Why is the animated adaption of the Dark Phoenix Saga the best adaption?

[The Overlord]

I'd rather have seen it gradually unfold on a TV show.

as far as a 2 hour movie, if "done right" in movie form, would ideally be a trilogy-- movie 1, jean gets the powers and seems stable. movie 2, she is gradually corrupted, and in the climax, does some spectacular cosmic damage. Movie 3, the aliens (Shi'ar, whoever else) comes to attack her/destroy her, and it becomes a movie-long brawl across a couple of different planets/moons. Super-risky, but in any case..

The problem is the budget, could someone do the Phoenix Saga on a TV budget?

I actually think you can do the Phoenix Saga in 2 films, one to set up the Phoenix as a hero and have her fight D'Ken and the Sh'iar Empire, the other film is where she becomes corrupted and becomes the Dark Phoenix. I do not think 3 films are needed (I think it would be hard to get 3 movies with 3 acts and a climax out that arc), but you need more than one.

[Grey]

1.) jean is the one who saves everyone via assisted suicide- a crucial element to the entire epicness of the story- it makes her the hero and the (sort of) villain
2.) she still manages to survive- I’m
Ok with this - since the audience nor the characters had any idea the Phoenix would offer to ressurrect her, it doesn’t detract from jean’s Sacrifice

So this is win win

Icing on the cake:

3.) the xmen themselves sacrifice some of their own life force to resurrect jean.
I think it’s a brilliant touch to include the other teammates in saving jean/,
While sheen still gets to be the hero in defeating the Phoenix.

[ariwl1]

An interesting but not ineffective change was that Jean did sacrifice herself in a seemingly definitive way, but it was at the end of the Phoenix Saga. She saved the universe and then flew into the sun with the M'Kraan crystal, under the pretense that she'd be there forever as she bid a tearful goodbye to the X-Men. The shot of Scott staring into the sun at the end and crying as he whispers Jean's name gets me every time.

This would have been even more effective if the episode No Mutant is An Island had actually played in season 3 instead of being relegated to the ugly stepchild that was season 5. You see the X-Men directly grieving the loss of Jean and Scott leaving temporarily because he needed to deal. Cerebro finds Jean at the end which should have led into the Dark Phoenix Saga rather than Jean just suddenly appearing in the show again as she did.

[Digifiend]

5) Their actual DPS episodes follow the main plot points from the original, despite not going too in depth with Mastermind's 2 year long manipulation of Jean as was done in the comics. Other than that, though, despite having a different cast of characters in play(Rogue, Gambit, etc.), they lean into that Claremont/Byrne goodness(Hellfire Club and Imperial Guard included) for full effect.

They were able to quite easily substitute the characters. Beast and Nightcrawler are both acrobatic wallcrawlers, so Hank subbed in for Kurt. Rogue has super strength, so she had Colossus's role. Despite not having the same powers, Jubilee usually substituted for Kitty - except in Days of Future Past, which used Bishop instead.

[baltiroo]

The X-Men animated series was the best adaptation of the Dark Phoenix storyline for various reasons. They had more room to develop it and make it feel like a true natural progression like Claremont did in his run. And while they had to make some executive decisions on roles of who was available to be used they made it work really well. Best version we've gotten so far.