(Scene begins with a smartwatch screen and a finger as it taps the screen and the 1994 American Gladiators plays as the scene cuts to a hand as it taps an app on his phone as it opens a portal, and it cuts to James and the characters he’s played until it cut to his face and the credit of “James Faraci” is shown as it cuts to “The Last Of The Americans'” current iteration then slides away to different images of Paulo Fonseca, Brenda Fonseca, Rebecca Yaun, Nick Yaun and Doug Yaun and the characters they’ve played until it cut to their faces and the credits of “Paulo and Brenda Fonseca & Doug Yaun, Rebecca and Nick Yaun” is shown as it then slides away to different images of Andrew Beach Eric Kurtzke, Renee Miller and Olivia Horvath and the credits of “Andrew Beach, Eric Kurtzke, Renee Miller, Olivia Horvath” is shown as the 0:00-0:21 mark of the theme song plays. Everything becomes a swirl of Reds, Whites, and Blues as the credits “Produced by First Choice Productions in association with Manic-Expression.com" “Executive Producers: James Faraci, Paulo Fonseca, Brenda Fonseca, Rebecca Yaun, Nick Yaun, Eric Kurtzke, Renee Miller, Andrew Beach & Olivia Horvath” “Editing by Eric Kurtzke and James Faraci” “Written and Directed by James Faraci” are shown as the 0:21-0:26 mark of the theme song plays. We then see an image of James as he jumps through the portal and lands with half of his team on his right. The other half on his left is on a black background, and the title “THE LAST OF THE AMERICANS” is shown Lazer etched into Titanium as the last six seconds of the American Gladiators 1994 theme song plays. Cut to James in his office)
TLOTA:
I'm James Faraci, The Last Of The Americans, and The Views that I'm about to express are that of my own and some of yours, and welcome once again to "In Defense Of...(Show pics of maligned pieces of pop culture while the fanfare from the Olympics plays and James comes up after Vanilla Ice slides back and his right-hand thumbs up and the words "In Defense Of..." Cut to James Physically) And a Connect The Plots (Of Sorts). (Cut to a scene of James trying to connect certain things together like the theatrical version of “Halloween: The Curse Of Michael Myers” & “Halloween: H20”, All the movie adaptations of Stephen King, Superman Returns to the original Salkind Superman movies, the first three X-Men movies to the newer ones and the “Wolverine” & “Deadpool” movies before cutting to James strapped down in a straight jacket all the while a kid sings “Connect The Plots La-La-La!” before panning down to see anything that might have a minor connection spell the words “Connect The Plots (Sort of)” and a another set of words in smaller text “(We will have a real “Connect The Plots” later this year.)” before cutting to clips of “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” as James does a voiceover)
TLOTA (V.O.):
Sometimes, some things are not going to work out for the best; case in point, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine.” From what has been discovered, this had a lot of trouble going into the production and between the Writer’s Strike of 2008, causing a last-minute rewrite. This leaked workprint was downloaded by a minimum of fifteen MILLION people. Then we have the minimum amount of time with its cast, a hostile critical reception, and the box office of its predecessor “X-Men: The Last Stand” underperforming compared to “X2: X-Men United.” The audience let Fox know that this movie was a sitting duck. So, what did it do right? For starters, it did give us our first live-action attempt to tell Wolverine’s backstory. Hugh Jackman was good at continuing his role as the Clawed Canadian. We saw what Wade Wilson played by Ryan Reynolds, would evolve to as he fought to get the Deadpool Character right. Liev Schreiber was more like Sabretooth in his personality than Tyler Mane. Yeah, Tyler looked it but didn’t embody the other aspects of Sabretooth. (Cut to James physically)
TLOTA:
As for what this movie did wrong, so many have gone into such detail I can save my breath. But let’s play Devil’s Advocate. What would have happened if the movie had succeeded in the way everyone wanted it to? (Cut to clips of “X-Men: First Class” as James does a voiceover)
TLOTA (V.O.):
The first thing to change would be “X-Men: First Class,” which would’ve been a minor change. It would’ve been titled “X-Men Origins: Magneto and Professor X.” However, I think the more significant change would be how it was presented. We would’ve seen how Erik and Charles became friends and more likely take the time to get to the point where Charles would’ve created Cerebro with Erik’s help. We would have had Beast and Mystique, but not in the way we did in “First Class.” Yes, Mystique would have been there, but not as Charles’ adopted sister, but rather as a temptation to both. Hank McCoy, AKA Beast, would’ve been one of the first students and an early defender. There would have been a connection between “Wolverine” and “Magneto and Professor X,” as Charles would have rescued the team from Three Mile Island. There would’ve been another connection would have been to “The Last Stand,” as we would have seen Charles and Erik meet with the Grey Family and Jean Grey. We would’ve also seen the ideological differences between Charles and Erik come into play by the start of the third act of “Magneto & Professor X” as Erik, having had years of seeing what humans have done, even as Charles and Erik still remain friendly enough by the end of the act the two know that they can never see eye to eye with their ideology. The accident that leaves Charles in the wheelchair happens because Mystique had set it up to kill Hank. Erik would’ve gone for the apparent thoughts, and Charles knew that Mystique had done this. Erik, now calling himself Magneto knew what Mystique had done and had decided to use her as what mutants should do to fight the menace of humanity. At the same time, Charles sees Mystique as the snake and the apple, and Charles denies her and embraces the idea that there could be a peaceful co-existence with humanity. We would’ve seen Cyclops, Beast, and other mutants at Three Mile Island choose where they stand. With a young Banshee siding with Charles, Emma Frost decides to leave and join the Hellfire Club in which they choose to be the extremists that Magneto fought when he escaped by the skin of his teeth from the Concentration Camp after watching his family be killed in the Shoah and knowing that there is a line that neither one will cross, the two realize that their fates have been made with Charles into the Professor and commander of the X-Men while Erik Lensherr becoming the Magneto from the First Three X-Men Movies. And while yes, we would’ve seen a younger version of both Charles and Erik, they would’ve been there until the second half of the second act. This would’ve led to a cameo from both Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber post “Wolverine” as we see Logan see what was going on after their movie as “Sabretooth” had discovered the remains of the Wade Wilson from “Wolverine” and is willing to use it to see what kind of power it contains to advance Sabretooth from Liev’s Sabretooth to Tyler’s Sabretooth, leading back to the first movie. (Cut to James physically)
TLOTA:
With that done, does “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” deserve the infamy of being the worst “X-Men” movie. Well, if they didn’t do both “Apocalypse” & “Dark Phoenix,” I would agree with people who do think of this one being the worst “X-Men” movie, but for what it was trying to do, I liked it. (Cut to “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” clips as James does a voiceover.)
TLOTA (V.O.):
It was an attempt to show if Hugh Jackman could hold a movie together, which he could, whether or not he could lead it, well he had to get a few more tries away from being “Wolverine” before getting back to it in both “The Wolverine,” and “Logan,” and showing he can star in a movie outside of being Wolverine in “The Greatest Showman.” While it didn’t work, Hugh Jackman knew he had to make a mistake to get his career in the right direction. And had this movie succeeded, Ryan Reynolds would’ve had to fight an even higher uphill battle to get the Deadpool he knew could be R-rated box-office Gold in a Solo movie featuring the Merc With A Mouth the way Ryan and Deadpool’s creators, Rob Liefeld and Fabien Nicieza knew could work. So, this is one time where a movie’s failure led to better movies featuring the X-Men's universe. (Cut to James physically)
TLOTA:
How is the MCU going to do the “X-Men”? Well, only time will tell. I’m James Faraci, The Last Of The Americans, and that’s my opinion.
