When the events of Brett Ratner’s infamous X-Men: The Last Stand were erased (like various other parts of the continuity) during the events of X-Men: Days of Future Past, it opened up not only loads of speculation. It ranged from Wolverine’s recasting but also a door to revisit the classic and defining storyline of Jean Grey’s death, resurrection, corruption, and sacrificial redemption.
This week, we saw the first trailer for X-Men: Dark Phoenix, and the footage we see touches upon three themes common to the X-Men over the years:
Professor Xavier as Anti-Villain:
Like Jim Gordon in The Dark Knight films and Brutus in Julius Caesar, Professor Xavier has done less-than-heroic things in an attempt to achieve a greater good. Throughout X-Men canon, Xavier has been revealed to have blocked his students’ full potential as well as their memories and even altered thoughts.
The trailer lets us know that he did so to a young Jean Grey and that, despite his best intentions to protect her and others, it is not well-received by his friends, his enemies, or by Jean. Jefferson, Churchill, FDR, even Gandhi made some tough and questionable calls during their time. This movie will ask Charles Xavier to do the same.
Incomprehensible Power Manifest in a Mortal Human:
In the Marvel Comics universe, the Phoenix Force is a cosmic entity on par with Death and Eternity. It surpasses the likes of Galactus and Ego the Living Planet. Galactic empires have come after Jean Grey and the X-Men to answer for crimes that she committed as Phoenix, such as consuming a star and dooming billions of sentient beings. Although it’s unlikely to reach that scale in the movie. In this trailer, we see Jean seeking out Magneto, not for “for answers” but “for permission.” In previous tellings of this tale through film, comics, and animation, Jean has been seduced by the power itself, seeking out base sensation and malice.
Responsibility in the Face of Impossible Odds:
Professor Xavier created the X-Men to help young mutants. His goal was to help them safely control their powers and to use them for good — often by combating those who would use their gifts for evil purposes. Many fans, writers, critics, and characters have pointed this out as morally questionable; that training adolescents to hunt super-villains lands directly in the “Professor Xavier is a jerk!” category. Others see it as a matter of policing their own. Regardless, a constant throughout the years has been a ragtag bunch going up against incredibly powerful foes and, this time, it’s a cosmic god-given justification by their staunchest enemy.
The trailer raises questions on screen and off. How many characters will die in the movie and how many will be recast in future projects? What cameos might we see and from what franchises? Will they give the Scott Summers and Jean Grey relationship enough time to have the gravitas we saw in the comics? Will they phone this in as a final cash grab as the rights transfer back to Marvel and, therefore, Disney?
When Dark Phoenix is released this coming Valentine’s Day, it will mark approximately 20 years since the production of Bryan Singer’s X-men began. [Editor’s Note: The film was just announced to be delayed until June 2019]. That’s 20 years of adapting a comic book mythos known to many fans as among the most convoluted and chaotic in a medium where that is practically a prerequisite. Eight different directors, two-acclaimed spinoff film series, two more spinoff television series, three Cyclops actors, the skyrocketing of Hugh Jackman into the popular consciousness, and (despite The New Mutants being in post-production for a 2019 release and nearly a dozen other projects in development limbo) the music choice of The Doors’ classic in the trailer lets us know this is The End.
Remember the trailers to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 making a promise to “go back to the beginning together” and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies inviting us to join Peter Jackson and company “one last time?” If you do, then this sort of meta-reference shouldn’t seem odd. However, this choice of tone seems to distract from whetting the audience’s appetite and instead seems to be flicking the lights on-and-off to let us all know that this is last call before X marks the spot for The Mouse.
-Matthew Widdis
X-Men: Dark Phoenix hits theaters in June 2019.
