#just magneto and charles just monologuing about their friend to so many other people

[concise-cyan]

idk if i mentioned this yet but magneto and professor x are never beating the homosexual allegations

[langernameohnebedeutung]

suzuwarahikaru replied to your post “what happens at 5 am?”

where is the essay, OP!?

@suzuwarahikaru​ Honestly, it’s drivel and I didn’t feel like it particularly went anywhere and it was just me monologuing about one aspect of a bigger question so that’s why I didn’t post it. But ok, just for some context: You probably know how the MCU was often criticised for having “bland one off villains” and that’s true especially in their early films - and that was time when Heath Ledger’s Joker loomed very large and Ian McKellen was famous for his performance of Magneto and the idea for a Magneto solo film had just been scrapped in favour of XM First Class. At that point apparently the MCU guys walked up with the demand that Thor 1 only has to give them 1 thing: A villain as good as Magneto which they could use in Avengers. Now, obviously it had to be Loki, because Loki is Thor’s most famous antagonist and he was the first guy the Avengers ever fought in the comics, and Loki in Thor 1 is satisfyingly complex - but now that Loki’s dead and has a solo show coming out in a while, people dug up that old quote and started arguing about whether Loki actually became a villain “as good as Magneto” - which I honestly wouldn’t care about, except this argument spilled a few  “But Loki is great and Magneto is boring”-posts into the Magneto tag a while ago (which mixes with a lot of: Why did Cherik get a happy end but Stucky didn’t that’s so unfair!!!! posts) and then some comments started lowkey implying that Loki is a character who’s more attractive to sophisticated fans and that Magneto fans are usually men and Loki fans women (with the not so subtle implication being that Magneto fans are comic dude bros who like him for his cool powers and because he’s a Bad Guy(TM) I don’t really care about that, but over the course of this argument someone made a rather interesting post, wondering about what “went wrong” with Loki and while I love Loki as a character and as a villain, it made me ponder what could have been done to make Loki (even) better and to help him stand on his own 2 feet as a character and this was their post:

Now and this was going to be my response: Personally, I don’t think that having spectacular powers or anything make a villain good (they make good visuals though) but whether the hero learns something from fighting them, whether their motivation maybe reflects something that we experience as well and that maybe they unmask something that we usually don’t feel comfortable to address. And Loki has all these qualities.

I’m not going to try to objectively pinpoint where it ‘went wrong’ but it’s actually interesting to look at the XMCU and the MCU and to compare notes. The XMCU is often criticised for being too wordy, too slow-paced and “what’s with the constant time jumps and decade-hopping?” But I think that’s something the Thor franchise could actually have profited from, because…these guys are immortals and it just feels rushed in my opinion to watch their world fall apart in what is for them a matter of a long weekend. 

For example, a bigger distance between the events of Thor 1 and Avengers would have lent more weight to Loki’s disappearance and Thanos torturing and brainwashing him, Thor’s and Jane’s relationship would have been given more time to develop (making their reunion in Thor 2 more meaningful). They could also have given her more time exploring Asgard/battling the Ether. We could have learnt more about the Dark Elves, the Frost Giants, the Nine Realms in general. 

And that’s at least part of the problem, in my opinion: We don’t know enough about Asgard. You can’t just throw in an alien word without world-building and you can’t introduce characters who are millennia old by showing us 6 years of their lives and maybe 1 flashback. There is a reason why a show like Good Omens spent basically an entire episode on Crowley and Aziraphale’s lives through the millennia. Captain America got a film set in the WW2, Wolverine Origins covers over a century of Logan’s story. Magneto isn’t a better (or worse) villain than Loki, because as you said, the writing makes the character and both get pretty good and pretty bad writing at times. But a big difference is: We know a lot more about Magneto than we know about Loki. 

One example of this is personal relationships. Something I never realised before I started typing this is how little space Loki is given to let him form/have/maintain/test/strengthen meaningful relationships. 

Basically, all his meaningful interactions are inside his family. Magneto (to be clear, I’m bringing up so often bc the MCU apparently insisted on being rude af and asking Kenneth Branagh on drawing inspiration from a character who’s basically the opposite of Loki in every regard) gets a lot more screen time to develop his relationships with other characters, even if it means less CGI action scenes. 

In fact, I’m currently tempted to find out how many 1 on 1 dialogue scenes Loki gets per hour of film vs. how many Magneto gets. Loki enters the picture with a family, ‘friends’, a biological father, servants, an entire kingdom of people who know him, but he barely gets to have any meaningful interactions outside of his family environment. Seeing him interact with a friend or even someone who hates him for reasons unrelated to his relationship with Thor or someone who supports him would in turn show us a lot about how he sees other people, how he sees himself, how he treats them, what he values in a person, what kind of people trusts (if he trusts) – that’s a lot of potential that was left pretty much wasted in my opinion. 

One of the first things Agent of Asgard did was add Verity Willis to its main-cast so have a character for Loki to interact with, to serve as a moral anchor, and to call him out on his bullshit. Having relationships is powerful. In the MCU, Loki’s relationship with his mother is such an important, humanising element to his character. Also a lot of headcanons and metas and thoughts about Loki are inspired by those few scenes where we see him interact with the Warrior’s Three and Sif before Loki finds out about his parentage. 

And even when encounters the Avengers, they meet once, they talk once, then Loki he returns to Asgard and they never meet again, except Bruce - and even then there’s barely any time to talk about what happened in Avengers 1. He doesn’t get to form any meaningful relationships with his adversaries when he talks to them in Av1, these scenes just exist to present the Avengers in a certain light. And in the end it’s canonised that Loki was brainwashed so it’s all pointless anyway. (pls (don’t) make me write an essay on agency and the MCU, because honestly, between Bucky, Gamora, Nebula, Loki and everyone else was brainwashed it’s actually worth a conversation)

Even in Thor 1 Loki never meets Jane or Darcy, one of the main-characters. And we never see a single frost giant after the first film. Erik Solveig is the only Earth character from Thor 1 Loki actually meets and he’s brainwashed for most of that and in Thor 2, they don’t get to meet again. 

Imagine if Loki had had someone he trusted in Thor 1 and told them about finding out he’s a Frost Giant and they reject him and treat him like a monster. This could be three or four scenes that don’t throw off the film but would have been very powerful. Or imagine if Loki keeps his heritage a secret from that friend/trusted person and they find out in Thor 2 and confront him about it. Valkyrie and Loki never talk about him invading her mind or the things he saw. 

We never get to see him alone on Sakaar to deal with what he presumes is the end of his home world and the death of everyone he knows and we never see him interact ‘win the Grandmaster’s trust’. 

We never see him interact with the Hulk before they’re suddenly fighting side by side in Infinity War. We never find out exactly what the Aesir’s sentiments towards him are, what kind of prince he was in the past, how present he is in public, what reputation he has beyond silver-tongue mischief guy and which specific events shaped it.

If the MCU wants a villain “as good as Magneto” (which is already annoying bc they imply that Loki is not as good a villain which is such a subjective measure – Magneto done wrong is a horrible and downright offensive villain and trickster characters done right are amazing for revealing the flaws of a hero.*) then they have to give writers and actors the same means to do that with. The X-Men franchise, for all it flaws, always gave Magneto screen-time (so much that people criticised it). 

There’s a Charles-and-Erik dialogue in pretty much every film, allowing us to follow the state of their eternal argument at every step. We see his friendship with Mystique grow and fall, we see Wolverine call him out on his bullshit, his attempt to make young Hank and Mystique feel better about their visible mutations, we know how he treats his followers, his new recruits, his enemies, his students, his wife and his daughter, (daughters, if we count The Gifted and his legacy), his colleagues, his lovers, his ex-lovers, allies and former allies, politicians, police, prison guards, Nazis, soldiers, insane Egyptian gods – and we get to learn his feelings and thoughts about all of these through personal interactions, decisions and gestures. And in turn we know how they feel about Magneto. What do we know about Loki’s feelings about people outside his family? How does he feel about Fandral? What are his thoughts on the Valkyrior? How did his views on Frost Giants change and when? Did he challenge them at all or did he just become cynical about them? 

As I said, Loki is a formidable villain but I think that he suffers from the same problem as many MCU characters: We hardly know them. Think about Natascha whose been part of the franchise since Iron Man 2 but we hardly know anything about her. How much do we know about the family Drax lost? Or about Wanda’s family? About Pepper’s private life? We hardly know anything about them and especially when characters are thousands of years old and we know nothing about their past, it really creates a gaping hole in their biography and that really leads back to my original point: If we could spend more time with them, we would know them better and care more. One of the reason Dark Phoenix is a bit under-whelming is because we know very little about Jean and Scott in this time line. 

There are two DCEU films I actually own and watched more than once: Wonder Woman and Aqua Man. And while I personally didn’t find Aqua Man that good, this film actually tells us a lot about him and despite my lack of knowledge about the DCEU and me being a giant Marvel nerd, I preferred Wonder Woman over Captain Marvel and that is because I felt closer to her character. It really boils down to a “show don’t tell issue” and for me, that would mean: Maybe fewer giant CGI battles. more people living their lives. *(which should also highlight why setting Magneto as a mark for K.B. is so off-mark. Loki is about unmasking hypocrisy, Magneto himself is a hypocrite who regards himself as a hero but often does immoral things and that for example gets unmasked by Wolverine, another social outsider with littl care for social conventions)

[justanothercinemaniac]

Epic Movie (Re)Watch #167 - X-Men (2000)

(GIF source unknown [if this is your GIF please let me know].)

Spoilers Below

Have I seen it before: Yes

Did I like it then: Yes.

Do I remember it: Yes.

Did I see it in theaters: No.

Format: Blu-ray

1) Xavier’s opening monologue is not only a great way to set up this individual film, but the now-17-year-old franchise which followed.

Prof. X: “Mutation: it is the key to our evolution. It has enabled us to evolve from a single-celled organism into the dominant species on the planet. This process is slow, and normally taking thousands and thousands of years. But every few hundred millennia, evolution leaps forward.”

2) The very first scene in this film is young Magneto in a Polish concentration camp and I have to say it works absolutely fantastically.

For one thing it creates immediate sympathy for what is essentially the villain of the peace, but more than that it sets the tone for the entire series. Not just the dark tone but the idea that mutants are representative of the oppressed. When the comics were first released in the 60s the parallels were between the Civil Rights Movement, nowadays you can see parallels with the gay community and islamophobia. That is because oppression, intolerance, and bigotry are essentially the same no matter who it is directed at.

3) The introduction to Anna Paquin’s Rogue continues to set the dark tone of the film, as well as Rogue’s key conflict in a simple and understandable way.

4) The government hearing.

The hatred, fear, and oppression seen in this scene should not be as relevant in 2017 as it is. Senator Kelly’s arguments about, “Well we do license people to drive,” is based on fear and fear alone. He is scared but justifies his fear by making other people afraid. Asking a human being to register for being different is undeniably unconstitutional. And the filmmakers are aware that America has seen this play out before.

Senator Kelly: “I have here a list of names of identified mutants...”

Senator Joseph McCarthy [an actual historical figure who instigated the Red Scare in the 1950s]: “I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party”

Good, just wait until I do my recap for Good Night, and Good Luck. I’ll have some things to say about Joseph fucking McCarthy then.

5) The relationship between Charles and Erik is - like all the best elements in this film - clearly established from their introduction to the audience.

Erik: “I’ve heard these arguments before.”

We understand that they’re friends, we understand that they both think they have the best interests of their people (mutants) at heart, but most painfully we understand exactly WHY they both go about their revolution through different methods. It is a relationship which will remain consistent and interesting throughout the series.

6) Ian McKellen as Magneto.

(GIF originally posted by @marveladdicts)

There are a number of standout casting decisions made in this film which will stay strong even in the weaker entires of this series, and Ian McKellen is definitely one of them. Unless you’re The Joker, a good villain does not see himself as the villain. Magneto does nothing out of cruelty or malice, he does so for one clear end goal: the superiority of mutant kind. You understand why he goes to drastic measures, even if you don’t agree with him. McKellen is able to consistently make Erik human. The sadness, the determination, the focus, everything that makes this character amazing in the comics, McKellen carries onscreen. A truly brilliant choice which will give us many great scenes to come.

7) Anna Paquin as Rogue.

Rogue is markedly more different than she is in the comics, but I don’t have as much of an issue with that as others do (at least, not in this film). She’s a bit more timid, a bit more scared, which is very human of her and helps the audience sympathize with her. Paquin plays the part remarkably well, carrying Rogue’s pain and conflict well in her performance.

8) Hugh Jackman as Wolverine.

Hugh Jackman is the standout element of this film and one of the most perfect examples of comic book casting in the history of cinema. The guy played the part for SEVENTEEN years. Even in weaker X-Men films Jackman’s Wolverine is remarkably consistent. He IS Wolverine. The aggression, the ferocity, the isolation, the pain, the instinct, Jackman captures it all beautifully. But more than that, we explore who Wolverine becomes when we throw him together with other people. We see who he becomes just as he learns who he becomes when he has other mutants relying on him. It’s a remarkable journey to see him not only go through this film but all seventeen years of playing this character. You are not watching Hugh Jackman, this is not a performance. This is Wolverine. Living, breathing, pure, Wolverine. And whatever shortcomings the X-Men series has had throughout its years, Jackman’s Wolverine has always been perfect.

9) This line always stuck with me.

(GIF originally posted by @filmeslut)

This relates very well to the pain Wolverine deals with everyday. Most living creatures go through enough pain they do. Wolverine’s mutation means he lives with his pain on a daily basis. He HAS to. Dying is not an option for him. That is very defining for his character.

10) The fight with Wolverine and Sabretooth does a lot of things well. To start, it’s the first action scene of the film and - while brief - it establishes the strong choreography to come. Second, we immediately see a juxtaposition between Wolverine and the rest of the X-Men as he is more feral in his fighting style while Cyclops and Storm are much more uniform. Finally, it establishes the rivalry between Wolverine and Sabretooth. Something which is a staple of the comics, this rivalry doesn’t get too much time to develop in the film but it is established in small yet meaningful ways. I’m glad they at least did that as opposed to nothing.

11) Logan trying to escape Xavier’s mansion is actually wildly clever. It establishes the geography of the school without letting the audience know. Instead we follow Wolverine as he’s trying to escape this strange place and in the process get the layout of the new world he’s in. Very clever.

12) Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier.

Similar to McKellen’s Magneto, we are able to see the complexities of Xavier’s character through Stewart’s performance. We understand the pain he went through as a child, we understand how he has/is searching for hope for the future. We see the soft sorrow he carries mixed in with this optimism and the struggle he carries to put stock in hope over pain. It’s a wonderful character who - like Jackman - Stewart will get to play for 17 years.

13) If you want any further proof that Hugh Jackman is great as Wolverine:

Logan [after Xavier gives exposition about the X-Men and such]: “Sabretooth? Storm. What do they call you? Wheels?”

At least the last part of that line was improvised, but it is so perfectly Wolverine it fits.

14) The introduction to the Xavier school from a storytelling standpoint (as opposed to just a geography standpoint) is very slick and clean. We’re getting a lot of exposition about Professor X, the X-Men, and the world of mutants in not a lot of time. But it doesn’t dog down the film and we are not bored by it.

15) Ah, the future continuity issues begin...

“When I was 17, I met a young named named Erik Lenscher...”

They seem a little older than 17 to me...

16) Rebecca Romijn as Mystique.

Romijn’s part as Mystique is largely a physical performance, but that does not mean it isn’t an iconic one. Before Jennifer Lawrence would put on the blue skin paint, Romijn would define who Mystique was on screen for all to come. She is able to portray the character’s passion, focus, physical strength, and shiftiness with just a movement. She doesn’t have many lines, but the ones she does have leave an impact.

Mystique [to Kelly]: “You know people like you are the reason I was afraid to go to school as a child.”

17) Magneto knows what’s up.

Magneto: “Mankind has always feared what it doesn’t understand.”

18) Famke Janssen as Jean Grey.

Janssen plays Jean well not only in this film but as she develops over the trilogy. Despite not having the flashiest/most aggressive of powers like Wolverine or even Cyclops, she’s able to hold her own with the rest of the team. She’s confident, competent, but still able to be vulnerable when the story calls for it and has no ego. A strong character actress with a strong character to fit her roll, I am glad for Janssen in this film.

19) James Marsden as Cyclops.

(GIF originally posted by @hughxjackman)

Okay, so I’ve got a handful of issues with how Cyclops is handled in the original trilogy. Not through Marsden’s performance or through his characterization, but more because of a lack of things to do in the plot. However, those issues do not pertain to this film (wait until I get to my Last Stand recap). Although Marsden’s Scott Summers/Cyclops is largely used as a foil to Jackman’s Wolverine, we get to see him in action and lead the X-Men later in battle (like he does in the comics). This film doesn’t peel back too much more than, “Wolverine pisses me off,” but we do get to see Marsden play a caring and competent leader when Wolverine is not in the picture. How he searches for Rogue, the way he handles the team on Liberty Island, Marsden plays all of this great. You understand why Scott is the leader of the team through his conduct and confidence, both things Marsden shows off very well.

20) Hey, remember back when Stan Lee cameos in Marvel movies were, “blink and you’ll miss it?”

21) So Logan straight up kills Rogue when she wakes him up from a nightmare. Like he’d be dead if it weren’t for her mutant ability. And after she does it to save her life she is met by fear and caution from her fellow students initially. And then Mystique disguised as Bobby comes to her and reprimands her. Tells her students are afraid of her, that Xavier is furious and looking to kick her out. How much must that hurt? Like, “Here’s a place where I can be me. Where other people are as weird as I am and where I can be accepted.” And then that’s taken away from her. It’s pulled out from under her feet because people are afraid of her, a feeling which is importantly all too familiar to her at this point. She let her guard down and - even though it wasn’t true and it wasn’t really Bobby - she was so ready to believe the world had turned on her AGAIN. That just...sucks.

22) Charles acting like he doesn’t know how Erik is hiding from his telepathy takes on new meaning in a post First Class world. It is probably easiest attributed to another error in continuity, but my head canon is that Charles is covering for Erik a little in the never dying hope that he’ll do the right thing.

23) Halle Berry as Storm.

I have never loved Berry as Storm, but that’s more because of The Last Stand than anything else. I think I like her best in this film, which is unfortunate because it is where she has the least to do. She’s a bit kinder, a bit more even tempered, wiser and more soulful than she comes off in the sequels. And the keeping of her original accent is a nice touch (I was disappointed to lose that in the sequels). But again, that’s all there’s really to say about her because she doesn’t get much time to shine in this film.

24) The relationship with Wolverine and Rogue is one of my favorite things about this film. These are the two most isolated characters in the film and they’re able to find solace in each other. Logan acts as the big brother/mentor to Rogue, familiar with the loneliness she feels for 15 years. Meanwhile Rogue finds comfort in someone who’s actually going to look after her. This is best seen on the train after Rogue runs away, where Logan leaves the decision up to Rogue. He’s not there to bring her back, he’s not there to pressure her into doing something she doesn’t want, he gives his two cents but will go wherever she wants to. He’s got her back.

Logan: “Come on. I’ll take care of you.”

If there’s one thing I miss most as the series progresses, it is this wonderful relationship between the pair.

25) According to IMDb:

The scene in the train station where a young boy smiles at Cyclops and he smiles back was unplanned. The boy was a huge X-Men fan, and Cyclops was his favorite. The scene originally called for Cyclops to look at the train schedule, but according to Bryan Singer, the boy could not stop smiling at James Marsden. Finally, during one shot, Marsden just looked back at him and smiled, much to the boy's delight. Bryan Singer liked the idea so much, he kept it in the film, and told the actress playing the boy's mother to react the way she did.

(GIF source unknown [if this is your GIF please let me know].)

26) And so it begins...

Magneto [upon encountering Wolverine]: “That remarkable metal doesn’t run through your entire body, does it?”

27) The scene with Magneto, the police, and Charles in the background is something I really enjoy. This is primarily because it is more a conflict between Charles and Magneto than anything else. I was taught in an early film class that if one character can walk away and not be devastated, the stakes aren’t high enough. I think that is the key to this scene. It’s all about stakes. What exactly are Charles and Erik willing to do, willing to sacrifice, all to get what they want? Seeing that play out is wonderful.

28) The fact that Storm stays with Senator Kelly while he dies, holds his hand, talks with him, even after all he’s done, speaks to a wisdom she has that is totally lost in X-Men: The Last Stand (but more on that when I get there).

Kelly: “Do you hate normal people?”

Storm: “Sometimes.”

Kelly: “Why?”

Storm: “I suppose I’m afraid of them.”

The fact she can admit that she hates those who oppress her sometimes is great. Because of course you would hate those who ruin your life! But not letting that hate define who you are is an incredible thing.

29) There is a brief moment where Cyclops is seen distraught over a comatose Professor X, which I think is very telling of their relationship in a way we will (unfortunately) not see again in this set of three films. It speaks to the depths of admiration he has for what is essentially his father figure.

30) One thing the Marvel Cinematic Universe can learn from this film: how to create a great villain in two hours.

Magneto [with Rogue, upon seeing the Statue of Liberty]: “I first saw it in 1949. America was going to be the land of tolerance. Of peace.”

Magneto [about the Holocaust]: “Women and children, whole families destroyed just because they were different than those in power.”

31) I love this.

Wolverine [about the uniforms]: “You actually go outside in these things?”

Cyclops: “Well what would you prefer? Yellow spandex?”

32) This is one of my favorite scenes in the entire franchise.

(GIFs originally posted by @soundsofmyuniverse)

I was about twelve when I saw this film for the first time. I really got comfortable using my middle finger after this scene. And too this day, every time I extend my middle finger, it is just SO cathartic. I may or may not be exclusively typing with only my middle fingers now.

33) Ladies and gentlemen, one of the greatest bloopers in cinematic history.

34) Logan’s fight with Mystique is incredible and reflects some of the incredibly strong solo choreography he will get as the film continues. It is fast paced, enticing, and plays with the concept of a shapeshifter very well (even giving us some GREAT misdirection right before Logan defeats Mystique, since at first we think he’s Mystique when he stabs Storm only to have Storm be Mystique all along).

35) You know how X-Men never stay dead? No? Well Toad does.

Toad [after thinking he killed Storm]: “Don’t you people ever die!?”

36) Oh boy...

That is a line crafted by Joss Whedon after Fox asked him to help iron out the script (one of only two lines of his that made it into the final film). According to the famed writer, he had intended it to be much more tongue in cheek than it was finally delivered as. To this day, it is considered one of the worst cheesiest lines to grace a superhero film ever. Moving on.

37) This was the other line of Whedon’s which made it into the film, and I fucking love it.

Wolverine [returning to the team, only for Cyclops to point his eye beams at him]: “Hey, hey. It’s me.”

Cyclops [thinking he’s Mystique]: “Prove it.”

(GIFs source unknown [if these are your GIFs please let me know].)

38) You know what trope I love more than any others? At least, I’m pretty sure it’s my favorite. When the antagonist’s self righteous behavior gets called out.

Wolverine [to Magneto]: “You are so full of shit. If you were really so righteous it would by you in that thing.”

39) The final fight between Logan and Sabretooth is another strong action set piece in the film, with the use of place (the top of the Statue of Liberty) used greatly. These two are very similar in styles, in ferocity, and it’s fun to see them duke it out.

40) The final dialogue between Charles and Erik is powerful for a lot of reasons. It harkens back to the core conflict of their relationship/dissonance in philosophies, while also reminding the audience that all the problems of the world have not been solved and will have to be dealt with in the future.

Magneto: Does it ever wake you in the middle of the night? The feeling that one day they will pass that foolish law or one just like it, and come for you? And your children?

Xavier: It does, indeed.

Magneto: What do you do, when you wake up to that?

Xavier: I feel a great swell of pity for the poor soul who comes to that school... looking for trouble.

X-Men is a strong start to what would end up being one of the defining franchises of the 21st century. With great performances all around - specifically Jackman, McKellen, and Stewart - as well as reverence for the source material and a powerful tone, X-Men stands up to the test of time because of it’s characters and (unfortunately always) relevant themes of bigotry and bias. A film everyone should try at least once.