The first trailer for Logan gave us a very different look at the X-Men universe and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine. The influences from Old Man Logan are very real, peeling away that all-star future from the comics for something that seems a little more reserved and a little more personal. In the latest issue of Empire, director James Mangold went through the trailer and explained some of his decisions and how Logan will fit in with the other Jackman films that have preceded it.
If you’re looking for firm connections within the X-Men films, the time has come to realize that it doesn’t really matter for them as much as the Marvel Cinematic Universe. They have that thin connection, but in the end, it’s going to be a singular experience from film to film. Logan will be no different:
“We are in the future, we have passed the point of the epilogue of Days Of Future Past,” is all that Mangold will admit about the timing of this film…
“We’re finding all these characters in circumstances that are a little more real. The questions of ageing, of loneliness, of where I belong. Am I still useful to the world? I saw it as an opportunity. We’ve seen these characters in action, saving the universe. But what happens when you’re in retirement and that career is over? The really interesting thing to me, or a place to dig that hadn’t been dug, was the idea of mutants when they’re no longer useful to the world, or even sure if they can do what they used to do. Their powers are diminished like all of ours are by age.”
Not having to save the world from utter destruction is a nice change of direction for Wolverine and superhero films in general. The Wolverine attempted to keep with this by making Wolverine the focus of the story, but the rest seem to pit the heroes against overwhelming odds for the fate of the universe. Gets a bit exhausting after a while.
The differences for Logan don’t stop there. The music used in the trailer, which garnered a few funny reactions online, also helps the movie stand apart from the other films on the block. This was intentional for Mangold and hopes to keep it away from its fellow superhero adventures:
“Obviously I have a connection and a fondness for Johnny Cash, and his tone and his message and his music. But the real driver in all these decisions is trying to separate ourselves, in an accurate way, from the other superhero movies. We think we’re going to deliver something a little different and we want to make sure we’re selling audiences on the difference. Sometimes even when a movie’s a little different, the studio’s trying to market the movie just like all the others. [Cash’s] music, in a way, separates us from the standard, bombastic, brooding orchestral, swish-bang, doors opening and slamming, explosions kind of methodology of some of these movies.”
The part that doesn’t sit well with me is the idea that things still fell apart for everybody after the end of Days Of Future Past. Everybody was alive and hunky dory after the past was changed, but now it seems they still ran into a horrible ending. It would actually make sense if they didn’t all die horribly in some sort of apocalyptic event like the source material and they just ended up being hit with old age. It’s depressing, sure, but it’d be a slice of real life for some very unrealistic folks.
(Via Empire)
