This has to go down as some of the oddest news that I’ve ever posted but it was so bizarre that it had to go up! I may now have to go to France just to experience one of these as we see that restaurant ‘Quick’ will be serving both a Darth Vader burger and a Jedi burger which seems to feature Yoda’s teeth?!

This is to celebrate the release of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace which is set to be released (AGAIN!) in 3D later this year. The Darth Vader burger or ‘Dark Vador Burger’ as it’s known in it’s native tongue will feature a completely black bun which either means it’s going to be completely burnt to a crisp or it has more colourings in it than one of those buns that you buys from our local cake shop!

This lovely image promoting the delightful treats tells us the burgers will be available until March 1st so if you’re in France and read this, please send us a photo of you eating one!

I guess since George Lucas has to approve all this Star Wars stuff, they must have sent him one to sample. I am now jealous! UK Star Wars PR peeps (you know who you are!), please can we have this here! PLEASE!! Next thing you know they’ll be turning the BT Tower into a giant lightsaber! Oh wait, they did that!!

Source: Mint In Box via Gizmodo

With X-Men First Class finally available on Blu-Ray this week (check out our review here), we got a chance to talk to our favourite teleporting Devil-a-like, Jason Flemyng.

Given how many films the man’s been in over a 20 year long career, the hardest part of interviewing him is staying on the subject at hand and resisting the temptation to ask about Stardust, or Ironclad or Spice World.

Fortunately X-Men First Class, and Flemyng’s relationship with the film’s director Matthew Vaughn, are particularly interesting subjects. That said, we did find the time to ask whether we would be seeing Azazel again in an X-Sequel, and about his desire to produce films as well as act.

And if this doesn’t sate your desire for behind the scenes gossip on X-Men: First Class, check out Children of the Atom, the remarkably frank and forthright documentary on the Blu-Ray. It’s absolutely fascinating.

In a year awash with superhero movies a new X-Men film was in danger of being overlooked, or even avoided altogether given the toxic slap of X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men: Origins Wolverine and yet here we are with me telling you that X-Men: First Class is tremendous fun and edges up to X2 as one of the best of the series. How did Matthew Vaughn bring this series back from the edge?

Taking us back in time is a smart move and the origins of this film lie in the film’s opening scene which is a continuation of the previously glimsped moment when the young Erik Lensherr enters a Nazi concentration camp. At one point the next X-Men film was to be Magneto’s story and in First Class there is a strong case to be made for a Fassbender led film as he is easily the most interesting character here, but the crucial expansion of the story to include the other original X-Men gives the film a reason to be. We need to see the friendship develop between Xavier and Lensherr before watching it fall apart and the scenes between McAvoy and Fassbender are perfectly pitched and despite the shenanigans in Cuba and the Hellfire Club it is this relationship which fuels the film.

Watching it again on Blu-ray (which looks beautiful by the way, crisp and colourful) the film’s pacing really stands out, as do the dynamics of the characters which are nicely complex and completely true. In contrast Singer’s Superman didn’t work its characters against each other, they all existed in the same space but didn’t spark when they met. Here there is an excellent villain in Kevin Bacon’s Sebastian Shaw, and crucially he is the catalyst for the change in fortune for the X-Men. It’s an exciting ride with a stunning visual identity, a keen wit and a genuinely unfamiliar feel to it, and this is a key strength.

It’s hard to imagine a better main cast for the young X-Men and a strength of Goldman as a writer and Vaughn as a director is the charm and intensity of McAvoy and Fassbender respectively. To embody an earlier version of a character so well known, and so expertly played by Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan, is no easy trick but the glint in Charles Xavier’s eye and the latent vulnerability of Erik Lensherr is something new and drives the film early on. That the characters evolve over the course of the film, Xavier to learn the responsibility of his power and position and Lensherr to embrace his mutant side wholly, and that this evolution happens so clearly and with the full force of the plot behind it is testament to the success of the film and the care which has gone into it.

Best of all it achieves the same, rare feat as JJ Abrams’ Star Trek reboot in that the new actors easily replace those we’ve come to know in the roles and as soon as the end scene rolls we want to see more. If the next film follows the trajectory of quality of the Singer Trilogy then the next X-Men will be anything other than Second Class.

Film:****~ (4/5)

Special Features:

• Cerebro – The Ultimate Mutant Database replicates what happens when Charles locates mutants through Cerebro and allows you to learn more about various mutants, connect them to key events, decipher connections between them and much more (additional mutants can be unlocked through BD Live).

This is an odd extra but it does a good job of drawing the five films together with an animated ‘Cerebro’ menu taking us through the cast of mutants and then a short montage of their finest moments plays before a fact sheet is pulled up. You could spend a while going through each of the characters but I doubt many people will. It’s not a bad attempt at giving the Blu-ray buying public something a little extra but it’s a cumbersome way to see a video clip and a short bio.

• Children of the Atom–Multi-part documentary on the X-Men including the following elements: Second Genesis, Band of Brothers, Transformation, Suiting Up, New Frontier: A Dose of Style, Pulling Off the Impossible, Sound and Fury and Untitled Closing.

This is where the good stuff is. Over an hour of comprehensive behind the scenes footage and talking heads taking us through the entire process, from first shortlist of directors (which didn’t include Vaughn) to the casting and visual effects sequences. It’s not breaking any boundaries of documentary filmmaking but there’s nothing like a well put together hourlong with contributions from each important voice. Well worth a watch.

• 13 deleted scenes:
  o Erik in Argentinean Airport
  o Shaw with Cuban Generals
  o Charles and Moira’s Tryst, Part 1
  o Charles and Erik Recruit Angel (extended)
  o The Russian Truck (extended)
  o Erik vs. Russian Guards (extended)
  o Shaw’s Plan (extended)
  o Havok Training, Part 1 (extended)
  o Banshee Training, Part 1 (extended)
  o Havok Training, Part 2 (extended)
  o Banshee Training, Part 2 (extended)
  o Hank and Raven in the Lab (extended)
  o Charles and Moira’s Tryst, Part 2

Nothing hugely important was left on the cutting room floor. The relationship between Charles and Moira was hinted at in the film but given a new spin in the deleted scenes. Other than that it’s a mixed bunch but if you’re a fan of the film you’ll enjoy every extra minute.

Disc:[Rating3/5]

Reviewing this box set when it is out in stores and in all probability snapped up by eager Star Wars fans seems a little unnecessary. The promise of a shiny high def transfer and the long awaited deleted scenes from the Original Trilogy conspire to tempt you to part with your cash once more, to enjoy the long time ago all over again.

But there’s a problem. A wave of negative reaction to some of the changes made by Lucas for this box set became clear a few weeks prior to the release as rumours of some important scenes ruined by needless additions and more handy work by the CG Replacement Bureau. Then video clips were uploaded to confirm the changes and boycotts were threatened and those unhappy with the Special Editions and 2004 DVD ‘improvements’ found new voice and dusted off their VHS copies and chided those who had their pre-orders booked.

So, who’s right? Are the changes too much for those who loved the originals, or is the HD transfer and wealth of extras enough to make the purchase worthwhile? As with many things, both are right, from a certain point of view.

We’ve already looked back over the films this past week in our Video Vault series, so if you’re looking to find out more about Episodes I to VI then click here to read them; there is an assumption that you’re not going in totally blind here. If you’ve never seen the films at all and can spare the cash then this box set is an instant recommendation – just make sure you watch them in the order they were made, don’t be tempted to start your journey to the dark side and out again with The Phantom Menace.

The more pertinent question is perhaps asked of those who already own the DVD set (and probably the VHS copies as well): Do I need to buy this set too?

The HD transfer is most obvious in Episodes IV to VI, and what I found strange were the additions for the 1997 Special Editions and how they showed their age. The advancement of computer technology is so rapid and is  noticeable when some of the visual effects which impressed in the late nineties now look very out of place. The additions to Mos Eisley are not as polished as the 1977 footage, with some very messy compositing of the newer elements over the old and some problems with the focus in certain shots. It surprised me as the original footage looks incredibly sharp for the most part, occasionally there is a very muddy shot in between the crystal clear original footage which itself isn’t completely free from problems.

Looking on the positive side there are moments when I saw things I had never seen before, and I’ve watched these films a lot. In truth I’ve never seen the sparks that fly off the colliding lightsabers in the duel between Vader and Kenobi. At first it looks a little like CGI sweat and it may have always been in there but this was new to me. Obi-Wan Kenobi’s new scream to scare off the Sandpeople is a strange addition to those of us who have known the original but isn’t a huge offence overall. It was a genuine thrill to see the detail and the dirt of the first film in particular, not least in contrast to the clinical green-screenery of the prequels; the forests on the moon of Endor look lush and verdant and the ice planet of Hoth is so sharp you could shave a Wookie with it. The occasional transfer quirks aside this is the most beautiful version of the films we’ve seen and when I first saw the discs at the Big Screen event I was sold.

The additions will irk some, and infuriate others. I’m sure a lot of people may not even notice the newly CGI Yoda in The Phantom Menace or question Vader’s new, and controversial, cry of ‘Noooooooo.’ just before he saves Luke from the Emperor’s final attack, but you’ll know which applies to you. In all honesty the films remain some of the most exciting science fiction films we have and they have never looked better. I’d question the need to buy this new set if you already have the DVDs and aren’t too fussed about the HD, but as we’ll see there is a reason to keep your old copies around even if you do.

The menu system on the main discs are simple and won’t blow your mind but they are a vast improvement over those found on the three discs of extras which invite you to select a film, then a location (Tattooine, Hoth, Bespin etc) and then to select a category (interviews, deleted scenes etc) and then a further click to play them. It’s not fun to navigate this menu every time you want to see a particular special feature. The interviews to introduce each film’s extras are short and drawn from cast and crew and are a nice addition. The deleted scenes are a lot of fun, with the early scenes of Luke and Biggs on Tattooine being the most substantial. The scene with Han and a female companion in the Cantina is here, as is an extended scene in the land speeder with Luke and C3PO searching for R2D2 and while most of these have been seen before on various multimedia releases it’s good to have them all in one place.

What I alluded to earlier about keeping the DVDs handy is one of the more puzzling elements of this collection as the deleted scenes for the Prequel Trilogy do not include those found on the DVD releases. This is a strange omission and a real shame, nice though it is to see a brief cameo by Dominic West as a Naboo guard pushing over a defeated Battle Droid there were some substantial scenes excised from the original cut that would have fitted alongside the new scenes perfectly. Maybe there’s a definitive box set coming our way – maybe when the 3D version are put out…

When I was a kid the only way you could have Star Wars in your own home was as part of the documentaries made and televised at the time of release of the Original Trilogy films. These are included on the final disc of extras and proved a highlight for me as I was hit by a wave of nostalgia. Also included, and perhaps the most intriguing extra, on the disc was The Masters – a discussion of the making of The Empire Strikes Back with the late Irvin Kershner proving a wonderful guide through the difficult second movie.

So in the end I was won over by the new transfer and the decent, if limited, set of extras. If you have the DVDs and are annoyed at the constant tinkering by Lucas then be warned – this won’t light your saber. If you’re a fan and want to see Star Wars in the best way possible then the choice is clear. The galaxy far, far away has never looked better.

This may be an exercise in futility, or at least an attempt to distill down a real wealth of material into a fairly artificial concept, however in honour of the Star Wars franchise finally making its way onto Blu-ray, here are my considered nominations for the best set pieces, one per film, of the whole blessed saga.

You may not (indeed most likely will not) agree with me, which is what the comments section below is for. Let me know what gets your vote, tell me if you think I’m missing an obvious highlight.

In the interests of kicking it a little old-skool, only those set pieces comprised in the original theatrical versions are eligible, so Han’s meeting with Jabba in the Special Edition of Episode IV is out (as if it were ever going to be in), as are any of the seemingly absurd tweaks rolled out for the Blu-ray editions. Okay, enough preamble, let’s do this, in numerical order.

Episode 1: The Phantom Menace – The Duel of the Fates

This is one of the easier choices, though the pod race runs it close. That set piece owes a real debt to Ben Hur and since the whole thing was essentially manufactured in a computer, I’m going to go with something that feels a little more real, albeit it obviously CG-augmented. There are a few really good lightsaber fights in the saga, but this is the daddy, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan at the absolute pinnacle of their powers (before Obi-Wan lost his recklessness and Qui-Gon lost his, well, livingness) and Maul wielding a never-before seen double-ended lightsaber. The surprise of that particular weapon was of course shamefully spoiled by the trailer, but it was still a great moment.

Ewan MacGregor’s penchant for destroying his aluminium prop lightsabers by smashing them too hard and forcing scenes to have to be re-filmed by making sound effects with his mouth while fighting have been well documented, but the sequence is simply brilliant, with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan working together and complementing each other seamlessly and Ray Park’s considerable martial arts ability adroitly deployed.  Although other lightsaber duels would have more narrative or emotional significance, none would match this for fight choreography or jaw-dropping vigour, with John Williams’ soaring choral and orchestral score bringing added resonance. Enjoy. Go on, treat yourself, you know you want to.

Episode II: Attack of the Clones – Little Green Bundle of Fury

That summer, my beloved wife got me tickets for a midnight screening of  Episode II, the first night of its release. As tired as we and everyone else around us were, there was plenty of anticipation. Episode I was by now widely acknowledged as a misfire, but word was this was a considerable improvement. It could hardly have been otherwise. In fact Episode II proved to be, much like the rest of the prequels, a film with some good sequences, frustratingly shackled to narrative imperatives that left in unable to stray into surprising or inventive territory. My selection for Episode II is perhaps the most shamelessly fan-pleasing moment of any of the films. As the film wore on into the small hours of the morning, Yoda shuffles into a cave, with both Obi-Wan and Anakin having been bested and rendered unconscious by Darth Tyranus himself, Count Dooku. Yoda and the Count exchange little blue lightning bolt things, before Dooku announces what we all wanted to hear, that lightsabers would settle this one.

Yoda uses the force to take his lightsaber in his hand, before transforming into a 900 year-old green version of the Tazmanian Devil, leaping, twisting, spinning, fighting, parrying. The entire cinema auditorium cheered. Although on reflection I feel a little sorry for Christopher Lee, already at that point well short of the athleticism needed to do the fight scene justice and reduced to swinging a metal pole at a tennis ball on a stick, the end result is so much fun, so satisfying, that I can think of no sequence in the film more deserving of its place on this most exclusive of lists. Though if it could have been Miss Piggy vs The Count from Sesame Street, that would have been something truly special.

Episode III: Revenge of the Sith – Rise Lord Vader

So much of Episode III was a frustrating effort to fit a square peg into a round hole, to retro-fit the backstory so that it matched seamlessly with what must happen in Episode IV. Clumsy steps like getting Jimmy Smits to order the wiping of the droids’ memories, or Palpatine’s face symmetrically deforming and wrinkling when trying to zap Mace Windu sit alongside slightly more considered attempts to meld the loose edges. One element that worked pretty well was the destruction of Anakin’s body by Obi-Wan and therefore the necessity of the donning of the suit of suits for Vader. Although with one word (“Noooooooooo”) the entire character, perhaps the whole saga was undone, before that the fitting of the mask, the first rasped breaths, the click as mask, helmet and suit meet up was effectively and affectingly staged.

Obviously the entirety of the arc of the prequels was telling the story of how the boy Anakin became the peerless villain that is Lord Vader and suddenly here he was, that none-more-iconic metallic wheeze, that suit, James Earl Jones’ baritone delivery. As unsatisfying as the backstory with Amidala undoubtedly was, there was still an undeniably strong spine-tingle moment when we finally see Vader as we had always known him to be.

Episode IV: A New Hope – The Trench Run

An awful lot of the content of Star Wars has become iconic. The duel between Vader and Obi-Wan, the visit to the Mos Eisley Cantina, the rescue of Leia and the predicament of the rubbish compactor, Luke & Leia’s swing to freedom, that Stormtrooper who bangs his dead, Greedo definitely not shooting first. The list goes on. The trench run at the end though, as the Rebel Alliance seeks to exploit the weakness of the exhaust port on the newly constructed Death Star, trumps them all.

The initial dog fight between X-Wings and TIE-fighters, before our motley band of heroes hit the deck and try to get to the target before they get blown to smithereens, Han Solo returning to redeem himself, Vader getting in on the piloting action, Obi-Wan’s ghostly voice exhorting Luke to Use The Force, the “now you think about it I can’t believe I didn’t pick up on it before” worryingly Freudian subject of the none-more-phallic small X-Wings shooting into a small opening which in turn leads to the centre of the much larger, spherical object of everyone’s attention. Crikey.

Admittedly now that it is refracted through the prism of the current state of the art in effects, the model work for the surface of the Death Star shows a little wear and tear, but the thrill, the engagement, the emotional pay-off are undiminished. The trench run has become perhaps the most instantly recognisable set piece of the whole saga, second only to the lightsaber in iconic status. The opening credits of Naked Gun 33 1/3 threw the famous flashing lights into the canyon and we all recognised it immediately (try the below clip at 1:56). Watch the scene now, for the zillionth time and you will still find yourself on the edge of your seat. Is Luke going to make it? Will Vader get to him first? Will he hit the target without using his onboard computer? Of course he will, but you’ll still feel tense. And that is what makes the scene great.

Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back – AT-ATs att-attack Hoth

I’ve already cast my vote (as have most other right-thinking people) for Empire as the finest film of the saga. So what is the best of the best? A compelling case could be made for any of the duel between Vader and Luke at the end, Luke’s dream-like walk through the darkness on Dagobah, Lando’s treachery and Han’s trip to the cooler, but the appearance of the AT-ATs does, I would maintain, top them all.

With ILM providing yet more ground-breaking effects and model work, iconic designing and genuine excitement as rebel craft swoop in and out of the marching legs of the advancing AT-ATs, it begins the film at such a highpoint that it takes something as sensational as Vader’s shock declaration to Luke during the finale to return the film to that seemingly untouchable opening level.

To quote Forrest Gump, that’s about all I have to say about that. So I’ll leave you to enjoy it, before pressing on with Jedi.

Episode VI: Return of the Jedi – The Pit of Sarlacc

Jedi is a film absolutely packed full of incident. It is only because of the stratospheric quality of Episodes IV and V that it doesn’t get more kudos. Consider Jabba’s palace and the Rancor, the Sarlacc pit, speeder bike chases on Endor, the dogfight in and around the new Death Star, Luke/Vader/Palpatine – there is an awful lot going on and it is all coherently staged and edited, with underlying narrative cohesion to keep us engaged. If only that could be said for all large-scale sci-fi threequels (*cough* Dark of the Moon *cough*).

Choosing the best out of so impressive a bunch can feel a little unkind to what is left out, such is the embarassment of riches available for consideration. But choose I must, thems are the rules. And Sarlacc it must be.

Before Lucas got his hands on the film and decided to stick a Little Shop of Horrors mouth into it, the pit was truly terrifying, at least it was for me, seeing a Star Wars film for the first time at the Enfield ABC with my Dad and big brother. Teeth running down the sides out of sight, sentient tentacles reaching out for prey and the prospect of a millenium-long digestion. Added to that you have a bikini-clad princess throttling a morbidly obese slug/gangster, Boba Fett meeting his demise, Luke behaving like a properly cool Jedi ninja, Lando nearly buying the farm and lashings of explosions and lightsaber deaths.

It is thrilling stuff, operating as a brilliant set-piece, yet feeling like an organic part of the whole, as all the best set pieces should. There is a reason why they find themselves there and a logic to how the scene develops and concludes, showing up so many blockbuster set pieces these days which only serve to enable the director to say, “ooh, look what I can do”. It’s great. Really great.

Well, those are my choices. Other scenes are available. What do you think?

Paul Bradshaw completes the Original Trilogy Video Vault series.

Ah, those blinking Ewoks. A long time ago, 1983 to be exact, Return of the Jedi was loved by critics and fans alike. Grossing more than $475 million worldwide, opening to rave reviews and sell-out audiences, the then third and final chapter of George Lucas’s landmark space opera was lauded the ultimate Star Wars experience.

28 years, three prequels and two messy special editions later and Episode VI, as it’s now been officially rebranded, seems to have aged about as well as a bottle of vintage semi-skimmed milk. Yes, the military might of the Empire is brought to its knees by a handful of teddy bears. Yes, the coolest bounty hunter in the galaxy is given a spectacularly uncool death in the first fight. Yes, the ‘surprise’ sibling revelation adds all kinds of uncomfortable subtexts to the first two movies, and yes – it ends with a stupid singsong, but ROTJ remains the most satisfying, exciting and downright entertaining film of the series.

Coming as it does after the Saturday matinee fun of A New Hope and the moral ambiguities of The Empire Strikes Back, Richard Marquand’s epic finale borrows the best of both before sprawling over a massive 45-minute three-way battle that ends with cinema’s greatest showdown.

Continuing the mid-season serial opening of Episode IV and jumping over the cliff-hanger ending of Episode V, ROTJ throws us straight into a daring jailbreak. With Han Solo frozen solid and sold as a wall ornament to the ‘vile gangster’ Jabba the Hutt, Luke plans an audacious rescue using R2D2, and a reluctant C3PO, as bait. He might look a cross between an inside-out toad and something you find in a festival portaloo, but Jabba remains one of great characters of the Star Wars universe.

Described by Roger Ebert as a ‘Dickensian Cheshire Cat’, the scheming, smirking muppet re-interpretation of Sydney Greenstreet finally gives the boring desert planet of Tatooine a real personality. Lording it over his seedy court and feeding drunks and dancing girls to his pet Rancor, Jabba takes pleasure in being bad. After Empire’s brooding gloominess, Jedi wastes no time getting back to good old-fashioned swashbuckling adventure – giving us pit monsters, bikini-clad princesses and Errol Flynn style acrobatics on the plank of a pirate ship.

The thrilling opening salvo is the last time we see the whole gang working together, and the last time Lucas has any room for simple adventuring. Splitting up to fight the Empire on three fronts, Han and Leia head off to the forest, Lando starts prepping for another Death Star run and Luke gets ready to stand up to his Dad. Splitting the action between dogfights in space, swordfights in the Emperor’s throne room and guerrilla warfare on the ground, Marquand brings the series to a close with an almighty bang.

Of all the planets in the Star Wars galaxy, Endor is surely the most believable. It might look like it was filmed in the woods behind George’s house, but it also requires the least suspension of disbelief – and the least green screen work. Which brings us to the Ewok question. It’s unlikely that anyone who already had an issue with them is going to change their mind, literally, in the blink of an eye – but Lucas’s latest Blu-ray tinkering is an attempt to address what seems to have grown into a problem of Gungun sized proportions for long-time fans.

They might feature in the brilliant Kurosawa influenced speederbike chase and they might take down an AT-ST with a couple of ingeniously placed logs, but nothing can save them from the levels of hatred levied at their furry little butts from grownup audiences – or protect their dignity from the erupting cheers each time one of them catches a laser blast to the face. In retrospect, it’s all too easy to blame cynical marketing and unblinking eyes for something that seems to fit perfectly comfortably within Lucas’s expansive universe. No stranger, cuter or inauthentic than any of the other Star Wars creatures – the Ewoks are surely long overdue for a reprieve.

High above the treetops, the real battle is just getting started. The greatest gift the prequels gave us was repositioning Anakin as the central figure of the series. Finally forced to confront the darkness within, Vader’s final battle with his son is a fitting culmination to the whole saga – losing none of its power to the bolted on backstory of the recent chapters. The new movies might have spinning Yodas and double bladed lightsabers, but you can’t beat Jedi’s epic family faceoff for pure visceral emotion – the moment when Luke starts slamming away at his father’s hand with tears streaming down his face sends shivers down the spine every time. Ruined by the addition of a 6.1 DTS surround sound cheesy scream as he sacrifices himself for his son, Anakin’s greatest moment is undone with a single Blu-ray tweak.

Irreligious tampering aside, the closing scenes of ROTJ represent the very best of Star Wars. With alien creatures fighting robotic walkers, Lando hurtling through the Death Star, love amid the laser battles, Tie Fighters buzzing around X-Wings, Han being witty, Threepio being annoying, the Emperor being camp and Luke and Vader locked in combat – lit only by the glow of their lightsabers – it’s the climax to end all climaxes. Matched with the best of John Williams’s ambitious, multi-layered score and pitched at a level of frantic intensity never yet rivalled in a Hollywood blockbuster it feels, more than anything, like the perfect end to a perfect trilogy.

Forget the Ewoks. Let Boba Fett go. Return of the Jedi is still the ultimate Star Wars experience – Search your feelings, you know it to be true!

Truth be told, there are easier films to revisit than Empire. Not because it isn’t enjoyable to do so (the number of genuinely superior sci-fi films can probably just about be counted on the fingers of one hand), but because pretty much everything that can be said about it has been already. Thus, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel by finding something ground-breaking to say about Empire, I will simply sing its praises, as we all remind ourselves just how good it really is.

*****

We all know how elite a club Empire belongs to – that consisting of sequels that either measure up to or surpass their progenitors. Alien/Aliens, The Godfather Parts I & 2, Toy Story 1 & 2, X-Men, Blade, Spider-man, The Dark Knight. That’s a pretty impressive and select group to belong to. It goes without saying that Empire benefits massively from George Lucas’s commendable decision to hand over the writing and directing reins to others, leaving himself with no more than a “story by” credit.

Just as Harry Potter benefited from the shifts in tone permitted by the departure of the capable but workmanlike Chris Columbus after the first two instalments, so Irvin Kershner’s arrival (with due credit to writers Lawrence Kasdan and Leigh Brackett) ushered in an altogether darker, more grown-up approach to the material, resulting in a film not matched for quality by any other in the franchise and well deserving of its place alongside Alien, Blade Runner, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and so forth at the very apex of the genre.

The unprecedented and entirely unanticipated success of Star Wars (Spielberg had said it would make $100m, Alec Guinness had wisely opted for gross points, neither quite realised what was coming) afforded Lucas a lot more freedom and certainly a much bigger budget second time around. Although, as with all sequels, there was a loss of the novelty and originality enjoyed by the first instalment, Empire was very much its own creature tonally and narratively, yet with enough through-put of characters and mythology to enable it to feel familiar yet fresh.

What is it that really marks out Empire? Why is it so good? Let me count the ways…

1. Boba Fett, the coolest character in the entire Star Wars universe, features heavily

2. The AT-AT assault on Hoth is hugely impressive, a sensational opening for the film, throwing us straight into the action

3. In Luke’s dream-sequence fight with Vader, we encounter the idea of him destroying himself in destroying Vader, a moment of unexpected psychological depth and subtlety in a franchise that would eventually give us Jar Jar Binks

4. “I love you!”

5. “I know.”

6. Vader’s revelation about Luke’s father, a gut punch whose impact at he time is nigh on impossible to imagine, so inured to it as we now are.

7. The bleak note on which it ends – Han frozen, Luke handless and devastated, Lando a traitor. Even with the knowledge that the finale was yet to come, U certificated films had no business being this harsh.

It was downhill all the way from here on in. Jedi would have to end more upbeat, it would have been unconscionable for it to be otherwise and much as Revenge of the Sith ended on and contained some pretty dark beats, we watched it with the knowledge of all that was to come and with Lucas tying himself in knots to get the end of one section of track to match up with the beginning of what had already been laid it felt too clinical, too calculated, too lacking in freedom. Depending on your mood, you might rate Star Wars more highly than Empire, but the rest of the franchise can’t come close.

In quite possibly the best ident of all time, we’ve managed to get this video from a galaxy far far away where Darth Vader quite frankly gives every one of us an order!! In no uncertain terms, he tells you that you need to go and pre-order Star Wars: The Complete Saga (Episodes I-VI) before it’s release on 12th September.

You can pre-order the box set here and see all our coverage of all things Star Wars here. Don’t forget, for those of you who pre-order the movie, you’ll also be entitled to your very own Limited Edition Star Wars® film cell.

The limited edition Star Wars Sentiype™ contains a unique 35mm film frame reproduced from the original film footage using state-of-the-art imaging and printing techniques. The film frame is mounted and features original artwork from the Star Wars Blu-ray collection. Each senitype™ is numbered for authenticity.

The Senitype is only available to those that Pre-Order The Complete Saga on Blu-ray. One limited edition Star Wars Senitype™ will be sent to all persons that have already pre-ordered The Complete Saga on Blu-ray. You can find out more on the UK’s official Star Wars page.

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HeyUGuys recently joined several other film news sites at a round table interview with Matthew Vaughn to talk about all things X-Men: First Class.

The interview lasted over 45 minutes, and because it was only for sites that write about film (unlike other round tables where we share with all sorts of outlets), it’s pretty much concentrated on things that should interest you. It certainly fascinates us.

This third section of the interview (3 of 3 that will be published) is about the relationship the film has with the comics., you can read the first part of the interview, which focuses on Writing and Character, here and the second part, concerning itself with the Production, is right here.

On Relation to the Comics

Q: You did a great job sacrificing characters, but was there anything you had to cut out to make the film work?

MV: There was a whole love story between Moria and X, and we cut all that out. Most of my movies, I always cut out one -I normally try to shoot too many things; it’s better to be able to take it down to to not be able to build it up.

Q: X-Men-wise, you’ve got hundreds of characters to choose from, how did you go about chosing the characters?

MV: they were already chosen by Bryan and Fox. The draft they gave me, the characters were in there.

Q: you didn’t cut anyone, you didn’t add anyone?

MV: We cut, is it Quicksilver? No, not Quicksilver. Sunspot. We didn’t have enough time or money, we couldn’t make him work, it was a pain in the arse.

Q: Did you have a favourite X-Men character in this movie?

MV: for me it’s obvious, but Magneto. I sat down with Michael and said, ‘I’ve always wanted to do a Bond movie. Imagine you’re Bond, but you don’t have to have gadgets. Bond would have to use his watch to make it magnetic, you can do shit that other people can’t; you’re sort of the ultimate assassin in a world that no one knows about, you with your powers’. I’ve always loved Magneto, and I don’t know why. It’s weird, because his power’s bloody odd if you think about it, it’s not that great a power, but there’s something about Magneto I’ve always loved.

Q: How much pressure did you have from the hardcore fanbase? Did you read a lot about what the fans thought?

MV: You read about it, but you have to, and don’t take it the wrong way, ignore it, because you’ve got to make a movie. I remember talking to Daniel Craig about this when he was doing Bond, and I was like ‘fuck these fuckwits, it doesn’t matter. They haven’t seen what you’re doing, you’re a good actor. Just let your work do the talking.’ And I always knew when people saw him in Bond they’d say, ‘he’s great’.

It’s very odd. You read, and you do want to hear what the concerns are, and see if you can address them, but at the same time, you don’t know who the hell’s writing it. It could be some eight year old kid. You actually meet these people and you suddenly go, ‘I’m listening to an eight year old about how to construct a film’, but every now and then there can be some valid points.

I was amazed at the negativity though, towards the X-Men world – not really, actually  after watching Wolverine – but there was a whole – it was quite scary thinking, ‘am I going to turn fanboys round to actually enjoy it?’ and I thought the best way of doing it was, try to make a good movie that is respectful to the other X-Men movies, but not reverential to them.

Q: One of the things I really liked was their relationship with Mystique.

MV: Well, Mystique was the catalyst between the two of them as well, the way they both treat her differently, you need a third character…

Q: Watching them change sides like that, you could see the emotion behind it.

MV: It was hard to get that balance right. Tricky character Mystique, as well. We came up with a whole, the idea of – now that I’ve got daughters and stuff – girls not being comfortable in their own skin. You’ve got that thing where Magneto says, ‘does a tiger cover up?’ and Professor X going, ‘are you going to put some clothes on?’ Always trying to show the different attitude towards the sane thing.

You can check out our review of the film here. X-Men: First Class is released in UK cinemas on the 1st of June.

You can check out our review of the film here, and check back later for the next two parts of this interview.

HeyUGuys recently joined several other film news sites at a round table interview with X-Men: First Class director Matthew Vaughn.

The interview lasted over 45 minutes, and because it was only for sites that write about film (unlike other round tables where we share with all sorts of outlets), it’s pretty much concentrated on things that should interest you. It certainly fascinates us.

This second section of the interview (2 of 3 that will be published) is about the production process. It also features a few spoilers and some swearing. We’ve put an advisory notice before and after the spoilers.

To read the first section of the interview, which concentrates on Writing and Character, please click here and check back later for the final part of the interview, which will look closer at the relationship between Vaughn’s film and the comic books.

On Production

Q: So how come John Mathieson gets the DP credit, and we don’t see any other names?

MV: Welcome to Hollywood. How come all these people who did fuck all on the screenplay get these credits?

Q: What sort of proportion is his work?

MV: I think John probably did. He did the most, that’s why. John did a great job by the way. I’d say 45%, 55%. I don’t know. I should know. He came on half way through the shoot.

Q: It looked pretty coherent though.

MV: As I said, it’s – you know.  But we got through it. It was good for me. Normally I’m far more collaborative with DPs, here I became a bit more of a megalomaniac, ‘cause in the end I was just  like, ‘look, someone has to take control, and the scene’s about the camera being there now’. Normally I’d ask the DP, ‘what do you think?’ So it was good for me to get out of that zone.

Q: Did you know you wanted McAvoy to play the role from the beginning?

MV: He was top of my list. When we talked about who could play Professor X, I thought McAvoy was perfect. So I sat with him. Then I think he got pretty annoyed at me, because I made him audition with every single actor who came in for Magneto, because if we were going to do the Butch Cassidy, Sundance Kid thing of chemistry, I think it’s really, really important that you see that chemistry beforehand.

The poor guy, I was wheeling him in every day saying, ‘you’ve got to read with this actor, or this other actor’, and then when Michael came in, after twenty seconds of the two of them together I was like, ‘OK, I’ve found [Magneto]’.

Q: So was that in the US, or in England?

MV: In England.

Q: There’s a big push now with 3D. Just about every superhero/comic-based film is coming out in 3D now. Were you asked to make it in 3D?

MV: I’m sure if we’d had more time they might have brought it up. I’m not a big fan of 3D. I think Avatar works for 3D, because they really shot and designed it. Half these films I see, it’s sort of…

Q: Tacked on.

MV: Yeah. It just doesn’t feel like they’ve designed every shot to be3D. Yeah, they have something coming towards the camera now and again, but what I love about Avatar [is that] they made it to give it more depth, and you can just tell that Cameron knows what 3D means, but the rest of these directors. – You know when they do this post-conversion shit, and then you can’t even – It cut’s too quick. They’ve cut it in 2D, and in 3D, you’ve got to slow it down. I find the glasses annoying, and my kids hate it as well, and they take the glasses off halfway through. I’m like, ‘no, you’ve got to watch it with them on’, and they don’t care. Maybe I should be more of a fan, but for me Avatar’s the only 3D movie where I became immersed in a world. Doesn’t Cameron call it Real-D or something? He’s right. I think Hollywood’s fucking up 3D now as well. They’re cheapening the process so that people don’t care anymore.

Q: You say that you only saw the finished film five days ago. Are you happy with it?

MV: I think so. I’m just so close to it. Normally in this process, nine weeks after finishing filming,  I’m nearly close to having a director’s cut. That’s when I show it to friends, and get about 50 people to see it. Then I get all their input, and then I go off and spend three or four months tweaking and changing. I think I am. I don’t know. I’m astonished by it. It’s weird. When I say ‘seeing it for the first time’, we only got all the visual effects finished about ten days ago. It was odd. I was so used to cutting it with all these bad pre-vizes in it, and I was scared that the movie felt too small, because of  all that big stuff I hadn’t seen. Watching it suddenly give birth, I think the actors did a great job on it, and we seemed to get away with having different DPs, and I think Henry Jackman did a great job with the score, because we were writing  music three weeks ago. I was still sitting there on a piano with the guy going, ‘what’s Magneto’s theme?’ [Vaughn taps rhythmically on the table, and hums a couple of bars of the tune] . It’s been so, – I cannot explain how crazy the process has been right now, I think that’s why I’m sick now, because it’s finally finished and my body’s just gone, ‘what the fuck?’ But ask me in a year, it normally takes me about a year to know whether I’#m proud of a film as well. You need to get away from the film and watch it – not that I made the film, try to watch it as a movie.

Q: So would you like more time?

MV: Fuck yeah.

Q: With that comic book style, you had to juggle that with the period style. Yours is quite subtle, and I enjoyed it from the point of view that, all the girls are quite leggy, and you’ve got that dark undercurrent of morality.

MV: Well, we tried to capture that 60s misogynist vibe.

Q: There was a bit where he looked a bit like Doctor Evil, with January Jones in that Submarine.

MV: We were doing nods to all the 60s films, but we tried to make them feel more ‘real’ in a sense, but at the same time it’s a movie, so we try to heighten it,, but in a way that you just went with it.

Q: Did you apply a  comic book style to the movie?

MV: It’s funny, because people are always asking, ‘what’s your style as a filmmaker?’ and it’s very simple. I just want to tell a story, and every shot, keep that narrative drive moving on, and I don’t like throwing the camera around.. I see these movies where I have no idea who the fuck is doing what to who, and what characters are meant to relate to. Because this is set in the 60s, I tried not to shoot it in a very modern style. I tried to go back to the Frankenheimer, very traditional framing, camera movement when it needs to move, not just throwing it around and whizz-bang. I tried to keep it as ‘classic’ as possible, and tell a story. The thing I like about this movie is there’s a good story and good characters, and that’s what traditionally has been missing in a lot of the superhero films;, it’s just like people blowing up buildings and flying around.

Q:  It looked like a lot of energy had to be spent making some of the tropes of the comic book work though, from the suits they were wearing, to the reason Emma Frost is dressed as she is. Did you ever think, ‘to hell with this. I wish I didn’t have to deal with these trappings, and I could just not have them call each other ‘Beast’ and ‘Mystique’’?

MV: I love the X-Men world, so for me that was fun. It was fun to look at the comics, and see how the characters dressed, and give them to the costume designer and say, ‘take that blue and yellow thing and’ – The blue and yellow outfits, no offence to Fox, but they kept looking like Fantastic-fucking-4, and we were like, ‘we can’t have that’. There’s a lot of great stuff in the early 60s X-Men comics., we had that everywhere, all the panels of how they looked, how they dressed. Sammy [Sheldon] is a brilliant costume designer, and she just managed to make it fit into the real world.

Q: We even had the CIA agent wearing a miniscule skirt…

MV: But that whole mysogenist thing, we thought, ‘let’s dial it up’. It’s actually quite weird, because as a director, remember the line ‘there’s no place for women in the CIA’? When we did it, Lauren Shuler-Donner was going, ‘you’ve got to get rid of that line. I hate that line.’, and I was like, ‘Lauren, I don’t believe  that, but that was what it was like back then. Why do you hate that line?’ and Lauren’s very sensitive about her age, and she’s from that period, and she then opened up saying, ‘that’s what it was like’,  and I said, ‘we’ll that’s the whole point. If we’re going to recreate the 60s, we should recreate the 60s, and that’s how the attitude was, and that’s why they dressed like they did, so let’s keep that’. I was trying to put as much reality into some pretty silly moments, but I’m a big believer that if you ground it in a way that you can relate to it, then you can get away with blue murder.

–SPOILERS–

Q: Getting back to the Bond theme, I thought Kevin Bacon was fascinating, but he was very much a Bond villain, was that deliberate? Was Bacon your choice?

MV: You Only  Live Twice, I don’t know if you guys remember that, was all about trying to create a nuclear war, so You Only Live Twice was very influential on that .

Q: Was Bacon your first choice?

MV: There were two actors I was thinking of, either Colin Firth, or Bacon, and they’re best friends, which I didn’t realise, really fucking close, so they knew about it as well, because I was talking to both at the same time. But Fox were very nervous about having another Brit in there, because I thought it would be very interesting to see Firth playing a villain, this was way before King’s Speech and getting Oscars and shit, but I think he’s a great actor, and it would be interesting to see what he could have done with it, but also I’ve been a fan of Kevin’s for a long, long time. Kevin had that bravado that Shaw needed.

Shaw’s a difficult character, that whole thing about absorbing energy, and I thought, ‘how do you do that?’ and then when you see him, with the pony tail, and the dressing up in the cravats and all that shit, I was like, ‘OK’. If you get it wrong, I don’t want it to be like Stormbreaker, where you get to these villains, and you can’t take them seriously. SO I sat down with Kevin, and said, ‘look, let’s make him like a Bond villain, where he’s suave, debonair and charming’ and you sort of just buy him, but getting his power right was, fucking hell, it was very tough. And how do you kill someone who absorbs energy? It was a real, coming up with the coin in his head, Fox were like, ‘how do you kill him with a coin? Do you do it really fast?’, I was like, ‘no. The problem is, if you did it fast, it would just bounce off.’ I think Shaw was the hardest character to get right.

Q: Talking of Bond, the scene in the Argentinian bar, you’ve got Eric’s gunshot to camera…

MV: I want the Broccoli’s to regret never hiring me. I loved the Bond movies, and my son now, we’re watching them all again with him, and he loves them, so I couldn’t help but put a few nods in there.

–END SPOILERS–

Q: With your supporting cast, you’ve got Flemyng and Oliver Platt. What made you choose well known character actors, rather than someone who’s not so big?

MV: I think every character in the movie is – people with one line are just as important as someone with 1000 lines. It takes one bad delivery to remind an audience that they’re watching a film, and it just takes you out of the moment, so if I can get away with casting great actors in smaller roles, I’ll take it. And they all said yes. I remember with Flemyng, when he read the script, I said, ‘come on, play Azazel’. I had to bullshit him that in the sequel he’d have a much bigger role, because he hated it on Clash [of the Titans], all the prosthetics he had to do on Clash, and I said, ‘no, it’ll be fine’, and then he signed up, and [said], ‘fuck me, I’m red!’

Azazel, although he hardly speaks, he’s still a character, and you’ve got to believe the moves that he does, or the looks in the background. Casting good actors makes movies better, and I believe every role – I shock my casting directors, because I say names for people with two lines, and they say, ‘you’re not going to get that’, well, there’s no harm in asking them.

Q: Have you got a role for Dexter Fletcher in the sequel?

MV: Actually we were thinking of Dexter to play the Oliver Platt role. He came in and auditioned for it, and again, I get why Fox were nervous, saying ‘you can’t have all these Brits,’ but I like working with my friends. It’s so much easier to turn up with my mates on set, you have a laugh. I don’t have to pussy foot around, I can just say, ‘do this’, ’do that’, and they get on with it. If I could cast my mates in every movie, I would.

Q: Talking about your collaborators from previous films, Take That do the end theme. I was surprised when they did it for Stardust, and again for this film. How did it come about?

MV: I think this movie, out of all the X-Men movies, and correct me if I’m wrong females in the room, I think there’s a lot for women to enjoy in this film, and we had the philosophy , remember Armageddon, the Aerosmith song, that got girls, who probably wouldn’t have originally gone to see Armageddon , they saw heard there was a love song, and were like ‘oh, maybe there is something in the film’. I bumped into Gary in LA, and we were just talking, and I said, ‘do you want to come and see a rough cut of it?’ and they came, and they wrote the song, and I listened to it, and I said, ‘I think it’ll be a hit’, and if we can do a video which gets girls more interested, and they’re going on tour, so they’re playing to one and a half million people who traditionally might not be interested in X-Men, and we might get them to come and watch it. So it’s pure commerce, to be blunt, and I want women to see this film.

Q: How hard was it to get the physical makeup effects right?

MV: Fucking hard. I felt sorry for the actors as well, because they’d sometimes spend eight hours in makeup, and we’d all turn up going, ‘God I’m knackered, let’s start filming’, and they’re looking at you going, ‘I’ve spent eight hours getting ready for this’. And then, [Jennifer Lawrence] had some real problems. It kept breaking during filming, or she’d get rashes, and – I don’t normally have any pity for actors, but I did feel sorry for – the prosthetic work is pretty horrible, really horrible. And also very hard to act; for a performance to come through when you’re under all this rubber, it’s very difficult for emotions to come through under all that. I remember when I was on set looking at Beast and Mystique talking, I was panicking because you’ve got two blue people. Trying to get that emotion to believe it. There were moments I was panicking going ‘Christ, I’m going to get laughed at’. You show a movie to someone and people start laughing when they’re not meant to laugh, it’s the worst feeling in the world. It was tough, it was a challenge.

You can check out our review of the film here, and check back later for the next final part of this interview.

You can check out our review of the film here, and check back later for the next two parts of this interview.

HeyUGuys recently joined several other film news sites at a round table interview with Matthew Vaughn for X-Men: First Class.

The interview lasted over 45 minutes, and because it was only for sites that write about film (unlike other round tables where we share with all sorts of outlets), it’s pretty much concentrated on things that should interest you. It certainly fascinates us.

We know a few sites will publish highlights of the interview, and if you’re pressed for time, we’d advise having a look, but we’re putting our whole (Not Safe For Work) transcript online; edited only to make it flow a little better.

This first section of the interview (1 of 3 that will be published) is about the writing of the film.

On Writing and Character

Q: Is the film about super powered individuals facing off against one another, or about political and social ideas. It’s clearly both, but which first and foremost?

Matthew Vaughn: No idea. It is what it is. I should be able to answer that, but the making of it was such a crazy experience, we were just trying to get it done, and get it finished on time. It’s the first time I’ve made a movie with no time to think. You ask me a question like that normally, I’ll be able to tell you,’ when I set out to make this film I had the following ideas’, but every day we were just making it up; so I think it’s a mixture of both.

I think primarily it’s about the relationship between Magneto and X, but set in a backdrop of political espionage and the Cold War. I always wanted to do a Cold War movie, I’m desperate to do a Bond film, always have been. I got my cake and eat it, managed to do an X-Men movie, and a sort of a Bond thing, and a Frankenheimer political thriller at the same time.

Q: You brought in Jane Goldman to write part of it with you, but there were other writers,…

MV: Not really.

Q: So it was you and Goldman who wrote it then?

MV: WGA don’t think that, but they’re fuckwits. Jane and I wrote the screenplay, threw everything out and started again. Sheldon Turner managed to get a ‘Story By’ credit, he wrote the Magneto script that none of us have ever read. I didn’t even know that. I was like, ‘who the fuck is this guy?’. Hollywood’s got its own way of dealing with things.

Q: How much input did Singer have? It feels to me that it’s got the undercurrent of humour that you and Goldman have brought to Stardust and to Kick-Ass, but it feels much more of an ensemble piece than you’ve done before, and that’s where Singer’s experience is.

MV: You say that, but Stardust had a shitload of characters, so did Kick-Ass, so did Layer Cake, in a weird way. And Snatch and Lock Stock. I’m actually more terrified of doing a movie with one lead character, because the good thing of having lots of characters is if one’s getting boring I can just say, ‘let’s cut to that plot line’. It’s hard to make sure they come across as three-dimensional characters, but at the same time I think it’s more interesting – it’s easier to con an audience that lots of interesting things are happening if I can switch the channel, let’s say, whenever I need to.

The influence of Bryan, Bryan came up with I think, I don’t even know who came up with the original idea, I think it was Bryan’s idea. Once I started, I think we made the film in ten months. We’ve had nine weeks post. I only saw the film for the first time five days ago; I hadn’t even ever seen it working on all these different sections. I got given two weeks for the director’s cut. When I say it was madness, there were times when I thought we wouldn’t get the film finished, and if it is finished, God knows what it’s going to be like to watch. I was taken out of my comfort zone on this film. I come from low budget film making, which is very much about prepping, making sure every dollar goes on screen. Here I hardly got any time to prep, and five DPs on this film, four different ADs. Every day I didn’t know who my crew were, I was like, ‘hey, what do you do?’ It was good for me, because I’d so relied on my AD and DPs, as that triumvirate when you make a film, and here I was sort of on my own, naked, running around. At first it scared the hell out of me, but I got used to it. So as a director I feel much more confident after this one.

Q: Obviously this isn’t the first time you were brought into an X-Men movie, you were originally slated to direct X-Men 3. How would that have differed, and more to the point, looking back are you pleased that it didn’t come to be?

MV: X-Men was a weird process. The reason I pulled out of it was because, I genuinely didn’t think I had enough time to make the film – and they were giving me much more time on that than on this one – and that world was already created. What was far more satisfying about this one was, because of Stardust and Kick-Ass, I was far more comfortable about bigger-budget special effects and all that shit , but I loved the idea I could recast every character, set up a new world, and do my version of an X-Men movie. X3 ultimately, you’re following a trend, and my X3  would have been – you know I storyboarded the whole bloody film, did the script – I think my X3 would have been at least 40 minutes longer, and it would have had  – I think they didn’t let the emotions of those characters – I can remember when I was writing those scenes, when Jean Grey turns round to Wolverine and says ‘kill me’, and the deaths at the end, and Professor X’s death, I was writing that shit with them, and I just felt they didn’t let the emotion and the drama play in that film. It  became just wall t-to-wall noise and action –how long was it, like 98 minutes or something, not even that, 89 it might have been – I would have let it breathe, and have far more dramatic elements to it, I think. But then they probably wouldn’t have let me do that. Fox were great on this film. Fox have got this really bad reputation, but they were true allies on this. They really let me get on with it.

Q: You say that you’ve created this world. It’s clearly a prequel, but is it a prequel in the sense that Star Trek is a prequel? If it comes to a point where it’s going to clash with the continuity of the other films are you just going to say, ‘bugger it, let’s just make a good movie’?

MV: Totally. Why would I give a shit about the other ones? We’ve started a whole new – for me I wanted to do my version, and a version where it was more similar to the comics at the beginning, they came out in the 60s. I really enjoyed X1 and X2, I think Bryan did a great job, but I think X3 and then Wolverine, they went off and – The whole superhero genre has been fucked up by a lot of Hollywood trying for big explosions, and lots of glossy and corny costumes and outfit – I was very inspired by what Nolan did with Batman Begins. I’m a big Burton fan, and then you see what happened with, the first two Burton Batmans were great, and then Schumacher took over, and you were just like, ‘what the fuck is going on?’ and they got worse and worse, and they kept making them, and they were getting camper and I just thought – I really enjoyed Batman Begins, a lot more than I thought I would when I first saw it, especially the first half more than the second half, and I just thought, ‘why not try to do the same thing?’ putting a realism, making the characters and genre of X-Men relevant to a modern day audience.

I think superhero films need to change. I’ve said this before, I think superhero films are on the verge of a genre dying anyway if Hollywood – Thor’s done well – that was weird as well, I was meant to direct Thor, so watching that one – but, it’s doing well. No-one’s seen Green Lantern? I don’t know what that’s going to be like. I love superhero films, I want more to be made, but I get nervous. I think they need to be taken seriously as a genre. I think the difference between Iron Man and Iron Man 2 shows, if you don’t really nail it, you can suddenly go, ‘what is this?’

Q: This is the third film you’ve co-written with Jane Goldman…

MV: Fourth actually. We’ve got another one coming out next month.

Q: This is the third we’ve seen. And of course you’re going to be working on Kick-Ass 2 together as well…

MV: Maybe. Everyone says we’re doing that, but I don’t know yet. The weird thing about Kick-Ass 2 is, I enjoyed it so much, but I’m a big believer that if you’re going to do a sequel it’s got to be as good as the first one, if not better. I just don’t know how I can – The business frame of mind is just to do Kick-Ass 2, just shoot it  and get it out there, and it’ll make a lot of money, but I really do love that movie, it was a very special moment to me making that film. I’m not saying it was as good as Pulp Fiction, but I think if Tarantino made Pulp Fiction 2, you’d be like, ‘OK… let’s see what you come up with’ and everything that made Kick-Ass original and fun, I think if you do it again, it could be crass. I’m not saying it won’t happen, but it would have to have something about it which made me feel comfortable that the audience would enjoy it as well.

Q: How do you and Jane work together? Do you actually sit down in a room and write together and bounce ideas off one another, or do you write separately and e-mail scripts back and forth?

MV: I normally bang out a very rough draft on my own, and send it over to her. She normally rewrites it, and then, when she’s rewritten it, we get in a room together and do the final coming together of the script. And then we give it to people.

Q: She’s suggested before that your speciality is very structural, and hers the fine points. Is that a fair distinction to make?

MV: I build the whole universe, the characters and all that…

Q: and that pretty much holds tight?

MV: Yeah, it doesn’t change at all, because I’m anal about structure, so it doesn’t change at all.

Q: I think one of the impressive things about this film was that the structure leads us to something that was inevitable, but it happens in an unexpected way.

MV: The first scene I wrote was the Auschwitz, or the concentration camp, scene with the little kid. I thought, ‘what’s the best way of doing a prequel?’ and I had the idea to start it, shot-for-shot with the beginning of the X-Men world, and then, let’s see what happened after he pulled the gate. That scene, for me, is the crux of the movie. It makes you feel sorry for Magneto, it makes you want to see him kick some fucking Nazi’s arse, and I also thought –the whole thing of Nazism, they were very obsessed with genetic mutation, and the whole blue eye, blonde hair shit, and all the experiments they did – I just thought it was a very natural way of starting, and then flipping to Professor X, you’ve got Magneto in a fucking concentration camp,  and you’ve got Professor X wandering around this huge mansion, and I thought, ‘what a great way of starting it off?’

So they were the first things I wrote, and then, I was always imagining, but you have to figure out: how do they become friends? How do they then fall out? How does Professor X get crippled? And how does Magneto become Magneto? Was the end goal, but it was hard, because Fox kept saying, ‘this movies all about the friendship between them’, and I was like, ‘guys, they only get to see each other for three fucking weeks’, I had to somehow make it believable that you care, and Bryan came up with the Cuban Missile Crisis, and I didn’t know much about it. I was English, and we didn’t really learn about that much in school, and when I read about the Cuban Missile Crisis, I thought our version made more sense in history than the real version. The idea that we nearly went to nuclear war, you just go, ‘I cannot believe that happened’, where ultimately, if there’s a bad super villain making all that shit happen, it makes far more sense.

It was Magneto I was obsessed with, Shaw is the villain, but you’re now seeing all those elements of Shaw, going into Magneto, that was, for me, the far more interesting arc. With Professor X, he’s a bit of a pious, sanctimonious, boring character, in that he’s got too much fucking power. It’s very hard writing when you’ve got some guy who can just freeze people, or read everyone’s mind, you’re just going, ‘how do you handle this guy?’ So I did like the idea of James and I going, ‘let’s make him more of a rogue’, ‘let’s make him fun’, and then how he slowly starts realizing there are other mutants out there, and gets slowly more responsible, but for me Magneto is the driving force, that was the character I most related to, and the most fun you can have.

Q: When Xavier is at university, at the beginning of the film, he’s quite cocky. I think his relationship with Erik is what does start to mellow him.

MV: Yep. I think when he realises there are other mutants out there, and because of Shaw, realising that the worst thing that can happen is mutants being hated because Shaw’s trying to kill everyone.

Q: You’ve talked about James Bond in reference to how you could see the character of Erik for Michael’s performance. Did you have a similar archetype for McAvoy as Xavier?

MV: Not really, actually.

Q: How did you direct him then? We’re you referential to Patrick Stewart in the other films?

MV: No we weren’t, in fact it was the opposite. I said, ‘don’t worry about Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, I think they did a great job, but you’ve got to make these characters your own?’ I think, the way I was saying to James was, lets’ make the character more fun, so that you slowly see him becoming the Professor X of – the professor. When we first meet him, he’s not a professor, and we were trying to show that transition. It’s just not as fun. Seeing Magneto growing into a villain is far more interesting than seeing a guy sadly becoming a cripple, and becoming a teacher, ultimately. It’s not quite the arc you want to see as much, but I think James did a fabulous job, because it’s the hardest character to make interesting.

Q: You talked about gender issues a little bit there, and the way women were treated in the 60s. The film’s also set around the time of the civil rights movement. What thinking did you have about race issues?

MV: We talked about it, because they say X-Men was based on Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, but I think I had enough of a political subplot in this movie. We’ve already discussed, in the next one, does the Civil Rights movement become part of if we do a sequel. That’s a real hot potato, as well, still, so I think we decided to stay clear.

Q: I’d love to see that.

MV: You can only put so much in a film, in the sequel, it could happen. I don’t know yet, I don’t really like talking about sequels because the filmcould tank, and that’s that for everyone.

You can check out our review of the film here, and check back later for the next two parts of this interview.

Our review of X-Men: First Class follows, for our comprehensive three-part interview with Matthew Vaughn click here.

Cast your mind back to those grossly-misjudged attempts to weave together a Darth Vader origin story, where events, history and character arcs fully ingrained into the previous mythology were awkwardly shoe-horned in to the latter installments, with scant regard for establishing any continuity and emotional connection between the eras. With that in mind, it comes with much relief to confirm that X-Men: First Class is everything those films wished they could be, and has far more in common with J. J. Abram’s rip-roaring Star Trek reboot then the shallow exploits of team Jedi.

We’re greeted with an opening which is pretty much a facsimile of the Nazi death camp environment of the first X-Men feature. This time however (and almost as a subconscious nod to the larger canvas being created here) we’re privy to what happens to the young man named Erik Lehnsherr after that initial burst of power is revealed. Placed into an inhuman and potential devastating situation by a wicked, Josef Mengele-type doctor (a deliciously evil and smooth Kevin Bacon), his latent powers are finally unleashed in a genuinely terrifying display of metal-crunching fury. We’re then brought 20-odd years into the future where the skills and expertise of a young Professor, Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) are called on by a CIA operative (Rose Byrne) who has uncovered dastardly mutant activity within the walls of a seemingly innocuous swinging sixties, high-end men’s striptease and poker establishment called The Hellfire Club.

Its proprietor, Sebastian Shaw, (Bacon) has moved on from his past life and previous guise and, like the previous films, his feelings towards man and mutant very much echo’s Malcolm X’s rhetoric. Assisted by diamond-encrusted henchwoman Emma Frost (January Jones, helping to whip up a little Mad Men-vibe and the heart rate of the male audience) he is attempting to further exacerbate tensions between east and west in an already delicate and tumultuous period in world history. Following a botched assassination attempt on Shaw by the now grown-up Erik (Michael Fassbender), the man who would be Magneto is rescued by Xavier and welcomed into the new CIA-backed underground mutant taskforce. Initially reluctant to join, he’s persuaded by the telekinetic one to assist him in assembling a team of fellow X-Men to take down Shaw before he becomes the catalyst for starting World War Three.

The talented screenwriting duo of Jane Goldman and director Matthew Vaughn have made a fantastic effort here to bring the 60’s age of civil unrest and cold world paranoia successfully into a comic book milieu, and weave what is essentially a period, character-based (a term which don’t normally spring to mind in such a genre) espionage thriller with big action spectacle thrills. While very much an ensemble piece, the two actors at the heart of it, James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender, are pivotal to the film’s success. McAvoy is much looser and playful here than Patrick Stewart’s measured turn, and if his character has a worryingly Austin Powers-esque side which bubbles up near the beginning (he uses “groovy” a little too many times for comfort), he soon settles into the part. His unwavering capacity for helping and encouraging his fellow mutants to see beyond the alienation they’re become accustomed to, makes for some especially stirring onscreen moments.

Fassbinder’s initial trajectory, which follows his globe-trotting escapades on a quest to find and kill the man who took his life away, has an almost a rogue James Bond-type quality (a lovely 60’s-flavoured guitar twang which can’t help but conjure up memories of 007 in that era). He certainly isn’t averse to eliminating any other war criminals that cross his path either, and although the film is blood and gore-free, his quest for vengeance is still pretty violent and unflinching.

The odd couple strike up a very believable and warm friendship (again, this is something Lucas couldn’t established between Anakin and Obi-Wan during the course of three whole films) and while Fassbender is all coiled-up rage and anger, McAvoy does his best to act as a calming influence. This never once feels contrived or rushed and that supportive (if, at times, strained) comradely atmosphere is even more painful for the audience to get behind, as you’re constantly aware of how it all ends. Another standout is Jennifer Lawrence as a young Mystique. Strong-willed and determined not to be a casualty of her ‘gift’, she acts as a nice counterbalance to Charles and Erik’s conflicting ideologies. Without giving anything away, the film also features one of the greatest cameos and rebuttals in all of cinema. The figure in question is completely unexpected and is an absolute delight.

There’s a lot to pack in here but Vaughn and his team do a heroic job themselves with the tight pacing and plotting. He even manages to prevent quite a lengthy training montage sequence a third of the way though from slowing down the narrative drive, and uses a neat split-screen device (another homage to that period) in helping to ensure this.

There are some casualties here however, which is perhaps inevitable when you’re trying to tell such a heady and epic tale. Both Oliver Platt (as a friendly CIA man in black) and Rose Byrne aren’t given much to do really. Vaughn regular Jason Flemyng isn’t particularly stretched either, although his bad guy mutant character Azazel (apparently daddy to Nightcrawler) is involved in one of the film’s most striking sequences, where he dispatches of multiple CIA members by literally dropping them from the sky! Some of the effects are a little underdone too, but this must surely be attributed to the herculean task the makers were faced with in trying to bring the film to cinemas screens in such a limited time window between production and release date.

Like The Dark Knight before it, the film has far-reaching ambitions outside of the normal comic book world, and by Vaughn insisting on making sure the very human and entirely relatable interplay between characters is allowed to breathe, and more importantly, develop in amongst some impressive action beats, the audience is fully engaged right through to the huge (yet somehow intimate) ending, which delivers a devastating and emotional punch seldom seen in films of this nature.

Easily up there with the second feature, X-Men: First Class should hopefully eliminate the nasty, lingering aftertaste of the thoroughly underwhelming third installment (incidentally, a film which Vaughn was mooted to direct at one point) and the anemic Wolverine spin-off. Fox are now in the enviable position (like the aforementioned Star Trek) to essentially start afresh and embark on another series. Let’s hope they stick to this template in the future, whether it’s for another X-Men film or any comic book adaptation for that matter.

If the rest of this season’s high-profile superhero features get anywhere close to matching what Vaughn has done here, we could be in for a thoroughly satisfying summer of escapism.

****½ (4.5/5)

Sticking with the car theme, here’s another advert which we’ll get to see over the Superbowl weekend and this time it’s for Volkswagen Passat. They’ve used George Lucas’ Star Wars motto to great effect here where a child does his best to ‘use the force’ dressed as Darth Vader on various items around the house!

This ad follows the one I put up not long ago for Chevrolet which shows Bumblebee getting rather annoyed when he’s attempted to be used for a TV commercial!

It’s a brilliant advert and I think you’ll like it a lot…. cos I did!

Watch the Super Bowl TV spot below and watch all TV spots and trailer from the evening here.

This comes from their official YouTube Channel.

On the 13th November 2009, almost 32 years after the legendary Star Wars film was first released in the UK on 27th December 1977, A good friend (who shall remain anonymous) came to my house to watch the Original Holy Trilogy: A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi for the first ever time.

He is the same age as me (31) and I’m sure he watched the same TV channels as me at Christmas in the 80′s and 90′s when Star Wars was played religiously each year and families crowded round the TV to watch them as they became a part of tradition.

He must have heard about Star Wars in the 80′s but for some reason he never sat down and watched them or even played with the Star Wars toys, which were probably found in almost every home back then.

I know some of his friends and they all have seen Star Wars and so he wasn’t influenced by peer pressure to see them, so what happened?

I personally can’t imagine my life without Star Wars, the good and the bad, and it’s Star Wars that brought me close to my friends when i was a kid. I’m still very close with these friends even today and we still talk about watching the films, the toys or of the times we had role playing Star Wars, I had a black dog when I was a kid who took on the role of Darth Vader that chased me (Han) and my friend Paul (Luke) around the house and garden and those are some of my favorite childhood memories.

How someone has gone their entire life without witnessing these films is quite a shocking thing to hear, he has however seen the travesty that was Episode 1 and i can understand why he didn’t see any Star Wars films from that point, but what happened previously.
He did say when he saw Episode 1 that he was going to watch them in sequence but I’m glad this has been brought to an end!

I thought i would look into what he did know about Star Wars so I asked him what he knows about it, he said just five things (even though he has seen episode 1 which can’t have registered that much)

Darth Vader
Luke Skywalker
Princess Leia
Millennium Falcon
X-Wing

Quite a predictable selection i suppose as peers or popular culture have referenced Star Wars in one way or another over the years and it’s actually impossible to avoid, Like in Friends, Family Guy, The Simpsons, used by comics, sampled in music, mocked in adverts, shown in magazines, heard from work colleagues, friends, friends of friends, family, it’s endless and a phenomenon that has never been matched and i presume everyone has heard of Star Wars in one way or another.

I told a few friends what i was doing with this friend and the similar response was WHAT, HE’S NEVER SEEN STAR WARS!!! and generally that will be the response of a majority of film fans, but my friend isn’t a film fan, he chooses other things in life which is fair enough and i fully respect that, but still, never seen Star Wars, it’s quite a statement.

But the revelations grew, he also shockingly revealed that he has also never seen any Indiana Jones films, None of them! these along with the Star Wars films are surely classic films that I, and almost everyone I’ve ever met in my life have seen, not necessary out of choice but because they are movies you see as a child, as a teenager, as an adult or as a parent.

I asked him why he hadn’t seen the classic Star Wars films in his life and he told me that he never felt the need to, his parents never encouraged him to watch them or offered to buy the toys, so admirably they refused to bow to the imaginable immense pressure to buy these toys for their children in the late 70′s to mid 80′s, he did however own transformers and He-Man toys so he wasn’t a kid who was without the joy of toys, maybe it’s just one of those things that passed him by.

So after over 6 hours of Light sabers, the force, Ewoks, rebel scum, blasters, Death Stars, Storm troopers, Tie Fighters, AT-AT Walkers, shooting first, John Williams genius and all other roll of the tongue Star Wars magic, we finished watching the classic trilogy, during it he showed no signs of real emotion or enjoyment but had quite a philosophical look in his face and the words he used to describe them all were, “brilliant”. He explained it was better than he thought it was going to be and it was fantastically made, especially for it’s time but he said he would never likely watch them again which is understandable, it’s not going to have an influence at his age as it did when seeing it as a kid, but he is glad he did it which is a great thing to hear and my purpose of this experience.

He said he hated Han Solo…..these words brought a gasp to the others in attendance, he said he was a horrible person, selfish and i suppose he is right, this is Han Solo’s character, but as kids we grew up with Han Solo being the coolest character, iconic and someone most boys wanted to be when we re-created Star Wars in the playground or with our Kenner replica’s and we didn’t see that side to him so to us “The Star Wars Generation” we looked through those flaws and just loved him, he flew the coolest ship every created, had the best lines in the film and was our hero and of our mothers really loved him.

He of course loved the sound and the music and of course who wouldn’t, it’s the perfect accompaniment to the film and without it would never have been as successful.

He really appreciated that Luke had to learn and train to become a Jedi and said films today tend to just let the main character have/find the powers and save the day without having to prove they are ready, he really appreciated the progression in Luke’s and all the other characters stories throughout the three films and really felt they all had a real depth which is a great point, It’s what separates Star Wars from other films, the characters are so perfectly brought to life and their story is the quintessential version of the tale of good vs Evil.

He also talked about his theory of the political side to Star Wars and interestingly kind of compared the characters to countries, Luke Skywalker is America and what America wants to be, the good guy of the universe and all that’s good and Darth Vader is the bad of the world. I don’t personally believe in this, but as a grown up seeing it for the first time i suppose you want to see beyond the meaning of the film and try to make political references or find the true meaning of what the story is trying to say. But for me it’s a simple story that that was inspired by George Lucas love of the genre and brought to the big screen in a truly devoted way that’s not been bettered since.

Another thing he pointed out was that Princess Leia was the only woman who made an appearance in the films and he is quite right, there were the odd roles like Mon Mothma and a few extras but Leia was the only woman to have a major role, in his opinion she’s not that attractive but due to her being the sole woman in a notable role in Star Wars he bet that she would have been top of most men/boys wish list, fair point but he did say that the slave outfit was one of the most sexiest things he had ever seen, SO SAY WE ALL!

So to round up it was a really interesting experience for all, I was fascinated that someone had never seen Star Wars and i wanted to know what their reaction to seeing it for the first time would be. Obviously there is no answer as to why, it’s a choice in life and one that seems so alien that it shocked me, so i felt the need to show them to him as it seemed the thing to do as it’s one of those things in life i feel you should be able to say you’ve done in life

Even today you make new friendships in life and it’s likely that the conversation will eventually lead to Star Wars, and now of course we were so spoiled with the three amazing original films that they were tainted a bit with the abomination of the new trilogy and so it gave another angle to discuss Star Wars but in the end it will always be known as one of the most popular and phenomenal success in film of all time, how many of you clicked on this post because it had the Star Wars Logo? it’s a magical, life shaping film.

And now some of the best of Star Wars comedy, It’s an endless source of enjoyment.

Clerks do the Death Star

Eddie Izzard does the Death Star Canteen

Kevin Spacey does Star Wars – Genius!

Dead Ringers – Obi Wan buys a car