X-Men movie franchise - tropes 

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While the source material is well known, people who got their first contact with X-Men through the film franchise tend to have a hard time accepting that, in the comics and other adaptations, Magneto\'s real name is not Erik Lensherr, Xavier is not an unambiguous Big Good and almost savior-like figure, and Sabretooth is not Wolverine\'s brother.

"Erik Lensherr" was just one of the many alias Magneto used in the comics around the time the first film was made; his official real name, Max Eisenhardt, wasn\'t revealed until eight years later. Xavier is actually more known as a Manipulative Bastard, to the point he was once booted out of his post as headmaster and even got killed by Cyclops of all people for their differences. Finally, Sabertooth being Wolverine\'s long lost brother was an old theory both out and in-universe which got eventually Jossed, similarly too many years late to be integrated in the films.

In a more literal example, given that this series pioneered the Movie Superheroes Wear Black trope, people often get surprised to find that X-Men actually wear brightly colored costumes in the comics. It gets so the extent that many criticized

\'s costume department precisely for dressing the team in bright yellow and blue, just like they were and have always been in the comics.

Broken Base: Whether or not the X-Men should be returned to Marvel Studios and should the two film series remain separate (albeit with more artistic freedom) or should they be unified, and if the X-Men are introduced into the MCU, should it be through the current series or through a reboot has been an ongoing debate ever since the

The vast majority who support it center their arguments on the idea that Only the Creator Does It Right. They believe that Marvel\'s X-Men films would be Truer to the Text, provide them storyline more in keeping with the comics, with brighter costumes and aesthetics, and thus be superior to Fox who have largely regained acclaim by taking notes from the MCU anyway. Additionally, it would allow the X-Men to interact with the other Marvel properties in a massive shared universe much like the comics themselves. Opponents reject such ideas by pointing out that X-Men comics in general, and their greatest story-arcs (such as

) are mostly self-contained in any case, and there\'s not a lot it would gain from being part of the MCU (aside from maybe Wolverine being in every superhero film in a year, rather than every X-Men film). Moreover, X-Men fans have generally been irritated by Marvel\'s attempt to replace the X-Men with the Inhumans, which happened because of their rights issues with Fox, and they see that as major evidence that Marvel is by no means the best defender and custodian of their own IP.

and Disney would possibly water them down to fit within the much more family-friendly setting. R-Rated fare such as

- one franchise that Bob Iger hinted at as a possible "Marvel-R brand" after the merger - would be shoveled off to Netflix where the films could pretend it doesn\'t exist, and the darker themes the X-Men generally face would also be toned down. James Mangold pointed out that an R-Rated superhero movie means little chance of being merchandised and made into toys which would defeat a major reason why these films are invested in the first place, especially by Disney. Supporters counter that Disney has released more mature fare in the past, such as under Touchstone and Miramax. Others note that it might lead to

X-Men films overall, since Marvel Studios would have to pace their production schedule around their other projects, whereas the X-Men alone could support three or four films per year with the number of potential solo and spinoff films (

, etc.) Comics fans generally want it to happen so that Marvel can stop their Character Shilling of the Inhumans.

Cant Unhear It: Several including, Patrick Stewart or James McAvoy as Xavier, Ian McKellen or Michael Fassbender as Magneto, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler and Kelsey Grammer as Beast to name a few.

Complete Monster: Sebastian Shaw; Ajax; Apocalypse; Dr. Zander Rice and Donald Pierce. See those pages for more details.

fall under this in a period less-than-affectionately called "Rothman\'s reign of terror", referring to Executive Meddler Tom Rothman, the executive working at Twentieth Century Fox when those two films

, which are similarly derided by Marvel fans were made, he was responsible for Bryan Singer\'s departure for the third movie, as well as the many woes faced in the Troubled Production for the first spin-off. Both movies are widely considered to be the worst out of the entire series,

) were specifically written to right the wrongs that had happened under Rothman\'s watch (as he\'d been let go by the company in the middle of 2012).

Fandom Rivalry: An intense and often bitter one exists between fans of the

films and those of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, especially prior to Disney\'s acquisition of Fox.

Prior to the merger, fans of the latter hated seeing the

films succeed and respond to every little thing they disagree with with demands for Fox to turn over the franchise to Marvel, with a popular target being deviations from the source material (despite the MCU\'s own history of altering characters and events to suit their own narrative). Meanwhile, fans of the

franchise accused the MCU of being formulaic, simplistic and kid-friendly, and believe that Disney would be unwilling or unable to manage the more mature and darker themes that are central to the mutant narrative. Another common argument is that Disney would never have green-lit R-rated films such as

(which was proven to be true when Bob Iger said as much), although it should be noted that even MCU fans tend to really like movie Deadpool and/or movie Wolverine.

Post-merger, the rivalry was softened by both film franchises being under one roof, but at the same time worsened by the prospect of Disney rebooting the

franchise and/or no longer putting out experimental R-rated fare such as

films to lose their identity. These concerns were at least partially addressed by Bob Iger the day of the acquisition, where he stated that Disney still has an "opportunity" for R-rated Marvel brands, Deadpool among them.

Fan-Preferred Couple: Logan/Rogue is much more popular than Logan/Jean or Bobby/Rogue, and it\'s actually the #1 couple of the original trilogy. They have since been overshadowed by the Charles/Erik pairing after

for proof. The shippers Took a Third Option indeed.

movies that were universally considered to be amazing for their time have problems that the later movies keep intensifying to make the entire franchise become extremely polarizing among comic books fans: the lack of color in cinematography and design in a franchise and genre famous for its colorful costumes, the significant deviations from the comic (to the point that many people think that the films are almost ashamed of being labeled as comic book movies, which was later proven to be true when James Marsden and Hugh Jackman admitted that Bryan Singer had banned comic books from the film set), the spotlight hogging of Wolverine, Professor X and Magneto, the severely underused and Demoted to Extra mutants that were leads in the comics, etc. These are problems that are increasingly less forgivable in the later market when superhero movies prove themselves to be able to satisfy critics, fans and be box office successes.

was praised as the Author\'s Saving Throw of the franchise, making a movie that didn\'t center around Wolverine (reduced to a single albeit hilarious cameo), and likewise taking the concept of mixing X-Men with a period setting, and mixing pulp fiction with period aesthetics and stylings. At the time, this change was refreshing, gave the film a unique flavour and it made sense to ground Professor X and Magneto\'s rivalry in a historical context and setting

Namely Young Magneto as a Nazi Hunter made sense in a decade or so after World War II and the ongoing Cold War produced a good backdrop for his and Charles\' alliance and falling out on both a narrative and thematic level, and likewise the use of the Cold War and Bay of Pigs as background did not overwhelm the superhero story at the center. But the films that followed, namely

are set in The \'70s and The \'80s respectively, and the film and the story it tells has very little narrative and aesthetic reason to fit in that time and place. The characterization and plot also retcons and changes the ending of

(Magneto going from solidly villainous at the end to a friendly enemy in the next two and moving in and out of the Heel�Face Revolving Door), which makes what was supposed to be a soft-reboot for the series into Continuity Snarl, backsliding to Wolverine Publicity (especially

with its single Weapon X flashback that literally exists to shoehorn him in) and also not properly aging Charles, Magneto and Mystique in the thirty years or so when the three films transpire, leading to films like

standing out and earning critical acclaim for their Broad Strokes approach.

Fans of these films seem to get on pretty well with fans of the DC Extended Universe due to the shared rivalry with the MCU and both franchises taking a more serious and grounded approach to their source material and struggling to remain unique when people are calling for more comic book films to follow the MCU\'s approach.

MCU fans have a much healthier relationship with fans of

than the other Marvel movies made by FOX, mostly due to how a comics-faithful, R-rated Deadpool movie would be incompatible with the (relatively) family-friendly Disney-owned MCU films. It doesn\'t hurt that

made a couple of friendly nods towards the MCU itself, has been praised by a number of the MCU\'s actors and directors, and even got approval and help from Kevin Feige himself.

Likewise, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine has earned the respect of pretty much everyone (MCU fandom included) in spite of never wearing a comics-accurate costume. The great praise his swan song in the role cemented this. So much so that there are fan calls to

Harsher in Hindsight: A meta example: Hugh Jackman was diagnosed with skin cancer in 2013. Cancer is cell growth taken to dangerous and uncontrollable levels. Now consider what Hugh Jackman spends a lot of time doing as Wolverine... Also, cancer is caused by mutation.

, it\'s very amusing that the Borg Queen is the grandmother of Professor X.

By virtue of being a Kwisatz Haderach (a being who can access the genetic memories of its female and male ancestors), Leto Atreides II (played by a young James McAvoy) has intimate knowledge of the Lady Jessica (portrayed by Alice Krige) that he finds very uncomfortable, which mirrors Captain Picard\'s distress that the Borg Queen knows everything about him when he was assimilated into her collective. Patrick Stewart also appeared in

will notice the striking similarities between the two characters. (You can read a more detailed comparison in the Referenced by... section in the Trivia tab, but for the sake of this entry, it\'s enough to know that Will is a "pure empath" who is physically and emotionally scarred by his abusive love-hate relationship with the murderous Hannibal Lecter—heck, Hugh Dancy and James McAvoy even look somewhat alike.) The

film series fandom coined the term "Mutant husbands" to describe Charles\' and Erik\'s homoerotic friendship, so all Cherik shippers who had watched the

episode "And the Woman Clothed with the Sun..." burst out laughing when Freddie Lounds called Graham and Lecter "Murder husbands."

(which stars Lucas Till as the titular hero), Vinnie Jones was cast as a baddie, so it\'s funny to see Havok and the Juggernaut face off in a non-superpowered scenario.

Bryan Singer wrote, directed, and produced the first two films and he had this reputation and status for the first three films, returning after a hiatus to direct the well-received

directed by Brett Ratner was weakly received for not having Singer at the helm. However, Singer\'s direction was put in doubt with the mixedly received

, which was admittedly a Tough Act to Follow for his own, previous film.

A lot of fans consider Matthew Vaughn to be this for the later X-Men films. He was the director of

which was considered the Author\'s Saving Throw for the franchise, and became the first successful X-Men film

centered on Wolverine. He also changed the aesthetic of a trilogy that was formerly the Trope Maker and Trope Codifier for Movie Superheroes Wear Black, introduced a much more humorous and sexy style (even those who liked the first X-Men films pointed out that they were rather overly serious) and made the costumes and visual design much more brighter and colourful (giving the First Class team a dark blue and lemon yellow ensemble and setting the finale in broad daylight on the beaches of Cuba) and also setting the Mutants against a historical period and backdrop and invoking the aesthetic and slang of that time and place. When Singer returned to the franchise, with

, he followed Vaughn\'s aesthetic (brighter costumes and palette, more humor, period setting, and sex appeal), and the success of

also led Fox to green-light more personal and director-driven takes on the series, and even push to the R-Rating (Vaughn\'s film was the first mainstream superhero film with a Precision F-Strike), leading to

Only the Creator Does It Right: Played With on accounts of the Popularity Polynomial of Bryan Singer\'s first two movies:

films were directed by Bryan Singer and were well-received in the wake of

and for making a super-team a viable concept. The third one,

, helmed by Brett Ratner (and meddled by producers), is considered by many fans to be a huge step down in quality from the first two. The next X-Men movie which didn\'t divide opinions was produced and co-written by Singer, and he hand-picked Matthew Vaughn to replace him in the director\'s chair and this was far better received by fans who liked the more colourful costumes and period aesthetic, as well as limited Wolverine Publicity, as an improvement on not only the third film but also Singer\'s original films which faced a backlash for its Movie Superheroes Wear Black humorless approach and making Wolverine the center of the story. Singer then returned for

, which was not only a critical and commercial smash, but also undid much of the plot damage done by

via the plot\'s Set Right What Once Went Wrong Alternate Timeline, including reviving Cyclops and Jean from the dead. Fans also note that Singer borrowed Vaughn\'s ideas, brighter costumes, period aesthetic and also a greater focus on humour.

was not very well received with many feeling that Singer had run the series dry and likewise retreading water by trying to do the Phoenix right again rather than use the time travel to properly Continuity Reboot and Setting Update the series. The continuity was also seen as becoming much looser and lacking in weight, to the point that

which took a Broad Strokes approach were far better received.

With the rise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the opinion that Marvel Studios could make a better

movie than 20th Century Fox could gained traction. However, of the three film franchises that Marvel Studios did not initially own, the

) that have come out since the start of the Paramount/Disney Shared Universe have been the most well-received and successful post-

, leading to others arguing that Fox are capable of doing right by these characters

in February 2015 via sharing with Sony, leaving the only two properties that they don\'t own at Fox.. This all changed when Disney acquired Fox\'s assets in December 2017, leading to debates on how much of the films should be carried by the creative teams of the MCU and/or the pre-existing X-Men movies.

At the very least, both franchises have put out their own version of the same characters: Quicksilver, and the X-Men/Fox version is generally considered better than the version of the character in

who was Killed Off for Real by Joss Whedon to give the story some amount of stakes and also because the character became disposable. Likewise, the fact that Marvel Comics have responded to Fox holding on to the rights for characters that it has made into commercial successes by essentially short-changing the X-Men in the comics and promoting the

as a Suspiciously Similar Substitute has spurned many long-time fans of the X-Men away from Marvel, while

movies have largely been overshadowed in the mid-2000s by the

and of course the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but at the time, the first movie was a surprise hit that proved vital in convincing Hollywood that superheroes could be viable again after

had killed the genre several years earlier. People tend to forget that alongside

films were massively influential in terms of tone and costuming, arguably becoming the Trope Codifier for Movie Superheroes Wear Black (although Tim Burton\'s

Also, up till then, superhero films tended to be star-driven vehicles in order to avoid a perceived comic-book ghetto; you needed a $20-million headliner like Jack Nicholson, Val Kilmer, or Wesley Snipes to pull in a mass audience, and ones that didn\'t like

got destroyed at the box office. Here, the two biggest under-50 names were Halle Berry and Anna Paquin, both supporting characters (and both

) and two of the three central leads were played by aged Shakespearean actors, while the other was an Australian unknown in Hugh Jackman. Nowadays, especially in the Turn of the Millennium and The New \'10s movie landscape where star vehicles have given way to ensemble pieces driven by premise and spectacle, superhero films have no qualms about casting unknown actors or actors who had never headlined before, knowing that the license will do the selling and the movies will propel the actors to further heights instead of the other way around.

The films also showed superheroes with powers and skills entirely different from the superhero films made before, showing how unique and special superhero action could be, with many citing Nightcrawler\'s opening in the second film as a major example of the unique action setups possible only with super-powered characters. Before the only super-powered being (as opposed to Badass Normal or Empowered Badass Normal like Blade) was Superman\'s Flying Brick skillset whereas this film showed magnetic, telekinetic, telepathic, teleportation-based powers that hadn\'t really been shown in movies before.

has Magneto confronting Wolverine in the train, and later stopping all the bullets fired by the police and then turning them back.

has four by itself: the Nightcrawler opening, the attack on the X-Mansion (where we first see Wolverine unleash his claws through human flesh), the scene at Bobby\'s parents house where his mother asks him "Have you tried not being a mutant?" and Magneto\'s grisly escape from the plastic prison.

has the opening sequence with the de-aged Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen (the first time the technology had been used in a major film) and the attack on Alcatraz, with Vinnie Jones\' Juggernaut insisting he\'s the Juggernaut.

has at least two: young Magneto lifting an entire stadium and dropping it around the White House, and old Magneto and Storm turning the X-Jet into a bomb to take out a number of future Sentinels, and of course Evan Peters\' Quicksilver showing his Super Speed powers set to "Time in a Bottle".

has Apocalypse hijacking the Cerebro and using Charles Xavier\'s mind to launch all of the Earth\'s nuclear missiles in space.

Strangled by the Red String: The supposed "great love" between Logan and Jean Grey is hard to take seriously since they only knew each other for about five days

. The majority of the first film\'s plot takes place over roughly two or three days, then Logan goes off to Canada to find out about his past; they spend a day or two more in each other\'s company in the second film as they prepare to stop the villain, and she dies at the end of the mission, and in the third film, she\'s come back evil and spends most of their scenes together crazily beating the crap out of him. Plus, in the first two films,

Jean was already in a long-term, loving relationship with Scott

Unfortunately, even more so than in the source comics. Magneto and humans who want to try and control mutants both make far more convincing arguments for their positions than the X-Men and Xavier, who never try to do anything to bridge the gap between the two species and spend their time keeping the status quo in check.

, Kelly specifically mentions a girl who can walk through walls, and asks "What\'s to stop her from walking right into a bank vault — or the White House?":

In the very next movie, a Brainwashed and Crazy Nightcrawler is able to teleport into the White House and kick the Secret Service\'s collective ass, proving Kelly right.

, Bolivar Trask tells Nixon that Mystique can impersonate anyone, and could use her power to turn into him, walk into the White House and order a nuclear strike. Once again, he\'s absolutely right.

is so extremely anti-mutant that he would experiment on and enslave his own son to exterminate them all. In the process, he enslaves another mutant to attack the president of the US, just so he can offer a target for the president to authorize an attack on. Before the strike, though, an objection is made that the target is a school. The villain responds sarcastically, "sure it is", showing X-ray imagery of a secret jet underneath the school\'s basketball court. A dispassionate observer should note, actually, that that is actually

suspicious. Normally, schools don\'t have military-grade equipment hidden in their facility, and after all, "schools" in some parts of the world have been used as recruiting centers/supply bases/etc. by terrorist organizations before — both for the purpose of camouflage, and making attacks on them politically troublesome. The president then orders a non-lethal infiltration and capture mission, which from his position is

Throughout the franchise, everything that Magneto warns Xavier about comes true:

, the mutant cure is weaponized in guns that shoot syringes of the cure and these guns are used to combat them.

the US and Soviets launch a barrage of missiles at the mutants, not caring that half of the ones present just stopped World War III. Most of Magneto\'s actions in the series after the first film are about launching

after the humans make the first move against mutants.

, the Bad Future has gotten to the point of mutants and mutant sympathizers and potentials being rounded up and herded into internment camps in a scene very obviously based on the Holocaust,

exactly the type of thing Magneto believed would happen

the Humans have found a way to stop future mutants from being naturally born by neutralizing the X-gene in Human population with GMO food.

They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Probably one of the biggest criticisms laid against these movies is that the Spotlight-Stealing Squad of Wolverine, Professor X, Magneto and Mystique

trilogy; she was merely a Satellite Character in the original trilogy take away screen time from several other characters who are deserving of attention. Cyclops is commonly cited as getting the absolute worst of this treatment (and in effect criminally under-utilizing actor James Marsden, who many agree was a pitch-perfect casting choice), as he\'s the main character in many of the comics, but he\'s Demoted to Extra in

. An adolescent Scott Summers (portrayed by Tye Sheridan) does have a significant role in

, though, so the Alternate Timeline appears to be repairing some of the damage.

, to Channing Tatum as he looks and sounds nothing like the character in question. And even if the role was going to go to another actor, fans seem to prefer a more convincing one for the part like Josh Holloway or French actor Gaspard Ulliel. That said, the movie is now firmly in Development Hell.

The casting of Henry Zaga as Sunspot and Alice Braga as Cecilia Reyes in

has lead to considerable backlash and accusations of whitewashing. Although Zaga is from Brazil, Sunspot is

-Brazilian, and his origin specifically has him being discriminated against for his African features. Likewise, Reyes is Afro-Latina. Both Zaga and Braga fall more under Latino Is Brown. The reaction to Braga\'s casting is further fueled by the fact she is replacing the much better-received Rosario Dawson, who had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts with

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