#the whole cyclops saga especially is just.... so so good

[ladysqueakinpip]

not me lying wide awake at 5:30am on a sunday on my day off bc after almost a full year I finally FINALLY realized the implication of the end of remember them from the cyclops saga

[ravenscamander]

To celebrate the one-month anniversary of EPIC: The Circe Saga I present to you:

Moments in EPIC: The Musical that make me go

Mhhhhhhhh

dundundundun dun dun dundundun alright my brothers listen closely

but now we'll be the ones who ~Slayyyyyy~

Penelopeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Penelopeeeeee

And TELEMACHUUUUUUUS

i couLD RAISE HIM AS MY OOOOOOOOOOOWN

The Blood On Your Hands Is Something You Won't Lose, All You Can Choose Is Whose

(literally all of Just A Man, that song will haunt me forever)

(but especially:)

how could I hurt youuuuuu

I'm just a man who's trying to go home even after all the years away from what I've known

I'm just a man who's fighting for his life, deep down I would trade the world to see my son and wife

the choir chorus. Just. All of it.

forGIIIIIIVE MEEEEEEEEEE

forgiiive meee

I'm juuuust aaaaa maaaaaaan

The Full Speed Ahead Instrumental Intro.

Six. Hundred. Men.

600 miles of open seaaaaaaa

But the problem's not the distance (it's what lies in between)

And Ithaca's waitiiiiiiing, my kingdom is waitiiiiiiiiiiiiiing, PENELOPE'S WAITIIIIIIIIIIIING for meeeeeee

That High Note™ on full speed aheeeeeaaaaad

Captain? EURYLOCHUS

Captain?Politeeees

GIVE ME TIL SUNRIIIIIIIIISE AND IF WE DON'T RETUUUUUUUURN

Then 600 men can make this whole place BURN

So full speed aHEEEEEEAAAAAAAAD

WE'RE UP WE'RE OFF AND AWAY WE GO

You can relax my friend (...what)

That High Note™ on Give it a try it's not that hard

STAY BACK (stay back...)

See? This life is amazing when you greet it with open arms (~ahhhhhh~)

A CAVE

East! (That way)

Thank you! (Welcome)

HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN THE LESSONS I TAUGHT YOU

LET. ME. REMIND YOU.

~Goddess of Wisdoooooom~

~Master of Waaaaaar~

i HAD a challenge, a TEST of skill, a magic BOAR only the best could kiiiiill

Little Odysseus's LET'S GO

I can see youuu HOW CAN YOU SEE THROUGH MY SPELL

I was lying! And you fell for my bluff! Hahahaha

Nahhh, don't be modest, I know you're a goddess, so let's be honest you are

ATHENAAA (athena!)

Badass in the arena! Unmatched, witty, and queen of the best strategies we've seen!

The duet harmonies in the second chorus! Fucking superb

Look at all this food! Look at all these sheep!

WHO ARE YOU

YOU KILLED MY SHEEP

banger cello solo

MY FAVOURITE SHEEP

Take from you as you took from meee

theRE'S BEEN A MISUNDERSTANDING

Wine?

A gift from you and a gift from meee

My name is noooobody, Noooooobody, Nooooobody (aka That High Note™ part 3)

I'm so glad we see eye to eye

...what?

WATCH OUT

POOOOOOOLYYYYYYYYYPHEEEEEEEEMUUUUUUUUS

PO!LY!PHE!MUS!

Six Hundred liiiiiives at stake, it's just one liiiiiiiife to take

Stay in his blinds while you striiiiiiike his heels (STRIKE THE HEELS)

Show him that we're deadly! (HAH! HAH!)

SIX HUNDRED LIIIIIIVES AT STAKE IT'S JUST ONE LIIIIIIIIFE TO TAKE (pt. 2 choir version)

*body tumbles across the ground* cap...tain...

banger cello solo pt.2 electric boogaloo

*electric guitar fades in* dundundundundundun dundundundundundun

But captain, what will we do with our fallen friends?

remember them

REMEMBER THEM

(let's kill him!)

Remember them (part 3 choir version)

SCATTER

It was noooooobody, Nooooobody, Noooooobody

If nobody hurt you be silent! (Don't go!)

HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN THE LESSONS I TAUGHT YOU (no.2)

no

No??!!!

What good would killing do? When mercy is a skill more of this world could learn to use?

don't

HEY CYCLOPS

The next time that you dare choose not to spare, remember them! Remember uuuuus! Remember me!

I'm the reigning king of Ithacaaaaaaaa

I am neither man nor mythicaaaaal

IIIIIIII am your darkest momeeeeeent

IIIIII am the infamooouuuuus

Odysseus

(aka the first time our main character gets actually named aka the worst decision ever made by the poor guy)

You were reckless, sentimental at best. That's not a teaching of mine. You've grown soft! Your dead friends can attest! (hey) Put your emotions aside.

That Growl™ on I don't know where I went wrong

That's just like you! Why should I be surprised? Selfish and prideful and vain

You're Not Looking For A Mentor, I'm Not Looking For A Friend

At least I know what I'm fighting for while you're fighting to be known! Since you claim you're so much wiser, why's your life spent all alone? You're alone!

One day, you'll hear what I'm saying, one day, you might understand, one day. But not today for after all you're

JUUUUUUST AAAAAA MAAAAAAAN

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

*soft piano outro*

*epic horn intro*

*epic trumpet solo*

These waaaaaves and tiiiiiides have grown in strength and siiiiize

Brace for a STOOOOOOOORM (stoooooorm)

The likes of which we've never seen before!

Have them follow my ship, I'll ensure that we'll PREVAIIIIL

At this rate we won't make it out aliiiiiive

~an island in the skyyyyy~

We're gonna shoot for the sky! (what.)

STOOOOOOOOOOOORM, STOOOOOOOOOOOORM (this time with amazing harmonies)

WE'RE SHOOTING FOR THE ISLAND IN THE SKY! IN THE SKYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Please don't tell me you're about to do what I think you'll do

We're in the home of the Wind God! (We don't know for sure.) How many floating islands have you seen before? This is the home of the Wind God! (And what's your plan.) I'm gonna climb to the top and ask 'em for a hand

Have faith friend, we've come this far

Yes, but how much longer til your luck runs out

You rely on wit and people die on it, whooaa

I still believe in goodness

I still believe that we could be kind

Lead from the heart, and see what starts

Thank you for the concern but brother I can assure you, our journey is almost done. I understand that we're tired, I understand that we're fazed. But don't forget how much we already faced!

I took 600 men to war and not one of them died there. In case you needed a reminder.

If you want to talk more, let me pull you aside then. I need to talk to you in private.

Hahaha

I am the wind, twisting and turning

HAHAHA

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer! (Never really know who you can trust)

If they wanna get the bag open you gotta say No Sir (Sometimes killing is a must what)

It's treasure! what.

NO DO NOT.

Everybody listen closely. See how this bag is closed? That's how it's supposed to be.

Cause the end always justifies the means (everything's changed since Polites)

For nine days I've stayed wide awake, tried to make it home with no storm or tidal wave. I remain unopposed, the bag is still closed and I'm getting closeeeer to youuuuuuu (Penelopeeeee) I can't wait to make some new memories (Teleeeemaaaachuuuus) Time for me to be the father I never was

(just keep your eyes open) why are my eyes and my heart and my soul so heavy (just keep your eyes open) I keep on trying to embrace you both why won't you LET MEEEEEEE (Just Keep Your Eyes Open) So much has changed, but I'm the same, yes I'm the SAAAAAAME

Just keep your eyes open, keep your eyes open

Wake up. Wake up, Odysseus, they're opening the bag, WAKE UP

EPIC ORCHESTRA™

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

STOOOOOOOOORM

OOOODYSSEUS OF ITHACA

do you know who I am

*wave sounds*

POSEIDON POSEIDON POSEIDON POSEIDON POSEIDON POSEIDON POSEIDON Poseidon

In all my yeeeaaaars of living it isn't very often that I get pissed off

Iiiiii've been so graaaaacious

That's right, the Cyclops you made blind is mine (no)

I'm left without a choice, and without a doubt, Guess The Pack Of Wolves Is Swimming With The Shark Now

You are the worst kind of good cause you're Not. Even. Great.

A Greek who reeks of false right.eous.ness that's what I HATE

I mean you totally could've avoided all this had you just killed my son. But ~nooo~

YOU ARE FAR TOO NICE, MERCY HAS A PRICE

Unlike you, I have no mercy left to give cause

Ruth.less.ness is mercy upon ourselves

Ruthlessness is MERCY UPON OURSELVES

OURSELVES

*wave sounds pt.2*

We took no pleaaaasure in his pain

That High Note™ on We only wanted to escaaaaaape

The Line Between Naivety And Hopefulness Is Almost Invisible

die

When does a ripple become a tidal wave

43 left under your command

When does a man become a monsteeeer

Iiiiiii am your daaaaaarkest momeeeent

Any last words?

ALL I GOTTA DO IS OPEN THIS BAG (WHAT)

EPIC BRASS SOLO™

Remember meee...

*eerie strings*

We came across a palace, inside we heard a voice

Sir! Sincewelefthomewefacedavarietyoffoesfromawiderangeofplaces gods, monsters, you know the roster, hostile creatures that we could resist, but this was a hell of a twist cause we are weak to a power like this!

What was it??? A woman.

What.?

She had us in just two words

~Come inside~

Damn

That Run™ on Go ahead and rest wherever you liiiiike

Take a seat (Yeah)! Let me bring you all something to eat (Yeah)!

This is the priiice we pay to liiiiive, the world does not tend to forgive

We have to go save them. No we don't

There's no length I wouldn't go if it was you I had to save! I can only hope you'd do the saaaame?

hehehe

hehehehehehe

hahahaha

I must say, what a brilliant speech you gave

Divine intervention, someone who's not afraid to... Send a message

Hermes? AHOHOHOHAHAHAHA

the chorus

That Run™ on When you take her on aloooooooone

the chorus again, this time with harmonies

~Here in the root of this flower there lies such a power to take her on~

That High Note™ on then you'll manifest a Being of your creation (all you need's imagination)

And I call this root ~Holy~ ~Moly~

Ahh...

AHAHAHAHAHAHA

More Chorus with More Harmonies!

OHHHHHHHHHHH OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH OHHHHHHHHHHH OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Don't thank me friend, you very well may die. Ahmhmhmhm! Good luck

*Carmen intro*

Lady of the palace

Did you do something to them? Who me? All I did was reveal their true forms.

You turned them into pigs.

Ha

I don't know who you are nor why you're here, but let me make this one thing clear: I've got people to protect, nymphs I can't neglect, so I'm not taking chances, dear

If you make one wrong move then you're done for, anything I don't approve and you're done for, I could put a spell on you and you're done for, boy you better run or soon you will be done for

I DON'T MEAN TO TIP YOUR SCALE

~dire consequence~

Hermes gave it to you, didn't he?

Okay fine, yes, but regardless-

Duet version of I've got people to protect

*sword sound* You've lost.

My nymphs are like my daughters I protect them at all costs

... I'm not sure I follow

There are other ways of persuasion, there are other modes of control, there are other means of deceit, there are other roads to the soouuul, there are other actions of passion, you have so much left to learn, want to save your men from the fire? Show me that you're willing to buuuuuurn ohhhhhhh

~so much power, so much power~

I can't

*Penelopeeeeee* but make it viola

She's my everything, my Penelope

*sigh* Poseidon, eh?

I know of a brilliant prophet! Problem is this prophet is dead

I remember actions of passion, I have been in love once before. Maybe one day the world will need a puppeteer no moooooooore. Or maybe one day the world will need a puppeteer

MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE

I apologise for any spelling mistakes and also for the length of this. It took me way too long but oh well

[anniflamma]

SO! Thoughts on the Circe Saga??

Oh boy, where to start! ＞︿＜

First of all, I freaking loved it! Circe's voice! HERMES! And the second part of There Are Other Ways! AAAAH! One thing that I absolutely loved about this saga is that all songs smoothly transition to the next scene, especially from "Done For" to "There Are Other Ways". Those two songs are meant to be one! It's amazing!

Hermes' song… What am I even supposed to say? I love it! I think my favorite part is when he reaches that high note on "manifest a ✨being✨ of your creation". It's like butter in my brain. And when he gets so giddy and says "and I call this root, holy moly" 😩

Done For. I DIDN'T KNOW THAT ODYSSEUS WOULD SUMMON A FREAKING CYCLOPS! What am I even supposed to do now huh?!! I have already animated the whole fight scene between Odysseus and Circe's monster. 😆 But either way, I loved that you could hear the anger in Circe's voice. That she obviously doesn't trust Odysseus and that he doesn't really have 100% good intentions toward her. And the delivery of "I’m not sure I follow". Ody has his stern tone, he knows exactly what Circe meant but doesn't really want to accept yet what situation he has stumbled upon.

I actually thought the song was just a tad bit too short, but because it transitions so smoothly to the next song, I didn't mind it so much.

And then we have There Are Other Ways....

That is the song that I was most excited about! I had so many theories on how Jay would depict the relationship of Odysseus and Circe, and I did mostly believe that those two wouldn't "do it". In the snippet for example, Circe was about to stab Ody. Like, if she did stab him, why the heck would she wanna still sleep with him afterwards???? And if Ody discovered the knife and prevented the stabbing, then the rest of the song would just be super awkward.... So when he refused her and started to sing about Penelope…. 😭

Then I really liked how the conflict ends with Odysseus being humble but also honest. He begs for mercy and explains his situation. Urg I imagine that his eyes are teary, realizing that he has been gone for 12 years. And that is what all it took! Circe isn't a smexy evil witch, she is a person who just has her guards up.

And the end with that song! When Circe turns Odysseus' men back.... It's epic and I really wanna do an animatic of it 😣

In conclusion.

Did I like The Circe Saga?

Yes.

[positivelybeastly]

Assuming nobody in the marvel universe knows the extent of Hank's actions outside x-force and the quiet council, what do you think will happen if word got of what he did?

This is kind of a funny one, really.

So, as things stand, and to clarify your point, the only people who realistically know the extent of X-Force Beast's actions are the Quiet Council (Cypher, Xavier, Magneto, Apocalypse, Sebastian Shaw, Storm, Nightcrawler, Jean Grey, Emma Frost, Mystique, Kate Pryde, Exodus and Mr. Sinister, with later additions being Hope Summers, Colossus, Destiny, and Selene) and those on X-Force (Wolverine, Omega Red, Laura Wolverine, Sage, Domino, Deadpool, Kid Omega).

We also have to imagine that they probably told other people, i.e. Jean probably told Cyclops, but that's basically up to the writers deciding if they want to ever make this whole mess part of a joined up story rather than one long Percyverse tale.

So, what happens if words gets out? Uhh, honestly, it's up to the writer, but logically speaking, not a lot.

Beast can basically just bounce and leave the X-Men behind forever, and no-one's really gonna say anything, mostly because to incriminate him is to incriminate themselves. Rule one of black ops is that you don't leave evidence, so even if they know, they have to either be a witness - and admit that they let it happen - or present evidence which we have no real reason to believe exists. I imagine the space prison probably got vaporised because Krakoa did not want that to ever get out. Terra Verde had nothing linking him to it. I imagine telepathic knowledge isn't admissible in court.

Like, imagine if Jean wants to try and get Hank prosecuted. How does she know? Well, when she found out he'd killed a small country, she held him up in the air and said mean things to him for a bit, then walked away from the situation in a cloud of moral superiority. She later then proceeded to hold civil conversations with him, touch his arm in a quasi-affectionate manner, and plead with him to see good again.

The panel cuts it off, but the art shows her touching Hank's arm.

Fairly certain that man has a kill count in the hundreds of thousands, Jeannie, you sure you want to go with this tack?

Especially in the wake of a shit ton of in-universe Orchis propaganda that's been demonising mutants non-stop, if it were to come out to the public now, people would probably just dismiss it as a complete fabrication, tbh. Hank is one of the few mutants with a legitimately good reputation, so he'd survive it.

He would probably have to deal with some questions from the Avengers, though, especially if he wanted to work with them again or the allegations came from a reputable source, like an X-Man of good name like Storm or Wolverine.

But again. They were both perfectly fine with the Terra Verde genocide. They were both completely fine with the space prison, and a ton of other fucked up shit that Beast did. The point at which it became a problem that needed to be solved is when it affected one of them (the Wolverine mind control saga). That does not reflect well on them, so frankly, I don't think any of them are likely to be selfless enough to point the finger at Hank.

If a writer really wanted to push this to the extreme end of the scale, Hank would probably end up at the Hague International Court of Justice for genocide and a litany of other crimes, and be looking at life imprisonment or the death penalty, depending on what the Marvel universe's version of the Hague doles out. But again, it'd be a shaky court case with a severe lack of witnesses or evidence. It'd basically just be a lot of X-Men pointing at Hank and saying, hey, that guy did fucked up shit that I was fine with him doing until it affected me.

The funny thing is, that X-Force Beast kind of won. Like, I imagine he's going to get gutted by Wolverine at the end of X-Force, that's not really something I doubt, but if the prevailing theory that a younger, more heroic Hank is going to take his place comes true, then he basically just got to do it all with fairly minor repercussions in the grand scheme of things.

Oh no, he's 20 years younger, in the prime of his life, and no longer shackled to the X-Men! Oh no! How awful! How much of a punishment can you logically mete out to a war criminal who doesn't even remember doing what he did, for whom there's no evidence of his actions? You can't really punish young clone Hank for what X-Force Beast did, that's not really justice.

There's been some speculation that X-Force Beast left behind his Avengers era back-up out of romance or love, out of guilt and nostalgia, out of a subtle feeling that he is in the wrong and the only way to fix himself is to go all the way back. And I tend to agree! That's not a bad character beat! It makes sense!

But a part of me is waiting for the reveal that he chose to leave that back-up because there's no way that baby Hank, whose memories end with the Avengers, can be brought to justice for his older self's crimes. We already did this with Cyclops back during the All-New X-Men days. X-Force outplayed them all, and got to do essentially what he wanted.

I don't know if Ben Percy has realised this, because frankly I don't believe he thinks that deeply on what he writes on X-Force, but if things shake out the way his foreshadowing indicates, his villain won.

Maybe that's his final bit of commentary on the CIA? Iunno. I couldn't give less of a fuck about the half-baked crap he's shovelling while he writes a tired Wolverine vs. Sabretooth retread. In-universe, it just means every other writer has a baked in excuse to ignore the bumblefuck bullshit he's been peddling for 5 years.

The only real consequence of all of this is that Beast basically can't interact with the X-Men again unless they retcon that it was all a mind control slug or some bullshit, and . . . like, I like a lot of his relationships with the other X-Men, but they have not been conducting themselves well or been particularly good friends to Hank for close to 20 years now, so I'm fine with that, honestly. Hank's lucky in that he's a versatile character with enough relationships and friendships outside of the X-Men that he could exist for another 60 years, not talk to another X-Man, and still be swimming in stories.

[xmarksthescott]

Hey! Can you help me with this... What would u recommend reading to truly understand Scott’s characterization and backstory?

Scott’s backstory is touched on quite a bit via multiple flashbacks over the years and all but you’ll get the gist with:

Classic X-Men #15 

as for scott’s characterization...it’s a bit of “see the journey to who scott summers is now”

X-Men First Class is great young scott content. especially if you dont have the patience/desire to sit through 60s comics lol. but its a great window into how he is as a kid.

the next “required” reading i’d say is the Dark Phoenix Saga because it has such a profound impact on his life.

X-Factor 1986 is good content to see Scott/Jean and Scott/Maddie. I wouldn’t say the whole thing is necessary just the Scott/Jean/Maddie bits and the Inferno arc because of Cable. ignore the weird backstory rewrite with his powers Sinister implies might be canon --scott’s classic x-men origin is still canon lol.

Apocalypse: The Twelve arc is Scott’s first death which goes directly into The Search for Cyclops. If all you know is “scott died because of Apocalypse” and proceed to read the Search for Cyclops that’s honestly fine. but the Search is basically the blueprint for Scott in the early 2000s because he feels out of touch with himself/lost. This is the basis for why his marriage with Jean ends and he turns to Emma for support.

Now we’re in my personal favorite era but Astonishing X-Men (2003) is leader scott running the school with Emma. It’s really good material for who scott is as a character. just ignore the weird backstory rewrite they imply might be canon because it isn’t. the classic x-men origin is canon.

then you have M-Day which happens, so knowing that happens leads into Scott relocating mutants to Utopia. Matt Fraction’s Uncanny X-Men run is excellent Scott material.

I’d say thats the gist of “great scott writing” because after that you enter the era of “Marvel hates the X-Men because they dont have the movie rights” and they try to character assassinate a bunch of them (including Scott). 

Matt Rosenberg actually writes a very decent Scott in Uncanny X-Men (2019) but the run has problems as a whole and i wouldn’t consider it essential reading for him. It’s just the last time he was even remotely in character/the first time he was in character since like 2010 lol.

How Scott --modern scott-- should be written is in line with Fraction scott. He has his own identity outside of Xavier and became his own man. He is a true leader who takes charge and does what’s best for his people. it’s the peak of his evolution and they’ve tragically regressed him for this current terrible run.

[spaceorphan18]

Marvel Movie Night: X-Men The Last Stand

So - when this came out, I worked at a theater.  We got to see an early screening of it.  When we walked my mom turned to me and said -- that wasn’t good, right? I had to agree.  

So.  Here we are.  I feel like I have a very complicated relationship with this film, because I know a crap ton about X-Men and knowing more means this film feels like even more of a mess than maybe a general audience would know.  It’s hard to really comment on whether or not this is a good film.   It’s definitely far more watchable than the Fantastic Four, or the other Marvel related films coming out at the time that weren’t Spider-Man.  However, it doesn’t hold together too well overall.  

The biggest issue this film has is that it’s trying to shove too many story lines with too many mutants into one film, and it kind of fails at everything that it’s trying to do.  

But first - a comment on production.  It was kind of a mess (though, I’m super fascinated that there was an original draft of this that Emma Frost played by Sigourney Weaver.  Damn, I’m sad we didn’t get that).  Directors switched, writers switched, actors were no longer under contract -- and I mean, most productions have things change, but all of this resulted in this film getting pulled in fifteen different directions, and I do thing that did have an effect on the final result.  

So - let’s talk about what this film is trying to do.  

The Dark Phoenix saga.  One of the most iconic X-Men stories ever told, and it is for a reason.  Having just reread it last month, it’s egregious to me how much this movie misses the point.  Look - I’m fine, in general, when other media changes original stories for adaptations.  Film is not comics, but I do think you need to understand the essence of the story in order to do it well in an adaptation.  And The Last Stand just doesn’t understand the Phoenix story.  

See - in the comics, it’s a lot about manipulation, control, and power - and how Jean Grey is being manipulated, but breaks out of it with her extreme power.  (There’s also a ton about crazy space forces, but I understand why they didn’t go there, it’s... uber complicated.)  But, the point is that this ends up being an internal story -- how Jean deals with the power once she’s broken free from the manipulation, how how her relationships with various X-Men help her cope with split identity.  At the end -- with her friends behind her, she decides to end her own life, and her sacrifice is make sure she doesn’t destroy the universe.  And it’s very beautifully told.  

There are three things (major) things I have issue with in this film -- 1. With the exception of Cyclops, in a limited role, and slightly Xavier, Jean’s relationships with other people are just not explored enough to have an emotional impact; 2. At no point is Jean ever back in control of her own agency.  Xavier manipulates her, then Magneto, then she just stands around for a long time until Wolverine finally kills her.  It cheapens everything about Jean Grey and agency the original story has, and I hate it.  3. The story in the movie seems to service the goddamn Logan/Jean Grey love story that I hate in the comics, and I hate it more here - but I’ll spare you the diatribe.  

The other thing, though... The animated series got this right -- but it could because it had time to.  See, the comics drew this whole story out for years, and it’s emotional pay off works better over a long period of time, which a two hour movie just doesn’t have.  And it’s especially hurt when it’s truncated due to a whole other plot in the film.  Which leads me to... 

The Cure - the second plot of the film.  Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men at the time was a big hit, so they decided to use this story.  It’s not a bad story -- it has to do with the big political element that the X-Men always are dealing with, and that’s fine.  But, because it can’t be the full focus, it too feels overstuffed.  (Really the film wants to be this plot, and should have never done Dark Phoenix in the first place.)

Unfortunately, because they need to shoehorn in Magneto, the brotherhood, the Morlocks, and every other mutant in the X-Universe (except Gambit for some reason) - this turns into a mess, where Magneto is his Silver Age, scenery chewing self, and a whole lot of people punch each other because that’s what these third acts usually devolve into.  The Cure story line is and can be a much smaller story, too, and maybe works better as such, but this is a major blockbuster - which I’m sure studio mandates a certain amount of CGI nonsense.  Ah well.  

Other Thoughts (dear god, get ready for all the thoughts!): 

The Danger Room scene at the beginning of the film is a goddamn delight -- that is how you use the X-Men working as a team, and that’s how you use Wolverine in a good capacity. 

One thing I’ll credit this film - it does better with its action sequences, and specifically letting the X-Men actually work as a team.  

I can’t help but feel, though, that I wish more of the classic X-Men teams had been together for their last stand.  Something about Wolverine’s little pep talk felt hollow - maybe because these characters we’ve barely met and/or interacted with and the emotional resonance isn’t there. 

FWIW - the special effects in this film are such an upgrade than all the crud had has come before it -- especially Fantastic Four, which was only a year or so earlier.  

Hugh Jackman has finally really settled in his role as Wolverine, he’s great, yadda, yadda

Famke Janssen continues to be an excellent Jean Grey, and I’m sorry her story line stunk so badly.  The scene with her and Wolverine, where she goes through the gamut of emotions, is really quite wonderful.  It’s a shame she spends half the movie just standing (or sitting) there.  

I understand that James Marsden kind of tapped out of the franchise to go do Superman, but I’m so sad that they really didn’t do Cyclops well in any of these films.  He’s such a great character, and you wouldn’t know it at all by these films. 

The Beast! Who’d have thought that Kelsey Grammer would have been a good choice for Beast -- but it works.  

I think Halle Berry asked for more to do as Storm.  Well -- she has more to do, but she still doesn’t feel like Storm.  I want an X-Men film where she Ororo Monrue is given the proper chance to shine. 

Oh - I should mention Storm vs Callisto is a thing here, as an easter egg to long time fans, but it’s not satisfying to me as a long time fan because, like, most everything in this film, they kind of fucked it up.  

Meanwhile... oh Rogue, maybe we shouldn’t get me started on how my favorite X-Man is the utter worst in this film.  Not only is she barely in this film but... this is such a complicated issue for this character -- to be given five minutes of screen time is just the utter worst.  And no, Rogue would never do that.  No, no, no.  

Ellen Page as Kitty Pryde is amazing, and she should have had her own movie.  I find it hilarious, though, that she and Iceman kinda flirt with each other here -- since Iceman is canonically gay, and Kitty is subtextually bi.  It’s just... funny.  

Iceman - in his ice form.  Yes, more of this. 

Angel is here! He literally does nothing, but he doesn’t do much in the comics either, so it kinda hilariously works.  I like the actor, too, he’s a great match.  

The dude playing Colossus is a delight - again, more screen time needed! I kinda love that he’s just carrying around a TV to show his strength. 

Lord help me - the Juggernaut is the worst.  I hated that meme.  I hate that he looks like a literal dick head.  I hate that he’s portrayed as a mutant when he’s not, etc, etc.  

There’s so much more to comment on, but I’ll spare you the time -- I mean there’s Moira MacTaggart, and the Morlocks - who are also the Omega Gang?, and Leech, and Eric Dane playing Multiple Man, and really... they brought in Stacey X (you guys ask me about Stacey X...), and apparently Psylocke is supposed to be in here somewhere, and sentinel camoes, and Trask, and Mystique...  But, this review is long enough. 

I do need to point out - the President is played by Josef Somer, who played Ducksworth in The Mighty Ducks, and I can only think of ‘quacking’ whenever I look at him. 

Final Thoughts: It’s probably more enjoyable for a non-fan than a hardcore X-Man fan.  It’s not as bad as people make it out to seem, but it’s not good either.  Overall, there’s a lot of potential that gets squandered and exploded.  Ah well.  

[loptgangandi]

so! literally no one asked, but these last 3 weeks have been a hell of a ride let me TELL YOU 

so happy mun-day now you get to hear all about it!! (with pictures, I’m not a monster)

here’s the cliffnotes version: 

december week 1: simultaneously moved back into a place and took classes then moved out of that place while taking classes and planning a 2-day overland trip from sweden to madrid. took said trip. 

december week 2: attended the unfccc climate conference COP25 in madrid, got kicked out for protesting in solidarity with indigenous ppl & kids, got let back into COP the next day & proceeded to go to more panels and also protests. no i did not see greta thunberg but she was there. I did not see harrison ford either. I did shake al gore’s hand tho.

december week 3: week #1 with my mom’s new twin one-eyed cyclops kitties (yes both of them), spent the week frantically writing 2400 words of nonsense that hopefully resolved themselves into two coherent enough papers to snag me a nice grade then took a 36-hour trip up to london to see my sister perform at her bitchin new job.

elaboration under the cut.

Hell Week (or) Why You Sometimes Should Fly to Climate Conferences

So, after the nonsense with The Roommate From Hell (reddit rant here), I moved out of my room at her place and back into the dorms (where I still had a lease through the end of December). That required a fair bit of effort, but I moved things bit by bit over the course of about a week, and it was manageable. 

But I had to be out of the dorms and have the place clean by the time I left for the climate conference, which in itself was a whole lot of coordination. Wednesday the 4th of December was probably among the worst, most frustrating days I have ever had, and I desperately hope I never have to deal with that level of fuck this fuck you fuck me fuck everything for a very, very long time. Somehow -- by some miraculous act of the gods -- I pulled it out, and managed to get my stuff into my friend’s basement, my plants into another friend’s apartment, my bags packed, my room clean as a whistle, my self moved into my hostel, and to every damn class that week. My interrail tickets came the day I planned to leave -- it was a tight fit -- and I managed to book trains and busses from Uppsala to Madrid with half an hour to spare, and get on the first train (Uppsala to Stockholm) in good time.

The next 48 hours went like this:

Stockholm -> Copenhagen (by train): uneventful, but Copenhagen train station on a Friday night is a little dicey, especially when you’re dragging around a 45 lb suitcase and another 15 lbs on your back

Copenhagen -> Hamburg (by overnight FlixBus): Uneventful, and I was sitting by a window with no one sitting next to me, so I was able to doze a bit on the trip. 

Hamburg -> Basel (by high-speed rail): This one I should have booked. The website said that a reservation was recommended, and I understand why. If I’d had a quiet cabin -- or even just a consistent seat for the whole 7-hour journey -- I’d have been able to get a decent night’s sleep. Instead, I kept having to move to give people their reserved seats, and didn’t get more than an hour of uninterrupted sleep.

Basil -> Olten (train): this one was a mistake

Olten -> Brienz (train): where the fuck am I

Brienz -> Lausanne (train): oh right yes that’s the direction I want to go yes good get on that one

Lausanne -> Geneva (train): oh thank fuck, I 100% know where I am and am back on track. Sunglasses & 30 hours without sleep is a Look.

Geneva: Spend 3 hours with my mom, put a week’s worth of clothes into a considerably smaller suitcase, eat dinner. meet mom’s new kittens, Saga and Luna

Geneva -> Lyon (bus): Get confused about which bus to get on, get told off by the bus driver we were trying to convince to let us on his bus, realized mom had been trying to put me on the wrong bus. Get on the right bus. Go to Lyon with bus driver who speaks no French or English, only Spanish.

Lyon -> Barcelona (night bus): Hell. Just. Absolute Hell Bus. Wanted To Die all night. Assigned to aisle seat just before the very back next to a very, very tall man who was quite polite but had no room for his legs. Behind us were two men, one of whom was loudly chewing gum until he took off his shoes and fell asleep, the other of whom snored like a gd bulldozer. Aisle seat and wailing baby a few rows down meant that my chances of sleeping comfortably were 0. I did manage to doze off a bit, but only because I was so strung out from not sleeping the night before. Eventually made it to Barcelona alive and lent my phone to the very nice lady with the wailing baby (plus like 5 other family members, none of whom had cell service). 

Barcelona -> Madrid (train): Absolutely gorgeous train ride through the Spanish countryside that I really did want to stay awake to enjoy. Managed to do so until we got to an elevation where it was just thick, dense fog and I let myself fall asleep. 

Madrid: I arrived at my hostel groggy, dazed, and in pain from two bad nights in a row. I considered a nap, but also considered that I’d need to wake up early the next morning and would need to fall asleep. Opted to try to set up my COP25 blog instead. Failed due to aforementioned grogginess. Walked to the corner to get some food and tried to pay for it with Swedish kronor, which didn’t work. Apologized, explained to the amused man that it had been a long weekend, paid him in Euros instead. Used the hostel’s dry sauna (!!!!), took a shower, and went to bed. 

COP25 - The Old White Fuckening

So, listen, I’m not going to go into detail about COP. If you want to read about how much of a tonedeaf clusterfuck the negotiations were (as opposed to the really interesting, inspiring stuff happening in the side sessions), BBC has some good articles. 

If you want to listen to some of the press conferences and plenaries, here they are. I especially recommend the ones by the Women’s Earth and Climate Caucus, Fridays for Future, and as many of the Indigenous Peoples’ statements as you can (most of them are in Spanish and/or Portuguese. Because the COP was supposed to be held in Chile, many of the registered Indigenous participants were from Amazonas because it was supposed to not be far to travel). 

If you want to listen to some of the side events, the webcasts have been recorded here. Click the link, and then click “Join the event.” I again recommend the ones by Indigenous groups (if you can understand them -- we all had translation headphones in the sessions, but I don’t speak Spanish, so I can’t really go back and revisit them). Also, this "feminist attempt at connecting the dots” on “climate crisis, corporate power, and climate finance” and this one session from a Nigerian NGO and the government about One Health and the connection between climate change, disease, and other health risks -- and how badass Nigeria is at tackling them. 

On the subject of tonedeafness, some absolute bullshit went down on Wednesday, December 11th. 

Here is the article on BBC, but it’s a bit incomplete.

Here’s what happened.

COP25 2: The Old White Fuckeninger (Starring Military Police!)

So on Wednesday, December 11th, Greta Thunberg -- environmental wunderkind with truly glorious bitchface -- sat on a panel before a hall full of condescending adults in which she demanded accountability and immediate action from national leaders. 

At the end of her speech, the delegation of Fridays for Future -- Greta’s own youth movement, which has become a global phenomenon -- stormed the stage. Representatives of Fridays for Future admitted that they knew what they were doing was against the rules, and they were ready to face the consequences: having their admission badges taken away (being “debadged”), and not being blacklisted from future UNFCCC events. 

Neither of these things happened. Instead, UNFCCC praised the young activists, and let them keep their badges. 

A few hours later, another activist group in attendance -- not an Indigenous one, a point that was raised by a young Native American man during the Fridays for Future press conference -- staged a sit-in outside the main hall where a large plenary meeting was scheduled. Said meeting was full of gimmicks, including a live call to the International Space Station so an astronaut could talk about the view of climate change from space. 

I was going to attend the plenary. I joined the protest instead. 

Admittedly, the decision was partly made for me by security. After pushing, shoving, and jostling the (mostly adult, heavily Indigenous, mostly PoC, heavily female, heavily Queer) protesters, as well as violently snatching their badges off their lanyards, security started herding them -- as well as anyone in proximity -- out into the open docking area outside the hall. One woman nearby, who hadn’t meant to join the protest and who had just been filming, tried to duck out of the group and got sternly told by a security guard “No. Keep going forward. No turning back.” A similar thing had happened to me -- I hadn’t made up my mind about joining the protest, because I didn’t have all the information -- but security made the decision, and in the end, I’ll always prefer to be with the people facing the police rather than those they’re protecting. 

It was... furious. It was emotional. The leaders of the protest had us form a circle and turn our backs on security and the door. WoC -- many of whom were Indigenous -- led not just standard protest chants, but songs. Renewal songs, fight songs. The common theme was the intersection of environmental justice and femininity, queerness and suffering under colonization, anti-capitalism, anti-exploitation, and a call for colonizers to repay the colonized for all of the loss and damage already caused by climate change (climate reparations). 

Eventually, UNFCCC made a decision. They decided to close the door on us. Security “escorted” us to the docking bay entrance, and the military police took over. Fortunately, none of them started anything. Obviously, none of the protesters did either. We made it back to the venue entrance eventually, but only those with journalist/media badges were allowed back in; the rest of us were not. Even people with Observer badges (like mine) who hadn’t been part of the protest weren’t being allowed in. But some people who were panelists, delegates, etc. came out to stand in solidarity with us. 

Once it became clear that no more joint actions would be taking place, I went home, and waited to see whether the negotiators would be able to talk UNFCCC into letting us back in. 

They did. Can you imagine the headlines? “UNFCCC Kicks Out Protesters, Bars Civil Society Observers From Climate Talks.” 

Talk about going down like a lead balloon.

Which is about what the conference in general did. I was able to go back and get some more stuff out of it... including another big protest, this time led by Fridays for Future and sanctioned. It was so, so good. Many of the people from Wednesdays protest were also there, and while spirits weren’t exactly high, the emotions being expressed were more along the lines of determination and tenacity than fire and fury. Both are valid, and both have their place, and it was nice to have a balance -- especially at the end of the week, when we were all flat-out exhausted. 

The Aftermath

And then I just didn’t stop moving. Saturday and Sunday I spent exploring Madrid and staying out late, Monday I flew back to Geneva from Madrid (because absolutely fuck Spanish busses and also absolutely FUCK FRANCE’s weeks-long general strike that I’m sure was for something very important. I’m sure. Because France never strikes over trivial things). 

Tuesday-Friday was a takehome exam that I swear to god was more labor-intensive than my actual undergrad thesis, and Saturday-Sunday I flew to London to visit my sister at her new job as an actor in Shrek’s Adventure. Mom was supposed to go with me, but she has a slipped disk and sent me up alone. Which was nice -- my sister and I almost never hang out just the two of us. But that’s another thing I’ve been dealing with -- quite a bit of extra Stuff To Do that Mom Can’t Do because Back Hurty and there have been days when she literally could not move. 

But now I am here! I still have work to do, and it’s holidays so there’s Holiday Stuff happening, but I’m hoping to get back to writing here in the next few days. 

And if you’ve read all of this, you’re fucking incredible and I love u and here are some one-eyed black babie kitty gremlins for ur viewing pleasure.

<-Saga | Luna ->

They’ve got little bare patches on their tummies because bbies gotta be spayed

They got this tower two days ago and have learned to share, but the learning curve was steep

Saga doesn’t like cuddles but she likes pats and being in the vicinity of humans

Saga says hello

Pictured: Luna in my arms, Saga in Proximity

Luna stole my Spot!! >:C

If Saga steals something and then tells u to answer a riddle to get it back pls let me know. she does that sometimes. it’s very naughty.

[twobitmulder]

On Spider-Man, Reboots, and the Future of the X-Men

A while ago I made a post called “Thoughts on MCU Peter Parker and Reboots” which ended up being mostly an examination (or rant) on why MCU Peter doesn’t work for me and was kind of soft on the analysis of reboots. Now, with the announcement that Sony and Marvel’s Spidey deal has fallen through, I thought I’d take another crack as examining why reboots lead to less than stellar versions of characters, and why it’s got me scarred for the X-Men to join the MCU.

Now, right off the bat I feel I should say that I’m not against reboots and re-imaginings. I think The Incredible Hulk is broadly better than the Ang Lee Hulk. I think the 1999 Mummy is better than the 1932 classic. Reboots can be a radical re-imagining, a second draft, or even an examination of different facets of the character (like how Lettier’s Hulk focused more on the lonely wanderer in search of a cure, while Lee’s focused on the father issues). This works especially for long running characters who have a lot of material to work with.

I think my problem with MCU Spidey starts with the way that Sony and Marvel approached the idea of the reboot. The Amazing Spider-Man with Andrew Garfield felt the need to be radically different from the Rami films. The Rami films played all the silver age comic book tropes gleefully straight. An old fashioned news room, his start in wrestling, and the campy villains. It exists in a sort of anachronism stew to borrow the TVTropes term, much like Burton’s Batman.

Webb’s films tried to find their own voice by pushing Peter back into high school and making them a little more deliberately modern. They used a more modern incarnation of Peter as opposed to the good natured Silver Age doofus that Tobey Maguire played. Garfield’s Peter is probably my favorite, and the one who feels closest to my ideal comics Peter, but that’s not really the point here. The point is, he HAD to be different otherwise people would accuse it of being the same thing over again.

So there we were with (in my opinion) someone who acted a little more like the Peter I knew growing up, who occupied a more familiar world, but we also had to gloss over his rivalry with Osborne because it had already been done. This was a criminal waste of Chris Cooper and Dane Dehaan, who were fantastic choices for those characters, but more to the point, it shows how this could not just be a second draft. It had to be different, which meant that even if it fixed some things that Raimi might not have hit the mark on, it also got rid of things that he had done right. The Osborne’s, the Bugle, and Mary Jane (well, he didn’t quite to MJ right, but the fact that she had already been used probably spurred the switch to Gwen).

Then when those flopped Peter joined the MCU. I remember reading that in my dorm room my first year of undergrad and whooping with joy. I thought about his relationship with Daredevil, who we knew was coming, and Captain America. Having Osborne be an Avengers level threat who battles Peter on the lawn of the White House while the Sinister SIx hold the Avengers at bay (Bendis’ Ultimate Spider-Man was the saving grace of the Ultimate Universe). Feige promised Peter would have a “non-stop wit.” It was all coming together.

Civil War came out and he seemed a little tacked on but it didn’t matter because he was there. Sure Stark gave him his suit, but he had designed the prototype and there was no way they’d make Peter the science genius dependent on Tony Stark.

“Weary sigh.”

I want to like the MCU Spider-Man so bad, Everyone else likes him. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. I already went over why I don’t care for him, so I’ll skip that*. Once again, the point is, this one HAD to be different. Because he was back with Marvel we had been given the implicit promise of a fully realized comic accurate Spider-Man, fixing everything Webb and Raimi (read Sony) had gotten wrong.

The problem was that Webb and Raimi had gotten a lot right. So MCU Spidey glossed over Uncle Ben “because it had been done before.” He never clashed with Oscorpe or the Goblins “because it had already been done before.” There was no selling pictures to the Bugle “because it had already been done before”*. 

He didn’t make quips because everyone else was funny and he had to be the wide eyed kid, played younger and less mature than Garfield or Maguire. And (okay a little bit of whining from me) he had to rely on Tony Stark because we had to be reminded that now he was part of the MCU. 

The MCU Spidey got a lot right and some of their updates worked for the better. I love that Peter and May live in a small apartment instead of a house because they’re poor and New York is expensive. I like that his school feels like a real high school, with kids who basically act like kids. I like that he has a confidant (Ned Leeds was a weird choice, I’d have gone with Hobie Brown, Deb Whitman, or Kenny Kong, but I like the character anyway). I love love love their takes on Vulture and my favorite Spidey Rogue Mysterio. But, in their drive to be different from the past iterations they changed the character a little too drastically. It wasn’t a third draft to get Spider-Man right, it was a bottom up reimagining that (my opinion only) jettisoned a lot of what makes the character compelling.

Now he’s apparently gone from the future of the MCU and honestly, personally, I’m kind of relieved. I’m glad he’s indelibly a full fledged part of the MCU narrative, and he got to see the Infinity Saga through to the end, but I don’t think I could have taken another movie of Peter becoming Stark’s Robin just to be different from what came before.

This all brings us to the X-Men. I love the X-Men. I love Gambit, Nightcrawler, Rogue, Kitty Pryde, Iceman, Cyclops and all the rest (but them first and foremost). I love the place Mutants have in the Marvel Universe and the potential for clashes with other heroes and compelling stories to be told about the nature of marginalization and identity. The problem is, the previous X-Men movies covered those bases from a lot of different angles and my fear is that when they join the MCU they’ll be so concerned with being different that they’ll forget what makes them the X-Men*.

In the end, we still have years of comics and alternate universes, cartoons and canon that we can pick and choose from. It’s just so frustrating because we were so close to a perfect unified cinematic universe like we’d only ever dreamed of. We all have different bits of it that we wish had been done better, but I suppose the mere fact that it exists in any form is pretty damn cool.

*Except to say that, as Gail Simone so eloquently put it in an otherwise positive review of Far From Home, Holland’s Spider-Man isn’t the everyman who mocks the rich and powerful, he worships them and wants to be their friend.

*While I was happy to see the Jameson, Simmons, and the Daily Bugle return, and while I can’t deny that turning him into a lunatic pundit makes sense for the character as he’s portrayed in Spider-Man, I think that modern superhero stories have a problem with the old school journalist characters. Yes in real life print journalism isn’t what it used to be, but if we can accept superpowers, alien warlords, and good hearted billionaires surely we can accept the fantasy of a newspaper that still functions like they used to.

*I don’t have this worry for Fantastic Four (my first favorite superheroes) because while the Tim Story movies were close (and Trank’s reboot is emblematic of this whole issue on a massive scale) they haven’t been in the public consciousness and had a continued presence like Spidey and the X-Men so there’s less need to “be different” and more opportunity to actually get to the core of the FF the way they did with Captain America and Thor.

[milkeyedmender2004]

top five superhero.................i feel like youve got some good thoughts on this

hm.... its so hard to decide but Here It Is (these are pretty much all gonna be x men btw thats just. my area of expertise) (also wall of text warning)1. kurt wagner/nightcrawler - i love him bc he deals w so much bs but he doesnt let it get to him too bad? like he knows most humans hate him for just like. Being a mutant but he decides he doesnt have to let that define him... (i have comic panels but mobile is homophobic and i cant add them) ANYWAY hes just very much the heart of the group... even during really dark shit (like right after dark phoenix saga, brood arc (which i hated but theres some good stuff in there)) he tries to help the other x men not dwell on it as much bc hes knows dwelling on shit like that can just make it worse... i think the group would be a lot different without him and hes kinda underrated imo... hes a very kind and supportive guy and i love him2. ororo munroe/storm - storm is just such a fuckin good character when you get down to it. like her character development is from this woman who has basically been treated as a goddess her whole life (theres some real shitty tropes having to do w her backstory but the effect to her character still stands yknow) and as a result shes very. Always in control of her emotions and she doesnt really let herself feel a lot? but as things go on and shit gets rougher (dark phoenix arc, then brood arc, etc) she sorta gives reign to her emotions more and over time we get storm as a co leader w/ cyclops and eventually singular leader of the x men (and punk storm). shes an incredibly strong and capable woman and leader. even after forge takes away her powers!! she keeps GOING.... shes just very resilient and smart and i love her a lot3. kitty pryde - kitty pryde is just a fun, bright character. she comes to the x men as just a young teenager and shes just got this great, bright eyed enthusiasm for it. shes like a little sister to the team which i think is a really sweet dynamic? like especially her relationship w storm. i know i said nightcrawler is the heart of the group but i think she really rivals him fir the title bc shes just got so much of it. shes a very smart and resourceful girl esp for her age (im pretty sure at one point she beat a xenomorph like monster all by herself) and shes also very kind and loving and has really interesting relationships w the other characters (illyana, ororo, magneto, etc)4. illyana rasputin/magik - illyana is just absolutely fascinating because of the way she got her powers... she lives in a hell dimension from the time shes 6 to probably 13 or so? comes out of that ALIVE, and has to reckon with it... shes just this 13 year old thats dealing with demon sorcerer powers who feels very alienated from others because she really didnt grow up anywhere near the way any of her peers did5. dani moonstar - please read the demon bear arc of new mutants. its so fucking good and you will understand completelyanyways im too tired to write meta anymore so thanks for coming to my ted talk

[justanothercinemaniac]

Epic Movie (Re)Watch #169 - X-Men: The Last Stand

Spoilers Below

Have I seen it before: Yes

Did I like it then: Not really.

Do I remember it: Yes.

Did I see it in theaters: No.

Format: Blu-ray

0) Forewarning, I get a little more frank about my distaste for this film than I expected. So if you like this film and are tired of the criticisms about it, feel free to scroll past.

1) So this film had a troubled start. Fox took a while to pull the trigger and when they did Bryan Singer had signed on to direct Superman Returns which he now claims to regret. They hired Matthew Vaughn to direct - and he even made some casting and conceptual progress - but he had to bow out after a family issue. Then they brought in Brett Ratner because the film was rushed into production and he had made a successful film in a rush for the studio with Rush Hour. This - in my opinion - leads to a lot of the issues the film has.

2) This film does not open with the monologue which has opened both previous X-Men films, instead getting straight into a prologue involving Erik and Charles in 1986 visiting a young Jean Grey.

This is probably one of the earliest in depth uses of the CGI facelift technology which Hollywood seems to be all the rage about these days. It’s weird, I’m glad it doesn’t last long.

3) So in 1986 Charles can walk...but in X-Men: First Class he couldn’t walk because of Erik. Then in X-Men: Days of Future Past (before Wolverine altered the timeline) it was established he CAN walk at the expense of his powers. I can head canon a remedy for why Charles and Erik are working together despite being strained, but this is a great example of how continuity in the X-Men films kinda goes to crap after a while. 

4) Not only do we get a Stan Lee cameo, but also a Chris Claremont cameo (Chris Claremont being one of the most quintessential X-Men comics writers).

(Claremont is the guy with the lawnmower, Stan Lee with the water hose.)

5) The intro scene with young Warren Worthington/Angel tearing off his wings is very much inline with the dark tone that the previous films had. Too bad nothing really comes of it.

6) The Danger Room.

Honestly this is one of the strongest elements of the film right here. We actually get to see the team sorta work together (as well as the one time Rogue actually uses her powers in this film), Logan in teaching mode is fun, Colossus has his one line in the whole film, and it’s a fun two minutes (I’m guessing at the time) of screen time.

7) I started discussing this in my X2 recap, but Cyclops in this film literally does nothing.

There were a lot of “casualties” born from the rushed production, and James Marsden was one of them. Cyclops was the badass leader of the X-Men in the comics, with great relationships with Jean and Professor X. In this film? He mopes about Jean’s death, goes shoots up a lake with his eye beams, then dies off screen within the first twenty minutes. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt as bad if he’d had more to do in X2 but you can remedy his lack of screen time in X2 with the promise that he’ll get to do something in this film. But no. No he doesn’t.

8) Similarly, Rogue in this film gets to do absolutely nothing.

All she does is feel bad about her powers, get shoved into an awkward and underdeveloped love triangle between her, Iceman and Kitty Pryde, stand in line at a pharmacy, and have her powers removed. She doesn’t even get a fight scene! This is the end of the trilogy. This is what Rogue was supposed to be growing into all along, the badass heroine we know from the comics. And while the continued conflict with her powers and total frustration with them is a good concept, it does not stand well on its own. It needs more. ROGUE needs more.

9) Kelsey Grammer as Beast.

According to IMDb, Grammer was cast when Matthew Vaughn was still directing. Which makes sense, because he is an absolutely fucking perfect fit for the character. In every way. Easily the best part of this film is Grammer as Beast. Like Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler in X2, you don’t feel like you’re watching an actor here. He perfectly represents not only the X-Man’s intellect but also his when needed ferocity. Unfortunately Beast gets a little lost in the mess of the film, but damn if Kelsey Grammer is not just totally phenomenal in the part (which makes the rest of the film’s mediocrity all the more disappointing).

10) The idea of a mutant ethics class taught by Professor Xavier is wonderful, and if explored a little more illustrates an inherent hypocrisy in the character. Professor X has not always been the stalwart in the comics that many believe him to be. He is flawed, often times superior and filled with hypocrisy. Saying one thing then doing another. This film gives us our best peak into that, teaching a class on mutant ethics before it being revealed that he - without consent - went into Jean’s mind and set up barricades. Making her afraid of her powers instead of teaching her to use them. Unfortunately this isn’t explored as in depth throughout the film as it could be.

11) One thing I really REALLY do not like about this film is Storm.

According to IMDb:

Halle Berry had initially decided not to reprise her role as Storm for this film, citing lack of character development in the previous two installments, and a tense relationship with Bryan Singer. However, after Singer's departure, and suffering a major box-office flop with Catwoman (2004), Berry agreed to return, on the condition that her role be expanded. Consequently, in this film, Storm replaces Cyclops and Professor Xavier as team leader of the X-Men (which is keeping with the comics, where for a time Storm served as team leader in Xavier's absence).

In the film’s attempt to make Storm stronger, the filmmakers instead make her impatient, judgmental, superior, angry, and rash. None of these are traits I would use to describe Storm in the previous two installments nor in the comics or any other medium. It is a total disservice to the wise, patient, empathetic character we were introduced to in X-Men. The one who stood by the bedside of a man who hated her just so he wouldn’t be alone when he died. Trust me, there are plenty of moments in this recap where I am going to be calling out Storm’s characterization.

12) I believe when Bryan Singer was slated to come up, the film was going to exclusively concern itself with the Dark Phoenix Saga. Instead with his departure, Jean Grey’s return as the Dark Phoenix is reduced to a subplot to the mutant cure plot. And honestly? The mutant cure is wildly interesting. Taking inspiration from the first arc of the Joss Whedon penned Astonishing X-Men, I am consistently more interested in the plot with the cure than the Dark Phoenix plot in this film. I think both (especially Dark Phoenix) are put to a disservice by being paired together, and instead they should have been their own thing.

13) Did I mention how much I dislike Storm’s characterization in this film?

Storm [after Beast tells them about the cure]: “Who would want this cure? I mean what kind of coward would take it just to fit in?”

Beast: “Not all of us can fit in so easily. You don't shed on the furniture.”

First: this is remarkably judgmental of Storm, especially considering in X2 she offered Nightcrawler a safe place from the outside world. It just doesn’t make sense.

Second: GOOD ON YOU BEAST! Storm is being sort of ignorant in that statement. Her powers are practically invisible. But does she actually hear what Beast says? No. Because not two minutes later... 

(Screenshot taken of a GIF set who’s source is unknown [if this screenshot is of your GIFs, please let me know].)

There are so many things I want to say about this, but I think it’s said perfectly in these comments from @marxisforbros, @helioscentrifuge, and @kawaiite-mage:

This - more than anything else - perfectly represents my issues with storm in the film.

14) Even in what is by far the weakest of the first three X-Men films, Ian McKellen as Magneto is still wonderfully strong.

Magneto [after a mutant asks why he has no tattoos]: “I had a mark once my dear and let me assure you no needle shall touch my skin again.”

15) Added to the seemingly infinite list of things which are underdeveloped because this film is trying to do too much, Pyro’s return brings nothing to the film. He’s not developed, he’s not peeled back, his rivalry with Iceman is never fully explored, he’s just there out of obligation to the ending of X2. Which is - like a lot of this film - unfortunate.

16) Another item to add to the above mentioned list: Ben Foster as Angel.

Angel is one of the founding members of the X-Men in the comics along with Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, and Iceman. And in this film he just serves no purpose. At all. I think he’s here largely for fan service but I think we only get three distinct scenes with him which are: he runs away from his father for trying to cure him, he is seen at Xavier mansion looking for a safe place, and he goes to save his father. He never really interacts with anyone, we never really get to see him fight, or develop. He just is present in the film.

17) Okay, for the sake of time, here is everything that this film is trying to do: the cure storyline, the Dark Phoenix saga, introduce and develop Angel, continue Rogue’s struggle with her powers, introduce Kitty Pryde, continue Pyro and Iceman’s rivalry, continue Logan’s feelings for Jean, while also introducing iconic characters like the Juggernaut. And none of these things are done well. They are all desperately fighting for time and development and end up being underserved and under baked.

Vinnie Jones as the Juggernaut is particularly disappointing because he could’ve been a great Juggernaut but ends up being stupid comic relief instead.

18) Mystique deserved a better end to her story than get cured, get ditched by Magneto, and feed the feds dirt on Magneto. Again, this is a result of the rushed production as Rebecca Romijn had other scheduling conflicts.

19) Jean Grey’s Dark Phoenix is also not really developed well. We don’t really get a peek into what it felt like to be held back for all these years with invasive and nonconsensual psychic barriers. Instead she’s really fucking horny, does a lot of weird standing around, occasionally has a moment of clarity where she begs for death, and then goes back into being someone who just stares in the distance and doesn’t really talk. And she also aligns herself with Magneto for some reason.

20)

Xavier [after Jean wakes up and escapes]: “What have you done?...I warned you.”

Logan...literally did nothing. He didn’t wake her up, he didn’t let her lose. She woke up, talked to him, and escaped on her own. And you’re fucking giving him crap? What the hell did you do buddy? You created this. You taught her to be afraid of her powers! Don’t give me this Jedi Council mentality that you were doing the right thing all along by teaching her to be afraid of herself. Okay I’m done.

21) When you agree with “death to all humans” Magneto you know there’s a problem.

Xavier [about Jean]: “She needs help, she’s not well.”

Magneto: “Funny, you sound just like her parents.”

Magneto: “You’ve always held her back.”

Xavier: “For her own good!”

22) This film also suffers from just boring fight choreography. Like the fight at the house is sorta dumb and lazily choreographed in my opinion. Storm flying in the air at the beginning is cool but then everyone else is just kinda...hitting each other.

23) Xavier’s death is remarkably sudden. Like, too sudden. We are left in shock, not in tears. We don’t really have the time to process it. Although seeing the school in morning over his death is done well, the actual effect it has on the audience is miniscule.

24) You know what else this film totally drops the ball on? Ellen Page as Kitty Pryde.

You know what hurts most? Ellen Page could be a freaking amazing Kitty Pryde and the fact the character is so lackluster in the film is not through any fault of her own. Kitty is one of the most badass fan favorite characters in the X-Men comics, but instead of using that to their advantage the filmmakers decide to thrust her into a half baked love triangle with Iceman and Rogue and only have her use her powers for a few minutes in an overstuffed fight scene at the very end. We never really get to know her as a character or analyze her relationships with the other teammates. But it’s Academy Award nominated actress Ellen Page as Kitty Pryde! That should be way more awesome than the filmmakers ended up making it.

25) Hey, remember how the relationship between Logan and Rogue was so freaking amazing in the first film? Yeah, this is all we get of it in this film.

Rogue [when Logan catches her leaving X Mansion]: “I want to be able to touch people, Logan. A hug. A handshake. A kiss.”

Logan: “I hope you’re not doing this for some boy. If wanna go, then go. Just be sure it’s what you want.”

[Rogue asks Logan if he shouldn’t be telling her to stay.]

Logan [warmly]: “I’m not your father, I’m your friend.”

Man, I really need to watch the Rogue Cut of Days of Future Past.

26) The most frustrating part of this film is that there are great moments and aspects to it. Jackman is still great as Wolverine, Kelsey Grammer as Beast, the idea of the cure. This line in particular has always stood out to me.

Magento [after Pyro he says he could’ve killed Xavier if he’d been asked]: “Charles Xavier did more for mutants than you’ll ever know. My single greatest regret is that he head to die for our dream to live.”

That line is remarkably powerful, for even though the pair are at incredible odds with each other they’re friends. They have respect, they both want a similar goal (for mutants to be free form oppression) they just are going about it differently. I love that line.

27) Hey, remember how I said I really dislike Storm in this film?

Storm [after Jean killed the professor]: “She’s gone Logan, she’s not coming back.”

Storm: “She made her choice, now it’s time we make ours.”

(GIF originally posted by @kulo-ren)

Okay, first of all: isn’t Jean supposed to be like one of your best friends in the world? Weren’t you Xavier’s first students together? You wash your hands of her pretty freaking quickly and get REAL comfortable with that REAL fast. And then second: the hell do you mean she made her choice? SHE MADE NO CHOICE! This is the result of Professor X screwing around with her mind to the point where she can’t control her own damn powers! Like hell this is a choice! God, I hate what they did to Storm in this film.

28) Wait, is that...that’s R. Lee Ermey. The voice of a sergeant as the military prepares to go fight the brotherhood, that’s R. Lee Ermey!

Huh.

29)

Kitty: “There’s only six of us, Logan.”

Yeah, because Rogue doesn’t get to do anything, you killed off Cyclops, Angel is also barely there, you don’t really get developed as a character, and Colossus already had his one line for the film.

30) I think this is the last time I’ll say this, but I really hate what they did to Storm in this film.

Storm [to Logan, about Jean]: “But are you ready to do what you need to do when the time comes?”

Except for that weird line about what happens to a toad when it’s struck by lightning in X-Men, when has Storm ever gone into battle expecting to murder someone? What part of Xavier’s teachings or his memory would make her think that being EAGER to kill Jean is fucking okay? I just...ugh. Moving on.

31) One of the best parts of this film is the scene where Magneto moves the Golden Gate Bridge so it drops them all off on Alcatraz. It is an incredibly powerful and memorable visual and one of the standout aspects of the film.

32) So Magneto moves the Golden Gate Bridge, gets to Alcatraz (where the cure is being held), and sets his army of mutants lose before saying...

Magneto: “In chess the pawns go first.”

For one thing, Magneto is all into mutant brotherhood and everything. He has never once shown to think that one mutant’s right to live free was more important than the others, so why are these guys suddenly pawns. Secondly, and I don’t know how clear I can make this...

You have the freaking Dark Phoenix on your side, the most powerful mutant ever with no limits to her powers. AND SHE’S JUST GOING TO STAND THERE UNTIL THE BATTLE IS OVER!?!?

33) In the climactic battle, the X-Men don’t really fight like a team. At all. They’re sorta each doing their own thing while standing next to each other. It’s...boring.

34) Okay, this line is probably very stupid but I love it.

According to IMDb:

Cain Marko's line "Don't you know who I am? I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" was inspired by a popular web parody film that made use of scenes from X-Men (1992). Throughout the parody , the Juggernaut character repeatedly says, "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" According to the Wikipedia, Brett Ratner even has a link to this parody on his own website.

35) I will say, even though this film has its problems, the way they defeat Magneto at the end (by distracting him with Wolverine) is very smart I think.

36) I have nothing to say about Phoenix’s demise that I haven’t said before. Underdeveloped, sorta doesn’t make sense, all that jazz.

37) So Rogue decided to get the mutant “cure” after all. And when she talks to Bobby about it...

Bobby: “This isn’t what I wanted.”

Rogue: “I know, it’s what I wanted.”

While I admire the idea for Rogue to take this decision in her own hands, I get the feeling the filmmakers were very noncommittal on this idea. They shot an alternate scene where Rogue tells Bobby she DIDN’T get the cure, meaning they didn’t really know which one fit the story better so they don’t invest in either idea. Also - and I said this earlier - Rogue didn’t do anything during the entire film.

38) The final glimpse of Magneto playing chess is actually a pretty nice way to end the film. It drives home how he has no one - not even Charles - while also setting up things to come. But...wouldn’t he still be under arrest? He’s still a terrorist, powers or not.

This film is an underdeveloped mess in my opinion. While there are still strong performances and worthwhile additions (notable Kelsey Grammer and the Golden Gate Bridge scene), there are characters who are just pretty much forgotten and the fact it’s trying to do too much means nothing is done particularly well. If you liked X2 you should watch it just to get some sort of closure after that film, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll enjoy it. It’s just...eh, in my opinion. I do not enjoy it.

[entergamingxp]

Troy’s battles feel a tad dry, but its mythology is fascinating • Eurogamer.net

The Bronze Age, it turns out, is not an easy period to turn into a historically accurate, highly detailed video game like Total War. But it does sound fascinating. There are huge gaps in important places, unusual changes to how armies are proportioned, and the small matter of Homer’s Iliad sprinkling myth and magic over everything.

Playing it, I think there’s room for a little more of the mythical stuff – but talking to Total War Saga: Troy’s game director Maya Georgieva and senior game designer Milcho Vasilev, I’m also confident there’s a good deal more to come.

“We wanted to take a direction that has not been taken by any Total War before,” Georgieva told me, “this period of history, which is ancient history, the Bronze Age… I mean no Total War has gone there before us, and there’s a good reason for that! It’s not been missed by accident, it’s really tough for a Total War game to go into this era because the sources that we need to make an on-par experience with the titles that you love are missing, or are scarce in that period.

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“So for example, we don’t have a lot of historical records. We have a lot of archaeological evidence, but we don’t have, for example, the names of rulers of countries – the specifics that breathe soul into the historical narrative.” This is where the Iliad comes in: providing detail and inspiration for nation-states, rulers, “the leaders or the heroes or the personas and characters of the military,” as Georgieva puts it. “This basically makes the whole project possible”.

“The way we are presenting them is basically threading this very narrow path between reality and the narrative. Because, well, what we found out is that the narrative of the Iliad is very powerful. It has its own gravity, it draws us always towards it. So, from the beginning, we decided that one of the key points of the project will be: we are going to make a sandbox Total War game, but the events of the Iliad will be a plausible playthrough in that sandbox.” (Worth noting here is that there’s definitely no two-campaign option like the Romance and Records versions of Total War: Three Kingdoms, although it’s not something Georgieva ruled out for something post-launch. “That would have been a very nice option, but the scope of the Saga really doesn’t allow us to do that. I mean, we don’t have the luxury of making two games in one. But still, there are possibilities, probably after release. We’ll see.”)

Hero units, like Achilles and Hector here, can face off in duels very similar to those introduced in Total War: Three Kingdoms.

As for how those gaps are filled by the more fantastical parts of sources like the Iliad, Creative Assembly has opted for a “truth behind the myth” approach, effectively looking to make as factually accurate a Total War as possible and using the most probable explanations for the myths and legends to complete the history – a fascinating approach, philosophically, but one that can make you feel slightly underwhelmed when, say, the Minotour turns out to just be a big, tanky bandit dude in silly armour.

“We knew that we were going to have a difficulty with the unit variety in the game because of the Bronze Age and the way that warfare was conducted at the time,” Vasilev explained, and this is where mythological units, or mythologically inspired units, come in. The Cyclops, for instance, is a giant that sounds like more or less a properly mythical being in the game, and works to supplement the units of the era. “The Cyclops can be really good at sieges, because he is a unit that is able to destroy even huge gates, he’s able to throw a boulder over the siege walls to damage units behind it, and so on.” Others like the Centaurs, meanwhile, are more easily explained by the available facts, and so in-game they’re effectively just cavalry. As Vasilev put it, “we believe that the myth that has inspired the half-human half-horse centaurs is rooted in that period where people were not using horses much, but they would see some other tribe, not being very adept at that horse riding [themselves], or even fighting for horseback, and they would probably say that they are ‘one with their horse’.” They won’t be readily available though. To get these kinds of units players need to go “a bit out of their way” to recruit them on the campaign map first, and they sound either very limited or completely unique in their supply.

You might have clocked those ships in the background, but note there are no sea battles in Troy – if two ships end up fighting, then a land battle plays out with the armies disembarked on a nearby island.

When it comes to the battles themselves, this truth-seeking approach can make things feel a little flat. I played a single, fairly standard land battle in control of the Greeks, and their hero Achilles, against the Trojan army and hero Hector, with a decent amount of units on either side, including Centaurs for me and the “Minotaur” for Hector. In other words, I have lots of infantry and archers and one cavalry unit (plus a unit of slow chariots), and the enemy has an entire infantry force with one big man.

That slightly underwhelming impression aside, the immediate thing you’ll notice as a returning Total War player is that lack of cavalry. Total War’s real-time battles are, more often than not, about using speed, positioning, and flanking, and taking almost all cavalry out of the game completely disrupts the balance of that, and so Creative Assembly has had to quite noticeably shuffle some other things around. A big change is light infantry are faster, heavy infantry are slower, and there are more infantry types that have special bonuses like increased flanking strength, increased resistance to flanking, or outright immunity to it.

There’s also a big change to the landscape of the battle maps themselves: light cover, in the form of long grass, has been introduced, as have sand and mud. Light infantry can move into long grass to be hidden, like units traditionally would be in forests. Heavy infantry are severely slowed in mud, while light infantry are unaffected and medium only slightly slowed – similarly with sand. Basically, flanking-specialised light infantry units become your traditional light cavalry, and micro-managing unit positioning around different types of battlefield terrain becomes more important than ever.

There are several biomes for battles depending on where you are on the campaign map, and day-night cycles too. There was also mention of a Divine Will religion resource and five-resource economy in the campaign, but expect more elaboration on that down the line.

In practice, it can be a little finickity. If you’re a frequent pauser, expect to pause even more frequently. If you’re not, expect even more emphasis on your actions-per-minute and attention to detail (which is especially important, given the dusty biome of this battle meant it was often a little hard to tell between long grass and just slightly-longer-than-usual grass that doesn’t have the same effect). There’s also not a huge amount of visual distinction between units, especially the more elite ones, like Achilles’ Myrmidons say, that in other Total Wars you’d expect to be more instantly identifiable in the fray.

That said, it’s still interesting to have to rethink your tried-and-tested strategies – in fact, Warhammer games aside, this is probably the most impactful change to Total War’s battles I can remember. It’s something plenty of history nerds will find stimulating, as much as others might find it slightly dry. That’s the nature of the Bronze Age, really, but thankfully for the less fustily-inclined like me we have the other half of the narrative to do some making up. The big thing that’s got me excited is the siege of Troy.

“The siege of Troy needs to be a spectacular event, or at least a special event in a Bronze Age game. Because of the power of the narrative,” Georgieva said. That means – rejoice! – there is a Trojan Horse in the game, despite some suggestions that it would just be implemented as an earthquake for the sake of historical accuracy. “I think that’s a little bit of a misconception,” Georgieva explained. “There are actually three horses, three Trojan horses in Total War Saga: Troy… the way we’ve implemented the horse is we took the three most plausible, most possible options and implemented them.

The Centaurs in action.

“The far fetched one is the allegory of the earthquake. Earthquakes are quite common in the area even today, and we have archeological evidence that Troy’s walls were destroyed by an earthquake at the appropriate period of history in that time. So that was one of the interpretations, which is modelled into the game as a window of opportunity where you can attack Troy well after an earthquake because the walls are down, the garrison is weakened and you can just approach the city in a much more favourable way.

“The other ways to approach Troy with a Trojan horse are with a siege tower that is shaped like a horse. We know that a couple of centuries later the Assyrians fielded such siege machinery, which is sometimes referred to by the animal names. So we see that probably in the Trojan War, this is like a prototype, a ‘beast of war’, we call it in the game. It’s unlockable through a technology. And the other, the third one, is probably the closest to the narrative, because it involves the same tactic: a wooden structure filled with treasure, and also hidden units.

“This though, again has a historical tint to it because we realised that in that period of time Phoenician ships were horse-headed vessels, and also all ships would have been used for devoting things to the divine, to the gods. So we are basically replaying this sort of scenario where a ship with a horse’s head is filled with goods, and also hidden soldiers. And when you get to do that strategy, you play on a specific map that doesn’t exist outside of the strategic map. It’s during the night, the gates of Troy are open, and you start with several units inside the city. So it’s a completely new scenario. And those three ways exist in the game and give you the opportunity to choose your own Trojan horse.”

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Vasilev also explained that there are at least three separate versions of the battle map for the siege of Troy itself, including the standard 360-view one you’ll know from usual Total War sieges. “It’s not just an earthquake that we’ve implemented as a Trojan horse.” Finally, although Creative Assembly was at pains to make clear there’d be little talk of the campaign just yet, there’s an intriguing tease of a proper rework for agents, the units like spies and heroes that roam around providing support and intel on the campaign map.

Here’s what Georgieva told me about those: “after Thrones of Britannia, the previous saga, we were looking a lot at the feedback that we received and several systems that didn’t make the cut for Thrones. So for example, agents… they have a good and a bad side, let’s say. So we were trying everything to alleviate, for example, agent spamming on the map, but [in doing so] we were also having a lot of new interesting takes on the agent archetypes. We’re also implementing Epic Agents, which are mythologically inspired. And they are quite unique. I mean, we haven’t had anything like this in a previous title before.”

That little tease, plus the promise of a little more invention and bombast with the big siege of Troy, the suggestion that the campaign will offer some interesting scripted moments that line up with Homer’s epic, and the opportunity to relearn some habits in the battles themselves is enough to keep me excited. Translating this era into something like Total War sounds extremely challenging – the slight flatness of that battle I tried a few times being evidence of the fact – but the novelty of it, the magic of the period, and just the magnetic quirkiness of the actual required historical process itself, is still undeniable.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/06/troys-battles-feel-a-tad-dry-but-its-mythology-is-fascinating-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=troys-battles-feel-a-tad-dry-but-its-mythology-is-fascinating-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net