X-Men: Dark Phoenix Trailer Breakdown - 14 Things You Need To See

8. X-Men... In Space!

X-Men Dark Phoenix Trailer
20th Century Fox

Anyone familiar with the Dark Phoenix Saga will be aware of the story's cosmic roots. A great deal of the comic takes place in outer space, and sees the X-Men encounter the Shi'ar Empire, with Jean having accidentally obliterated an entire solar system as the Phoenix.

For the film, however, it looks as though the X-Men's trip to outer-space comes relatively early on in the story. The rest, as we can see from the trailer, takes place in boring suburban America; not exactly the high-octane space opera that the original comic was.

The synopsis also seems to date the sequence close to the beginning of the film, so for those hoping that the X-Men would spend a great deal of time off-planet, the film is likely to disappoint.

"In Dark Phoenix, the X-Men face their most formidable and powerful foe: one of their own, Jean Grey. During a rescue mission in space, Jean is nearly killed when she is hit by a mysterious cosmic force. Once she returns home, this force not only makes her infinitely more powerful, but far more unstable. Wrestling with this entity inside her, Jean unleashes her powers in ways she can neither comprehend nor contain. With Jean spiralling out of control, and hurting the ones she loves most, she begins to unravel the very fabric that holds the X-Men together. Now, with this family falling apart, they must find a way to unite — not only to save Jean’s soul, but to save our very planet from aliens who wish to weaponize this force and rule the galaxy."

It certainly makes reference to aliens, that much is true, but the lack of a space-faring element is sure to hurt the adaptation.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.