How would you re-write X-Men 3?

Straha · Post by **Straha** » 2006-06-14 04:15pm

Right, everyone seems to agree that while X-3 had a lot of potential it didn't quite live up to it at all. So here's the challenge:

What would you change to X-3 to make it a better movie?
Rules:
1. You have to have the Mutant "cure". You can change details as you'd like, but the main idea stays in.
2. Jean Grey/Phoenix must return.
3. There must be a climactic battle towards the end (Like what happened in the movie) to appease the studio execs.
and finally
4. There must be a love sub-plot, for the teenage girls. (The movie did an atrocious job with the Kitty-Iceman-Rogue triangle, you can change what you want, including the subjects of the plot)
5. You must keep your changes to what would be realisticly be possible if you were actually shooting this as a Holywood movie.

Enjoy.

Gaidin · Post by **Gaidin** » 2006-06-14 04:28pm

Jean Grey wouldn't change in my movie. For the time frame they had I like the way they did her. The ominous bitch you don't want to fuck with and who doesn't care to get *directly* involved until someone points the gun right at her. I'd extend what went into her backstory though.

More fighting in the battle at the end.

I had no problem with the love-triangle-that-wasn't-a-love-triangle. Iceman was being a friend to Kitty, but not a boyfriend. Rogue saw the 'omg he's gonna cheat on me' thing herself. Invented jealous paranoia, imo.

Essentially, I'd keep the details of the current movie with an expanded timeframe for some of the bigger backstories and fights.

Jim Raynor · Post by **Jim Raynor** » 2006-06-14 04:35pm

-Cyclops gets a bigger part, or at least a more respectable death. From what I hear, Marsen couldn't do that much becuse he was busy with Superman Returns. But killing him off screen 20 minutes into the movie? Come the fuck on. The rest of the X-Men would be written so that they actually seem to care about his death.

-Magneto gets some use out of Phoenix in the final battle against those troops. In the actual movie, she did jack shit for him and the Phoenix plot was completely separate from the cure plot.

-Angel gets more screentime. You don't feature someone in the trailer, and give him his own flashback scene in the beginning of the movie, just to completely forget about him. From what I hear, the novelization actually has him joining the X-Men. After he saves his father, they also had a nice emotional moment together. That sounds pretty good to me.

-More focus on Rogue's subplot about wanting to be cured. She was a major character, but they completely forgot about her as well for much of the movie.

-Either don't cure everyone (Rogue, Magneto), or have some balls and not imply that it's only temporary.

-Don't bother keeping Xavier alive. Some people may have liked the fact that he survived, but this was another cop out moment, and it would be just plain awkward for Xavier to show up in this new body of his in future sequels/spinoffs.

Jason von Evil · Post by **Jason von Evil** » 2006-06-14 04:38pm

Dark.Phoenix.Saga.

Thats what they should've based X3 entirely on. But nooooo, can't have that. Fucking Marvel.

Crazedwraith · Post by **Crazedwraith** » 2006-06-14 04:49pm

Jim Raynor wrote: -Don't bother keeping Xavier alive. Some people may have liked the fact that he survived, but this was another cop out moment, and it would be just plain awkward for Xavier to show up in this new body of his in future sequels/spinoffs.

heh. Heh. His 'new' body that was played by Patrick Stuart with a beard?

***
Personally I think if I were to re-write the film, I'd ditch the romance triangle and the Pheonix plot all together but that would violote the terms of the OP. So here goes

Scott doesn't die. He is in fact the central character of the film.
Ditch Angel. Have the cure developed either by the Govenment (by the remains of Stryker's department) or by some random company.
Rogue gets a bigger part. Possibly like when the "Cure" plot was done in the comics just after "Zero Tolerance." She wants to get the cure but helps destroy it when she realises the Govenment are going to make people take it. But she also helps the X-Men save Leech.
Rogue has the evolution line: "Don't you know what my power is? My power is your power!" before she drains some one to really get in to the fight.

Battlehymn Republic · Post by **Battlehymn Republic** » 2006-06-14 05:34pm

Perhaps something that alludes to the coming of Apocalypse...?

Has there been any word if he might be in the next film?

squidman001 · Post by **squidman001** » 2006-06-14 05:48pm

Have Wolverine get cancer. He then evolves into the "Blob". have crap happen, and at the end have Cyclops blast away the cancer to reveal Sabertooth. [/end sillyness]

I think a big help to the movie whatever is done is to add more time.

If your going to have a big climatic "war" sequence, use more than 35 mutants. Seriously, if your going to have mutants choosing sides and such, after all the little lights we saw in Cerebro in X2, there should deffinitely be more mutants. Now, you should still be only focusing on a handfull, but you need a sense of an Epic war.

Mark S · Post by **Mark S** » 2006-06-14 08:12pm

How would I change X-3?

Precurser: In X-2:
- I would have brought Sabertooth back and shown hints that he was part of Weapon X as well.
- I would not have killed Yuriko.
- I would have worked it so that Rogue had her flying, strength, invulnerability and attitude by the end of it.
- I would have had Jean telling Scott that she could not save them from inside the jet because she would kill them all and show her bursting into Phoenix flames before she forces him to board.

X-3:

- Open with Prof X and Magneto in the past helping to bring down the Juggernaut. Introduce that Juggs is Xavier’s brother (leave out the half part for simplicity).
- I can’t remember if they had a voice-over at the beginning of this one but if not, put one in about mutants having to choose between helping humanity or selfish gain.
- Jump back to present to show clips of people being operated on, mixed with cuts of Wolverine’s rampage through the mansion in X-2. End with General Trask asking a doctor/scientist if his new anti-mutant terrorist team (The Reavers) will be able to stand against the mutants effectively.
- Show Wolverine looking at a Weapon X file taken from Stryker’s office. Show pictures of the other agents and have Wolverine remember Silver Fox from her picture.
- Introduce the cure.
- Magneto recruits.
- Brotherhood attacks cure facility and X-Men defend. Cyclops can not get Jean’s voice out of his head and is not effective. Wolvie vs Sabes again. Iceman vs Pyro
- Magneto vows that Charles’ students have stood against him for the last time.
- TV news calls it a mutant brawl that destroyed part of the city.
- Scott goes back to the lake and finds Jean.
- Storm takes command.
- The Brotherhood attacks a mutant prison, recruiting from the prisoners. Magneto is there in particular to find the Juggernaut and set him loose on Xavier. Magneto gives him a helmet to protect against psychic attacks, making him unstoppable.
- Scott does not die but brings Jean back. We find that Jean can not control her powers or her emotions now.
- The Reavers, led by Yuriko, find the Brotherhood base and clean up the other mutants there with some mutant vs cyborg action, then move on to the X-Mansion which is being called a para-military mutant training facility.
- Magneto attacks the X-Mansion as they are trying to deal with Jean.
- Reavers arrive and many are taken out by Magneto.
- Three way battle.
- Xavier is dealing with his brother and Jean and is distracted from the fight.
- Magneto is put out of commission by Rogue.
- Reavers/Yuriko go after Wolverine for revenge.
- Various people try to fight the Juggernaut but in the end only teamwork, of course, beats him, with a combo of Colossus fighting, various beam and ice attacks, and Rogue flying up to do her kiss of doom from the comics.
- Jean goes ape, does the Phoenix thing, levels what’s left of the mansion and kills many.
- Prof X tries to mind battle her and dies. Scott has to kill her.

In the end, the house is destroyed, Wolverine is captured, a lot of people are dead, Rogue has become a confident, useful member of the team and there is plenty of material for another film. I’m sure there’s a way to work Kelsey Grammer and a teen love triangle in there somewhere.

ray245 · Post by **ray245** » 2006-06-15 06:37am

hmm..children dead? Wonder what the rating would be...

Superman · Post by **Superman** » 2006-06-15 06:52am

Wolverine dies at the hands of Magneto. And I mean DIES.

Juggernaught is bigger and better.

Grand Moff Yenchin · Post by **Grand Moff Yenchin** » 2006-06-15 09:22am

Loosely meld the "Dark Phoenix Saga" into the established cast. Shrink down the Hellfire Club into a few characters so that character development won't be diluted.

Substitute the alien related plots into the US/UN government.

Get someone to be the White Queen.

Ditch Storm.

Fuck the spooky Phoenix effects. Enhance what we saw in X2.

Fuck the stupid "Phoenix = evil unlimited dark side". Let Phoenix itself be a positive thing, Jean's dark side is just Jean's dark side.

Ditch Storm.

Get someone who doesn't look like Bobby's kid sister to be Kitty Pryde.

Ditch Storm.

Kelly Hu did sign for two movies after all. Revive her at the end for a hint that she's one of the Horsemen.

xammer99 · Post by **xammer99** » 2006-06-15 10:16am

I'd add in continuity.

1. The world is in tatters and struggling to overcome the cornholing Magneto/Xavier gave it at the end of X2 when he wrecked 99% tractor-trailor in America and thereby destroying America's food & consumer good distribution network. Plus, not just America, but the entire developed worlds.

2. The US Government is just barely hanging on and keeping some of society going, but there is rampant and serious anti-mutant feelings thanks to the generation of brain damaged children that Xavier's crippling headache gave.

So it's a real war against Mutant kind and not the lovey dovey namby pamby bullshit that we got in X3. No Secretary of Mutant Affairs. Instead mutants are a clear, present, and actively dangerous force in America and the world. Against that the cure is developed with the firm intention of reigning in these "persons of mass destruction."

3. Magneto seein that he's got the world on the effective ropes goes on the offensive. Humanity retaliates. X-Men, being the idealistic sorts, do their best to stop both sides.

4. When Jean is pulled outta the water, she's got her powers but isn't "dark" yet. Instead the stress and paranoia of the war brings it out of her and she goes over to the other side, becoming Dark Phoenix as a result.

5. Bobby/Kitty/Rogue love trist stuff. It's now a bit more belivable as Bobby, effectively a soldier in the war, wants real physical connection to someone he cares about. He could die tomorrow and he wants the whole "leave something of me behind" thing that many soldiers go through. Rogue can't provide it and so it becomes all the more tragic as a result when he turns to Kitty.

Yeah so that part is weak, but frankly something I don't care about. What I do care about is cleaning up the horrific mess made at the end of X2.

6. Big final battle. Instead of at Alcatraz, the cure creation center is kept somewhere god awefully remote. Like the middle of the desert. Some place nonvaluable with plenty of field of fire. Instead of being the total fools that we got in X3, the cure factory is really just a ruse that only a very few people know the truth of. Magneto and his boys come to play and are met with organized and skilled resistance. The Soldiers protecting the place fight effectively instead of in the grand mutant melee that made no sense of X3. Hundreds of mutants are "normalized" in the fighting, but even though they are a totally untrained mob they are individually very powerful and drive the soldiers off.

Then the Mutant Army actually enters the base and are promptly incenerated by a fusion bomb which had been the entire point of the place in the first place, to lure Magneto and his forces there just to make sure they died.

The X-men arrive just as the mushroom cloud goes up and then a new "era of peace" can start as they become the leaders of mutant kind as all the radicals just got iced.

NeoGoomba · Post by **NeoGoomba** » 2006-06-15 10:45am

Colossus vs. Juggernaut. With a goddamn RUSSIAN as Colossus. No offense to the actor, but dammit he's a Soviet!

Get rid of the lame goon mutants Magneto used as enforcers. And have him not use retarded angsty TEENAGERS. Have an adult Avalanche and an adult Calisto...or better yet, Caliban (foreshadowing) backing Magneto along with Juggernaut and Multiple Man

Have Kitty get killed during the final battle on Alcatraz, to drive home the point that a) it IS a war and people die in such conflicts (especially when its 6 against like 50), b) she really wasn't ready. Her death can enrage Storm, so she has a fucking reason to be the total annoying bitch that she was, and maybe chain-lightning a few dozen muties.

And have the Human soldiers be the ones to nail Magneto with the cure.

Xavier stays dead. That scene between him and Phoenix was just too epic to be tossed away as "oh hes not really dead".

We don't need Angel or Worthington Industries. Have Bolivar Trask head the team that generated the Cure as an alternative to the cost-prohibitive "Project: Wideawake".

If a lead-in into a fourth movie is needed, keep the scene where Magneto is at the chess table, trying to move the piece. Yet have the piece move smoothly towards him, then flys back into the hand of a refined looking Englishman, who sits down opposite him with a small smile on his face. He introduces himself as Mr. Essex, and he has an offer for the deposed leader of Mutantkind.

Crazedwraith · Post by **Crazedwraith** » 2006-06-15 10:52am

a coupe more random points:
- Iceman doesn't have to clutch Kitty and doesn't that oh-so-comic line, HE gets his damn ice surfing things he has in the comics. And I don't care how much it looks ripped off "The Incredibles" it's his thing.
- The Pawns. All right so they low level mutant pawns. They can still have more powers than just hopping. Did Wolverine kill all the interesting ones in the camp site or something?

BloodAngel · Post by **BloodAngel** » 2006-06-15 11:36am

I'd first change the subtitle for the movie. "Last Stand"? Last Stand is the place where you are desperate, clinging for life, and are giving it your last bit of strength. I was expecting humanity to encroach on the mutants. This was no Last Stand, at all.

And I'd decrease the X-wank at the final battle scene.

Cej4096 · Post by **Cej4096** » 2006-06-15 02:33pm

Either cut Angel, or reduce him to nothing more than a cameo. Do not have him at the start out as seeming like a major character, than have him disappear except for one or two pointless moments.

Stay true to the comic book version of characters. I'm not a big purist. I don't really mind that Juggernaut is portrayed as a mutant, or that Collossus doesn't have a russian accent. What did bother me was the way they changed the various powers of mutants just so they could give them a cameo without having to make a place for them. Most notably were Psylocke and Callisto.

Give Magneto's Pawns some more interesting powers for the final battle. Also perhaps have some more of the older students from the Academy at the battle.

Don't kill off Cyclops. The entire series has been short-changing him, but once Xavier is dead, I would have like to have seen him step up to be the leader he is supposed to be. Instead he gets killed seemingly just so Jean doesn't have to be conflicted about him and Wolverine, and so Halle Berry can have the bigger part she demanded.

Don't have Magneto regain his power. Instead have him sitting at the chess board, trying but failing to move a piece. Then a man walks up and sits down across from him. It turns out to be Xavier in a new body, but now, like Magneto, he has lost his powers. They discuss events that have been going on, and the movie ends with them simply enjoying a friendly game of chess.

andrewgpaul · Post by **andrewgpaul** » 2006-06-15 02:41pm

Jim Raynor wrote:
-Don't bother keeping Xavier alive. Some people may have liked the fact that he survived, but this was another cop out moment, and it would be just plain awkward for Xavier to show up in this new body of his in future sequels/spinoffs.

Whaaahh? When did that happen?

Straha · Post by **Straha** » 2006-06-15 05:35pm

andrewgpaul wrote:
Jim Raynor wrote:
-Don't bother keeping Xavier alive. Some people may have liked the fact that he survived, but this was another cop out moment, and it would be just plain awkward for Xavier to show up in this new body of his in future sequels/spinoffs.
Whaaahh? When did that happen?

At the end, after the credits they showed the brain dead man from Xavier's class room being tendedby Moira McTaggart and he spoked with Xavier's voice.

Mark S · Post by **Mark S** » 2006-06-15 07:22pm

ray245 wrote:hmm..children dead? Wonder what the rating would be...

Meh. You could have them be moved from the school for their own safety when Jean comes back and they realize she's a danger.

InnerBrat · Post by **InnerBrat** » 2006-06-19 05:40pm

- End it with Storm as the fucking leader of the X-Men, not some ponced up schoolmistress.

- Kill Scott onscreen

- Take out all evidence Jean might feel something for Logan. That's an unrequited thing, dammit!

- Don't bother giving Magneto back his powers.

- CUT THE GODSDAMN "Hell hath no fury" line.

- Give more screentime to the fact that Rogue can't touch anyone, not just that she can't get teenage sexed.

- Put the canon backstory in. Not 'Xavier fucked with her head because women can't be trusted!!1111oneoneone!'

Oh, and more naked Logan plz, thanks.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2006-06-19 07:39pm

US Army gets brains.

None of this "OMG, our guns got blasted, so we'll mill around helplessly and wait for the X men to save us, instead of just running inside to the armory to get more guns"

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2006-06-19 11:33pm

Straha wrote:At the end, after the credits they showed the brain dead man from Xavier's class room being tendedby Moira McTaggart and he spoked with Xavier's voice.

According to imdb.com Patrick Stewart played the brain dead guy. Which begs the question of what the hell the body really is. Xavier's twin brother? A clone? A version of Ultimate Proteus?

Zac Naloen · Post by **Zac Naloen** » 2006-06-20 09:11am

According to imdb.com Patrick Stewart played the brain dead guy. Which begs the question of what the hell the body really is. Xavier's twin brother? A clone? A version of Ultimate Proteus?

Now theres an interesting idea for a "movie" backstory for Xavier.

Xavier had a twin brother and during a brotherly dispute his powers manifested themselves resulting in SERIOUS damage to his brothers psyche.. resulting in the man we saw.

Of course, we don't know that they are going to do that. But it is a rather interesting idea.

Post by **Ghost Rider** » 2006-06-20 09:59am

Alright with these in mind

1. You have to have the Mutant "cure". You can change details as you'd like, but the main idea stays in.
2. Jean Grey/Phoenix must return.
3. There must be a climactic battle towards the end (Like what happened in the movie) to appease the studio execs.
and finally
4. There must be a love sub-plot, for the teenage girls. (The movie did an atrocious job with the Kitty-Iceman-Rogue triangle, you can change what you want, including the subjects of the plot)
5. You must keep your changes to what would be realisticly be possible if you were actually shooting this as a Holywood movie.

Here goes.

1. Jean/Phoneix returns but actually as a more powerful version of herself that doesn't need a back story of losing control. You show her losing control, you show her actually becoming careless in the use of her power. She's not a prop tool.

2. Keep the mutant cure, but fucking A...SHOW REALLY SCREWY LOOKING MUTANTS WANTING IT. Use bad plastic costume.

3. The government despises the mutants. That's why they use the cure, and Jean takes things into her own hands. She figures that she is the newest top dog, that humans should not be imposing their will upon mutants, and progressively shows power corrupts. Xavier dies...and stays dead fighting Jean.

4. The only love thing is an unrequited Wolverine/Cyclops/Jean Grey.

5. Jean dies similar to the comics, but it's Cyclops that does the final blast. This is because Jean figures since she's the newest top dog, she will WILLINGLY cooperate with Mags to destroy the so called cure.

6. Beast is not the mutant liason, he's just a mutant that takes some center stage in the events. Angel exists as a cameo.

7. Juggernaut vs Colossus to appease viewers and he's Russian dammit.

8. The final battle is between the X-Men and Magneto/Phoenix. None of this pointless cannon fodder shit.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2006-06-20 11:11am

I can think of a far better love sub-plot for Rogue. She meets this great mutant, Miss Marvel who, for some reason, she can touch. Like a prisoner in jail, she crosses the gender line in search of intimacy. She and Miss Marvel have hot lesbian sex, but when Rogue wakes up the next morning, Miss Marvel is in an coma.

You laugh and may just think I'm a pervert (and you'd be right!), but this sub-plot does it all. It makes Rogue into a useful and actually interesting character while creating tension between her and Bobby. It also establishes Rogue as a mutant who has been on both sides of the cure issue. She used to have just a power that was basically more bad than good, but now she has awesome shit like flying and super-strength and does not necessarily want the cure as much.