The X-Men Movie Disney Wants You To Forget
Everyone has that one relative they keep hidden to avoid embarrassment. The X-Men franchise is no different. While Disney is more than happy to let everyone believe that X-Men (2000) was the first movie to feature Marvel’s Merry Mutants, it wasn’t. That honor technically goes to the long-forgotten 1996 made-for-TV film Generation X.
The ’90s were a good decade for the Fox television network. Not only was The Simpsons in its prime, but Fox Kids was killing it with its animated Marvel adaptations like X-Men and Spider-Man. So popular was the former that Fox decided to develop a pilot for a live-action X-Men-adjacent TV series called Generation X.
Generation X was based on a Marvel comic book of the same name. The purpose of the book was to introduce fans to a new team of young mutant heroes, much like Marvel had done a decade before with New Mutants.
…Fox dropped two characters from the Generation X comic that would have been too expensive to do convincingly on a television budget.
These young mutants wouldn’t attend Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters but a splinter school called Massachusetts Academy. Reformed villain Emma Frost and former X-Man Banshee would mentor them and teach them how to control their powers.
Why Fox chose to adapt a group of X-Men wannabes rather than the main team is anyone’s guess. Whatever the reason, it was a good call because the movie was hot garbage. Had Fox stuck Wolverine and Storm in a similar low-budget crapfest, there’s a good chance we wouldn’t have gotten the Hugh Jackman X-Men films.
Right off the bat, Fox dropped two characters from the Generation X comic that would have been too expensive to do convincingly on a television budget.
Chamber, who can shoot massive blasts of energy from his chest, was replaced with Refrax, a Cyclops rip-off with eyebeams. Meanwhile, Husk, a character that can rip off her own skin and exposes a tougher exterior underneath, is replaced by Buff, a girl who’s really strong.
Generation X had a few stars, but no one was big enough to get anyone to watch it.
The rest of the team, though pulled directly from the comic, isn’t exactly anything to write home about either. One mutant (Skin) has stretchy skin, another (Mondo) can take on the properties of any organic or inorganic material he touches, and finally (M) is super smart, super strong, and super invulnerable. Yawn.
The only brand-name member of Generation X is Jubilee, played in the movie by a decidedly non-asian actor. She and her teammates find themselves going up against the film’s villain, Doctor Russel Tresh, a mad scientist with a vendetta against Emma Frost. Hilariously, the name Russel Tresh sounds like an AI trying to come up with a name similar to the X-Men villains Boliver Trask and Henry Peter Gyrich.
Shockingly, Generation X is not available on Disney + or Hulu.
Generation X had a few stars, but no one was big enough to get anyone to watch it. Max Headroom actor Matt Frewer played Tresh, while General Hospital alum Finola Hughes donned a bad white wig to play Emma Frost.
Shockingly, Generation X is not available on Disney + or Hulu. Not shockingly, the entire thing is on YouTube. We wouldn’t suggest watching it, though, unless you have a fetish for mid-’90s CGI and bad dialogue.
Otherwise, you’re better off re-watching any of the other live-action X-Men films. Yes, even Dark Phoenix.
