Is There a X-Men Reboot in the Works? Part 2: Has Marvel Been Planning One All Along?

     Jumping on what I said earlier in the previous post, X-Men: Apocalypse is coming and it seems that director Bryan Singer and Marvel are planning to make this movie the biggest event to happen in the X-Men universe. You get a sense that something is going to happen in Apocalypse that will forever change the franchise forever. Hopefully one of these things could mean a reboot. In the previous post, I gave reasons why this seems likely. The biggest thing that seems plausible that they could be rebooting the franchise is them recasting Storm, Jean Grey, and Cyclops. The recasting seems almost like a passing of the torch from previous characters. What I forgot to add that there could've been possible clues in the recent X-Men movies giving key hints that Marvel has been planning on rebooting the franchise for a while.
     First lets go a bit deeper into the movies. Not the entire X-Men movie franchise, sorry Wolvie fans, but the first two trilogies. You can see that there are two import story arcs. The first one (X-Men, X-2, & X-Men the Last Stand, sets everything up in the events in the universe. The first three films. What is important is what's happening in the second trilogy.
     The second trilogy, First Class, Days of Future's Past, and Apocalypse has a certain theme that correlates between them. That theme is time. First Class is the film that sets what is the beginning of the timeline and the others and what is, setting up the events that happened in the first trilogy. The next two movies pretty much involve Director Bryan Singer channeling the Terminator franchise with Days of Future Past and Apocalypse as both films are about fixing disastrous futures set by what happens in the current timeline. Days involves time traveling into the past and Singer has stated that it will borrow some elements from the Age of Apocalypse's storyline meaning that the X-Men will be trying to prevent the Apocalypse timeline in some way. Of course one of the ways Apocalypse could end is there could be something that will trigger a big reset of everything. This relaunch could do away with everything that has happened in the two trilogies and start a new universe which will be our reboot.

     I could be reading a bit too much into things, but this wouldn't surprise me a bit. Marvel has been all about looking at the big picture of things. Making plans around movies and shaping them up for the next big thing to happen. The Avengers and the possible events that are happening in that movie universe leading to the Infinity Wars are proof of that. Again, in the last post, the new actors, the Deadpool conection to the universe, and whatever happens in Apocalypse could be making things more obvious. It would be actually impressive if Marvel had this in mind when they decided to do this with First Class.

Do you think that Marvel is considering a X-Men reboot or they should be considering one? I would love to hear your feedback.

Is There a X-Men Reboot in the Works? Part 1: Why There Should Be One

     Tuesday we were treated to possible actors who could play Jean Grey and Cyclops (Scott Summers) for X-Men: Apocalypse film coming out May 2016. Actresses that might play Jean Grey include Chloe Mortez and Elle Fanning while the actors playing Cyclops are mostly unknowns like Ben Hardy and Charlie Rowe. It was announced a while ago that Storm, Jean Grey, and Cyclops would be recast for Apocalypse so it's good to finally see some potential faces and see who could be right for the role. Apocalypse seems like it will be the biggest X-Men film yet. It will be no doubt that there will be some big changes after Apocalypse. Could one of these changes be a reboot? There are some signs that this could be possible or some reasons why a reboot should be the next step.

New Actors = New Start
     Let's start with the obvious. We are getting new actors to play Storm, Scott and Jean. New actors playing these character could just be the perfect opportunity to start things over.  Apocalypse could be or it should be a vehicle for a reboot for these actors. We could see how well they can do the roles as well as see what works and what doesn't.

The Time Continuity is Fucked
     One of the biggest set backs of the X-Men film franchise is the time continuity. It's a big mess. You have examples like Charles Xavier being in a wheel chair at the end of First Class and walking in X-Men Origins: Wolverine years later, as well as Emma Frost age in both films. Apocalypse resetting everything into a new reboot of the franchise could be just the thing to make the timeline not as messy, unless the producers and writers decide to ruin the new timeline as well....

Hugh Jackman
     If you are new to the franchise, Mr. Jackman has played Wolverine in the entire franchise. From X-Men in 2000 to Days of Futures Past in 2014 and a few spin-offs, Jackman has played Wolverine for 14 years (Actually 17 because he will reprise the role in the sequel to The Wolverine). I don't know about you but it is time for him to pass the role to somebody else. Jackman himself has went back and forth on whether he would retire from the character and hang his adamantium claws up. Despite on whether he wants to continue to play the role, a recast of Wolverine is inevitable. A reboot would be just the thing to transition the role to another actor.

Marvel Movie Universe!!!™
     The last reason is probably the most obvious money wise. The Marvel Movie Universe has done Marvel some good in the past few years. Connecting already bankable movies like Captain America to other bankable movies like Iron Man, creating a huge comic book all-star movie cast like The Avengers has made their studios billions. Why not X-Men? They are already trying to do connect the X-Men movie franchise to other movies like the upcoming Deadpool movie. A new reboot could be just the perfect opportunity as a new reboot could allow things to be connected perfectly. Especially as stated earlier, the current timeline is jumbled. A new reboot could have things like Deadpool in the X-Men universe make more sense.

Where the f*** is Star Fox Wii U?

     Nintendo did a direct on Wednesday and we were treated to a lot of goodness. Finally we got an announcement that we are getting a Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask remake for the Nintendo 3DS. We got treated at the new DLC pack for Mario Kart 8 including seeing Link in action and the new Hyrule Circuit. We also got to take a look at how Amiibo will work on games like giving Link am new weapon for Hyrule Warriors and giving your Mii all new costumes for Mario Kart. All of these things look promising. We are going to be in for some good gaming for the Spring of next year. Despite all that Nintendo showed us one question stands: Where is the new Star Fox game?
     A while back at E3, Shigeru Miyamoto displayed a demo of what could have been a new Star Fox game. Since then, the game has been slated to appear in 2015, along with other titles. Since the announcement of the new Star Fox game, there has been a ton of excitement from fans and it is for a good reason. It's been a while since we have gotten a Star Fox game. Despite getting a remake of Star Fox 64 on the Nintendo 3DS, we haven't gotten a REAL Star Fox game in eight years with Star Fox: Command for the Nintendo DS in 2006.  We are long overhauled for a new Star Fox game. The series is still in demand.
     The weird thing is that they have been very hush on the game other than stating that they are working on it. We have seen other trailers and demos for the other games that are coming out for 2015 like Yoshi's Wooly World, Splatoon, and Zelda Wii U. Will they ever show us something other than that test demo that we saw at E3 this year?  There are a few possibilities as to why they are keeping things underwraps. The first one is that they are probably going to feature a new mechanic to that will offer something different to the series giving it new life. Whatever they are experimenting on, they would have to be cautious as it won't be something that drifts away from what made us love the series (I'm looking at you Star Fox Adventures...)
     It seems like if we are ever going to see something, we will get a chance to at least see a teaser of a new Star Fox game next year around E3. While that seem like it would be the ideal spot to announce something, it will be problematic if they give us something in the Summer of 2015 as it will be hard to build up enough hype to get everyone to buy it in the Holiday 2015 season as the game would seem a bit rushed. Hopefully whatever they are doing with Star Fox Wii U Nintendo, please don't keep us waiting TOO long...

7 REALLY Bad Horror Films

     I am a fan of horror movies. I simply love them. When you usually think of horror, you think of movies like Scream, or Halloween, or A Nightmare on Elm Street. These are all great examples. Sadly not all horror movies are great. Here's a list to prove that.

House of the Dead
     If it isn't hearing Uwe Boll directed is enough to make you not watch it, it is everything else. The acting, the script, editing, everything. As well as a really bad horror film, HotD is also a video game movie, which most are notoriously bad in their own right.  Fun fact, the first time I had to watch this, it took me a world record five minutes to watch it before changing the channel. The second time was a strength of endurance. I was really hyped to see it in theaters and thankfully I didn't go see it when it came out.

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare
     One of the bad things that happened with the sequels of some of the greatest horror movie franchises of the 80s and 70s was that some of the plots often venture into crazy WTFness of explanation. Case in point, evil dream demons that at the point of his death, granted Freddy the power to haunt the children of Elm Street in their dreams and killed them. This and the crappy 3D glasses tie-in didn't make this movie very good. It also didn't help that over the run of the original franchise, Freddy Kruger had devolved to your literal worse nightmare into a really charred Looney Tunes character. New Nightmare was redeemable though.

See No Evil
     This not only marked the debut of WWE Films, but it marked the debut of WWE wrestler, Kane, in a film. Wrestlers don't make good actors period. From Hulk Hogan, to Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, to  John Cena. They must have been hit hard in the head too many times with the chair to think acting is a good idea. See No Evil did too many of the slasher film cliches. Teens being hunted and killed by huge brawny serial killer, gore-porn, and in the case of the Kane's character, Jacob Goodnight, the serial killer with mother issues, ala Jason Voorhees and Norman Bates. It tried to borrow most of the stuff from other horror movies and it ended up being a jumbled mess.

The Amityville Horror (Remake)
     Most remakes are bad, and Amityville Horror is one of  them. With the original, what worked was the fact that it did the less was more method in horror until the end where things really got fucked up and the house was bleeding. The remake didn't. The remake is a simple case of when overuse of CGI ruins everything. CGI is cool, but too much of it is a bad thing. It went the opposite of scary and went in the direction of outright ridiculousness by doing what most horror movies did with that era, add in sort-of-creepy-not-really CGI, mostly with the scenes with the supposedly creepy ghost girl. Thank goodness for the shirtless Ryan Reynolds though.

Jaws 3
     The thing that made the first Jaws movie scary was that you never got to see much of the shark. This along with the technical difficulties of the mechanical shark led to a great move. This is a technique that works great in horror as it leaves you, the audience to imagine what happens. Jaws 3 decides to sorta ditch this technique and deciding to cash on the franchise as well as the 3D trend too was what made this bad. The 3D scene with the shark moving towards the camera just came off as hilarious instead of scary.

The Ring 2
     I am a big fan of both The Ring, as well as the original Ringu. There are a few parts of Ring 2 that are scary, but the reason Ring 2 is on this list is due to the fact it's not like its first film. The reason behind this is due to how the sequel was made. Instead of the first film which was an American adaptation of a Japanese horror film, Ring 2 was completely 100% American made, an original script. Taking out the key components that we loved from the first film, Ring 2 just comes off as generic and lifeless.

Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2
     Even though some won't agree, The Blair Witch Project was scary. Again, going back to what I said with Jaws, the technique of leaving the audience to imagine the fear is a very powerful thing and that is what Blair Witch did. You had to imagine the fear of the witch hunting and stalking the three college students in the haunted forest, picking and killing them off one by one. The first film was a hit, being the most profitable film ever until the release of a film that drew a lot from it, Paranormal Activity. To quickly cash in on the success of The Blair Witch, a sequel was made and went a different, route, to Hell. Book of Shadows decided to ditch the formula from the first film and try to go the route of traditional horror films. It didn't work. It ended almost having little to do with the original film and was almost a parody of it. The moral of the story is, let's not stray away from the winning formula.