What Is The Point Of “X-Men Day”? Put “Dark Phoenix” Out Of Its Misery!

With tickets for Dark Phoenix available for sale, the so-called X-Men Day comes across as nothing more than a cheap marketing gimmick from 20th Century Fox. The studio is trying to promote a movie set in the past as some kind of cumulation of a 20-year spanning live-action X-Men film era.

I don’t know why Dark Phoenix is still getting released instead of debuting on the Disney+ streaming service. Why does Disney/FOX want to continue ruining the live-action franchise? Also, for those of you who think Dark Phoenix is going to be the best X-Men film ever: yeah, no!

The upcoming film is an incredibly watered down version of an iconic comic book story. There is nothing in the trailers or the plot (including leaked spoilers) that say this movie is going to be anything other than some vanity project by writer/director Simon Kinberg. He already ruined the Phoenix Saga by writing 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand. So, I don’t know why he was given another chance to create a retelling of his mess.

Anyway, as for the so-called X-Men Day, instead of coming across as something legitimate like Star Wars Day, it is nothing but a way to sell more Dark Phoenix tickets. I mean, what is the significance of May 13 to the franchise?

The first X-Men film was released in the US on June 14, 2000. Why isn’t that X-Men Day or when the first X-Men comic book was published?

You can tell why it doesn’t sit well with me.

Also, it does nothing for the live-action series except to show the disconnect between the recent movies and the fanbase.

Spend a few minutes following the #XMenDay hashtag on social media and you will see how FOX has continued to let many fans down. People are sharing their love for diverse X-Men characters including Storm and Jubilee. However, the studio never decided to do anything with mutants that weren’t white.

Dark Phoenix is going to be about Jean Grey (and other white mutants close to her) while Ororo continues to serve as nothing more than the token African-American background character throughout the live-action franchise.

As for the new trailer which was released, what is it supposed to prove? Why did the PR team think promoting a film set in the past will serve as a proper goodbye to a series which debuted 20 years ago?

Not only that, the trailer blatantly ignores Rebecca Romijn who did more for the character of Mystique than Jennifer Lawrence ever could.

Fingers crossed, Disney/FOX decides to bring Romijn to their reboot of the X-Men and treat the POC mutants with the respect they deserve.

I’m incredibly disappointed about the entire thing.

What exactly is X-Men Day supposed to celebrate when the intentions behind it are nothing more than hopefully selling more tickets?

Author: Farid-ul-Haq

Farid has a Double Masters in Psychology and Biotechnology as well as an M.Phil in Molecular Genetics. He is the author of numerous books including Missing in Somerville, and The Game Master of Somerville. He gives us insight into comics, books, TV shows, anime/manga, video games, and movies.

Twitter

Help support independent journalism. Subscribe to our Patreon.

Copyright © The Geekiary