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May 26, 2005 worldwide: the third coming of the X-Men. A new director and lots of new (or old depending on how you look at it) characters.

Although the release is quit a way off, you can still check out the very cool “announcement teaser”. There are also a number of photos of the cast online at the official movie site (designed in crap-o-vision Flash Animation) or you can check out the exact same photos (minus colossus for some reason) at the official marvel site in the media section (not really designed at all, but at least there’s no flash to bother with). Or you can check out high resolution versions at superherohype.com

The afore mentioned photos are rather lame since they are just profiles of the cast from the neck up. You can’t really check out their costumes. countingdown.com has what appears to be concept art and a few other images as well, and a metal Colossus can be found at canmag.com.

The Plot

According to imdb.com:When a cure is found to treat mutations, lines are drawn amongst the X-Men, led by Professor Charles Xavier (Stewart), and the Brotherhood, a band of powerful mutants organized under Xavier’s former ally, Magneto (McKellen).

The cast and crew

Director: Brett Ratner.
X-3 will be under the direction of a new mind, Brett Ratner. This guy’s resume includes such hits as Rush Hour, Prison Break… um… Rush Hour 2… and uh, Madonna: The Video Collection 93:99. Ouch. We could be in for a very bumpy ride.
Writers: Zak Penn and Simon Kinberg
Well, even if the director isn’t the greatest choice, the writers are good, right? right?? Uh no, wrong. ZAk Penn has given us Inspector Gadget, Behind Enemy Lines, Elektra and the Fantastic Four… oh, and X-Men 2: Mutants United. Kinberg has written such fine classic material as xXx: State of the Union. I realize that I should possibly cut Penn some slack since he did write X-2, but I wasn’t thrilled with the flick to begin with… although he wasn’t stupid enough to write the line “What happens to a toad when it’s struck by lightening? The same thing as everything else!” (so dramatic), so that gives me plus points automatically.
Ashley Hartman
IMDB lists Ashley Hartman as playing the part of Emma Frost. While introducing Emma Frost might seem like a bad idea since she didn’t come along until later, I have decided that continuity has gone out the window for all of the X-Men movies and you just have to take them for being alternate stories with bits of the comics mixed in. Not that cool, but whatever… it’s Hollywood. By the way, Hartman was (according to IMDB) contestant #32 on American Idol and had a role on the OC. She was also in Maxim and has a creepy doppleganger at Rutgers (a state university in New Jersey).

I’m not entirely sure what to think of this movie myself just yet. The trailer is awesome, and beast looks fairly cool. Angel looks amazing and I’m glad to see the Phoenix Saga will be explored… albeit loosely. After all they’re putting Moira MacTaggart in the show, but from what I can tell, no Banshee. Juggernaut will make his debut, but no Black Tom Cassady. I’m fairly certain that this photo from the trailer is of Cassady Keep, which would be in keeping with the original story line. If you’re going to do a Pheonix Saga story, why bother putting some of the starring cast from the comic in, but not all? And why bother mucking with the overall story? I really enjoyed the comic version and am afraid to see it translated on the big screen.
Of course, the cast of characters is dependent on IMDB being correct, which is up in the air as far as I’m concerned.

Something else that worries me: a massive amount of new mutants. IMDB has a list of the entire cast and crew and it seems like a bit of an overload on characters. I don’t want this to turn in to the original Batman movies, attempting to introduce as many characters as possible. Then again, X-Men has always relied on a large group of mutants, so we’ll just have to wait and see what the outcome will be.

It will also be very interesting to see how the write Nightcrawler off since Alan Cumming won’t return for another film.

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