who they are and maybe watched the cartoon show. But they don't care who is whose half brother and who is whose nationality. Don't get me wrong, I think serving the fans and throwing a wink to them every now and then is A-okay. I still love that Shane West says "Whatever it takes" in LXG (although no one else does and I did get my ass beat during the movie for shouting "yes" when he said it). But cluttering a film is never a good way to go. Cause why don't we go "Sin City" with everything? In fact, "Sin City" isn't even 100% accurate to the comic either.

Ugh, I shall continue the filmmakers vs. fans fight later.