John Noble (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jackofallgeeks) wrote2006-06-08 05:23 pm
jackofallgeeks) wrote2006-06-08 05:23 pm
Entry tags:
Why I Hate X-Men 3
Or
Is There Nothing Sacred, Charlie Brown?
OK, so, I'll start of by saying that it is not my opinion that there was nothing good about X-men 3. On the contrary, I thought it was an 'alright' movie. What makes me so angry is that this could have been an 'amazing' movie, and they managed to botch it all up.
Right out of the gate, I've been pissed for months that they didn't put Gambit in there. Gambit should have been for X3 what Nightcrawler and Wolverine were for X2 and X-men respectively. They'd already messed things up with Rogue a whole lot, but even with that I think they could have pulled off something nice with Gambit. Like, I don't know, maybe playing up some kind of a "I love you enough to touch you even if it hurts" rather than "I hate myself because of my powers, and have unresolved jealousy issues." That's just a thought, but it's one thought among many.
I was pissed off when I heard that they cut Gambit because "he has Cyclops's powers with Wolverine's attitude," because there's so much more to Gambit. Neither Scott nor Logan are the Lover Gambit is, and Wolverine is far, far more Rage than Gambit. But what pissed me off even more? Look, Cycolps is now the guy with Cyclops' power and Wolverine's attitude, rage and all. They did him a fair shot by making him weepy the way he ought to be but- What? 15 minutes is, they killed him? Look's like no one has Cyclops' powers anymore, eh? Or Wolverine's attitude for that matter -- because now Wolverine is the comedy relief, has little rage to speak of, and he's the weepy one! Everything they did with Jean/Logan could have been done better with Jean/Scott with Logan as a counterpoint. Cyclops didn't need to die. The only purpose that served is to secure Storm as Xavier's replacement when they ill him off thirty minutes later. I'll get to that insult in a second, but Storm becoming Headmistress of Hogwarts could have been done easily enough by giving Scott some other lead position -- you know, like actually forming the X-Men in truth, possibly as counter-point to some Brotherhood of Evil Mutants that might form up? That's another good point -- not killing Cyclops and adding Gambit would mean there would be more than six X-Men when they went to stop the veritable tide of evil Mutants at the end. And on that note, what ever happened to my beloved Nightcrawler?
So much wrong with this movie, I lose myself and hardly know where to go. Let's touch on a good point, shall we? Even in all this mierde, they at least kept Magneto true to himself. His little toady Firefly bugged me, but I can write him off as just another casualty of this movie. Magneto was good. Laurel was upset about how he treated a 'cured' Mystique, but I think it was fairly true to form. Even if his complete-abandonment wasn't necessary, it was believable, and it let him utter the wonderful line of "she was so beautiful." Even more than that line, later in the movie Magneto was allowed a wonderful cut which summed him up in totality, and is the only reason I don't think killing Xavier was a total waste: Magneto says in one breath to his little toady, "Xavier did more for mutants than you'll ever know. My one regret is that he had to die for our dream to live." That is Magneto. True friendship with and admiration of Xavier, but with an unyielding conviction in the rightness of his cause that, though sad, it is better that Xavier die than his vision.
More into the bad. The Phoenix was, at best, a half-formed proto-idea that never got off the ground. She didn't do anything. She killed Scott, which need not have happened. She killed Xavier, which could have happened any other way, and probably with more pathos. Then, the strongest mutant in the world proceeded to do nothing but look grumpy until the last ten minutes of the movie, where she kills everyone and then dies so that Logan can cry (a la Cyclopse) over her corpse. The Phoenix was an idea that could have been good -- I can accept Jean being the most powerful mutant evar!, I like the dual-personality bit, and I even almost like the bit about Xavier putting up barriers in her mind. That last bit sits a bit funny with me, but I think I'm OK with it. I even really liked that theme of "Don't Let Your Power Control You." But they even botched that up. Because her power did control her. She never overcame that. She never took to heart what Xavier said. It never meant anything, and even if it had it was only ever directed at her; no one else was ever included in the "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," song-and-dance. They could have been. It could have been an entire movie plot, with The Brotherhood and the forming as-such of the X-Men tied in behind it, and it would have been a wonderful movie. But it wasn't.
The same sort of thing goes for The Cure. The plot thread, not the band. Though, I guess the band could be woven into it, too... In any case, another good-but-botched idea. I liked the divide between mutants, I liked how some wanted to be 'normal' and others didn't. I think it says a lot about human nature, really, and it could have made an entire movie plot line. I'm not sure it could have been as epic as the Phoenix-threaded-with-the-formation-of-the-Xmen, but it could have worked. I'm not sure how I feel about the almost-blatant parallel between The Cure and Abortion in America, what with the bombing of clinics, the lines of half-ashamed, half-defiant (though, in the movie, it seemed mostly ashamed) persons waiting to get treated. The near-mindless mobs of yelling, picketing detractors. Believable, sure, but it's the blatant parallel that makes me disinclined toward it. Only tangential to this, what I hated most about The Cure, I think, was the bitch ending that they gave Magneto. You don't defeat the Badest Mutant Evar by jumping in from behind him and Curing him with a syringe to the chest. It was so completely anti-climatic I almost vomited. I was *so* pissed off by that. I didn't see it myself, but Laurel tells me that, at the end, Magneto wiggled a chess piece. If this is so, The Cure just got a whole lot better, because it's not permanent. I like that. That I can live with. But it's small consolation.
Gah, so much badness. What about Wolverine at the end, ginning like some damn fool in front of a rose bush? What about him not being at Jeans funeral? If you're going to play that angle, why pull out on us at the end? What abut the fact that there were only 6 X-men to the hoards of Evil Mutants, and three of them were kids? I can not stand that bit; the other two movies did it, and I didn't like it then, but at least they didn't suck. Jubilee could have been a teenager. I think Shadowcat could be a teanager. You could pull in mutants who really were teenagers if you wanted, there are scores of them. Rogue should have been a young woman at the least. Iceman shouldn't have been such a... wimp. Colossus should have been Russian, and where was his beloved sister, that's what I'd like to know. Ok, that there might be a little bit nit-picky, but I really liked Colossus in the comics. And the guy even turns to The Brotherhood when his sister dies... Anyways. I did like that they had Juggernaut, and that they had The Guy who played him play him -- I'm bad with actor's names, but I like that guy. I wish Juggernaut had had more of a place in the movie; what he did was cool, but he didn't do enough.
I think I'm running out of steam, now... In summary, it was an alright movie, on par with Spiderman-2 (I never told you all what I thought about that, did I?), but it could have been an amazing movie, even continuing from where X2 left off (ie, the teenager bit I could tolerate, and even the wretched way they'd dealt with Rogue). But it wasn't, and that makes me angry.
Is There Nothing Sacred, Charlie Brown?
OK, so, I'll start of by saying that it is not my opinion that there was nothing good about X-men 3. On the contrary, I thought it was an 'alright' movie. What makes me so angry is that this could have been an 'amazing' movie, and they managed to botch it all up.
Right out of the gate, I've been pissed for months that they didn't put Gambit in there. Gambit should have been for X3 what Nightcrawler and Wolverine were for X2 and X-men respectively. They'd already messed things up with Rogue a whole lot, but even with that I think they could have pulled off something nice with Gambit. Like, I don't know, maybe playing up some kind of a "I love you enough to touch you even if it hurts" rather than "I hate myself because of my powers, and have unresolved jealousy issues." That's just a thought, but it's one thought among many.
I was pissed off when I heard that they cut Gambit because "he has Cyclops's powers with Wolverine's attitude," because there's so much more to Gambit. Neither Scott nor Logan are the Lover Gambit is, and Wolverine is far, far more Rage than Gambit. But what pissed me off even more? Look, Cycolps is now the guy with Cyclops' power and Wolverine's attitude, rage and all. They did him a fair shot by making him weepy the way he ought to be but- What? 15 minutes is, they killed him? Look's like no one has Cyclops' powers anymore, eh? Or Wolverine's attitude for that matter -- because now Wolverine is the comedy relief, has little rage to speak of, and he's the weepy one! Everything they did with Jean/Logan could have been done better with Jean/Scott with Logan as a counterpoint. Cyclops didn't need to die. The only purpose that served is to secure Storm as Xavier's replacement when they ill him off thirty minutes later. I'll get to that insult in a second, but Storm becoming Headmistress of Hogwarts could have been done easily enough by giving Scott some other lead position -- you know, like actually forming the X-Men in truth, possibly as counter-point to some Brotherhood of Evil Mutants that might form up? That's another good point -- not killing Cyclops and adding Gambit would mean there would be more than six X-Men when they went to stop the veritable tide of evil Mutants at the end. And on that note, what ever happened to my beloved Nightcrawler?
So much wrong with this movie, I lose myself and hardly know where to go. Let's touch on a good point, shall we? Even in all this mierde, they at least kept Magneto true to himself. His little toady Firefly bugged me, but I can write him off as just another casualty of this movie. Magneto was good. Laurel was upset about how he treated a 'cured' Mystique, but I think it was fairly true to form. Even if his complete-abandonment wasn't necessary, it was believable, and it let him utter the wonderful line of "she was so beautiful." Even more than that line, later in the movie Magneto was allowed a wonderful cut which summed him up in totality, and is the only reason I don't think killing Xavier was a total waste: Magneto says in one breath to his little toady, "Xavier did more for mutants than you'll ever know. My one regret is that he had to die for our dream to live." That is Magneto. True friendship with and admiration of Xavier, but with an unyielding conviction in the rightness of his cause that, though sad, it is better that Xavier die than his vision.
More into the bad. The Phoenix was, at best, a half-formed proto-idea that never got off the ground. She didn't do anything. She killed Scott, which need not have happened. She killed Xavier, which could have happened any other way, and probably with more pathos. Then, the strongest mutant in the world proceeded to do nothing but look grumpy until the last ten minutes of the movie, where she kills everyone and then dies so that Logan can cry (a la Cyclopse) over her corpse. The Phoenix was an idea that could have been good -- I can accept Jean being the most powerful mutant evar!, I like the dual-personality bit, and I even almost like the bit about Xavier putting up barriers in her mind. That last bit sits a bit funny with me, but I think I'm OK with it. I even really liked that theme of "Don't Let Your Power Control You." But they even botched that up. Because her power did control her. She never overcame that. She never took to heart what Xavier said. It never meant anything, and even if it had it was only ever directed at her; no one else was ever included in the "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," song-and-dance. They could have been. It could have been an entire movie plot, with The Brotherhood and the forming as-such of the X-Men tied in behind it, and it would have been a wonderful movie. But it wasn't.
The same sort of thing goes for The Cure. The plot thread, not the band. Though, I guess the band could be woven into it, too... In any case, another good-but-botched idea. I liked the divide between mutants, I liked how some wanted to be 'normal' and others didn't. I think it says a lot about human nature, really, and it could have made an entire movie plot line. I'm not sure it could have been as epic as the Phoenix-threaded-with-the-formation-of-the-Xmen, but it could have worked. I'm not sure how I feel about the almost-blatant parallel between The Cure and Abortion in America, what with the bombing of clinics, the lines of half-ashamed, half-defiant (though, in the movie, it seemed mostly ashamed) persons waiting to get treated. The near-mindless mobs of yelling, picketing detractors. Believable, sure, but it's the blatant parallel that makes me disinclined toward it. Only tangential to this, what I hated most about The Cure, I think, was the bitch ending that they gave Magneto. You don't defeat the Badest Mutant Evar by jumping in from behind him and Curing him with a syringe to the chest. It was so completely anti-climatic I almost vomited. I was *so* pissed off by that. I didn't see it myself, but Laurel tells me that, at the end, Magneto wiggled a chess piece. If this is so, The Cure just got a whole lot better, because it's not permanent. I like that. That I can live with. But it's small consolation.
Gah, so much badness. What about Wolverine at the end, ginning like some damn fool in front of a rose bush? What about him not being at Jeans funeral? If you're going to play that angle, why pull out on us at the end? What abut the fact that there were only 6 X-men to the hoards of Evil Mutants, and three of them were kids? I can not stand that bit; the other two movies did it, and I didn't like it then, but at least they didn't suck. Jubilee could have been a teenager. I think Shadowcat could be a teanager. You could pull in mutants who really were teenagers if you wanted, there are scores of them. Rogue should have been a young woman at the least. Iceman shouldn't have been such a... wimp. Colossus should have been Russian, and where was his beloved sister, that's what I'd like to know. Ok, that there might be a little bit nit-picky, but I really liked Colossus in the comics. And the guy even turns to The Brotherhood when his sister dies... Anyways. I did like that they had Juggernaut, and that they had The Guy who played him play him -- I'm bad with actor's names, but I like that guy. I wish Juggernaut had had more of a place in the movie; what he did was cool, but he didn't do enough.
I think I'm running out of steam, now... In summary, it was an alright movie, on par with Spiderman-2 (I never told you all what I thought about that, did I?), but it could have been an amazing movie, even continuing from where X2 left off (ie, the teenager bit I could tolerate, and even the wretched way they'd dealt with Rogue). But it wasn't, and that makes me angry.