X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
26 May 2006 ● English ● 1 hr 44 mins
Embedded with fierce action and futuristic fantasy, this thrilling tale follows the adventures of the X-Men as they battle to protect humankind from powerful, rogue mutants who attempt to unleash terror and destruction.
Ably led by Professor Charles Xavier and his team, must take the help of new recruits The Beast and Angel, and face off against evolution itself in the form of their former teammate, Jean Grey. Possessed with the cosmic power of the Dark Phoenix, the resurrected Jean Grey has become a danger to herself, her mutant comrades, and the entire planet.
To stave off this imminent threat to humanity, a potential cure is discovered and processed to treat -- and ultimately eliminate -- genetic mutations, once and for all. Now, as the battle lines are drawn, the X-Men, must contend with both Jean Grey's world-consuming powers, as well as the malevolent Brotherhood, a band of powerful mutants organized under Xavier's former ally, Magneto.
Cast: Halle Berry, Hugh Jackman
Crew: Brett Ratner (Director), Dante Spinotti (Director of Photography), John Powell (Music Director)
Rating: A (India)
Release Dates: 26 May 2006 (India)
Did you know? As originally scripted, the Golden Gate Bridge sequence was originally in the middle of the film; Magneto was to have moved it to Alcatraz Island to free Mystique, as the facility would have been revived as a special mutant prison. The final battle was to take place in Washington, D.C., which was set to be home to Worthington Labs. Thus, Magneto's plan would have been twofold: destroy the "cure" and take control of the White House. However, when Brett Ratner signed to direct, he decided the bridge sequence would create a more dramatic climax if moved to the end, so the script was rewritten to have Alcatraz transformed into the Worthington Labs facility (which is somewhat nonsensical, since Alcatraz is a National Monument, and thus cannot be owned or altered by a private company). Read More
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as Ororo Munroe / Storm
as Logan / Wolverine
as John Allerdyce / Pyro
as Marie / Rogue
as Warren Worthington III / Angel
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actress
as Peter Rasputin / Colossus
as Kitty Pryde / Shadowcat
as Jean Grey / Phoenix
as Eric Lehnsherr / Magneto
as Scott Summers / Cyclops
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actress
as Dr. Henry 'Hank' McCoy / Beast
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actor
as Charles Xavier / Professor X
as Raven Darkholme / Mystique
as Bobby Drake / Iceman
Supporting Actress
as Cain Marko / Juggernaut
Direction
Director
Second Unit Director
First Assistant Director
Second Assistant Director
Production
Producer
Co-Producer
Executive Producer
Associate Producer
Writers
Screenplay Writer
Story Writer
Dialogue Writer
Music
Music Director
Art
Production Designer
Art Director
Set Decorator
Prop Master
Casting
Casting Director
Costume and Wardrobe
Costume Designer
Editorial
Makeup and Hair
Makeup Artist
Special Effects Makeup Artist
Hair Stylist
Special Effects
Special Effects Technician
Film Type:
Feature
Language:
English
Colour Info:
Color
Frame Rate:
24 fps
Aspect Ratio:
2.39:1 (Scope)
Stereoscopy:
No
Movie Connection(s):
Spin off: X-Men Origins: Wolverine (English)
Followed by: X-Men Origins: Wolverine (English)
Followed by: X-Men: First Class (English)
Follows: X-Men 2 (English)
Followed by: The Wolverine (English)
Followed by: X-Men: Days of Future Past (English)
Followed by: X-Men Apocalypse (English)
Followed by: Logan (English)
Followed by: X-Men: Dark Phoenix (English)
Followed by: The New Mutants (English)
Followed by: X-Men Origins: Wolverine (English)
Followed by: X-Men: First Class (English)
Follows: X-Men 2 (English)
Followed by: The Wolverine (English)
Followed by: X-Men: Days of Future Past (English)
Followed by: X-Men Apocalypse (English)
Followed by: Logan (English)
Followed by: X-Men: Dark Phoenix (English)
Followed by: The New Mutants (English)
Goofs:
Revealing Mistakes
On several occasions, the line where Mystique's blue makeup ends around her mouth is easily visible.
Revealing Mistakes
When Beast meets Leech, a close-up of Beast's face as he remarks on Leech's power reveals the net-like tape used to attach the blue fur to his face.
Miscellaneous
In the final confrontation between Magneto's forces and the X-men, we see scores of angry mutants arrayed against a scant security force and only a handful of X-Men. Magneto has the ability to reduce the opposing "good" mutant numbers very easily yet doesn't do so. As Magneto's "pawns" are battling the defense force to get into the compound of the pharmaceutical company, Magneto himself stands on the remnants of the bridge watching the carnage. Though Magneto has the ability to control metal and manipulate magnetic fields, and Colossus, who in his mutant state is entirely metal, and Wolverine, who's body is laced with Adamantium structurally reinforcing his entire skeleton, are well within his power to control, he doesn't seize this opportunity to reduce the X-men forces by a full third.
Miscellaneous
When Magneto drops the bridge, Magneto then flies above the bridge to avoid the impact. The Impact is hard enough to crush several buildings on the island, but apparently none of the Brotherhood or the cars on the bridge seem to have been disturbed by falling 100 feet to the ground below.
Miscellaneous
When Juggernaut is inside of the building attempting to find Leech and destroy him, Kitty pulls him into the floor. Juggernaut's power is that when he has momentum nothing can stand in his way, yet he later destroys the floor holding him just by moving his arms up, he could never have gained momentum because he couldn't move his arms. However, Juggernaut's legs could have been dangling THROUGH the floor. If he wiggled them, that would be all the momentum he would need to break free.
Factual Mistake
When Magneto reveals the tattoo of the identification number he received in the concentration camp it appears on the inside of his left arm. As a male concentration camp prisoner, he would have received the tattoo on the outside of his arm. Only female concentration camp prisoners were tattooed on the inner arm.
Factual Mistake
The Golden Gate bridge is a suspension bridge, and its structural integrity is dependent on its principle suspension cables (in tension) being anchored on land on either side, and its towers (in compression) being solidly rooted on the bay floor. The anchors ensure the suspension cables are held in tension, without which the main span deck's self weight and loading weight would cause a catastrophic structural failure - which singularly fails to happen when Magneto moves the bridge to the island, severing the suspension cables from their anchors and the towers from their foundations.
Factual Mistake
Jean scratches her fingernails deep along Logan's upper arm while on the medical bed. The scratches reveal his muscles are covered with a silvery substance that looks to resemble adamantium. In all other movies in this series (and the source comics) it is made abundantly clear that only his bones are adamantium-covered.
Audio/Video Mismatch
When Scott rides to the lake, he is on a Harley-Davidson V-Rod, but the audio used for the engine noise is from a regular V-Twin Harley engine. The V-Rod's engine sounds more like a car than a typical Harley.
Character Error
When Magneto hijacks the prison transport, Pyro reads Multiple Man's cell number as "41205" but the number is visible as 41209.
Character Error
It is shown in X-Men 2 that Colossus turns into iron leaving the hair out, but in this movie it shown shown that his entire body including hair turns into iron.
Character Error
When Rogue is standing in line to receive the 'cure', she looks over to read the picket signs that a group of mutants are holding up at the side. One of the signs, instead of reading 'say NO to the cure' clearly reads 'say to NO the cure'. At the top of the sign it says 'Say to' then 'NO' in large letters in the middle and 'the cure' at the bottom. Even reading it as "NO say to the cure" would be grammatically incorrect.
Continuity
Time of day during the final battle sequence. The first pan over the bridge from southeast looking north, is clearly midday as the shadow of the bridge is almost directly underneath it. When Magneto first walks onto the Golden Gate bridge it is close to sunset, and the shadowing is very inconsistent, sometimes sharp from direct sunlight, sometimes not. By the time they move the bridge and drops it onto the island, and lowers himself to the bridge, and all the mutants move forward, it is suddenly dark. In the DVD commentary, everyone acknowledges it, but says "Hopefully you're into the movie enough..." The whole battle is then shown as taking place in the dark.
Continuity
When Professor Xavier and Magneto enter Jean Grey's old house and find her sitting on a chair, items in the room are levitated around her. When the items drop, the bookcase over her right shoulder hits the ground and all the books fall off, the lamp on top remains on. In a later shot the books are back in the book case and the lamp is on the floor.
Continuity
At the end of the final battle, all the cars remaining on the bridge have their headlights on, despite having being abandoned while it was still daylight.
Continuity
At the final battle, when the X-men are lined up, Wolverine is too far forward from the light pole to just swings back and cut (as he does) so it falls onto the attacking mutants. When the pole is falling down, the lights are still on, even though the power line should be cut through. Then as Wolverine is fighting off more mutants, the light pole can be seen right behind him still up.
Continuity
When Bobby takes Kitty skating on the pond, she has skates, and he creates 'ice' blades which are attached to his shoe by more ice. When their feet are then shown as they skate, his blades are shiny metal through the ice around the sole of his shoe.
Continuity
When Angel is about to take the Cure, he breaks free of his restraints. When the shot goes wide and he runs to jump out of the window the restraints are nowhere to be seen.
On several occasions, the line where Mystique's blue makeup ends around her mouth is easily visible.
Revealing Mistakes
When Beast meets Leech, a close-up of Beast's face as he remarks on Leech's power reveals the net-like tape used to attach the blue fur to his face.
Miscellaneous
In the final confrontation between Magneto's forces and the X-men, we see scores of angry mutants arrayed against a scant security force and only a handful of X-Men. Magneto has the ability to reduce the opposing "good" mutant numbers very easily yet doesn't do so. As Magneto's "pawns" are battling the defense force to get into the compound of the pharmaceutical company, Magneto himself stands on the remnants of the bridge watching the carnage. Though Magneto has the ability to control metal and manipulate magnetic fields, and Colossus, who in his mutant state is entirely metal, and Wolverine, who's body is laced with Adamantium structurally reinforcing his entire skeleton, are well within his power to control, he doesn't seize this opportunity to reduce the X-men forces by a full third.
Miscellaneous
When Magneto drops the bridge, Magneto then flies above the bridge to avoid the impact. The Impact is hard enough to crush several buildings on the island, but apparently none of the Brotherhood or the cars on the bridge seem to have been disturbed by falling 100 feet to the ground below.
Miscellaneous
When Juggernaut is inside of the building attempting to find Leech and destroy him, Kitty pulls him into the floor. Juggernaut's power is that when he has momentum nothing can stand in his way, yet he later destroys the floor holding him just by moving his arms up, he could never have gained momentum because he couldn't move his arms. However, Juggernaut's legs could have been dangling THROUGH the floor. If he wiggled them, that would be all the momentum he would need to break free.
Factual Mistake
When Magneto reveals the tattoo of the identification number he received in the concentration camp it appears on the inside of his left arm. As a male concentration camp prisoner, he would have received the tattoo on the outside of his arm. Only female concentration camp prisoners were tattooed on the inner arm.
Factual Mistake
The Golden Gate bridge is a suspension bridge, and its structural integrity is dependent on its principle suspension cables (in tension) being anchored on land on either side, and its towers (in compression) being solidly rooted on the bay floor. The anchors ensure the suspension cables are held in tension, without which the main span deck's self weight and loading weight would cause a catastrophic structural failure - which singularly fails to happen when Magneto moves the bridge to the island, severing the suspension cables from their anchors and the towers from their foundations.
Factual Mistake
Jean scratches her fingernails deep along Logan's upper arm while on the medical bed. The scratches reveal his muscles are covered with a silvery substance that looks to resemble adamantium. In all other movies in this series (and the source comics) it is made abundantly clear that only his bones are adamantium-covered.
Audio/Video Mismatch
When Scott rides to the lake, he is on a Harley-Davidson V-Rod, but the audio used for the engine noise is from a regular V-Twin Harley engine. The V-Rod's engine sounds more like a car than a typical Harley.
Character Error
When Magneto hijacks the prison transport, Pyro reads Multiple Man's cell number as "41205" but the number is visible as 41209.
Character Error
It is shown in X-Men 2 that Colossus turns into iron leaving the hair out, but in this movie it shown shown that his entire body including hair turns into iron.
Character Error
When Rogue is standing in line to receive the 'cure', she looks over to read the picket signs that a group of mutants are holding up at the side. One of the signs, instead of reading 'say NO to the cure' clearly reads 'say to NO the cure'. At the top of the sign it says 'Say to' then 'NO' in large letters in the middle and 'the cure' at the bottom. Even reading it as "NO say to the cure" would be grammatically incorrect.
Continuity
Time of day during the final battle sequence. The first pan over the bridge from southeast looking north, is clearly midday as the shadow of the bridge is almost directly underneath it. When Magneto first walks onto the Golden Gate bridge it is close to sunset, and the shadowing is very inconsistent, sometimes sharp from direct sunlight, sometimes not. By the time they move the bridge and drops it onto the island, and lowers himself to the bridge, and all the mutants move forward, it is suddenly dark. In the DVD commentary, everyone acknowledges it, but says "Hopefully you're into the movie enough..." The whole battle is then shown as taking place in the dark.
Continuity
When Professor Xavier and Magneto enter Jean Grey's old house and find her sitting on a chair, items in the room are levitated around her. When the items drop, the bookcase over her right shoulder hits the ground and all the books fall off, the lamp on top remains on. In a later shot the books are back in the book case and the lamp is on the floor.
Continuity
At the end of the final battle, all the cars remaining on the bridge have their headlights on, despite having being abandoned while it was still daylight.
Continuity
At the final battle, when the X-men are lined up, Wolverine is too far forward from the light pole to just swings back and cut (as he does) so it falls onto the attacking mutants. When the pole is falling down, the lights are still on, even though the power line should be cut through. Then as Wolverine is fighting off more mutants, the light pole can be seen right behind him still up.
Continuity
When Bobby takes Kitty skating on the pond, she has skates, and he creates 'ice' blades which are attached to his shoe by more ice. When their feet are then shown as they skate, his blades are shiny metal through the ice around the sole of his shoe.
Continuity
When Angel is about to take the Cure, he breaks free of his restraints. When the shot goes wide and he runs to jump out of the window the restraints are nowhere to be seen.
Trivia:
Cyclops appears in the movie for a total of 4 minutes, 40 seconds. In the comic books, Cyclops was a main character of the Phoenix/Dark Phoenix storyline in the X-Men comic books that this film's story was based upon.
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The last scene in the film was to have Magneto regaining his abilities as he plays chess with a stranger (who he discovers is Professor Xavier, in another man's body). Neither were available for filming their scenes together, so instead two separate scenes for the two were filmed, bookending the credits.
While James Marsden was unavailable due to filming Superman Returns (2006) at the same time as this film, 20th Century Fox had always planned to have Jean Grey kill off Cyclops in the film. Screenwriter Zak Penn talked about the lack of Cyclops in "X-Men: The Last Stand" on the message boards of the now-closed website The X-Verse, in which he participated in Q&As with fans and could only say to the fans while the film was being made that if they expected to see more of Cyclops, then fans were going to be disappointed. Penn would later say after the film's release that he and co-writer Simon Kinberg fought with Fox not to kill Cyclops but the studio insisted the character die to have a more emotional impact. The decision to kill off Cyclops received heavy backlash from fans and moviegoers, and fans still debate whether the character actually even died since his death wasn't shown on-screen and neither Storm nor Wolverine bothered to search for him when they find Jean alone at Alkali Lake.
When Bryan Singer was going to direct, he and his writers Dan Harris-Michael Dougherty wrote a treatment solely based on the "X-Men" storyline 'The Dark Phoenix Saga': the deceased Jean Grey returns, with a new, more destructive personality called the Phoenix. She would be manipulated into joining the Hellfire Club, by their telepathic leader Emma Frost (Sigourney Weaver was intended for the role). A three-way battle occurs between the Club who want to take over the world, the X-Men who want to save their comrade, and Magneto's Brotherhood who want the Phoenix for their own plans. At the end, to save everyone Jean kills herself, but her spirit lives on and transcends into a divine being, which Dougherty compared to the star child in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
The last scenes of Magneto and Professor X (Magneto discovers the return of his powers, Professor X reveals his survival) were not in the script, and were secretly filmed. Sirs Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart admitted even they didn't know whether their scenes would be in the final film or not.
Stan Lee and Chris Claremont, the "X-Men" creator and longtime "X-Men" writer make a cameo appearance in the opening scene, as neighbors of Jean Grey. They are credited as "Waterhose Man" and "Lawnmower Man," respectively. (Claremont created the "Dark Phoenix Saga" in the "X-Men" comics, which was the basis of the Jean Grey/Phoenix storyline in this film.)
R. Lee Ermey makes a cameo appearance in this movie as the sergeant directing defensive preparations before the Brotherhood assaults Alcatraz. Ermey is known for playing military characters to perfection, as he himself was a U.S. Marine Drill Instructor.
A reflective form-fitting bodysuit was created for Daniel Cudmore to wear as Colossus. This was considered a cheaper move rather than animating Colossus's ability in CGI, as seen in X-Men 2 (2003).
As originally scripted, the Golden Gate Bridge sequence was originally in the middle of the film; Magneto was to have moved it to Alcatraz Island to free Mystique, as the facility would have been revived as a special mutant prison. The final battle was to take place in Washington, D.C., which was set to be home to Worthington Labs. Thus, Magneto's plan would have been twofold: destroy the "cure" and take control of the White House. However, when Brett Ratner signed to direct, he decided the bridge sequence would create a more dramatic climax if moved to the end, so the script was rewritten to have Alcatraz transformed into the Worthington Labs facility (which is somewhat nonsensical, since Alcatraz is a National Monument, and thus cannot be owned or altered by a private company).
Throughout the film Storm and Callisto are constantly battling. In the comics, Storm and Callisto battled for leadership of Callisto's gang the Morlocks.
Kelsey Grammer was so keen to play Beast that he agreed to do an audition. This was the first time Grammer had auditioned in over 20 years.
Cain Marko's line "Don't you know who I am? I'm the Juggernaut, bitch" was inspired by a popular web parody film that made use of scenes from X-Men (1992). Throughout the parody , the Juggernaut character repeatedly says, "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch." According to the Wikipedia, Brett Ratner even has a link to this parody on his own website. (Whether or not the parody itself was inspired by a mis-heard line from an old X-Men video game is irrelevant to film's usage of this line, since it's clearly an homage to the web parody)
The mutant Nightcrawler was going to make a cameo appearance in the film; Alan Cumming, who'd played Nightcrawler in X-Men 2 (2003), was going to reprise the role, despite his discomfort with the prosthetic makeup he had to wear for his role. The cameo was so short, however, that the filmmakers felt the long and costly makeup process was not worthwhile, so he was omitted from the film - the video game X-Men: The Official Game (2006) (VG) explains that Nightcrawler left the X-Men because he didn't appreciate their life of action and violence.
Beast's famous line "Oh my stars and garters!" is used in the film (mostly due to Kevin Feige's insistence).
Ben Foster, who plays the winged mutant Angel, is actually scared of heights.
The idea of a cure developed by Dr. Kavita Rao, Beast's interest in it, and the prominent roles played by Kitty Pryde and Colossus, were inspired by Joss Whedon's story 'Gifted' which took place in the first six issues of "Astonishing X-Men". The mutant cure plot was first introduced years before in X-Men (1992).
The number tattooed on Magneto's arm is 214782. This identifies him as a survivor of the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex of Nazi concentration camps.
Fox originally intended this to be the final "X-Men" film featuring any of the original cast, forming a trilogy somewhat akin to the "Star Wars" films, with possible spin offs based on individual characters from the series beginning with X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009). Late in post-production, the studio reversed this intent, and director Brett Ratner re-edited and re-shot scenes to make the film more open-ended. After mixed critical and box-office reception for "Origins: Wolverine" and troubled development of a Magneto origin film, Fox made several unsuccessful attempts at developing a fourth film before deciding to reboot the series with X-Men: First Class (2011), and later, X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) which used time travel to eliminate inconvenient elements of past continuity.
The popular mutant Gambit was going to appear in the film and would have been a love interest of Rogue and a rival for Iceman, similar to how Kitty Pryde was Rogue's rival for Iceman's affections. However, Fox was developing X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) and stipulated that no mutant could appear in both X-Films, and so Gambit was removed from the script. Channing Tatum was in the running for the role before it was removed.
Many of the actors performed their own stunts in the film.
For the opening flashback, the VFXperts created a special program that enabled "digital skin-grafting": with the use of old photos of Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, complex keyframing (dissolving an image into another image, i.e. old actors into younger-looking versions) was applied to the scene to digitally make them appear 20 years younger.
In the comics, Jean Grey's original costume (Marvel Girl) was green/gold when she first became the Phoenix, keeping the green/gold color scheme. When Jean turns into the Dark Phoenix her outfit's colors changed to red/gold. In this film, the Phoenix is dressed in a red dress from the time she appears in Jean Gray's home. The red dress reflects the Dark Phoenix persona as this story line is heavily influenced by the Dark Phoenix Saga.
Both Rebecca Romijn (Mystique) and James Marsden's (Cyclops) roles were reduced substantially when the film was rushed into production and the two cast members had prior scheduling conflicts.
Brett Ratner cast Ellen Page as Kitty Pryde after seeing Page in Hard Candy (2005). She initially turned down the role, but after Ratner personally called her with the script, she agreed to do the role.
Halle Berry had initially decided not to reprise her role as Storm for this film, citing lack of character development in the previous two installments and a tense relationship with director Bryan Singer. However, after Singer's departure and suffering a major box-office flop with Catwoman (2004), Berry agreed to return on the condition that her role be expanded. Consequently, in this film Storm replaces Cyclops and Professor Xavier as team leader of the X-Men (which is keeping with the comics, where for a time Storm served as team leader in Xavier's absence).
The maneuver where Colossus grabs Wolverine and throws him at something (spinning around a few times to gain momentum) is known as the Fastball Special and is an iconic move in the "X-Men" saga. The Fastball Special in this film is based on John Cassaday's "Amazing X-Men" #6.
Summer Glau auditioned for the role of Kitty Pryde. She looked to Joss Whedon, who gave her a part in Firefly (2002) and Serenity (2005), for advice because she knew he was a big "X-Men" fan (Whedon based the character of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997) on Kitty), unaware that he had written issues of "Astonishing X-Men" for Marvel, most prominently the 'Gifted' storyline about the mutant cure. Her audition script turned out to be pages from Whedon's "Astonishing X-Men" #5.
Has the biggest Memorial Day box-office opening ever, until the record was beaten by Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007).
After Brian Singer saw the movie, he said he would have done it differently. He would have had a distraught Cyclops build the danger room to become he felt the X-Men needed to be stronger and faster to have saved Jean. Also, he said he would have had Phoenix on a quest around the world freeing trapped mutants and rescuing them.
For her dual role as Jean Gray/Phoenix, Famke Janssen extensively researched dissociative identity disorders and split personalities to make her performance convincing.
In this film, Bolivar Trask is Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security. In the comics, he was a scientist-agent responsible for creating the Sentinel robots. Against continuity, his character appeared again, this time played by Peter Dinklage, in X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), which takes place in the 1970's.
The whirlwind wire-stunts performed by Halle Berry made her so nauseated that she vomited in one scene, and the crew had to bring in buckets for her before shooting her fight scenes.
A line that President says "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" is originally from a play The Mourning Bride (1697) by William Congreve (English playwright and poet who lived 24 January 1670 - 19 January 1729), and says: "Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned".
With the appearance of Beast (though he was in X-Men 2 (2003)) and Angel, the original X-Men team that were formed in 1963 (Professor X, Cyclops, Phoenix, Beast, Iceman, Angel) now fully appear in this film, though not all together.
Angel's wings were initially too heavy for Ben Foster, and were remade from foam.
Kid Omega's portrayal in this film (an anti-human mutant, the leader of a gang of mutants) is also based on the mutant Quill (a mutant who shoots barbs from his body).
Cast members Patrick Stewart, Famke Janssen and Kelsey Grammer have all appeared on Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987). Grammer plays Dr. McCoy in this film. The original Star Trek (1966) also featured a Dr. McCoy.
In a June 2009 interview, Bryan Singer admitted that he regretted declining to direct this film in favor of Superman Returns (2006), confessing that he realized his mistake "before I was watching [the third X-Men film], during watching it, after watching it."
In Dr McCoy's first scene, he is seen reading an issue of the "Scientific American" magazine, which features as its cover story "Tracking Mutations". The issue is an existing one, which had released on October 2005.
While James Marsden was unavailable due to filming Superman Returns (2006) at the same time as this film, 20th Century Fox had always planned to have Jean Grey kill off Cyclops in the film. Screenwriter Zak Penn talked about the lack of Cyclops in "X-Men: The Last Stand" on the message boards of the now-closed website The X-Verse, in which he participated in Q&As with fans and could only say to the fans while the film was being made that if they expected to see more of Cyclops, then fans were going to be disappointed. Penn would later say after the film's release that he and co-writer Simon Kinberg fought with Fox not to kill Cyclops but the studio insisted the character die to have a more emotional impact. The decision to kill off Cyclops received heavy backlash from fans and moviegoers, and fans still debate whether the character actually even died since his death wasn't shown on-screen and neither Storm nor Wolverine bothered to search for him when they find Jean alone at Alkali Lake.
When Bryan Singer was going to direct, he and his writers Dan Harris-Michael Dougherty wrote a treatment solely based on the "X-Men" storyline 'The Dark Phoenix Saga': the deceased Jean Grey returns, with a new, more destructive personality called the Phoenix. She would be manipulated into joining the Hellfire Club, by their telepathic leader Emma Frost (Sigourney Weaver was intended for the role). A three-way battle occurs between the Club who want to take over the world, the X-Men who want to save their comrade, and Magneto's Brotherhood who want the Phoenix for their own plans. At the end, to save everyone Jean kills herself, but her spirit lives on and transcends into a divine being, which Dougherty compared to the star child in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
The last scenes of Magneto and Professor X (Magneto discovers the return of his powers, Professor X reveals his survival) were not in the script, and were secretly filmed. Sirs Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart admitted even they didn't know whether their scenes would be in the final film or not.
Stan Lee and Chris Claremont, the "X-Men" creator and longtime "X-Men" writer make a cameo appearance in the opening scene, as neighbors of Jean Grey. They are credited as "Waterhose Man" and "Lawnmower Man," respectively. (Claremont created the "Dark Phoenix Saga" in the "X-Men" comics, which was the basis of the Jean Grey/Phoenix storyline in this film.)
R. Lee Ermey makes a cameo appearance in this movie as the sergeant directing defensive preparations before the Brotherhood assaults Alcatraz. Ermey is known for playing military characters to perfection, as he himself was a U.S. Marine Drill Instructor.
A reflective form-fitting bodysuit was created for Daniel Cudmore to wear as Colossus. This was considered a cheaper move rather than animating Colossus's ability in CGI, as seen in X-Men 2 (2003).
As originally scripted, the Golden Gate Bridge sequence was originally in the middle of the film; Magneto was to have moved it to Alcatraz Island to free Mystique, as the facility would have been revived as a special mutant prison. The final battle was to take place in Washington, D.C., which was set to be home to Worthington Labs. Thus, Magneto's plan would have been twofold: destroy the "cure" and take control of the White House. However, when Brett Ratner signed to direct, he decided the bridge sequence would create a more dramatic climax if moved to the end, so the script was rewritten to have Alcatraz transformed into the Worthington Labs facility (which is somewhat nonsensical, since Alcatraz is a National Monument, and thus cannot be owned or altered by a private company).
Throughout the film Storm and Callisto are constantly battling. In the comics, Storm and Callisto battled for leadership of Callisto's gang the Morlocks.
Kelsey Grammer was so keen to play Beast that he agreed to do an audition. This was the first time Grammer had auditioned in over 20 years.
Cain Marko's line "Don't you know who I am? I'm the Juggernaut, bitch" was inspired by a popular web parody film that made use of scenes from X-Men (1992). Throughout the parody , the Juggernaut character repeatedly says, "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch." According to the Wikipedia, Brett Ratner even has a link to this parody on his own website. (Whether or not the parody itself was inspired by a mis-heard line from an old X-Men video game is irrelevant to film's usage of this line, since it's clearly an homage to the web parody)
The mutant Nightcrawler was going to make a cameo appearance in the film; Alan Cumming, who'd played Nightcrawler in X-Men 2 (2003), was going to reprise the role, despite his discomfort with the prosthetic makeup he had to wear for his role. The cameo was so short, however, that the filmmakers felt the long and costly makeup process was not worthwhile, so he was omitted from the film - the video game X-Men: The Official Game (2006) (VG) explains that Nightcrawler left the X-Men because he didn't appreciate their life of action and violence.
Beast's famous line "Oh my stars and garters!" is used in the film (mostly due to Kevin Feige's insistence).
Ben Foster, who plays the winged mutant Angel, is actually scared of heights.
The idea of a cure developed by Dr. Kavita Rao, Beast's interest in it, and the prominent roles played by Kitty Pryde and Colossus, were inspired by Joss Whedon's story 'Gifted' which took place in the first six issues of "Astonishing X-Men". The mutant cure plot was first introduced years before in X-Men (1992).
The number tattooed on Magneto's arm is 214782. This identifies him as a survivor of the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex of Nazi concentration camps.
Fox originally intended this to be the final "X-Men" film featuring any of the original cast, forming a trilogy somewhat akin to the "Star Wars" films, with possible spin offs based on individual characters from the series beginning with X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009). Late in post-production, the studio reversed this intent, and director Brett Ratner re-edited and re-shot scenes to make the film more open-ended. After mixed critical and box-office reception for "Origins: Wolverine" and troubled development of a Magneto origin film, Fox made several unsuccessful attempts at developing a fourth film before deciding to reboot the series with X-Men: First Class (2011), and later, X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) which used time travel to eliminate inconvenient elements of past continuity.
The popular mutant Gambit was going to appear in the film and would have been a love interest of Rogue and a rival for Iceman, similar to how Kitty Pryde was Rogue's rival for Iceman's affections. However, Fox was developing X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) and stipulated that no mutant could appear in both X-Films, and so Gambit was removed from the script. Channing Tatum was in the running for the role before it was removed.
Many of the actors performed their own stunts in the film.
For the opening flashback, the VFXperts created a special program that enabled "digital skin-grafting": with the use of old photos of Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, complex keyframing (dissolving an image into another image, i.e. old actors into younger-looking versions) was applied to the scene to digitally make them appear 20 years younger.
In the comics, Jean Grey's original costume (Marvel Girl) was green/gold when she first became the Phoenix, keeping the green/gold color scheme. When Jean turns into the Dark Phoenix her outfit's colors changed to red/gold. In this film, the Phoenix is dressed in a red dress from the time she appears in Jean Gray's home. The red dress reflects the Dark Phoenix persona as this story line is heavily influenced by the Dark Phoenix Saga.
Both Rebecca Romijn (Mystique) and James Marsden's (Cyclops) roles were reduced substantially when the film was rushed into production and the two cast members had prior scheduling conflicts.
Brett Ratner cast Ellen Page as Kitty Pryde after seeing Page in Hard Candy (2005). She initially turned down the role, but after Ratner personally called her with the script, she agreed to do the role.
Halle Berry had initially decided not to reprise her role as Storm for this film, citing lack of character development in the previous two installments and a tense relationship with director Bryan Singer. However, after Singer's departure and suffering a major box-office flop with Catwoman (2004), Berry agreed to return on the condition that her role be expanded. Consequently, in this film Storm replaces Cyclops and Professor Xavier as team leader of the X-Men (which is keeping with the comics, where for a time Storm served as team leader in Xavier's absence).
The maneuver where Colossus grabs Wolverine and throws him at something (spinning around a few times to gain momentum) is known as the Fastball Special and is an iconic move in the "X-Men" saga. The Fastball Special in this film is based on John Cassaday's "Amazing X-Men" #6.
Summer Glau auditioned for the role of Kitty Pryde. She looked to Joss Whedon, who gave her a part in Firefly (2002) and Serenity (2005), for advice because she knew he was a big "X-Men" fan (Whedon based the character of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997) on Kitty), unaware that he had written issues of "Astonishing X-Men" for Marvel, most prominently the 'Gifted' storyline about the mutant cure. Her audition script turned out to be pages from Whedon's "Astonishing X-Men" #5.
Has the biggest Memorial Day box-office opening ever, until the record was beaten by Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007).
After Brian Singer saw the movie, he said he would have done it differently. He would have had a distraught Cyclops build the danger room to become he felt the X-Men needed to be stronger and faster to have saved Jean. Also, he said he would have had Phoenix on a quest around the world freeing trapped mutants and rescuing them.
For her dual role as Jean Gray/Phoenix, Famke Janssen extensively researched dissociative identity disorders and split personalities to make her performance convincing.
In this film, Bolivar Trask is Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security. In the comics, he was a scientist-agent responsible for creating the Sentinel robots. Against continuity, his character appeared again, this time played by Peter Dinklage, in X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), which takes place in the 1970's.
The whirlwind wire-stunts performed by Halle Berry made her so nauseated that she vomited in one scene, and the crew had to bring in buckets for her before shooting her fight scenes.
A line that President says "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" is originally from a play The Mourning Bride (1697) by William Congreve (English playwright and poet who lived 24 January 1670 - 19 January 1729), and says: "Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned".
With the appearance of Beast (though he was in X-Men 2 (2003)) and Angel, the original X-Men team that were formed in 1963 (Professor X, Cyclops, Phoenix, Beast, Iceman, Angel) now fully appear in this film, though not all together.
Angel's wings were initially too heavy for Ben Foster, and were remade from foam.
Kid Omega's portrayal in this film (an anti-human mutant, the leader of a gang of mutants) is also based on the mutant Quill (a mutant who shoots barbs from his body).
Cast members Patrick Stewart, Famke Janssen and Kelsey Grammer have all appeared on Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987). Grammer plays Dr. McCoy in this film. The original Star Trek (1966) also featured a Dr. McCoy.
In a June 2009 interview, Bryan Singer admitted that he regretted declining to direct this film in favor of Superman Returns (2006), confessing that he realized his mistake "before I was watching [the third X-Men film], during watching it, after watching it."
In Dr McCoy's first scene, he is seen reading an issue of the "Scientific American" magazine, which features as its cover story "Tracking Mutations". The issue is an existing one, which had released on October 2005.
