TV ads for The Wolverine

Anyone else notice the TV ads for The Wolverine seem to be sounding increasingly apologetic and almost pleading?

It started out with some critics quote, something like, "This is the Wolverine movie fans have been waiting for." And now they are like, "Better than the last one," or "Not as sucky as you'd expect." I swear I almost heard one that sounded like, "Please this one isn't as bad as Wolverine X-men Origins! Honest!!!!"

Not surprising. The X-movie franchise was clearly aimed to get to the Claremont/Miller "Wolverine" series as quick as they could after the "Dark Phoenix" story. I'm amazed they waited for the second movie. And of course they did what they could to expand the franchise in order to give "Days of Futures Past" some sort of resonance.

I doubt I'll be seeing it, unless it was directed by Frank Miller. Just last weekend, I watched a video review of "Origins" on agonybooth.com [a great site, by the way] which basically told me I was right not to see it.

I dont recall if Wolverine Origins was rushed or the mini series by Marvel (Origin) in order to tell the origin story first, whichever it was though the cinematic universe will never be, to me at least, taken seriously. They're what if stories. Problem is the average movie goer will reference the movies and not the comics when describing their favorite Wolverine moment.
Jackman did say at the Wolverine panel we will finally get to see him go in full berserker mode, i'd believe it if not for the movie being rated PG13.

The comic mini series (Origin) came out a 8 years before the movie. The comic was pretty good, if I remember it properly.

As to the X-men films, I enjoyed the first two, thought the third was garbage and haven't bothered with the Wolverine movies. X-men First Class was really good, I thought.

JamesCarter wrote:

The comic mini series (Origin) came out a 8 years before the movie. The comic was pretty good, if I remember it properly.

As to the X-men films, I enjoyed the first two, thought the third was garbage and haven't bothered with the Wolverine movies. X-men First Class was really good, I thought.

Ahh, so it was the weapon X sequence stuff in X2 that i was thinking of. Because i do recall a big rumble about which would get to tell the origin first.

That's funny (and oh-so-typical of fanboys) because X2 dealt with Wolverine's Weapon X time (as you said) while Origin dealt with his childhood/teenage years. I guess fandom heard the words "Wolverine's past" back in circa 2001 and just flipped their lids. Of course, as with most things fanboys decided to explode about with very little information, there was never any point to their concerns -in this case because the two stories were basically unrelated.

Remember the online uproar when Heath Ledger was announced as Joker? Most people seem to have forgotten it completely, but scores of fanboys were screaming about what a terrible choice Ledger was. Try finding those same complaining fanboys now.

Erick_Cruz wrote:

... the cinematic universe will never be, to me at least, taken seriously. They're what if stories. Problem is the average movie goer will reference the movies and not the comics when describing their favorite Wolverine moment...

Yeah the movie universe is all screwed up for everything. I just read a rumor that IronMan will create Ultron NOT Ant Man, in the next Avengers film.

Speculation is that it'll be Stark, but all anyone really knows is that it won't be Pym. My hope it's some other character, or even an alien intelligence. Stark already has enough going on with giving him the guilt of creating Ultron (which, by the way, I've always found to be the most interesting thing about Pym in an otherwise dull character).

yeah people just assume it'll be Stark, but who knows they might throw a curve ball and use Pym after all. If Marvel had the rights to Fantastic Four they coulda used Reed Richards.

There is an argument to be made changing it to Stark but I don't see the point in Richards or anyone else.

What gets me is why go to the trouble of making an Ant-Man film around the same time as Avengers 2, if you won't at least have Henry Pym create Ultron?

He could appear in a A2 as himself no costume yet, just another genius working for SHIELD, or maybe this has more to do with finding stuff for Stark and Pepper to do? Most people I know thought Avengers was Ironman 3. I would love to see them doing the Jocasta plot with Paltrow. I still remember the comic! Perez art. The Wasp gets kidnapped, and placed behind a few metal bars on a machine as Ultron tries to transfer his "Mother's" brain into his new girlfriend's body...

Still Pym won't be the character most screwed by movie continuity. That title still belongs to Rick Jones.

back to Wolverine
i was watching the comic con panels for the Wolverine and Days of future Past (theyre up on youtube), and all the while, listening to Jackman talk about the wolverine character and how much he owes his career to him, i got a feeling he was saying goodbye to him. i remember reading a few years ago him basically saying they'd have to wrestle that character away from him. If they follow the DoFP storyline we all know what happens to Wolvie, so i dont know if Jackman woudl use that to say thats it im done. At the moment i really dont see who could step in since he's done a great job as Wolverine.

I've been hearing very good things about the new film. A lot of folks saying the 3rd act kind of wavers in quality a little, but the bulk of it is really well put together. I still won't be seeing it, but colour me surprised.

Since they gave the Ant-Man movie to Edgar Wright, who is a great director but kinda slow and not any kind of corporate team player, it would be hard to tie in Ant-Man to any of the other movies.  I'm actually kinda glad that Marvel has allowed Wright to continue with his own methodical schedule, rather than yanking the film away from him and forcing it into the tight continuity of the other films. And I say that even though I've been feeling some irritation toward Wright for delaying Ant-Man for years now, writing or directing other films in the meantime (Scott Pilgrim, Tintin, The World's End).

I agree that separating Ultron from Hank Pym is a questionable decision.  But I'm willing to wait and see how they play that out.

I do not get the hatred for X3. It was as close as they could get to the original comics, killing characters we didn't expect, elevating bit characters from earlier movies - Kitty and Peter especially - while finishing the Bobby vs. Pyro plotline, setting up future storylines and doing the best that could possibly be done with the Dark Phoenix storyline. It wasn't brilliant, but I think it's one of the better superhero movies I've seen, and definitely had me believing in the Claremont-era X-Men in ways I didn't think possible.

All I remember from X3 is thinking the part where Magneto moves the bridge was really dumb. They wanted everyone on the island dead, so he slowly shifts the bridge over so he and his buddies can walk across. Why not just lift the bridge above the island and drop it? He'd probably have killed 99% of the people there right away.

Yeah, I thought the same thing, but that's the kind of quibble you can have with any superhero story. It was dramatic and (in my opinion) it worked. Why didn't Loki send out all the Leviathans right away? Because we needed to see the Avengers working together for fifteen minutes to beat one of them before he could say "send the rest."

I still consider the first half of X1 part of the greatest superhero movie ever made [until they use that stupid 'jean bomb' plot] and I've seen X2 a few times and still don't remember anything from it, except that roughly halfway through, I realize I'm watching the X-men as they truly deserve to be. And X3 is a continuation from that. The continuity's wrong, the actors are off by this or that detail, but f*ck it, this is the closest we will ever get to the glory of Chris Claremont's X-Men. Wolverine and Storm's interactions alone give me a fanboy woody. Because you need that picture in your mind.

JamesCarter wrote:

I've been hearing very good things about the new film. A lot of folks saying the 3rd act kind of wavers in quality a little, but the bulk of it is really well put together...

We saw it this past Sunday.

I agree. Surprisingly good, until the third act, and even then its too little too late to hurt the thing. It's almodt as strong as Spidey 2. Its for sure the best X-film so far. If you are a huge fan of the Wolverine graphic novel, you'll either love it or hate it. It's the spine of the film anf they build on it and tweak it.

They even had an Avengers style extra scene in the credits. With two other X-men andca huge hint about the next X-men film.

Maybe the newly awnounced "X-Force" film will be even better.

X-force?

yep

http://spinoff.comicbookresources.com/2013/08/07/x-force-movie-was-jeff-wadlows-idea/