Chamar and Andrew are back with yet another bonus episode as we continue the "Cape or Cap" season with X-Men: Dark Phoenix. As always, we are here to ask the big questions: Does the story make sense? How does it compare to its comic adaptation? What was happening behind the scenes? Is it a good addition to the universe? And most importantly, did the film earn its CAPE or was the hype around it all CAP?

Referenced Materials:

• Uncanny X-Men (1963) #101-#108 and #129-#137
• Avengers Vs. X-Men
• X-Men: The Animated Series and X-Men '97
• X-Men: The Last Stand

Follow Yet Another DC Animated Podcast on social media @yadcanimatedpod.

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00:00:00 Intro

00:06:26 Movie Recap

00:55:54 Comic Knowledge

01:09:22 Behind the Scenes

01:16:24 "Cape or Cap" Decision

01:29:11 The Ending Reminder

Professor X celebrates by drinking right in the middle of

the gosh darn day. It's like one maybe 1pm Listen,

he's just celebrated he does Apple lawsuit on his

Hi, I'm chamar Griffith codenamed Comics Chams. And I'm

Andrew Tejada. Codename Arete and this season we're looking at

the worst superhero movies ever and seeing if they're fun or

straight up dumb on Cape or cap, a bonus season of yet another DC

animated podcast

Welcome to Cape or cap or bonus season here on yet another DC

animated podcast. My name is chamar Griffith codename comics

Chams and I'm Andrew Tejada. Codename Arete. Andrew and I

have known each other since 1996. That was the year the

Phoenix Festival. It's a music festival happened

in England. I think I didn't I didn't check the

location. But I do know that it had David Bowie, Alanis

Morissette be York, Foo Fighters Coolio, and more. There were

more like 30 artists there. After this year after 1996, they

tried it one more time, and then they tried to resurrect it. But

it fell to ashes. They couldn't do it

fell to ashes. Let's see what she did. Wow, that's,

you know, on the nose for a lot of things. I'm mainly thinking

about like, they tried it again, like this story that we're gonna

talk about was a try again, and it felt as well yeah. Um,

because as a reminder, really quickly, we are going through

films across the multiverse because right now with the

current DC Multiverse kind of coming to an end with their

crisis event, we're checking out other films that had their

impending doom already forecasted, including this 1x

Men, Dark Phoenix. So today, we are covering this film, which

ended the 19 year run of main continuity X Men films, at least

I think that's, I mean, the area might be great. It's like

Deadpool, and, you know, the New Mutants film existed.

Okay, yeah, technically, yeah.

But either way, at a runtime of 14 minutes, this 2019

film was directed and written by Simon Kinberg. He's the director

behind such productions as 35543 55 355. I really have no

idea how they actually promoted that film. But if you do well,

yeah, I mean, he has a great cast. It just was not

really probably well, we also as I mentioned, he wrote this film

X Men Dark Phoenix, along with other films, such as the

Fantastic Four movie featuring Michael B. Jordan. jumper, which

is a personal bath favorite film of mine, Mr. And Mrs. Smith, and

the original version of this story, adapted for the screen. X

Men blast and so

Hey, kids, look, if you mess up once you can get a

chance to try again. Yeah, but sometimes,

maybe maybe move on to something else.

It's okay sometimes also, if you make a mistake to to not

try that again.

Quick, fun fact, though. I did come across

unrelated to Simon Kinberg. But really about X Men productions.

Did you know that the X Men have been going on on screen

basically for since like, 1989

I can't think of what was on it. 1989 What were they

doing?

They had a one episode production called pride

of the X Men. That's pride as it spelled as in Katy pride. befoe

y. And that episode, which basically you can't find

anywhere in the world now was the inspiration for the video

game, the arcade game that we constantly play whenever we go

to any kind of space that has arcade games, especially the X

Men game. Oh,

I love that game. Pick Wolverine or you're gonna have a

bad time. Storms gives you but Wolverine is really what you

want to pick.

This is also funny thing about this film, or at

least about the X Men in general is we just experienced a longest

break between X Men on screen productions because between from

what I figured out from between New Mutants and X Men 97 I was

like 1300 days

Whoa, well, you know what? They needed the break?

Yeah,

we they exhausted everything, especially with this

film, which has our cast list starting off with Sophie Turner

coming off of her stint as Sansa Stark from Game of Thrones.

Today she's giving her final performances Jean Grey after

three films and if franchise and summers Montana plays her

younger counterpart, who many fans of The Vampire Diaries

universe might recognize as hope Michelson, the daughter of Klaus

and forgetting the mother's name right now, but from what I can

always been told about her she's been a pretty big deal. Yeah,

all

the Vampire Diaries fans are going to come after us.

Thanks.

Next up, we got James McAvoy who's reprising his role

as Charles Professor Xavier. This is the first time he spent

the entire actually I take that back. There have been many there

are many scenes that wish he was not bald.

Michael Fassbender attracts us to his role as Eric

clencher aka Magneto. Nicholas Hoult is beast Alexandria ship

is storm. Ty Sheridan is Cyclops. Evan Peters is

Quicksilver Kodi Smit McPhee is Nightcrawler Jessica Chasteen

seems to be the leader of a group that's supposed to be the

main antagonists of this film. And she's also credited with a

name that 90% Sure they never said in this film.

They don't. And we'll talk about that.

And finally, we have Jennifer Lawrence, who hits us

right through the hearts as she gets her final performance as

Raven, aka Mystique,

she she lays it all on the line. We couldn't we would

not have asked for a better performance.

All right, so with that, just like most excellent

productions, I guess it's time to fly and then crashed the

Blackbird right into the beginning of X Men, Dark

Phoenix.

So we get some very vague narration from Charles Xavier

about evolution. And that's fine. You know, that's how most

of those original X Men movies started. So I guess it's a

callback throwback to those. But after that, we get a scene with

a young Jean Grey. She is just in the car, her mom's listening

to some trash music. And she wants to change the radio. So

the radio starts changing. And they don't know this yet, but it

is genes powers manifesting that she can use her telepathy to

change the radio station, or her power would have been funny if

her power was literally just to change radio stations. That was

the extent of it.

Maybe the greatest DJ probably. That's,

that's all you'll be doing. You won't be fighting

with the X men because they find people that can punch through

you and like a single punch. So she is changing the music. And

okay, I'll justice later. But the scene in the beginning of

the movie presented as her mom is so distracted by the music

change, that she runs into the other lane of traffic and

crashes. That's how the scene is presented. Originally. Gene's

parents die automatically. So Xavier as as Jean is orphaned.

And apparently the nurses don't tell her that her parents are

dead,

when he was just like who was gonna tell her

except them? Exactly.

I don't think a hospital can actually do that. I'm not

I'm not sure you can have a patient, a young patient and and

not tell them that the parents are dead. I just feel like you

shouldn't be able to. But for anybody

that's a nurse or a doctor or anything a medical

practitioner of any sort. If you listen to this podcast, please

let us know we have big questions about this because

this doesn't feel ethical whatsoever.

No, it's almost as unethical as a show the resident

which I just started on Netflix. It's absolutely insane. Doctors

let people die and hide that they kill people in surgeries.

But that's a story for another time. Because now it's time for

Xavier to get a new X Men. Yes, because,

you know sighs Batman, Charles Xavier loves

recruiting kids to fight his battles. Yes. And here we get

like a good moment because I will say I did appreciate this

line because as you're talking, Charles does share that he's a

mutant and that her powers genes powers are manifesting showing

that she's also a mutant. And she's like, she feels really out

of place. She doesn't understand her place in the world. And she

feels like her powers right now are more of a curse than they

are anything. And what he does is that he takes out a pen from

his pocket. He gives us tariffs to say hey, this is a gift to

you. That a pen has many, many things you could do with it. You

can write a letter, you can draw something with it, or you can

stab someone in the eye. This is the actual dialogue in the film.

But what he does share is that whatever you do with the pen is

what what you do is like the use is different from the object so

much like you Jean Grey, your powers could be done. It can be

used to create and do many great things. But is with proper

practice that you can do that versus if you let it run while

people could get hurt. And I do appreciate the fact that he

doesn't share that light. It was kind of like her fault as to do

the distraction of her mother crashing, unfortunately, and

everything her parents passing away. As she agrees to come with

them, they stand in front of the Charles Xavier School for Gifted

Youngsters at the X mansion. And this is when they show thou that

like Jean has fully accepted that she's going to be joining

in the school. And he just shares that this was like the

first day of the rest of her life. As we jumped to what was

supposed to be present day. Sorry, no, it's night tonight

TOS by like eight years after the events of X Men apocalypse.

And now the X Men are more seen as like heroes around the world,

which I feel is a major contradiction to what I've

always known of the X Men, because in the 90s, they were

basically treated like as if it was straight up racism. So

seeing them as heroes this little while.

I mean, speaking of contradiction, I'm 1992 right?

If X Men 2000 takes place in the same universe, what the hell

happened to Charles in eight years? Why does? How did Jim

McAvoy look? Patrick Stewart is a beautiful man. I'm not gonna

lie. But how does James McAvoy go to looking like Patrick

Stewart in eight years? What the hell happened to you, bro?

It's probably the events of this movie to me.

I guess so because I'm stressed. But here in the 90s

they are just chilled around being X Men with a space shuttle

is gets in trouble. So the President of the United States

calls Professor X to help out with that. So he sends a bunch

of X Men to happen there X jet and go up into space. And we

have storm Cyclops Nightcrawler Mystique beast, not quite sure

why Mystique needed to be there.

Yeah, it seems like she's the de facto leader of the

strike team only because of age. Sure.

And storm, can she use weather powers in space? Is that

this is a this is a this is a yes and no. I want to

say so back in the day, this is Storm wasn't given much respect.

Unfortunately, that's the reality that we lived in. Storm

is as of like the late 2000s has been more considered and Omega

level mutant. So things like conjuring things in space like

that is more real. So I think that what they did was that they

knew that they had to put respect on her name. And now

give her the ability on screen to basically what ends up

happening is as they arrive to the ship, that is that's lost a

little bit lost in space, it's about to get hit with this solar

flare. She's able to create some like, I shielding on certain

holes of the ship, which I gotta say, I mean, I don't know too

much about physics or space. I'm not a rocket scientist. But I

feel like if there's a hole in your ship, based off of every

other space movie I've ever seen, everyone in that ship

should die. Yeah,

I mean, it's kind of depending on how fast they get

there. It'll take like a few minutes. But the ship was in

pretty rough shape. Yeah, I'm not sure. And their plan

basically is have Nightcrawler jump with Quiksilver. So they

can gather all the astronauts in an instant and save them. So

they do do that. But they realized that there was one

astronaut they left behind. So Professor X says, Yeah, Jean

gonna hold the ship together. While a lot happens, don't worry

about it. So Nightcrawler jumps gene to the ship to hold it

together while he finds a missing astronaut, but he is

unable to get to her in time before the ship just gets hit by

that solar flare. And this is very important because the solar

failure starts heading towards her friends. And Jean pulls it

towards herself. This comes up later. So I want everyone to

remember that. Um, so Jean absorbs the force, the ship

explodes. But Jean survives, and everyone looks at her for like a

too long of a beat. I'm like, she is floating in the vacuum of

space. Please go pick her up. So they pick her up and everyone

celebrates. Earth celebrates crowds celebrates Professor X

celebrates by drink Getting right in the middle of the gosh

darn day. It's like one, maybe 1pm He started Listen, listen,

he's

just very happy that like everybody came back after

he basically sacrificed a bunch of like teenagers to young

adults, okay? Just celebrated that he does have a lawsuit

on his. That is fair, and he is called out for it. Raven

does call Professor X saying that, you know, you've been

seeking fame lately. You're kind of enjoying this. And he's like,

I enjoy not being persecuted. Thank you. So it does set up an

interesting conflict of him more not more concerned with fame,

but chasing that fame chasing that notoriety. But that nice

conflict is ruined by one of the worst lines. I have heard in any

superhero movie, where Raven says, women are doing a lot of

saving around here. Maybe we should change it to x women.

Yeah, that

was that was a set of words put together in the

phrase.

Look, I sure you know, for branding purposes. If you

wanted to find a gender neutral name, that's fine. But I, I

just, I didn't see that happening on screen. So much.

It's like Quicksilver and Nightcrawler, did 90% of the

work on that last name. So I don't really understand where

this is coming from in the context of the movie. And even

so, starting next force, I think, equal opportunity for

everybody. I

mean, the X Men have had so many teams throughout

history on uncanny X Men X Force, just start off a branch

of X Men, that is just a female lead to anything but it's I

agree it felt it just felt like trying to make the argument for

the sake of making the argument. When also when you look at it, I

think there are really only three female identified members

on that team currently in that moment. And again, they besides

storm holding can tear the ship and Jean taken on the sofa,

which granted, those are like very big power moves. But in the

end of the day, Nightcrawler and Quicksilver were the ones who

went through and pulled the people from the other ship into

theirs, pulling them to safety. So I unless something else

happened between for the other films, which I doubt that it

did, or between the eight years since apocalypse, try and take

it over. Yeah, there's nothing really that nothing, nothing

that I can see that she could stand on that argument with.

She was talking about Jubilee. Everything. Yes, yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes, I forgot about her.

So that this movie, this movie is in general, just

cameo.

I will I will give it a pass. She did have the

scheduling conflict. She can't come back for this. Okay.

So after this big blowout, Jean does go get

tested, she gets tested by bees just to check on everything

because again, she took on the full brunt of a solar flare, and

basically came out of it unscathed. Especially after she

was just floating in space helmetless. And as he's doing

all the tests, he's like, basically, I don't have the

technology to measure how powerful you actually are. It is

wild to see that you were able to do all this you're off the

charts. And Gene is kind of happy about this because he's

like Alright, cool. Now that you told me that I can go and party

with the rest of the rest of the meetings in the kids that are in

the school. She meets back up with Scott and she's sharing

this like great news about like you he literally said off the

charts it's like the least scientific thing a scientific

human can say and as they're talking Scott shares like you

know, are you really okay because like you did take on

that full hit. Also everybody's just like really even though

like you just want to check in because even though you did do

this wondrous feats below worried also don't let get don't

let it get too big of a head for you. But people are starting to

call your cool name because of what you did. And that name

being Phoenix. Yep, that's

the origin guys. Just a bunch of kids calling our

Phoenix. Basically, I

guess it was in the 90s It's not like an AOL screen

name. That will that will count.

Yeah, that's that's your that's your tag. That's your

your Craigslist tag I haven't know existed when we were young.

Elsewhere. A bunch of rich people are Having a nice dinner

at their Lakeside house and some aliens show up. And one of the

aliens, somebody goes out to investigate. And it turns out to

be Jessica Chastain. And while she's investigating, and the

alien comes out of the forest and shapeshifts into her, and

she's like, well, that's not good that a scroll. Sorry. I

said the word scroll. That's that's not what these are.

They're Dubarry Yes. Dubarry who can shape shifting aliens who

can just shape shift into anyone they want and maybe get their

memories so it's not really important for the purposes of

this movie and all that they have their memories or not. So

they take over the dinner of people all these aliens, and

then why do they know that they can't? Anyway? Um, don't worry

about that. So well elsewhere they're at the party for the

Phoenix and somehow Beast and Mystique have a live video feed

of a party in the middle of the forest.

I I feel like that's like that. That's just too much

overboard in terms of like home security. Like I get it but like

I feel like now my my my scale in terms of home security is

like the best home security is probably x x mansion and them

spying on these kids during the party versus DC us bury Alex's

mother getting killed and we still to this day don't know who

it was.

Well, the tomato sauce can knows I guess. Um, so at

this party mistake, while she's watching the party with Bs

proposes that they should leave get out of the X Men. Things are

a little too crazy. She's like the X X and X Men stands for

Xavier, doesn't it? I'm like, Yeah, I mean, he's funding it so

I guess he can branding wise school X gene, I don't know. Um,

so while they're debating whether they should leave or

not. Gene has a just a sudden surge of power. And she knocks

everybody out. Instead of guessing if it was the punch,

she was drinking. Maybe she had some early career Four Loko or

something. They immediately hook her up, put her to bed and

Professor X decides to explore her mind with good old cerebro.

Yes, so

as we continue with this invasion of privacy,

he does show beast and Raven the full setup that is

genes MindScape. And as they're going through, it's a very like

sand ish, like space. Basically, it's just like all of her

memories are like this. Strings of reality, just like fog

almost. And Raven or Mystique does even comments, like, are

all mines like this. And Xavier shares No, this is what genes

mine has been like since she's been going through so much

trauma since the day of the accident. However, he's been

working with her for all these years, to try to put up a block

around all these traumas, and sharing that like he has been

working for the place mental barriers, which comes into the

ethical question of like, was that something that Xavier

should have done? Raven questions it. And he's just

like, it was the only way that keep back her true full power,

which is already the beginning of the ominous sense of like,

gene could have gone rogue. That pun intended. And the more that

he's venturing through, Gene starts to wake up. And as she

wakes up, she's recognizing Charles in her mind. He's trying

to calm her down as they're watching. And they do see once

again the scene of basically her parents and what happened on the

day of their accident. But more importantly, the lie that has

been told to her for her entire life since that day, being that

her father, John Gray, did not die during the day of the

accident, but instead decided to give her up to go stay with

Charles Xavier.

Yeah, and this is not good news for her. So she

decides I'm gonna check out myself. She knocks out Cyclops

and goes towards her father. And so after Jean finds out about

her father she immediately wants to go after so she knocks out

Cyclops. Professor X is trying to chase her to get to her

before she gets her dad but he is not quick enough in the jet

so Jean finds her dad alive and they're talking it's a very

tentative conversation. It's very tense because He's very

awkward, and doesn't really know what to say. And she notices

that there are no pictures of her, which I mean, I think from

the context clues or him being alive and not contacting me. He

didn't want to mess with you. Like, did you think he had

amnesia? Like I don't know. So it's now revealed that they we

replay the opening scene and it's turned out that gene

actually knocked out her mom that day, and directly caused

the accident. Why they felt the need to trick us. I'm not really

sure why, what benefit that did to any of us. So as Jean is

getting more upset, the expert arrived, and so do the cops. Did

anyone call the cops?

Right? There was no reason there was, there was a no

point in which like Jean did something that was wild. Like

she didn't. I mean, she probably flew over, but like it, I don't

think I will call the cops if I saw someone flying overhead of

me if they were calmly entering a home very peacefully. In fact,

there was no point in which there was like, any shouting

angry moments, except from Jean, just being like, you've been

lying to me my entire life. And then when they start feeling the

rumbling, the thing that causes the most chaos is the entry of

the X Men.

Yeah. I originally thought her father called them,

like, out of like, abundance of caution. That's how I remembered

it. But then I watched it. I was like, No, he actually didn't.

Like he just was really awkward about it.

Honestly, I feel like you shouldn't call the cat

I feel like he shouldn't call Charles because, like, how are

you going to explain to the cops like, Hey, this is my daughter

who I gave up. Because I couldn't deal with her. And now

she's just come she's confronting me now. I want to

call Charles be like, Yo, my man, what's up like, why? We had

to deal like why she

had to do King. So now Yeah, but speaking of the X Men

are here. And they're, they're gonna try to make things better.

By making everything worse, because as Jean sees

everybody come through, Charles is like pleading with her to

calm down and just come with them so that they can just

reassess everything that's going on. Because I'm believe he's

sensing that these barriers are breaking now, because now that

she's learning more about what was hidden from her. It's these

powers of hers are starting to grow. And she's like, evolving

almost to the next step. Which was a big issue not for her but

for other mutants in the last movie. And as he's working with

his team now to tackle everything is going on.

Unfortunately, as we mentioned, the cops do arrive, they

immediately draw to shoot which is weird because they spent the

entire movie prior to this. So in that the X Men were heroes.

So the habit be that like, what the person who basically was the

top hero from the latest mission, be the person that now

the cops are trying to take out? Versus hey, let's try to figure

out what's going on here. Um, it's a lot it does not make

sense. The the way that the X Men are then transferred into

like, the problem calls causers. And as Xavier sends his team

into, to help out gene unfortunately started to attack

some of the costs because at this point, she can't really

she's like diving in absorbing herself into this anger. She's

now feeling. And we have moments in which like, Quicksilver tries

to speed up to try to stop her from attacking me by too much

which was a waste of time because he since he sends him

back flying at even faster speed, I think also store oh my

gosh, yeah, right. Oh, I forgot. Um, but yeah, Quicksilver is

gone. He's alive. But he's just got probably smack them right

into Scott into into Scarlet, which is one division honestly.

Um, Storm tries to attack and in this moment now, Charles decides

that the best course of action is to follow ravens plan, which

was for her to walk up to Jean, as the leader of the team, talk

to her try to calm her down. Tell her that like, Hey, we're

here for you were the family that you've had this entire

time. And, well, I'll let you talk about what happened about

families.

Well, family is not strong enough here. Not stronger

than a tree because Jean launches Mystique back. She dies

like Logan. And let's not deny it. This death was ripped

straight from Logan because she dies with wood going through her

and Jean just dips you know, and leaving the X Men with this mess

and they have a funeral beasts doesn't bring his umbrella to

for mystique and everyone starts discussing what to do like

Cyclops tries to stick up for Jean storm is saying I think we

need to take her down. I you know, people without much power

can't be trusted speaking from experience because she just

dealt with someone who had a lot of power and cannot be trusted.

Professor X surprise surprise he's drinking again. But beast

lashes out at Professor X says you know because Professor X is

kind of weirdly downplaying his grief in this scene being like,

Oh, this is where I met Raven naughty that the DA and this is

like, bro, what the hell are we gonna do about this? And so

they're not friends. And Jean while she's chilling in an alley

with no umbrella, the alien villain whose name is VOOC fuck.

What was her name?

They never say it in the film. Because we'll never

know. But it's spelled V. UK. She's the leader of the as you

mentioned that the Bari alien shapeshifting race? Oh yeah,

we're almost. I'm gonna call her space, Karen. I like

that. Space. Karen attacks, genes father for information.

And she says a line that should sound badass where she goes,

before I interrogate you. I just want you to know that it's a

shame that you won't give up the information. Your language is so

much easier to understand when you're not screaming. Is there a

language that is easier to understand when people are

screaming? I please let us know in the comments if there is a

language that is easier to understand. If you're not going

to make a joke, I'm not gonna make the joke.

I have what am I? I'm not gonna make

it while you ponder what that is, we're gonna go over and

because guess what Jean found an island. And it's a nameless

Island.

Oh, I believe this was supposed to be Genosha. I

don't think they ever said it. But this is supposed to be

Genosha which in X Men history is supposed to be a safe haven,

basically run by Magneto, where all mutants can be safe.

Basically, in this one, we learned that the land was given

to him by the US government. I guess after the offense of

apocalypse, which is like a consolation prize, we won't

murder you on this couple of blocks that has no

infrastructure.

As she arrives, some people are wary about it. But

Magneto or Eric, he's like, alright, it's all good. I know

her. She's like people, my people. And they get a chance to

talk. And he sees on her shirt that there's blood in questions

like, whose blood is this? Why are you here? Why are you not

with Charles and she's not give him any straight answers. In

fact, she even comes up and says that the reason why I came to

you is because I understand that you have killed people in the

past. And I was like, that's really messed up. Many people in

this universe have killed people in the past.

Not a great opening. Like technically, I think Charles has

killed some people.

I think Charles has the highest killed count in this

series. I mean, we're talking about Logan happened yet, but

like technically, Oh, well.

So before they can really get to what's going on? The

military arrives with helicopters. And here again is

another example of the movie escalating without any clear

reason why? Because yes, at this point, Jean has attacked some

cops. But I don't think the US military would immediately go

after her. I don't think that's the escalation of events at all.

How did they know she was even there?

Exactly. That was my main question. Do

they have the script too? Because they arrived to the

island and Magneto is trying to calm things down. He doesn't

want to expose the genes there. But out of really nowhere. In

the middle of the conversation Jean decides to lift one of the

helicopters and her and Magneto play helicopter hot potato and

eventually Jeanne throws away the chopper. Which Magneto is

like, look, you're bringing too much smoke here, please leave.

So she does. And it's further revealed that the President has

now cut Charles Xavier off which if this is an international

manhunt you're starting for immune Don't you want his help

finding her when maybe the opposite one Professor X when I

cut him off, exactly killed Jean. I don't quite understand

why. But I do understand that this is the scene now where Jean

cuz she could be so easily found is randomly found by the space

Karen.

And this is where we get some insight of like,

basically what happened here. So space, Karen explains her whole

thing about her being from this shape shifting alien race. They

arrived on Earth with the purpose of harnessing this, like

the solar flare that gene took on. But Surprise, surprise, it

actually isn't just a regular solar flare. It's a cosmic solar

flare that has the ability to either destroy or recreate a

world. And unfortunately, her race the alien race to the Baris

were on the former under that where they were heard their

whole entire planet was destroyed when this cosmic

flare, pastorate destroying it. And they want to harness this

power that Jean now has to try to recreate their own world

again, it's under the guise that they just want to use it to

create a whole separate other planet somewhere else. But we

know learn from the space Karen, that, you know, she doesn't feel

great about the fact that there are people who are not like her

inhabiting her or the world that she treasures. So now she wants

to in that world now being Earth. So now she's toying with

Jean, she's telling her that, you know, we can work together

to make this a reality. And all she just once is to work

alongside her. This is where, again, none of the X Men none of

they don't really know what's going on. This has this whole

huge blowout with Charles Xavier, he ends up leaving

taking the X jet over to the island Genosha. And this is

where I think in the first time I've ever seen where beast and

Magneto actually come to terms and agree on one particular

course of action, which is to take out gene as a way to avenge

mystique. Yes, because

you know, this is a time a movie where Magneto has to

lose a family member. That's happened

I got it really does anyone.

Um, so we also get a little more context from space

Karen, a little bit that the force they were following,

started the Big Bang. And it destroyed the hurt the world

that her and the aliens are from, so they decided to follow

it and

your world was destroyed. What did you use to

follow it?

Guys, if you're camping, and a bear destroys your tent,

here's some advice, just some free advice. Don't follow it.

Let it go and do whatever it wants. And you get the hell out

of there. You get out of the way of the bear, you leave the

forest, you don't go follow it and see what happens next. So

she further says Jean, you can use this and you can create

things. But I don't know why gene would. She's like you can

evolve you can become more powerful. And so does gene want

any of that I think Gene just wants to not have killed her

friend. I I don't know what the goal is. But in any case,

they're at a nice New York apartment. Don't ask how they

got there. Don't ask whose apartment they're actually in.

Don't worry about it. Xavier decides to assemble a team to

find Jean because he finds her by following where Magneto and

beasts went. Sure. And Xavier tries to just bring Cyclops but

storm and Nightcrawler insist on going with him. So they all go

over there. And now they confront Magneto beast and his

two is two new mutant psychics.

Yeah, they're credited as a Riki and Celine. Um, as far

as I can tell there is I'm pretty sure that there's like

some random characters that they do connect to, but nothing that

can really find that it was just like they were a part of this

actual story.

Yeah, one can represent weaponize is lots. And that's

his power and the other mutant has like, say miles psychic

abilities, I think. Yeah. Um, they don't really do much. I'm

not even gonna give them nicknames. I'm sorry, I they're

just not gonna be that important enough to even get that. So they

have a brief confrontation where they're like, Hey, we're here to

save Jean. We're here to kill them kill her. And Cyclops out

of nowhere says I will fucking kill you.

What's right, I was like, first off, this is the way

you use your one F word in the dark.

i It's so out of nowhere, but I will give them props. It

does lead to a cool street fight. Where because the the one

Magneto villainous has the powers of mind manipulation. She

can contract Professor acts and mess with nightcrawlers

teleporting. Surprisingly weaponizing locks is a really

effective weapon. And honestly, if you've never been slapped in

the face by like a braid, it is very dangerous. You could get

hurt guys. Be careful out there. And as a final act to this

really, again, I do have to give full props This fight is really

uses the New York Street really creatively has these jumping on

cars Cyclops using his beams and in refracting them off of

mirrors and interest. Oh, yeah, that was a good one.

I also did like this one scene in particular to where

Magneto is able to pull a New York City train station, or

subway, or sorry, a New York City train from underground and

creates a brand new playing field for everybody to basically

somebody got hit with the train. It is wild. I think, honestly,

to watch this movie just for that scene. Just that's what

made it for me.

Yeah, so I will. There's one thing about realism because

of a train. The a train was pulled up from the ground.

People wouldn't freak out. They'd be like, Ah, god, how

long is this gonna take 10 more minutes? God, I'm never gonna

get to, to my showing of Godzilla versus Kong on time.

Well, this is the 90 so maybe like Dunston checks in I don't

know.

Or another Godzilla movie.

But the train thing does work. And now Magneto gets to

confront Jean Grey.

And it's a cool entrance scene he crashes

through the building itself. He's floating in Jean and space

Karen are hanging out on the the meeting place of where the

staircase ends up creating this loft area. And space Kerr is

kind of egging Jean on to like, you know, you really are more

powerful than you think. You know, Magneto, of course has his

helmet. He's thinking all right, well, I could block whatever

gene is gonna throw at me. However, this new evolved gene

does something that I think is a pretty smart idea which I'm

surprised that no one's ever thought about before. By taking

Magneto helmet and using her telekinetic abilities to start

crushing it around his head and the pressure is just too much

for him that upon it finally breaking not through his head

exploding out he does get knocked out and this leads to

Jean taking some more of the some more metal around her using

it as like a binding handcuffing against him and since him flying

back outside there's also a cool scene to in which Magneto takes

the staircase and rips it off of the off of the staircase the

railing and almost plunges that right at genes i But she's able

to stop it showing that like Gene really is a whole new level

playing field when it comes to her abilities especially when

she has the support of the space Karen

space Karen's ready to come please if things go wrong.

Oh maybe she was the one that columns.

So an interesting thing here because in the next scene,

Xavier is able to bop into the New York City apartment. And

Gene is like cruelly making Professor X walk using

telekinesis and space. Karen is really happy about this. But

because she's because Gina is using the powers to make this

happen. But if her home was destroyed by this terrible

power, why would she be happy to see someone using it for evil

when she not want this to happen? Because, exactly. I

don't understand why she's so happy about this. And things get

more confusing because Xavier now completely overwhelmed by

Gene uses talk no jutsu and is able to find one good memory

that breaks gene out. And genes like, actually, I don't want to

use this power anymore. I don't like who I'm becoming with this

power subspace Karen's like, Oh, I could, I could just take it.

And she starts taking it. Was that always on the table? Why

was it just used before? Does that make any

sense? Because she also is able to fully absorb it? Are they

partially absorb it enough that she could basically do the thing

that she wants to do?

Yeah, why would she not take it? Why would she wait

until this moment to take the power? It makes no sense she had

all day.

I, ah, my gosh, it is wild, it is unnecessary. I

think they just did it too. Honestly, you could have had the

entire fight scene and not include any of that. Like you

could have just had space Karen lurking off in the background,

looking to see what gene will do. And then finally, besides

like, well, she's not going to do the thing, miles will just do

what I actually wanted to do. Or even show that like, you know,

there was some opposition may be from the other day, because

there are several Dubarry characters on here. Like several

people, they never have any conversation, it would be great

if we had a conversation with her like, she's like, I want to

take on the power and they're saying, No, your body won't be

able to handle it. Or something like that, showing us like give

us some more motivation, more understanding of like, why is it

that space Karen's here, what just wants to use this power,

and then she just decides to go against the wishes of the other

people and just take it for herself. Like anything else to

explain the motivations of these villains would have made sense,

or this?

Yes, and we will get into later, maybe, maybe when we talk

about what happened behind the scenes, some of this will make

sense later. But in this movie, Cyclops comes in and interrupts

the process before it can be completed. But unfortunately,

the US government once again comes in and captures all of the

mutants. Good and bad. Cyclops does manage to launch space

Karen, almost to the sun. But she survives a hit thanks to the

Phoenix Force. Maybe we'll also get into how she survives this

hit in the minute. But everyone is captured and put in collars.

They're on a train and paying shifts. How do they get to the

train? What train did they take from New York City?

I need to know how many guards were there to take

them all out given like, legit.

I mean, there were like some people who were knocked out

but like, there was enough people that they should have

been able to at least fight back like everyone. It seemed like

even gained mutants were like, on this train, which was really

weird. Get ahead of hold, like a fully operable, fully staffed

train that like who did this? And never know. We won't.

Definitely because the the Dubarry aliens come to get Jean

Grey off this train. And they start on the opposite end of the

train. And she is

which I'm like, it makes no sense. Why would you the

worst

version of Snowpiercer I've ever seen in

a long way you know where she is. So they board the train.

And here is one of the most confusing aspects of this movie.

So aliens the debris gets shot by guns, but it doesn't kill

them. But when they use higher caliber caliber ammo, it does

kill them, except when it doesn't. So our guns effective

against the Dubarry new is the question this you'll have this

entire scene because it goes back and forth many times on

whether they can actually be killed by gunfire.

I also appreciate too that during this entire

battle it shows that they are all significantly stronger than

any of the mutant powers that are that anybody has like.

Basically it seems like power magnetism, trash of telekinesis.

telekinesis or telepathic trash, laser beams from the straight up

eyes, trash. It just seems like these characters were so

overpowered that is shocking to me that they never got into a

larger fight prior to this. And this is all because again,

they're trying to go after Gene the X Men now teaming up with

like Magneto side of members, they're trying to hold them

back. People die. Unfortunately, there are many people, many

people that die from both sides, or all three sides. Well, to say

I live in that, like there's just everybody just fighting.

Well, Professor, Professor X's people are largely

Okay, throughout this battle, Magneto people die immediately.

Yeah,

those locks were not able to battle off I guess like

brute strength for some reason. Um, but as they are like trying

to subdue the mall, we do get some like cool uses of powers

throughout the scenes. But we do have to bring this to an end

where Xavier is sitting next to Jean, who is basically this was

another question because it was like the amount of like,

restraints that they had on Jean means that they had to be there

for a very long time in order to get everybody in, plus the lock

down jeans head, or arms, or legs or torso. Basically, this

girl was strapped to a tap like a table. And Xavier is like

trying to talk to Jean tell her about like, the importance of

family and love and all that. And earlier in the movie, it

gets shown that like Xavier started to lose his connection

to Jean, he's unable to like read her mind. But he keeps

throughout the entire time trying to push his own mind into

hers. And then she finally responds and says, All right, I

know I have to do especially in order to protect my family, as

she immediately frees herself from the restraints, which means

to me that the entire time when they've spent all this time

putting people putting the mutants with their inhibitor

collars on no one thought to do that to Jean, I guess

they figured she was good. So Jean, decided to just

take the train off the tracks, if the train fall off the tracks

beginning they get in a very admittedly really cool visual

where the train is twisting off the tracks, but everybody who

she believes in is in a sphere. And they're kind of like

flipping upside down in this like protective glass sphere,

kind of like how she was in the car crash. And the car crash

that killed her parents originally, she put herself in a

protective sphere that kept her from getting any injuries

whatsoever. So it's kind of a callback to that. And she comes

off the train, but there are still some surviving Dubarry

aliens. So they all rush her they all explode into little

mist because they have no chance against her power scaling is out

the window. So space Karen tries one last time to absorb the

power. And space. Karen says like, you could kill me. But if

you kill me here, everybody else dies and everyone else starts

falling apart. Like it's the end of Infinity War. So Jean just

flies up in the space blows up. And that's that's that? Yeah,

um everyone's a little sad, but it doesn't seem like

they have much time to really process this grief, which is I

think a common theme throughout this entire film is we see that

Xavier has decided to name the school to Jean Grey School for

Gifted Youngsters. he retires I'm assuming and shame because

of everything that happens during this film, which gives

beasts now the position of headmaster unfortunately his

originally was that plan that he was going to leave

with Mystique are Raven because of the love. But he decides to

honor her memory by staying behind helping younger mutants

to get understanding of their powers and really be a part of

the beat, just like not to just rather just get a sense of their

powers, but on her memory also by having a little picture of

her on his desk. We see that basically they decide to pull

the end sequence of Batman The Dark Knight Rises. As Charles

Xavier moves over the Paris. He's there having a cup of

coffee, or an espresso. And in that moment we see Magneto

coming up and it's although the scene is a little a lot like

Batman Dark Knight Rises, it does seem to be a very nice call

back to the relationship Between Charles and Eric, where Eric

brings out his mobile game of chess. And I just realized

that's how weird that sounds. This is a suitcase and they

offer two he offers a home to him and the same way that Xavier

did to him in an earlier set of films, so decided to play this

game of chess. And as they pan out, we see a flaming bird in

the sky, symbolizing that the Phoenix is still alive and

possibly also means that Jean survived this blast that she

created for herself.

And that's it. No post credits, no post credits,

because this is where the universe was supposed to end.

But yeah, it didn't so um, before we figure out go into

what happened and if this is a cape or cap what in the comics

happened here? Is this anything like the Dark Phoenix storyline?

In any way?

I'm so mad about this, but there is a lot of

accuracy. This movie Oh, okay. It is in my opinion might be the

second most accurate telling of the Phoenix the Dark Phoenix

story up first is always gonna go the X Men The Animated

Series, they knocked it out the park like literally out the

park. Um, but in general, the story is considered like one of

the best if not the best in X Men comic storytelling. So Dark

Phoenix itself actually takes place between issues 129 to 138

of Uncanny X Men that ran between January to October of

1980. But the first introduction of the Phoenix Force at least,

like the proper, larger storytelling of it, especially

as it came into possession of Jean Grey, was in issues one on

one to one a way of the same series that took place between

7677. So previously on X Men,

members of the X Men team were facing off against

like robotic copies of the original X Men team, you know,

this was when before beasts eternal blue and whatnot. They

were called X sentinels. And they were created by Stephen

Lang, who took over the anti mutant division after the death

of of Trask

battle happened in space, it was at a point where

it's just like X Men, I feel like have always had battles in

space. Once they were like, We can't fight the fight against

racism on the ground, and the more we got to the cosmos. And

while they were in space, they did see the solar flare coming

towards them. And while they were there, they were like, We

need to find a way to get back home, especially because the

solar flare might kill us all. But the only way that they can

do that is if someone stays behind to manually send the

shuttle back down to earth. And Gene volunteers for this

mission, knowing that's going to be a suicide mission, much of

the satisfaction of many of the members, but she does make a

good point. Because after psychically knocking out Cyclops

who was very adamant about not leaving Jeanne behind, she says

that she's the only one with psychic telekinetic abilities

here, so she can monitor and handle all the controls that

would normally take a full team to actually to do to make sure

they all got home safely. Excellent or save Jean takes the

full hit of the solar flare. And as the X Men crash into the bay

of Bay back on Earth, and they swim back up to the surface,

Gene happens to float back up as well. And this is where she's in

a brand new costume, calling herself power incarnate, and

especially now using the name Phoenix. Okay. So if that sounds

very familiar to anybody, that is basically a lot of what we

saw in the X Men animated series, which they did a great

job again of adapting. As time progressed, though, Jean seemed

very much like yourself, so no one was taking too much

craziness over the fact that like genomes died, they were

just happy to she was still with them. But unfortunately, they

started to open up the doors for more cosmic threats, including a

faceoff with the members of the CR Empire, and a group called

Star jammers, who was led by Scotts biological father that

neither he or Scott knew that they were related, but we'll

just pass on by that

cool hope you can't get can't get child support in

space.

Like your jurisdiction. But again, you can

actually watch this whole time sort of play out in the third

season of The X Men animated series and episodes three

through seven of that third season. But as I mentioned, This

the things that do get attacted from the comic that we do see in

our film. One of the main things is the mental blocks that gene

has. So, unfortunately, Charles didn't get as much crap about it

as he did in the movies. But he does share that, like he's been

working with Jeanne to put up these mental blocks in order to

hold back the full extent of her powers. This was even before the

Phoenix had entered her body. But then we have members of the

Hellfire Club. These were people who have been around for

decades, centuries who have been manipulating things from behind

the scenes, and came across the knowledge of the Phoenix, this

cosmic entity, which has now entered Jean Grey. And they

decided to by being led by their leader mastermind to try to

convince Jean that she's actually been a member of this

club this entire time, so they can trick her into using her

power so they can control basically everything with the

power of the Phoenix Force

and gaslighting. Yeah. Um,

so this is the group that is called the inner circle.

Jean does get convinced, and she even takes on the persona of the

Black Queen because the inner circle tended to take on the

names of chess pieces in order to show their power. And Scott

and the rest of the X Men they go in they fight to save her.

Scott has a full on battle with mastermind that takes place in

the MindScape. I think we dressed up like pirates for it

for some reason.

They Scott wins, it's a great battle.

Unfortunately, something happens where with that when it is the

final barrier that's holding back the full extent of genes

power, and allows the Phoenix Force to usurp that power to

turn her into the Dark Phoenix because she's upset of how she

was used. She realizes that she has all this ability and like

literally has been restraining herself from using it this

entire time. So she goes full evil. This is why this also

revealed much like our movie, she goes into meet with her

family about what was happening with her. So she does attack

them for giving her away. Once she decides to take off after

everything that's happened because they expect to find a

way to stop her from doing too much damage she flies off into

space is actually implied that she flies off through different

realities, which I'll talk about for the Phoenix forces a little

bit. But during her flight, she actually destroys a she our

empire ship, and even destroys the son of a solar system that

that caused the extinction of a familiar named alien race, the

Dubarry

so they're all dead. I don't even

know we there's no space care. Um, so we see that

like, battle after battle that the excellent half of the Dark

Phoenix, we see that Jean has some moments in which she's able

to like gain back control a little bit. And she's pleading

out to her family to have many scenes in which she's like

pleading out to them, like just kill me, like literally, this

is, um, see the harm that I'm causing. It's a nice little

scene that we see even in X Men the last in which she's like

pleading with everybody to be like, I know how much trouble

I'm causing y'all please kill me. Unfortunately, this kind of

all comes to a head when they're transported before she our

empire. Because Jean has sustained trough her crimes of

what she's done as the Dark Phoenix. And even though she has

full control in this moment, she knows that like she has to pay

for it in some way, shape, or form. So during a trial by

combat that Scott is able to orchestrate, Jeanne actually

sacrifices herself and pays the ultimate price by so that the

rest of the X Men are able to travel back home safely, which

differs a little bit from the animated series. Because the

Dark Phoenix Saga actually takes place between episodes 1417 The

end result of the gene is different, but I can see now

that the movie did try to imply the scene of like, Jean having

to sacrifice herself in order to save everyone else. And I think

that's only because it was a PG 13 film, they could adapt to

more adult themes, which is this idea of this. This ultimate

sacrifice.

Yeah, that Okay, so a lot of it does hit those points just

not as tight.

I will say to that, like just the ending result of

it all. Um, I don't want to spoil it too much. But like if

you are watching X Men 97 currently at the time of

recording this, like the light three episodes have come out.

They are actually really following along the events after

what happened here almost completely accurately. There's

some jumping around but this is what happened in the comics is

actually playing out really well in this series. So definitely

check it out if you haven't already started it. And the

biggest thing that I didn't want to address on is the Phoenix

Force. Because this thing is a really big deal is take Going

over many people within the Marvel Comics and everything

Jean has just happens to be the most popular, most well known

one, but it's actually taken over her daughter Rachel, which

is the daughter that she and Scott had in the Days of Future

Past reality for the longest period of time. And other people

who've actually possessed it are another dollar that they had.

The X Men actually at one point split it up between a comic

series live in series called Avengers vs X Men, where the X

Men were trying to bring back mutants after Scarlet Witch had

eliminated them from during the House event storyline. So they

saw that it was coming back. Scott decided to use this as an

opportunity to bring back mutants and the Avengers were

like No, no, we already know the destructive damage that the

Phoenix Force could cause. So when they were fighting, the

Phoenix Force actually took over financing of Scott, Colossus

magic, and two other members of the X Men. And then it led into

Scott. Unfortunately, the other members were defeated in battle.

So the Phoenix Force actually took over all of Scott making

him one of the worst villains of the Marvel Comics at one point

because he had that ability. And that thing about the Big Bang

was actually kind of accurate because the Phoenix Force is

actually considered life in general life incarnate power

incarnate. So there's at one point in which Galactus faced

off against the Phoenix Force itself when it wasn't being

possessed by anybody and the watcher intervene to let him

know that if you destroy the Phoenix Force, it actually will

destroy all life in the universe, with no chance of

rebirth. Ooh,

that's the opposite of what a Phoenix is supposed to

do.

Right? Um, so it's wild. It's, it's definitely a

crazy, big power play when it comes to Marvel Comics in

general. It actually doesn't even just stay in Marvel Comics

actually has the ability to travel throughout the multiverse

is there there's never mentioned but it is mentioned. It's never

like seen in other universes, but as mentioned in a lot of

these comics that it could actually travel to different

realities such as the DC Universe or other maybe even

stuff like seeing Sita in Invincible or anything like

that. But the craziest thing that did come out of this whole

time that it possessed Jean was during that first time it

possessed it during it possessed her during the Phoenix Dark

Phoenix Saga was that the body that Jean had during those

things, was not actually Jean.

This is borrowed.

Yeah, it basically, during the time when Jean have

first taken the hit, she kind of made a deal with the Phoenix

Force to Protect her friends. So that's why they truly survived.

And she was like, I'll give over my body in order for you to be

to inhabit it and do what you need to do. But what it did is

that it actually created a clone body of gene that had all the

abilities of the Phoenix Force sent the real gene into the same

bay that the that the we're in, but has we're trapped in a coma

underwater until she was found by the Avengers. And when the

Phoenix Force had actually sacrificed or gene has

sacrificed the Phoenix Force, so that version of her the little

bit of life force that took which actually if you watch our

expending anime series and kind of get a sense of this

happening, flew over to Jean in underwater thankfully, she had

been pulled out by the Avengers by then and woke back up gene in

this original body spoilers. I'm sorry, you should have said that

prior to that, in terms of X Men the animated series if you're

watching it through now, but it's a little different. A

little matches up. But I would say the X Men Dark Phoenix does

kind of hit on certain things that does come from the comic,

but just doesn't use the right people or character.

I am glad I didn't do that clone body stuff because I

still don't follow it. But sure, you know, have a backup in case

something goes wrong. Okay, so that is so that's that's the

Dark Phoenix comparison and comment so does get some things

right. But so springing right, why did it go wrong? Well,

here's the thing. There's a ton of conflicting information on

the internet about how extensive the shoots reshoots for what was

going on behind the scenes. So the end there's an entire Reddit

thread that claims to have another version of the script,

which some stuff lines up some stuff doesn't. So I'm going to

stick to the stuff that has been commonly agreed across all

media. So I'm going to ask you, would it surprise you to know

that the Dubarry were not the original villains of this movie?

You know, I had a sense because I was just like,

this entire thing feels like from my reading and research of

this feels more like the Hellfire Club or vein thing. And

I was like, what? Why do you think we just go with people who

have been working behind the scenes all this time? That seems

more real to me. So funny you say that because the

original script was going to have Jessica Chasteen playing

Lilandra of the car empire. Oh, that would have been good. And

the Hellfire Club would have also been in the movie as

another antagonists. So there would have been multiple

antagonists in the movie. So what happened? Well, Fox knew

during the process after apocalypse is financial failure,

that they were going to reboot the universe. This is back when

they were rebooting the universe. So they at this point,

they knew this movie was going to be the big ending. So they

said, Simon Kinberg go and do whatever you want with it. Have

a big Dark Phoenix blowout, so he attended to to have the

Hellfire Club Alandra. But the thing was, he wanted the story

to be cosmic, but not to cosmic. What does that mean? I don't

know. But at some point, he stepped away from Alandra

because he felt that was too cosmic and replaced the Alandra

with the scrolls. So Jessica Chastain and all her aliens were

scrolls, for the longest time in the final skin, the scripts.

Furthermore, there they had a plan. So in the original script,

the scrolls came to Earth, following the Phoenix Force

because they wanted to harness it for their own purposes. After

it's settled in gene. Their plan basically, was to infiltrate

Earth in the highest echelons of government, manipulate gene into

essentially doings to destroying parts of Earth, in a very public

fashion. And then once gene had done that, and framed and they

could frame the mutants, they would come in as saviors and

take the force from themselves and also take over the world. So

the reason why space Karen doesn't take the power away in

the movie is because she wanted Jean to have it in the final act

for a very specific reason. Um, this sounds a lot

like the plot lines of two movies in the same

universe. Oh, um, but also, this explains a lot like, Why the

sudden shift in like the X Men in general, because like, it was

there, regardless heroes, and then as soon as Jean goes to see

her dad who basically abandoned her, and she should rightfully

be angry about that. They literally they're calling the

cops on her. The military gets involved with she has over to

Juno's, like a lot of that makes sense. It was like earlier in

scenes that she was doing things to destroy things. They felt

like they even the President being like, Yo, I can't talk to

you anymore would have made more sense.

Yeah. And that's why also, some scenes also would

have made more sense, like the squirrels would have originally

seen Professor X getting the metal from the president like he

does in the movie. And that's where they come up with a plan

on the spot of mutants. And like Oh, mutants are almost accepted.

Let's run with this. So there are rumors that unsubstantiated

that the reason why these changes happened was because of

the Disney acquisition of Fox. And because there was scrolls in

Captain Marvel, which was releasing the same year they

were demanded to take them out. And that is unconfirmed. But

what they do know is they had bad test screenings. And they

did change the last act, which was originally a fight at the

UN. Jean Grey was going to fly up into space to repel alien

spaceships, piloted bus scrolls. Does that sound familiar to you?

Like God? Yeah,

they wrote the ending of Captain Marvel by accident. And

wow, the movie was going to come out before Captain Marvel in

2018. But because they had to wait months and months for

reshoots, because they could not get this cast together. The cast

was really busy on other projects, so they missed the

boat on getting this out before Captain Marvel and had to

reshoot it. The third act to take place on a train because

they were confident Marvel wasn't doing that. But So

basically, to sum up what happened here, they wanted to do

the Dark Phoenix story, they blinked when at the cosmic

aspects a little too hard, decided to pull back. And

because they reoriented too late in the process, they had to take

apart the script. And tie it together by changing the name of

the villain take removing the villains motivations completely

from the story. And as a result, you get this. This this kind of

this final result that feels like some things were not

stitched together, right. Also, Jean Grey would have heard

voices throughout the entire movie, which would have also

made her her mental state more urgent. And, and she would have

heard that she's a murderer, and she wasn't sure if the voices

were from her head or she was hearing other people say it. I

imagined just adding that

I didn't want this to how was that there was

nothing else in any other production that was related to

Disney or anything like that, that would have used that line

that would have been perfect. If we added that in and made more.

Well, as it is, this is what we got. So all that to say

that the end of the day, the Dark Phoenix we did get isn't a

cape or cat for you.

Oh, this is a certified cat. I was really

rooting for this one. Especially because I knew it was doomed

when it first came out. But I was hoping that maybe it wasn't

as bad as I remembered it to be. But, you know, honestly,

compared to Suicide Squad, Suicide Squad had a more linear

storytelling than this did. The things that I had issues with

were just like, really just character motivations. Like, the

whole, the whole sense of like the Dubarry and VOOC. Like the

fact that they're, they're never really introduced properly. Like

we don't have a sense, like they give the story about the cosmic

entity and how it could create worlds and how it could destroy

worlds. But like, none of the stuff actually makes sense as

to, like, hey, let's I'm going to take over. Like they're not

even like, oh, we want to take over Earth to expand our empire

which like yeah, as a scroll kind of mindset. But as we seen

in the MCU, as of late for which I'm talking about, like for

Captain Marvel and for Secret Invasion. It's not like that as

the motivation of the scrolls anymore. Like it's they're just

chillin, they don't have a world. So they could have easily

just said that we wanted to create a new, like, we just want

to expand our empire. And we've known that the cosmic entity

could do this, which would have to me easily combined two

characters to some teams versus like the bar just faded out

there like that. But also bringing a lot of this like

Hellfire Club mindset of just like we want to control things.

The other issue that I had, which was a big issue for me was

ravens death. It is the most hollow death I've ever felt in

my entire life. Like there is a better writing about the

influence that a character's death has had on like the

characters in the movie. And you got served like to this day,

Little Saints death has a hold on our community. s&p

So it'll say exactly we still

don't know got you but we go Oh, but like here for

Raven, it was just like very hollow. We don't see anything

except for like some brief moments of emotion from like

Magneto and beasts. And honestly beasts was the most emotional

about it. But it was like for all of like, three seconds

compared to Magneto who was like rolling with her and was just

like she had like been on his team. And then Charles, who had

known her since she was a child since they were children. Sorry.

So it just feels like it was just like Jennifer felt like at

this point. As I was watching I was like this is clearly the

moment when like Jennifer Lawrence, if I remember

correctly, she was like I'm done. I don't want to do this

anymore. Honestly, at that point, you could just take her

out off screen. Just be like she left he wanted to do something

else. She she died off screen. You had eight years to toy

around with this versus less killer off in the first like,

like 510 minutes of the film, and then never introduced the

fact that like Jean has this. This like this moment where

she's like struggling with the fact that she killed her friend,

because honestly, it doesn't even feel like they are friends.

It just feels like Raven was just doing her job of being the

leader. She's very forgotten after the first 20 minutes of

the film. Um, but I will say that the movie did have its good

moments, I think the CGI was kind of cool. Mostly was storms

power and like Cyclops, I mean, it now is getting to a point

where people are recognizing that like, Cyclops has powers

more of a Connecticut versus a laser itself. So unfortunately,

this still falls in line with this. And I also did like that

line in the beginning, I felt like it was a good line in terms

of like the pen the use of a pen. I think also the, the

confrontation like first introductory moment of that

competition between Jean and her father, were a like clicks for

her that he gave her away and that like, it was truly

intentional. did feel real, it felt like that was the natural

progression. I'm glad it didn't kind of like dry down and be

like, she's hanging around, she's grabbing a cup of tea.

He's in the meanwhile working behind the scenes to try to like

call the cops or her tried to like call Xavier to find out

what's going on. Like we're seeing him like trying to toy

around with that. It was like immediately like, Hey, I don't

see any pictures of myself. You did this on purpose. And that

was the only logical leap I felt in this movie. But what about

you? Are you giving this movie? A cape, the storm cape? Or is

this all bigger captain, the friends of humanity.

This is a big, big cap for me. The movie struggles to

establish any actual conflicts. Because if you really think

about it, a lot of the conflicts in this movie don't actually

exist. The whole thing with the Dubarry aliens, there isn't

actually a conflict because they can either steal the power from

her or ask her nicely to create the world. They don't have to go

through any of the things they go through in the movie at all.

Including interrogating a her father for her location because

they find gene randomly at a bar. So you know, like think

about that. They don't actually need to do that. Yeah, they the

whole government and police coming after the X Men is so

inconsistent in this movie, their heroes one day, and one of

them goes rogue and it's over. There's not enough background to

understand why that would happen. Because of anything.

After the events of Apocalypse were for mutants almost assure

the world they should be in a bad situation now. But most of

all, the Dark Phoenix conflict, the more you look at it, it just

doesn't make any sense. Does the Dark Phoenix have its own

sentient? Life? That or is it gene that's doing all of this,

because the first time it comes out at the party, it's not

triggered by any emotional feelings that Jean is having. It

just happens. And then in an following scenes, it's implied

that it is triggered by her motion. And then it's like, it

goes a yo Yos. And had they simply chosen in the beginning

that it is triggered by an emotion maybe someone mentions

the dad, she starts having memories of her dad. And then

um, I I'm okay with it, then consistently have it triggered

by emotion anytime she has extreme emotions. It triggers. I

know, this is branching into storm territory, but you weren't

using that for storm. So might as well use it for Dark Phoenix.

So yeah, and as a result, the movie just feels really

disconnected. It feels really disorganized the entire time

you're there. And it's just the pacing is its goes by the

criminal sin of being boring it parts. Sad to say, because the

actors are giving great performances. The movie looks

really really good at some points when it wants to be. But

this just does not feel really tightly bound. And again, I

guess it's a common theme because needed Suicide Squad in

the previous week. But yes, something about this feels off.

And I don't I think we need to leave this to the ashes and go

to other X Men movies. I think this one can be left behind.

Firmly. Let's fly away from this one. And look at it, let it sit,

let it die. Just let it rest. Yeah, I also thought

you brought up a really good point about the

emotion of like, what is the is the genes emotion being

influenced by the Dark Phoenix or is it dark means influencing

genes emotion, because I agree it's, as I remember watching

like compared to other versions of another adaptation of The

Dark Phoenix. Gene goes full evil, like there's no doubt

about it. She's literally causing harm and like yes, she

killed Raven in this movie, but that definitely seems like

everything is seems like she's doing this all by accident, she

doesn't really give any kind of malicious dialogue in any way,

shape or form. So it is confusing to watch this film and

be like, we have no idea who we're supposed to be siding

with. Because there's no true sense of who are the heroes

because the entire time it's like, yeah, you're supposed to

root for the X Men, but most of them get kicked off to the side.

You never see them again. Charles is treated like a

villain because he's villain five for the fact that he was

toying around with jeans, mind and everything. And then on the

other side, it's like, Jean feels she's just like, doing

things not for her own sense of wanting to do it just seems like

it's literally everybody else is influencing her telling her to

do this thing. And the people who she attack or people who are

attacking her.

Yeah, there's a rumor that part of the rumor thread is

that when the moment comes, because in the movie, she's

talking to Raven, and she has an emotional outburst and kills

Raven. But originally, while she's talking to Raven, she says

from Raven that she wants to leave the X Men. So she stopped

trusting Raven, because ravens like come back with us. They

Excellent. She's like, but you even want to leave. So she

senses that doubt. And like it's keeping Raven at arm's length.

Beast to protect Raven tries to shoot Jean, then Jean does the

blast. And that's what kills mystique. So it's her trying to

defend herself but going too far, instead of just having

another emotional outburst. And that drives her mental state

higher because now she is the killer that they feared. Yeah.

And yeah, she senses everyone's scared of us. So there's things

that, again, can't 100% confirm, but sound like they would have

slotted in perfectly in the movie without many changes.

Audio dialogue really? Could have easily gone there. So yeah,

I think I agree. I think it just doesn't feel he doesn't feel

evil enough. He's not evil enough, this movie. And there's

no one really is evil enough in this movie, which is a bigger

profit.

So just sounds like at the end of the day, the main

issue is just like not being able to get into the mind of the

characters, which is very ironic when you're writing characters

who are telekinetic and telepathic.

Um, but yeah, so that's Dark Phoenix, the seconds on big

screen adaptation of this, the menu. I think this is I don't

know how many versions of the dark, dark Phoenix Saga

we have actually seen, but it's been done so many

times. Hopefully, this will be some time before we see it

again. Because again, X Men have some really great stories. Even

right now in the comics, they've always kind of had to deal with

the fact and unfortunately, since they've never been a part

of the larger MCU they've just been pulled out of the

continuity a lot, put back in, pull back out, put back in right

now unfortunately, at the point where they're being put back in.

So hopefully, with like this new set of excellent storytelling

being told, people getting the recognition that they deserve

shout the storm to always now being considered Omega level

mutant. Especially with just like the growing appreciation of

X Men 97 Right now I feel like literally everybody is just

talking about it. I don't know if you've seen in the last

couple of episodes, or if you started watching it. Yeah,

Andrew. Oh,

yeah, I'm I'm going from the beginning. So I'm right now

I just finished the Dark Phoenix Saga, and I'm working my way to

97 for the full experience.

Nice. Nice. So yeah, just join along for the

continued adventures of the X Men. And also join along for us

for our continued adventures do caper cap on this bonus season

of yet another DC animated podcast. As next week. We are

hopping over it guests in the entire ocean to tell the story.

But another, I guess Can we call them a cosmic hero of sorts

we can in this movie, certainly.

Yes, please join us next week as we cover one of the

wildest adaptations of an anime production. Dragon Ball

evolution.

Please give us your energy. Please. Put your hands

in the sky and lend us your energy. We're gonna need it.

Yeah, let's get ready for that. So that wraps up

our episode. Join us next week. And be sure to check us out on

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Take care of yourselves and remember that if you're going to

basically roll up on someone's US government sanctioned place,

don't bring no heat on them. Like this is not that type of

sanctuary. I'm pretty sure that Magneto just really wanted a

calm space to reside in and now find out that you killed that

you killed his boy or his friend

back. And if you see a bunch of aliens come in towards

your nice house on the edge of the lake. Just run don't go

towards them because I just try it at least you know, take a

video live stream it Come on, save us

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