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Idea: Uncanny X-Men (X3 edit - * unfinished project*)

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Fact: Bryan Singer made two incredible X-Men films.
Fact: X3 is a pile of crap

We need to rectify Fact #2. We have several options.

Option 1: X3 could be trimmed and reordered. Cut out
meaningless subplots, remove silly one liners, and
structure the film differently to make it fit more of
the feel of the first two films.
Option 2: Edit all three films into one long GIANT
epic (call it “Uncanny X-Men” or “Giant Sized X-Men”
if you want to get REALLY geeky).
Option 3: Edit X2 and X3 into one super-sequel to the
first film.

What do you guys think? I lean more towards the one
long film, but that would take SO much work, and the
film would be ungodly long. Option 1 is the most
doable, but I’m afraid you wouldn’t have too much of a
film left when you were done. Maybe go with option 3
and treat X3 more like a coda to the superb X2?

PS - One thought I had to tie 2 & 3 together better
would be to have a video monitor showing footage of
Leech (the mutant who is the source of X3’s cure) in
Stryker’s office building when Mystique breaks in
during X2. A little bit of foreshadowing, or just
have THAT be the introduction to the character entirely.

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sounds like a great idea. x3 has some very good parts, but is a mess overall.

FE<3OT

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That's an idea with a lot of promise! I'd ask Boon, ADM, and the other big tech peoples here for help on this.
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Well, I'm going to give it the old college try! I've decided to start where the problems are: X3. I'm going to cut out all the lameness and remove the unnecessary subplots, but I also want to add a few fun things to the mix...like this:

Note how in our first shot of the Sentinel in the Danger Room sequence, it has round eyes:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y48/brimley/sentinel0.jpg

After Colossus and Wolverine perform the fastball special, the eyes have totally changed shape!:
http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y48/brimley/sentinel1.jpg

Here's my first special effects change (this is just a test- I did it only to a single frame using Photoshop - it took less than 5 minutes):
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y48/brimley/sentinel2.jpg

Not only did I fix the eye shape, but I also brought back the Sentinel to its original comic coloring, without going overboard. In the final version, I'll make the eyes much smaller and fix their color inconsistency.

I'll keep you posted as other things develop!
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Option 2 (Edit all three films into one long GIANT epic) sounds like a GREAT idea !!!!!!!

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I would suggest going with the two film idea, leaving part 1 as is, and merging 2 and 3 into one long film. You could leave 2 mostly as is with just a few minor cuts here and there to shorten it up, then tack on a severely trimmed 3 onto the end.

Oh, and one minor change I would highly recommend for part one, add the Marvel Comics flipping pages logo onto it. I for one really like that logo and it would tie it in with the other marvel movies better.

It would be hard to explain a few things between 2 and 3. Shadowcat is different, Nightcrawler is gone without explaination, but I guess those things are not too bad. I guess cutting out the Kity Pride reference from 2 and adding a simple "this many months later" subtitle between the 2 and 3 footage would explain things well enough. The hardest thing will be dealing with the death of Scott, which is what I would say ruined the film the most. I think for any reasonable fanedit, the whole Scott thing would just have to be left in. Moving the scene with Charles in the body of the man at the end of the credits might be cool to move before the credits.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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Originally posted by: C3PX
I would suggest going with the two film idea, leaving part 1 as is, and merging 2 and 3 into one long film. You could leave 2 mostly as is with just a few minor cuts here and there to shorten it up, then tack on a severely trimmed 3 onto the end.

That's definitely what I'm leaning toward. So now I'm taking notes on 3 and deciding what can stay and what can go.

Oh, and one minor change I would highly recommend for part one, add the Marvel Comics flipping pages logo onto it. I for one really like that logo and it would tie it in with the other marvel movies better.


GREAT idea. I'm not sure how much needs to be altered for part one- I might do a quick pass on it for any cheesiness, but it's pretty good as is.

It would be hard to explain a few things between 2 and 3. Shadowcat is different, Nightcrawler is gone without explaination, but I guess those things are not too bad. I guess cutting out the Kitty Pride reference from 2 and adding a simple "this many months later" subtitle between the 2 and 3 footage would explain things well enough. The hardest thing will be dealing with the death of Scott, which is what I would say ruined the film the most. I think for any reasonable fanedit, the whole Scott thing would just have to be left in. Moving the scene with Charles in the body of the man at the end of the credits might be cool to move before the credits.


Absolutely- Kitty doesn't need to be mentioned in 2, but I would love to solve the problem by having some shot of the actress Ellen Page inserted into 2 somewhere. And her her whole subplot with Bobby has GOT to go! As for Nightcrawler, I'm curious if the X-Men game could be of any help. I know the actors from the films did the voices, so perhaps there's a cut scenes that might fill in the gaps a bit better. I have it somewhere, so I'll have to take a peek, but if anyone knows for sure I'd love the extra help!

I know...the death of Scott is a huge annoyance. Not only was it a stupid idea, but it was executed so poorly. I'm going to see if there's a way to give it more impact- I have an idea that, if it works, would make the film 3x better. If I can get it to work, it'll be a surprise. But if I can't, I'll probably just move the Cyclops death to later in the film as a flashback or something.

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Ah, good idea about inserting Ellen Page into part two somewhere. That could help tie it in better. Maybe you could even put more scene from three earlier on in two in order to blend it better. I haven't seen any of the films for a long time, but here is an idea for transitioning from two to three. At the end of two, Jean sacrifices herself, they get all broke up about it in the jet, then there is a shot of it flying off into the distance. The next scene is in the oval office with the president, then the last scene is Charles talking with Scott and Logan about Jean. They both have a good deal of finality in them since they were intended to close up the film. I am not sure how important the last two scenes are since I have not seen them for so long. If nothing really essential is said in them, which I don't think there is, I would suggest fading out from the plan flying off into the distance to the danger room scene at the beginning of three with a "*However many* Month Later" caption. I think that transition would really work. This would also cut out the scene where Eric and Charles visit Jean as a little girl (not sure how important that really is, the last time I saw the film was during its opening week, and that has been a while), and the scene with Angel cutting his wings off. If it is possible, I might even suggest cutting out Angel's character completely, or maybe somehow moving that scene to the beginning of X2 before the Nightcrawler attack in the white house, which would again contribute to merging the two films into one. If the Jean as a young girl scene is important, than perhaps it could fit in at the beginning of X2, since even X2 is a good deal about her, it would probably fit in pretty naturally.

Oh, and as for video game cut scenes, no matter how good they look, they don't look good enough to be spliced in with film footage. I think the "this many months later" would suffice to explain Nightcrawler's absence. Or if you can just find audio from the game explaining it concisely, then maybe you could squeeze it in somewhere. But it was never like Nightcrawler joined the X-Men or decided to live at the mansion, circumstances just brought him there for a short visit. An explaination would be nice, but I am not sure it is worth resorting to video game cut scene or going through a lot of effort fix.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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Yeah, I definitely think we can deep six some of the end of 2.

I've looked into getting rid of Angel entirely, and I think it COULD work. We'll see.

All your other suggestions are great!

As for the video game footage, I never intended to splice that in, but I AM looking for some peace of dialogue where they may reference Nightcrawler's departure. In fact, I'm nearly 99% positive I heard that his absence was addressed in the game. I would try to work it in as an off camera, "L cut" of audio, maybe during an exterior shot, or the montage of the busy school (like while that kid is flying the paper airplane through the halls). I guess the "many months later" business can gloss it over, but I'd love to be able to do something a little more specific for him, since he's such a great character.

Just a quick note on the special effects - I HATE the wire-work in X3. That final battle scene is just embarrassing. I'll definitely be addressing that somehow!
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Yeah, I know for sure that one of the X-Men games deals with what happened to Nightcrawler, it said so right on the back of the game box, but I don't remember what X-Men game it was. If it was Wolverines Revenge, or the one that came out around the time of the third movie, but I know for a fact that one of them deals with it, I am just not sure it what way it deals with it. How great would it be to have a line in there with Charles saying something as concise as "Well, Nightcrawler has left us to rejoin the circus. We'll miss him."

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape