Wolverine Origins (Spoilers/Discussion)

[The Mike]

The Stryker one played before the credits and the Deadpool after when I saw it.

 

[EVILFACE]

Yea, I saw the Striker one, didnt know that was a special ending. The bar one sounds lame lol.

 

[CelticPredator]

Stryker's on every print...and the Bar one is lame. Go to megavideo, find the workprint, and skip to the end. It's there in beautiful quailty....and it's lame.

 

[The Mike]

Wow....Wolverine definitely hauled it in this weekend:

1. " X-Men Origins: Wolverine ," $87 million.

2. "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past," $15.3 million.

3. "Obsessed," $12.2 million.

4. "17 Again," $6.4 million.

5. "Monsters vs. Aliens," $5.8 million.

6. "The Soloist," $5.6 million.

8. "Earth," $4.18 million.

7. "Fighting," $4.17 million.

9. " Hannah Montana: The Movie ," $4.1 million.

10. " State of Play ," $3.7 million.

Should be interesting to see how it does next few weeks with "Up", "Terminator: Salvation" and of course "Star Trek" hitting theatres.

 

[EVILFACE]

Wow....Wolverine definitely hauled it in this weekend:



Should be interesting to see how it does next few weeks with "Up", "Terminator: Salvation" and of course "Star Trek" hitting theatres.

Should put the movie piracy bit to a end.

 

[HdoubleD]

While it doesn't excuse it, Cyclops never actually sees Logan because of the heavy blinders he wears throughout the facility. I haven't watched X1 in a while but I don't think he actually has an interaction with Sabretooth there but even if he did the look is so drastically different he wouldn't remember.

There are contradictions with the franchise but they did make sure that the character interactions were noted so they didn't.

But wouldn't Prof X have told him of what happened on the island?? His whole part was lame and forced.

And Clops does have signifigant interaction with Sabertooth when they fight in the woods when its snowing, when they first meet Logan. I think id be able to remember someone who tried to kill me when I was a teen in an incident when I blew up my whole high school. He had the same basic porportions , same claws, same personality, just longer hair. The fact they he looks different means nothing to the story but that they changed the actor. To the audience, its the same character. Its like a sitcom when they change one of the actors with no mention, its just expected that whatever you knew about the character before the change is ported over to the new guy. Even after the fight in the woods, wouldn't Prof X have explained to Scott who it was that they were fighting, esp knowing the history they have???? The change in apperance is not a plot device so Scott wouldn't remember, its just a a different actor playing the same role that causes a cont. problem in X-1.

 

[YoNoSe]

There are definitely continuity issues but unless I'm mistaken, there's nothing that directly contradicts Cyclops having met Sabertooth or Prof X being on the island. Prof X never sees Logan on the island so he didn't necessarily know he was there. He is aware of who Sabertooth is when he tells Logan about him in X1. Cyclops never jumps in and says "he kidnapped me!" but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. He never expresses any confusion over who Sabertooth is in X1 (again, off the top of my head). In fact I think it sort of seemed like they had all run into each other before when Prof X gives Logan the nickname speech in X1.
I'm not trying to be argumentative. The flick's got problems for sure but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

 

[Valfar]

All i am going to say is, lots and lots of women made this movie all that money.

 

[BadMoon]

All the people that I work with that go see movies said it was pretty good. Mind you they are not huge comic book fans or anything.

 

[hoodonit00]

The only thing that I don't like so far about this new movie is the fact that they felt like they had to include all of these cameos to begin with. In XMen, it was understandable... that is a team story.

But Wolverine doesn't need all of that, and in fact... a true Origins tale of Wolverine would have been miles better if it just included Wolverine himself, Stryker, and Sabretooth. It didn't need all of these crazy cameos and characters, no "special team".

In fact, what I was initially excited to see back when this film was announced was Wolverine alone... doing his thing. I was expecting Wolvie fighting those who created him, a loose cannon... lost without memory. Maybe Sabretooth being sent after him to rein him under control for Stryker to use, and with the early scenes of them together... it would be dramatic and cool.

They didn't need XI or the team to make that happen, and by including all of that.. they cheapen the film and take away precious minutes that could have been used for character development.

I will still see it, seeing as I love Hugh as Wolverine and am curious. I also want to see Liev as Sabretooth, from the trailers he looks to have nailed it. But the team nonsense and all the cameo crap has me a bit worried. I guess I will see in another week.

I've been skipping through this thread and your post sums the movie up for me. I seen it opening day and although I liked it for an action movie, I was more then a little let down with the creative license they took with the characters.

I also posted before that I think this movie needed an R rating. I wanted to see brutality like it was portrayed in 300 but it still wasn't bad the way it was.

I think if someone knows nothing about Wolverine or his origins they will think this movie is great. I give it a high 6, close to a 7.

 

[hoodonit00]

Few things I noticed:

- Wolverine should now have two bullet holes in his skull. The adamantium doesn't heal right, so there would be the two holes left over that wouldn't ever heal up. And possibly some chips or other areas where he was also shot with the adamantium bullets.

IMHO the Adamantium being fused to his bones, which does have his healing power would make the Adamantium heal over to.

 

[HdoubleD]

There are definitely continuity issues but unless I'm mistaken, there's nothing that directly contradicts Cyclops having met Sabertooth or Prof X being on the island. Prof X never sees Logan on the island so he didn't necessarily know he was there. He is aware of who Sabertooth is when he tells Logan about him in X1. Cyclops never jumps in and says "he kidnapped me!" but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. He never expresses any confusion over who Sabertooth is in X1 (again, off the top of my head). In fact I think it sort of seemed like they had all run into each other before when Prof X gives Logan the nickname speech in X1.
I'm not trying to be argumentative. The flick's got problems for sure but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Niether am I man, not at all.

In regards to the Prof not knowing Wolves was on the island...

Prof X knew the floor plan of the whole island, as evidence by leading clops out. The fact that he was on the island shows that he had some knowledge of Weapon X, Stryker, kidnapped mutants,the whole deal. He's one of the most powerful mutants on earth. He could communicate with Nightcrawler while he was in America and NC was in Germany. He located wolverine in X1, which shows that he had the ability to locate him in Canada when he was hundreds of miles away. He wouldnt be able to identify him when they were on the same 3 mile island? Hard to belive.

Def a flawed film, but I also enjoyed a few parts here and there. Def. a missed opportunity.

 

[DarkArtist81]

Here is an article from Empire that sums up my feelings about the flaws of Wolverine AND Spider Man 3.... very funny interesting read...

Why Studios Need To Ignore The Fans


**THIS BLOG CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR SPIDER-MAN 3 AND, MUCH FURTHER DOWN AND SEPARATELY MARKED, WOLVERINE**

This blog was most directly inspired by X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but since I’m trying to avoid spoilers, let’s talk about Spider-Man 3 for a moment, as an example of a thesis I have developed; namely, that sometimes the studios need to man up and ignore the fans.

Consider Spidey 3’s production. The word is that Sam Raimi, having made two enormously successful wallcrawler films, was willing to come back for a third, and negotiations began about the right villains. Raimi wanted Sandman, a character he’d always loved, got his wish and some sterling casting for the role in Thomas Haden Church, fresh from Sideways. Given the pressure to make the story ever bigger and better, it’s not surprising that Harry Osbourne (James Franco) became a second villain, taking up his father’s mantle and becoming Green Goblin Mark II. He’d been around for two films already, he knew Spidey’s identity and he offered great dramatic material.

But the hero’s got to have his own internal dilemnas as well. With Peter Parker having first shouldered the great power that comes with great responsibility in the first film, and then turned away from it (temporarily) in the second (exactly the format of the Superman films as well, come to think of it), what’s left? Why, red kryptonite Spider-Man, that’s who, the Spider-Man who stops caring and trying to do the right thing. And with the addition of the alien symbiote black Spider-suit, that’s exactly what happened. Suddenly Peter Parker turned into a greasy haired, emo-looking playboy, and it’s all because of some black, crude-oil looking substance that eventually becomes Venom.

Ah, Venom. Yes, the third villain for whom there is emphatically no need in this film. The villain that Raimi had said, around the time the first film was released, that he didn’t like or want to use. The villain who’s ONLY there because the fanboys had been cheerleading for him and the studio listened to them and – so the story goes – insisted on his inclusion. The villain who appears, from the script, to have been thrown in at the last minute and to very little effect. The villain who could quite easily and profitably have been set up in the last act of Spidey 3 for a fourth film, instead of wasted in a momentary fight scene.

The fact is that this sort of appearance pisses everyone off. The fanboys are shortchanged, deprived of a real Spidey-vs.-Venom showdown by this blink-and-you’ll-miss-it fight scene, where the arachnid grudge match is diluted by the presence of Sandman and Green Goblin (and an eternally screaming MJ, of course). The filmmaker, Raimi, is presumably less than thrilled to have to cram in a character he doesn't particularly like. And the normal cinemagoers are shortchanged too, by a plot that strains itself to breaking point to cram this ugly space-mutant into the last act when there’s more than enough going on here already. The value of the great screenwriting maxim, K.I.S.S. – Keep It Simple, Stupid – has rarely been better demonstrated in its omission.

Admittedly, competing with Spidey 3 there is X-Men: The Last Stand, a film that also threw characters at a problem that didn’t exist (and really, was anyone clamouring for Callisto or Juggernaut?) and killed a franchise as a result. Which brings us to Wolverine…

SPOILERS FOLLOW IN NEXT 2 PARAGRAPHS

The fans wanted Deadpool? You got him. Gambit? Here ya go. Only thing is that, since they don’t really fit the story, we’re going to cram them in to short sequences. Gambit comes out of it OK. Deadpool, however… After a storming introduction to Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson early on in proceedings, he sits out the entire second act and turns up unrecognisable in the third – without his trademark quips, what with his MOUTH BEING SEWN SHUT, and with a whole raft of crazy mutant powers that make very little sense. And then he’s seen off in a finish that would require astonishing powers of rewrite to get around. So you get Deadpool, kinda, and Ryan Reynolds is all sorts of awesome as Wade Wilson for the time it takes to run to the loo and back, but then…that’s it, folks. And you can forget about a spin-off in this universe (DISCLAIMER: I’ve only seen one of the six post-credit stings. Maybe they bring him back in some implausible manner in one of the others).

It’s heartbreaking. Reynolds is as great in the role as the fans always knew he would be, but he’s tossed aside with barely a thought. The film crams in so many mutants that no one gets enough time. Quick, say hello to Bolt and Gambit and Agent Zero and Wade and Blob and Wraith and Emma Frost and Scott Summers and Weapon XI (kinda) as they all race past.

SPOILERS END

Here’s the thing. Filmmakers and studios need to stick to their guns and choose the characters that are best suited to the story and only the story, and if needs be ignore the fans when they ask for popular characters* to be included. Make a film that works, then find a story down the line to give those beloved characters room to strut their stuff; don't just cram 'em in willy-nilly. Fans need to think about what will work in the universe of the films: the fact is that Venom’s a less natural fit for Raimi’s Spider-verse than Sandman, and neither’s as good a fit as Green Goblin II.

If Wolverine fails at the box office, or worse, is received badly by fans, it won’t be because of the fiend who leaked it online. It will be because it’s a film that thinks it’s more important to tick off fan priorities on a checklist than to concentrate on a coherent story. God knows that Hugh Jackman and Gavin Hood and their team went into this determined to make a great film, and it’s clear they’ve strained every sinew (literally, in Jackman’s case) to do just that, but to the extent that they fail it’s because there’s just too damn much going on.

Seems to me that if you’re going to make a Wolverine film, that’s what you should make, not a film crammed to the gills with other mutants. And if you must award mutant cameos (because there’s fun to be had trying to spot familiar faces/ powers among the crowds) either beef them up to substantial parts or keep them at cameo level. There’s no honour in this name-checking approach, and no script that can support it. You can have about, oooh, five or six main characters interacting and still care. Even Christopher Nolan’s Batman films, with their substantial running times and incredibly sharp scripts, falter when they try to juggle too many more - and if they do add in extra characters, they make sure that those spares are not fanboy icons . Any more than that and somebody’s getting shortchanged. And if that somebody is Venom, or Deadpool, kiss a heck of a lot of fanboy goodwill goodbye.

*I’m pretty sure it says something that these particular characters are part of that late ‘80s / early ‘90s harder-edged Marvel. That either gives us a clue about the age of the internet fanboys most active in kicking up a stink, or says something wider about the way that fans are still in thrall to the darker, Moore-and-Miller influenced stuff.

 

[Dusty]

Great article, Josh and I agree!

But I can say that I enjoyed this movie MUCH more than I expected after all the mean stuff that was said about it before. And here's why - it STOOD ALONE as a film... maybe not a great film, but I know next-to-nothing about Wolverine's backstory or any of the other X-Men, and I had no trouble following this story from point A to point B.

Sure, some of it I'd like to have known more about - especially characters (I guess it was Wraith - the black guy who went with him to New Orleans? - I liked him a lot), but ultimately it was *Wolverine's* story, so I know exactly why they made their appearances but weren't really explained. Wouldn't it have been weirder to NOT have as many other mutants show up in his backstory, since that's kind of what his story IS? I also really like how they made Sabretooth his brother - makes it much easier to explain that whole story and their history in a very brief amount of time (which is what you want to do in a FILM).

Anyway, I can answer the author's questions above, based on what I saw in the film:

1) Wade's crazy mutant powers were explained completely - that's one of the main reasons Stryker was capturing mutants and keeping them on the island - he was taking all their powers and putting them into Wade. It even shows him taking Cyclops' power and transferring it to Wade. (I also really like how it kind of made him a mutant version of Frankenstein.)

2) Deadpool has his mouth sewn shut because Stryker made the comment at the beginning that he'd be a "perfect soldier if it weren't for his mouth" (or something like that) - to me, that's pretty cool - he made the perfect soldier now.

3) Also another question I've seen in this thread (although not in the article) - they explained that they couldn't use Sabretooth's DNA and had to have Wolverine's... because Sabretooth wasn't has strong as Wolverine... which also explains a lot of Sabretooth's rage because he is and always has been jealous of James/Logan/Wolverine and wants the adamantium skeleton, but they won't let him have it because "he's not strong enough"... imagine living so long and letting that rage and jealousy build up and I can understand his killing sprees.

All of these were explained in the film itself. I could care less if a movie sticks 100% to the source material as long as the film makes sense (and I pretty much ignored the other X-Men movies and treated this like a new beginning for the entire franchise - a re-boot, if you will - which they do in the comics themselves a lot, so what's the problem?)

Although I did have a couple of issues with the time periods (if James and Victor age so slowly, how could they have been so old in time for the Civil War, which was only about a decade or 2 after they were shown as little kids? - etc). And some of the effects were bad, and a lot of it was over-the-top cheesy (although nothing *quite* as cheesy as the greaser monkeys from KotCS - and Hugh Jackman is such a good actor that his smile makes all the cheese enjoyable, kind of like he's laughing at himself), but nothing major regarding the plot line itself.

Anyway, I give it about 4/5 - not as "good" as The Dark Knight, not as fun as Transformers for me (silly fun with a self-contained story and awesome effects - and man, I can't wait for Revenge!!), better than X-3, not as good as X-2, and much better than Watchmen and KotCS (IMO of course, not trying to start anything, for real! - these movies have just been mentioned in comparison previously in this thread)

 

[Dusty]

P.S. Yes, Hugh Jackman is very handsome, but that is NOT why I went to this film (in fact, I think he was overly muscular and don't like my men so veiny and muscular )

 

[The Mike]

1) Wade's crazy mutant powers were explained completely - that's one of the main reasons Stryker was capturing mutants and keeping them on the island - he was taking all their powers and putting them into Wade. It even shows him taking Cyclops' power and transferring it to Wade. (I also really like how it kind of made him a mutant version of Frankenstein.)

Many missed the small bit of dialogue where Weapon XI was supposed to be Mutant Hunter/Killer completely controllable by Stryker and that the powers had to be carefully selected to be sustainable in one body without ripping it apart hence why there were so many mutants and so much experimentation going on to find just the right ones.

2) Deadpool has his mouth sewn shut because Stryker made the comment at the beginning that he'd be a "perfect soldier if it weren't for his mouth" (or something like that) - to me, that's pretty cool - he made the perfect soldier now.

Most of the outcry came from the fact that Deadpool is "The Merc with a Mouth" and that unique piece was completely changed. Many made the same uproar with the Spider-Man films as Tobey Maguire couldn't pull off the smartass quality of Spider-Man in the comics.

Although I did have a couple of issues with the time periods (if James and Victor age so slowly, how could they have been so old in time for the Civil War, which was only about a decade or 2 after they were shown as little kids? - etc)

This was something that you had to look elsewhere for, the idea is at their first "death" their cells begin to self heal and so the aging process ceases. This is actually in the Wolverine comics but better explained in modern times with shows like "Heroes". They "died" for the first time around their screen ages, healed and with every "death" their cells continuously heal and the aging process takes another standstill. They'll still age but progressively slower with each mortal blow. Just another thing that was left for the audience to figure out that wasn't explicitly said to the audience which is one of my pet peeves of this film. USA Today (which gave the film a good review) mentioned that the film had a bit too much "Look in the comics for your answer" to it as well.


I agree with the article though, too many cooks in the kitchen and if you add the net its exponential, will ruin a project. Had this film been just about Wolverine, Sabretooth and the team it would have been just fine. They could have even used the members of the Team as the "perfect" powers which was just a plot device. In reality Deadpool was given Cyclops' powers in order to justify the cameo which was five minutes of time in the film combined. They could have even used Gambit's powers to include him if they really wanted to.

 

[Eli26]

P.S. Yes, Hugh Jackman is very handsome, but that is NOT why I went to this film (in fact, I think he was overly muscular and don't like my men so veiny and muscular )

Don't dis men with healthy bodies!

What's wrong with a strong man who is healthy? Damn... I think some of you women want your men to be weak so you can kick em' around. hehe

I will always be fit!

Keep those gummies and cheesecake away from me...

Aiyeeee.....

*runs*

 

[quadcent]

great movie, well worth the price of admission. nuff said.

 

[Kuzeh]

I saw it and was expecting something like Daredevil or F4
it wasn't that bad... I enjoyed it for what it is...
I liked the premise of the backstory and the overall story-line, but I had issues
with some of the side character cameos like Blob, Cyclops, Emma Frost, etc.
But it was fairly entertaining, the CGI and some of the effects sucked big time...

Did anybody notice that Gillis and Woodford, as well as the Stause Bors./Hydralux roked on the FX/CGI?...
seems like FOX has found the right cheap/affordable FX crew they've been looking for...

 

[Dusty]

Don't dis men with healthy bodies!

What's wrong with a strong man who is healthy? Damn... I think some of you women want your men to be weak so you can kick em' around. hehe

I will always be fit!

Keep those gummies and cheesecake away from me...

Aiyeeee.....

*runs*

There's a difference between being fit and being ripped. I like fit. Don't really like ripped. (also it means the guy spends more time working out than doing other, more important things... like spending time with me )

Oh, I get the thing about Deadpool being the Merc With the Mouth - and his quips were enjoyable. That's definitely why they 'unmuted' him in the extra scene. I'm sure he'll be back and in better shape than ever!