X-Men ’97 Director Reveals Origin of Season One’s Video Game References

X-Men ’97 is currently in the midst of releasing new episodes on Disney+, and the show picks up right where X-Men: The Animated Series left off when it came to an end after five seasons in 1997. Since the new show takes place in the ’90s, fans have been seeing a lot of nostalgic nods to that era. During the show’s fourth episode(s), “Motendo / LifeDeath – Part 1,” Jubilee celebrates her 18th birthday and ends up getting sucked into a video game system called Montendo alongside Roberto Da Costa. ComicBook.com recently had the chance to chat with directors Emi Yonemura and Chase Conley, and they revealed the origins of the show’s video game references. 

“I think as long as it makes sense in the story, now that we have the budget and the fact that Unreal 5 is basically almost real life. So being able to explore what is retro now, the 16-bit, and actually make that tangible in the show, I thought that was great,” Conley shared. “It was a great opportunity to be able to do that. And we also get the chance to just throw as many easter eggs in there as we can to make it fun, because I think that Mojoworld is just a cool place to be. It almost makes me want to feel like I want to get trapped in that game myself, just to see if I could beat it. But the last time I played the X-Men side scroller, it took me 20 bucks to beat that. So I don’t know if I’ll do that anytime soon.”

“It was really fun,” Conley continued. “And it is nice to be able to explore different aesthetics because we’re able to do that. We have the resources, and I thought that it added a lot in terms of doing something that we have never seen in the original series because what we want to do is it’s all about trying to elevate what we can because we have the resources to pull that off now. And I think in the context of the story, it made perfect sense. So we were able to just go ham on everything.” 

X-Men ’97 Producer Explains Why Retro Setting Was Major Advantage:

ComicBook.com‘s Phaze Zero podcast recently spoke with producer Brad Winderbaum, and he explained why setting the show in 1997 was an advantage.

“Well, actually, it was kind of liberating to be able to stay in the 90s,” Winderbaum began. “It allowed us to go places that we could just do what we want. To be so iterative. Things that we couldn’t do if we were more MCU adjacent like What If…? is. I mean, What If…? is like we’re literally remixing the MCU. So, it’s harder to introduce characters. Because you want to see them in live-action. Although, we do see Bill Foster as Giant Man in the second season. That’s new!” 

Original X-Men: The Animated Series cast members Cal Dodd (Wolverine), Lenore Zann (Rogue), George Buza (Beast), Alison Sealy-Smith (Storm), and Christopher Britton (Mister Sinister) reprise their roles from the ’90s series; returning cast members Catherine Disher (Jean Grey), Chris Potter (Gambit), Alyson Court (Jubilee), and Adrian Hough (Nightcrawler) voice new characters.

X-Men ’97 releases new episodes on Wednesdays.