Customer Reviews

Art of X-Men The Last Stand: From Concept to Feature Film (Newmarket Pictorial Moviebook)

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Among the media tie-in items for X-Men the Last Stand, there are few things better for die hard fans than The Art of X-Men The Last Stand from Newmarket Press. This is a gorgeous 160 page soft cover book featuring hundreds of photos, concept drawings, sculptures, and storyboards from the latest hit film. The presentation if first rate in its delivery.

The first chapter of the book traces the long and often bumpy history of the X-Men, first created in 1963 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby at Marvel Comics. While the X-Men has been the most popular comic in the world for the better part of 25 years, it certainly didn't start out that way. The X-Men basically treaded water throughout the 60's and early 70's, with the notable exceptions of the brief runs by artistic greats Neal Adams, Jim Steranko, and Barry Smith. In fact things got so bad for the title that eventually new stories ceased and it just ran re-prints for a time. Then, 1975 brought us Giant-Sized X-Men #1 by writer Len Wein and artist Dave Cockrum. This book would feature a whole new cast of X-Men such as Wolverine, Storm, Colossus, Banshee, Nightcrawler, Thunderbird, and Sunfire. The New X-Men were born and the rest is history. This chapter introduces to both the new and old X-men team members as well as their many villains such as Magneto and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

The next chapter gets into the latest film and features outstanding full color photography from the film, but that's just the beginning. There's magnificent concept art done for various characters and scenes from the film. You can see the various artists renderings for Colossus, The Beast, the Danger Room, and Phoenix, and compare them to the finished products.

Chapters three and four highlight the various members of the Brotherhood such as Mystique, Pyro, and Juggernaut, as well as various action scenes. There were over a half dozen different looks to Juggernaut's signature headgear, some of which are really better than the one they ultimately chose for the film. There are some great storyboard sequences in this chapter such as when Magneto brings down the Golden Gate bridge, Pyro battles Iceman, and Kitty Pryde flees from Juggernaut as he literally smashes through walls in pursuit of his prey.

These photos, drawings, and storyboards truly get you inside the film and give the fan a greater understanding of the filmmaking process. You get a keen sense of just how meticulous they are in planning out shots and film sequences. It's a fantastic book from beginning to end. If you're an X-Men fan than you MUST own this book!

Reviewed by Tim Janson

The Art of X-Men The Last Stand, is definitely a glitzy and lush movie companion book to the hit movie from movie stills to conceptual designs of inside the movie. This book has almost four hundred illustrations from movie stills to production artwork, that's absolutely sensational, concept drawings that are eye popping imagination and ideas abound in this book and movie. This is not a book solely for fantasy superhero buffs but instead is more for aficionados of the superheroic genre that will no doubt find it an irresistible heroic fantasy to watch and enjoy as a moviegoing experenice. Commentary is provided by director Brett Ratner commenting about the film's production,in it and lot review on it. This is the only book on the market on the creation of the blockbuster movie, an absolute essential visual companion to the final chapter in the X-Men motion picture trilogy saga.That will no doubt dazzle it's audience of it's striking visual movie stills and set designs, of concept drawings, and costume sketches of it's storyboards. The book albeit to say has scanty information on the subject but none the less does draw on the original history of the X-Men, illustrated with archival comic book art. The characters portray their comic book counterpart exceptionally well. I had slight reservation in Colossus he could have been a little larger none the less an excellent portrayal. Wolverine played by Hugh Jackman is the incarnation of the character his perfect portrayal of Wolverine is indisputable. Patrick Stewart another great actor who fits into his role Professor X like a glove. Beast who is absolutely magnificent is played by Kelsey Grammer. The entire cast are perfect each actor sliding into their respective roles perfectly doing the character total justice. The movie details the movie where a cure for mutancy threatens to alter the course of history. For the first time, mutants have a choice, change become normal or remain alienated but individually perfect as they are. The entire movie revolves around this dilemma, triggering the war to end all wars. This is the first film in the series to feature the original line up of the X-Men from the comics, Professor X, Cyclops, Jean Grey ( originally she played Marvel Girl, not Phoenix), Iceman, Beast(his character appeared briefly minus blue fur), Angel. Most of the rest of the major characters joined the team in X-Men#1, Storm, Wolverine, Colossus and Nightcrawler and so on.

This book's name called "the art of XXX",however it's contant is so few,and many page is the picture of the photo of the film and photo of the actors,only little sketch and drawing of the definition

Length:: 0:25 Mins

The writeup by Peter Sanderson takes a look at the history of X-men, which was created in 1963. Considering the amount of history X-men has, it's not inaccurate to say that the writeup in the book is rather brief. It does go through the main gist and takes a look at the main characters. There are stories like how the characters are created, the differences between the comics and the movies, for example Mystique is Nightcrawler's mom in the comics but not the movie.

There's a good amount of art in the book. Unfortunately, there's also a good amount of film stills. Good thing is all are captioned and informative.

That's all. Just history and art. There's no production stories, not much anyway, of how they shot the movie on ground.

If you're intending to get the book, the paperback version is more worth it for the price.

(More pictures are available on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

While many complained of the quality of the third X-Men film, this book also suffers from the same problems. It's glitzy with lush movie stills and conceptual designs, but somehow feels just like an empty sugarcoated endeavor.

While the Art of X2 book features more systematic layouts and narratives, this one is more splashed together from eycandies. Don't get me wrong, it's still enjoyable, but I feel that I've seen this kind of effort somewhere elase before.

The Art Of X-Men The Last Stand: From Concept To Feature Film could've been featured in our 'Theatre and Cinema' section but sci-fi buffs will find it an irresistible heroic fantasy superhero moviebook packing in nearly four hundred illustrations from movie stills to production artwork, concept drawings and ideas. Director Brett Ratner provides commentary about the film's production, while a plot review includes critical comments about movie themes on genetics and prejudice. The photos and artwork are exquisite: The Art Of X-Men The Last Stand will thus appeal beyond the film genre well into the science fiction fan's world.

It's a awesome book like I had The Art of X2. Now Art of X3 is even better. Everything about the movie, the designs, the characters, the actors are amazing. And yes, the Marvel Comics version of the X-Men is good as well. It's a lot of good work to create the best movie I would ever watch. Well, it maybe the last X-Men movie, but I hope to relive on all of the movies by DVD

I found this very close to the art book about the previous chapter: unbalanced.
Too few storyboards and conceptual art/visual fx pictures and maybe too many movie stills.....but it's only a personal opinion..... I prefer when an "Art of" is fully focused into storyboards (Art of Matrix) or into comparison between creating what is in comic books and comic books themselves (Art of Sin City).

For some reason this book isn't in every bookstore. I could only find it at one place everyone else said they'd have to order it. Anyway, this book is WAYYYYYYYYYY MUCH BETTER THAN X-2 ART... book. Unlike x-2 book this book has different pictures mostly. It could be the same scene that's filmed for the movie except the shots are like fly on the wall shots where the picture is taking a picture of the director/camera and actors in that scene (the second book just took stills from the freakin' movie.) Anyway, they show either sample CG's or they are the finally finished products of Phoenix rising and the Phoenix unleashed when she dies. Loved that can't wait to see it on DVD. I thought showing Beast's different hairstyles was cool, (which 2 use). Some of them matched Wolverine's in the comics to a T. Also they showed I think different visors for Cyclops and different helmet prototypes for Juggernaut. Also you can see the metallic molds of Colossus's face.

There are also some comic book looking storyboards (that has Storm's hair long like the comics. 2 cool, but i did grow on Ororo's hairstyle in this one. I like it now) ohhhhhhh the coolest part for STorm fans is seeing her Alkalie Lake jacket. I thought it was a one piece uniform, but it's a really really cool jacket. You've gotta check it out it's in a case I think or it's on a mannequin body (you can't see the mannequin) and you see the front and the back. All that detail for a really cool design and most of it if not all doesn't even show on film. I guess the lighting was bad or it was digitally removed. Like I couldn't even see the white zippers.

There was a storyboard (comic panel) of Wolverine I think jumping out of the way of a Sentinel foot. And storyboards for the Danger Room. I'm glad it wasn't just WOLVERINE IN THE DANGER ROOM I'D HAVE BEEN PISSED. (not sure if those panels were in this book or the second one).

No screenplay. (didn't read the one in X2 so, doesn't bother me).

The Cons
No alternate or prototype costumes of the other characters, bummer. I think everyone wanted to see the different versions of Jean's costumes that didn't make the cut. Hopefully that and STorm's will be on DVD. Superman does that in the book and in the dvds. Those were my favorite parts.

No prototype for Iceman's iceform or ICE SLIDE.

Would have been cool to find out if Rogue would have the bob, or curly hair. or if she'd wear that green jumpsuit like they painted on Anna for the first movie.

would have been 2 COOL TO SEE MAGNETO HELMET PROTOTYPE DESIGNS. Hopefully that will change for the Magneto movie and hopefully the helmet won't look like plastic. It's supposed to be made of metal. It just looks cheesy. I would have added the missing trimmings that are in the comic book and made them thicker so Magneto would have a more sinister look (you know in the comics a lot of times you just see the helmet and where the face is supposed to be you see blackness.)

Not much on ANGEL. I'M BUMMED. Most of the pictures of him are the same that are on the internet. Would have been cool to see him standing around with the wings on.

Okay I forgot what else was in there, the Phoenix storyboards and Beasts hairstyles and Storm's jacket were the best things. Those are the only reasons that I bought it. There's a lot of words but I haven't had time to read them yet. Hopefully something cool in there, like "we couldn't get the CG effects for Phoenix in the movie in time b/c of the deadline release date, but here it is (look to the pictures)." Orrrrrrrr "We tried different STorm hairstyles and came up with this b/c..."


Ohhhhhhhhhh AND NOTHING REALLY ON PSYLOCKE. WHAT THE CRAP. I heard she tried to wear a swimsuit (comic) kinda suit but it didn't work. I'd love to see test shots of that!!!! Come on George Lucas releases all his stuff he's not stingy. Hopefully everything like that will be on DVD along with 30 minutes added to the movie.

Okay are there pictures of real costumes or actors/tresses in costumes that just didn't work and were changed to the ones in the movie oooooorrrrrr are they just drawings that didn't make the cut.

Are there pictures or drawings of deleted scenes?

Is there a picture of STorm in her new costume (when she and Wolverine were looking for Jean and Scott)

are there pictures of Juggernaut and/or Jean and or Storm trying on the different costumes before the final product used

was there a drawing of Iceman's different iced up looks or of an iceslide?

and Please tell me there were different helmet designs for Magneto. Maybe one that looks like the comics. or real pictures of him trying on different prototypes.