First off, for all its faults Dark Phoenix does incorporate more of the comics than The Last Stand did back in 2006. So kudos for that.
Here are some of the similarities: first off, there's a dark power from space that bonds with Jean Grey, super-sizing her psychic abilities. This was not actually part of the Dark Phoenix Saga; it happened a bunch of issues earlier so I didn't read it but it was referenced in the comics I did read. Basically there was some killer thing and by fusing with it Jean Grey was able to save the universe. Over the course of a bunch of issues Jean's powers grew while in the movie it's a lot quicker.
Second, Jean does go to see her parent(s) and she learns they're afraid of her. In the comics both of her parents are alive while in the movie it's only her father. In both she uses her augmented power to read their thoughts and realizes they're scared of her.
Third, there is a throwdown with the X-Men. In the movie it happens in Red Hook and (spoiler) Mystique is accidentally killed. In the comics it happens in Central Park. Beast comes up with some device to try to limit Jean's powers so the team has to fight her to get it on. Though soon the device burns out.
Fourth, there is a fight in an opulent New York house. But while it's at the middle-end of the movie between the X-Men, Jean, and the aliens in the comics it's actually near the beginning. Almost half of "The Dark Phoenix Saga" is about the Hellfire Club led by Sebastian Shaw (who was played by Kevin Bacon in First Class and subsequently died in that movie) and an illusionist who is able to manipulate Jean into thinking she's his wife from a past life and the Hellfire Club's "Black Queen" who uses her powers against the X-Men, which begins unlocking the Dark Phoenix. (In a particularly awkward moment brainwashed Jean sees the X-Men as 18th Century people from her fake past life with Storm as a slave.) So just about everything is different between the books and movie, but still the core concept is there.
Fifth, there is a climactic fight with aliens. Only in the Dark Phoenix Saga the aliens are not evil shape-shifters (or whatever) but the Shi'ar, whom the X-Men had helped in previous comics. Xavier and their queen even had a thing. The Dark Phoenix leaves Earth after her fight with the X-Men and destroys a star for fuel. Then she destroys a Shi'ar cruiser, which prompts them to come to Earth. But by then Jean is temporarily in control of the Phoenix power. Still the Shi'ar want her dead. To stop them Cyclops proposes a duel between the X-Men and the Shi'ar Imperial Guard. In the movie it's just a fight between the X-Men/Magneto and the evil aliens on a train. Again the two are pretty different but the core concept is there.
Sixth, they both feature the introduction of Dazzler. She doesn't get much screen time in the movie but she's the blonde girl who sings and makes shit light up during the party after the space shuttle mission. She's in a few early issues of The Dark Phoenix Saga as one team of X-Men is going to track her down to offer to take her to the school when they get waylaid by the Hellfire Club. She helps to rescue them but then leaves. The other mutant introduced during this time is Kitty Pryde, who would go on to become a featured player, especially in Days of Future Past. But as far as I know she's not in the movie.
Something both Dark Phoenix and The Last Stand did is have Xavier put barriers in Jean's mind as a child to keep her from getting too powerful or unstable. And in both cases eventually those barriers came down and she was rightfully pissed. And especially in 2019 you can see this as a sort of mental rape. Something similar does happen in The Dark Phoenix saga, but Xavier doesn't put barriers in Jean's mind until after the first time she's become the Dark Phoenix and fought the X-Men. In the movies it was done preemptively while in the comics it was done once the threat was fully realized, which to me plays a lot better in modern times.
As for the ending the movie and comic are very different. In the movie Jean essentially turns into a phoenix of energy akin to the Invid Regis at the end of the third Robotech series. Then she flies away to do...something. Whereas in the comics she finds an alien weapon during the battle with the Shi'ar and essentially commits suicide. Until inevitably she came back. And died. And came back. Ad nauseum. Definitely score a point for the movie.
Often if a movie and book are close I say to watch the movie. In this case I don't think they're that close, just similar. The book is better on the whole, but the movie has its moments. A few. It's definitely not a great movie but it's not Wolverine Origins bad at least. And a little less stupid than Apocalypse was. I mean you don't have Jean and Magneto putting a house together like it's made of Legos. And Magneto only kills a few people, not thousands. So that's something.
On its own the movie has the same problem as a lot of the X-Men franchise in squandering some of its characters. Storm and Nightcrawler really have no character development; the former just does weathery stuff and the latter mostly is a teleporting taxi service. The Cyclops-Jean love story that had years and years to build on in the comics feels rushed and hollow in the movie. And Xavier's kind of a dick most of the time. What happened to Moira Taggart? Were they still a thing? Maybe that's why he's such a dick.
Then there are all the inconsistencies with this movie and the three previous ones vs the original three movies. Especially why do Xavier and Magneto look like they're maybe only 40 when they should be in their 50s or 60s? Meanwhile Cyclops, Jean, Nightcrawler, and Storm are supposed to be 25-26 but act more like teenagers.
Apparently Jennifer Lawrence agreed to be in the movie only if she didn't have to actually be in much of it since she's killed off in the first 45 minutes and really doesn't do more than talk. I mean she only changes form once from blue skin to regular Jennifer Lawrence. And she loved Beast? And Xavier? And Magneto? Who the hell didn't she love? And why did they bother setting it in 1992 and then used the original costumes (also used in Grant Morrison's run on the comic in the 2000s and maybe other times) instead of the iconic costumes from the popular cartoon and comics of that time? And where was Jubilee, who was one of the more popular characters from that era?
But at least unlike some recent movies--Bumblebee and Captain Marvel for instance--there weren't a bunch of music cues and such to constantly remind us that it was the early 90s. In fact if they hadn't put the date up early on it'd be hard to tell when it was happening at all. I mean not even a Nirvana or Pearl Jam song thrown in there? No one wearing a Bart Simpson T-shirt or MC Hammer pants or something like that? No one carrying around one of those brick-sized cell phones? The production designer was really slacking off. You're supposed to pound it into our thick monkey skulls that it's the past! Otherwise how will we know? And why does Jessica Chastain look like an albino? As far as I'm concerned you can't have enough redheads--women at least. And didn't Hans Zimmer say he was done with superhero music after BvS?
OK, I think that's enough dumb rhetorical questions. I think you get the point--if there was one.
1 comment:
Thanks for the deep dive into the comic book Pat. I’ve been meaning to do movie and comic comparisons and didn’t realize so much of the plot comes from the book. Movie still sucks but at least they tried.
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