X-Men Origins: Wolverine - Further Thoughts

A couple of weeks ago I received an email from regular blog reader 'SF' regarding continuity within the X-Men and Wolverine films of recent years. Having now seen the Wolverine film and undertaken just a little internet research I feel ready to respond.

Whilst I generally agree with SF's sentiments around rebooting film franchises, I think we need to establish whether indeed the Wolverine origin story has actually changed from the three X-Men films.

Key to this discussion it seems to me is a line in, I believe, X-Men 2 when Stryker says words to the effect of 'you were always an animal Logan, I just gave you the claws'.

I would suggest that the makers of X2 were refering specifically to the adamantium claws that we associate with Wolverine that were gained as a result of the Weapon X programme and I suspect they (the film makers) were neither acknowledging or denying that Logan had claws of bone as a youngster.

Personally I've always found the X-Men books are an enjoyable read but, in part due to the shear number of the books with their various spin-off series, I've always struggled to follow what's considered canon and what's not. That said, my very brief research on this to enable me to respond to your points suggests that the storyline from the Wolverine film does pretty closely follow the Wolverine origin set out in Marvel comics around 15 or so years ago.

On a more general note I think the 'reboot' approach is an acceptable direction to take - without it, wouldn't a film series be tied to - and possibly compound mistakes made in - an earlier film? Take Batman for instance, the two most recent films have widely be recogised as triumphs of comic book film-making and yet neither could be said to follow the continuity of the earlier films from the 80's and 90's. Although I've not seen the new Star Trek film yet I'm led to believe that at times it plays a little fast and lose with 'Trek' lore and in doing so they've produced an excellent film that's still respectful of the ground covered in previous films.

They are interesting and thought provoking points you raise SF - thank you.