The X-Men series has come under a lot of criticism in it’s time despite the critical success that X-Men, X2 and X-Men: First Class has enjoyed. So if three of the five films have gone down well then why do fans of the X-Men continue to be critical of the series? A lot of the criticism comes from the messed up continuity of the franchise and if you look hard enough you will find plenty of issues with the continuity throughout all five films; X-Men: The Last Stand came under fire for ruining a lot of hard work that Bryan Singer had set up in the first two instalments and X-Men Origins: Wolverine upset fans by just not being very good and ruining Gambit, a character that fans had wanted to see on screen for far too long for him to just be dismissed like he is.
So when The Wolverine was announced to be yet another film focussing on the escapades of Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine the news was met with less than positive response on internet forums. Yet this week, finally, The Wolverine is connecting with fans and getting people actually hyped up due to one little quote that director James Mangold made to Empire magazine. Mangold won fans over by saying “Where this film sits in the universe of the films is after them all, Jean Grey is gone, most of the X-Men are disbanded or gone, so there’s a tremendous sense of isolation for him”. Everybody was assuming The Wolverine would be another prequel because it is set in Japan (the storyline from the comics in Japan happened before Wolverine met the X-Men) and now it appears that everything we thought about this film was untrue.
Everyone wanted a sequel to X-Men: The Last Stand and it seems as though The Wolverine could be the closest thing that we see to this. With this being a sequel it also gives the opportunity for former characters to return to the franchise. Returning characters was hinted at with the other prequel titled Days of Future Past but it seems that maybe fans were misled and Patrick Stewart’s and Famke Janssen’s comments about returning to the franchise could have been meant about The Wolverine rather than Days of Future Past. I, for one, would love to see some of the old characters return and it might be able to give an explanation to what happened to Cyclops, explain Professor X’s return and feature more of Angel perhaps. Unfortunately, I don’t think that this will happen though because the film will be set in Japan.
One of the main things that has been hinted at is that Wolverine would set up the Jean Grey School for Gifted Youngsters and whilst this would be a very touching moment for the character and could set up some more stories for future X-Men you can’t help but feel this SHOULD have been done before the prequels of First Class came into existence. It seems as though The Wolverine will be a stand alone film and you have to hope it will be because right now there are too many strands of the same franchise going on:
X-Men prequels – First Class, Days of Future Past
Wolverine Prequels – Origins
Original X-Men timeline – X-Men, X2, The Last Stand
Wolverine sequels – The Wolverine
That is four different strands of the same franchise and you can see why so much confusion and continuity errors will be made! However, James Mangold says that he wanted to set the film in the timeline so you imagine he will try to stay true to events that have already happened. Mangold has been hit (3:10 to Yuma, Walk the Line) and miss (Knight & Day) in his career so far but hopefully The Wolverine will be a hit! Regrettably, hopefully The Wolverine will be the last we see of Hugh Jackman too and the X-Men franchise is finally brought together and made simple once again.
The Movie Universe 
Well i disagree on ur opinion about Wolverine…obviously one of the best character in X-men franchise and I really loved the way Hugh Jackman portrayed the character. All the movies so far are exceptional and i really enjoyed them. Wolverine is the brand ambassador of X-Men.
Though i would like to see the sequel to X-men 3.
I love Wolverine, I think he is a fantastic character and I can’t imagine anyone but Hugh Jackman playing the part, he really has made it his own. The only reason I want rid of him from the film series is because I feel like we’ve had too much of him now, that he has been overused. X-Men, X2 and The Last Stand were all fronted by Wolverine and led strongly by his story, we then got an Origins story for him and he even appeared in First Class. I’d rather drop Wolverine now and do some more characters that we haven’t seen enough of or even at all: Gambit, Bishop, Jubilee, Angel, Cannonball etc.
X-Men: The Last Stand was a total let down. I don’t know if they changed the writers for the film or not, but it was awful. The wolverine movies are part of the X-men franchise, but not that much because they kind of stand on their own so I don’t mind them making more of them.
With The Last Stand they let Zak Penn write the screenplay whereas on X2 he had only come up with the story and the screenplay had been handled by someone else. It’s well known among comic book movie fans that Penn should probably stay away from final drafts of films.
A lot of it was also down to the change of director; from Bryan Singer to Brett Ratner. It’s good to see Singer returning to Days of Future Past though!