Mike said that the movie shit on everything that the X-Men comics were and are. And I agree, it totally did. Which I guess makes it a good thing that this was a movie and not a comic book. You see, things that work in a comic book just plain don't work on screen. When someone goes to see an X-Men movie, they expect to be watching an action movie about sci-fi era superheroes. When someone picks up an X-Men comic book, they're lucky if they get one short fight scene. It's a soap opera. No one is going to pay $7 to watch 2 hours of pretty young people with superpowers having relationship problems, because that's just not what movies lend themselves to. So yes, this movie shit on the X-Men "mythos", and thats not a bad thing.
For example, one of the biggest complaints people have with the movie is that Scott Summers disappears, in the same bit of deus ex machina that brings Jean Grey back to life and makes her a potential villainess, very early in the film. We're not sure if he died or if the phoenix consumed him or what, and it's not really important. What was important was that the film get him out of the way. He was a dead character from the end of X2 anyway. The problem with Cyclops in the first two movies is that he did nothing and no one remembered him. If you ask someone what they remember about X-Men or X2, they'll probably say somehting about Wolverine or "that naked blue chick" or some of the more impressive special effects. Cyclops was a bit player in the movies to begin with and there was really nothing that could have been done to save his character. If you want an example of this, take a look at Storm. Her character in the first 2 movies was pretty much the same as Scott's. Marginialized and unimportant to the whole of the movie's story arcs (most of which involed Wolverine, Magneto and Mystique, or Jean Grey[which would seem to include Scott somehow, but oddly, it didn't really]) . In X-Men 3 Storm was given a much bigger role, her character was expanded and pushed on the audience, and what was the result? Nothing interesting. She did and said nothing that couldnt have been said by any other random characters they could have decided to use. I'm convinced that this is what would have happened to Scott had he been forced into the main plot of the movie.
The reason is that Cyclops just isn't a movie character. Not this type of movie anyway. His character is subtle and reserved and almost always completely uninteresting in small doses. Without the proper set-up he has nowhere to go really. For example, in Morrison's New X-Men, Cyclops can easily be recognized as the main character, the main thread that holds the team together and the character whose story arc allows for the biggest changes, and great things were done with him. But the changes don't happen overnight, it's a long process and takes over 3 years of stories for Cyclops to make a big final decision about himself. In a movie things like that just can't be done. Even more problems occur in the movie design when we realize that these X-Men movies are about Wolverine. He's the central (and to the casual audience, most interesting) character and has the obvious archetypal traits of the reluctant hero, which is something the audience can relate to. Cyclops is the boy scout, football star hero. There's no doubt in the audience, no intruige and no suspense. You give him the big problem to solve and he's going to do it (or try to do it). Wolverine has a little more edge and unknown-ness about him and it makes him more interesting to the audience.
To have kept Cyclops in the film would have confused the entire plot. His relationship with Jean and the triangle between him, Wolverine and Jean would have made the actual heros and villains plot very confusing. Consider an end scene featuring an out of control Phoenix, Wolverine AND Cyclops. Wolverine knows what he has to do to end the insanity and the craziness and he does it. Throw Cyclops into the mix and it becomes harder to say. Scott wouldnt be able to bring himself to kill Jean, and I don't know that he would have let Wolverine do it either. It would be very problematic. That's mostly all I have to say about that subject. No matter what Cyclops was or what he represented on the X-Men team, his character was going nowhere and he didn't have a job to do in this movie. I guess that that doesn't necessarily mean he had to die, but they would have had to write him out somehow regardless. The kids came for Wolverine.
The other main problem people seem to have with the movie is that so many of the main characters died or were de-powered. I don't think of this as a disadvantage necessarily. The movies were getting stale, and so were the characters. If they ever decide to make a 4th movie, they will at least have a new jumping off point, so they can do something kind of new. Having Magneto be a main big bad for 3 movies in a row was tiring, Rogue and her "oh god I hate my powers I wish I could touch people boo hoo" storyline had really run it's course, and the main team definitely needed a shakeup. When I think of the X-Men, I definitely think of a core group, but I also think of it as a kind of shifting team where new kids graduate from the school and join the team and older members go off to "find themselves" and have solo adventures in miniseries land. So a shakeup on the team should really be expected if the series gets to 4 movies. Professor X probably didn't have to die, but who knows maybe he didn't.
In general I think people were too harsh on the movie. It wasn't going to be Spider-Man 2, I don't really expect many superhero movies to be that, it's a hard thing to live up to. I went in expecting it to suck flat out and it suprised me. It was fun, mindless fun. You don't need to think about it very hard to find something to enjoy. Be it the scene where Wolverine is fighting Spike in the woods or just the chance to see Kitty Pryde and Iceman actually fucking do something in the movie. And the movie didn't take itself too seriously, which was nice.
Then again, I like Batman and Robin and Last Action Hero. And not in the sense of "it's so bad it's good oh man!" I genuinely find something to just like about those movies when I watch Them. It's nothing deep and it's certainly not a huge appreciation for the acting and plot, but its something in there. Sometimes you have to ignore all the bullshit comic contradictions and character choices and silly villains and enjoy a movie.
Morrison's New X-Men run is probably the best thing having to do with the X-Men that I've ever read or enjoyed. Some parts were kind of blah or maybe badly thought out, but for the most part it's just god damn solid comics that really back up Morrison's other work on other stuff. Fantomex is one of the most awesome characters ever in an X-Men book, simply because he's a walking parody of all those other "awesome" characters that have been in X-Men books in the past. And because the book is completely self-referential about itself.
this is probably all bullshit
