Category Everything Else

Jul 28 2020

Bringing The X-Men Into The MCU

When Walt Disney Entertainment acquired 20th Century Fox the entertainment giant gained the rights to several Marvel Comics properties, particularly the mutant superheroes, the X-Men. Ever since then fans of the comic book and the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) have speculated into oblivion over the possibilites of bringing the X-Men into the MCU.

Aside from the logistics of finding and hiring the right people (actors, writers, directors, etc.), there is the hurdle of making the mutants fit logically in the  intricate MCU. Consider the fact that the mutants in the comics and the Fox X-Men films have been a part of their societies for many years and were widely feared and distrusted. When watching an older MCU film, it is clear that mutants are not anywhere to be found (aside from a deleted clip from Iron Man where Nick Fury references mutants). Where are they? The simple answer is that mutants do not exist and the closest thing to the MCU had were the Inhumans who only appeared on TV shows and it’s murky if they are actually part of the MCU. That is a debate for another time, but looking closely at the TV shows like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. it can be said that most shows are part of the MCU. Otherwise, where were the mutants during the calamitous events of the Avengers films? The heroes could have used their help!

On a related note, the same headache is going on with the Eternals. If they existed in the MCU throughout history why were they MIA during Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame? We’ll find out how this is explained when their film comes out next year.

Now, Marvel Studios is free to bring the X-Men into the MCU, so how can it be done? There are a few options and hopefully, Marvel Studios will find the best one. Here is what can be done:

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Jul 20 2020

Recasting The X-Men

With Disney and Marvel Studios now having regained the film and TV rights to the Marvel Comics property, the X-Men, it is inevitable that a reboot of the film franchise is coming. There is a ton of speculation and fan lists out there over who should be cast in a rebooted X-Men team that will appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). An issue with these lists (and this one, too) is that casting films and TV shows is more complicated than saying “Bryan Cranston is bald so he should be Professor X!” Complicating the casting is the crowded plate of upcoming MCU films, some of which are not in production yet, and these have been delayed.

At this point, it is hard to tell when an X-Men film will be made, so many acting choices will not be available or no longer suitable for the roles. By the time Marvel Studios gets around to casting Wolverine, fan-favorite Tom Hardy may be too old. But for fun, let’s imagine if everything was cleared up and Marvel Studios gave the X-Men a go to begin preproduction tomorrow. Who would be the best candidates to play the iconic X-Men and associated mutants? Take a look and feel free to add your opinions in the comments on these picks and of other mutants not included in the list.

The Original Team

Cyclops

While the previous two actors who portrayed Scott Summers were fine, their roles were rather limited. In an MCU version of Cyclops, he has to be shown as undeniably the team leader, not Wolverine or Mystique or a mutant played by some other A-list actor. A true leading man is required for this role, which is why Chris Pine would be perfect for playing Cyclops. With his role as Captain Kirk, good looks and charm, Pine could believably come off as the leader of the X-Men and go toe to toe with Canadian upstarts with healing powers. Other candidates: Armie Hammer, Charlie Hunman, Matt Lanter, Garrett Hedlund

Jean Grey

The tortured telepathic member of the X-Men has to be portrayed by someone who can evoke sympathy, yet fear and dread when she transforms into the deadly Phoenix. In her role as the rebellious and complex artificial person, Dolores Abernathy, in Westworld, Evan Rachel Wood has demonstrated the acting range to bring us a Jean Grey struggling with her immense telepathic powers as she becomes the Dark Phoenix; which should happen in the third or fourth film of the rebooted franchise. Other candidates: Felicity Jones, Emilia Clarke, Rebecca Ferguson, Rosa Salazar

Beast

Both actors who portrayed Hank McCoy ran with the roles and made them memorable. This role of the team’s brawny, yet eloquent scientist needs to be portrayed by someone who comes off as intellectual but able to hold his own in a fight. It would be great if Kevin Feige could look the other way and allow Nicholas Hoult to reprise his role, but since that will not happen let’s go with Chad L. Coleman, who can do the job well and bring something new to the role. Other candidates: Joel Edgerton, Cillian Murphy, Pedro Pascal, Josh McDermitt

Angel

In his previous appearances, Warren Worthington III aka Angel, has been largely delegated to a background character, despite some interesting setups. In an MCU X-Men film, Angel, along with the original lineup, should take center stage. For this role Liam Hemsworth should be hired to play the flying mutant. He has the good looks, lanky build and acting ability to stand out. Besides casting a Hemsworth in the MCU worked out before! Other candidates: Sam Claflin, Jack Reynor, Garrett Hedlund, Logan Lerman

Iceman

Many fan castings for Bobby Drake often pick Nick Robinson, and that is because Iceman is a homosexual and Robinson played a gay teen in Love, Simon. Robinson is a good choice, but there are better candidates and he may not want to be typecast simply because he portrayed a gay character. Justice Smith is an inspired choice; he’s younger than the other actors, and more importantly talented enough to make Iceman shine in a new X-Men film. Other candidates: Chandler Riggs, Nick Robinson, Dylan Minnette, Curran Walters

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Jun 14 2020

Crisis With The Arrowverse TV Shows

Lately, headlines announced some issue or another befallen one Arrowverse TV show after the other, and this gives the impression that  the Arrowverse TV shows are in trouble. It seems collectively, the superhero shows hit their peak earlier this year with the crossover event “Crisis on Infinite Earths”, and things largely went downhill from there.

This is just a broad generalization, some of the Arrowverse TV shows are doing fine, namely Black Lightning and Stargirl, but there is a sense that these superhero shows have run out of steam and feel dated.

The Hood

Arrow, the show the live-action DC superhero TV universe is named after, concluded its eight-season run earlier this year, just as it had found renewed energy. The reason the show ended was because the main actor who played Green Arrow, Stephen Amell, wanted to leave to resume a more normal life. For anyone, who doesn’t know, these shows are filmed in Canada, which requires the cast and crew to be away from their families. Arrow was justly celebrated when it ended, but there were questions of how the the Arrowverse would continue without its flagship show. Other shows like The Flash have eclipsed Arrow in terms of popularity and ratings, but the Arrowverse still seems empty without Green Arrow stalking around in the dark alleys telling bad guys “You have failed this city!”

Older, remaining Arrowverse shows such as The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl are running low on creativity. For the most part, the episodes and scripts are bland and uninspiring. The Flash ended its season with its main character no longer having his natural powers and his wife trapped in another dimension. But it was so dull and shrug inducing. The Flash has had problems in recent years with coming up with engaging villains and story arcs. For too long, the show relied on evil speedsters, but the new batch of villains are just blah. Then there is the undeniable fact that the actors seem bored and going through some drama, which will be covered shortly. It is just a shame, given the excitement most fans felt for the show and its lead character after the thrilling encounter between the TV version of the Flash with his DCEU counterpart during “Crisis on Infinite Earths”. The crossover event was supposed to provide a new spark of creative energy but very little has happened aside from some Flash villains being reimagined and not very well; although Lex Luthor’s revamping in Supergirl was interesting.  At the very least the meeting between the two Flashes rekindled interest in the upcoming movie version of the Flash.

Legends of Tomorrow is a mere shadow of its initial premise: C-list superheroes who time travel to get some respect. That is still there somewhere but it has been buried lately in these nonsensical magic-related plots and most of the original cast is gone. Some of the replacements are not very compelling, though to its credit Legends of Tomorrow does a decent job of being goofy and funny. Some episodes are very humorous and the show wisely figured out long ago not to take itself too seriously and embraced its comedic tone. However, other shows like Doom Patrol overshadowed Legends of Tomorrow by being quirkier and more insightful superhero shows.

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Jun 6 2020

Pining For New Superhero Films & TV Shows!

OK, let’s be honest, we need our superhero film and TV fix! By this time, during normal circumstances the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) drought we’re experiencing would have been quenched by the May release of Black Widow and we would have been going wild over the release of Wonder Woman 1984, which would have been yesterday. But nope, a deadly coronavirus had to ruin everyone’s year. *Disclaimer time* This by no means is meant to make light of the pandemic our world is suffering through. No matter what, our lives and well being are more important than being inconvenienced with social distancing, self quarantines, and no new superhero films. We all should continue do our part to prevent the spread of the coronavirus until a viable treatment or vaccine is available.

MCU Backed Up

We have not had a new MCU film since last July’s Spider-Man: Far From Home and we are certainly overdue. It is hard to believe that soon it will be a year since any new MCU material has come out. Sure, there were the Marvel TV shows that came out in the time period such as Runaways and currently Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. But they are treated as non-entities by the powers that run Marvel Studios to the point that fair arguments can be made that these TV shows are not part of the MCU and can be ignored. But that is an argument for another day.

Anyway, it is hard to accept that for over a year no MCU film has been released. The last time this happened was in 2009 when the MCU was in its infancy and we had plenty of films that year to keep us occupied!

We also would have had the Disney+ TV show The Falcon and the Winter Soldier to look forward to in a couple of months. Originally the program was to stream in August of this year, but that show along with Disney+’s other MCU show for this year, WandaVision, have been delayed because filming stopped earlier this year. The safety of the cast and crew are more important than a schedule but it just plain sucks they could not have finished by the time the pandemic ravaged us. Rumor has it that The Falcon and the Winter Soldier needs to be rewritten and reshot because it supposedly had a storyline about a pandemic and that would not go over well today.

One flaw about the interconnected nature of the MCU is that the films (and soon TV shows) cannot be shown out of order. For example, WandaVision directly leads to the upcoming film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. It would have been awkward if that film was ready to go before WandaVision was completed but in this case it worked out because the Doctor Strange film has not even begun filming (and its release date has been changed from next year to March 2022). In other words, even though it is a prequel film, Black Widow probably has to be released first before we can see The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and so on. Black Widow has been rescheduled for November 6, 2020. But given the impatient deniers who won’t wear masks or keep social distancing and the ongoing protests it is quite possible that a second wave of the coronavirus will come with a vengeance. So, Black Widow’s new release date is not a guarantee.

Hopefully, Black Widow will not suffer the fate of The New Mutants, a film that has been forever rescheduled. Can anyone believe it was supposed to be released back in 2018? The ironic thing about The New Mutants is that many of us had little interest in the film and gave up on it as a last gasp from the defunct Fox X-Men film franchise. Now, with its latest release date being August 28, 2020, it will be the sole Marvel film fix until the MCU films can be released.

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May 31 2020

SpaceX Heralds Humanity’s Next Step In Space

On May 30, 2020 3:22 pm, EDT, the private company SpaceX successfully launched from the Kennedy Space Center a crewed space capsule into space. The capsule, named Dragon, docked today with the International Space Station and made history as the newest generation of reusable spacecraft to enter service.

The Dragon is light years ahead of the old Apollo space capsules, the retired space shuttles and the Soyuz space capsules with its many automated and updated functions. For instance, its docking with the International Space Station was fully automated with its crew, astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, seeming to be more like passengers though they are capable of assuming manual control if needed. SpaceX’s rocket, the Falcon 9, which launched the Dragon into orbit is also revolutionary in that it is resusable and successfully landed back on Earth after separating from the space capsule after the Dragon achieved orbit. The reusable feature of the Falcon 9 is literally something out of an old pulp sci-fi tale which featured vertical rockets taking off and landing.

The successful test of this spaceflight marks the first time a private company was able to launch and operate spacecraft with humans into space. This also heralds the next step into space exploration. As many know, the company’s CEO, Elon Musk, has an ambitious vision to turn humanity into a true space-faring race with plans to land humans on Mars during this decade and establishing a colony on the red planet. Yesterday’s launch of the Dragon is just the first step in Musk’s grand scheme.

But in order to get to Mars and beyond, Elon Musk and NASA had to prove the SpaceX program was feasible. After the space shuttles were retired in 2011, the United States had to rely on Russia to ferry its astronauts to and from the International Space Station until a replacement vehicle for the space shuttles were built. It was determined it would be more expedient and cost effective if private companies developed and built space vehicles and the result was the Commercial Crew Program. The idea was that competition between companies encouraged innovation and cost savings and would free NASA to focus on deep space exploration. At the same time, the Commercial Crew Program enables NASA to be less reliant on Russia and other nations as companies handle routine orbital operations, such as ferrying crew and supplies to the International Space Station.

Of course, this test cannot just be a one-off. The resuable spacecraft needs to repeatedly and safely launch from the Kennedy Space Center and return to Earth. There will be mishaps and setbacks, such as when the SpaceX prototype rocket, Starship, exploded on May 29 in Texas during a test. For now, SpaceX will concentrate on ensuring the Falcon 9 and Dragon can become a workhorse in the same way the space shuttles were. It is also certain that repeated success will allow SpaceX and NASA to push the boundaries and embolden both to return to the Moon and beyond.

It was certainly heartening in spite of recent crises like the COVID-19 pandemic and riots, humanity is able to demonstrate the ability to rise beyond such strife and take its place among the stars with these next steps.