2/24/24 Expectations, reality, and X-Men

As of the time of this writing, I'm working on a little side project. I've made a habit out of writing at my university's pop culture magazine, Halftone, and my latest idea for an article was inspired by the newest trailer for Disney's X-Men '97. I'm a huge X-nerd, have been since I was a little kid, and that was born from my sister's love for the original 90's cartoon but also the Fox X-Men movies that were coming out as I was coming up. I've embarked on a journey to rewatch all 11 Foxverse movies (minus Deadpool and it sequel), in order to rank them in order of ascending quality.

What I've learned on this journey is just how important expectations are when engaging with art. The movies I previously had negative associations with have risen in my estimation while the films I've considered the best have slightly worsened or remained in their place. For example, X-Men: The Last Stand is a movie that I've seen countless times as a child, but my most recent rewatches in my teenager years have left the most impact. When I watched it last, maybe 2 years ago, I profoundly disliked basically everything about it. I hated how compromised the plot was, how they killed Cyclops (my favorite X-Man) in the beginning, and how the climax was built on Wolverine and Jean Grey's flimsy romance.

Pursuing Letterboxd reviews, I found people who genuinely think its one of the worst films ever made, or at least one of the worst they've ever seen, and to that, I say watch more movies. While revisiting The last Stand, I found that its basically about as good as its predecessors. Its certainly the worst of the original trilogy, but to harp on it anymore than that is borderline childish to me. If one were to only watch popular superhero films, then yes, X-Men: The Last Stand may in fact be one of the worst films they've ever seen, if in fact, they haven't seen Morbius or Madame Web or half of the DC movies made in the past decade.

I have a general affection for mostly all of the Fox X-Men films, maybe except for the latter-day movies post Days of Future Past. As a comic book reader whose shelf features three sections: Marvel, DC and X-Men, I have a profound love for the source material as well. While the movies like to make arbitrary changes from the comics, I've never been too offended by any of them. Sure, making Rogue, who premiered as an adult character in the 80's, into Wolverine's kid sidekick in the vein of Jubilee from the 90's, is strange, but I've always enjoyed the bond between those two characters as they appear on screen.

My theory is that, by growing up with these movies, these changes from the comics fail to phase me anymore. My love for the films does stem from my love for the source material, but I see them as distinct, although they do share in inexorable link. Comics fans (and I'm generalizing here) don't know what they want. Online, they cry out that they just want more accurate adaptations, but oftentimes fail to celebrate when these movies actually do something creative. Of course I want characters like Cyclops and Storm to play similar roles in the moves that they do in the comics, but is that really grounds to criticize movies that are more than 20 years old? Is it wrong to criticize something for what it isn't? I love Cyclops, but I've accepted that he's the writers' tools to make Wolverine, the movie's leading man, look cooler. Is it annoying? Yes. Is it more annoying to keep complaining about it? Also yes.

What I really want to say is that these surface level problems have mostly been swept away for me because I know what these movies are. If I was a comic diehard (which I am), who hadn't grown up with these movies, I'm sure I'd have a different tune, but that's not the universe we live in. Looking at the text, and only the text, yields a different conversation. I've accepted that these movies have flaws, and by doing so, I can move past the surface level criticisms and be able to enjoy them again.

Being caught up in what something should be versus what it actually is, simply speaking, sucks. We can't help it. We want things to be the best version of itself that it can be, and most often, that versions is the thing that we want it to be. Our brains set up a network of scaffolds just so they can come crashing down on us. We watch a trailer that gets our mind going but then all those ideas we went and made up go on to make the real product a disappointment.

I don't really have a solution other than be self-aware in this regard, to challenge not only your thoughts, but your memories. The brain is an imperfect thing; it can hijack our recollection with nostalgia or spite. We shouldn't try to minimize our love for our stories, but maybe reigning it in would hurt us less in the long run,(and make discourse about these things a little more bearable.)