Vaughn confirms that "First Class" was intended as a soft reboot

[The Overlord]

Here's the thing though. General hatred of the Fox X-men movies notwithstanding, I just don't see how they 'failed' at building a franchise.

First Class was a pretty good film and a solid soft reboot of the franchise. DOFP is arguably one of the best X-men films ever and probably one of the greatest superhero films of the decade. Apocalypse was a step down in quality from the previous two, but its still a decent enough film, despite its flaws. We've yet to see Dark Phoenix but based on everything we've seen so far I'd argue that its at least better than Apocalypse.

By and large, the First Class series has been quiet successful. The only way you could argue that its not successful or even a failure is if you insist on comparing it to the MCU.

I agree, I actually felt like First Class was the best superhero film of 2011.

Here is the thing with the Fox X-Men, they are ultimate mixed bag franchise, which is not bad considering screw ups like the DCEU and Fox's various attempts to make the Fantastic Four into a franchise. Magneto may be overexposed, but he never got turned into a joke like Dr. Doom did on the Silver Screen.

You got 2 okay films: X-Men and the Wolverine.

3 Bad films: X-3, Wolverine Origins, Apocalypse.

And a bunch of good ones: X2, First Class, Days of Future Past, the Deadpool movies, Logan.

That is a fairly good track record. Lots of franchise have uneven records (Star Wars, Star Trek, etc).

Though I think Logan was such a great ending for this version of the X-Men, I am fine with ending the franchise there. I do not really care about Dark Phoenix, they already messed up that story in the Last Stand and I think after Apocalypse, I do not care about this take on the X-Men anymore.

But considering I loved Logan, I am glad they did not recast Wolverine.

[OblivionX33]

The Wolverine is so bad though and X-men hasn't aged well at all.

[WebLurker]

Funnily enough, I don't think they really needed to do Wolverine's backstory first. The Japan story in the comics actually predates the publication of any backstory on Wolverine, including the original Weapon X story! And eventually, 'The Wolverine' had ZERO connection to Origins and was more tied to X3.

Not quite; when Logan passes out after being captured by the ninjas in the final act, we hear flashes of his past life, including him yelling Kayla's name. Pretty easy to miss, but its there.

Don't know whether the origin "needed" to be told first or not, but that was the idea at the time. Since The Wolverine was made years after after the plans for the franchise's future changed post-Origins, who knows how the Japan story would've been adapted had things chugged along as originally intended? It may well have been more relevant then realized. (Funny, one of the credits scenes in Origins has Logan in a Japanese bar, which would set up The Wolverine except for the part that Logan knows Japanese in it, while the later movie makes it clear that he had no knowledge or interest in the culture, much less the language, until he was brought over.)

Well, its easy to assume that Creed mutated further and/or lost his memory as well. Come to think of it, Creed was so bestial in X1 that for all we know, he did recognize Logan on some level, but didn't really bother to engage him in any kind of normal conversation. Even in X1, he was fascinated by Logan's dog tags, implying some kind of connection between them.

Maybe? While I'm pretty sure that the two sets of filmmakers were just assuming different actors playing the same character, they're so different and there's no real connection between them, I'm kinda surprised everyone assumes Creed transformed off-camera somehow instead of the simpler explanation that they were different characters, like the two Emma Frosts or Jubilees from the other movies.

As for the flashbacks not lining up, the flashbacks in X1 and X2 are Logan's traumatic memory fragments. What we saw in Origins is the event as it 'really' happened (alas!)

That makes sense; memories can and do warp over time, even if you weren't shot in the head and have memory loss. IMHO, none of the memories in the original really contradict the plot of Origins, so I'm fine with Logan not recalling everything just right. The only thing I can't account for is the completely different labs seen in Origins and X2; is it just artistic license (like Origins' director Gavin Hood has implied, or were they different parts of the facility? The later would make sense, but robs X2's scenes of the weight they would have if Logan was exploring another Weapon X lab that Stryker had rather then the one where he was made all those years ago.

The Wolverine is so bad though and X-men hasn't aged well at all.

Why do you think that?

(I will say that the VFX of the originals do show their age and the genre has gotten a lot more sophisticated in terms of character work and balancing teams, but I think they still hold up overall, at least in terms of being enjoyable on their own terms.)

[David Walton]

X-Men and X2 still hold up really well IMO.

The SFX and choreography are pretty dated, but I don't see it as a detriment. And there's something really cool about the way superhero films were made then, when the action scenes felt more intimate and character-driven and less obligatory third act spectacle. Those superhero films from the late 90s to mid 2000s often give characters more breathing room and don't feel as formulaic. They were still figuring things out for better and for worse.

Anyway, that's not a knock on current filmmaking styles, as I love them as well. X-Men: First Class is probably my favorite, but the only ones I don't revisit often are X3 and Wolverine: Origins. I really enjoyed Apocalypse and watched it three times in theaters.

I'd say that Fox's track record with the X-Men is really, really good and I look forward to their finale. I'm not ready to let go of McAvoy and Fassbender as Prof X and Magneto, though...