Home Show Dark Phoenix
Rob, Alex, and Don review Dark Phoenix, the final X-Men film under Fox before Disney's acquisition. The hosts discuss how the film adapts the Dark Phoenix storyline loosely, comparing it favorably to Apocalypse and Days of Future Past but below First Class, while acknowledging strong visuals and action despite continuity issues with the broader X-Men franchise.
About this episode
Key takeaways
- Dark Phoenix is an adaptation of the source material in name only—the actual Dark Phoenix saga took 10 months to tell across 10 comic issues and cannot be replicated in a 113-minute film
- The film's ending contradicts the original X-Men trilogy timeline and lacks narrative connective tissue to previous films in the franchise
- Visual effects and CGI are strong throughout, with some sequences reportedly shot for IMAX presentation
- Jessica Chastain plays the antagonist and the film marks Fox's final X-Men release before Marvel Studios takes over the property
Q&A
How does Dark Phoenix compare to other X-Men films in this iteration?
Better than Apocalypse and Days of Future Past (minus the last 10 minutes), comparable to X2 and the 2000 film, but not as good as First Class
Why can't this be called the true Dark Phoenix saga?
The actual saga took 10 months to tell and requires Wolverine, who is absent from this film; Fox only captured one niche element of the full story
What is the hosts' final viewing recommendation?
Don: TV at best; Rob: early morning or Dolby cinema; Alex: yes, possibly buying tickets for others to see it in special features in 2-3 weeks
Read Transcript
If you are hearing the sound of my voice, it means the following conditions have been met. At least once in your life, you have checked out the Clubhouse Podcast or one stop shop for all things pop culture live every Sunday night. 70's turn for Pacific on the Vocal Now Network.
Go to VocalNow.com, be okay, A.L. Now, Book Market, download the Vocal Now app, here our show as well as so much other great shows on the Vocal Now Network. Because it is time for another home show.
Number 463 for those of you playing the home game, welcome. My name is Rob by the executive producer of the Clubhouse Podcast and I learned a very important lesson as we go into this episode. General, not with us tonight, she is homesick, we hope she feels better soon, but you will be able to see her written review of the film we're about to talk about at www.theclubhousepodcast.com.
That's our right, oh, they could still hear you, but I haven't introduced you, which is where your mics are not all, because I can. But let's go around the day sitting in the Clubhouse chair is a man who lives his life, one suns up, guns out day at a time. He is Alex, welcome sir.
And there's not even the sun today. I'm just saying, well there's a little bit. It's the Florida Beach bump in me coming out.
And rounding out the day, this is the official fact checker of this show and a man who has a dark side, but only when he drinks coffee. You may know his Iqbunu, but his mom and even don't want to come down for what's up, you know, the fantastic faith forward is turning into a coffee kind of sore. She's giving up the tea and going towards a coffee with this victor out of curries.
I mean, not a fan of coffee in general, but I always did. But when we got hooked on the curb machine and all that. And now, oh, yeah, we the curgan machine.
That's not a cure. Curious. But I was going to say that you beat me to the joke on that one.
You're welcome. Whatever we do, one of these, it is to review something. And this is no exception.
It's time to talk dark phoenix. First of all, the soul thing. Yes, sir.
We got things. Josh and our best friends. Tonya was at the screening that Scott was there.
Our Raymond was there. It was. It was a cavalcade.
He was there. Oh, he was a cavalcade of stars that when we saw this, we love our vendors. They let us see movies and stuff before they come out so we can talk to you guys about him.
So you can make the best possible choices for your entertainment dollar. The day has come to pay our respects to the Fox Marvel partnership. Because it's all belongs to the House of Mouse now.
Good ridden. And this is the last one. Dark phoenix, the seventh technical X-Men film, the fourth of this particular iteration, but technically the tenth if you add the Wolverine trilogy.
Well, what about Deadpool? That's technically X-Men. No, that's X-Factor or X-Force, not actually X-Men.
But they do reference it directly as an X-Men trainee. So there's a semantics. So Simon Kinberg is directorial debut, but he knows a little thing about the franchise because he wrote X-Men X2 and X3.
Okay. I enjoyed X-Men first class. I enjoyed it very, very much.
I am completely on board with that. Sure, the things so far out of continuity that it's back in it. But it's the kind of movie that I could leave my geek brain at the door and just enjoy it for what it was.
Right. Days of future past was what it was. And I say this in my written review currently located at www.theclubhousepodgast.com.
That's our website. That's I have not seen the road cut, but I'm told it makes it a little bit better of a film. On which one the days of future past?
I'm not going to lie. I'm a terrible person. I own the road cut.
I haven't watched it yet either. Okay. So we'll watch it together.
I keep trying to find a used-to-the-movie training company and nobody's returning it. So it must have met that tells me volumes and then there was Apocalypse. So my bar going into this was very low and I said at the top of this particular episode that I learned I've now officially learned a valuable lesson.
Just because a superhero film is named something I cannot hold it to that something source material. Right. Reference.
It wasn't Civil War. It was Captain America Civil War. It wasn't Age of Ultron.
It was Avengers Age of Ultron. It wasn't the Infinity War. It was Avengers of Infinity War.
And even days of future past, Lord's loosely based can be attached to that. And that was that's my favorite arc of probably any comic ever. Oh geez.
Yeah. So to say this is the Dark Phoenix saga, you can't. No.
Because number one, that storyline took a really long time. So you weren't going to be able to do it in an hour and 53 minutes without credits. Two, you don't have Wolverine.
So it can't be the Dark Phoenix saga because Wolverine plays a really big part in that. It's basically Phoenix as presented by Fox. Exactly.
So you've got the current iteration of the team. You've got Sophie Turner playing Jean Grey. Fast Bender is Magneto.
Jennifer Lawrence is Mystique, Professor X McAvoy, Ty Sheridan. Sure, I get to do a movie where I wear virtual glasses and I do a movie where I wear rose colored glasses, because he plays Cyclops. He was also in Ready Player One.
Yes. Then you have Alexander ship, play Storm, even Peters is back as Quick Silver, Cody Smith, McFee. What a great performance by him.
That might have been his best work. So we have now gotten to a world where we can say mutants now. Yes.
Disney can now say it too. Congratulations. Because Fox actually owned the term as part of their deal with Marvel.
Mutants and humans are living in a peaceful world together because we see in the very beginning of this film that a group of astronauts has gotten has lost touch with mission control and the team takes to spice to rescue them. But in doing so, Jean, and this is really Jean story. Jean absorbs what they think is a solar flare, which is so much more than that as a dying breed of aliens are chasing it to harness it for themselves.
And it makes Jean more powerful than she's ever been. And here we go. Was that really what they were trying to do?
Because I had a hard time following that arc for the, we'll call it the antagonist. Led by one Jessica Chastey. Who's the blonde?
Who basically look like she was just there to collect a paycheck. And she may have it. Yeah.
I can't see, and I say this also in my written review that I don't feel like this was Fox playing to finish. No. But I could definitely, if people said it, I don't know that I could argue against it.
It's better than Apocalypse. I would venture to say I enjoyed this just a little bit more than days of future past. If you take the last 10 minutes of days of future past out of it, because I love the way that film ended.
I thought it was brilliant. Not as good as first class. No.
Better than X3. Better than X-Men Origins Wolverine. Even lower bar.
At least as good as X2. Kind of sort of on par with the 2000 film. Because when I look back on the 2000 film, is that saltwater to a man dying of thirst?
Which one was the 2000 film? The original X-Men. The original X-Men.
Because we'd waited so long for that film and we finally got it. And I go back and I watch it. Man, it doesn't hold up well.
Okay, that was my next question. I get where you're coming from with this. I think what they're having more trouble with with the more current batch or what they had more trouble with with the current batch of X-Men movies is that Disney and Marvel just blew it so far out of the water.
They were like, oh, you're making an X-Men movie. That's cute. And plus Fox.
Historically, not quite hitting the mark. Yeah. Outside of Deadpool.
Right. And even then, how much did they really have hands in on it? I don't think they did.
I think they just let those kids run with it. Well, did you ever hear the story behind that one? What happened?
They almost tried to kill Deadpool initially. Oh, really? Well, they did.
That's not Deadpool. I don't care what you say. But apparently Fox cut the budget almost in half or by two-thirds right before Deadpool started filming.
There's a story out there if you look it up on the internet. But let's get back to this isn't a bad film. No, no, it's not.
And maybe it's because my expectations were so low given what it was. I knew I wasn't going to get the Dark Phoenix saga. Yeah.
See, one of the hard parts I have that's located in my written review at the clubhousepodcast.com. That's our website is that my bar was also so low that that opening was very good. And then we just kind of sat there.
And here's my thing about the opening sequence of this film. They allegedly went back and reshot the ending because it was too close to another superhero film that has been unnamed to this point. The beginning of this film was just like Shazam's.
I have a question. Yeah. But I very much enjoyed.
And interestingly enough, I do love to give Don Hell about certain things that I can nitpick. Did you did you something trigger you watching the movie for when you got up and took a bathroom break? Why what's up?
You timed it perfectly because I kept sitting there thinking, man, he's probably having more fun than I am watching the movie right now. Apparently your bathroom break was timed very, very nicely. Why is that?
Because when you were nothing was happening. Yeah. Yeah.
You timed it with exactly what I was thinking. How well it is this? I know you've been very quiet because you probably know this source material the least in the room.
And that's well documented. So please do, sir. Okay.
I'll let you guys get your stuff out. No, totally. The guy without the Greek cred.
But I've been watching the X-Men and I've seen every film and a lot of them I do like. Here's the problem with this film. And basically from for the people without the Greek cred, this is the last one with 20th Century Fox and they say this thing's done.
Allegedly correct is that Kevin Feige from what I have read his said they are not touching the X-Men for at least four to five years at this point. And now Disney's going to take it over. Disney already has.
Okay. So the merger was official what last month? So Disney's if there's new X-Men films is going to be in the Disney umbrella.
It'll probably be phase five at the earliest. It will be okay. It'll be Disney.
Here's the problem I saw with some of these like first class the ones with Malcavoi and fast veteran stuff like that is I'll give it with Star Wars Episode one, two, and three. Okay. They still did it where you're talking about the prequels, correct?
Yeah, episode one, four, five, six. There isn't me saying there are some people that refer to four, five instances one, two, three. He wanted to be clear.
But the way three ended even in episode three, the storyline didn't they showed a film where it still made sense to the four, five, and six. Connected. When I got done watching this thing and miners get your little spoiler thing ready.
This is three, two, one. Oh, there it is. All right.
Now the way this film ended, it makes no sense to what's to any of the original X-Men films. But it's not supposed to. It's not supposed to.
And that's what I hated about it. It's like they're saying, I forget the ones with Jackman, forget the ones with Barry and all that. The way we end this here, it makes no sense in the timeline for the movies that came out first before this stuff.
Although it alludes to those days of future past. But this is, yeah, this is this thing's a mess. That's an absolute mess.
And that's the whole time of the lines. But my point when I was watching this, I will say that the sci-fi was good, the CGI was good. I agree with you there.
I really enjoyed the visuals of this and it had some good action. But I'm watching this film going, what's the point of this when it comes down to it? It's a story of Gene Gray.
It's a story of Phoenix. It tells a, and the thing is where certain events happened, which would really screw up the timeline where unless there's reincarnations, I'm going to say, that's what I'm going to say. Well, I'm here's what I tell you.
I'm like, what? Go read, go read the series because there's another piece to that story, which we can talk about all day. I read the dark Phoenix saga, but yeah, it was something I was whispered to myself in the theater.
It's literally money. It is telling just the story of Gene Gray and how she's going psycho. You're absolutely right.
But what you have to understand is this story to the X-Men is what the Infinity Gauntlet is pretty much to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I say that very specifically so that when you see soldiers towards the end and they are members of the mutant containment unit and the initials for that are on their sleeves very prevalently. And not all of them.
This is the biggest story really that everybody knows that are even similar fans of X-Men. This is the big storyline. And eventually it was going to get done, it just wasn't done right because you got to understand me.
Let me let me look this up because I want to make sure I'm clear. I'm accurate on this. But because if you again, like I said earlier, if you were going to do the dark Phoenix saga, there's no way you do it in one film.
I feel like with this trying to tie it back to the source material as loosely and poorly as it is, they looked for one niche of something that they could knock out in two hours and cash a check. And they found the single most niche thing. And I didn't catch it until they called Jessica Chastain by the name by book.
You kind of shut the air down there. No, no, that's the name is book. Yeah, I didn't know if I should say it.
I was waiting for you to pick it up. I'll put you this way, Don. The dark Phoenix saga as a total took 10 months to tell.
Okay. It ran from January to October of 1980. It was X-Men 129 through 138.
Okay. And there are pieces of this. They didn't even go into.
Now, I will say there is a cameo by one of the creators in the film. Claremont has a cameo. Well, you say even at the end when they put up a new sign, is all I'm going to say.
Yeah, no, I hear you. It's just one of those we feel like if we're going to do an X-Men series, because remember, they actually they hinted at this in X-3. Oh, it's to hold on.
Three, two, one. At the end of X-3, when we lose gene, yeah, underwater, yeah, you see the Phoenix running underwater. And for them to hint at this at the end of apocalypse made no sense because she was still just gene gray.
The Phoenix Force hadn't even played a role yet, which was even weirder. Yeah, it just, it's just no continuity. It didn't leave a storyline like Star Wars did between 3 and 4.
It never did that. This, this is saying, but I would tell you, go back and find, I go to half price books and pick up the graphic novels of the dark. It's a great story.
Oh, it's an amazing story. I believe it. It's very well written, but this, it's like I said earlier, I have to learn that you call something something.
I can't hold it to what that something is supposed to be in my mind. And that's what this is. I have a theory.
Please do. About the end of this. So it ends in a very particular way with a very particular image.
I think that Marvel, or even more specifically, Feige has an idea of what they want to do to bring in the X-Men and ask them to end it that way. It's possible. Because there is a certain storyline that we, you and I, off-air have discussed briefly that I think is how they're going to bring them in.
We'll see. And it's going to be more of a Logan scape than it is anything else. All right.
Anything else we want to talk about before we get to the Final Analysis? No. All right.
The way we do the Final Analysis on the show, we're not going to give you thumbs up, thumbs down. We're not going to give you a letter, grades, numbers. You know, we're not going to rate it like this.
Two questions. Question number one is, would we see this again? If the answers know, then we're done here.
But if the answer is yes, then we go to the next question, which is how far are you willing to go to see it? From the best of the best of the worst of the best, here's how it goes. Full price in first run, down to a Twilight show, down to a matinee, down to early morning on a weekend, down to second run at the dollar theater, down to actually leaving your house to get it from a red box, down to streaming it, down to cable.
And Don, we're going to start with you. Yeah. Would you see X-Men, I'm sorry, it's only called X-Men Dark Phoenix outside of America.
Inside of America, it's just called Dark Phoenix. So, Don, would you see Dark Phoenix again? Barely.
So it's still this? Yeah. Okay.
How far are you willing to go to do that? Get the cricket chirps ready. TV at best.
All right. Alex, would you see Dark Phoenix again? Honestly, just because of every superhero movie, I feel like I need to watch more than one, so I'm going to say yes.
Now, for myself, it would be on par with Don, however, I do know that there are other people that I will want to buy tickets for. So it'll probably be the last special feature of it in like two to three weeks. Oh, God.
Rob, first off, would you see this film again? That's where I'm trying to battle back and forth. I guess I would.
Now, how would the acquiring ones want to know? How would you recommend it? I'm thinking early morning, but I would kind of like to see this in the Dolby cinema.
See, I'm thinking Dolby or iMacs, because supposedly there's shots that are wired for iMacs. But there's another movie that's pretty much got the iMacs corner right now. That is also true.
You're seeing the cheapest way possible to see it in Dolby. Yes. Sounds like an oxymoron.
It's still expensive, but it's not as expensive as it could be. All right. You heard it.
We reviewed it. It's Simon Kinberg directing Dark Phoenix. Throw in this whole thing.
Yes, I think Josh and our best friends. I thought we should record like different versions of it. I understand, but we do it live.
And if we don't talk about it, you've got him trying to do something, and you're going off. Don't give it away. Okay.
Skinner don't start the show with free bird. Okay. But we do love our vendors.
They take care of us. They let us see who you want to sell it before they come out so we can talk to you guys about them so you can spend your entertainment dollar wisely. Let's do the flux.
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