Just saw X-Men III (Now with spoilers!)

[Vigilance]

Saw it last night, thought it was awesome.

Like the previous X-movies, it nailed the characters, making great transitions from comics to movies.

Plenty of great fanboy moments (I've been reading X-men since #100 so going on 20 years) like the fastball special, danger room, Juggernaut, and the cure from Joss' recent X-men run.

Oh and a cameo by Chris Claremont.

Chuck

 

[John Cooper]

I caught the Stan Lee cameo (guy watering the lawn in Jean Grey's neighborhood), but which was Chris Claremont?

 

[Remathilis]

SPOILER






As a former reader (new series start to Onslaught) What I liked/Disliked

Liked
* Wolverine is the man again. Spot on.
* Iceman becoming my second favorite in the movies.
* LEECH!
* I'm the Juggernaut, Beyoch!
* Beast. Great realizing of one of my favorite mutants
* Phoenix Saga without the Whole Space-Saga thing
* Naked Rebecca Stamos!

Disliked
* Rogue. She was my favorite in X1-2, but she was reduced to a cameo/footnote. And did Anna Parquin gain some weight?
* Cyclop's death. A lame way to write-out an important character in X1-2. He as in it for 2-3 minutes tops?
* Angel. So little to do, he was a plot-device, not a character.
* Where was Nightcrawler?
* The "classic five" never appeared together (Beast, Cyclops, Angel, Jean, Iceman) despite all being in the movie.
* Character Assassination. Magneto the racist. Prof X "controlling" Jean. Cyclops the reckless. Multiple Man the Villian (and lamely used), Rogue being reduced to a weak-willed non-combatant willing to take the cure. All seemed completely out of character. Least Storm and Wolvernine were spot on.
* Too much to do. Finish the Magneto War. The Cure. Phoenix. All too crammed, with too little development to each. X-3 Could-have been three movies easily.
* (Personal) Sweet Jebus! No Gambit AGAIN. Couldn't they have made him a cameo, or even a bad-guy in Magneto's army?

All in all, a let-down over the vastly superior X2.

 

[Firebeetle]

Challenge

We've got a lot of naysayers on the thread. To them I issue a challenge:

Name a better third installment sequel for a comic book franchise. You must be able to articulate why and you cannot brush it off with "anything is better than this movie" because that's a cop-out.

 

[Vigilance]

I caught the Stan Lee cameo (guy watering the lawn in Jean Grey's neighborhood), but which was Chris Claremont?

Claremont's cameo is right before Stan's.

He's the guy mowing his lawn who's lawnmower lifts into the air.

He's credited as "lawnmower man".

Chuck

 

[RangerWickett]

We've got a lot of naysayers on the thread. To them I issue a challenge:

Name a better third installment sequel for a comic book franchise. You must be able to articulate why and you cannot brush it off with "anything is better than this movie" because that's a cop-out.

Well, seeing as our options are currently Superman 3 (Richard Pryor) or Batman Forever (Holy Rusted Metal Batman), I suppose you win this round. But that's kind of like saying, "I challenge you to name a better movie that had the Phoenix Saga in it." Define your parameters closely enough, and you're sure to win.

Oh, I guess I forgot Darkman 3. Was there a Darkman 3? *shrug*

The movie does not suck, but it's weak. I won't complain much about weak movies. I only complain about terrible ones.

Like Star Wars Episodes 1, 2, and 3.

 

[Vigilance]

* Cyclop's death. A lame way to write-out an important character in X1-2. He as in it for 2-3 minutes tops?

I see this a lot. Wolverine ASSUMES Cyke is dead. But we never see a body. By the rules of comics and comic films, Cyke is not dead. Even when you DO see the body, the character often isn't dead, but "death" with no body isn't death.

Jean died without her body being found at the end of X-2 and Xavier blew up on screen. Neither is dead.

* The "classic five" never appeared together (Beast, Cyclops, Angel, Jean, Iceman) despite all being in the movie.

I agree they had the potential for a real fanboy moment, but A) in the movies they are not the classic five, the first generation of movie mutants seems to be Cyke, Jean, Beast and Storm (the action team from movie #1).

Also, during the movie the characters are on much different courses (especially Jean).

* Prof X "controlling" Jean.

Feel free to label this character assassination, but everything in the movie is straight from comics canon as laid down by Claremont.

In the comics, when Xavier recruits Jean (in a side story told long ago by Claremont not many have read- it appeared as one of the backup stories in the reprints), Jean had absorbed her best friend's mind as she lay dying after being hit by a car.

Her mind was fractured and her telepathy had surfaced much too early and in an out of control fashion because of this trauma.

Xavier repressed this awful memory and experience, along with her telepathy, to give her a chance to heal.

Then later when Phoenix emerged and was a danger, Xavier again went in and but barriers in Jeans's mind to repress the dangerous side of her power.

You can call it "character assassination", but the story in the movie is 100% consistent with what has been laid down in the comics.

Two options: A) The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Xavier is trying to do the right thing but ends up making a bad situation worse (this is the majority view of his actions wrt Jean/Phoenix in the comics).

B) Xavier isn't that different from Magneto and is willing to abuse his power in keeping with his own worldview.

Either way, there was no assassination going on. Xavier just isn't the fluffy bunny a lot of people perceive him to be.

Chuck

 

[Remathilis]

I see this a lot. Wolverine ASSUMES Cyke is dead. But we never see a body. By the rules of comics and comic films, Cyke is not dead. Even when you DO see the body, the character often isn't dead, but "death" with no body isn't death.

Jean died without her body being found at the end of X-2 and Xavier blew up on screen. Neither is dead.

Regardless if he is dead or not, he's barely in the movie and even if he's not, he wasn't a key player in this movie, despite being a key player in the first two and in the comics.

I agree they had the potential for a real fanboy moment, but A) in the movies they are not the classic five, the first generation of movie mutants seems to be Cyke, Jean, Beast and Storm (the action team from movie Also, during the movie the characters are on much different courses (especially Jean).#1).

Realized, and it was pure fan-boy, but it woulda been neat.

Feel free to label this character assassination, but everything in the movie is straight from comics canon as laid down by Claremont.

I realize the whole "protecting Jean from herself" method, but his speech to Logan seems artificial, like he didn't need to justify his actions and he knew what was best. His confrontation with Jean seems less like "I want to help, you're not yourself" and more "let me reset status quo". Good reason, poor execution.

 

[Thanee]

Just saw it and I really liked it.

So... to start the speculations for part 4 (unless someone has already mentioned it, didn't really read the thread)... the guy in the last scene (yes, the one AFTER the trailer!), that's the guy in that video, the good professor showed his students, when Storm changed the weather, right?

I think this is the professor now (transfered his mind to the new body)!

What do you say?

And did Anna Parquin gain some weight?

Seemed rather fitting, considering her constant frustration.
Too bad it's going to come back (her powers, and thus the frustration)... poor Rogue.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Vigilance]

I realize the whole "protecting Jean from herself" method, but his speech to Logan seems artificial, like he didn't need to justify his actions and he knew what was best. His confrontation with Jean seems less like "I want to help, you're not yourself" and more "let me reset status quo". Good reason, poor execution.

Right but this is Xavier in a nutshell.

He's "dad". He's smarter than you, and he knows best, and if you don't realize that, then you just might be unduly influenced by his power.

You think Magneto and Juggernaut make having a mind-proof helmet a priority cause Xavier is afraid to muck around in people's minds?

He does feel justified for all sorts of mind tampering. In the comics and the movies. Like in X-2 where he and Magneto have a little chat about how they both know more about Wolverine than he does, and Xavier blithely mentions that he has "set Wolverine on the path", to which Magneto replies, "you just want him in your X_men so you're not telling him the real truth".

Ever occur to you Magneto is telling the truth? Xavier promised to help Wolverine, and COULD help him much more than he actually is. In other words he's lying.

The interesting thing about Xavier, is that he does unethical things all the time. He's much less honest than Magneto. But he gets a pass because he's so likable and does a lot of legitimately good things.

So I agree HE sees nothing wrong with what he did to Jean.

What you seem to have missed is that he does things like that all the time, for reasons he considers good. That doesn't mean they ARE good.

And now that the third movie has made it a little more obvious what he's been doing all along to you, you consider it character assassination, because you have made the uncomfortable realization that he's not all warm and fuzzy.