Today's News: Sentinels are coming!

Posted this tidbit of news the other day:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/148803/sentinel_posters_x-men_days_of_future_past_online

These are some fabulous, artistically appreciative posters! Gotta love the throwback to the good ol' propaganda style of the regimes of the Thirties that proved a definite inspiration here. And why not after all? With X-Men: Days of Future Past the franchise journeys into much darker territory than it has so far on the big screen. Sure, there have been incidents of violences and mutual attempts at genocide from both man and mutant in the series at numerous turns, but nothing as bleak as the comics on occasion explored. This is the first time we see just what the X-Men are fighting for, or better yet, what they're aiming to prevent: a future where mutants are a social minority on the verge of being purged by the ruling race that deems them a threat to its own existence. Rather than getting their hands dirty themselves, mankind had delegated this glorious task to machines with awesome power not all that dissimilar from their targets, coupled with a convenient off-switch (or are they?) should problems arise in their simple programming: destroy all mutants! The notion of one race/species overthrowing another it deems inferior or threatening of course hearkens back to the saddest pages of past human history, while this film is set both in the now (of sorts) and in the future, indicating man may not have learned so much from its past. Which is of course also a sad aspect of genocide: despite the mass cullings instigated by vast propaganda machines that produced posters such as these, mankind still hasn't alwasy learned from the past and repeated such abhorrent mistakes throughout the 20th century. At least in the Marvel universe, we have superheroes like the X-Men that fight for all kinds and creeds of man to stay safe from such atrocities. Unless they too are targeted for termination: Days of Future Past will show us just what happens then...

By the way, someone inform me whether it was a conscious decision on Marvel's part to have 'Trask' be an anagram of 'Stark'? I doubt there wasn't, as Stark Industries basically turned from creating weapons for profit to producing inventions and devices for the benefit of mankind when Tony Stark donned the Iron Man suit, while Bolivar Trask - who, it appears, will be played in this film by Tyrion Lannister Peter Dinklage: quite a surprising bit of casting, as the two look nothing alike, but with such a capable actor, I'm not complaining! - and his family got ever more obsessed with mutant genocide, Sentinels being one of their results. Seems they went the opposite route. Too bad there is no Stark Industries in Fox's branch of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But there still is that alleged connection between the X-Men and the Fantastic Four that will supposedly witness its first link crafted in this flick, so who knows just who might come to the mutants' aid in this dystopian alternate universe?

Today's News: Jennifer Lawrence back in blue!

A tidbit of news appeared on MovieScene today and it'is my fault:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/147240/foto_jennifer_lawrence_in_x-men:_days_of_future_past

Good news, for various reasons. I'll quickly name the first and get over it, since it will immediately come to the minds of people who know me: I'm such a nerd sexy blue mutant women get me excited, even over ordinary girls. That's that over with. Moving on, it's nice to know Jennifer Lawrence isn't afraid to get all naked and covered in paint again - an arduous process, if we are to believe the few women who have gone through it all and survived - as she's now playing Mystique for the second time (the first was in X-Men: First Class). This time though, she's bound to have quite a bit more scenes in the (blue) buff, considering she's abandoned the X-Men and joined Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants, thus becoming a terrorist. And who needs clothes for that if you can produce them at will? Third, it's also good to know Bryan Singer is still adhering to the X-Universe he set up with his own first two X-films, despite other directors having followed suit since. Judging from this and the other pictures released so far, Singer hasn't made any changes to the design of the characters he made us come to love a decade ago. Despite Singer's successors tampering with the time line a bit, Singer appears to stay faithful to both the fantastic original X-Men and the fabulous semi-prequel First Class. That makes for some great consistency in Fox's X-universe,which is very useful for setting up that other Marvel Cinematic Universe Fox wants to create so desperately to compete with Marvel's own Avengers. Too bad Fox's Fantastic Four won't get similar respect, but hey, it hardly deserves it as much.

If the original Mystique Rebecca Romijn's known tribulations - nine-hour make-up process, bitter cold on set - are any indication, Lawrence will be in for a rough ride, again. And she does so at free will, despite her jump to stardom caused by The Hunger Games and her recently acquired Oscar, so apparently she likes the character enough. Or it was one of those nasty contractual obligations, that would also make sense, playing Mystique at this point in her career. Maybe it was both. I like to think she likes Mystique. Who wouldn't like a naked blue woman that can alter her appearance to look like anyone dressed as anyone?!

Another reason to be excited once more over X-Men: Days of Future Past is Tyrion Lannister's Peter Dinklage's continued involvement. Especially since we still don't know who he's set to play. Us Marvel fanatics might be in for a real surprise. Or a huge letdown. But hey, it's Dinklage, so we know the performance can't be truly bad. I'm guessing he'll play Apocalypse, anyone wanna take that bet? Come on, you know this looks awesome!:

All quiet on the computer front, but at least we'll always have Dinklage

It's outrageous but unfortunately all too true: after two months of waiting for my PC to be returned to me, it arrived... with no Windows installed. The one thing I asked them to do they failed to perform. My trust in Dynabyte has shattered completely. Though I left my PC at the store once more so they can work on it, I'm now entirely set on buying a new one completely just to rid myself of having to get involved in further mind-boggling incompetence like this. I haven't fully decided yet whether I'm gonna go for a PC again or just switch to Apple like so many around me have done (and they seem like happier people). Time will tell, but hopefully I'll get back online within days.

In the mean time, I still get the chance every now and then of getting a scoop up at MovieScene. This week's scoop is double news around the same movie, which is once again named X-Men: Days of Future Past:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/144601/peter_dinklage_gecast_in_x-men:_days_of_future_past_in_3d


First of all, there's little to comment on the 3D release. It was a long time coming. The X-franchise is a major one, especially now that Fox is gonna compete with Disney/Marvel with its own corner of the Marvel Universe aligning (Fantastic Four/X-Men team-ups seem inevitable for the not too distant future). And with a big name like this, the studio harbors big expectations for making money; 3D is of course a major tool for just that purpose. So the fact it will be a 3D-release is not surprising at all. However, the news that it's gonna be shot in the 3D-format is. This is still a very expensive procedure and most often studios prefer to rely on post-conversions, even though this usually spawns less impressive result and both studios and audiences know it. I guess Fox is trying to upstage The Avengers here, which was post-converted but still did extremely well at the box office. No doubt Disney/Marvel will soon turn to shooting in 3D too. No bad news (if you have any affinity for 3D at all), since it should make for a more refined and good looking 3D presentation.



And then there's Peter Dinklage, short of stature, high on acting skills. This week Bryan Singer confirmed he has been added to the cast, but his role remains a mystery. At first it was widely speculated he was gonna play Puck, a short, old friend of Wolverine's from the Canadian super hero team Alpha Flight, since he does seem most suited for that role to anybody but fools and little people themselves. This has already been debunked and probably for the best, since Puck isn't a very interesting character, which goes for most of Alpha Flight. His presence might have been a good first step towards an Alpha Flight movie, but I doubt anybody is really waiting for that to happen. That does leave the question, who's Dinky gonna play? Enter digital technology, which for one thing allowed him to voice a giant prehistoric gorilla pirate in Ice Age 4, indicating the sky is the limit. Though it has been confirmed by now Dinklage will play a villain, that still leaves us with little to go on, considering the vast numbers of X-villains of all shapes and sizes. Mr. Sinister? Nimrod? Mojo? Perhaps even Apocalypse? We just have no way of telling, since the digital age coupled with grand acting abilities like Pete's can deliver to fancifully re-create any X-baddie from the comics for the big screen... Whoever it's gonna end up being, as long as Tyrion Lannister Dinklage is on board, it seems little can go wrong (get it?). The Days of Future Past seem ever brighter. For the audience, not for muties.