‘X-Men ’97’ Draws Its Power from ’90s Filmmaking — Animated and Otherwise
Every mutant in the world of the “X-Men” has some sort of physics-defying superpower, from Jean Grey’s (Jennifer Hale) peerless telekinetic prowess to Scott Summers’ (Ray Chase) laser eyes to Wolverine’s (Cal Dodd) claws that go snikt. But the power at the heart of the appeal of Disney and Marvel’s animated series “X-Men ‘97” is the show’s ability to bridge time and make the current moment in animation feel like days of future past.
“X-Men ‘97” is, in the words of head director and supervising producer Jake Castorena, meant to be a direct spiritual successor to “X-Men: The Animated Series,” the iconic 1992 series produced by Saban Entertainment that ran until 1996. The new show, created by Beau DeMayo (who was subsequently fired from the project before it premiered), returns to many of the same characters, settings, and relationship dynamics, even to many of the same voice actors as the original.
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But the one thing the new Disney+ show can’t do is be made in the exact same way as the original, by the exact same team. So how does “X-Men ‘97” feel like a revival that has continuity with a project more than two decades in the past, one that did all of its transferring for broadcast via VHS tape?
Castorena told IndieWire that he and the series’ directing team were constantly negotiating what felt too clean or digital-looking with the demands of doing animation that works in HD, that feels as epic and complex and visually arresting as the best contemporary animated series. “We are a revival, not a reboot. So, we looked a lot at: What was going on between ‘96 and ‘98? What was anime able to accomplish in that time? What was Westernized animation able to accomplish in that time?” Castorena said.
He and his team rigorously studied a host of examples of great ‘90s filmmaking — everything from “Cowboy Bebop” to “Terminator 2” to “Mallrats” — so that the animation for “X-Men ‘97” could have a sensibility that fits into ‘90s visual tics and stylistic trends, even as it tells its own story.
“The lens depth and the stuff that we talk about cinematically, that’s all hand drawn by us,” Castorena said. “What I would notice when trying to break down what we were going to do visually was the use of wide lenses — 35mm, 45mm, 50mm lenses, like the camera is very far away but zoomed-in, compressed lenses that let your characters live within the same frame with each other.”
Maybe even more so than their live-action kindred, animation directors get to convey emotion and dramatic ideas to the audience through blocking and coverage. “The principle of who are you shooting or who are you not shooting based on what the dialogue is and the person who was saying the line: That could be just as important as the person receiving said line, right? The [choices] become about, OK, well, who do we shoot?”
Castorena and his directing team and the show’s storyboard artists are constantly balancing who the show shoots, how, what’s left out, and what exists in the background to make the world feel lived-in. “We don’t have the luxury of, ‘Oh, whatever’s in front of the camera, we get to shoot,’” Castorena said. “It’s like, ‘No, that all has to be meticulously planned and thought out. Very rarely does anything happen by accident.”
“X-Men ‘97” has to meet that quintessential television challenge of giving us more of what we already love, but in ways that constantly surprise us. Castorena said that a key to that was the show’s ability to showcase familiar mutant abilities and powers, but in novel ways that still, somehow, don’t break the comics canon. One of the key ways the show does it is by leaning into power combos and team-ups as the place where the animation could feel most akin to the original series and utilize all the tools in the animators’ toolboxes to come to life.
“To be candid, my favorite thing I got to do was the Wolverine and Gambit power combination, the kinetic claws. It wasn’t even [supposed] to be in the show, it was just part of my initial pitch to get the job and then fast-forward, we needed a beat in the Mastermold fight,” Castorena said. “It is a genuine testament to the entire team coming together, from compositions, backgrounds, production design, animation, both character and effects. Our internal team worked their asses off to make that sequence slap, and I couldn’t be more proud to get to share that moment with them.”
In the video above, watch how Castorena and the “X-Men ‘97” animators recreated the sensibilities of ‘90s filmmaking while still pushing the story of the X-Men forward.
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