We’ve long heard that ‘Legion‘ which was just ordered to series won’t be in the standard ‘X-Men’ continuity even though it is using the son of Professor X as their central character. Now the series showrunner Noah Hawley (‘Fargo’) has confirmed a lack of familiar faces.
With a story about a mutant with a multiple personality disorder who has to tap into his personalities to access his myriad of powers, it seems that having a few familiar faces might help boost audiences who are hesitant to tune in. While Dan Stevens is sure to play an amazing David Haller/Legion, it is going to be pretty much on his own as it pertains to mutant kind.
Hawley says that ‘Legion’ is “a standalone kind of thing” while confirming what FX’s president John Landgraf has previously said about the universe not being in the same realm as the cinematic X-Men universe. While ‘Legion’ doesn’t have the face recognition to entice people viewers to tune in, there is a benefit of not having to play by any rules by using pre-existing cinematic characters. According to Hawley:
“Yeah, it’s none of the iconic characters from the movie franchise. I think that’s a strength on some level, because those characters come with rules. It’s hard. You don’t want to be handcuffed, when you’re trying to explore something. The power of making something unpredictable is really an important thing to preserve.”
Does this mean that Legion will have a new father in the series or will he still be the son of Professor X?
“He could be. It’s a different story, but I’m not ruling that out.”
There are quite a few ways to play this as having him in a world with mutants and be separate from it or even just in a world where he is the only one. For the tone and time period of the show:
“It’s a little more of a fable in my mind. If you were to say, “Where is it, and when is it?,” it’s not exactly clear, I think. And a lot of it is because [David Haller’s] not exactly clear. It’s the world as perceived subjectively on some level. The recent X-Men movies, starting with First Class, are rooted in a time period and a world and playing with history in interesting ways. This isn’t doing that.”
I’m glad that they’re interested in playing with Legion’s interesting grip in reality for the series and really hope they can make this work on the small screen.
Are you looking forward to ‘Legion’? Do you hope they find a way to use some of the obscure mutants that will likely never make it to the big screen? Share your thoughts below!
Source: Screen Rant
Stuart Conover is an author, blogger, and all around geek. When not busy being a father and husband he tries to spend as much time as possible immersed in comic books, science fiction, and horror! Would you like to know more? Follow him on Twitter!
