I never knew Craig Kyle said that about the 90's series. No wonder WaTXM had so much wrong with it. Don't get me wrong, it was a good show. But if he had done something about the major flaws, it really could've been great. The 90's show had a much smaller budget, but I believe it had what the fans loved about it most. It had the characters, and the relationships.
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W&TXM lacked heart when it came to a lot of the non-Wolverine characters, the core X-Men suffering very badly in this regard. Nightcrawler & Emma Frost had their moments (and I'm not even a Frost fan) but the rest of the X-Men were underwritten or in Cyclops's case written very, very badly.
The 90s series, whatever its weaknesses, still did a better job of capturing the heart and soul of the characters, making you care about them and their relationships, making their relationships feel natural & organic, something that W&TXM just didn't take the time to do because it was too busy with goofy Hulk guest spots and writing about ninjas. Perhaps they felt the X-Men they chose for the roster were iconic or "quintessential" enough that fans could latch on & relate to them easily, but with little to no actual development for them it was hard to care during the action scenes. When the X-Men were fighting for their lives against the Sentinels in the season one finale of the 90s series I actually felt invested in their struggle; when the same scenario played out in W&TXM's finale I found myself not really caring, it was like watching the light-saber duels in the Star Wars prequels, lots of flash but no substance, no characterization.
When Cyclops & Jean Grey had their private little moments together in the 90s series it really felt like they loved each other & would go to Hell & back for each other - despite Wolverine's obvious infatuation with Jean. On W&TXM you didn't get that level of sincerity with Cyclops & Jean, maybe that isn't fair since Jean was MIA for most of the show's run while Emma Frost took center stage, but we're introduced to Cyclops & Jean in a negative light with her chastising him for sucker-punching Wolverine repeatedly in a fit of jealousy, and then you have flashbacks to the past that portray their relationship as an unhealthy case of co-dependency & neediness (playing into the longstanding stereotype that Cyclops has always been inferior to Wolverine & always will be), probably set up that way to indicate that Emma Frost is "The One" Cyclops should be with - an idea the series never really plays with or follows up on, even though Emma had been his girlfriend for 6 or 7 years in the comics up to that point.
Heck, for the most part it feels like the X-Men are barely friends in this series. No one other than Cyclops seemed upset about Jean disappearing (or that she was possibly dead or could possibly still be alive somewhere), no one cared that Cyclops had gone crazy from the heat, etc. How do you care about characters who barely care about each other.
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