Posted in: Movies | Tagged: entertainment, film, fox, Hellfire Club, Imperial Guard, Liliandra, marvel, simon kinberg, x-men: dark phoenix

Is Fox Biting Off Too Much By Bringing Liliandra Into X-Men: Dark Phoenix?

With news the Fox is negotiating with Jessica Chastain about playing Liliandra in the upcoming X-Men: Dark Phoenix movie, it opens up a whole batch of questions based on the source material. Liliandra is the empress of the alien race called the Shi'ar. A sort-of bird-like race of humanoids. She has a sister that goes by the name Deathbird that wants to steal the throne. And Liliandra is determined to destroy the Phoenix entity before it can destroy any other planets.

She has her own group of warriors called the Imperial Guard that include Gladiator, Fang, Titan, Oracle, Manta, Warbringer and a slew more. For every X-men the team could bring there is likely an Guard member to oppose them.

Which would be a huge number of characters to introduce in one film. First you have to establish the alien race and then the metas in that race. That would take away a lot from the story as you also have to establish the powers of Phoenix and the jeopardy involved with Jean Grey having that power. And if they are trying to do the Dark Phoenix Saga right, then you can't forget another group that was part of the story in the beginning… The Hellfire Club.

Now we've met a lot of them in X-Men: First Class, but this group is responsible for messing with Jean Grey's mind in the first place and sort of bringing out the Dark Phoenix persona thanks to Mastermind. She was manipulated and used against the X-Men, this weakens her defenses allowing the Phoenix entity to take over.

In truth this seems like it should be a pair of movies at least. Hard to put the emotional impact into it if you don't include the Hellfire Club part of the story. Cyclops already having thought he lost Jean to the bad guys only to get her back stronger than ever and then to end up in freaking space where an alien race wants to execute her.

The Dark Phoenix Saga is one of the most important arcs in the X-Men history and I can see a studio and director wanting to tackle it, but can they do justice to the film in two-hours of screen time? The story ran over 10 comics (X-Men #129 – 138), and with Chris Claremont's writing, so much more happened per issue than in most modern comics. When the first round of X-Men films addressed the Phoenix character, they eliminated everything but the effect it had on Jean Grey. I'm glad to see director Simon Kinberg wanting to tell more of the tale and bring the Shi'ar into it, but again I fear it may be too big for a single film.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!