The Mutant Bomb

The (Fox) X-men franchise has just sung it’s end song, and it was a major Box office bomb. A bigger one than expected, and a pricey bomb at that with extensive reshoots to make the film “Watchable”, but in the words of Adam West “Some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb”. Of course it can’t be as simple as bad film equals bad reviews which means poor Box Office turnout, no. One Fox executive believes the X-men films where failing because “the team name isn’t progressive enough”. While. Pro Life lobbyist are claiming this is their first boycott to actual make an effect on the Box Office (similar Right Wing Boycotts where in place for Star Wars Rogue One, Last Jedi and Captain Marvel, all of which made around 1 Billion Dollars at the Box Office), due to Sophie Turners comments on Georgia’s abortion law and Disney (who recently purchased Fox, all hail the overlord mouse) refusing to work with Georgia which used to have the biggest Sound editing studio, a movie they can make owning exclusively the second (being Skywalker Sound).

So why have the X-men movies gone from beloved by Comic book fans to so unloved that the latest instalment made less than a 10th of it’s budget back in it’s opening weekend. Well the simple fact is they never got any better (the ones directed by Bryan Singer), the first one to be beloved by Comic fans only had to be better than Steel which to be liked had to be better than Batman and Robin which is often seen on worst ever lists (and Steel in my opinion is far worse because at Batman and Robin is entertaining). With a bar that low almost anything could jump over it and the X-men movies did despite their directors feelings toward the series varying from contempt to hatred, going so far as banning the comics from the set of the movie because “he didn’t want his actors drawing inspiration from them”. Singer's goals with X-men where singular, as a soapbox for him to talk about the persecution of Homosexuality, a stance that got Ian McKellan interested in playing series Antagonist Magneto, completely ignoring the idea that the X-men are all different and represent all diversity and persecution (this is why they have different powers). 

The first X-men ushered in the era of Superhero movies that where sometimes watchable, the other notable superhero film franchise of this time was Sam Raimi's Spider-man and these 2 franchises directors couldn’t be more different. Raimi is a massive fanboy of Spider-man and was a maker of cult hits like Darkman and the Evil Dead Trilogy, while Singer had before the X-men had only one hit film The Usual Suspects. 

After the first X-men movie came X-men 2 (logically) but while this film is more beloved than the first, it would cement how Singer viewed used the source material far more. X-men 2 is based on the storyline “God Loves, Man Kills” (the best single story in X-men history) but very loosely. Everything that made the original story interesting or worth telling, gone was the discussion of religious zealotry, instead the stories villain the Reverend William Striker who believed all mutants where an abomination and the devils work was made into a military colonel who hated mutants because. The movie was not devoid of christianity because added for this movie was Nightcrawler, but a one dimensional version of the character who is just Catholic guilt, not the fun loving prankster. Nightcrawler lost his “Mutie and Proud” identity, whilst the comics version declined a Holographic projector to hide his unusual appearance movie Nightcrawler actually asks Mystique “Why doesn’t she look like a normal human all the time” which is completely different to Nightcrawler’s belief that “God made me like this for a reason, who am I to question why” also gone was the most powerful moment of the story where Nightcrawler confront the religious zealot Striker and explains that “Mutants can’t be godless because he feels Gods love” and exposing Striker as a Bigot using religion as a platform for his hatred. The film also failed to show that Magneto and Striker are more a like, instead Magneto is less of an Antagonist but feels more like a victim fighting back. 

X-men 2 ended with a teasing of an Adaptation of the Phoenix saga, but Bryan Singer left the franchise to go and make a Superman movie where instead of saving people he stalks his Ex-wife. Why did Singer choose Superman over another X-men? Halle Berry asked for a bigger part in the movie. Halle Berry of course played Storm who happens to be Chris Claremont’s (writer of X-men comics for over 20 years) favourite character and his favourite in a comics franchise known for strong women. Singer wanted to focus on the men, as far as he’s concerned if you’re not Wolverine, Professor X, Magneto or Cyclops why are you there? Jean Grey was allowed screen time because she was a vehicle to get James Marsden and Hugh Jackman to take off their shirts and he has a warped view of the Phoenix saga. For those who don’t know, the Phoenix saga is a storyline which starts in Uncanny X-men 102 when Jean Grey to save the other X-men becomes host to a malevolent alien entity and tries to maintain her own personality (or lack there of). The Hellfire club seeing how powerful Jean is try and make her their puppet to control by psychically raping her and destroying everything she is from within. They succeed in this and Jean becomes a warped Dominatrix version of herself before eventually the malevolent psychic alien entity eats a sun and the X-men are put on trial for Galactic crimes, with Jean coming to her senses and using the phoenix force to destroy her body and the entity itself. Somehow Singer and others have viewed this story of rape and casual genocide as a “Coming out” story, and in Singer’s case he has a reason and it’s disturbing. Bryan Singer likes to molest 14 year old boys, this isn’t slander even if he has been acquitted of these crimes, he’s had multiple accusers and his acquittal has been based purely on “lack of evidence” like most rape cases. Bryan Singer believes the Hellfire Club are the Heroes like he is, because through rape, he has unlocked their potential or shown them who they really are.  

With Singer gone we got 2 terrible X-men movies, and despite adding fan favourites Beast and Kitty Pryde (my favourite X-man), they still failed to capture the spirit of the X-men comics that is until X-men First Class. X-men First Class is a prequel to the first X-men movie directed by Matthew Vaughn, and in it Magneto is on a killing spree to kill all the Nazi’s who mistreated him in a concentration camp while Professor X tries to convince him to let go of his hatred and to use his mutant gifts to help all of Humanity. Xavier is unsuccessful at convincing him this long term but he does convince him intervene in the Cuban missile crisis. This being a core ideal of the X-men that being yourself and working to help people is better than succumbing to hatred be you, Black, Gay, Autistic or Blue Gorilla man (not limited to those 4 groups), or to quote the Tick “Choose Love not Hate”. 

After this came The Wolverine a movie that film critics deemed boring, but they couldn’t be more wrong. This movie is introspective, it’s about dealing and learning to live with consequences, (something that X-men comics did when they where at their but post Claremont forgot about) and then Wolverine fights a man in a giant robot suit wielding a Katana. 

Of course the good times couldn’t continue, Bryan Singer returned to the franchise and decided to remove all the interesting part of one more Claremont Era storyline Days of Future Past. Singer of course changed the main character of the story from Kitty Pryde to Wolverine, thus making another character nothing more than a helper to Wolverine. But again the Antagonist has been made into a simplified caricature of his comic counterpart (odd because a comic book has less time to expand on a one shot villain than a film), instead of being a parody of Walt Disney wanting to maintain family values by creating giant robots to kill all misfits (Mutants) because a misfit is obviously a delinquent, the movie version is a short man suffering from “Napoleon complex”. The jab at Disney (then rival company they where in a blood feud with) is lost because of Singer’s lack of care, not to mention the film ends with lazily retconning everything to the second scene of X-men 3 before Jean murdered everyone, no consequences for anything Wolverine.

The films after that weren’t all losers in fact the ones not directing by Bryan Singer are good, Deadpool although detached from main continuity is a fourth wall break of bad-taste jokes. Not to mention the never afraid to be weird TV show produced by Fox Legion, which acts as the anti-thesis to Bryan Singer’s play it safe and make it bland ideas of super heroics, even introducing concepts from the comics like Astral duelling which are visual stunning and weird. But the real nail in Singer’s X-Coffin is Logan, a movie so good in a genre hated by the academy it got an adapted screenplay Oscar nomination (normally superhero movies only get nominations for technical awards). But Logan gives a finality to the 2 out of 3 characters who audiences actually liked from the early films in the franchise, which causes the feeling of why bother following that, and the answer really is there isn’t nothing can. Wolverine finally found closure and nobody really liked X-men Apocalypse so why follow it up other than so Singer can cut anyones part if they beat him in X-men trivia (see Olivia Munn explaining why Psylocke’s costume is purple).  

U.S Godzilla relations

You might think Godzilla is as Japanese as Pikachu in a Kabuki Mask drinking green tea, but you’d be wrong I think, I’m not sure the origins of Kabuki or green tea. No Godzilla is American, well sort of, he’s the symbol of the relationship between the United States of America and Japan. 

The role of Godzilla has changed over the years, starting in 1954 when he made his debut. Godzilla in the original movie is a wrecking machine unleashed on Japan by America’s careless testing of nuclear weapons near his cave. The Atomic bomb woke the Dinosaur now mutating him, irradiating him and he now destroys Tokyo. The Japanese version of the film is a much darker film than it’s American re-release with scenes of Japanese peasants crying and praying for a quick death while the American has Steve Martin (played by Raymond Burr, and not being the popular comedian) doing newscasts about the monster with random Asian-Americans as stand-ins for the Japanese actors. 

The film was a huge success for the Japanese film industry so of course sequels where made, and ones that attempted to hammer in the idea of Godzilla as a villain, but with more Kaiju (giant monsters), the first challenger was Mothra. A Beautiful protector of nature with painted butterfly wings looking like a giant Geisha, that got squashed by Godzilla in the final battle of the film. The next rival to Godzilla was King Kong, the cold heartless reptile that was killed in his first movie by a Japanese inventor vs the primal giant ape who in his film was killed by the US Air Force. Kong wasn’t Toho’s first choice, the movie was originally to be Godzilla vs Frankenstein which explains the ending where Kong is super-charged by Electricity and defeats Godzilla, but with this America’s enemy defeated Japans.

Despite Godzilla vs King Kong ending with the 2nd death of the giant lizard he returned to Japanese theatres, but after that he was a changed reptile. It was time for Godzilla to be the hero of his franchise, this was partially due to America and Japanese trade relations becoming more amicable but also because of the perceived idea that Rubbersuitmation (yes that is a word) was purely for kids like how in the west some deem cartoons and comics as “Kids stuff”. Godzilla being there most popular Kaiju, they either needed to make new heroes for him to fight every time or make him the hero. But how do you do this? Well Heroic Godzilla isn’t so much Superman but more John Wayne. He’s not a crusader for justice but more fighting for dominance over the other monsters, sure he’ll stop an alien invasion but it’s not because of loyalty to the humans it’s more “they’re messing with my stuff”. Over the course of the Toho-series Godzilla softens which would eventually cause the end of the series, starting with Son of Godzilla where Godzilla would find another Kaiju egg and raise it’s hatchling as his own son (who in later films would be called Minila with the l pronounced as an “r”). After this the series would implode on itself with the disappointingly long title “Godzilla: All Out Monsters Attack” where Minila helps a Japanese schoolboy to stand up to his bullies defying all rhyme, reason or logic. This would lead to one more Godzilla movie in this series that bombed so hard at the Japanese Box Office they did what any current Hollywood film producer would do, put the franchise into hibernation for 10 years and reboot.

Of course in 1978 during this hiatus, Toho sold the animation rights to Hanna-Barbera who would make a Saturday Morning cartoon losely based the film series. In it a bunch of scientists who are the adoptive parents of Godzilla’s other son “Godzooky” who judging by his behaviour I can only assume the other parent of Godzooky is Mutley. After 2 seasons of a cartoon Godzilla that didn’t topple building or blast his Atomic breath (it was changed to breathing fire), the film series was rebooted with a direct sequel to the 1954 original ignoring all the other films. Toho was so confident in this being a beloved international classic that while in pre-production they shopped the film rights around all the US Distributors to which all the major distributors said “no thank you” and they had to settle for Roger Corman’s production company. Now in 1984 Japanese art wasn’t as respected as it is now, Anime then was used to fill in gaps in US TV schedules and was often badly dubbed by writers and actors who plain didn’t give a shit about the source material. Godzilla however was an exception, Godzilla (1984) had one person who gave a shit about it, Raymond Burr despite years earlier getting really mad at Mark Hamil for telling him “that Godzilla was his favourite film with him in”, Burr wanted to do Godzilla justice. While Corman used it as a way to make a quick buck and to fill it with product placement for Dr Pepper (which sounds like the most American thing I’ve ever heard using a giant lizard to sell a worse tasting Coca Cola). Raymond Burr knew this version of Godzilla wasn’t a joke and reprised his role from the original under that condition. Despite Raymond Burr’s attempt Godzilla (1984) was a commercial and critical flop in the US, unlike in it’s native Japan where it was a success and relaunched the series.

Now it’s time to address the Elephant in the room the over bloated mess that is the first American produced Godzilla from 1998. Yes, we where still in the days when America looked down on Japan, so much so most fans of the real Godzilla dub the Kaiju in the film Not-Zilla. Of course a parody of this Godzilla would later appear in Godzilla Final Wars the last of the rebooted Godzilla movies. But thats it, in the 90’s and early 2000’s America wanted to steal any idea from Japan they could but didn’t respect it, this was the age when Pokemon was the big craze but every other show would insist on called it Pokey-Mon, while the US version of it tried to fit the Square peg of Japanese culture into the round hole of American ideals.

Japan needs America and America Fetishise Japan, but Japan is aware of this and uses it to it’s own benefit as much as they can, with Toho profiting off of another attempt by the US to make their own Godzilla franchise and this time a whole cinematic universe where he’ll get a rematch against Kong. While the first film in Warner Bros and Legendary pictures Godzilla was an uninteresting mess with subplots that are resolved as they are introduced the same year Japan made their own new Godzilla known as Shin-Godzilla. This movie reimagines Godzilla and brings him back to his roots as a history villain. In Shin Godzilla, Godzilla is an ever evolving unkillable irradiated sea creature, but as a rarity in a Kaiju film the human scenes are actually interesting as it delves into Japanese political satire almost being Godzilla meets the Thick of it. The United States are also involved in this one, but not as valiant heroes but as another threat. The President actually tells them to deal with Godzilla within 48 hours or he’ll nuke Japan out of existence, The United Nations do actually help Japan to defeat this version of Godzilla. 

Godzilla is what America is to Japan he’s saviour and oppressor, fighter of cosmic threats and the destroyer, America and Japan have an interesting duality that I just glanced over.