The summer of 2011, Jun 3, 2011, the movie adaptations of Marvel’s X-Men continued with X-Men First Class. To many fans’ delight, it turned out to be both well-executed and of substantial interest. Film history website IMDb identifies that Jennifer Lawrence is “the most successful actor of her generation” https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2225369/
Beneath is a link to a scene from X-Men First Class.
X-Men: First Class (2011) – Charles Xavier & Raven Darkholme
Jennifer Lawrence in X-Men First Class is Raven. She tackles the question of what it means to be beautiful and what it means to be normal. She is the shapeshifter.
X-Men First Class Promoshoot
You might say it’s ironic that the name of the mutant team, the name “X-Men,” implies that the X-Men should be male, but Raven ranks among them as an important character who is female. Jennifer Lawrence was the highest-paid actress in the world in 2015 and 2016. Her casting in the film reflects her strengths as an actress, in addition to X-Men First Class’ effectiveness exploring gender, and ever-elusive equality.
In 2019, the next Star Wars film is struggling with a backlash among fans given woes with the previous film in the franchise. The 2019 film I’m referring to is Star Wars Episode IX, coming in after the disastrously written Star Wars Episode VII: The Last Jedi. Star Wars Episode IX has its work out cut out for it.
The Last Jedi Opening Weekend USA box office was $220,009,584, 17 December 2017. The X-Men First Class USA Opening Weekend was $55,101,604, 5 June 2011, twenty-five percent of the former.
While box office returns mean that both films were successful, the Marvel Universe remains hotly anticipated with a trailer for Marvel Avengers Endgame just airing in the Superbowl broadcast yesterday, while Star Wars Episode IX may fail.
Star Wars is suffering some major troubles, with entries like Episode VIII The Last Jedi savaged by fans to who Star Wars is close to the heart.
Solo A Star Wars Story failed financially last year, and an animated television series from Disney, Star Wars Resistance, is arguably receiving relatively little enthusiasm among viewers.
These fans are the “fandom.” In fact, the Star Wars franchise is suffering greatly owing to problems with The Last Jedi, which, while returning an economic gain for Disney, is failing to ignite the same passion in the hearts of Star Wars fans that the original trilogy generated, as did (again, arguably) Episode VII The Force Awakens in 2015.
Yoda
What Jedi Mind tricks are afoot? I think essentially both X-Men: First Class and Star Wars Episode IX calculatedly use a sense of the past as an aspect of the setting. However, the two movies address gender and gender equality rather differently.
In X-Men First Class, the mutant Raven struggles with her self-image in a very literal sense. Contrast that with The Last Jedi. Here the female Jedi apprentice Rey, Daisy Ridley, is problematic for many viewers of Star Wars in that Rey lacks a distinctive character arc. In other words, she is without a back story that can make sense in viewers’ minds.
Rey’s origins are unknown, but she masters aspects of The Force which were previously established in Star Wars lore as being impossible. Rey’s mentor Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) struggled to achieve his status as a Jedi Knight under both Obi-wan Kenobi and Yoda (in the 1977 and 1980 Star Wars films). The late Alec Guinness portrayed Obi-wan Kenobi in the original trilogy and Ewan McGregor was Obi-wan in the prequel trilogy.
This is a link to a jovial Mark Hamill speaking of Daisy Ridley.
Mark Hamill Living Like Yoda Wishing Daisy Ridley Happy Birthday
Like it or not, what’s hot about Star Wars is that the backlash to Last Jedi director Rian Johnson is a compelling drama in its own right. I see it everyday on YouTube.
YouTube channel Geeks + Gamers has taken for itself the responsibility of taking to task the folk at Lucasfilm. To restore the glory to Star Wars, Geeks + Gamers feels Lucasfilm lost this by sacrificing so much of what had been established about Star Wars.
Jeremy at Geeks + Gamers thinks through and through that Lucasfilm is reducing the importance of something special to him and to legions of other fans of Star Wars. Jeremy and many others feel that Lucasfilm is insisting that identity politics control the creative process instead of the requirement for writers to come up with sensible new entries for the sci-fi titan Star Wars.
That said, Star Wars needs success now the way that the X-Men franchise needed a success following X3.
Disney, Lucasfilm and the future of Star Wars are an exciting drama. If you’re interested, and you believe that Star Wars needs to go forward proper, instead of what it’s currently doing, maybe you would like Geeks + Gamers, if you aren’t already watching Jeremy and his friends.
I don’t feel too invested in the backlash, although I think of it virtually every day. Star War Episode IX has a release date in December. Geeks + Gamers don’t exclusively address the situation with Star Wars, but Jeremy’s dismay for Lucasfilm is often-stated, with a commitment to giving subscribers fireballs.
Marvel Avengers Endgame has a release date in April. It’s the sequel to Marvel Avengers Infinity Wars.
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Beneath is a link to a Geeks + Gamers video in which Jeremy names his favorite X-Men titles.
Geeks + Gamers Staff Top 5 – X-Men Universe Films
The Myth of the Independent Blogger and How I Learned to Love It 
