From: CXMP <CXMP@MUSICA.MCGILL.CA>
Subject: X-Men Movie - What To Consider Besides the Cast
Organization: McGill University
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 19:06:14 GMT

Hi.  I've been reading people's suggestions as to who to cast in an
X-Men movie but I haven't heard any news as to whether or not there's a
script yet.  We might really be jumping the gun here because a script
for an X-Men movie would be difficult to write.

First, let's suppose we did get someone like Patrick Stewart to play
Professor Xavier and were able to cast for the Gold and Blue teams
(forgetting Jubilee, Moira, Banshee, Val, X-Factor, Cable, Domino,
X-Force and Excalibur for the moment) and had Rutger Hauer as Magneto
(putting aside for a moment what Magneto's motivations might be).  Fine.
Our first problem would be the suspension of belief.

Consider: the movie I just described would have a man who shoots beams
out of eyes, a blond haired black woman, a Canadian with a metalic
skeleton, a man with metalic wings, an apparently oriental woman whose
psi powers can be manifested as a psychic knife, a man with blue hair
covering his entire body and a man from a future.  (Here, I'm
considering Collosus, Jean, Rogue, Iceman and Gambit to have relatively
plausible origins and powers.)  It would be a considerable challenge
for a writer to properly introduce the characters involved within the
framework of a concise plot.  It would be much easier for a writer to
stick to Cyclops, Jean, Beast, Iceman and Angel, the Original X-Men.
Fine.  Now we've got a new problem.

Consider: Patrick Stewart leads a group of people in uniforms, each of
whom has his or her own special ability.  Does this sound anything like
a certain current syndicated drama? :) Of course, the X-Men needn't wear
identical uniforms as they did in the original X-Men #1 but imagine
you're watching a movie and the heroes, all wearing different uniforms,
are battling a group of villians (say the original Brotherhood of Evil
Mutants with Magneto, Toad, Mastermind, Quicksilver and the Scarlet
Witch).  Keep in mind that some if not many people watching would not
be familiar with the X-Men.  How do you keep track of who's who?

Of course, limiting ourselves to the Original X-Men still doesn't solve
the plausibility problem.  Telepathy, telekinesis and super human
strength are fine but wings and eyeblasts are a bit much for movie going
audiences to swallow.  Can you really imagine waking up one morning and
finding yourself inadvertantly putting a whole in the ceiling or finding
feathers growing out of your back?  (Aside: when Chris Claremont first
thought of the idea of Phoenix it was because he saw Jean Grey as
potentially the most powerful member of the X-Men.  After all, her power
affects all matter while Magneto's only affects metal.)  Comic book
stories are not normally meant to be judged by what would make sense in
the real world but movies normally are.  The sad truth is that a script
that faithfully portreys the X-Men might have to be compromised before
any substancial money is put forward.

There is, of course, a bright side to all this: there's no reason why an
X-Men movie couldn't be exciting even if their powers were limited.
Alas, there's another problem.

In the mid seventies, there was a program called "The Tomorrow People"
that lasted for three seasons on British television.  This program
featured young people who upon reaching adolescence acquired the powers
of telepathy, telekinesis and teleportation (They all developed the same
powers but tended to specialize at first depending on what power emerged
first).  The leader of the group was able to locate others like himself
from all over the world using a computer his father built.  Eventually,
he was able to locate eight others like himself.

Sound familiar?

Wait there's more.  During the eighties, NBC tried the concept of young
people acquiring special powers in "The Misfits of Science".  It didn't
last an entire season.  Wasn't even close in fact.

The point is that the concept behind the X-Men that has already been
tried and hasn't enjoyed overwhelming success.  (Keep in mind that
British television is apparently much more willing to do Science Fiction
in the first place what with Dr. Who running for so many years.)

There is one way to overcome the plausibility/originality problem and
that would be to set an X-Men movie in the future after a nuclear
holocaust.  Unfortunately, with the end of the cold war, it is
unlikely that there will ever be a nuclear holocaust.  (Now *that's* a
sentence you don't hear very often. :) )  Even so, I think audiences are
willing to buy into any story set in the future and, besides, a nuclear
holocaust *would* cause mutations (and, usually, therefore death so
don't anybody get the idea I'm recommending one!) and, with the Earth
devasted, battles between rival mutant factions for supremacy would be
highly plausible.  It's a reasonable concept for a movie.  Of course, it
would be much too depressing for television (Note how both Battlestar
Galactica and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century both lost their horrific
edge midway through their first seasons) so the number of characters
would still have to be limited to the number that could be developed
in a single movie unless, of course, there were sequels.

The bottom line is then that an X-Men movie would be very different from
what we're used to.  Of course, it would be worth it just to see Patrick
Stewart as Professor Xavier (Remember, besides ST:TNG, Patrick Stewart
was in the movie Dune; there's a good chance that he would actually
consider this role.)

BTW, I also like Rebecca Farmer's choice of Naomi Campbell as Storm and
Madonna as the White Queen (although people might get the wrong idea -
"X"-Men, huh? :) ).  Mind you, I think I'd rather have Paula Abdul as
Rogue as suggested by Jed Bowtell than Madonna as the White Queen
(I couldn't see them working on the same film together).  I also like
Jed's suggestion that John Candy could be the Blob and I have to wonder
why nobody has suggested Joan Chen from The Last Emperor and Twin Peaks
as Psycloke - last I heard she was already doing action films.
At any rate, the rest of the cast could be unknowns for all I care.

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