There’s no comparison points made to, say, a television creator (Joss Whedon’s work on Buffy would be the obvious one to make) or many examples offered of the influence Claremont has had on film and television, with his approach now commonplace in big screen franchises. It would be useful to distinguish Claremont from his contemporaries by showing us what the larger comic world was like at the time, and it’s not as if the extra ten minutes spent doing this would drag the piece down into a slog.Īs it is, its focus sees it aim too narrow, and the interviewees involved have the writing and editing experience to give a fuller picture of the situation. Aside from a brief mention of the laissez-faire attitude within the offices, there’s no context to place Claremont’s work in, no mention of how writers operated on other strips to compare him to. Essentially, it’s just some rather static and lonely cosplay used to break up the talking heads.Īlso, while we get a glimpse into the world of Marvel comics during the 80s, that’s all we get. The lack of dynamism isn’t a problem for such a short piece, but the documentary attempts to rectify this with some stylised scenes of actors in costume as various X-Men, which draws attention to it and the lack of budget. While a tight group of talking heads might not sound interesting, Chris Claremont’s X-Men is only 40 minutes long and doesn’t outstay its welcome, despite the simplicity of its presentation. What isn’t dwelt on, however, is that the X-Men movies themselves are hugely influential when it comes to the current state of superhero franchises, and so in many ways Claremont is responsible for the state of contemporary cinema. His legacy is unveiled bit by bit, and the debt the X-Men movies owe him is obvious. We don’t have enough people here to go into detail on some big topics.įortunately, Chris Claremont is an interesting man and speaks clearly and thoughtfully on his ways and methods, and so a documentary that focuses on him should be of interest to anyone interested in writing. Indeed, the roster of interview subjects isn’t ideal, even if those we talk to are engaging enough.

When it comes to his leaving the X-Men, the lack of interviewees telling the other side of the story means we get few details, just a sense of regret. Being so protective of his creations led to some great successes and mistakes.

We get some relatively in-depth insight into the creation of the Dark Phoenix arc, and the interviews tell us more about Chris Claremont. Claremont and Simonson are also interviewed alone, which helps focus their thoughts somewhat away from the other interview’s blether-among-friends tone.

Chris claremont