By Monique
I recently received the cover to the latest Entertainment Weekly issue, which features tons of first look images. The cover features Dark Phoenix, a film I’m not looking forward to at all.
I have a big gripe with the all of the X-Men films, especially the new crop of X-Men films, which go through the trouble of painstakingly replicating certain time periods, but neglect the background that influences the X-Men comic books–the Civil Rights Movement. Granted, X-Men has always shown racial and cultural animus in the country through the gaze of white characters, but the X-Men comics have seemed to have a much more political, and sometimes radical, bent that doesn’t ever come through in the movies. It’s frustrating. Dark Phoenix seems to sum up all of my aggravations with the X-Men franchise by deciding that it’s Jean Grey‘s story we need to hear about. Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) has never been that compelling as a character, and to base an entire film around her (especially with bad special effects, as shown in the first look images) is mind-boggling to me.
Also mind-boggling is that young Storm (Alexandra Shipp)–the goddess of weather– is not acting like Storm at all in this film.
As Kid Fury wrote so poignantly on Twitter:
Here is Storm (in next year's X-Men) holding an umbrella in the rain.
Storm.
Holding an umbrella.
In a short ombre wig. pic.twitter.com/gU7kdexCJP
— kid fury (@KidFury) December 9, 2017
Why? Why has Storm been disrespected so hardcore in this franchise? Why have all of the black characters been so disrespected in these reboots? The main reason I’ve never seen it for the X-Men: First Class reboot series is because in First Class, Darwin–a character who can adapt to anything–uncharacteristically dies. He dies as the first and only black man in the entire film. I immediately checked out and never sought to seek out the series again (except when I went to a party and saw X-Men: Apocalypse, but not on my own dime).
The only image I like from this set of Dark Phoenix images is Jessica Chastain in an icy blonde look. I don’t know who she is, but I think she looks really cool. I just wished she looked really cool like this in another movie.
In short, boo to you, Dark Phoenix. I am not watching you.
There are some films and TV series I would love to see though. Entertainment Weekly has first looks of lavish costume drama Mary, Queen of Scots, starring Margot Robbie and Saoirse Ronan, and of Antonio Banderas as Pablo Picasso in the second season of National Geographic’s Genius.
Let’s not forget that Aquaman is coming; this first look of Jason Momoa gives us a very good look at a serious Arthur Curry.
Also, The Incredibles 2 was featured in this issue. This might be an unpopular opinion, but I’ve grown tired of Pixar sequels, so much so that I can’t muster the hype to get excited about this, and I was one of the people who yelled at Pixar for years to make a sequel. At this point, I’d rather Pixar just stick to making original films like Coco, which have the potential to make a much bigger impact culturally and socio-politically. But at the same time, I do want to know what Pixar’s First Family are going to do this go-round.
Also, I have to address the elephant in the room–Altered Carbon. I’ve talked about so many projects that feature white people as Asian people in the past two years, that I’m frankly surprised Altered Carbon didn’t decide to go against the grain and, I don’t know, be respectful. Takeshi Kovacs is a biracial Japanese-Eastern European character; it could have been cool to actually hire a biracial actor for this role instead of Joel Kinnaman. Also, how many times are we going to see neon and big cities in a glossy sci-fi film? ENOUGH.
There’s a ton more first look images at Entertainment Weekly—check them out!
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Julian 