Just unveiled over at Facebook, the X-MEN: FIRST CLASS trailer is here. Directed by Matthew Vaughn (STARDUST, KICK-ASS) and staring James McEvoy, Michael Fassbender, January Jones, and a cast of thousands, it’s a retcon showing the origins of the mutant team in the ’60s, starring young Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr. The original X-MEN: FIRST CLASS comic was written by Jeff Parker, but it hasn’t been explained how much of an influence it had on filmmakers.

This is miles better than the dreadfully boring stills that were previously released; Vaughn knows his superhero stuff and how to give it some life. Our one big beef: This does not look like it was set in the ’60s! Some JFK voice-overs do not a different decade make! Have they never seen Mad Men? Or A SIMPLE MAN? Or…the British Avengers.
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1 COMMENT

  1. Cool!

    And even more cool for this former Marvel Zombie is the fact that the SR-71 Blackbird is one of the stars of the movie! I worked on that bad boy for 8 years!

    X-Men, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Transformers II — the Blackbird is everywhere!

  2. See. I nitpick the blackbird as a sign of a major problem with this film.

    See, the SR 71 black bird the X-men had was a decommissioned and modifed one in the 90s. Meanwhile the USAF didn’t have the REAL blackbird until years after the missile crisis. Plus the SR 71 doesn’t fly that way!! The X-men comic’s use of it even in their 90s comics was pure cartoony fiction. To have them using in 1962 doesn’t make a lick of sense. If the movie is trying to be all historical and realistic, don’t use the X-men’s freaking blackbird! Stop trying to have both the most cartoony aspects of the comics and also try to act like some serious historical drama. It doesn’t work!

    Plus the blackbird isn’t the only thing from they shoved into the 1960s from later comics. You got Morrison’s Angel instead of the original. You also have Emma Frost’s secondary mutation from that run. Why does Hollywood keep thinking her diamond form is so important? It’s not. It’s all surface shine with not much meaning underneath. Huh, much like these X-men movies.

    Even from his few seconds of screen time Beast is all wrong too. They have him as some scrawny looking kid who injects himself and turns blue. Hank was always huge and muscular like a quarterback, but a science and literary nerd at heart. That was key to his character. One of the few actually in Xavier’s first class and they can’t even get him right.

    Of course the trouble is the studio doesn’t care about the material. It doesn’t care about getting characters right. All they care about are trademarked superhero names. They’re not characters anymore. They’re trademarks. They’re buzzwords. Hollow shells devoid of what made them what they were.

    Oh, hell, they even got Azazel. I see him, but I still can’t believe they’re taking one of the worst X-men runs in a decade and putting it into this film!

    Plus they’re trying to shoehorn it into the first two films. Either reboot the damn series from the ground up or continue the series continuity. Instead this is a half-assed reboot sequel. It’s like Singer’s Sueprman Returns all over again. They can’t decided if they’re starting over or dragging the old movie continuity. Meanwhile they toss the characters out the window trying to have it both ways.

  3. Oh and I know Batman Begins used different bits of the comic from different eras all into a year one scenario. Yet that was all around one character. This is a team series and they didn’t even get the right characters on it.

    Again, trademark thinking is being used instead of treating them as actual characters. It’s a movie run more by a marketing staff than by writers who actually know the characters. Heck, Goldman’s husband is a huge comic nerd. I’d expect better from them.

  4. If the movie is trying to be all historical and realistic

    You probably could have stopped right there. It isn’t.

  5. Funny that they used “The Story Begins” as a tag line, because I didn’t see any indication of the trailer trying to convey what the movie’s actual storyline IS beyond ‘mutants doing action-y stuff during the Cuban missile crisis.’

  6. Apart from finding Xenos’ rage an added entertainment bonus, the trailer looks great.
    X-men solve the missile crisis. Cool. And everything looks like it fits in to the film franchise’s history.
    It probably doesn’t look too 60s yet because stately homes and police uniforms are fairly timeless.

    And for anyone complaining about getting characters wrong, this is part of the same series of films that made Wolverine from a short, hairy-shouldered bruiser to the tall, muscular and good-looking Hugh Jackman. Some deviations from the source do work

  7. While I was only a kid in the 60s (age 6 – 16), I have no significant problem with the look of the piece. If they made it look like a film shot in the early 60s, say by using the Tech IB stock used in films like Spartacus (hard to do as Kodak no longer makes it), I suspect people would complain about its looking “dated”.
    Minor quibble: the TV set is more 50s than 60s.

  8. If you want to pick nits, if the story takes place in 1962, the aircraft would actually have been a modified A-12, not the later, derivative SR-71.

    And as someone who spent years working on the aircraft, there are plenty of things Marvel took liberties with from Day 1 in the comics.

    But so did the recent video game “Call of Duty: Black Ops.” For example, there’s no way in hell an SR-71 would take off from Beale AFB in California to fly a sortie in Southeast Asia. That’s why we had our SR-71 detachment on the island of Okinawa, Japan: http://open.salon.com/blog/r_maheras/2011/01/21/when_the_sr-71_blackbird_ruled_the_skies

    That said, it’s a cool aircraft, and it looks absolutely great in the trailer!

    I’m sure that if there were really X-Men in 1962, and it was necessary for national security purposes, Lockheed Skunkworks guru Kelly Johnson would have modified the A-12 to do whatever the X-men wanted (within the laws of physics, of course).

    And Rich alludes to the reality of the situation: It’s only a movie.

  9. I mean, Kevin Bacon’s sideburns alone wouldn’t have been possible in ’62. So yeah, obviously this is a pastiche of “the ’60s”, rather than the actual 1960s.

  10. “Minor quibble: the TV set is more 50s than 60s.”

    Well, maybe they had an “old” tv set.

    That’s my minor quibble with period pieces. If the film is set in 1936 — like THE SHADOW — then most of the vehicles are from 1936. The average citizen living in the height of the Depression drove old or used cars. Yet it’s difficult to find a car from 1935 in that film.

  11. “The average citizen living in the height of the Depression drove old or used cars. Yet it’s difficult to find a car from 1935 in that film.”

    Peter Bogdanovich points that out in his commentary track for his 1930s-set “Paper Moon.” He had the movie’s poor country people driving wrecks from the ’20s. Because they weren’t driving new cars during the Depression.

    As for the look of the X-movie: It will largely be seen by people born after the ’60s ended, and they aren’t likely to gripe that the look isn’t accurate.

  12. “See. I nitpick the blackbird as a sign of a major problem with this film.”

    It’s a film where a man with a bowl on his head is stopping a nuclear missile by waving his hand and you fixated on the plane?

  13. “The original X-Men: First Class comic was written by Jeff Parker, but it hasn’t been explained how much of an influence it had on filmmakers.’

    Here’s a quote from an interview yesterday’s LA Times’Herocomplex:

    http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/02/10/x-men-first-class-bryan-singer-talks-about-azazel-havok-and-mystique/

    “That’s one reason we wanted to call the film ‘First Class’ even though it isn’t the [Jeff Parker-penned story arc called] ‘First Class’ in the comics as fans know it. You couldn’t really tell that story without going even earlier and explaining how they got there and how it came to be. I liked the title, so we kept it, but this is a prelude in a way that will eventually lead to the [scenarios] that fit in more clearly with the ‘First Class’ comics and situations.””

  14. I’ve read a lot of material about the 1960s and I can assure you there were no super-powered mutants in the 1960s. This film is completely idiotic.

  15. “This film is completely idiotic.”
    Hah! No… it’s a film that disregards the source material. That doesn’t make it a bad FILM, just not the over-referenced and insular film many comic readers/fans wanted.

    They’ve made a patchwork of ideas here. Some are interesting (Eric lifting a nuclear submarine while floating in an SR71-like Blackbird). Some may not make any sense (setting the First Class in 1962 when that would make it 40 years since then for the present group of Xavier’s class).

    So it’s wonky and weird.
    Doesn’t stop the Coen Brothers…
    It could still be a good FILM.

  16. I think I’m missing something because this just doesn’t look that good (or fun or exciting or whatever) to me. I have never been an X-Men fan.

    I’ve never been a Thor fan, either, but I can’t wait for that movie. The trailers look fantastic. Go figger…

  17. “See, the SR 71 black bird the X-men had was a decommissioned and modifed one in the 90s. Meanwhile the USAF didn’t have the REAL blackbird until years after the missile crisis. Plus the SR 71 doesn’t fly that way!!”

    The X-Men have had a Blackbird since 1977, so while that isn’t exactly 1962, it’s not the 90s, either. And while it doesn’t fit the real plane, the comics Blackbird has always had VTOL, so maybe it has enough thrust to hover?

  18. I love it when fanboys work themselves up when things aren’t EXACTLY like they are from/in the comics. You guys are your own worst enemies!!! LOL

    I was just happy to see the inclusion of the original Blackbird plane, something I was expecting to see in the original X-Men film looong ago.

    I wonder if the film will include the storyline of Mystique getting knocked up (the child being Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler), since his daddy Azaxel is on the team also….?

  19. >> The X-Men have had a Blackbird since 1977, so while that isn’t exactly 1962, it’s not the 90s, either.>>

    The SR-71 dates to 1964, so they’re not far off. And as noted, one could say it’s simply a modified prototype A-12.

    >> And while it doesn’t fit the real plane, the comics Blackbird has always had VTOL, so maybe it has enough thrust to hover? >>

    It’s got Magneto aboard, doesn’t it? If so, it can not only hover, it can stand up on its hind fins and go walkies.

    kdb

  20. “Hey peeps see this for how Mad Men captures the Mid Century Vibe:”

    I can vouch that the Kodak Carousel (for slowing slides) used in “Mad Men” was authentic. Or a perfect replica. My family had one when I was growing up.

  21. Although Kurt said it marvelously, I’d like to share my piece.

    Although I’m an aviation buff, I’m not going to go all nutters about the Blackbird’s appearance here. Why? Because the movie also features a blue furry person, a woman who can turn into diamonds and a guy who can control metal with his mind.

    It’s superhero fiction, folks. don’t get hung up on the small details.

    Oh, Mr. Maheras? I’m incredibly jealous. I saw an SR-71 once, during a layover at Dulles Airport. They’d all been decommissioned, and this one was heading to the Smithsonian. As we taxied to the runway, it was just SITTING THERE, for everyone to see. It was incredible.

  22. For eight years, I got a thrill every single time I watched one take off.

    Every single time.

    It never got old.

  23. Mad Men has had exquisite taste so far in capturing the early-’60s style (and on a budget!); one can’t help but think that as the series moves forward in time the fashions have to get tackier, though.

    With First Class it’s a little trickier, though. Mad Men has a baseline of realism so if the fashion is authentic, lapses in taste can be glossed over or used for comic effect. If First Class does it, they hazard falling into camp territory, ala Austin Powers. They’ve got a finer line to walk.

  24. I don’t know the source material, so can understand people getting upset, but I saw the film yesterday and thought it was great.

    I don’t care if the Blackbird is an anachronism. It probably wasn’t also invented by a mutant. Maybe the Lockheed SR71A was based on this Blackbird, eh? Who really cares.