I busted out laughing in the theater when they cut from Xavier's funeral to Colossus walking through the school with a giant TV under his arm like he just raided the Professor's room.
To be fair, that wasn’t really the next cut. But yeah, Colossus was just carrying a tv for no reason. Guess the filmmakers really wanted to remind us that he’s strong
The real issue was that it was trying to combine two different stories that don't mesh well together: the Cure and the Dark Phoenix. The Cure story fits perfectly with where the series was headed, though it needed the tone of the previous two to be fully perfect. Dark Phoenix really shoulda been what happened after - like X-Men 4, Rise of the Phoenix. Plus, splitting the two stories would've allowed for more time to develop the newer X-Men, namely Colossus and Angel.
@@GothAtheist That wasn't in doubt. However, it would have been quite challenging for the Deadpool film to have developed the character of Colossus 10 years before a Deadpool film was first made.
@@GothAtheist Oh, I agree. But at the time Daniel Cudmore's Colossus was the only one and he was essentially just some metal guy who would throw Wolverine around. You didn't even know he was Russian. But luckily we now have the Deadpool version which is much better.
@andrewdowns3673 i would go a step futher and stretch it out mcu infinity saga style. jean grey was phoenix in the comics for like 30 issues before she turned into a big bad and then that shit lasted for another year. i will argue that is one of the aspects that made it a landmark story
I love the tattoo scene on this movie, because it really puts Magneto into perspective. The younger mutants think they're so hardcore but Magneto is like "i survived the Nazis. I'm the definition of hardcore"
@@AlextheSuperfly i had a Russian teacher in college who straight up flexed that he went to college in the Soviet Union. The look on my face must have been priceless
It was a bit silly though. The one third rater tried to flex on a guy who can tear apart the Golden Gate bridge with his powers by.......popping a bunch of porcupine quills from his body. Really. Magneto could have cleaned house in that place with a thought. He could have shredded every wannabe there with the metal from the walls in about 3 seconds.
I’m sorry but Wolverine calmly lighting a cigar off a flaming car while fiery debris flies through the background will never EVER fail to make me laugh😂
I always wondered if Pyro died at the end. He was knocked out, then Jean pretty much destroyed everything around her and we never saw him in the aftermath.
I also wonder if Juggernaut was got. He's apparently a mutant in this universe, so he has no magic defenses to maybe grant him a better chance against the Phoenix.
@@getschwifty5537 they had juggernaut and colossus in the same movie and they did not fight or even communicate with each other, such a travesty to comic books
The main issue with last stand is that it actually has a lot of cool scenes, but it has no real structure. Imagine having a plate full of your favorite foods, but it just looks like a big mess.
The treatment of Cyclops in these movies… what a shame. I mean, the treatment of most characters in these movies is poor, but Cyclops is the one I hope to see done well the most in the MCU.
@@suto5704 I think Cavill could be a good Cyclops. It would give him the emotional room to work with, and he certainly can play the leader role. I can’t deny, though, that I would make him Hyperion, just for the irony of it. I could also see him as Captain Britain/Brian Braddock, or maybe even Doom.
I have imagined a parallel universe where Singer never abandoned X-Men 3 for Superman. In that universe of wishful thinking, he's not a perverse scoundrel and X-Men 3 was the first $1 billion superhero movie and Brad Bird was the director of Superman: Birthright starring a young Henry Cavill. Ah, how beautiful it could have been... Your video brings back memories. Thank you.
That sounds like a great universe ... a place without coronavirus, where people can politely discuss politics online and The Last Jedi wasn't an affront to Star Wars!
@@positivetakes5592Nah, Last Jedi and its embarrassingly awful script is what messed up that trilogy. Nothing good was ever going to follow that movie.
Wolverine’s transition to “leader” of the team didn’t flow well into shit. Charles very CLEARLY asks Storm to be his successor and the movie literally ignores that and pushes what should be the most powerful mutant in the movie to the side. And of course she’s a Black Woman.
What they did to Cyclops and Profesional X was inexcusable. It becomes the Wolverine show, and he should not be powerful enough to take Dark Phoenix out on his own. I could go on and on
Which was my biggest beef with so many of the post-First Class films; they all became the Logan/Xavier/magneto show, and everyone else was just background.
There was no main theme song in the X-men trilogy, each episode had their own theme song, it wasn't until later that they basically made the theme of X2 the official theme of the franchise
The first X-men was more of a trial, seeing what filmmakers could do with these characters. They succeeded, so they continued. X-men 2 set the stage for the rest of the franchise as well as a thoughtful continuing storyline. Not only that tho, but they played into past storylines (and villains) with wolverine, seeing how he’s literally the oldest mutant in the trilogy. And that the older X-men have no clue how old he even is (nor us as viewers). On top of that they added more mutants into the mix, further widening the scope or perspective of both history and stories. Sadly they never really show certain character’s history but it still fit. That’s kind of what the first one was SORT OF missing. We were hinted at more but we weren’t gonna get more if the movie didn’t succeed. Thats why X2’s theme is really considered the X-men theme. It was the stage, centerpiece, and continuation of the X-men franchise/story
Why do you think when they FINALLY played that theme again everyone was excited and the movie was actually acceptable? X-men 2 was thee stage for all of xmen films. With respect to the first that started this ofc.
What about Famke? Famke's performance in this film is truly remarkable -- she successfully carries Jean's rage we've seen building from X1 and X2. When Famke raised her arms into the Phoenix pose in the Grey Household, that moment was electrifying and disturbing, because we knew Exactly what that meant. Patrick Stewart seems horrified to sit before Famke. He cannot face her smothered fury. Famke grounds Phoenix in a way that has set a standard in our minds. She walked so Elizabeth Olsen could run.
This video was quite the surprise. Would love to see you do a retrospective on all the X-Men movies now that the property is moving on to a new era as it gets integrated into the MCU
I can confirm that the "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" line got a huge laugh from the audience; we couldn't believe a TH-cam meme made it into the actual movie! Also, the soundtrack is pretty damn good, the climactic scene with Wolverine and Phoenix is one of my favorite epic scores ever!
Singer did the best job of getting us invested in the characters in a way that the sequel prequels didn't. X3's Beast is really well done and far more accurate in tone to the younger version. I loved Kitty too. Halle Berry's Storm is actually fairly consistent with early Storm before she had to take on the leadership role as well. The mistake was not making X4-X6. They could have done the Marauders Massacre, followed by fall of the Mutants (Apocalypse), followed by Cable, maybe even Age of Apocalypse.
I think how much you enjoy Last Stand is often inversely proportional to how invested you were in the earlier films. As someone who think X1&2 were ok at best and doesn’t really mind the ways Last Stand deviated from what those established…I think it’s a neat bit of dumb fun, with some interesting ideas and arcs.
Yeah, that's where I'm at. It's clearly not as good a movie as the previous two, but I also thought it was kind of overhated and - as the video points out - did have a lot of cool stuff in it. Plus, I feel like those core five movies - X1, 2, 3, FC, DOFP - make for a surprisingly strong overall "saga," even if 3 is the weakest of the bunch.
@@jasonblalock4429 yeah, Last Stand being the way it is is a large part of why the ending to DOFP hits the way it does. Though I personally would also add *The Wolverine* to that “saga”. I find watching those six films in release order very satisfying.
Yeah, I think I'm slightly more positive on X-2 than you (B+), Singer's X-Men, though bold, are definitely movies where the biggest weakness is "these are not characters or people going through this stuff, they're half baked, vaguely inhuman feeling social symbols going through this stuff". There's a very good reason why, even though the MCU DID bring back Patrick Stewart, they slapped him in the bulky yellow chair and are using Deadpool as ground zero. Because Deadpool's cast feels like...people? In terms of executing on Singer's tone? Logan is the actual king.
X-Men 3 wasn’t nearly as bad as most 3rd movies are of franchises in general. Most of the time, 3rd movies are the weakest out of the whole franchise. And while the Last Stand was probably the weakest of the 3 X-Men movies, it still wasn’t a bad movie per se. It was better than the Wolverine movies
I remember being upset with how they treated Rogue in this movie. She was so important in the first two movies and in the last one she was just pushed aside. She wanted the Cure and I think she got it but if I recall it all happened off camera.
Although, wasn't there an alternate ending where she didn't get the cure? I'm pretty sure that's the timeline that X-men Days of future: Rogue Cut takes place.
@@DavidMartinez-ce3lp I mean even the original ending showed the cure wasn't as effective as they thought, Magneto was shown regaining his powers after despite being injected with half a dozen doses so either one works
I feel like if you know nothing about X-men beyond the first 2 films The Last Stand is a satisfying enough conclusion. But if you're even slightly a fan it's impossible to not be irritated by the decisions the film makes. Turning the most iconic storyline in arguably all of marvel comics into the b-plot, throwing away Jean and Scott's relationship to give Logan more screen time, killing off the leader of the x-men 20 minutes into the film, turning a regal powerful character like Storm into someone's auntie...it was just too much lol. Totally agree with the commenter saying the cure should have been the only plot of this film and then Jean comes back in a phoenix focused story for X4. But the early 2000's loved their trilogies!
Yup, that was pretty much me. I never actually saw the previous films. Xmen the Last Stand was my first Xmen movie. I still appreciate to this day. Though I would've preferred what was originally planned
I'm actually rewatching all of the x men movies, and honestly, I agree with all of that. Rewatching X3 was actually pretty entertaining with huge character translation flaws like Juggernaut.
In my opinion, X3 is just following the standard '3 movie ' pattern used often in Hollywood. Movie 1: Introduces characters, and set up a few sub-plots and character histories, in case it's successful. Eg original Sar Wars was, err, Cowboys and Indians in Space, with goodies in White, baddies in black. Movie 2: Hey, we made money with movie 1, lets add a whole lot of characters, a really good story, and go all out on this one. Movie 3: Actors are looking a bit older, some are also getting work in other movies (its been a while, somethings got to pay the rent, especially if you are not one of the highly paid Stars ), and we wern't thinking ahead anyway. Lets, umm, end with a big battle, kill off the main characters and get on with other projects. Movie 4: Oops. Didn't expect to be this popular. Err, make it a prequel. Jump back in time for some reason? Younger versions of characters are easier to hire. If we have to use any of the original actors, do wonders with make-up and camera work? Off screen voice over? Movie 4 could be the start of another sequence of 3. At times, Hollywood can be very predictable.
The Last Stand is literally my favorite X-Men movie (I love the series as a whole). I’ve gotten to the point of hiding it or avoiding the subject LOL but I seriously love it. I think it’s emotional and epic and that if you accept it as the film it is and not through the adaptation lens, people will like it a lot more. It’s my biggest hot take lmao
@@DavidMartinez-ce3lp yeah for me it’s definitely a nostalgic place, me and my dad used to recreate the fights all time when I was a kid. The first 3 movies were our thing.
I think you pretty much nailed this. I left the theater not jacked, not disappointed...just... like I saw A movie lol.. when X3 is bad, ITS BAD.... when it's good, it's pretty damn good... Pretty much new to your channel, so forgive me if you've covered this movie, but here's a scorching hot take, where I feel I am #1 on a list of ONE lol: If you get over the Deadpool stuff (I mean really, NOT a big deal), XMEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE really isn't that bad! In fact, I've watched it more than X3 and like everyone else, I absolutely CANNOT GET ENOUGH of Liev Schreiber's SABRETOOTH... (in fact, I look at HIM as being the awesome, HUGE IMPACT, but on screen for 30 seconds, secret cameo we get in Kang Dynasty/Secret Wars... no one is mentioning him. As far as I know, no one is eben thinking about him lol... but I can definitely see a scene where it looks like Jackman wolverine is about to kick the bucket, and he's saved by Sabretooth (and then they either kill each other or Wolverine just cuts his head off, in yet another Audience: "Wow! HE saved Wolverine??" Sabretooth: "Nobody kills him but me...." Audience: "aaaaah...cool cool...aaaaaand he's gone"
I liked it too. My only problem was John Wraith's punk ass death. He's a teleporter and he fights Sabertooth in melee?? People give it crap because of Fakepool instead of Deadpool, but most of the movie rocked!!
yeah i dont get the hate for origins deadpool. they give us a taste of traditional deadpool earlier in the movie with wade cracking jokes and all that, and striker specifically mentions that he finds him annoying and he'd a be a better soldier if he shut the hell up. the deadpool we got in that movie fit perfectly within the story they were telling
@mattmangaming279 didn't earrrrrrly deadpool, before he became the wacky funny merc with the mouth, ya know, when he was bad-ass cool, and not just crazy cool (🤣), have the ability to teleport too? I could be just lumping him in with Zero, and him transporting Stryfe and all the all the time... But i know for one of my all time fav games, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, deadpool could do a short teleport.... I'm 46 and been reading comics since the 1st secret wars, so it's not like I'm a "NOOB" lol.... it's just 4 decades of stuff, I don't remember everything
I loved this film it's what got me into the X-Men and marvel as a whole. The real reason people say it was weaker is simply because it has a new director who decided to go in a different direction and stop focusing so heavily on Wolverine and Rogue. It gave everyone a chance to shine. And it gave the best Beast portrayal to date, and put some respect on Storm
The real answer is the writers strike during this year hit A LOT of cinema and television that year. I'm shocked no one has mentioned it, perhaps too young to remember? It could probably warrent a long video just covering how many franchises it messed up.
I've always had a soft spot for this movie- even more so after Days of Future Past but before Apocalypse as it showed the promise of what they were fighting to prevent with the future iteration of the Dark Phoenix.... obviously fell flat but still I also think that the music they use for Jean/Pheonix is pretty great as it always stuck with me and was the first time I ever noticed how great a scene is made by the choice of music.....
7:35 - Actually it was. It is worth recalling the scene after the credits, where Xavier is alive? By the way, Scott's death, although implied, was not shown. It was a ploy to bring him back in potential sequels. Oh yeah, in the original script, Magneto also died at the hands of the Phoenix, but then they decided to just deprive him of his powers ... and return him right before the credits began.
Over the Xmas period, I watched all the X-men movies in release order ( was almost tempted to do it in Chronological order). Although Last stand wasn't as good as 1 and 2, I didn't hate it. It's sometimes hard to gauge their quality in retrospect when there were bigger disappointments later down the line. This has been a really well-presented video and pretty much sums up my feelings about the movie. Will probably check out more of your videos.
One of the best original orchestral soundtracks of the last 20 years. John Powell slayed it. As cheesy as Xavier death or the Wolverine killing Jean scenes are .. Powell soundtrack gives them gravitas.
Like most x-men films I just pretend it didn’t happen. Killing Scott in the first few minutes of a dark phoenix movie is beyond bonkers. But they never developed his character or relationship with Jean anyway. They would’ve needed at least another 2 or 3 movies to course correct off wolverine’s one man show before getting to a proper dark phoenix
After watching the first two X-men movies that were actually about something, this one was what I’d like the call the start of the “spectacle formula” for superhero movies. No character in X3 feels correct it’s hard to explain….
In the words of Chawles Xavior: "I feel a great swell of pity for the poor soul that comes to" audition for Magneto knowing what Sir Ian McKellon did with the role
Just like how Spider-Man 3 would have been better without Venom (for proof watch the What If video on Channel Awesome TH-cam page), X-Men: The Last Stand would have been better without Jean Grey's return as The Phoenix.
My biggest problem with the fox x-men films comes down to just how flanderised a lot of the characters were with a few exceptions( wolverine being one of the most obvious exceptions).
To me, it suffered the same problem that Spider-Man 3 had. In that it had good ideas and good moments, but it was too cluttered to make any of it work to it's full potential.
Last Stand X-Men vs. 2012 Avengers is really ultimately down to how quickly you can knock out Hulk and Thor. It's been a long time since I've seen X-Men: The Last Stand, I only ever saw it once, the X-Men movies were just never part of my rotation growing up since I didn't own them, but going off what I can surmise, it's a closer fight than you might think, probably more in favor of the X-Men. I love Captain America, he's awesome, and while ice can't kill this man, it will certainly stop him, so the right strategic opportunity with a blast from Iceman is all you need, but even Beast or Colossus could theoretically take him out, we're not concerned about future events like Cap holding back Thanos and such, this is strictly 2012 Avengers, but Iceman's who you want. If Colossus and Beast can hold Iron Man down, say they knock out a couple of his boosters so he can't fly away, then Wolverine can cut him out of the suit. Hawkeye and Black Widow, well, they're just ordinary people for the most part. Kitty Pryde can just have all their fire fly through her, so you just have someone come in from the side while they're distracted with her take them out. It really is then Hulk and Thor that need to be stopped and that's where things get interesting. It's certainly possible to stop Thor at this point in time for him since he's not confident in being the God of Thunder without Mjolnir, but I'm not sure how to stop him short of Wolverine cutting off his hands so he can't easily summon Mjolnir if you were to separate it from him. Similarly with Hulk, he's more in a savage state, but he's so tough, how do you stop him? What does lightning do to him? We know he can get mad and throw a rock at lightning, but that won't do any good, and he was never struck by it when he and Thor fought on the Helicarrier, so I'm thinking it would have to at least slow him down for a second. In theory, can't Kitty Pryde phase through to hearts and brains? I'm not saying she do anything that will kill them, I don't think that's the point of this fight, but if she can knock them out by causing them to pass out by some mean or another than just brute force and blunt trauma, then the X-Men have it. However, as we saw, the 2012 Avengers took on an entire alien army lead by Loki and won (albeit with an unplanned nuke, but they were gonna close the portal, after that, the US Military comes in and takes out the remaining stranded army). Like I said, it's been a long time since I saw Last Stand, so I don't know how well that X-Men team can actually team up, but even for the first time, the 2012 Avengers are pulling combo moves and coordinating attacks. Caps giving orders, Hawkeye's up high taking out speeders, Cap launches Black Widow up high enough so she can commandeer a speeder and learns how to use the Chitari tech against them, Hulk can rip pieces of armor of the Leviathans, jam them in their skulls and then Thor smacks it down further to the brain, Iron Man's deflecting his blasts off Cap's shield, they're really coming together as a team, which might just save them against the X-Men. The Chitari being an army implies that they have battle tactics and strategy, something I'm not sure all the mutants had in The Last Stand, it's just a bunch of guys flailing powers about, but not necessarily strategically using them, making them easier to defeat by the X-Men. But I don't know how you stop the X-Men. With my limited knowledge, I don't know just how strong these versions of the X-Men are to taking damage. Even with his Adamantium Skeleton and healing factor, it's still not impossible to knock out Wolverine because that's the cause of a concussion and his brain smacking around in a literal chrome dome. Even electrocution should work, too. How long he's down for the count is dependent on how much you harm him for his healing factor to get him back to full strength. How much energy does it cost Kitty Pryde to phase? Is she still fairly new to it, or can she just not be touched for as long as she wants until everyone else gets tired fighting her? Again, I don't know how good Storm is, but I imagine she's pretty tough to beat when she can control the weather and make the terrain a soupy mess while she floats above. Iron Man can attack her, but she can't attack him necessarily. She and Thor obviously have a similar powerset so it might just be a draw. Can Hawkeye deliver a concussive arrow in a sneak attack while she's busy fighting someone else and that knocks her out? Black Widow can also probably taze Iceman no problem, she just can't get frozen, so maybe you tagteam him with Cap and he takes the bulk of the fight, using his shield as protection until Widow gets the opening she needs. With enough time to get angry, I could see Hulk just punching Beast away and then it's a pretty fun fight between him and Colossus. How tough's this version of Colossus? I'm sure not as strong as the one from Deadpool, who still has his struggles in his one v. one matches. If you can't just do simple one on ones, I think everyone on the X-Men team is probably going to need a bit of tagteaming to defeat, which I can see the Avengers doing with ease. I think it really depends on who gets taken out first and who's left standing the longest. The Avengers are primarily, for the most part, just normal people while the X-Men have their powers, but the powerhouses of Hulk and Thor, if they can work together, could give the Last Stand X-Men a decent run for their money. If Kitty Pryde can do what I think, and wasn't knocked out early on, then she needs a tough partner like Wolverine or Storm to act as a distraction for her to get in position and then pull her phasing trick, but that's all assuming the X-Men know how to be a team, despite that kind of being what they're known for from the comics. There's still something in my head though that thinks it goes to the X-Men, and maybe that's because I know the Avengers too well and the X-Men not well enough.
You ain't kiddin...............My they have fallen from grace....And trust me, being an avid comic book collector my whole life, it pains me to see it.
@eglantinepapeau1582 I mean I hope so but it may be a long time. I imagine these things recycle in eras. So after the full burnout happens we may not see a resurgence for sometime. Prob years, maybe decades. Hell the westerns are still waiting on their come back...
I do think there are moments that are extremely epic in Last Stand. I love the fight at Jean’s house and almost everything with Jean and Logan in the last battle as a huge Wolverine fan. Kelsey Grammar’s Beast is one of the best live action castings for a comic book character imo. It’s a shame they didn’t use him more. I am curious how much different the film would’ve been if we had say Vaughn directing and David Hayter writing it. Hayter sounds like he would’ve made it closer to the Dark Phoenix comic storyline, even doing the moment where Wolverine tries to kill Jean but knows he can’t because he loves her. I doubt it would’ve been as cosmic as the comic but certainly would’ve been better than that other Dark Phoenix movie 💩
@@WinsomeJarl4342 You can know about a moment from a book without actually reading it nowadays with all these TH-cam summaries. lol Anyway, there is no way they can do the cosmic element because that is basically a different story arc. It should be saved for a sequel and that was the plan for the 2019 Dark Phoenix movie.
@@agentofchaos7456 Oh yeah they were never gonna do any of the going into space and fighting the Shiar. More likely they would’ve done the Hellfire club portion of it. What I meant by it wouldn’t have been as cosmic was Jean’s powers. We obviously wouldn’t see her blowing up planets and turning trees gold etc. they would’ve still made her powerful but not that powerful.
@@WinsomeJarl4342 That is actually what the Dark Phoenix was originally going to be. But the Hellfire Club were replaced with those aliens apparently because the studio wanted to end the prequel series and wanted the Hellfire Club for the New Mutants sequel.
James Marsden, Rebecca Romain, and Anna Paquin couldn’t be in the movie much because they had other contractual obligations. They literally couldn’t be in the movie no matter if they wanted them in it
Thank you for this video. I've been a proponent of the third movie in the X-Men OT for some time. I feel it was wrongly judged by critics due to it having a director other than Bryan Singer. And if you look at the majority of negative reviews over on Rotten Tomatoes, you'll see that it's the main contention cited in those reviews. X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) was action-packed, intriguing and fun. They finally unleashed Magneto and showed what a total badass he is, plus the fight scenes looked right out of the comic frames. It was cool! My only complaint was killing off Professor Xavier. It diminished the movie but didn't ruin it for me.
Nice take! I always enjoyed this movie. Yeah it’s not the end all he all of TDP, but honestly read that story. It ends with Jean shooting herself with a ray gun. Asking Wolverine to do it was so much more poignant, and set up a solid basis for The Wolverine. Also the music was the best of any of the X films. Yes it had problems, but it also had some great touches - Charles’ slight smile before being obliterated, Pyro and Iceman facing off, not having a disinterested Jennifer Lawrence.
As someone who just binged the entire X-Men series, I also thought The Last Stand wasn’t as bad as everyone said, but one of the first things I noticed about it was how awful the pacing was. Even though everything was properly explained I still had myself asking “What the hell is happening?” And half of the characters just felt like goofy crackheads with superpowers.
Personally I really never got the hate for it. Tbh I enjoyed it way more than the first two as a kid. Maybe that’s cause of the quality of the vfx(holy shit it’s still so damn good and impressive especially for the time) but I dunno I always found the cure subplot really interesting. I think that alone could have made for a really compelling drama and most of the cure plot line is really fascinating. But because they set up the phoenix saga in X2 they had to try to combine it with the cure thing. But even then I really like this movie. I never got why people got so pressed at Charles’s death cause it was obvious to me he wasn’t “dead” dead even before the post credits
This is the best review I’ve ever seen for this movie. It definitely has its flaws, which you well laid out. But there are a lot of good ideas in here. So many reviews just act like this movie is 100% irredeemable.
Considering I thought the first 2 X-men movies were only "good, but nothing special", the crazy spectacle of Last Stand at least has a dumb fun aspect to it.
While you are correct about the inferior X-men theme in the score for The Last Stand, the theme for Phoenix is absolutely phenomenal; powerful, epic, terrifying and beautiful at all once (just as it should be). It's one of my favourite themes ever and was wasted on this movie unfortunately.
This is a great video, about a movie that I really appreciate and I'm glad to see covered. That said, more than anything I just want to say how much I appreciate you naming Elliot Paige correctly without making a deal out of it. I know there are some people who throw a hissy fit over a guys name, and I just appreciate that you didn't push the issue and just let it be what it is. His name. It sounds a little obvious that you would, but theres many that wouldn't.
It's not about his\her name and you know it. It's about the alarming rise in the number supposedly transgender individuals among the general population, which raises very valid questions and concerns - not the least of which is what percentage of them genuinely does it because of genuine gender dysphoria, and what percentage does it on a whim, because it's a trend, because it's a way for them to get attention or feel unique etc. Framing it as "making a big deal out of a guy's name" is so disingenuous it hurts.
@@bobmasters9871 it unfortunately doesn't surprise me that you'd choose to label me as a "problem" instead of actually respond to any of what I said. It's not even like I said the issue is transgendederism itself, but the rise of which in the general population. It's incredible to me that people like you could see this data and say I'm the problem, rather than dare talk about the actual issue at hand
@@DiamondBlade11 Youre right. It was hyperbole, which is necessarily dishonest. Because the issue is over his identity and his right to it. Gender is the only identity in which we question someones right to, and that's an utterly absurd thing, so I demonstrated said absurdity by using hyperbole, a trivialization. So again, out of necessity, its dishonest, because the issue is much more complex than the demonstration I was providing, in the same way that the earth is more complex than a childs toy globe. It was intentional
I used to watch this movie over and over again on DVD when I was a kid. All these X-men films had a sense of maturity and drama that the MCU films lack. I often wonder what would've happened if FOX had bought Marvel. Would've been interesting to see what they could've done with other Marvel characters.
@@Kirasfox no, I don't think so. FOX did a good job with the X-men characters. Way better than WB did with the DCEU. It's not even comparable. The DCEU was a complete disaster and was always gonna be a failure. X-men were fairly well handled.
@@DavidMartinez-ce3lp that's great for you, after seeing how they handled Cyclopse,jubilee, Ororo, especially Darwin and peter- I honestly lost faith & interest.
@@Kirasfox I agree, there was a lot more they could've done. My favorite Xmen characters is Cyclops, and I was disappointed that he didn't take more of a leadership role. But I do still believe they did a good job, especially X2, First Class, and Days of future past.
@@DavidMartinez-ce3lpFirst 2 DCEU movies were great, then everything went downhill. I blame the messed up audience for it; I don’t care what anyone else says.
I have a soft spot for "The Last Stand" and "Apocalypse". I think both are really fun, but their scripts aren't as strong as their prior two instalments (X1, X2, FC, DOFP). Both films could have used another year of pre-production and a few more drafts on their final scripts. On the positives, both have great actors, good action sequences, dramatic moments, and very good scores by John Ottman and John Powell. Still, both movies are better than "X-Men Origins: Wolverine", "Dark Phoenix", and "The New Mutants".
I never hated the last stand to the degree that everyone else does. I think it has some really dookie parts, like killing Scott off screen, and it tried to do a little too much. It smooshed the Dark Phoenix story down when anyone who has read the comic or watched the animated series knows that story is a lot denser than it was portrayed in that movie. But I don't think it's a downright awful movie and it actually has some powerful moments. The opening scene where Angel is trying to cut his own wings off is heart wrenching. The movie at least tried to grapple with the issue of mutant identity and pride vs the option of no longer being a member of a hated and feared minority group. it just didn't go into as deeply as it could have or should have because there were too many things happening in that movie that no story line was really explored with the depth that it should have.
X-Men the animated series is still the definitive version of the Phoenix Saga. they showed the good Phoenix as well as the evil Phoenix, the movies never want to show Phoenix as good, just get on with the "sexy" Dark Phoenix. we never care about Jean enough to see her descent into the darkness
As mentioned in the video, Wolverine stepping up as leader is supported by the trajectory of the movies, but I was always really disappointed by it not being storm that was taking command of the team. Also didn’t like the death of cyclops, thought Prof X felt out of character, at least for the movies, missed night crawler. And of course thought that the two plots should have been two separate movies, with Dark Phoenix being the 4th. So many movies rush things that would benefit from taking more time to establish (venom in Spiderman 3). I actually kinda like Love and Thunder (though not as much as Ragnarok), but it seems to follow a similar format of trying to shove multiple massive comic arcs into one movie. Many other good points in this video as well!
Wolverine, Storm, Iceman, Beast, Kitty Pryde and Colossus would kick the shit out of Captain America, Ironman, Hulk, Hawkeye, Black Widow and maybe even Thor. You have two omega level mutants there with the ability of basically anihilating the planet if they want to.
When it comes to the X:men films I only started watching them around the time First Class came out. I'd always been a more Spider-man & Batman focused fan. And honestly, Last Stand might be one of my favourites. The first two were alright imo, but never felt like they were having fun with the concept, this was probably me comparing them to Raimi's campfest. So Last Stand has entertaining goofy moments, as well as the awesome Magneto & Beast scenes. And all the parts with Mystique I loved, she was probably my favourite character until Jennifer Lawrence played her.
Since this year marks his 85th anniversary, can you do some Superman-related videos? I would love to hear you discuss the Christopher Reeve movies, Superman Returns and Superman: The Animated Series.
Yes. It is that bad. The problem is the combination of two massive Storylines with the Cure and the Dark Phoenix,and another issue I have in retrospect is how wasted Cyclops/any character not named Wolverine is in the Fox Universe.
I actually never hated The Last Stand. I wish Cyclops didn't die and could have had more of a role in the movie (I know Marsden wasn't available due to scheduling conflicts). I really loved Beast in this movie. The older I get the more I hate how Colossus has no character in this movie (happy there is a way better Colossus in the Deadpool movies). I enjoyed Shadowcat in the movie too. I wish Rogue could have done something more. Same with Angel. Juggernaut was terrible.
I liked the action sequences & the cast. Not as harsh on this as others are. And this came out during perhaps the best summer of my life, so it does hold a bit of nostalgia for me.
I don't think the trope of "the woman that becomes too powerful that needs to be killed to save everyone" has anything to do with the original Dark Phoenix Saga. In the comics, Dark Phoenix didn't have to die because she was too powerful, she had to die because the Hellfire Club destabilized her mind and she became murderous because of that, not because she was too powerful. The movies's interpretation is reductionist and problematic, but equating the trope the DPS created when other - less competent - writers tried to remix the story to the original story itself doesn't seem fair.
Why do we care or even need to know what the director's behavior is like? That has absolutely nothing to do with the movie or whether we should enjoy it. It has to do with whether he should be in jail or not and nothing else. Anything else is just tabloid gossip because none of us have ever or will ever meet this person we're just people watching a movie
Yes, it is that bad. Also, if you watch all 3 X-Men movies in a row, Wolverine comes off like kind of a creep a-hole and his "love" of Jean Grey is so unearned.
Btw it is earned she killed the unearned one and kept the earned one from getting killed😂Jean knew what she wanted ,your a man what you know😂 what women wants.
Ok not only did they dissed my boy, Cyclops, for being the leader, but they also made Rogue a side character or have her arc end in tragedy, having her take the cure where her entire character is supposed to be accept her for her she is
Strong agree. The X-men need Cyclops and probably Jean Grey and possibly a strong Rogue to make it interesting. As it stands, you've got all the strongest Avengers vs. three true X-men and three kids. And a lot of duplication of powers (Wolverine, Beast, Cyclops are brawlers), none of whom is half the fighter that Hulk is.
Bobby wasn't hitting on Kitty. Not even remotely. He treated her like a younger sibling, since his sucks so much. As for Last Stand crew vs Avengers? I think Avengers would lose simply because of Wolverine. Thor and Storm would be deadlocked, Hulk would deal with Colossus, Beast would steamroll Widow and Hawkeye, Iceman would ground Iron Man...and Wolverine would beat Cap. None of the Avengers have the means to outfight or kill Wolverine.
"X-Men: Last Stand" is my favorite of the first 3 films. The drama, the emotions; its so good. I loved the writing for Ian McKellen. He is amazing in this film. It's a brilliant film in all honesty.
I busted out laughing in the theater when they cut from Xavier's funeral to Colossus walking through the school with a giant TV under his arm like he just raided the Professor's room.
😂 he moved on pretty quickly
@@DavidMartinez-ce3lp
Cyclops: "Not everyone heals as fast as you, Logan"
Colossus: "Lol, free TV!"
Thank God they didn't do something like that in the movie, "Logan."
@@Abominatrix650 *"Hypocrisy, much?!"*
To be fair, that wasn’t really the next cut. But yeah, Colossus was just carrying a tv for no reason. Guess the filmmakers really wanted to remind us that he’s strong
The real issue was that it was trying to combine two different stories that don't mesh well together: the Cure and the Dark Phoenix. The Cure story fits perfectly with where the series was headed, though it needed the tone of the previous two to be fully perfect. Dark Phoenix really shoulda been what happened after - like X-Men 4, Rise of the Phoenix. Plus, splitting the two stories would've allowed for more time to develop the newer X-Men, namely Colossus and Angel.
Nah, Deadpool did Colossus good
@@GothAtheist That wasn't in doubt. However, it would have been quite challenging for the Deadpool film to have developed the character of Colossus 10 years before a Deadpool film was first made.
@@GothAtheist Oh, I agree. But at the time Daniel Cudmore's Colossus was the only one and he was essentially just some metal guy who would throw Wolverine around. You didn't even know he was Russian.
But luckily we now have the Deadpool version which is much better.
Also, the Phoenix story in this movie is very ableist with its depiction of a mentally ill person.
@andrewdowns3673 i would go a step futher and stretch it out mcu infinity saga style. jean grey was phoenix in the comics for like 30 issues before she turned into a big bad and then that shit lasted for another year. i will argue that is one of the aspects that made it a landmark story
I love the tattoo scene on this movie, because it really puts Magneto into perspective. The younger mutants think they're so hardcore but Magneto is like "i survived the Nazis. I'm the definition of hardcore"
I love it when older generations flex like this!
@@AlextheSuperfly i had a Russian teacher in college who straight up flexed that he went to college in the Soviet Union. The look on my face must have been priceless
One of THE best x men scenes
Indeed.
It was a bit silly though.
The one third rater tried to flex on a guy who can tear apart the Golden Gate bridge with his powers by.......popping a bunch of porcupine quills from his body.
Really.
Magneto could have cleaned house in that place with a thought.
He could have shredded every wannabe there with the metal from the walls in about 3 seconds.
I’m sorry but Wolverine calmly lighting a cigar off a flaming car while fiery debris flies through the background will never EVER fail to make me laugh😂
That is a top tier moment
I always wondered if Pyro died at the end. He was knocked out, then Jean pretty much destroyed everything around her and we never saw him in the aftermath.
I also wonder if Juggernaut was got. He's apparently a mutant in this universe, so he has no magic defenses to maybe grant him a better chance against the Phoenix.
@@getschwifty5537 they had juggernaut and colossus in the same movie and they did not fight or even communicate with each other, such a travesty to comic books
@@HeWhoIsNamedPatrick Dude, that would've awesome if we had gotten a fight between the two.
@@HeWhoIsNamedPatrick Did you see Deadpool 2?
@@King-mg7vy ikr. I love that BIG CGI FIGHT 🤣
The main issue with last stand is that it actually has a lot of cool scenes, but it has no real structure. Imagine having a plate full of your favorite foods, but it just looks like a big mess.
Yes! Exactly! It's all the right ingredients but a bit of a mess when put together
i think apocalypse shares the same issue
The treatment of Cyclops in these movies… what a shame. I mean, the treatment of most characters in these movies is poor, but Cyclops is the one I hope to see done well the most in the MCU.
Yeah it was a huge shame, Cyclops is underrated by non comic book readers. What'd you think of Henry Cavill as Cyclops?
@@suto5704 I think Cavill could be a good Cyclops. It would give him the emotional room to work with, and he certainly can play the leader role. I can’t deny, though, that I would make him Hyperion, just for the irony of it. I could also see him as Captain Britain/Brian Braddock, or maybe even Doom.
Cyclops is lame as fuck , normal human with eye beams , wow soo cool. One bullet and he’s dead
@@asellape9270 knowing disney..expect nothing but a cringe jokes nowadays
@@power279 I hope not. Guess we'll just have to see.
I have imagined a parallel universe where Singer never abandoned X-Men 3 for Superman. In that universe of wishful thinking, he's not a perverse scoundrel and X-Men 3 was the first $1 billion superhero movie and Brad Bird was the director of Superman: Birthright starring a young Henry Cavill. Ah, how beautiful it could have been... Your video brings back memories. Thank you.
That sounds like a great universe ... a place without coronavirus, where people can politely discuss politics online and The Last Jedi wasn't an affront to Star Wars!
Instead we got not one but two terrible movies wasting great casts
@@davidanderson4748you misspelled Rise of Skywalker
@@positivetakes5592Nah, Last Jedi and its embarrassingly awful script is what messed up that trilogy. Nothing good was ever going to follow that movie.
I have to say the soundtrack really had some gems. "The Death of X" and "The Phoenix Rises" are some of the best tracks in the series.
I think its the best score of the trilogy. X2 may have the best theme, but those big dramatic moments are done very well.
The score was brilliant especially with the Professor X and Dark Phoenix confrontation.
Wolverine’s transition to “leader” of the team didn’t flow well into shit. Charles very CLEARLY asks Storm to be his successor and the movie literally ignores that and pushes what should be the most powerful mutant in the movie to the side. And of course she’s a Black Woman.
Agree: it makes no sense. Storm _is_ the leader of the X-men in the absence of Xavier and Cyclops. There simply is no debate there.
What they did to Cyclops and Profesional X was inexcusable. It becomes the Wolverine show, and he should not be powerful enough to take Dark Phoenix out on his own. I could go on and on
As Deadpool once said to Wolverine "Your true superpower is Popularity".
To be fair, he didn't. Jean was briefly able to take control and asked him to kill her to stop the Phoenix. It took Jean's will to make it happen.
Right on the money. It was the emotionality between them that led Jean to allow it to happen. She wanted it to be over. @@davidanderson4748
@@davidanderson4748still the x men trilogy was never about x men ,it was always Logan and friends
Which was my biggest beef with so many of the post-First Class films; they all became the Logan/Xavier/magneto show, and everyone else was just background.
There was no main theme song in the X-men trilogy, each episode had their own theme song, it wasn't until later that they basically made the theme of X2 the official theme of the franchise
The first X-men was more of a trial, seeing what filmmakers could do with these characters. They succeeded, so they continued. X-men 2 set the stage for the rest of the franchise as well as a thoughtful continuing storyline. Not only that tho, but they played into past storylines (and villains) with wolverine, seeing how he’s literally the oldest mutant in the trilogy. And that the older X-men have no clue how old he even is (nor us as viewers). On top of that they added more mutants into the mix, further widening the scope or perspective of both history and stories. Sadly they never really show certain character’s history but it still fit. That’s kind of what the first one was SORT OF missing. We were hinted at more but we weren’t gonna get more if the movie didn’t succeed. Thats why X2’s theme is really considered the X-men theme. It was the stage, centerpiece, and continuation of the X-men franchise/story
Why do you think when they FINALLY played that theme again everyone was excited and the movie was actually acceptable? X-men 2 was thee stage for all of xmen films. With respect to the first that started this ofc.
What about Famke? Famke's performance in this film is truly remarkable -- she successfully carries Jean's rage we've seen building from X1 and X2. When Famke raised her arms into the Phoenix pose in the Grey Household, that moment was electrifying and disturbing, because we knew Exactly what that meant. Patrick Stewart seems horrified to sit before Famke. He cannot face her smothered fury. Famke grounds Phoenix in a way that has set a standard in our minds. She walked so Elizabeth Olsen could run.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
And Elizabeth didn't run
Famke was a horrible Jean Grey, she couldn't act at all, that's why the movie sucked so bad
@@WolfModigwrong
@@AzraeIX the last stand was a piece of shit in filming making so I'm actually right
*Compared to Dark Phoenix it’s basically a masterpiece.*
I agree!
No it’s not. Dark Phoenix is underrated.
People call everything a masterpiece 😒
I mean compared to Dark Phoenix having AIDS is a masterpiece
Trash vs Garbage
This video was quite the surprise. Would love to see you do a retrospective on all the X-Men movies now that the property is moving on to a new era as it gets integrated into the MCU
I love how you address the score in the film, most reviews don't do that they only look at the writing, action, acting etc etc
I can confirm that the "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" line got a huge laugh from the audience; we couldn't believe a TH-cam meme made it into the actual movie!
Also, the soundtrack is pretty damn good, the climactic scene with Wolverine and Phoenix is one of my favorite epic scores ever!
"we couldn't believe a TH-cam meme made it into the actual movie!"
Wait, what are you talking about? Didn't the meme originate FROM the movie?
@@erubin100 so meta 😂
@@erubin100 nope, the cartoon dub parody was first. Original was deleted though, and the reupload that you can find is after the movie.
Singer did the best job of getting us invested in the characters in a way that the sequel prequels didn't. X3's Beast is really well done and far more accurate in tone to the younger version. I loved Kitty too. Halle Berry's Storm is actually fairly consistent with early Storm before she had to take on the leadership role as well. The mistake was not making X4-X6. They could have done the Marauders Massacre, followed by fall of the Mutants (Apocalypse), followed by Cable, maybe even Age of Apocalypse.
I think how much you enjoy Last Stand is often inversely proportional to how invested you were in the earlier films. As someone who think X1&2 were ok at best and doesn’t really mind the ways Last Stand deviated from what those established…I think it’s a neat bit of dumb fun, with some interesting ideas and arcs.
Yeah, that's where I'm at. It's clearly not as good a movie as the previous two, but I also thought it was kind of overhated and - as the video points out - did have a lot of cool stuff in it. Plus, I feel like those core five movies - X1, 2, 3, FC, DOFP - make for a surprisingly strong overall "saga," even if 3 is the weakest of the bunch.
@@jasonblalock4429 yeah, Last Stand being the way it is is a large part of why the ending to DOFP hits the way it does.
Though I personally would also add *The Wolverine* to that “saga”. I find watching those six films in release order very satisfying.
Yeah, I think I'm slightly more positive on X-2 than you (B+), Singer's X-Men, though bold, are definitely movies where the biggest weakness is "these are not characters or people going through this stuff, they're half baked, vaguely inhuman feeling social symbols going through this stuff". There's a very good reason why, even though the MCU DID bring back Patrick Stewart, they slapped him in the bulky yellow chair and are using Deadpool as ground zero. Because Deadpool's cast feels like...people? In terms of executing on Singer's tone? Logan is the actual king.
Interesting idea, that works with me. I liked the first and thought the second was great. Third film was trash, almost as bad as origins.
X-Men 3 wasn’t nearly as bad as most 3rd movies are of franchises in general. Most of the time, 3rd movies are the weakest out of the whole franchise. And while the Last Stand was probably the weakest of the 3 X-Men movies, it still wasn’t a bad movie per se. It was better than the Wolverine movies
Despite it being disappointing, no one can argue that Kelsey Grammer was the best version of Beast hands down.
I remember being upset with how they treated Rogue in this movie. She was so important in the first two movies and in the last one she was just pushed aside. She wanted the Cure and I think she got it but if I recall it all happened off camera.
It did, she was in line at the clinic and after the final battle, she was back at the mansion without her powers
Although, wasn't there an alternate ending where she didn't get the cure? I'm pretty sure that's the timeline that X-men Days of future: Rogue Cut takes place.
@@DavidMartinez-ce3lp I mean even the original ending showed the cure wasn't as effective as they thought, Magneto was shown regaining his powers after despite being injected with half a dozen doses so either one works
@@Awesome_Pichu that's true, good point.
@@Awesome_Pichu That’s bad storytelling on their part.
I feel like if you know nothing about X-men beyond the first 2 films The Last Stand is a satisfying enough conclusion. But if you're even slightly a fan it's impossible to not be irritated by the decisions the film makes. Turning the most iconic storyline in arguably all of marvel comics into the b-plot, throwing away Jean and Scott's relationship to give Logan more screen time, killing off the leader of the x-men 20 minutes into the film, turning a regal powerful character like Storm into someone's auntie...it was just too much lol. Totally agree with the commenter saying the cure should have been the only plot of this film and then Jean comes back in a phoenix focused story for X4. But the early 2000's loved their trilogies!
Gatekeeping bs
@@channel45853nothing wrong with gatekeeping
@@channel45853 anything that matters should be gatekept
@@mackenziebenedict8403true, needed now more than ever with how Hollywood treats IPs nowadays
Yup, that was pretty much me. I never actually saw the previous films. Xmen the Last Stand was my first Xmen movie. I still appreciate to this day. Though I would've preferred what was originally planned
I'm actually rewatching all of the x men movies, and honestly, I agree with all of that. Rewatching X3 was actually pretty entertaining with huge character translation flaws like Juggernaut.
In my opinion, X3 is just following the standard '3 movie ' pattern used often in Hollywood.
Movie 1:
Introduces characters, and set up a few sub-plots and character histories, in case it's successful.
Eg original Sar Wars was, err, Cowboys and Indians in Space, with goodies in White, baddies in black.
Movie 2:
Hey, we made money with movie 1, lets add a whole lot of characters, a really good story, and go all out on this one.
Movie 3:
Actors are looking a bit older, some are also getting work in other movies (its been a while, somethings got to pay the rent, especially if you are not one of the highly paid Stars ), and we wern't thinking ahead anyway.
Lets, umm, end with a big battle, kill off the main characters and get on with other projects.
Movie 4:
Oops. Didn't expect to be this popular. Err, make it a prequel. Jump back in time for some reason?
Younger versions of characters are easier to hire. If we have to use any of the original actors, do wonders with make-up and camera work? Off screen voice over?
Movie 4 could be the start of another sequence of 3.
At times, Hollywood can be very predictable.
The Last Stand is literally my favorite X-Men movie (I love the series as a whole). I’ve gotten to the point of hiding it or avoiding the subject LOL but I seriously love it. I think it’s emotional and epic and that if you accept it as the film it is and not through the adaptation lens, people will like it a lot more.
It’s my biggest hot take lmao
I loved it too!!! Glad I’m not alone on this island
It wa aAlso the most financially successful of the original films.
I used to watch again and again on DVD when I was a kid. Recently bought the trilogy on Blue ray. Love these movies.
I still love it. That will never change.
@@DavidMartinez-ce3lp yeah for me it’s definitely a nostalgic place, me and my dad used to recreate the fights all time when I was a kid. The first 3 movies were our thing.
I like The Last Stand. It’s not great, but it has some great moments that I feel pull together
I think you pretty much nailed this. I left the theater not jacked, not disappointed...just... like I saw A movie lol.. when X3 is bad, ITS BAD.... when it's good, it's pretty damn good...
Pretty much new to your channel, so forgive me if you've covered this movie, but here's a scorching hot take, where I feel I am #1 on a list of ONE lol:
If you get over the Deadpool stuff (I mean really, NOT a big deal), XMEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE really isn't that bad! In fact, I've watched it more than X3 and like everyone else, I absolutely CANNOT GET ENOUGH of Liev Schreiber's SABRETOOTH... (in fact, I look at HIM as being the awesome, HUGE IMPACT, but on screen for 30 seconds, secret cameo we get in Kang Dynasty/Secret Wars... no one is mentioning him. As far as I know, no one is eben thinking about him lol... but I can definitely see a scene where it looks like Jackman wolverine is about to kick the bucket, and he's saved by Sabretooth (and then they either kill each other or Wolverine just cuts his head off, in yet another Audience: "Wow! HE saved Wolverine??"
Sabretooth: "Nobody kills him but me...."
Audience: "aaaaah...cool cool...aaaaaand he's gone"
Dude xmen origins is fucking awesome. Its like what a wolverine movie from the 80s would’ve been like
I liked it too. My only problem was John Wraith's punk ass death. He's a teleporter and he fights Sabertooth in melee?? People give it crap because of Fakepool instead of Deadpool, but most of the movie rocked!!
yeah i dont get the hate for origins deadpool. they give us a taste of traditional deadpool earlier in the movie with wade cracking jokes and all that, and striker specifically mentions that he finds him annoying and he'd a be a better soldier if he shut the hell up. the deadpool we got in that movie fit perfectly within the story they were telling
@mattmangaming279 didn't earrrrrrly deadpool, before he became the wacky funny merc with the mouth, ya know, when he was bad-ass cool, and not just crazy cool (🤣), have the ability to teleport too? I could be just lumping him in with Zero, and him transporting Stryfe and all the all the time...
But i know for one of my all time fav games, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, deadpool could do a short teleport.... I'm 46 and been reading comics since the 1st secret wars, so it's not like I'm a "NOOB" lol.... it's just 4 decades of stuff, I don't remember everything
I loved this film it's what got me into the X-Men and marvel as a whole.
The real reason people say it was weaker is simply because it has a new director who decided to go in a different direction and stop focusing so heavily on Wolverine and Rogue.
It gave everyone a chance to shine. And it gave the best Beast portrayal to date, and put some respect on Storm
The real answer is the writers strike during this year hit A LOT of cinema and television that year. I'm shocked no one has mentioned it, perhaps too young to remember? It could probably warrent a long video just covering how many franchises it messed up.
I remember enjoying it for what it was, but it did fall short of the first two installments.
I've always had a soft spot for this movie- even more so after Days of Future Past but before Apocalypse as it showed the promise of what they were fighting to prevent with the future iteration of the Dark Phoenix.... obviously fell flat but still
I also think that the music they use for Jean/Pheonix is pretty great as it always stuck with me and was the first time I ever noticed how great a scene is made by the choice of music.....
I remember watching this so much as a kid. I need to rewatch the X-Men films again.
7:35 - Actually it was. It is worth recalling the scene after the credits, where Xavier is alive? By the way, Scott's death, although implied, was not shown. It was a ploy to bring him back in potential sequels. Oh yeah, in the original script, Magneto also died at the hands of the Phoenix, but then they decided to just deprive him of his powers ... and return him right before the credits began.
I have a soft spot for this movie. Mostly because of how they used Shadowcat, my all time favourite super hero.
Over the Xmas period, I watched all the X-men movies in release order ( was almost tempted to do it in Chronological order). Although Last stand wasn't as good as 1 and 2, I didn't hate it. It's sometimes hard to gauge their quality in retrospect when there were bigger disappointments later down the line. This has been a really well-presented video and pretty much sums up my feelings about the movie. Will probably check out more of your videos.
Xmas 🤭
One of the best original orchestral soundtracks of the last 20 years.
John Powell slayed it.
As cheesy as Xavier death or the Wolverine killing Jean scenes are .. Powell soundtrack gives them gravitas.
After this film, I don’t think we see Rogue ever again do we? I know she was in DoFP but all her scenes were cut.
The Rogue Cut!
She appears very briefly in the “good” future when Logan wakes up.
Like most x-men films I just pretend it didn’t happen. Killing Scott in the first few minutes of a dark phoenix movie is beyond bonkers. But they never developed his character or relationship with Jean anyway. They would’ve needed at least another 2 or 3 movies to course correct off wolverine’s one man show before getting to a proper dark phoenix
After watching the first two X-men movies that were actually about something, this one was what I’d like the call the start of the “spectacle formula” for superhero movies.
No character in X3 feels correct it’s hard to explain….
Btw made this comment b4 you say it in the video!
X Men First Class is GOAT of Superhero movies!
The first scene with Angel traumatized me when I first saw it and any time I watch the movie now I have to half close my eyes.
“in chest the pawns go first” is something i say way too often to this day 😂😭
10:00 I think one of the key aspects to a memorable superhero movie is the theme.
It's like the memory of a treat you fondly recall from childhood
In the words of Chawles Xavior: "I feel a great swell of pity for the poor soul that comes to" audition for Magneto knowing what Sir Ian McKellon did with the role
Just like how Spider-Man 3 would have been better without Venom (for proof watch the What If video on Channel Awesome TH-cam page), X-Men: The Last Stand would have been better without Jean Grey's return as The Phoenix.
Jon Powell's score is tremendous, so epic
I find it so jarring compared to the Ottman score
The Dark phoenix theme was pretty fucking dope. I get chills whenever I watch Xaviers death, and that's 90% the score.
My biggest problem with the fox x-men films comes down to just how flanderised a lot of the characters were with a few exceptions( wolverine being one of the most obvious exceptions).
To me, it suffered the same problem that Spider-Man 3 had. In that it had good ideas and good moments, but it was too cluttered to make any of it work to it's full potential.
Last Stand X-Men vs. 2012 Avengers is really ultimately down to how quickly you can knock out Hulk and Thor. It's been a long time since I've seen X-Men: The Last Stand, I only ever saw it once, the X-Men movies were just never part of my rotation growing up since I didn't own them, but going off what I can surmise, it's a closer fight than you might think, probably more in favor of the X-Men.
I love Captain America, he's awesome, and while ice can't kill this man, it will certainly stop him, so the right strategic opportunity with a blast from Iceman is all you need, but even Beast or Colossus could theoretically take him out, we're not concerned about future events like Cap holding back Thanos and such, this is strictly 2012 Avengers, but Iceman's who you want. If Colossus and Beast can hold Iron Man down, say they knock out a couple of his boosters so he can't fly away, then Wolverine can cut him out of the suit. Hawkeye and Black Widow, well, they're just ordinary people for the most part. Kitty Pryde can just have all their fire fly through her, so you just have someone come in from the side while they're distracted with her take them out. It really is then Hulk and Thor that need to be stopped and that's where things get interesting. It's certainly possible to stop Thor at this point in time for him since he's not confident in being the God of Thunder without Mjolnir, but I'm not sure how to stop him short of Wolverine cutting off his hands so he can't easily summon Mjolnir if you were to separate it from him. Similarly with Hulk, he's more in a savage state, but he's so tough, how do you stop him? What does lightning do to him? We know he can get mad and throw a rock at lightning, but that won't do any good, and he was never struck by it when he and Thor fought on the Helicarrier, so I'm thinking it would have to at least slow him down for a second. In theory, can't Kitty Pryde phase through to hearts and brains? I'm not saying she do anything that will kill them, I don't think that's the point of this fight, but if she can knock them out by causing them to pass out by some mean or another than just brute force and blunt trauma, then the X-Men have it.
However, as we saw, the 2012 Avengers took on an entire alien army lead by Loki and won (albeit with an unplanned nuke, but they were gonna close the portal, after that, the US Military comes in and takes out the remaining stranded army). Like I said, it's been a long time since I saw Last Stand, so I don't know how well that X-Men team can actually team up, but even for the first time, the 2012 Avengers are pulling combo moves and coordinating attacks. Caps giving orders, Hawkeye's up high taking out speeders, Cap launches Black Widow up high enough so she can commandeer a speeder and learns how to use the Chitari tech against them, Hulk can rip pieces of armor of the Leviathans, jam them in their skulls and then Thor smacks it down further to the brain, Iron Man's deflecting his blasts off Cap's shield, they're really coming together as a team, which might just save them against the X-Men. The Chitari being an army implies that they have battle tactics and strategy, something I'm not sure all the mutants had in The Last Stand, it's just a bunch of guys flailing powers about, but not necessarily strategically using them, making them easier to defeat by the X-Men. But I don't know how you stop the X-Men.
With my limited knowledge, I don't know just how strong these versions of the X-Men are to taking damage. Even with his Adamantium Skeleton and healing factor, it's still not impossible to knock out Wolverine because that's the cause of a concussion and his brain smacking around in a literal chrome dome. Even electrocution should work, too. How long he's down for the count is dependent on how much you harm him for his healing factor to get him back to full strength. How much energy does it cost Kitty Pryde to phase? Is she still fairly new to it, or can she just not be touched for as long as she wants until everyone else gets tired fighting her? Again, I don't know how good Storm is, but I imagine she's pretty tough to beat when she can control the weather and make the terrain a soupy mess while she floats above. Iron Man can attack her, but she can't attack him necessarily. She and Thor obviously have a similar powerset so it might just be a draw. Can Hawkeye deliver a concussive arrow in a sneak attack while she's busy fighting someone else and that knocks her out? Black Widow can also probably taze Iceman no problem, she just can't get frozen, so maybe you tagteam him with Cap and he takes the bulk of the fight, using his shield as protection until Widow gets the opening she needs. With enough time to get angry, I could see Hulk just punching Beast away and then it's a pretty fun fight between him and Colossus. How tough's this version of Colossus? I'm sure not as strong as the one from Deadpool, who still has his struggles in his one v. one matches. If you can't just do simple one on ones, I think everyone on the X-Men team is probably going to need a bit of tagteaming to defeat, which I can see the Avengers doing with ease.
I think it really depends on who gets taken out first and who's left standing the longest. The Avengers are primarily, for the most part, just normal people while the X-Men have their powers, but the powerhouses of Hulk and Thor, if they can work together, could give the Last Stand X-Men a decent run for their money. If Kitty Pryde can do what I think, and wasn't knocked out early on, then she needs a tough partner like Wolverine or Storm to act as a distraction for her to get in position and then pull her phasing trick, but that's all assuming the X-Men know how to be a team, despite that kind of being what they're known for from the comics. There's still something in my head though that thinks it goes to the X-Men, and maybe that's because I know the Avengers too well and the X-Men not well enough.
it's a masterpiece compared to most superhero movies that come out nowadays .
You ain't kiddin...............My they have fallen from grace....And trust me, being an avid comic book collector my whole life, it pains me to see it.
@DemonKnight85 all of it will die than be reborn, ina better shape, i hope .
@eglantinepapeau1582 I mean I hope so but it may be a long time. I imagine these things recycle in eras. So after the full burnout happens we may not see a resurgence for sometime. Prob years, maybe decades. Hell the westerns are still waiting on their come back...
I do think there are moments that are extremely epic in Last Stand. I love the fight at Jean’s house and almost everything with Jean and Logan in the last battle as a huge Wolverine fan. Kelsey Grammar’s Beast is one of the best live action castings for a comic book character imo. It’s a shame they didn’t use him more. I am curious how much different the film would’ve been if we had say Vaughn directing and David Hayter writing it. Hayter sounds like he would’ve made it closer to the Dark Phoenix comic storyline, even doing the moment where Wolverine tries to kill Jean but knows he can’t because he loves her. I doubt it would’ve been as cosmic as the comic but certainly would’ve been better than that other Dark Phoenix movie 💩
Matthew Vaugh was almost director. I mean no offense, but have you read the Dark Phoenix Saga?
@@agentofchaos7456 Obviously I’ve read it, otherwise I wouldn’t be mentioning a moment that happens in that story. 😂
@@WinsomeJarl4342 You can know about a moment from a book without actually reading it nowadays with all these TH-cam summaries. lol Anyway, there is no way they can do the cosmic element because that is basically a different story arc. It should be saved for a sequel and that was the plan for the 2019 Dark Phoenix movie.
@@agentofchaos7456 Oh yeah they were never gonna do any of the going into space and fighting the Shiar. More likely they would’ve done the Hellfire club portion of it. What I meant by it wouldn’t have been as cosmic was Jean’s powers. We obviously wouldn’t see her blowing up planets and turning trees gold etc. they would’ve still made her powerful but not that powerful.
@@WinsomeJarl4342 That is actually what the Dark Phoenix was originally going to be. But the Hellfire Club were replaced with those aliens apparently because the studio wanted to end the prequel series and wanted the Hellfire Club for the New Mutants sequel.
Killing off Scott Summers doesn’t have any weight when he’s hardly been the character he’s supposed to be up to that point.
very interesting. Id absolutely love to see another cut of this film offering a similar atmosphere to the first 2.
That would be cool!
James Marsden, Rebecca Romain, and Anna Paquin couldn’t be in the movie much because they had other contractual obligations. They literally couldn’t be in the movie no matter if they wanted them in it
Thank you for this video. I've been a proponent of the third movie in the X-Men OT for some time. I feel it was wrongly judged by critics due to it having a director other than Bryan Singer. And if you look at the majority of negative reviews over on Rotten Tomatoes, you'll see that it's the main contention cited in those reviews.
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) was action-packed, intriguing and fun. They finally unleashed Magneto and showed what a total badass he is, plus the fight scenes looked right out of the comic frames. It was cool! My only complaint was killing off Professor Xavier. It diminished the movie but didn't ruin it for me.
Nice take! I always enjoyed this movie. Yeah it’s not the end all he all of TDP, but honestly read that story. It ends with Jean shooting herself with a ray gun. Asking Wolverine to do it was so much more poignant, and set up a solid basis for The Wolverine. Also the music was the best of any of the X films.
Yes it had problems, but it also had some great touches - Charles’ slight smile before being obliterated, Pyro and Iceman facing off, not having a disinterested Jennifer Lawrence.
Is Last Stand that bad? No. Not even Wolverine Origins was bad
Agreed
As someone who just binged the entire X-Men series, I also thought The Last Stand wasn’t as bad as everyone said, but one of the first things I noticed about it was how awful the pacing was. Even though everything was properly explained I still had myself asking “What the hell is happening?” And half of the characters just felt like goofy crackheads with superpowers.
Personally I really never got the hate for it. Tbh I enjoyed it way more than the first two as a kid. Maybe that’s cause of the quality of the vfx(holy shit it’s still so damn good and impressive especially for the time) but I dunno I always found the cure subplot really interesting. I think that alone could have made for a really compelling drama and most of the cure plot line is really fascinating. But because they set up the phoenix saga in X2 they had to try to combine it with the cure thing. But even then I really like this movie. I never got why people got so pressed at Charles’s death cause it was obvious to me he wasn’t “dead” dead even before the post credits
This is the best review I’ve ever seen for this movie.
It definitely has its flaws, which you well laid out. But there are a lot of good ideas in here. So many reviews just act like this movie is 100% irredeemable.
Thank you mate!!
The people demand more Frasier-Beast!
Considering I thought the first 2 X-men movies were only "good, but nothing special", the crazy spectacle of Last Stand at least has a dumb fun aspect to it.
While you are correct about the inferior X-men theme in the score for The Last Stand, the theme for Phoenix is absolutely phenomenal; powerful, epic, terrifying and beautiful at all once (just as it should be). It's one of my favourite themes ever and was wasted on this movie unfortunately.
As for Cyclops dying so early was because of his actor being casted in Superman Returns and scheduling issues between the two movies.
I've said for years that Scary Movie and X-Men 3 were my favorite movies of all time....And I stand by that!
This is a great video, about a movie that I really appreciate and I'm glad to see covered. That said, more than anything I just want to say how much I appreciate you naming Elliot Paige correctly without making a deal out of it. I know there are some people who throw a hissy fit over a guys name, and I just appreciate that you didn't push the issue and just let it be what it is. His name. It sounds a little obvious that you would, but theres many that wouldn't.
It's not about his\her name and you know it. It's about the alarming rise in the number supposedly transgender individuals among the general population, which raises very valid questions and concerns - not the least of which is what percentage of them genuinely does it because of genuine gender dysphoria, and what percentage does it on a whim, because it's a trend, because it's a way for them to get attention or feel unique etc. Framing it as "making a big deal out of a guy's name" is so disingenuous it hurts.
@@DiamondBlade11 You are exactly the problem I was referring to.
@@bobmasters9871 it unfortunately doesn't surprise me that you'd choose to label me as a "problem" instead of actually respond to any of what I said. It's not even like I said the issue is transgendederism itself, but the rise of which in the general population. It's incredible to me that people like you could see this data and say I'm the problem, rather than dare talk about the actual issue at hand
@@bobmasters9871 whichever way you slice it, framing people's objections as being "about a guy's name" is objectively dishonest
@@DiamondBlade11 Youre right. It was hyperbole, which is necessarily dishonest. Because the issue is over his identity and his right to it. Gender is the only identity in which we question someones right to, and that's an utterly absurd thing, so I demonstrated said absurdity by using hyperbole, a trivialization. So again, out of necessity, its dishonest, because the issue is much more complex than the demonstration I was providing, in the same way that the earth is more complex than a childs toy globe. It was intentional
I actually really like X3. It's a pretty entertaining movie no matter where you stand on your opinion.
I used to watch this movie over and over again on DVD when I was a kid. All these X-men films had a sense of maturity and drama that the MCU films lack. I often wonder what would've happened if FOX had bought Marvel. Would've been interesting to see what they could've done with other Marvel characters.
I thunk it would have the same turn out as Watner bros & DCU
@@Kirasfox no, I don't think so. FOX did a good job with the X-men characters. Way better than WB did with the DCEU. It's not even comparable. The DCEU was a complete disaster and was always gonna be a failure. X-men were fairly well handled.
@@DavidMartinez-ce3lp that's great for you, after seeing how they handled Cyclopse,jubilee, Ororo, especially Darwin and peter- I honestly lost faith & interest.
@@Kirasfox I agree, there was a lot more they could've done. My favorite Xmen characters is Cyclops, and I was disappointed that he didn't take more of a leadership role. But I do still believe they did a good job, especially X2, First Class, and Days of future past.
@@DavidMartinez-ce3lpFirst 2 DCEU movies were great, then everything went downhill. I blame the messed up audience for it; I don’t care what anyone else says.
I have a soft spot for "The Last Stand" and "Apocalypse". I think both are really fun, but their scripts aren't as strong as their prior two instalments (X1, X2, FC, DOFP). Both films could have used another year of pre-production and a few more drafts on their final scripts. On the positives, both have great actors, good action sequences, dramatic moments, and very good scores by John Ottman and John Powell. Still, both movies are better than "X-Men Origins: Wolverine", "Dark Phoenix", and "The New Mutants".
Why did Person Paige play Women when hated being a woman so much?
Doesn't make sense.
Funny how John Powell made the HTTYD soundtracks only a few years later but some of the scores in X3 are a pale comparison to the original
Pretty much a Brett Ratner film in a nutshell: corny, stupid, and annoying, but rarely ever bad enough to be especially noteworthy.
I never hated the last stand to the degree that everyone else does. I think it has some really dookie parts, like killing Scott off screen, and it tried to do a little too much. It smooshed the Dark Phoenix story down when anyone who has read the comic or watched the animated series knows that story is a lot denser than it was portrayed in that movie. But I don't think it's a downright awful movie and it actually has some powerful moments. The opening scene where Angel is trying to cut his own wings off is heart wrenching. The movie at least tried to grapple with the issue of mutant identity and pride vs the option of no longer being a member of a hated and feared minority group. it just didn't go into as deeply as it could have or should have because there were too many things happening in that movie that no story line was really explored with the depth that it should have.
Worst decision singer ever made leaving this trilogy for that Superman returns tragedy
Or the outher thing he did…
But it’s a close second
X-Men the animated series is still the definitive version of the Phoenix Saga. they showed the good Phoenix as well as the evil Phoenix, the movies never want to show Phoenix as good, just get on with the "sexy" Dark Phoenix. we never care about Jean enough to see her descent into the darkness
As mentioned in the video, Wolverine stepping up as leader is supported by the trajectory of the movies, but I was always really disappointed by it not being storm that was taking command of the team. Also didn’t like the death of cyclops, thought Prof X felt out of character, at least for the movies, missed night crawler. And of course thought that the two plots should have been two separate movies, with Dark Phoenix being the 4th. So many movies rush things that would benefit from taking more time to establish (venom in Spiderman 3). I actually kinda like Love and Thunder (though not as much as Ragnarok), but it seems to follow a similar format of trying to shove multiple massive comic arcs into one movie. Many other good points in this video as well!
Wolverine, Storm, Iceman, Beast, Kitty Pryde and Colossus would kick the shit out of Captain America, Ironman, Hulk, Hawkeye, Black Widow and maybe even Thor. You have two omega level mutants there with the ability of basically anihilating the planet if they want to.
When it comes to the X:men films I only started watching them around the time First Class came out.
I'd always been a more Spider-man & Batman focused fan.
And honestly, Last Stand might be one of my favourites. The first two were alright imo, but never felt like they were having fun with the concept, this was probably me comparing them to Raimi's campfest.
So Last Stand has entertaining goofy moments, as well as the awesome Magneto & Beast scenes. And all the parts with Mystique I loved, she was probably my favourite character until Jennifer Lawrence played her.
Since this year marks his 85th anniversary, can you do some Superman-related videos? I would love to hear you discuss the Christopher Reeve movies, Superman Returns and Superman: The Animated Series.
Yes. It is that bad.
The problem is the combination of two massive Storylines with the Cure and the Dark Phoenix,and another issue I have in retrospect is how wasted Cyclops/any character not named Wolverine is in the Fox Universe.
I actually never hated The Last Stand. I wish Cyclops didn't die and could have had more of a role in the movie (I know Marsden wasn't available due to scheduling conflicts). I really loved Beast in this movie. The older I get the more I hate how Colossus has no character in this movie (happy there is a way better Colossus in the Deadpool movies). I enjoyed Shadowcat in the movie too. I wish Rogue could have done something more. Same with Angel. Juggernaut was terrible.
Me knowing nothing about the director 👁👄👁
Same
Yes, it is. And if you’ve ever read a single X-Men comic, it’s even worse.
I liked the action sequences & the cast. Not as harsh on this as others are. And this came out during perhaps the best summer of my life, so it does hold a bit of nostalgia for me.
I don't think the trope of "the woman that becomes too powerful that needs to be killed to save everyone" has anything to do with the original Dark Phoenix Saga. In the comics, Dark Phoenix didn't have to die because she was too powerful, she had to die because the Hellfire Club destabilized her mind and she became murderous because of that, not because she was too powerful. The movies's interpretation is reductionist and problematic, but equating the trope the DPS created when other - less competent - writers tried to remix the story to the original story itself doesn't seem fair.
Yes.
Why do we care or even need to know what the director's behavior is like? That has absolutely nothing to do with the movie or whether we should enjoy it. It has to do with whether he should be in jail or not and nothing else. Anything else is just tabloid gossip because none of us have ever or will ever meet this person we're just people watching a movie
Great job! I especially respect that you mentioned Kitty Pride actor by his name Elliot Page. Thank you for that.
It wasn't easy in the 60-70's when a certain champion changed his name to Muhammad Ali in white America.
Its not only that bad its total garbage. To this day I think the only half decent X-Men movies are X2, logan and the 1st Deadpool movie.
*I don't give a damn what ANYONE says, I love X-Men: The Last Stand. I think it's fantastic.* 💯
I feel like it was necessary for Scott to die so Logan could kill Jean at the end
Famke is the only Jean I can tolerate and accept!
No, it’s not and it never was. Especially compared to the sludge of phase 4 in current MCU
Yes, it is that bad. Also, if you watch all 3 X-Men movies in a row, Wolverine comes off like kind of a creep a-hole and his "love" of Jean Grey is so unearned.
No its not ,infact loved the way he loves her and main reason was because the way Jean cared for him .I guess negative lenses cant see that.
Btw it is earned she killed the unearned one and kept the earned one from getting killed😂Jean knew what she wanted ,your a man what you know😂 what women wants.
Ok not only did they dissed my boy, Cyclops, for being the leader, but they also made Rogue a side character or have her arc end in tragedy, having her take the cure where her entire character is supposed to be accept her for her she is
Without cyclops the avengers definitely wipe out the X-3 cast.
Strong agree. The X-men need Cyclops and probably Jean Grey and possibly a strong Rogue to make it interesting. As it stands, you've got all the strongest Avengers vs. three true X-men and three kids. And a lot of duplication of powers (Wolverine, Beast, Cyclops are brawlers), none of whom is half the fighter that Hulk is.
11:54 where the hell did that come from???
Bobby wasn't hitting on Kitty. Not even remotely. He treated her like a younger sibling, since his sucks so much.
As for Last Stand crew vs Avengers? I think Avengers would lose simply because of Wolverine.
Thor and Storm would be deadlocked, Hulk would deal with Colossus, Beast would steamroll Widow and Hawkeye, Iceman would ground Iron Man...and Wolverine would beat Cap. None of the Avengers have the means to outfight or kill Wolverine.
"X-Men: Last Stand" is my favorite of the first 3 films. The drama, the emotions; its so good. I loved the writing for Ian McKellen. He is amazing in this film. It's a brilliant film in all honesty.