The Inception Effect: New X-Men Film Sheds 'Physics-Bending' Fight Scenes

This was probably bound to happen: in the wake of the release of Inception, we now know of the first film to cut out dreamlike sequences that feel too much like scenes in Christopher Nolan's film. Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman have been hard at work rewriting X-Men: First Class so that the film can go into production. But after seeing Nolan's film, Vaughn had the sinking feeling that some of their ideas for First Class would be taken to be too much like Inception. So he dumped them.

Vaughn describes the effect Inception had on First Class to the LA Times:

I saw 'Inception,' which I loved...But my heart sank when I saw that a few of the ideas we had were up [on the screen]. So it's either leave it in and look as if you're copying or change things. We completely ripped out about 12 pages of the script and the storyboards.

Twelve pages could be big, or it could be a relatively workable setback, if Vaughn and Goldman can quickly come up with new sequences that can deliver the same story and character beats.

So what was the material that had to go? The LAT says,

...the jettisoned sequence was a sort of dream-space combat...the filmmaker said for the film the fight involving Professor X (James McAvoy) and some other mutants was to going to be presented with spinning rooms and other physics-bending imagery — visions that he felt drifted too close to signature moments in Inception.

OK, easy to see then why Vaughn thought a change would be in order. The first thought is that this is a drag, because I can picture the sequence and effects being just as appropriate to psi-interaction and combat in the X-Men storyline as it was to Inception. But hopefully this will be a chance for them to come up with something even better for the film. Perhaps those twelve pages and storyboards can be presented on the eventual DVD, so we can see what might have been.