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mygif

I never liked Emma Frost as a character to begin with. So I don’t blame Jones for underplaying her.

My biggest problem with the movie is that they killed the black dude first. AGAIN.

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They had a black x-man?

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Well, I don’t think the black guy technically lived long enough to be considered an X-Man. He would have probably been ridiculously overpowered if he had lived though. Like comic-version Rogue overpowered.

Totally great movie though. Even if Jones was woefully miscast. Betty Draper and Emma Frost may be similar, but they shouldn’t be the same person.

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@Zenrage Not anymore. 😉

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Mark Temporis said on June 5th, 2011 at 2:55 am

Looking on the cast list, I’m a bit puzzled: they have someone I’ve not heard of as Stryker Sr., but the great Michael Ironside as uncredited Captain?!

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Wait, hold on, this is actually GOOD? Because all the previews made it look like shit.

Fuck. Guess I know what I’m doing tomorrow.

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@Murc, Early critic reviews were glowing. Flick Filosopher was practically giddy, but she has a huge crush on the guys who played Charles and Erik so…

@Mark Temporis, I know. We sat through the end credits and we only saw him listed as M. Ironside. I’m going “Dude we know your first name is Michael! We saw you in V! And Scanners! And you were the voice of Darkseid for the DCAU! CMON MAN!”

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@Mark: This might enter spoiler territory, but Ironside plays a fairly lengthy role with no reason to give him a name, but Stryker is just addressed in passing.

It was really good to see Ironside though. I can’t remember the last time I saw him in something new.First Class was good for that, really. A collection of fine character actors rotating around the central cast.

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kingderella said on June 5th, 2011 at 11:46 am

good to know this doesnt suck. it has been a while since one could say that about an x-related movie.

january jones is perfect as betty draper and has done some pretty impressive work in that role. but i had a sneking suspicion that she might not be able to pull off emma frost. both characters can be described as ‘icy’ and ‘bitchy’, but they have really two very different personalities.

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I’m glad it wasn’t just me that thought January Jones was soulless in the role. She could have gone a lot of ways with it: Bond Girl, Ice Queen haughty. I don’t think she went any way at all.

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To be (slightly) fair to January Jones, the script didn’t bring the drollness I’ve come to expect from Emma Frost. On the other hand, Jones brought zero charisma to the role.

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Mary Warner said on June 5th, 2011 at 2:22 pm

I agree with Murc. All the previews I’ve seen look horrible.

But every review I’ve seen so far has been full of praise.

They should fire whoever is responsible for the trailers.

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mygif

What a mess timeline wise. Not worth it to me. Also I am biased, I hate Xmen.

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nickyank said on June 5th, 2011 at 2:57 pm

I don’t think it was a mess, timeline wise, at least not in the continuity of the previous films (except for Emma Frost appearing as a youngster in the Wolverine film). In fact, I thought how continuiy was weaved together was pretty amazing.

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mygif

Nah it really screws with the timeline. Alex would be old enough to be Scott’s father. The movie stayed true to the comics time frame, but forgets that the timeline has slid since then. It still works excellently though with the exception of that.

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nickyank said on June 5th, 2011 at 4:01 pm

Well, there’s no mention of the fact that Alex is Scott’s brother – quite possibly he is Scott’s father. Lets face it, I somehow doubt the films would ever include Scott’s real father… 🙂 and in fact the whole Summer’s family tree is something that could quite happily be thrown out for the better.

I’m pretty sure the only characters in this from the previous films are Prof X, Magneto, Beast and Mystique (+1 other cameo and the mention of Stryker), who all fit in nicely with the other films.

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mygif

Without having seen it, so therefore not knowing if it gets explained away later, don’t we see Beast pre-blue fur in later movies?

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nickyank said on June 5th, 2011 at 4:41 pm

Yeah, he’s seen on a tv in X-Men 2 – but the Beast in Marvel continuity has changed back and forth from normal to blue (as well as using an image inducer) so I have no problem with that.

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Doesn’t ‘First Class’ contradict the flashback at the beginning of ‘X3’? I haven’t seen it the new film yet, but from what I know of the premise of the movie, that seems to be the main movie continuity sticking point, and not the Emma Frost cameo in ‘Wolverine’.

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Allegretto said on June 5th, 2011 at 8:35 pm

Why does everyone find this such a good movie? I went to an advanced screening and, while I didn’t find it bad, could not say i found it so good either.

It’s okay. A fun, competent movie, but in no way great (not just because it’s not anything impressive, I feel it has some important shortcomings too). X-Men 2 is still the best one of the bunch, in my opinion.

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I’m trying to think of who would really have been a good Emma- who has both the look and the sharpness. Hard to say.

I didn’t think this was the best X-Men movie, but it’s a return to form. There was a genuine effort made as opposed to the last two cash grabs.

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Reynaldo Kamal Cruz said on June 5th, 2011 at 8:55 pm

Along with every one else, I too didn’t care for Emma Frost. What I haven’t heard yet is anyone that thought Mystique was terrible also. Let me be the first to say that I thought Mystique was terrible also.

Otherwise, well done overall.

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@Evan

The only person I can think of who could play Emma Frost is Andrea Thompson, twenty years ago.

I’m sure there are others, but damned if I can think of them.

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I’m still leaning toward X2 as my personal favorite, but this one gets pretty high up there. Not without it’s flaws, but entertaining and rarely has any outright insults to the audience’s intelligence (see Wolverine for a litany of these).

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nickyank said on June 6th, 2011 at 4:15 am

@AJ – yeah, good point, the beginning of X3 does contradict First Class; I had forgotten that. However, its only a minor point. Besides which, if they go ahead with plans to make one in the 70s, and one in the 80s they might clear that up. Or they might just ignore it, which is good too 🙂

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nickyank said on June 6th, 2011 at 4:18 am

I think this is probably my favourite X-Men film, simply because it *is* an X-Men film, rather than another film focussing on Wolverine…

Much as I loved this film, and Michael Fassbender, they really need a different mutant bad guy in the next film.

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Urthman said on June 6th, 2011 at 9:21 am

The worst part was …

[SPOILERS!]

… Xavier holding Shaw immobile so that Erik could kill him. In traditional X-Men morality, Xavier would risk letting Shaw regain the upper hand to prevent Erik from committing murder. (Remember Logan giving Rachel a mortal wound to prevent her from killing Selene?)

Also bad:

* In this continuity Magneto has suffered his greatest loss at the hands of another mutant. He ends up adopting the moral code of the Nazi doctor who killed his mom.

* Xavier is Mystique’s adopted sister and lifelong friend but abandons him when he’s been shot and possibly mortally wounded.

* Azazel forgets he can teleport to safety when a thousand missiles are about to fall on his head.

* Use of one of the worst comic conventions — characters so godlike that the rest of the cast just stands there helplessly while they have a dramatic climactic scene.

On the other hand, best use of the 1 F-bomb PG-13 quota ever.

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1. He was not holding Shaw immobile for Erik to murder. He was pleading with Erik NOT to kill him and knew if he let Shaw free, Erik was dead.
2. Your point about the ‘adopting Shaw’s code?’ Shaw wasn’t a Nazi, either.
3. Azazel didn’t teleport. He might have still. There’s a difference.
4. Charles told Raven to go with Erik.

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The problem for me is… January Jones’ Emma Frost is only one of at least a half-dozen things I can’t get past. Which is a shame, as all of the gushing reviews have at least made me a bit intrigued, but, everything taken together leads me to conclude “rental” rather than “see in theaters”. There are a LOT of movies I want to see on the big screen this summer; I have to make choices.

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I admit I was a little let down by the glowing reviews. This was good, but not amazing. MacAvoy (sp?) carried this movie, as did Fassbender (pretty much par for this splendid man) and it was fabulous any time they were on screen. It was also a downfall because any time they *weren’t*, the charisma was kind of sucked out of the movie.

My biggest problem with the movie was that it was a series of scenes. There was so much location jumping … not much felt like it was allowed to breathe and develop.

The cameos were of course fun. The theatre even hooted when Ironside showed up onscreen.

X2 is still, definitely, the best Xmen movie. I know for sure because I went home after seeing First Class yesterday and re-watched it. BAMF!

Also, anything that contradicts X3 is OK by me.

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The Unstoppable Gravy Express said on June 6th, 2011 at 12:53 pm

I don’t get all the X2 love, especially as it cumulated in all the X-Men grouped together saying “oh no, a wall of water! How can we possibly deal with this except for the 30,000 WAYS WE ALREADY HAVE TO DEAL WITH IT?!?!??” (you know, like teleporting and flying and force beams and the ability to FREEZE WATER and so on and so on)

I felt X3 was the only movie where the characters consistently remembered they HAD POWERS and used them whenever it was helpful. The only one until now, anyway!

Fassbender = awesome
January Jones = atrocious
everyone else = good
Hugh Jackman = YAY

Didn’t Michael Ironside’s character have a nametag on his uniform? Did anyone catch it?

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Mark Temporis said on June 6th, 2011 at 3:05 pm

Darwin didn’t seem that absurdly powerful; he’s in the comics continuity too. Really what he is, is Nemesis Kid from LSH. Kind of powerful up until he’s not.

So, what, is this Azazel guy Nightcrawler’s father?

It really was a James Bond movie with superpowers. All it needed was a opening theme and montange: “Born This Way”, maybe?

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@Mark Temporis
In the comics, yes, Azazel is Nightcrawler’s father.

And one comment in this series of comments has demonstrated yet again someone who wants the movies to follow the overly complicated history of the comic books. WHY? Why would you want to try and make a movie out of the Summers Family Tree, or the sliding timeline which confuses most people anyhow? Is it really that difficult to comprehend that the movies are basing much of their stories and characters on events from the comic books, but they do not have to adhere to everything that has happened in the books, because, shocker, the people seeing these movies, aside from us, have not read the comics.

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Of all the villains , they use Azazel.
One of the guys that I refuse to acknowledge as existing in cannon & he gets the movie (only good thing Austen did was the Juggernaut…in 2 stories)
Oh well! c’est la vie. a shame they never tried to make Mystique look like a sexy blue woman instead of a lizard woman hybrid thing (Michael Mayhew drew such an awesome Raven that I’m kinda confused they didn’t use that design)

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And one comment in this series of comments has demonstrated yet again someone who wants the movies to follow the overly complicated history of the comic books. WHY? Why would you want to try and make a movie out of the Summers Family Tree, or the sliding timeline which confuses most people anyhow?

I’m gonna assume that’s a shot across my bow and retaliate thusly.

I never said anything about them making a movie adhering to the Summer Family tree. I simply pointed it out. As a matter of fact, someone pointed out an excellent move to simply cast Alex as Scott’s father which works.

Don’t pop in on your high horse of “JUST WATCH THE MOVIE” when it wasn’t demonstrated that it was much of an issue for me.

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I thought the movie was quite good except for two points:

(**SPOILERS AHOY**)

1. Erik didn’t even TRY to kill the doctor after the doctor murdered his mother. Obviously with Shaw’s power-set he wouldn’t have been able to, but Erik didn’t know that at the time. But the fact that he didn’t even try–after killing both guards no less–was just stupid. Painfully, jarringly stupid.

2. The CGI of the submarine crashing into the beach was markedly terrible compared to all the other CGI in the film. I wonder if a separate company did that shot. :\

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Cookie McCool said on June 6th, 2011 at 5:22 pm

Good call on Andrea Thompson as Emma Frost. She would’ve been absolutely perfect back in the day.

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SPOILERS FOLLOW

@Zach Shaw wasn’t a Nazi, either.

Shaw wasn’t a Nazi? He wore a Nazi uniform, worked for at least a year at Auschwitz, fled to Argentina with other Nazis, conducted hideous medical experiments, and killed an innocent Jew. Her certainly shared the results of some experiments with the other Nazis, and somehow I don’t think Erik’s mother was the only Jew/Gypsy/Homosexual/Disabled Person whom he killed in the camp.

He was a Nazi.

The Shaw character would have made a lot more sense to me if they’d just gone with it –if he had justified his (otherwise capricious) execution of Darwin with a racist comment. Bacon was good in the role — but Shaw didn’t work for me as a character at all.

1) Shaw’s evil plan — his grand idea — is to nuke civilization and then mutants will rule. This is the stupidest plan in comic movie history. Luthor “land scam” in Superman Returns is brilliant by comparison. Here’s a hint Shaw — underwear clad ladies are a lot less sexy with radiation sickness and third degree burns from fallout.

2) Comics Shaw was cool because he could toss around Nightcrawler and Wolverine like dolls and go toe-to-toe with Colussus. Movie Shaw — his absorption of power was kind of cool, but his projection of power was pretty much the same power set as the Energizer. “I’m going to conquer the world with the power of a pigtailed 8-year old girl.” Comics Shaw is also cool because he is devious and you can see why the Hellfire Club would follow him. Movies are allowed to be different, yes, but if they are not as good, they pay the price.

3) Like Tim Burton’s Batman (where Joker killed the Waynes) or Spider Man 3 (where Flint Marko killed Uncle Ben), having Shaw be the Nazi who killed Erik’s mother, and later the main villain, is a cheap way of driving emotion into the story. I was so happy when Nolan fixed that in his batverse. Now it’s all over the Xverse forever.

4) What was the point of the “Shaw absorbs the reactor energy” bit? In the end he was defeated mostly by a broken “groovy 70’s mirror wall”. Did he use that energy for anything? For an evil mastermind who’d accumulated a lot of power in 2 decades, he didn’t really have a lot of strategy.

Don’t let my grumpiness ruin it for the rest of you, but I would place this 4th out of 5 — better only than Wolverine. Also weak:

If Angel was that prone to treachery, why would Charles have recruited her? He can read minds.
Unmutated Beast didn’t seem to have any powers but the feet powers. Where the superstrength and inborn agility?
Why didn’t Banshee, Havok, and Beast try and stop Magneto when he was controlling the missiles? (and don’t say because Azazel Riptide and Buggirl were there — Havok or Banshee could have dropped all three in less than a second).
Lots of things were not invented in 1962 but rubber bullets are not among them. Moira would not have tried to shoot Erik with metal.
I hated Darwin’s death, I did. It took me out of the movie and the movie never got me back.
How did Azazel manage to survive five seconds fighting a group that included Erik? Do not bring a sword to fight Magneto. Also, Azazel sucks in general.
My brother can say “go with that guy” all he wants but if he’s just been shot in the spine, I’m staying. They could have and should have had Raven go to Magneto at the school scene with Moira and Charles. If for no other reason than that I am not going anywhere with with 3 Nazi collaborators who were trying to kill me 5 minutes ago. Especially if I have to freaking hold hands with them.
Was I the only one who wanted Piotr Rasputin’s dad to come off the Russian ship, metal up, and snap Riptide’s neck? Probably…

Wow, what a geeky rant. I felt sad and disappointed at the end of this movie. My hopes are high for Cap!

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No, Shaw was NOT a Nazi. He worked for the Nazis to further his own goals, but he was not a member of the Nazi party, as he more or less told Erik. If you think he should have been ‘racist towards Darwin,’ I kind of wonder what you were watching when he expressed contempt for the Nazi ideal of racial purity. For him, there was only Mutant/non mutant and the Nazis were a means to an end.

And seriously, please? Mutants would survive the deaths of humanity. More mutants would rise from it. That line about burn scars makes little sense.

And yes, Shaw didn’t use his power…because he was INTERRUPTED. He had a strategy. It was cut short. And how would Charles know from mind reading that Angel might join Shaw? No, seriously, what sense does that make? You can’t always know how people can act at certain times.

Nextly, did you also miss Erik effortlessly knocking away the others when they tried to stop them? Or Azazel not fighting Erik who was bus elsewhere? Why would Moira pack along rubber bullets? Did she expect Erik to go psycho? And Raven WANTED to go with Erik. Charles gave her permission. Erik admitted he even believed in Shaw’s supremacist ideology…Shaw killed his mother, so Shaw had to die. And again: Shaw was not a Nazi. He made that clear in the opening minutes of the film.

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@Zach — like I said, don’t let me spoil it for you. I think you’re wrong on pretty much every point, and you think I’m wrong, whatever.

But…Shaw was lying. He wore the uniform, did experiemnts, and murdered at Auschwicz. That is a Nazi.

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Sofa King said on June 7th, 2011 at 12:51 am

Unmutated Beast didn’t seem to have any powers but the feet powers. Where the superstrength and inborn agility? He didn’t have a chance to show them while he worked for the govn’ment, and afterwards he didn’t have any action. He mainly used his brain till the big fight and then he had the boost of his new self.

And the Nazis were just a means to an end for him. If he’d been working in a Russian gulag, it would have been the same to him. Magneto adopted his code because he was young and traumatized. Like a sort of Stockholm syndrome.

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“@Zach — like I said, don’t let me spoil it for you. I think you’re wrong on pretty much every point, and you think I’m wrong, whatever.

But…Shaw was lying. He wore the uniform, did experiments, and murdered at Auschwicz. That is a Nazi.”

Okay, what do you think a ‘Nazi’ is? Shaw was pretty obviously not a Nazi. He worked with them. He used them as a means to an end. He was, however, likely not a member of the National Socialist party and disparaged the Nazis, calling their ideas of purity absurd.

Quite a few of your points are simply a result of not seeing what the movie actively gave you.

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Count me in with those who like it slightly less than X2, and also as one who was startled by the bad portrayal of Emma Frost, but nobody’s addressed the other big problem I had with the movie: the final scene. The creation of Magneto was not the be-all of the movie, and it had a very horrible Star Wars III-like feel to it.

I also feel like Vaughn got a little overwhelmed by the climactic scene and I’m a little confused as to why Singer didn’t direct in addition to writing.

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@Quixon
Sorry to have not been clear, but i was not aiming anything at you. I was using the example that you used, but i wasn’t targeting you. Sorry for that.

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“@Evan

The only person I can think of who could play Emma Frost is Andrea Thompson, twenty years ago.

I’m sure there are others, but damned if I can think of them.”

Well, if we can go back in time than Uma Thurman in her 20s/30s, because she actually has that East Coast upper class background and could have the right voice. Maybe she could be the “present day” version.

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Why didn’t Banshee, Havok, and Beast try and stop Magneto when he was controlling the missiles?

I had this thought too, but then I realized you basically have a group of schoolkids watching their 2 mentors having a fight and not knowing what to do. Magneto did just save them from getting killed by those missiles. I’d have been hesitant to attack the only guy standing between me and those warships.

But I agree that it made no sense for Raven to happily go off with the people who killed Dawin, who were trying to kill her and her friends, the guy who just crippled her brother.

And I agree with you about Shaw. Didn’t he rebuke one of his henchmen, telling them not to kill other mutants? And then he kills Darwin?

And if they had paid more attention to the whole ’60s setting, surely someone would have made a comment about Darwin being black. It would have seemed natural coming from Shaw — yes he was a Nazi, working with the Nazis in the camps makes you a Nazi. If “I was just following orders” is no excuse, “I had my own agenda” certainly isn’t.

On the other hand, I loved the fact that Xavier used the “innocent men on those ships just following orders” line, saying exactly the wrong thing to push the wrong buttons with Erik. Almost as if Xavier wasn’t used to being tactful without being able to use telepathy to help.

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CommenCzar said on June 8th, 2011 at 7:59 am

Do destructive political ideologies spread by osmosis now? Would a guy who worked at a Soviet Gulag spontaneously start quoting Karl Marx never having read him because working there “made” him a Communist? Or are we just using “Nazi” as a generic insult?

The camps would never had been built without the Nazi ideology, but they would also never had been built without the support of tens of thousands with interest at all in Nazi ideology; petty criminals, political opportunists, amoral bureaucrats…

One of the most important lessons of the research into how the camps could at all function was that many, if not most, participants and collaborators were not actually Nazis. To ignore this and call everyone involved a Nazi is a disservice to history and the important lessons in human nature it gives us, which we should keep in mind always if we are to make good on the “never again”…

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CommenCzar said on June 8th, 2011 at 8:01 am

Short version: you don’t have to be a Nazi to commit crimes against humanity, and committing such crimes will not automatically make you a Nazi, either. Such a reductive view will prevent a full understanding of history.

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Hank showed off his powers. He dangled off that Blackbird (X-Jet, whatever) model and did a few acrobatics. It wasn’t super heavy-handed, no.

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Shaw told his people not to kill mutants when he was still making the sales pitch. He killed Darwin because Darwin had betrayed him, as an object lesson to the rest of the FC who had chosen not to side with him.

And he straight up told the audience the reason why he wanted to start a nuclear war – he believed that increasing the amount of radiation would cause more children of the atom (mutants) to exist.

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Spafoom said on June 8th, 2011 at 9:16 pm

I saw someone upthread remark about how they were disappointed that they didn’t make Mystique a ‘sexy blue woman’. I for one am glad they didn’t. I thought that going for a slighty more agendered look was simply more visually interesting and unexpected.
But oh man I loved this movie and it’s use of the word ‘groovy’, it was just wonderful.

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The rumoured Rosamund Pike would have been a much better Emma Frost.

Strong movie, overall, apart from some supporting characters who are just kind of there (this only really becomes problematic when real plot points hinge on them, as with Angel’s defection, which happens way, way too quickly).

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Chalkwhite said on June 9th, 2011 at 3:05 am

Here’s my thing about Emma Frost’s portrayal: You can’t think of her as Emma Frost.

I mean, if you’ve read the comic books, you bring to this movie an entire understanding of who Emma Frost is and how she behaves, and that’s great. But think about Azazel in this film. In the comics, he’s an ancient demon/spirit/whatever the fuck Azazel is, with all these powers and he’s constantly sleeping with mutants and everything’s crazy. In the film, he’s Shaw’s servant who has a big-ass knife. In the same way, the film took the name, appearance and powers of an extremely complicated character, and turned her into another servant of Shaw’s, this time with telepathy and diamond skin.

I’m not saying that this was a good way to handle it, but I would be quicker to blame the writing than the acting. Given what they did the character, maybe “more sexually liberated Betty Draper” was precisely what they were looking for.

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Urthman said on June 9th, 2011 at 9:10 pm

you don’t have to be a Nazi to commit crimes against humanity, and committing such crimes will not automatically make you a Nazi

The original question is whether it would have been better characterization to portray Shaw as a racist. Lots of people were racists in that time and place. The fact that he was willing to work in the Nazi death camps, helping exterminate Jews among other things, that he was not morally outraged by this, seems like a pretty good reason to assume, yes he would more likely than not have been a racist, whether or not he was actual a member of the German National Socialist party.

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So is the story of Magneto’s training under Shaw and his eventual escape from the camp the subject of the next franchise?

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Joseph said: “1. Erik didn’t even TRY to kill the doctor after the doctor murdered his mother. Obviously with Shaw’s power-set he wouldn’t have been able to, but Erik didn’t know that at the time. But the fact that he didn’t even try–after killing both guards no less–was just stupid. Painfully, jarringly stupid.”

Erik had little control over his power at that point. Note that the two soldiers already had metal surrounding their skulls, all Erik had to do was vaguely crunch out of anger to kill. He couldn’t fling anything with any aim, just crush and flail object around without direction.

OK movie, fun but flawed in several ways. Certainly not better than the far more tense and credible X2.

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CommenCzar says One of the most important lessons of the research into how the camps could at all function was that many, if not most, participants and collaborators were not actually Nazis.

With all due respect, the movie itself contradicts this, when Erick says to the German men in Argentina that his family was killed by pharmacists and tailors.

Your presumption that Nazism is a mere philosophy to be discussed over beer and cigars in a Bayeruth beer garden seems to me ahistorical. Nazism was a philosophy; it was a also a political party, a political movement, a social movement and a military movement. Those who participated in its’ military and death camps were part of the political and military movement — and bloody well deserve the title of Nazis. Forgiveness and reconciliation are possible, but that’s really another discussion. Shaw never sought forgiveness — nor his Argentinian cohorts. Remember, in the movie itself, Erik did not know what the 2 Germans in the bar had done during the war. But he knew what they were. Nazis.

Others are free to disagree, but to me, if you were an officer at Auschwicz, if you were a member of the SS (and only SS were officers at Auschwiz), if you murdered innocents there — you were a Nazi.

Frankly I am stumped and stunned that people are rushing to defend an Auschwicz doctor against charges of Nazism. Because he was a mutant supremacist? Frankly, Shaw’s final plan, which would have killed a billion humans (and mutants also) was one no better than Hitler’s final solution in any understandable sense of morality —

Last his denials of Nazi affiliation were made when he was grooming a small frightened Jewish boy to be his willing subject in genetic experimentation. Even young Erik didn’t buy that — why should I?

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Prodigal says:
And he straight up told the audience the reason why he wanted to start a nuclear war – he believed that increasing the amount of radiation would cause more children of the atom (mutants) to exist.

Yes I heard that. And that’s why I called it the stupidest plan ever. A billion people, including most of the living mutants in Europe and North America, die — and mutants will rise out of the irradiated world?

Sure mutants would rise, but that doesn’t make the plan un-stupid. Shaw could not have known the nature of mutants born from the heavily irradiated future. Would they be homo superior or something else? Would they really follow the lead of the man who’d pretty much destroyed the world? Killed their forebearers in an awful way?

Ah well, if his plan had worked, those second generation mutants would at least have killed Shaw … there’s a plan I can admire…

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Prodigal said:
Shaw told his people not to kill mutants when he was still making the sales pitch. He killed Darwin because Darwin had betrayed him, as an object lesson to the rest of the FC who had chosen not to side with him.

You’re right, once the pitch was over, he was not as worried about killing mutants. But I’ve seen it twice now and you’re filling in gaps when you say he powerballed Darwin due to betrayal. Nothing in the movie gives us his motive. So my guess — he wants a mutant future w/o mutants who look like Darwin — is as good as any. (But yes, I think your guess is what the writers intended).

And why an object lesson for XFC? Why not just kill them with a big powerball right then?

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Candlejack said on June 12th, 2011 at 5:52 pm

Because he was still hoping to lure the rest of them over, I think. Darwin he clearly couldn’t trust; and even if Darwin had a genuine change of heart later–which seemed unlikely anyway–you just don’t let people into your inner circle who have already tried to betray you.

I don’t think it’s out of line to consider Shaw a Nazi, mind you–I doubt the people who suffered under the Reich really gave much of a damn what the individual personal beliefs were of the people who tried to destroy them–but I’m pretty sure his idea of racial purity was mutants-only, not Aryans-only. I mean, with the exception of Frost, his crew was not exactly filled with people a Nazi would want to hang out with. And he seemed pleased with who he got to defect: Angel and Darwin (when he thought Darwin was sincere), the only people of color on the X-team.

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Chalkwhite said on June 12th, 2011 at 7:11 pm

@Candlejack: Mystique is a “person of color” too!

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Eric S. Smith said on June 12th, 2011 at 11:44 pm

1. Shaw’s not a Nazi, he just had an office at their death camp? How would he even have gotten that position, except by doing Nazi stuff for a reasonable length of time? Complete philosophical commitment is a minor detail when your job description is “war criminal.”

2. Having no preconceived notions of Emma Frost as a character, I didn’t find her portrayal terrible. I thought that she and Shaw had a good casual villainy going on.

3. Rose Byrne spied in her underwear believably and with dignity.

4. Charles shafted Moira MacTaggert pretty badly, but to what end? Is the C.I.A. not just going to find him at the massive castle he lives in that’s been in his family for decades and was his childhood home? Hell, it’s probably in the phone book under “Xavier, C.”

5. Was there no plan to stop the missile ship? Magneto could surely have bent its rudder.

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Candlejack said on June 13th, 2011 at 4:56 am

Well, you got me there, Chalkwhite.

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“Mystique is a “person of color” too!”

Heh, but she’s played by white girls in all the movies. I guess what that means is real-life has far more resonance than the fictional in this regard.

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DuncePatrol said on June 15th, 2011 at 3:43 am

At X-Men FC tonight I was happy, THIS one seemed cool. Then, they killed the black guy…WTF? Darwin had one of the coolest powers. Why couldn’t he live? It’s not like they’re really sticking to the comic books anyway. Stan Lee purports to encourage acceptance, racist garbage like this makes him look like an ass. US movies just barely have people of color play regular folks not just “the black/Asian/Indian guy/gal”. That’s it! Hollywood can no longer kill the black people first (and NO substituting another non-white race either). I say we let Stan Lee, Matthew Vaughn and the rest know we want change, NOW.

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ImperatorMJ said on July 3rd, 2011 at 9:57 am

Kevin Bacon in an ascot bears a scary resemblance to Dick Cavett.

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