By
Goddamnit.
I’ve been a little reticent about X-Men First Class since we shared some of the first official pictures from the film. Now, after reading this interview with director Matthew Vaughn, I’m practically terrified. He’s clued us in on some of the plot details for the film. The overarching plot will be centered around villain Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) deciding that mutants should rule the world. Just like the first and third X-Men movies andabout 95% of all X-Men stories involving Magneto. Shaw starts messing things up, and the X-Men have to work with the C.I.A. to stop it, describing it as “X-Men meets Bond, with a little Thirteen Days [the underrated Cuban Missile Crisis movie] thrown in for good measure.” That shouldn’t worry you, other than the fairly banal plot. I suppose one can’t be taxed too hard for resorting to the old “bad guy take over world now please” chestnut.
The stinger is this choice quote from Vaughn: “It’s got a lot of teenage angst. The Twilight girls will like it.” Let’s assume for a moment that mentioning Twilight is just one last little joke, which is, by all rights, probably is. Why does the film have to have the f***ing teen angst in the first place? What about that screams, “1960s Bond?,” and doesn’t scream, “THEM TWILIGHT CHICKS GOT THE CASH MONEY.” And there’s even more to all this! Check out below the jump for how Vaughn reacts to potential fan anger.
Here’s the full quote from Vaughn when asked how he feels if the die-hard fans get angry with his interpretation.
“Yeah, but I could tell those fans that they’re wrong. One thing about the X-Men world is that, if you know your X-Men universe, every writer reinvented the storyline. I did my research, and none of the histories of the characters make any sense. Each writer just totally changed the history to make their plot work. So I can quite safely say that X-Men has a history of reinventing its history for the sake of the plot.”
Wow, hostility much? Yes, a common thing in comics, especially those with such a long and complicated history as the X-Men line, is the retconning out of stories for the sake of a larger plot or an editorial mandate. But is it really necessary to take a crap on forty years of comic-writing history? This attitude towards the source material really makes me wonder what we’re in for when X-Men First Class is released in June.
[Via Inside Movies]