posted
You know, though, I still find Powers and Ultimate Spider-Man fresh and interesting, and Alias and Pulse were solid until Cage got shoehorned into the Avengers. And until they manage to somehow retcon it all away and transform it into the status quo, what he did to Daredevil will remain one of my favorite comic arcs ever.
As long as Powers still manages to rock my world on a regular basis, though, and Spider-Man and Kitty Pryde are somehow written as a believable couple, I'll forgive Bendis almost anything. Provided they never let him anywhere near Iron Man and Wolverine, ever again. Those are two characters who simply don't hold up to comic deconstruction. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Actually, while I'm on the topic of Frank Miller: just what is he doing, do you think? Is he deliberately sabotaging/reinventing the character, or has he always envisioned Batman as a semi-psychotic nutcase who'd force a young, traumatized child to eat rats in order to teach that child to be self-reliant? Yeah, Alfred has always been the voice of reason, and it's nice to see that he's still being written that way -- but when the voice of reason is preventing Batman from mentally abusing an orphan, is that really where the line is now drawn?
It's as if Ultimate Spider-Man turned Aunt May into Norma Bates.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
And yup, you pegged my thoughts on Bendis nicely. Those are exactly the books I still buy. So far I'm liking what the next Daredevil writer is doing, as well.
And Miller always thought of Batman as a psychotic vigilante, I think. But when he wrote Dark Knight you could imagine this was a Batman who had been through a lot. This is a younger, fresher Batman and the craziness doesn't work as well for me. I just flip through for the cheesecake.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:The first "death" lasted one issue - the shuttle going down, the X-Men coming up, Jean staying down.
On the first page of the next issue, she rises up from the water as Phoenix.
The second death was during the trial by combat.
What was the third prior to 1993?
I'm not quite sure... I know that Marvel had two seperate comic series devoted to the X-men... I'm not quite sure when the first one ended and the second one started... They may have been going on at the same time. In any case, it was in the first series that Jean had died three times and Scott Two.
Posts: 438 | Registered: May 2006
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quote:Why is Colossus super-strong when he's not metal?
While I haven't read much of the comics (this is my failing, please forgive me) I DID collect many hundreds - or thousands - of the trading cards. It always seemed to me that Colossus, while super strong in metallic mode (a strength level of 5, I believe on the 1-7 scale) was still above average strength in normal mode (say a three). Surely strong enough to carry a largish TV one-armed. As opposed to, say, Galactus, or The Watcher, who was a seven in damn near everything. [/pseudo-geekiness]
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Chris, would you write the next X-Men movie? PLEASE?????????
Whenever my hubby and I saw X-Men previews on TV, and we saw The Juggernaut, either or both of us would say "I'm the Juggernaut, BITCH!" so when that part of the movie rolled around and he actually said it we missed the next 5 minutes of the movie because we... alone, out of the entire packed theatre... were laughing hysterically.
That androygenous woman was definately Prince. In fact, that's what we called her after the movie "What was the deal with Prince and her shockwave? That wasn't developed well."
I thought it was a plot hole that Magneto ripped up the GG bridge and moved it to alcatraz. He could have taken one of the mothball fleet or even a big metal plate to get everyone over there. Then I decided it was good for intimitdation factor.
I was bummed there wasn't more Rogue. She was my fav in the first movie. (her and Wolverine)
We left before the end of the credits and missed Xavier coming back to life =(
posted
Who was the woman attending to Mr. Brainstem in the post credits clip? She and Xavier were on a first name basis, but I wasn't sure who she was.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Sidenote: Did anyone else catch R. Lee Ermey's voice when the troops were outfitting themselves before the final battle?
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Well, darnit, we didn't stay until the end of the credits. Have to go see it again, I guess.
I took my son last night to see it and we both loved it. I know just enough XMen comic history to get some of the injokes, so I really enjoyed that, but haven't read any of them in so long that any of the liberties they took in character development didn't bother me. I really liked Magneto's comment to Pyro defending Prof X. I figured the cure couldnt' be permanent, but it was okay that it was predictable. I didn't particularly like the golden gate bridge scene, figuring it was a ridiculously ostentatious way to get to Alcatraz. It did, however, make me laugh out loud, so I guess you could classify it as entertaining.
Overall, loved it and would like to see it again.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Although the action was interesting, and visually stunning, I was not amused. There is a reason why we create art. Stories usually have a moral. There's a reson why we tell stories. There is something more to a story than paying $10 for a movie ticket.
I found no such thing here. It was like eating cotton candy, all air. Smoke and mirrors.
What is the purpose of a film like this? To lead kids to believe that the best response to violence is more violence? More militaristic meat-grinding for the brain?
Exactly my problem with Star Wars.
At least the DaVinci code asked some interesting questions. The DaVinci code was a far 'inferior' film in suspence and action, but it was more nurishing intellectually, maybe even spiritually.
Hollywood is still trying to tell us that everything is okay, and the buiness can be conducted as usual with their violent pornography (i consider death as entertainment a form of death-porn).
BTW. I rooted for Magnetto the whole film.
Posts: 379 | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
Wouldn't rooting for Magneto sort of contradict what you just said you were against? I mean "the best response to violence is more violence" is more or less what Magneto was for, IMO. It seemed by the way you worded that sentence that you are against that view. So why exactly did you root for Magneto? Did you just not care about his views and just liked him as a character?
Posts: 2054 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Although this is supposed to be "The Last Stand", there will obviously be more. IMDB already reports that there will be one called Magneto in 2007, which looks to be a flashback type to younger year; and Wolverine in 2007, written by none other than David Benioff, who is also supposed to be doing Ender's Game in 2008
Posts: 9538 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Ok, I just thought of something. If Jean's so freaking strong and Magneto knows she's that strong then why didn't Magneto use her to power his mutant making machine in the first movie.
For that matter, Magneto thinks it's reprehensible that the humans want to turn all of the mutants human, but alright for him to turn all of the humans mutant? I just realized that this movie's plot is practically the polar opposite of the first movie's plot.
Posts: 4655 | Registered: Jan 2002
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posted
Magneto feels it is him or them, and they were moving against mutants first.
And it wasn't just power that moved the machine in the first one, it was HIS power of mastery of metals....and Rogue was the only mutant capable of taking his powers.
Also, Jean wasn't powerful anymore, due to Xavier's work with Jean to partition her powers.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
I found the turn-humans-mutant thing to be very odd in the other movie. While I think this movie eliminated the delicate complexities of the character, I more easily imagine Magneto viewing mutation as a rare and superior club than a fix to the infortunate human state, and so this movie was more on par than the other.
I think the cliched dialogue and character "development" bothered me most about this movie. It was alot of fun and it had moments where I was more than pleasantly surprised, but I still feel like the X-Men universe isn't being treated with respect. The one-liners are great when said by the right character (I particularly enjoy them from Wolverine), they seemed to be coming left and right which made it impossible for me to enjoy them. There just weren't distinctive voices for the characters. Magneto wasn't treated like a person so much as a cardboard cutout for the "humans are bad" story objective. There's nothing interesting about Storm, they might as well cut Rogue out for all the lines she had, and everyone else was one plot device after another.
I was excited to see Angel (especially since I remember little Ben Foster when I was growing up) but he had no purpose. I had to explain to my poor dad who Kitty Pryde was since neither of us remember anyone actually saying "Shadowcat." Juggernaut is very cool but he seemed included only as a way to highlight how Kitty and her powers could earn her a spot on their little X-Men team. The helmet "explanation" did not do it for me.
I couldn't be more annoyed with the Bridge scene if I tried and all for reasons that others have noticed as well.
Oh, and I hate the Logan/Jean/Scott love triangle. Since when is Wolverine a 12 year old girl??
And with main characters being killed and cured left and right...I had some Serenity flashbacks. I seriously was not expecting Scott and Xavier to bite it. Or Mystique to be cured. Thank goodness atleast that is being undone or I wouldn't know what to do with myself.
To bring back Scott and Jean in another movie in any way, shape or form, would be a cheap out. And as much as I do not miss the actors or their characters, I can't imagine anyone making future films without them.
All the papers and my family have agreed on one thing...this movie needed Nightcrawler and his voice and perspective.
Posts: 1733 | Registered: Apr 2005
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I just still in shock over the fact that there were three X men movies and no Gambit. He was always my favorite X man. Period.
Posts: 832 | Registered: Jan 2005
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Magneto is a villain. He's just much more complex than the way he was portrayed. It's why I think so many people liked his defense of Xavier. It was a brief look into that comlexity.
He's not a villain in the "I'm gonna destroy the world" kind of way, but who really is?
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Why is it so difficult for directors to understand that Magneto isn't a villain?
Depends on when in the continuity you look. Prior to God Loves, Man Kills, he was almost always portrayed as a villain.
After that, he became a "good" guy for a long time. But, ultimately, he reverted to his villainous ways. He's destroyed cities - a deserted Russian city and a populated NYC - enslaved humans, and caused thousands of deaths in an instant a global magnetic pulse.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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OK, I saw the movie yesterday, and I must admit I didn't pick up on the fact that the "cure" was temporary. Sure, in terms of sequels, etc., it makes sense. There's no way they were going to let characters like Rogue, Mystique and Magneto remain powerless. But for it being explained in the film, I must have blinked. Did Magneto move the chess pieces with his mind in the last scene? To me it looked like he was extending his finger towards the king, which I took as him symbolically admitting defeat against the absent Xavier. Did I miss something?
Posts: 896 | Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
I think your interpretation is what they were trying to lead the audience to believe. Just before his hand touches the king, it rocks back and forth slightly. It was definitely the kind of thing you could miss if you blinked.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by GaalDornick: Wouldn't rooting for Magneto sort of contradict what you just said you were against? I mean "the best response to violence is more violence" is more or less what Magneto was for, IMO. It seemed by the way you worded that sentence that you are against that view. So why exactly did you root for Magneto? Did you just not care about his views and just liked him as a character?
Well, it was just choosing between a bunch of killers rooting for humanity and a bunch of killers rooting for mutants.
Posts: 379 | Registered: Jan 2006
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Why is it so difficult for directors to understand that Magneto isn't a villain?
Depends on when in the continuity you look. Prior to God Loves, Man Kills, he was almost always portrayed as a villain.
After that, he became a "good" guy for a long time. But, ultimately, he reverted to his villainous ways. He's destroyed cities - a deserted Russian city and a populated NYC - enslaved humans, and caused thousands of deaths in an instant a global magnetic pulse.
He was originally presented as a cornball villain, but he's become such a deeper character than that. I'd call him an antihero -- and lord, I wish Ratner had the insight to present him as one. That's the key element which made X2 a success, I think -- Singer presented Magneto as a victim of persecution, striking back. Ratner made him just some reactionary one-man lynch mob.
He's my favorite character. I wish he'd been done justice.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
As for Magneto getting his powers back, I thought as soon as he was injected, "Were those loaded vials?" And then when he got his powers back I thought, "They weren't loaded. Or else diluted or something."
I can imagine Magneto, after seeing his best friend (assuming he has friends aside from Xavier) Mystique get neutered (more or less) by the cure would be too shocked, too horrified, to test his abilities right then and there.
I'm sorry, but when did Storm get so stupid? Hey, let's fight the femme-Flash in hand-to-hand combat! Or wait, why not, say, throw up some mist or a gale force wind to blind/knock her down, get some air and then ZAP! For instance.
The idea that the government would keep nearly a half-dozen of the most wanted and two of the most dangerous mutants (well, beings anyway, counting Juggernaut) in the same metal trailer with the same metal escort vehicles with Magneto out and about is totally ridiculous.
I enjoyed it, but it did not go much further in my opinion than action flick. For instance, seeing as how the film was so Wolverine-focused, they missed a BIG opportunity fleshing out both him and Jean by pointing out that if anyone's got empathy for Jean Grey / Phoenix, it's Logan / Wolverine. With his long-term mind raping and conditioning, he is essentially Jean Grey/Phoenix but not as tough and without the psychic abilities.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Shanna: Bingo Lalo! I couldn't agree more.
Even villians need motivation, and I just didn't feel it in this one like I did in the others.
Um, at the end of the last movie, he tried to kill every single human being on the planet. I think his motivation was well-established here.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I went to see it last night, and… um. Did anyone else get the impression that the writers had seen the Star Wars movie last summer and really like it? Because I found the ‘tragedy’ in this movie as hilarious as I did in Star Wars.
I mean, who can seriously not look at a couple of gravestones with big Xs on them, and not go to an ‘because they’ re ex-men , get it? Bada boom ching!’ place? Plus, there was a ‘Noooooo’. Why do they always have to do that? It always makes me giggle when I want to be heartbroken. And that last scene with Wolverine and Jean came off wrong. Yes, I know he’s about to kill her, but the way he says ‘I love you’ just, for some reason didn’t come off right at all. Reshoot it and make sound genuine, ie not like a robot repeating a cliché and maybe I’ll cry.
So the ending was ruined for me. Once again, something that could have been painful and wonderful ended up vaguely funny. And this time the whole theatre were laughing, not just us. I didn’t pay to see a comedy.
And is it only me who doesn’t care that Prof. X is coming back if Patrick Stewart isn’t? Okay, I do care, but I care less.
I’m a little disappointed. But most of the rest of it was alright. I just hope this doesn't bode badly for 'Pirates of the Caribbean' because if both the blockbusters I've been looking forward to end up lame, I really will cry.
Posts: 1528 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by 0range7Penguin: I just still in shock over the fact that there were three X men movies and no Gambit. He was always my favorite X man. Period.
They wanted Josh Holloway (Sawyer from Lost) to play Gambit in this one. He didn't want to, because it would have been so similar to his character on Lost. But they didn't recast the part, because they were still hoping till the last that he'd agree to do a cameo. Which he didn't.
I want to see just Charles, Jean, Scott, Hank, Warren and Bobby, and I want the last four of them in yellow spandex. That's the X-Men I remember. Everything post Dazzler is tripe.
PS: Am I the only one who noticed that this last movie was one long metaphor for the whole "curing gays" movement? "There's nothing wrong with you!" Etc. I mean, they did it before, when Bobby's mother asked him, "Have you tried not being a mutant?" But this whole movie was like a dramatization of the "magic pill" question.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
SL, I noticed that too - the "tried not being a mutant" line in the last movie made me laugh out loud, actually.
Posts: 3526 | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
I was going to make a thread about this subject but I might as well as post it here as it is relevant to the movie in question...
Killing off major characters: a big cliche?
It seems to me that death of a major character is used by writers in place of actual storytelling.
Need something big and awfully dramatic to happen?
Kill off a character!
Need something shocking to happen?
Kill off a character!
I saw "X-men 3" over the weekend and (spoiler, folks) every single death in that movie struck me as pointless. Maybe "shocking" but hardly tragic.
Jean dying--what a waste. Just as she was coming into her true formidable self and blossoming into this seemingly unstoppable force--she gets it!
I'm more saddened by the wasted opportunities than by any tragedy inherent in her demise.
As for the two other characters, theirs is a case of "there's nothing more they can show us so we might as well kill them off..."
In fact the one character I was sure was going to die--didn't! I'm talking about Rogue's romantic rival. She seemed so fragile amidst all the fighting that I thought: If the X-men are to lose anybody because of this battle it should be her. But no. She lived.
On a side note, I can't believe movie cost 200 million dollars. Where did all the money go????
Posts: 722 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
That would be awful - I don't care to feel sexually attracted to men or women, but to not feel sexually attracted to the person I love would be horrible.
Posts: 3526 | Registered: Oct 2001
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Anna: Unless you know and accept from an early age, I think most gay people go through a "death of dreams" as I call it when we finally accept who we are. "No, I'll never have the white wedding." "No, this person I'm with, love them platonically as I might, is not the love of my life." "No, I'll never have kids that are half me, half the person I love."
And being "cured" would cause the same thing in reverse. The death of all your new dreams.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Which is why I never thought gay people should be cured. Neither straight people. Answer to intolerance with more intolerance is probably not a good idea, however tempting it may be.
Posts: 3526 | Registered: Oct 2001
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Yes. Isn't it better when you can understand the villain's motivation? I think it makes the movie more interesting.
Posts: 3526 | Registered: Oct 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Anna: That would be awful - I don't care to feel sexually attracted to men or women, but to not feel sexually attracted to the person I love would be horrible.
That's pretty much what a lot of people want for those of us who are gay, though. I wonder if there's some way to get them to understand that what you just said is exactly how we feel.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
star, I think you're just seeing things in the movie and relating them to your personal experience. The writers did not set out to metaphorically compare the mutants to gays. They were just trying to make a good movie. The same could be said for any group that potentially feels outcast or different from the norm.
The similarity is there sure, but it was not deliberate. The writers were not smart enough to close some major holes in the plot as has been explained above by a few people. I loved the movie, but there were some stupid parts such as putting all those dangerous mutants together in one semi (metal) while magneto was on the loose. Also magneto can rip the golden gate bridge from its foundation and carry it across the bay, but when he gets to the building he chooses to toss compact cars. These guys aren't making social commentary, they are doing an entertaining movie.
Posts: 375 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by TrapperKeeper: star, I think you're just seeing things in the movie and relating them to your personal experience. The writers did not set out to metaphorically compare the mutants to gays.
Oh, please. They consciously put in things that carried that metaphor. "Have you tried not being a mutant" is clearly a reference to all the parents who've asked the same thing of their gay children.
I'm not reading anything into it. The fact that you don't see it only indicates that it's not something you've ever had to deal with. Live and learn.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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