X-Men: Apocalypse - May 27, 2016

[YoNoSe]

And they are not present in the x-ray scans from X1. Those clearly show a mechanical ejection device in his forearms.

In X2 Stryker also says something like " I didn't create you, I just gave you claws."

But whatevs. This series is not exactly a stickler for continuity.

 

[pturtle]

X-Men: Apocalypse – Storm’s New African Origin Details

“Oh yeah. I read a bunch of comics. The one comic that I didn’t get to read was Storm’s introduction to X-Men. That’s because it’s worth like $30,000 and I was like, “Okay, is there like some online pictures of it that I could see?” And they’re like, “No, that’s why it’s worth $30,000.” “Oh, okay, got it.”

“I watched the [1990s X-Men] cartoons on repeat. I just kept it going because you could watch them on Hulu Plus, so I just had it going in the background. I love how her accent changed a whole bunch, which was awesome. You’re just like, “Wow, she’s gone from English to sister girl, all the way back”… I’m doing a Kenyan accent. I’m also speaking Arabic, which is cool.”

X-Men Apocalypse: Evan Peters On Quicksilver’s Rise As An X-Man

Screen Rant: Bryan was telling us that this movie is, among other things, about the formation of the X-Men. Is Quicksilver a significant part of that?

Evan Peters: Yeah. I would say that whatever happens down the line, that Quicksilver vanishes from the movies, I don’t know. At this point it is the beginning of him coming into the group and being a force that fights evil. It’s pretty sweet… I still think he’s good. He’s not really … He hasn’t gone to the dark side. I think he understands why Eric is the way that he is and does these things. I think he has a lot of sympathy for him and empathy and knows what he’s going through and is trying to help him really. There’s a way to go about doing this that’s not destroying people. You can do this the good way. Eric has so much anger and stuff built up inside him. I think he understands him. He’s not on the dark side. Not yet anyway until something horrible happens, screw it all. We’ll see.

Peters actually compared developing the new Quicksilver sequence to making a followup to a major blockbuster:

It’s like a sequel. I don’t know any other way to put it. You take elements that worked in the past and then you add on to them and try to make them better. It’s similar but different and better. That’s what you always try to do I think for the sequel and hopefully we’ve done that. I think it’s really cool.

Screen Rant: We’re used to seeing Magneto as the man who will not be ruled, so it’s a little odd to see him serving a new master.

Fassbender: Well I think he’s serving his family, you know. He does what he does so he can provide shelter and security for his family. In a way you’re right, he’s serving a new master, and I think from before we know obviously that he loses his parents in a concentration camp, but there was always that story of Magda that I thought was pretty interesting. That sort of confounds his mistrust in human beings, so that was a sort of big influence on this story, where we find him.

But yeah, this was another thing that I was discovering through talking to Oscar and talking to Simon Kinberg, and this idea of Apocalypse sort of being like a god, the original mutant. Talking to Oscar about that I was thinking, at that moment where things are being taken away from him again in Poland it’s almost like he’s looking for an answer, or he’s challenging God, it’s like, “What do you want from me? I’ve tried everything. I’ve tried to lead a good life. I’ve tried to do it correctly, whatever that is, and now you do this to me so what do you want?” It’s sort of like a challenge to God, if he’s out there, and then Oscar’s character arrives. So in a way, tied in with that I thought it was a nice link. He arrives and it’s like, “Okay well something much more powerful than me has arrived,” in a way kind of like a god; he’s the original mutant. And I think, like you were saying before Magneto doesn’t really follow anyone, so it was kind of a hard thing like, well how does he just become one of Apocalypse’s Horsemen, and is he cool with that? But he appreciates that this guy is going to do what he couldn’t do. He’s got just so much more power than him, he’s such an immense force. In a way, it’s like that classic thing of joining any cult or radical group, he’s caught him at a very low, vulnerable point where he doesn’t really care anymore whether he dies or not or what happens, so he’s like, “Yeah I’ll join this guy. I’ll go on this path of judgment.” Apocalypse is sort of bringing judgment to the Earth.

Again we know him as somebody that doesn’t like to form relationships that much, in the previous ones that I’ve done certainly. So yeah, it’s just like, “This could work.” He hasn’t seen a power like anything like Apocalypse, and the more the better in terms of if you look back to when he was trying to form his own armies, he realizes he can’t do it alone. That was the thing about Days of Future Past, he was kind of a singular, going out there on his own. But this is more about we need numbers to do damage.

Where X-Men: Days of Future Past saw mutants exposed to the world, threatening and saving President Nixon, it seemed that the ten year jump to Apocalypse would result in more of the same. But that all changes when Apocalypse arrives on the scene, with little interest in the difference between mutant and human – only the strong over the weak, and order over chaos. Singer explains:

“He believes with his heart that order is the only thing that’s going to save humanity, and he will provide that order at any cost… and for a person who begins as a unifier and then grows in power – What’s the old expression about power? Power does what? And what does absolute power do? Things just never go right, so that civilization goes down and he starts a fresh one.

“In this movie, something happens, he thinks he’s figured it out finally. ‘Oops,’ didnt really go well, he gets kind of buried and then wakes up, now he’s in a different situation than he’s ever been before… The Babylonians, the Sumerians, the ancient civilizations, and suddenly he wakes up in 1983. Now the world’s connected with television and radio. We see it as different civilizations, we see it as “super powers” as he says it, then the non-superpowers, the first world, second world, third, whatever. But to him it’s all just one giant interconnected, overly militarized, screwed up civilization that worships false idols and is self destructive, and needs to be refined and saved from itself.”

“The way I describe him the best is he, to me, is the God of the Old Testament and all that comes with that. If there isn’t the order and the worship then I’ll open up the Earth and swallow you whole, and that was the God of the Old Testament. I started from there and when Oscar and I met we began discussing, since he isn’t really God, he’s the first mutant perhaps, but he’s not God necessarily. He’s imbued with certain unique powers. Some of them may or may not be from this Earth, we don’t know.”

Singer dropped a major hint while we were on the Apocalypse set that, like in the X-Men comics, the powers of the film’s titular villain, En Sabah Nur a.k.a. Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) may be linked to other-worldly sources – something that may explain the above imagery. Here’s how Singer described Apocalypse‘s depiction of the original mutant while we were on set:

“The way I describe him the most, the best is he to me is the God of the Old Testament and all that comes with that. If there isn’t the order and the worship then I’ll open up the Earth and swallow you whole, and that was the God of the Old Testament. I started from there and when Oscar and I met we began discussing, since he isn’t really God, he’s the first mutant perhaps, but he’s not god necessarily, he’s imbued with certain unique powers. Some of them may or may not be from this Earth, we don’t know.”

Later in the interview, Singer discussed how the time-travel plot device in Days of Future Past allowed the X-Men franchise to reboot within its own continuity – taking a cue from the Marvel Comics source material, where time is just another commonly altered variable. It also shows that they can now take the X-Men anywhere, as Singer explained when talking about how he and his collaborators first decided on playing with time:

“Days of Future Past began with sushi. Me and Jason Taylor, who runs my company [Bad Hat Harry Productions], and Kinberg have sushi at this great place in LA, if you ever go it’s incredible. We sat there and he said ‘How do we get all these casts combined? and I said to Simon ‘Time Travel,’ and he’s like ‘What?’ and I said ‘Yeah, it’s in the comic book, you can do it! Time Travel! You guys go do it, but it’s time travel! I’ll produce,’ because I was already tied as a producer anyway so it didn’t matter.

So they went and started doing a draft, once it came back to me because Matthew [Vaughn] couldn’t do it, it evolved quite a bit. But yeah, it began with that conversation where I just threw out it’s a tenant, and you’re right, aliens are a tenant. I could take X-Men to space, which brings me right back to Guardians of the *****ing Galaxy. I could find myself on a giant space station. With the M’Kraan Crystal and the whole *****ing thing with mutants. By the way that sounds like something I’m going to circle back to in about six years.

“The full Phoenix story, I have no idea. I would have to re-explore that. If it’s already been explored, to re-explore and retell it. Plus the Phoenix story in the comic book has the Shi’ar Empire and the moon.”

…. And Celestials and space…

“With that you never know, but as far as the idea of that brewing within her, without giving anything away say absolutely that interests me and you may find a piece of that in this film.”

Having a partial break from the series with X-Men: First Class – a film Singer was initially attached to direct – helped him immensely Singer explains, and he could see that happening again so he can eventually tell a cosmic X-Men tale:

“I could see myself coming back around and finding myself in space with a bunch of mutants on a mission, in that environment. Perhaps not the same tonal quality of James Gunn, but doing something outside of what I’ve done before that somebody else helped me lay the groundwork for. So I might be returning to X-Men but it might be a whole different thing, and that could be appealing.”

They may have become the most famous such fighters, but in the modern age, Apocalypse’s four minions are known by the names they’ve already chosen. And for fans of Marvel Comics, they’re not exactly supporting characters. But they aren’t just four random mutants; Bryan Singer explained that he and writer Simon Kinberg’s research into cults, like those which form around Apocalypse a.k.a. En Sabah Nur, provided the basis of the Four Horsemen:

“We started looking at cults and the nature of cults, because cult leaders, true cult leaders, develop god complexes and he always traditionally had four horsemen so I thought a cult has traditionally four factions to it that interest me. It has a political faction, and I’d always felt Magneto could fill those shoes. It always has a military faction, so Archangel could fill those shoes as the guardian. There’s also youth faction, those that you’re trying to seduce and grow into your cult, the young whose minds are malleable, and lastly the sexual component because cult leaders tend to sexualize their position and have sex with half the people in their cult.”

It’s Ororo Munroe (Alexandra Shipp) who first meets Apocalypse when he wakes after millennia, and takes the first spot as his youthful, easily swayed apprentice. As much as Oscar Isaac may claim that the villain’s greatest power is his ability to turn others to his way of thinking, or turn them into pawns in his own plan, Shipp implies that when the two lost souls find one another, it isn’t evil that rears its head – at least not from Storm’s perspective:

It’s just pure love. I feel like when someone joins a cult, they end up becoming kindred spirits. They’re following the same thing. They all have the same goal which is Apocalypse… So what he is attracted to is their level and their magnitude of power. I think that his plan for her in the movie is to protect him. Protect him with fog. Protect him with lightening. Blow away a missile. Blow away a plane. There is so much that she can do, and what he’s looking for is protection because he just woke up after a couple thousands and thousand years. He’s weak and he’s alone, and he’s been betrayed, you know.

She admires him. She believes in him because for so long humans have treated her like crap. He is like, “Well in my day it was different”. She’s like, “Let’s get back to there, let’s get back to that.” She’s a weather goddess, you know. She’s a level, what is she, level 4, level 5 almost? She’s almost on Magneto’s level when it comes to her power.

Olivia Munn (The Newsroom) is tasked with bringing the heavily trained, psychic-blade-wielding killer Psylocke to life… with her barely-there costume fulfilling the “sexual” side of the cult, at least in sex appeal. But the actress pointed out that each of the Horseman is lost in some way, which is a fact that Apocalypse – like any other successful cult leader – is able to sense, and exploit to his own ends.

Of course, that doesn’t exactly mean that Psylocke is forced to do anything she doesn’t do willingly (unfortunately, the story of how she came to be recruited and re-costumed may not be given much screen time in the finished film). Munn explains:

That’s the amazing thing about cult leaders. They can really see when people are weak and how to prey on that and capitalize on that. You see that with Magneto and Storm and Angel and myself. We all are in a place where we’re really needing somebody to come in and say, “This is the way.”

[Apocalypse] first meets her and she’s the bodyguard. She’s got this amazing skill and she has zero fear when she goes against him, so he needs her. What he sees in her is that she is someone who can protect and has no fear and is an amazing fighter and has amazing abilities. She’s doing things because she wants to do them. She’s like, “I want to join you. You haven’t fooled me into joining you. I get it, I see what you’re doing, and I want to be part of it.” In the end, they manipulate her, but it’s always her choice to join it.

As a figure capable of bringing together lost souls, Apocalypse doesn’t have much work to do with Erik Lensherr a.k.a. Magneto. Following his public defeat and humiliation in the final act of Days of Future Past, Erik has taken sanctuary in Europe, and begun to carve out a new life for himself. And for the time being, has been proven wrong: hate, fear, and intimidation may not be the most powerful of human (read: non-mutant) emotions. Until he once again loses everything.

At that point, all bets are off. And with nothing but anger to rely on – and a track record of faulty plans to unleash it on humanity – Apocalypse’s offered hand, and an invitation to his amplified Horsemen couldn’t come at a better point, says Fassbender

At that moment where things are being taken away from him again in Poland it’s almost like he’s looking for an answer, or he’s challenging God, it’s like, “What do you want from me? I’ve tried everything. I’ve tried to lead a good life. I’ve tried to do it correctly, whatever that is, and now you do this to me so what do you want?” It’s sort of like a challenge to God, if he’s out there, and then Oscar’s character arrives.

He arrives and it’s like, “Okay well something much more powerful than me has arrived,” in a way kind of like a god; he’s the original mutant. And I think… Magneto doesn’t really follow anyone, so it was kind of a hard thing like, well how does he just become one of Apocalypse’s Horsemen, and is he cool with that? But he appreciates that this guy is going to do what he couldn’t do. He’s got just so much more power than him, he’s such an immense force. In a way, it’s like that classic thing of joining any cult or radical group, he’s caught him at a very low, vulnerable point where he doesn’t really care anymore whether he dies or not or what happens, so he’s like, “Yeah I’ll join this guy. I’ll go on this path of judgment.”

And finally, we arrive at one of the most memorable of Apocalypse’s Horsemen, in the comics at least: Warren Worthington III a.k.a. Angel (Ben Hardy). Although we didn’t get a chance to hear from Hardy about Angel’s motivations or reason for joining the villain, it’s easy enough to guess. The character’s wings were a minor plot point in X-Men: The Last Stand, with the boy having a difficult time coming to terms with his mutant appendages.

We did, however, get to observe a scene in which Apocalypse ‘recruits’ Warren to his Horsemen, molding his custom armor with waves of his hands, and of course, the telekinetic transformation of Archangel’s wings into metallic blades of death (potentially, anyway). Driving home the idea of both a cult and a family, Psylocke, Magneto and Storm are all present for the ceremony, as explained by Shipp:

“We just filmed a scene where we bring Angel, and Angel’s our final horsemen, and he’s getting his suit made, and he and I have this moment where we look at each other and I just smile at him. It’s not anything sexual and it’s not anything like, “Yeah babe”. It’s kind of just like a … You know, where you’re just like, “This is cool, this is awesome, we’re together on this. We are going to take on these people. I don’t know who these X-Men are, I don’t know who this Xavier dude is. We’re going to beat him up. We’re going to win. I shoot lightning.”

There’s no doubt that Apocalypse has chosen four very powerful, and very different mutants for his latest incarnation of his Four Horseman. But they may not stay villains for long, as Shipp and Munn both alluded to the fact that their loyalty to Apocalypse was based on little other than manipulation and the absence of an actually strong role model in mutant-ing. Could their priorities or perspectives change once they actually meet the X-Men? We’ll just have to wait and see.

 

[pturtle]

Everything I’ve read about this sounds amazing, but the first trailer didn’t do it for me. Hopefully the second trailers turns out better, but based on everyones comments, this movie should be amazing.

I’m glad to hear that Storm will finally have an accent.

 

[VintijDroidGutzz]

Words..

 

[EVILFACE]

No one will be reading all that ****.

 

[Rambler]

That might be longer than the average Motux post.

 

[Snake Plissken]

 

[pturtle]

You guys are missing some gold

 

[Rambler]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Snake Plissken again.

 

[Biojex]

None of that text will enrich my life enough to where I have to read it instead of just waiting for the movie

 

[jye4ever]

No one will be reading all that ****.

 

[Baneofdemon22]

I read it all. Thanks for posting!

I'm really curious what Nightcrawler's take on all this will be given the subject matter. Magneto, Nightcrawler, and Quicksilver are the characters that I'm interested in. I like Cyclops, Jean, and Storm a lot, but I just rather see them as adults. They might be great though!

 

[GasparZizou]

I read like 80% of it I skipped the old testament God stuff cause I had read it already.

Yeah everything sounds pretty good, can't wait to see Quick Silver again, and I'm thinking it was genius the way how they did a reboot on their own continuity, I hope they do that the same way on DC or MCU whenever it's needed.

And I would love to see a revised version of the Phoenix Saga, I'm glad they're aware of the Shi'ar empire and the Celestials in that story, the way they did it in X3 was a good low-key parallel, but now they can do it more faithfully.

Btw, what's the deal with Gladiator and those guys in terms of rights? Who owns them? Is it another case of Quick Silver and Scarlet Witch?

 

[Rulk]

X-Men: Apocalypse – Storm’s New African Origin Details

“Oh yeah. I read a bunch of comics. The one comic that I didn’t get to read was Storm’s introduction to X-Men. That’s because it’s worth like $30,000 and I was like, “Okay, is there like some online pictures of it that I could see?” And they’re like, “No, that’s why it’s worth $30,000.” “Oh, okay, got it.”

“I watched the [1990s X-Men] cartoons on repeat. I just kept it going because you could watch them on Hulu Plus, so I just had it going in the background. I love how her accent changed a whole bunch, which was awesome. You’re just like, “Wow, she’s gone from English to sister girl, all the way back”… I’m doing a Kenyan accent. I’m also speaking Arabic, which is cool.”

um who the hell do these actors surround themselves with? Giant Size XMEN 1 has been reprinted countless times, just like Action Comics #1 and Amazing Fantasy #15

these Hollywood buffs are sooooooooooooooooooo clueless that they can't google this ****? And google doesn't cost you $30 000.... Geez. Morons. Its kinda frightening that this franchise is in the hands of such amateurs that they get their character synopsis from a loosely based cartoon series 20 years ago... Maybe they should torrent the comics from Uncanny XMEN 101 to 300, and they wonder why people are sick of the same ol ****.

If Singer ****s this up.... ooooooo child.

 

[GasparZizou]

Most actors don't know **** about comics, or they know entry level stuff for interviews.

And that is

Spoiler

ok

 

[Rulk]

I don't blame the actors, I blame the producers and directors that are equally clueless. Its their job to direct.

I'm sure Singer has learned his lessons from Superman Returns and the first XMEN film, if they had a true fan writing the scripts and directing ... we could potentially hope for a Lord of the Rings Peter Jackson type of re-imagining.

I just hope this doesn't suck.

 

[Rulk]

Well since they convoluted the entire XMEN franchise, being that Charles approaches Storm first, Apocalypse rises when Charles is dead, Magneto leads the XMEN, alternate realities, Legion ETC ETC... I don't think the 1st Appearance of Storm (although HUGE for the Civil Rights movement and comic history) holds hardly ANY relevance for whatever film they make. I'm sure Apocalypse will have some cool special effects, I just hope the story doesn't ****ing suck. I still don't buy Magneto and Psylockes reasoning for joining Apocalypse.

there Miss Shipp, I just saved you $30 000...

 

[GasparZizou]

I don't blame the actors, I blame the producers and directors that are equally clueless. Its their job to direct.

I'm sure Singer has learned his lessons from Superman Returns and the first XMEN film, if they had a true fan writing the scripts and directing ... we could potentially hope for a Lord of the Rings Peter Jackson type of re-imagining.

I just hope this doesn't suck.

lessons on what? Making good movies?

If you want the comics adapted verbatim in movie form, you're wasting your time with any and all cinematic universes.

Plus it would be pointless and nobody wants that.

 

[Rulk]

lessons on what? Making good movies?

If you want the comics adapted verbatim in movie form, you're wasting your time with any and all cinematic universes.

Plus it would be pointless and nobody wants that.

Reason why Days of Future Past was successful, it followed comic-lore somewhat

Reason why Last Stand sucked, because they *******ized the Dark Phoenix saga in less than 20 minutes.

And all your credibility went out the window when you said Superman Returns was a good movie.

 

[The Clown Prince of Crime]

Plus it would be pointless and nobody wants that.