Dark Phoenix

The newest movie of the X-Men series, Dark Phoenix, is centered around one of the most important characters of the series, Jean Grey, the telekinetic and telepathic mutant, with the Phoenix Force, a cosmic superpower that can be hosted by lifeforms.

  Since Disney has bought most of the Marvel Universe, it’s producing this new movie with director Simon Kinberg, along with Professor X, James McAvoy. Jean Grey has been in almost all of the X-Men movies. In X-Men: The Last Stand, she shows the Phoenix power, so it’s about time a movie has been made about her.

  The meeting of the Force and Jean started on a space station, where Jean was heavily injured and near death, after she was hit by a cosmic force. Then the Phoenix Force gave her a way to live, by becoming a host for it. She accepted the offer, but lost control after the power was too much for her.

  In the previous X-Men films, we see Jean as a teacher and someone who is a Force to be reckoned with. In X-Men 2, Jean dies from drowning, but in the next movie, X-Men: Last Stand, she has come back to life, as the Phoenix, because the Force is strong enough to revive its host.

  She works with the Brotherhood of Evil, a group of mutants who want war against the humans, not peace with them, in the Last Stand, against her former friends. Jean loses control, and the Force is destroying anyone who tries to stop it. In the end, Wolverine uses his healing factor to get close enough to stop her, and has to kill the woman he loves.

  It haunts him for a while, as can be seen in The Wolverine, but since Wolverine stopped the Last Stand from happening in X-Men: Days of Future Past. Jean returns in X-Men: Apocalypse, but with a different actor, Sophie Turner, instead of Famke Janssen.

  Since this film has a ton of special effects, it’s been moved from its original release date, from November 2, 2018, to June 7, 2019.

  According to the director, Simon Kinberg, very important scenes needed to be reshot. He claims, “Mostly we focused on the third act, both emotionally and in terms of the physical scale and the action of the third act that we adjusted. And then there were certain things in the first two acts of the movie – very few things, but to set up those changes in the third act we had to adjust some things in the first two acts so that that all was fluid and felt consistent.”

  Along with problems reshooting, they also had a problem with the visual effects, so they moved the date back to February 14. Once again, they didn’t have the movie effects or shots done, so they moved it to June 2019.

  One reason to reshoot is that the Phoenix force uses fire, plus the character has telekinesis, which requires lots of special effects. Along with the powers of other characters, like Cyclops, who shoots a laser beam from his eyes.

  Not only that, but most Marvel movies have that one, emotional moment, where the characters hit you with a wave of feelings. Which normally happens either during or after the death of a character. This certain part of hero films takes time and a large amount of acting skill to pull it off.

  She ends up destroying a star, a planet, and even injures her fellow X-men. While being mind controlled by Mysterio, she wiped out the planet of the D’BARI race. The cosmic power is a force to be reckoned with, especially in the hands of a strong mutant, which is why many people want to see this on the big screen.

  Though there are many different variations of Jean Grey with the Phoenix force, it always ends up with destruction and pain. Since the Force’s specialty is reviving people, maybe Stan Lee will be the next one brought back.