Son of Comic Book Geekery
Jun. 7th, 2011 09:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lunasarielI just got back from seeing X-Men: First Class, and damned if I didn't like it. It was worlds better than the last two entries into the X-Men cinemaverse, but then again, *I* could literally make a better movie than The Last Stand, and I've never taken a film class in my life.
I was afraid that they would try to stuff in too many in-jokes and references to the other X-Men movies, but surprisingly, they kept it in check. In fact, some of the stuff, like X's and Hank's little back-and-forth about X going bald, I really liked. Some of the other stuff, like X getting crippled and some of the clumsy stuff at the end about the team name and the eventual School, didn't go over so well. (That reference to DADT especially is going to look reeeeeeally dated in a couple of years.) And some of it just made no damn sense. If Professor X and Magneto already knew about Wolverine, how come neither of them recognized him in the first movie? Why was Angel okay with leaving with the Hellfire Club, even after they'd killed her friend, who she was shown hanging out with, and having fun with, mere moments ago? Did she just decide that her *mutant* friend, one of the valiant minority being oppressed by the eeeeevil humans, deserved to share the eeeeevil humans' fate merely by association, or was she just a sociopath to begin with? If Professor X was facing Magneto when Magneto was deflecting Moira's bullets, how could one of them end up lodged in Professor X's spine if it didn't pass through his stomach first? We clearly see him grabbing his lower back, with no sign of an entry wound anywhere on the front of his body! If Professor X wiped Moira's mind, how could she be working at the School in later movies? If Professor X, Mystique Magneto, and so many others had officially outed themselves to the military, how could their existence be such a big honkin' secret in later movies? Hell, Professor X and Mystique introduced themselves with their real names and demonstrated their powers in front of the head of the CIA! How do you just forget about that?! If Professor X was crippled in his early 30s, how could he have been walking in that flashback in The Last Stand, which, by my calculations, took place in the 80s? For that matter, if Professor X and Magneto split up in the 60s, how were they both running the school in that same scene in The Last Stand? You know what? I'm just going to declare The Last Stand entirely non-canon. It was an alternate reality or something. Yeah, we'll go with "alternate reality." Same goes for Wolverine: Origins.
One thing that I've always loved about the X-Men, and that was carried across really well here, is the villains. We got everything from Shaw and the Hellfire Club, who are straight-up, old-fashioned Bad Guys (actually, I found it really jarring that we got no motivations or backstories from these guys beyond "we're evil! Arrrrrr!") to Magneto and what would one day become the somewhat oddly-named Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. To be honest, I was kind of with Magneto the whole time, which I think speaks to Mr. Vaughn's skill as a director. I mean, first off, the guy grew up in a freakin' concentration camp, where his mother was murdered by Nazis! That's a good motivation for his...individualism, if I ever heard one. Second, the government(s) did kind of screw the mutants over. Hey, if I were standing around after having personally averted a nuclear holocaust and saved the world, I wouldn't like it either if the douchebags I'd just saved started trying to kill me just because I happened to be standing near a villain and, as a member of a minority, was considered "expendable." Same thing with Mystique: I can see how she tried so hard to keep giving humans the benefit of the doubt up until they tried to freakin' exterminate her, at which point she got justifiably annoyed.
One thing I didn't like, however, was how rushed the ending was. Was it a fantastic action sequence full of great characters having great moments? Oh, hell yeah! Did it mesh well with the rest of the movie? Not so much. The problem here was that the first 2/3 or so of the movie were paced very well. There was a nice, gradual build to the climax, while keeping it moving right along, and with a nice sprinkling of fan-pleasing "moments" (introduction of characters who we know will later become important, foreshadowing for later events, general meta-stuff), but then the last 1/3 or so just EXPLODED! I don't know if there's going to be a direct sequel to this, or what, but it seemed like somebody realized that they only had 15 minutes left to set up the rest of the franchise, so they just tried to cram in everything at once. "Hank is blue! And now he's called Beast! And now everyone's in their yellow-and-black costumes! And now the Blackbird is flying! And now Magneto is evil! And now he's wearing the helmet! And now Professor X is crippled! And now Mystique is evil too! And now Professor X is starting the School! And now Magneto is forming the Brotherhood! Whew! Did we get everything? Oh, shit, we forgot about Emma Frost! OK, here's Emma! *Now* we're done!"
One reason I didn't like this was that it cut off Erik's and Charles' (b)romance too early. The two actors had great chemistry together (way more than Erik did with Raven or Charles did with Moira), but they didn't really seem to have time to develop the deep, abiding friendship that would eventually make their enmity so poignant. Just because they hung out together for, what, a month? and, okay, saved each other's lives a time or two, that doesn't mean that they'll still be besties 40 years later! I was hoping that this movie would close on them founding the School and vowing to take in young mutants together, Charles wanting to raise a generation of human-friendly mutants and thus prevent another gang of psychos like the Hellfire Club, and Erik wanting to give kids a place where they can feel safe and be their mutant selves without fear of prejudice, with the differences in their ideologies papered over for now, only to arise in the next movie.
It seems that when I watch a movie or TV show, read a book, or experience any other geeky pop culture phenomenon, my ego splits into a superego, which I like to call my erudite-brain, and an id, which I like to call my fangirl-brain. My superego makes sure that the special effects are up to snuff, critiques whether the women get a fair treatment or are all a bunch of decorative lust objects, notes continuity errors, analyzes theme and message, and just generally is smart. My id, on the other hand, to put it simply, fangirls. While my superego is going "Hmmm. I like that they're giving Mystique a series of unique motivations and a complex character arc instead of reducing her to eye candy, even though her boobs are fanboy-pleasingly large, especially for someone that skinny." while my id is going "HEY MYSTIQUE! DO A BACKFLIP AND KICK SOMEONE IN THE FACE!" Similarly, my superego could be going "I'm surprised that Erik and Charles (I won't call them Magneto and Professor X just yet, because they haven't matured to the level where they need to be to be able to do those names justice) have managed to develop such a close relationship in such a short period of time, to the point where Charles obviously prefers Erik's company even over his old friend Raven's, as evidenced by the fact that the two men seem to spend the majority of their free time together, and Erik trusts Charles enough to allow him to access the deepest, most private corners of his mind." while my id probably sounds something like "WHY ARE YOU TWO NOT MAKING OUT YET?!"
But seriously, my fangirl-brain totes ships Erik/Charles. Maybe it's because Erik is all tormented and brooding and stubbly and sexy while Charles is all suit-wearing and electric-blue-eyed and British and sexy, or maybe it's just that both of these characters are archetypes that intensely appeal to me (one a driven Nazi-hunter on a quest for vengeance for his murdered family, and who is unwilling to let anyone else into his life lest he lose more loved ones, and the other a compassionate academic who just wants to make the world a better place, but who secretly longs for acceptance), but...*fangirl drool* Y'know what? Until the next X-Men movie comes along to snap me out of my happy place, I'm declaring the last five or ten minutes of First Class non-canon. Instead, everything, starting with Charles getting shot in the back, takes place in hs fever-dream, after he was badly injured (although *not* crippled) by one of the bullets that Magneto deflected. Having caused the near-death of his BFF and super-seekrit boyfriend, Erik receives a harsh wake-up call and vows to stay with Charles, because he can now see that his own course of wanton violence and vindictiveness will only bring harm to the people he loves. The two of them build the School together, and live happily ever after. For now. They become kind of the parents/cool older brothers/teachers/combat instructors for the next generation of X-Men (of course, they find Scott, Jean, Ororo, and the rest quickly enough to make the School nice and...interesting), who insist on calling them Magneto and Professor X. So basically, I'm going to take all of the last 5 minutes or so, put my hands over my ears, and go "lalalalala I can't hear yoooouuu!"
I don't know how popular this pairing is in the X-Men comics (I'm guessing not so much, considering that, from what I can tell, neither of them is really sexualized all that much in the comics), but someone involved in making the movie reeeeally wanted to get these two together. Let's just say it involves both of them lying on a bed in a strip club while drinking champagne, as well as Charles stroking Erik's face while digging through his mind for his (Erik's) happiest memory and crying. (Also, am I the only one who totally thought that when Raven turned into Emma Frost to try to get into Erik's pants, she was going to turn into Charles next?) Those are just a few of the big moments that most people cite; my personal favorite was during the last fight scene (which was a hell of a scene, regardless of the f*ckery that occurred right after) when the Blackbird went into a barrel roll while the bomb doors were open, and Erik used his magnetic powers to pin Charles, who was the only team member not strapped in at the time, to the floor to stop him from getting sucked out. In addition, as much as I dislike the "Erik deflecting bullets somehow leads to Charles being crippled" plot convolution, I did have a major d'awwww moment when Erik dropped to his knees to cradle Charles, and he had this devastated look on his face, like he'd finally realized the cost of blind vengeance. If his characterization at that moment had been consistent with the entire rest of the movie, this would have been the moment where he realized that his quest for vengeance would ultimately lead to the death of his new family, Charles first and foremost, and (largely) dialed down his obsessive need to destroy everything he perceived as a threat. If only, if only...
I'm at my first D&D game in quite a while now, and I'd better concentrate on not getting iced by some demonic beastie or other, so I'll sign off for now. TTFN!
I was afraid that they would try to stuff in too many in-jokes and references to the other X-Men movies, but surprisingly, they kept it in check. In fact, some of the stuff, like X's and Hank's little back-and-forth about X going bald, I really liked. Some of the other stuff, like X getting crippled and some of the clumsy stuff at the end about the team name and the eventual School, didn't go over so well. (That reference to DADT especially is going to look reeeeeeally dated in a couple of years.) And some of it just made no damn sense. If Professor X and Magneto already knew about Wolverine, how come neither of them recognized him in the first movie? Why was Angel okay with leaving with the Hellfire Club, even after they'd killed her friend, who she was shown hanging out with, and having fun with, mere moments ago? Did she just decide that her *mutant* friend, one of the valiant minority being oppressed by the eeeeevil humans, deserved to share the eeeeevil humans' fate merely by association, or was she just a sociopath to begin with? If Professor X was facing Magneto when Magneto was deflecting Moira's bullets, how could one of them end up lodged in Professor X's spine if it didn't pass through his stomach first? We clearly see him grabbing his lower back, with no sign of an entry wound anywhere on the front of his body! If Professor X wiped Moira's mind, how could she be working at the School in later movies? If Professor X, Mystique Magneto, and so many others had officially outed themselves to the military, how could their existence be such a big honkin' secret in later movies? Hell, Professor X and Mystique introduced themselves with their real names and demonstrated their powers in front of the head of the CIA! How do you just forget about that?! If Professor X was crippled in his early 30s, how could he have been walking in that flashback in The Last Stand, which, by my calculations, took place in the 80s? For that matter, if Professor X and Magneto split up in the 60s, how were they both running the school in that same scene in The Last Stand? You know what? I'm just going to declare The Last Stand entirely non-canon. It was an alternate reality or something. Yeah, we'll go with "alternate reality." Same goes for Wolverine: Origins.
One thing that I've always loved about the X-Men, and that was carried across really well here, is the villains. We got everything from Shaw and the Hellfire Club, who are straight-up, old-fashioned Bad Guys (actually, I found it really jarring that we got no motivations or backstories from these guys beyond "we're evil! Arrrrrr!") to Magneto and what would one day become the somewhat oddly-named Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. To be honest, I was kind of with Magneto the whole time, which I think speaks to Mr. Vaughn's skill as a director. I mean, first off, the guy grew up in a freakin' concentration camp, where his mother was murdered by Nazis! That's a good motivation for his...individualism, if I ever heard one. Second, the government(s) did kind of screw the mutants over. Hey, if I were standing around after having personally averted a nuclear holocaust and saved the world, I wouldn't like it either if the douchebags I'd just saved started trying to kill me just because I happened to be standing near a villain and, as a member of a minority, was considered "expendable." Same thing with Mystique: I can see how she tried so hard to keep giving humans the benefit of the doubt up until they tried to freakin' exterminate her, at which point she got justifiably annoyed.
One thing I didn't like, however, was how rushed the ending was. Was it a fantastic action sequence full of great characters having great moments? Oh, hell yeah! Did it mesh well with the rest of the movie? Not so much. The problem here was that the first 2/3 or so of the movie were paced very well. There was a nice, gradual build to the climax, while keeping it moving right along, and with a nice sprinkling of fan-pleasing "moments" (introduction of characters who we know will later become important, foreshadowing for later events, general meta-stuff), but then the last 1/3 or so just EXPLODED! I don't know if there's going to be a direct sequel to this, or what, but it seemed like somebody realized that they only had 15 minutes left to set up the rest of the franchise, so they just tried to cram in everything at once. "Hank is blue! And now he's called Beast! And now everyone's in their yellow-and-black costumes! And now the Blackbird is flying! And now Magneto is evil! And now he's wearing the helmet! And now Professor X is crippled! And now Mystique is evil too! And now Professor X is starting the School! And now Magneto is forming the Brotherhood! Whew! Did we get everything? Oh, shit, we forgot about Emma Frost! OK, here's Emma! *Now* we're done!"
One reason I didn't like this was that it cut off Erik's and Charles' (b)romance too early. The two actors had great chemistry together (way more than Erik did with Raven or Charles did with Moira), but they didn't really seem to have time to develop the deep, abiding friendship that would eventually make their enmity so poignant. Just because they hung out together for, what, a month? and, okay, saved each other's lives a time or two, that doesn't mean that they'll still be besties 40 years later! I was hoping that this movie would close on them founding the School and vowing to take in young mutants together, Charles wanting to raise a generation of human-friendly mutants and thus prevent another gang of psychos like the Hellfire Club, and Erik wanting to give kids a place where they can feel safe and be their mutant selves without fear of prejudice, with the differences in their ideologies papered over for now, only to arise in the next movie.
It seems that when I watch a movie or TV show, read a book, or experience any other geeky pop culture phenomenon, my ego splits into a superego, which I like to call my erudite-brain, and an id, which I like to call my fangirl-brain. My superego makes sure that the special effects are up to snuff, critiques whether the women get a fair treatment or are all a bunch of decorative lust objects, notes continuity errors, analyzes theme and message, and just generally is smart. My id, on the other hand, to put it simply, fangirls. While my superego is going "Hmmm. I like that they're giving Mystique a series of unique motivations and a complex character arc instead of reducing her to eye candy, even though her boobs are fanboy-pleasingly large, especially for someone that skinny." while my id is going "HEY MYSTIQUE! DO A BACKFLIP AND KICK SOMEONE IN THE FACE!" Similarly, my superego could be going "I'm surprised that Erik and Charles (I won't call them Magneto and Professor X just yet, because they haven't matured to the level where they need to be to be able to do those names justice) have managed to develop such a close relationship in such a short period of time, to the point where Charles obviously prefers Erik's company even over his old friend Raven's, as evidenced by the fact that the two men seem to spend the majority of their free time together, and Erik trusts Charles enough to allow him to access the deepest, most private corners of his mind." while my id probably sounds something like "WHY ARE YOU TWO NOT MAKING OUT YET?!"
But seriously, my fangirl-brain totes ships Erik/Charles. Maybe it's because Erik is all tormented and brooding and stubbly and sexy while Charles is all suit-wearing and electric-blue-eyed and British and sexy, or maybe it's just that both of these characters are archetypes that intensely appeal to me (one a driven Nazi-hunter on a quest for vengeance for his murdered family, and who is unwilling to let anyone else into his life lest he lose more loved ones, and the other a compassionate academic who just wants to make the world a better place, but who secretly longs for acceptance), but...*fangirl drool* Y'know what? Until the next X-Men movie comes along to snap me out of my happy place, I'm declaring the last five or ten minutes of First Class non-canon. Instead, everything, starting with Charles getting shot in the back, takes place in hs fever-dream, after he was badly injured (although *not* crippled) by one of the bullets that Magneto deflected. Having caused the near-death of his BFF and super-seekrit boyfriend, Erik receives a harsh wake-up call and vows to stay with Charles, because he can now see that his own course of wanton violence and vindictiveness will only bring harm to the people he loves. The two of them build the School together, and live happily ever after. For now. They become kind of the parents/cool older brothers/teachers/combat instructors for the next generation of X-Men (of course, they find Scott, Jean, Ororo, and the rest quickly enough to make the School nice and...interesting), who insist on calling them Magneto and Professor X. So basically, I'm going to take all of the last 5 minutes or so, put my hands over my ears, and go "lalalalala I can't hear yoooouuu!"
I don't know how popular this pairing is in the X-Men comics (I'm guessing not so much, considering that, from what I can tell, neither of them is really sexualized all that much in the comics), but someone involved in making the movie reeeeally wanted to get these two together. Let's just say it involves both of them lying on a bed in a strip club while drinking champagne, as well as Charles stroking Erik's face while digging through his mind for his (Erik's) happiest memory and crying. (Also, am I the only one who totally thought that when Raven turned into Emma Frost to try to get into Erik's pants, she was going to turn into Charles next?) Those are just a few of the big moments that most people cite; my personal favorite was during the last fight scene (which was a hell of a scene, regardless of the f*ckery that occurred right after) when the Blackbird went into a barrel roll while the bomb doors were open, and Erik used his magnetic powers to pin Charles, who was the only team member not strapped in at the time, to the floor to stop him from getting sucked out. In addition, as much as I dislike the "Erik deflecting bullets somehow leads to Charles being crippled" plot convolution, I did have a major d'awwww moment when Erik dropped to his knees to cradle Charles, and he had this devastated look on his face, like he'd finally realized the cost of blind vengeance. If his characterization at that moment had been consistent with the entire rest of the movie, this would have been the moment where he realized that his quest for vengeance would ultimately lead to the death of his new family, Charles first and foremost, and (largely) dialed down his obsessive need to destroy everything he perceived as a threat. If only, if only...
I'm at my first D&D game in quite a while now, and I'd better concentrate on not getting iced by some demonic beastie or other, so I'll sign off for now. TTFN!
