Wednesday, March 5, 2008

X-men Theatre

The cancellation of New X-men and the announcement of Young X-men debuting in April has had me rereading the New X-men. As I'm going through my X-men immersion and gathering my thoughts on the franchises past and future, I have found a couple of X-men videos that slipped totally under my radar, until now.  


I suggest grabbing a bowl of pop corn and dimming the lights a little, for you are now, in my youtube theatre. First things first, the previews. The future of animated X-men. 


Wow! What an awesome trailer. The story and concept seem to be at the forefront of this story.  Which is a sign of good things. "Your son's a mutant" and the music blares.  The music is perfect and gives the video an unprecedented cool factor. I'm really looking forward to this cartoon. I assume it is coming out around the same time as Wolverine: Origins. So I await anxiously.  Before our feature presentation, may I remind everyone that this saturday the new Spectacular Spiderman show debuts.
  


My knowledge of the history of the X-men comes primarily from card collecting in the 90's and the X-men cartoon of that same age. I thought it was the X-men's only appearance on the small screen since the 60's but I was wrong there was a pilot in 1989. The title is pure genius "Pryde of the X-men"  so I submit it to you for your viewing pleasure.



Pros: 
  1. The theme song is fun. "magneto's hordes are on the way to pillage, burn, and plunder" never a truer lyric sung.  
  2. The introduction of the X-men showcasing their powers is cool. I love Colossus being all Indiana Jonesy
  3. I love Colossus's voice.
  4. Army men calling mutants "muties" filled with hate and fear. It seems very mature to me for a cartoon.   
  5. The X-men go into space very matter of factly.
  6. The lack of X's. In the X-men comics now the costume designs and locales of the X-men are just covered in X's. These mutants don't have shred of X on them i think it's pretty refreshing and lets everyone kind of stand out. 
Cons:
  1. The story is weak. " protect the mutant circuit" WTF! 
  2. The army guys voices are horrible.
  3. Kitty Pryde's voice makes my ears bleed and she comes off as a total nitwit.
  4. Wolverine is not scottish or irish or whatever. He is canadian. So his voice casting is also unbearable.
  5. Toad's voice in unbearable as well.
  6. The fight at the end is weak. With the gauntlet of the Brotherhood picking off the X-men one by one as they fight the X-men. 
  7. Nightcrawler comes off as a pervert at the end, and Colossus comes off a little gay. 
  8. Dazzler is on the team! There's no Jean Grey and they put Dazzler on the team, seriously.
All in all, I'm happy. This version of the X-men didn't get picked up. I hope Wolverine and the X-men does not meet a similar fate. 

5 comments:

Avalon's Willow said...

I was going to complely ignore the videos, because ugh, stupid theme song, the music is another ugh, the voice actors - those have to be stand in's.

Then you said there was Dazzler. So I watched for her intro.

Your dislike of the Dazzler, however? It puts you on naughty list ;p

Stephen said...

I'm on the naughty list right behind Dazzler and Stryfe

Nick said...

Domino in animated form..excellent.

Michael Ironside as Trask, nice.

Honestly though, is there any voice role that isn't made better by Ironside's voice. It's Sam f'in Fisher man!

Spider-Man tailer...eh, it looks pretty bad...I mean the MTV version looked better and you saw how long that version lasted.

X-Men trailers....wow...cheese is the word, but I was a child of
the 80s and dug Voltron a bit, so I can't judge.

Anonymous said...

I just hope the story can save the art of Wolverine and the X-Men. Because they failed what looks like an attempt to duplicate the Evolution style.

And BAHAHAHAHAHA! Nostalgia for the rest. I loved how terrible Pryde of the X-Men was and the Stan Lee voice over.

Ryan said...

I loved Pryde of the X-Men! I really wish they had rolled forward with the series, as it is quite possibly the most hilarious thing I've ver watched in my life.

As for the new spectacular spider-man, I have to say, I hate the way they're drawing spider-man (wtf is with those eyes?), but I'll probably watch just to see if it's any good.