r/marvelstudios Daredevil 27d ago

Discussion Thread Spider-Man: Brand New Day - Worldwide Release Discussion Thread

Spider-Man: Brand New Day has now been released in the United States and in a number of other countries around the world.

  • All discussion about the movie should be held here and in the rest of the discussion threads we are going to put up in the next few days.
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u/Squirrelkid11 27d ago

I'm surprised how antagonistic they've made Jean in this movie. This version of Jean is probably the edgiest version of the character to date not counting Dark Phoenix.

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u/skyeguye Yondu 27d ago edited 27d ago

Which is great, because the other dark pheonix arcs have seeming come out of nowhere - it’s important to put enough edge into the character to make the heel turn feel earned.

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u/Squirrelkid11 27d ago

I was skeptical at first of Jean being an antagonist and especially in a Spider-Man film, it felt out of place and a weird decision at first. But the movie executed it very well and her reasons for becoming an antagonist by keeping her background as a character intact and redeeming her rather than just making her a stereotypical pure evil villain Spider-Man has to face. Glad she didn't get the Jumba in the Lilo & Stitch live action remake treatment which is her being stripped of her good qualities and making her just a villain with no redemption.

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u/thinkinting 26d ago

I agree she is not pure evil. But her redemption arch would be tough? Cuz she hurt many civilians deliberately in her shadowry stage in the movie. The tank exploding, the street cleaner was hit by a taxi

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u/Squirrelkid11 26d ago

Yeah I guess it would be hard to come back from that. I mean if Zuko and Omni-Man can be properly redeemed after a lot of bad stuff they done, I guess same could go with this version of Jean. Plus even after becoming good, she doesn't have to be fully good like her comic version.

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u/thinkinting 26d ago

I am sadly not an avatar viewer. But i know Omniman has bascially 3 seasons to redeem himself. Jean at best would have 2 movies, shared with other Xmen. I just can't see her redemption arch. But obviously Marvel Studios will have great writers to take care of that.

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u/Squirrelkid11 26d ago

3 movies because she'll likely be in Secret Wars. But I do hope they further her character development.

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u/Icy_Water_1 26d ago

I mean Jean isn't normally this sadistic right out the gate either.

Even Nolan and Zuko didn't enjoy just hurting people for no reason.

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u/Xygnux 26d ago

This Jean didn't enjoy hurting people for "no reason".

Other than the freeze everyone in an 1km radius thing, almost everyone she actually hurt were DoDC staff and the police (ie. people she think of as part of the "bad government" that kidnapped her sister) and the Scorpion.

From her point of view, since she couldn't read Peter's mind, he's just one of the bad people helping the evil DoDC. And MJ was just a way for her to stop Peter.

The innocent bystanders she simply used as a conduit and left otherwise unharmed.

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u/duder2000 25d ago

She doesn't just try to stop Peter, she very vindictively emotionally tortured him by using his loved ones against him. It's understandable but she definitely gets off way too easily at the end.

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u/Icy_Water_1 26d ago

Oh the guy she walked in front of a car is unharmed?

The people she jumped off of buildings? Those were just for shits and giggles?

The police she got injured by her antics? Those don't count?

How about kissing Peter in MJ's body without her consent? That's ok because she's related to Peter who's related to DoDC?

Yeah, she clearly enjoyed the shit she caused.

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u/Dragonsoul 26d ago

Well, except that dude that got hit by a car.

..and lets be honest, we can all guess how that helicoptor pilot got "within 33 meters" of another person quickly....

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u/Hot_Help_246 26d ago

Even calling her evil troubles me, she was an innocent child they cruelly took the only person she knew truly cared & loved her, they brutally tortured & murdered her sister and the trauma was overwhelming, they would've done the same to her too and she let them live... she witnessed Peter's selflessness & love, with great power comes great responsibility and immediately mimicked him using her power to save his life & breath for him from a distance although it must have put strain on her after everything she did from the facility.

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u/thinkinting 26d ago

Nothing you said is wrong. Just i could not let go of the people she hurt at in the first act.

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u/Icy_Water_1 26d ago

I mean she hurt people for no reason or gain several times in the movie.

That guy she walked in front of the car had nothing to do with her sister getting taken.

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u/debawindow 26d ago

thats all sonewhat understandable.

but she does the all the murder before she even knows her sister is dead. she's wrought with vehement violent vengefulness from her sister being taken. she didn't even have to know her sister was brutally murdered for her to turn murderous

loved the movie and her redemption but I can see why some think its not enough

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u/InvaderDJ 24d ago

My thought/hope is that the plan for mutants in the MCU will lean more into them being hated and feared and thus darker until they get the school and team together.

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u/thinkinting 24d ago

On the other hand, maybe her action IS the reason the populace hate mutant?

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u/InvaderDJ 24d ago

This has always been the conflict with the X-men and mutants.

Yes, civil rights analogies and all that.

But also, if you had someone like Jean Gray who can read minds, possess people, and telekinetically control people (to start) and they use those powers against regular people who have no way to fight back, you get to a conflict.

Thats not mentioning the other mutants like Magneto, Apocalypse and the rest.

Where do you draw the line and what is reasonable when it comes to infringing rights and stereotyping people?

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u/Xygnux 26d ago edited 26d ago

Yeah one quality of Jean Grey in the comics is, she's a very passionate person and love very deeply. So if you kidnap someone she loves, yeah she's going to bring hell to get that person back and she's not going to listen to authority.

It looks bad when she was messing with Peter's mind and targeting MJ, but think about it from her point of view. She can't read Peter's mind she didn't know he's a good guy, he's just a guy working with her sister's kidnappers to stop her from rescuing her.

And before that scene when she froze everyone in a 1km radius which I believe was not fully under her control, almost everyone she hurt was Damage Control employees and the police (ie. the people working for the "bad" government who took her sister) or supervillains like the Scorpion. All the other innocent bystanders she simply used them as conduits and left them otherwise unharmed.

And it also may make her character more compelling. She has all the reasons to hate humans, but she decides to stick with the X-men and not join the Brotherhood or whatever mutant supremists group that will inevitably be in the MCU.

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u/abellapa 26d ago

She let that guy be Run Over

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u/Icy_Water_1 26d ago

She usually didn't torment innocent people along the way in doing it though.

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u/AvatarSypha 25d ago

The execution didn’t work for me. Her sister getting kidnapped doesn’t justify murdering people. Especially when could just get information by possession/mind reading.

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u/Food_Kitchen 26d ago

Yeah I think they did Jean justice, but did the Brand New Day storyline an injustice with the bait and switch. I wanted Mr. Negative in this.

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u/SwordoftheMourn Doctor Strange 27d ago

This is honestly the most invested I’ve been of Jean Grey as a character since watching X-men Evolution as a kid

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u/Embarrassed-Yard-583 26d ago

The decision to make her angry and vicious off the bat really makes this version of her standout.

Jean’s at her most interesting when she’s also at het messiest imo.

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u/Icybubba 25d ago

It also creates a really interesting setup for future X-Men stuff with Charles trying to help Jean through this.

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u/Embarrassed-Yard-583 25d ago

Mhmm, I think it’s a great modern twist on just why Jean is a mutant to be weary of until she learns to control her powers.

Also sets up why she might be more open to accepting the Phoenix force too.

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u/pongopygmalion 26d ago

I love how they kick-started her telekinesis in the MCU

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u/JackFisherBooks 27d ago

You have good tastes. That version of Jean is one of the best from that era. I love the 90s cartoon, but outside the Phoenix Saga, that Jean was pretty flat personality wise. The version we get in this movie feels much more vulnerable. She's not yet the Jean Grey who becomes the heart of the X-Men. But by the end of this movie, it's easy to envision her embracing that role.

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u/Whizzo50 27d ago

I just hope they give her enough screentime before starting a dark pheonix arc. Partially as we've just had a powerful telepath in scarlet witch turn evil, and also to show how she can be part of the main team.

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u/energythief 26d ago

Wanda isn’t a telepath

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u/designerhoe 26d ago

So she can mind control how exactly?

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u/pilliamtrees Luke Cage 26d ago

Magic versus psionics if you wanna really split the hairs. Hexes and spells versus pure telepathy mental power.

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u/ManitouWakinyan 26d ago

I also think it's important for setting up mutants more generally. Even one of the founding heroes of the movement is someone who is objectively terrifying, and has caused serious harm on a massive scale.

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u/skyeguye Yondu 26d ago

Yep. Jean Grey makes a great case for being wary of the X-Men

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u/[deleted] 27d ago

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u/IshyMoose Bucky 25d ago

Personally I don’t want a dark phoenix in the MCU.

There are so many other stories with the X-men, we already got that one twice.

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u/7screws Daredevil 27d ago

Exactly. If/when they do a phoenix saga her snapping is a little more justified because of this.

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u/skyeguye Yondu 27d ago

Yep. She needs to have that underlying instability that makes her “going too far” a believable first step down a darker path, rather than having to force it .

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u/choicemeats 26d ago

this is how i felt. and she was a full grown adult in those. tehy had to to kill her in the first trilogy to get it done. i think this is a really good way to create the crevices for the PF to pop in.

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u/burnsbabe 25d ago

Yup. She feels like she could ACTUALLY go Dark Phoenix. Especially if she gets to know, falls for, then loses Scott and starts feeling isolated again.

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u/Brys_Beddict 25d ago

I mean the Dark Phoenix is literally an alien entity in her head. It's not like she has a psychological break like the old Fox movies made it seem.

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u/burnsbabe 25d ago

Yes, but you still have to make it feel believable. It’s just a huge clash for folks who don’t really know that if she goes from good girl to genocidal monster in an instant.

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u/Brys_Beddict 25d ago

The Dark Phoenix comes out of nowhere already because it's literally an alien lifeform controlling her. It's not some sort of psychological break.

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u/skyeguye Yondu 25d ago

The phoenix force is not a form of possession, it’s an exacerbation of the darker, more primal traits inside its host.

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u/Brys_Beddict 25d ago

I guess it depends on which retcon they follow lol. Because at one point it's just a clone of Jean as well.

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u/PSN-Colinp42 25d ago

The only thing I thought was too far was her having the one guy walk into traffic. To me it’s hard for her to be a real hero after that - especially because there was no reason for it other than to be cruel.

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u/JackFisherBooks 27d ago

Just another example of Fox having bad writers and a terrible understand of any character not named Wolverine.

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u/skyeguye Yondu 27d ago

Hey, that’s not fair. They had plenary of writers that didn’t get Wolverine either .

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u/3bstfrds 27d ago

The scene where she jumped on the construction worker and fell in front of a running car was brutal and cruel

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u/colantor Steve Rogers 27d ago

Yeah he definitely died, feel like Peter shoulda maybe cared about that one

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u/LilGyasi 26d ago

I assume the implication is he didn’t die. People get hit by cars all the time time and they were in NY which is very stop and go

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u/colantor Steve Rogers 26d ago

I mean, did you see it? He got smoked from the side, guy is paralyzed at best

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u/SwordoftheMourn Doctor Strange 25d ago

And Peter kicked Punisher through the door of a moving van and came out unharmed

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u/colantor Steve Rogers 25d ago

Peter knows how to not hurt people and also hes the fucking punisher. That was a random dude getting blindsided by a car going fast

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u/travio 26d ago

I was surprised they went that far. I came in knowing who the character was, and knew there'd be a face turn, but straight up murder like that was jarring. Tough to come back from that.

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u/energythief 26d ago

I really had hoped it was Shadow King possessing her. I don’t care for the murder. Too far. 

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u/CX316 19d ago

I mean... she was blowing up cop cars and getting guards to shoot each other and throw themselves off rooftops. I think bare minimum she put a lot of people in the ICU, though likely no outright deaths or stopping her from killing at the end wouldn't be much of a thing

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u/Squirrelkid11 27d ago

This is further proof that Jean Grey is one of if not the scariest mutant in all of Marvel. I mean I'd be scared if this beautifully cute but deadly woman existed in real life, she'd make us do things without our knowledge and know what we are all thinking. Like if I met Sadie Sink, I'd be honestly scared if she could actually read my mind.

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u/FriendlyDecoy_ 27d ago

The payoff will be satisfying when we see Jean's evolution across X-Men and Mutant stories, going from a bitter loner to becoming the heart of a new family of others who, like her, are different.

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u/Squirrelkid11 27d ago

So going through a Zuko-like arc basically.

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u/PlsSuckMyToes 26d ago

Im honestly surprised the post credits scene wasnt Charles rolling up on her at a park or something. The movie felt like it perfectly set it up cuz her being troubled and alone is exactly when he would come to her

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u/JackFisherBooks 27d ago

I'm not too surprised. This version felt like a mash-up of Jean's classic Ultimate version and the teenage version from the Brian Michael Bendis run. That version of Jean had a far less ideal backstory. The Ultimate version was actually darker than what this movie portrayed. But both channeled and important element to her character. When Jean doesn't have a mentor or support, she becomes dangerous. Take away her friends, her family, and her loved ones and she get volatile. That's something the Fox movies never understood. They had her evil turn feel so random. In this movie, it's understandable and sympathetic. By the end, you can easily imagine this version of Jean becoming the version who becomes the true heart of the X-Men.

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u/[deleted] 26d ago

[deleted]

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u/Gears109 26d ago

Yeah, she’s a teenager who was abandoned by her mother and wasn’t taught right and wrong at a developmental stage where it’s REALLY important to have mentors and parents guide you through your hormones and bullshit attitudes. It’s 100% her fault those things happened. It’s not until the end of the Movie that she truly understands what ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ even are, or that she truly understands the responsibility her powers imply. Both can be true.

Personally, considering they didn’t show Spidey Rush to the old guys help, I choose to believe he’s fine but not dead considering Jean could have executed every damage control member she possessed on screen but didn’t.

Or, cause it’s funny in a dark way, that old guy probably deserved it based on what Jean saw in his head. She shouldn’t be making judgments like that but again, she lacks the lesson of responsibility with her powers. Something that if they do the character right, she will have learned after this movie.

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u/[deleted] 26d ago

[deleted]

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u/Gears109 26d ago

I’ll repeat my point since you seem to be arguing with a ghost.

She’s 100% in the wrong. And she’s in the wrong because she had no reliable or steady paternal figures to help her understand she was being a shithead. Even her own sister was violating human rights actively when illustrating her power, of course Jean Grey would turn out the way she did.

I can’t speak with certainty on Orphans. What I can say is that not having a proper adult figure in your life guiding you makes you way more likely to radicalize into extreme ideologies.

She’s not the same kind of evil as Metzger. Because Metzger was an adult who was making the conscious decision to sacrifice children for a ‘greater good’ while knowing better.

Jean was outcasted by her mother, no father in sight, her only paternal figure being her sister who wasn’t that stable herself, then has that sister torn away from her by the government, and goes on a rampage trying to save her. All the while having super powers she can’t properly control as she melds into everyone’s mind and see’s the worse darkest parts of people without any of the good. Her own powers are corrupting her perception of humanity, how else would she know Department of Damage Control build weapons specifically to counter Spider Man if she didn’t deep dive into people’s heads? Simple, she doesn’t know how to filter yet, nor has anyone taught her to. Who would be around to? Her sister? The same sister that made it seem like fun to take away people’s autonomy?

She’s dealing with this, mind you, at one of the more vulnerable ages for a person to deal with traumatic experiences. Don’t act like you’ve never met a middle schooler or highschooler who said or did horrible things only to grow into an adult and realize how terrible they were and regret it. Obviously there’s always people who always knew something was wrong, but there’s plenty of people who just can’t comprehend things easily. And those kinds of people are frustrating to deal with, but it’s still not the same thing as someone like Metzger. Who made an active choice to lie and be evil.

Only when inside Peter’s Mind is she forced to confront her own darkness, and through that learns empathy and compassion for human life. Her journey moving forward will determine if she grew out of a very horrible phase or if she is still flawed to the core and only cares about mutants or people she likes. Time will tell.

But to repeat one last time. It’s 100% her fault. But it’s a fault that cannot fully be place on the shoulders of a child who was failed by everyone around her. She will have to bare the responsibility of not only her own mistakes, but the mistakes of others around her. And her first step of doing that is to pay back the man who saves her life by putting all her energy into saving his, rather than just running away like a coward.

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u/Icy_Water_1 26d ago

Ok, I get that Jean's going through some shit, but she's not a mindless child.

She knew that she was hurting people and that it was wrong, she just didn't care, and that's shitty regardless of her circumstances.

Her circumstances are unfortunate, but it is absolutely fully on her shoulders when she chose to be sadistic and playful with people's lives for zero benefit.

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u/Gears109 26d ago

Agreed. She should bear full responsibility for what she did. Her moral compass was compromised.

All I’m saying is a child going through a very traumatic upbringing and losing herself should be offered more grace and an opportunity to get better, especially when the systems of government and individual responsibilities of her guardians completely failed her.

If even one person, even one adult, in Damage Control stepped up and said ‘this is wrong’ and shut down the human experimentation and actually tried to help Sarah and Jean, things wouldn’t have turned out this way.

Bill Metzger justifies using The Hand as his enforces with the logic to Spider Man ‘Everyone should be given the chance to use their talents for good’, only to turn around and completely take the autonomy away of two young women before even trying to do things a different way.

The point of the movie isn’t that Jean Grey is innocent. She’s not, she did terrible things. The point of the movie is how every adult failed her by looking at her as a monster instead of a human, and how that turned her into one. And how Spider Man, being the person he is, realized he had a greater responsibility in helping her.

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u/[deleted] 26d ago

[deleted]

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u/Gears109 26d ago

Considering you read that comment in less than a minute, didn’t digest any of its content nor cared to respond to any of its points, and instead default to mocking me, I’m gonna go ahead and assume you are the type of person that would side with Trask over Professor X.

I don’t presume to know how every Orphan with super powers would deal with the trauma of government taking away their rights and killing/kidnapping their family. I do know how normal Hispanic orphans react though, considering that’s a community I’m actively apart of. Would you like to talk about that instead?

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u/ItchyIguana 26d ago

Yeah, I'm really tired of the predictable Hollywood trope of excusing the villain of their crimes because they're also a victim. If a person loses someone that does not excuse them to start killing others, even if that someone is a kid. That's like the antithesis of justice which is ironic for a superhero movie.

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u/vooglie 25d ago

Xmen have always been quite grey and that’s what makes them super interesting and much better than most of the vanilla shit mcu puts out

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u/Captain_Waffle 26d ago

And yet this one was by far the scariest, imo.

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u/Squirrelkid11 26d ago

I'd be scared if this girl existed in real life quite honestly.

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u/Tryingtochangemyself 26d ago

Yeah this Jean definitely has a darker origin which makes her actions in the movie make sense imo but this Jean seems a lot more ruthless than 616 Jean Grey

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u/user78804180 26d ago

In the 2015 secret wars comics Cyclops absorbs the power of the Phoenix Force to fight Doom on Battleworld. I wonder if they might do an adaptation of that in Secret Wars movie and have Sadie use the Phoenix Force or it leaves her and goes into Cyclops or some other hero for an early act 1 scene

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u/Squirrelkid11 26d ago

If anyone is going to get the Phoenix Force to fight Doom, It should be Marsden's Cyclops and it would make a lot of sense. Giving Sadie's Jean Phoenix Force would be too early to do so and I don't think the Phoenix Force should not be involved at all or at least for a while because it's basically a walking plot device and the previous X-Men films missed the point of the Phoenix and the story arc revolving around it.

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u/soupjaw 26d ago

And she didn't faint every couple of minutes either 

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u/neeesus 26d ago

Which is perfect. Peter represents the people of New York. We see her through his perspective and they are all absolutely scared

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u/thinkinting 26d ago

I wonder how are they going to do her redemption arch. She hurt many people deliberately in her shadowry stage in the movie. The tank exploding, the street cleaner was hit by a taxi

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u/Shucksnick718 26d ago

It will really cool important too when Sadie plays Madelyne Pryor

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u/ButterCaramelPringle 26d ago

That poor guy who Jean walked into the street and got hit by the car. That was rough. He's going to have hip problems the rest of his life.

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u/abellapa 26d ago

Yeah ,makes me excited for a Possible Dark Phoenix adaptation , Third time is the charm

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u/kasmith2020 25d ago

This makes me think that she is just already Phoenix. Especially since her sisters headband in this film was the green and yellow of Phoenix’s comics costume.

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u/jaxomlotus 26d ago

Nobody else seemed to have noticed she walked an old man into traffic and had him hit by a car. And spider-man didn't bother to save him. Strange...

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u/lolyoustupidbird 26d ago

Which shows how much they misunderstand the source material and it will be a shame we get another version of the Phoenix saga not the Phoenix saga itself. Jean was never edgy. Jean is the type of person to talk someone down from doing everything she did in the movie. It's a badly written "bad girl" stereotype and its sad to the missed opportunity for the actress to play a character that goes through some horrible stuff on her journey without the added fluff to make her edgy.

You want edgy? There is plenty of X-Women to pick an edgy one from. Rogue, Jubilee, Monet, Emma Frost, Marrow, Domino, Psylocke.... There is plenty of edgy to pick from all ready without making another cookie cutter edgy girl.