5 Reasons Why X Men: The Last Stand is Better Than X-Men: First Class

5. Wolverine

Although Wolverine was never my favorite character, Hugh Jackman€™s portrayal of Wolverine was kind of the reason the movies were the success they were. And because of X Men€™s success as a movie, one of the first modern superhero films, films like The Avengers and The Dark Knight had the opportunity to live on screen. So I guess you could make the argument that Hugh Jackman, is in part, responsible for a lot of cinema as we know it today, particularly the modern superhero film. Wolverine is also the singular best thing about all the films, so the fact that he was the main character in The Last Stand (no matter how terrible you may think it is) almost automatically makes it better than First Class, where he appeared, but only in a small cameo role (probably the best scene in the movie) which reminded us how much we really missed him, and in turn, how much we missed the original trilogy. Despite all this, X Men Origins: Wolverine was terrible. Luckily for The Last Stand, the film only had to take the two previous films (the two best X Men films) into consideration in terms of continuity and characters. First Class had the misfortune of coming after X-Men€™s worst film (Wolverine) and had to deal with all the new continuity and characters that film introduced and ruined if it wanted to be considered part of the original trilogy€™s canon. But it didn€™t. It mostly ignored everything from Wolverine, and included an older Emma Frost appearing in the 60€™s, though many decades later in Wolverine she was a teenager. It also ignored the fact that Professor X is seen walking and bald in Wolverine, but in X Men First Class, he is in a wheelchair and has hair at the end. Now, I don€™t really care that First Class ignored Wolverine (it was probably right to do so and I wish Gambit could be given a completely clean slate) but it probably should have also ignored the other films as well. This film just made the whole X Men film saga nonsensical as a whole, and kind of, arguably, a joke in the end. A joke the inclusion of Days of Future Past could very well clean up, however I worry with the inclusion of time travel and all the complications this usually brings, that the storyline could potentially became even more nonsensical to the point where the next X Men film will have to be a dreaded reboot. And if I still haven€™t convinced you (and let€™s face it, I probably haven€™t) then rewatch the scene in which Jennifer Lawrence€™s Mystique names all the X Men €œYou should be Professor X and you should be Magneto€ without cringing. Truly, truly terrible. Why they would just start calling themselves those names because Jennifer Lawrence told them to is just laughable. On a plus, at least the costumes in First Class were better.
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I am a recent Screenwriting for Film and Television graduate from the UK. I am an unashamed geek who loves everything Marvel, and anything Joss Whedon has ever touched (except for maybe Alien Resurrection and Titan A.E). My current favorite TV shows are Breaking Bad, Family Guy, House of Cards, Game of Thrones, American Horror Story, Homeland and Glee. I look forward to debating things with all of you in the future. (As of January 2013 I have had over 1 million views since joining WhatCulture in September 2012. You can reach me at danieljamesbowen@hotmail.co.uk)