X-Men 3 and Desperate Fangirling
May. 27th, 2006 03:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
doronjosamaWe snuck out to see a cheap matinee of X-Men 3 today. My impressions under the cut, if you are avoiding spoilers. The only thing I will say openly is: stay until the end of the credits, it's important. I repeat: THIS IS SPOILER HEAVY! DO NOT READ IT IF YOU DO NOT WANT ANYTHING SPOILED FOR YOU!!!
I've decided I don't care what anyone else thinks of the movie- the thirteen year old X-Men-obsessed girl who lives in my hardened black heart is doing cartwheels over this latest X-men film.
Honestly, it makes as much sense as some of the comic book storylines (and who can forget the Claremont years, when storylines literally wandered off, never to be seen again?) and it all looked very cool, so I am extremely happy with it. It made me feel the sense of excitement and emotional rollercoaster stuff I felt as a kid when I read every X-men comic (and spinoff) I could get my hands on.
I teared up at many key scenes- Xavier in Jean's house when the Phoenix force manifests, Mystique's ultimately meaningless sacrifice for Magneto, the angst Rogue feels at not being able to touch Iceman and her fears over Kitty's interest, Angel's ability to forgive his father at least enough to save him.
There are many, many touches that completely worked for me and that thirteen year old girl I once was. Magneto making the tiniest of gestures and crumpling cars and semis. Kitty Pryde fighting Juggernaut with brains and sneakiness rather than force. Juggernaut going through walls like they were paper. Colossus metalling up. Beast kicking ass and saying "oh my stars and garters!". Wolverine calling him "Furball". And of course, Wolverine finally getting to be the best there is at what he does. Fucking. Awesome. I have been waiting for Wolverine to actually severely maim or kill a shit ton of people ever since the first movie.
I also liked the various ethical questions that were raised- things that have always been at the core of what I believed X-Men comics were about. The "mutant cure" and the various mutants' reactions to it was excellent- they reacted exactly how people would react to something of that nature. If someone developed a "cure" for gay people (which some claim to have done) in the real world, would people be forced to take it? If you could get a genetic test to determine whether your child would be gay and keep or abort the child based on the findings, would people take it? There are already countries where women discover the gender of their child and abort if they are girls. If people could choose their race or skin color, would they do so to escape racism? Would people change their gender to escape sexism and misogyny? Even if such a thing were voluntary, wouldn't there be some who would seek to use such a power by force? One of the things I have always liked about the concept of X-Men is that like good science fiction, it mirrors issues that are already present in current society and extrapolates them into a fictional society where things are overblown, huge, larger than life, extreme. I always got the positive message in the comics as a kid- you can't help how you were born, you can't help how you look; but no matter what, you should try to do your best and be a good person and learn to live peacefully with those different from you. Yes, this was cloaked in the concept of mutants and humans, but it applies to race, religion, gender and sexual orientation just as easily. Despite the colorful costumes, angst ratcheted up to eleven and sometimes ridiculous storylines, this core principle of the X-Men concept is why I will always keep my old issues and old graphic novels and always secretly be a fan, deep in my heart of hearts.
Plus, hello, Wolverine and Jean Grey=OTP. That shit used to make me squeal and freak out with happiness when it showed up in the comics (I particularly remember the big kiss splash page at the beginning of one of the Inferno crossover issues!) and apparently, in the movie, it is no different. I love that relationship because it is tragic and doomed, doomed, doomed- Wolverine is tortured by how much he loves Jean, and I can always get behind love that you can't have. It made for a great story in the comics I cherished as a child and teen, and makes for a great plot element in this film.
So, in summary, I loved it. It seems other people don't. I don't care what they think though and I have absolutely no interest in arguing about it with anyone, period. I'm a happy camper.
Now back to work.
I've decided I don't care what anyone else thinks of the movie- the thirteen year old X-Men-obsessed girl who lives in my hardened black heart is doing cartwheels over this latest X-men film.
Honestly, it makes as much sense as some of the comic book storylines (and who can forget the Claremont years, when storylines literally wandered off, never to be seen again?) and it all looked very cool, so I am extremely happy with it. It made me feel the sense of excitement and emotional rollercoaster stuff I felt as a kid when I read every X-men comic (and spinoff) I could get my hands on.
I teared up at many key scenes- Xavier in Jean's house when the Phoenix force manifests, Mystique's ultimately meaningless sacrifice for Magneto, the angst Rogue feels at not being able to touch Iceman and her fears over Kitty's interest, Angel's ability to forgive his father at least enough to save him.
There are many, many touches that completely worked for me and that thirteen year old girl I once was. Magneto making the tiniest of gestures and crumpling cars and semis. Kitty Pryde fighting Juggernaut with brains and sneakiness rather than force. Juggernaut going through walls like they were paper. Colossus metalling up. Beast kicking ass and saying "oh my stars and garters!". Wolverine calling him "Furball". And of course, Wolverine finally getting to be the best there is at what he does. Fucking. Awesome. I have been waiting for Wolverine to actually severely maim or kill a shit ton of people ever since the first movie.
I also liked the various ethical questions that were raised- things that have always been at the core of what I believed X-Men comics were about. The "mutant cure" and the various mutants' reactions to it was excellent- they reacted exactly how people would react to something of that nature. If someone developed a "cure" for gay people (which some claim to have done) in the real world, would people be forced to take it? If you could get a genetic test to determine whether your child would be gay and keep or abort the child based on the findings, would people take it? There are already countries where women discover the gender of their child and abort if they are girls. If people could choose their race or skin color, would they do so to escape racism? Would people change their gender to escape sexism and misogyny? Even if such a thing were voluntary, wouldn't there be some who would seek to use such a power by force? One of the things I have always liked about the concept of X-Men is that like good science fiction, it mirrors issues that are already present in current society and extrapolates them into a fictional society where things are overblown, huge, larger than life, extreme. I always got the positive message in the comics as a kid- you can't help how you were born, you can't help how you look; but no matter what, you should try to do your best and be a good person and learn to live peacefully with those different from you. Yes, this was cloaked in the concept of mutants and humans, but it applies to race, religion, gender and sexual orientation just as easily. Despite the colorful costumes, angst ratcheted up to eleven and sometimes ridiculous storylines, this core principle of the X-Men concept is why I will always keep my old issues and old graphic novels and always secretly be a fan, deep in my heart of hearts.
Plus, hello, Wolverine and Jean Grey=OTP. That shit used to make me squeal and freak out with happiness when it showed up in the comics (I particularly remember the big kiss splash page at the beginning of one of the Inferno crossover issues!) and apparently, in the movie, it is no different. I love that relationship because it is tragic and doomed, doomed, doomed- Wolverine is tortured by how much he loves Jean, and I can always get behind love that you can't have. It made for a great story in the comics I cherished as a child and teen, and makes for a great plot element in this film.
So, in summary, I loved it. It seems other people don't. I don't care what they think though and I have absolutely no interest in arguing about it with anyone, period. I'm a happy camper.
Now back to work.
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no subject
Date: 2006-05-27 09:31 pm (UTC)Cure for homosexuality, I hear the Chinese have a method involving cattle prods. Problem with that is, if you get enough shocks to your privates with cattle prods, you'd say you started the Chicago fire, but it dosen't make it so now does it?
no subject
Date: 2006-05-28 12:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-28 03:29 am (UTC)I wish I could go out and see a movie, but aside from the need for money (I'm sure I could spare the cash, but then I'll just say that the next time I want to do something, and so on—we all know how *that* goes), I seem to still have the Ninja Virus from Hell, which makes me tired and my lymph nodes sore without making me lousy enough to justify taking large amounts of drugs and sleeping all day. And the idea of going to a human-filled theatre, where I may even exchange pathogens...eh. I'll wait for the DVD. (You can't turn on the captions in the theatre anyway =P and I need to read what they're saying, or I can't follow what's going on! Too much subtitled anime..)
no subject
Date: 2006-05-28 04:46 am (UTC)I did kind of want to see Phoenix fly around adn blow up planets, though!
no subject
Date: 2006-05-28 03:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-28 08:00 pm (UTC)I remember that thirteen year old X-men-obsessed girl, I met her soon after I met you!
no subject
Date: 2006-05-30 12:59 am (UTC)Though as a fat person, I was actually disappointed that Blob never made it into the movies. Even during the scene in the church, Phat shifted to "normal" size before he joined the group. Just a personal beef, I guess.
I really wanted to see more of Jean's inner torment over the Phoenix issue. She was just sort of....there for most of the movie. They erally didn't even hit her relationship with Storm, who took her death almost as hard as Scott did in the comics. I remember finally getting to read X-Men 137 around 1987, and seeing how JEan was always conflicted over it, which led to her taking her own life. I'll concede that it added an aspect of tragi-romance, but Logan killing her just sat wrong with me. I guess I was expecting her to inject herself with the "cure" or take some other form of self-sacrifice.