If what fans saw in the long-awaited Dark Phoenix trailer seemed awfully familiar, it's because it was eerily reminiscent of X-Men: The Last Stand. Writer-director Simon Kinberg is taking his second stab at adapting The Dark Phoenix Saga for the big screen after previously writing Brett Ratner's The Last Stand with Zak Penn, which was a financial success but failed to impress fans or do justice to the source material. Since then, Kinberg penned X-Men: Apocalypse, where he re-introduced younger versions of the original X-Men and set up Jean Grey's (Sophie Turner) latent psychic powers that will transform her into the Dark Phoenix.
Dark Phoenix has been a gigantic question mark since its inception. Originally scheduled for release in November 2018, it was pushed back to February 14, 2019, to accommodate reshoots that are expected to fix issues with the third act and ending. Then, just two days after the first trailer was finally released to eager fans, Fox pushed Dark Phoenix's release date back a second time to June 7, 2019. This seems like a vote of confidence from the studio; it effectively makes Dark Phoenix a summer tentpole film. But while there are high hopes that Dark Phoenix will finally deliver a worthy movie version of one of the most beloved X-Men comic stories, it also feels like a lame duck release. With the rights to X-Men sold to Disney, Marvel Studios will soon control and probably reboot X-Men entirely to incorporate the mutants into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Dark Phoenix is very likely the end of this cast and the overall vision of the franchise that has endured since the original X-Men in 2000.
Related: Dark Phoenix Trailer Breakdown
Putting aside the business side of the X-Men and its MCU future, there's still the upcoming movie itself, and judging from the trailer, Dark Phoenix's story beats seem to hew very closely to X-Men: The Last Stand, the least popular of the original X-Men trilogy and one of the worst entries in the overall saga. There are so many similarities that fans have even edited the Dark Phoenix trailer with The Last Stand's footage. Let's take a close look at whether Simon Kinberg is making the same mistakes all over again or if the filmmaker is actually setting the Phoenix up to rise from the ashes of X-Men 3:
- This Page: The Similarities Between Dark Phoenix And The Last Stand
- Page 2: Dark Phoenix Can Improve Upon X-Men 3
All The Similarities Between Dark Phoenix And X-Men: The Last Stand
Since it's the same filmmaker behind both, perhaps similarities between Dark Phoenix and X-Men: The Last Stand are unavoidable. Both are adaptations of The Dark Phoenix Saga, though X-Men 3 split its screen time by also adapting Joss Whedon's Gifted comics story about a mutant cure, whereas Dark Phoenix is all about Jean Grey's fall from grace. However, this time, there is a cosmic element drawn from the comics. The X-Men travel to outer space where Jean encounters a power that changes her and unleashes the Phoenix Force within her (the same level of power that helped destroy Apocalypse). Still, despite veering into the cosmic, the action in Dark Phoenix is decidedly Earthbound like The Last Stand's, rather than the comics' intergalactic conflict with the Shi'ar Empire.
X-Men: The Last Stand and Dark Phoenix both begin with the mutants in a better place than the ending of the previous films. In X-Men 3, mutants enjoyed political protection thanks to a mutant-friendly U.S. President and the Beast/Hank McCoy (Kelsey Grammer) serving as Secretary of Mutant Affairs. Dark Phoenix will reportedly start with the X-Men riding high as national heroes after saving the world from Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) a decade prior. However, the good times don't last and Jean Grey's transformation into the Dark Phoenix soon becomes a threat to the entire planet.
Once more, Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) comes under fire for how he has kept Jean's potentially world-breaking power subdued since her childhood, just like when Famke Janssen's Jean met Patrick Stewart's Professor X. In both instances, Xavier is resented for his efforts. In Dark Phoenix, members of the X-Men, notably Beast (Nicholas Hoult) take the Professor to task and even join Magneto's (Michael Fassbender) new Brotherhood of Mutants, along with Storm (Alexandra Shipp). In The Last Stand, Ian McKellan's Magneto also assembles a new Brotherhood and he takes advantage of Jean's growing insanity to recruit the power of the Phoenix for his final war with humans.
Related: Why Dark Phoenix Dropped 'X-Men' From Its Title
Both films feature major character deaths involving visiting Jean's childhood home. In The Last Stand, Jean murders Professor X in her house, and this is after she kills Cyclops (James Marsden) offscreen at Alkali Lake. Dark Phoenix's trailer shows a funeral scene that also teases a major death, though Charles Xavier mourns at the gravesite so he's not the victim this time. Rather, clues point to Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) as the most likely doomed mutant who visits Jean's house (in contrast, Rebecca Romijn's Mystique is "cured" and abandoned by Magneto in X-Men 3.) However, since Jean dies in the comics and in The Last Stand, history may repeat itself and Dark Phoenix could also conclude with her demise.
The Big Differences Between Dark Phoneix & The Last Stand
Despite all of the repetition, Dark Phoenix is still unlike X-Men: The Last Stand in some key ways, such as new comics-accurate costumes for the X-Men. However, the most notable divergence is Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is not in Dark Phoenix. In X-Men 3, Logan was the main character trying to save Jean and he eventually sacrificed her to save the world. In fact, Jean's ordeal was seen through Logan's eyes as the hero trying to save the love of his life before being forced to make the tragic choice.
Without Wolverine in the film, Cyclops (Tye Sheridan) takes his place as Jean's love interest, as he is in the comics. Cyclops had a perfunctory role in X-Men: The Last Stand; the team leader was ordered to be killed off by Fox because James Marsden followed director Bryan Singer to Warner Bros. to make Superman Returns. Dark Phoenix's Scott Summers plays a central role and he apparently survives the film. According to Kinberg, Scott Summers' love story with Jean is fittingly the heart of Dark Phoenix.
In Dark Phoenix, Magneto has set up a mutant refuge on the island of Genosha, where he is visited by Jean. It's not clear if Jean joins Magneto's new Brotherhood but the trailer does show that, unlike Magneto's effusive and seductive praise of the Dark Phoenix in X-Men 3, Michael Fassbender's Magneto labels Jean as "evil."
Related: What We Know About Jessica Chastain And Dark Phoenix's Real Villains
Finally, the biggest and possibly most important difference between the two films is Dark Phoenix has aliens. The X-Men travel to outer space at the start of the film and Jean is imbued with some kind of cosmic power that turns her into the Phoenix. However, the true villain of the film is a mysterious alien shapeshifter (who could be a Skrull) played by Jessica Chastain. Kinberg stated that Chastain's Big Bad is a mix of a few different comic book characters, but she definitely manipulates Jean for her own nefarious ends.
Page 2 of 2: Dark Phoenix Can Improve Upon X-Men 3
Why Dark Phoenix Is Embracing the Movies, Not The Comics
Dark Phoenix looks like a continuation of the "grounded" tone of all of the X-Men films, but the franchise has recently incorporated more comic book elements. X-Men: Days of Future Past (which Simon Kinberg also wrote) introduced time travel and apocalyptic sci-fi before rebooting the timeline so that The Last Stand never happened (as evidenced by Wolverine finding Cyclops and Jean both alive when he woke up in the new timeline). X-Men: Apocalypse was an ode to the classic X-Men animated series, although fans bemoaned the overblown superhero action that came at the expense of properly establishing the characters. Still, the franchise was becoming more and more like the comics, though the movies remain tied to the aesthetics Bryan Singer established almost two decades ago.
When Dark Phoenix mounted production in mid-2017, the filmmakers didn't know Disney would purchase the rights to Fox's properties a year later and that this would become the last film of this version of the X-Men. Originally, Dark Phoenix was just going to be the latest continuation of the series; instead, it's now being advertised as the end of this incarnation of the franchise. However, while Kinberg was building upon the same world Singer created, he was also looking to blaze some new ground for the X-Men and this includes incorporating outer space and aliens, which have been staples of the comics, into the movies' mythos. Still, Dark Phoenix was always intended to look and feel like all of the X-Men movies have before.
Related: Why Dark Phoenix Isn't Being Made Into An MCU Film
Ultimately, by retaining the look and story beats resembling X-Men: The Last Stand, Dark Phoenix already feels unimaginative. It won't be a cosmos-spanning epic like The Dark Phoenix Saga in the comics, and it won't deliver what longtime X-Men fans want to see: a fully Phoenix-powered Jean Grey soaring into the stars, destroying a planet like in the comic, and be placed on intergalactic trial for committing genocide. This is an extra letdown in light of Avengers: Infinity War's truly universal stakes; that film took the superheroes to the planet Titan to battle Thanos and showed Thor re-ignite the heart of a star. Infinity War proved audiences will embrace even the most fantastic comic book concepts in superhero movies. Fans who long to see the X-Men have the same type of movie adventures as they have in the comics will have to wait for when the mutants join the MCU. Despite the addition of aliens and outer space elements, Dark Phoenix still looks too much like a retread of The Last Stand, only with a few divergences.
Can Dark Phoenix Improve On The Last Stand Despite Similarities?
X-Men: The Last Stand is a poor film with a reputation to match, so it can cynically be said there's nowhere for Dark Phoenix to go but up. Even though "better than X-Men 3" is a low bar to clear, a great deal is riding on first-time director Kinberg's skills and the talents of Sophie Turner to dramatically carry the film as a tormented Jean Grey. Still, the writer-director has some tricks up his sleeve poised to hopefully elevate Dark Phoenix into a worthy film - and fans hope he does indeed succeed.
Kinberg said he's crafting a "more intense... more real and grounded" X-Men movie that would be "a battle for Jean Grey's soul." For her part, Turner has promised Dark Phoenix is will "revolutionize" the superhero genre". The Game of Thrones actress studied multiple personality disorder and schizophrenia to properly portray Jean's fracturing mental and emotional states, which will require much more from her than what Famke Janssen was reduced to in The Last Stand. A real coup was casting Jessica Chastain as the unnamed extraterrestrial villain manipulating Jean. Considering she has turned down other comic book movies in the past due to a lack of focus on female characters, the Oscar-nominated Chastain clearly found Dark Phoenix to be worthwhile enough to sign on.
Related: How Old The X-Men Are Supposed To Be In Dark Phoenix
The prospect of a pivotal death is intriguing, especially if it is Mystique - who arguably supplanted Wolverine as the central character of the current saga - who perishes. Jennifer Lawrence has had a spotty interest in the X-Men franchise since becoming one of Hollywood's most sought-after leading ladies, so it will be fascinating to learn what about Dark Phoenix lured Lawrence into donning the blue paint once more and declaring it her "best X-Men experience". In addition, Hans Zimmer is returning to the superhero movie genre to score Dark Phoenix, which is an exciting prospect.
Finally, there's the weight Dark Phoenix now carries as the end of the franchise. The Last Stand was the end of the prior X-Men trilogy, but Dark Phoenix's significance dwarfs that. No longer 'just another X-Men movie', Dark Phoenix bears the added pressure of being a conclusion to a series that has spanned 19 years and 7 core X-Men films as well as multiple spinoffs. After all, the X-Men movies began with Charles Xavier declaring that he's "looking for hope". Fans indeed cling to the hope that Dark Phoenix delivers the proper last stand the X-Men franchise deserves.
Next: X-Men: Dark Phoenix: Every Update You Need To Know
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