Quote:
Originally posted by WFL
I just watched X-Men (2000) and man I forgot how amazing Mystique looked in the original trio. Her make-up, her elegant moves during fights. 
J-Law's Mystique looks like a cheap cosplay compared to that, why can't they make her look like that with all the advanced technology they have now? Is it because it's too expensive to give that quality for 2 hours now that she is a main character? |
I believe its for a number of reasons.
The original Mystique paint took about 6 hours of work, which meant Rebecca would have to sit in a chair for 6 hours, before the rest of the actors even came in.
Jlaw wears a body suit so its not the same process and its only her face which is painted, as I guess she would be uncomfortable being basically nude and with any full body paint it can be toxic to your skin and as jlaw's Mystique had dramatically more scenes/screen time than the original Mystique who had very little, it might have become dangerous for jlaw to be standing around day after day with her body fully covered in paint.
As well as jlaw having other big projects it was probably impossible for her to effectively waste 6 hours of her day, despite it looking better.
Rebecca rarely if ever appeared as her self in the films, unlike jlaw who has a permanent human form therefore if they needed to reshoot Mystique parts and jlaw was in her "human" make-up it would waste another 6 hours of the day transforming her back into Mystique, just to reshoot a 30 second scene.
Mystique is also supposed to be decades younger in first class/DOFP so a lighter blue was used probably used to help distinguish the two characters.
Rebecca's body shape was fully on show compared to jlaw being stuffed into a body suit which probably contributes to younger Mystique having a slightly less elegant looking body shape.
This is just my theory concluded from DVD extras of X3 and various jlaw interviews/rumors/DVD extras etc.
