X-Men (III, 3): The Last Stand

[K. Forman]

By the way of hands, how many stayed till after the credits???? Any diehard Marvel film fan knows you stay till after the credits... :)

[David Jimerson]

I always do, anyway.

[Paul Reichelt]

Somethings after the credits :o Should have stayed :P

I don't feel like Cyclops is getting enough time in the limelight either, but yah, maybe thats just me.

[David Jimerson]

It's not just you.

[K. Forman]

Now that you mention it, Cyclops was pretty weak in the movies. He wasn't the butt kicking leader like the animated stuff.

[Keith Loh]

Eh, I've read enough of the comics - especially the Chris Claremont era that the movies take most from - to realize that Cyc' is a bit of a milquetoast.

[Cole McDonald]

missed the after the credits, had to get the kids...can someone who did stay e-mail me that spoiler please?

[Marcus Marchesseault]

I thought the first in the series was a very mediocre movie. I just didn't care about the characters. It turns out that most of the character development was left on the cutting room floor. You can see it on the DVD. It is a much better movie with the extra footage intact. Some things don't make sense without that footage, particularly the conflict between Cyclops and Wolverine.

I thought the second movie was fairly well-done and entertaining until the GREAT HAND of THE ALMIGHTY SCREENPLAY came down from the sky and decided to kill Jean Grey. There were so many ways that she could have been saved or that situation prevented by her companions that it really left a bad taste in my mouth. Why didn't ice-boy freeze the water behind the dam? It was already quite cold. Hmmm? The list goes on. That logic flaw was huge. I suspend belief, but when they go out of their way to have mutants with special powers, those mutants should use them appropriately.

I don't mind at all when a movie sets up it's own universe with different laws of physics and human behavior, but I expect the people in that universe to abide by those laws once they are spelled out. I don't like when writers get lazy because they decided something should just happen.

[Michael Wisniewski]

That's why I liked the 3rd movie best, it had decent character development. Not great but decent. And it made an effort to lightly explore the main themes in the different relationship pairings between characters. Not as great as Spidey, but headed in the same direction.

The first two movies, had okay characterizations, but it was more about - character A can do this, now let's put him in this situation.

Vs. the third movie, where there was more of a focus on - character A (who has this special power) feels like this, towards characters B, C, D, E, & F, and now he's in this situation, what's he gonna do? ... and thus you have your plot coming from the characters vs. from the action. Now I'm not saying the 3rd movie is a tour de force, but it has a nice balance for a light and fun blockbuster summer movie.

That's how I prefer my sci-fi - a good mix of character, relationships, and theme exploration, all coming together to create the plot as it goes along. A pure logical action plot from the audience's perspective is okay, but then I feel like you end up in Poseidon territory.

FWIW: I agree from an action plot perspective (audience's logic) the Golden Gate Bridge scene seems weird, that's not the best way to assault Alcatraz, but it makes total sense from the character of Magneto. He may seem logical on the outside, but he's driven by very single unified emotions inside which include a god complex. The best way for him to assault Alcatraz, is to show those puny human ants that he's better than them. And he doesn't care who has to die for that point to get across. For him it's about a statement not a "logical" outcome.

As for Jean Grey's death, it makes sense because they originally wanted to get into that plane and take off, but when it wouldn't, she snuck out and shut them all in there, thus, ice man couldn't get out to freeze the water.

[X-MEN APOLOGIST MODE=OFF]

[David Jimerson]

Well, before I knew that the third movie would butcher Phoenix beyond all recognition, I was all for Jean dying underwater, because it's similar to what happened in the comic. Can't have Phoenix without it. But then this movie came along . . .

[Michael Wisniewski]

What did they leave out about Phoenix? (I'm not familiar with her comic book character at all) I agree, in the movie, she was just a Macguffin for everyone to react against - "let's get the Phoenix on our side, oh wait, maybe that's not such a good idea ... etc."

[David Jimerson]

Well, that's a very long story.

Suffice it to say that Phoenix was a universal force, not a Xavier-created split personality, with majesty and fire, one that found itself attached to Jean out of her desire to save the lives of her loved ones -- not some psycho mute who stood around doing nothing until an FX display was desired.

[Marcus Marchesseault]

"As for Jean Grey's death, it makes sense because they originally wanted to get into that plane and take off, but when it wouldn't, she snuck out and shut them all in there, thus, ice man couldn't get out to freeze the water."

When the dam started getting cracks, that was a good time to ice-over the already-almost-frozen lake. As I recall, it was really cold out that day? The other deus ex machina was their magical airplane suddenly having a dead battery or maybe a bad alternator just when the danger was peaking. Actually, it may have been some sort of cold engine needing to warm up BS which is even worse. I don't remember everything, but I seem to recall that parking the ship downstream was a bad idea from the beginning. It just seemed like a bad deus ex machina.

Also, I believe it was established that ice-boy could freeze water from another room. They at least needed to have him try and fail instead of just sit around like a dufus. I really hate "just because" moments in a movie, especially if they effect a main character or the entire plot. The movie was good except for that. I will probably go see the current iteration because of that and the director's cut of the first. The first one was butchered almost as bad as James Cameron's "The Abyss" in editing. Instead of the end being decimated, the beginning of X-men with the character development was looted. It's a much better movie with the extras. I recommend it to everyone before going to watch the current episode.

[David Jimerson]

When the dam started getting cracks, that was a good time to ice-over the already-almost-frozen lake. As I recall, it was really cold out that day?

Question -- sincerely -- have you always lived in Hawaii? :)

When a lake freezes over, it's only the surface. Maybe a couple of inches if it's really, really cold. A tiny, tiny fraction of a percentage of the water. A literal "drop in the lake" compared to the millions and millions of gallons of water in the lake and flowing down the river.

If Iceman could do that, he wouldn't be a mutant. He'd be a god.

[Marcus Marchesseault]

If they hadn't shown the amazing control over ice that he posessed in earlier scenes, I would agree with you. He made a wall of ice, from a distance, out of thin air. Well, the air had a bit of humidity. He was not a god in general, but he was a god with ice. Considering that the lake was already cold, he could have frozen a few feet of ice along the wall of the dam to shore it up and buy them some time.

What I am getting at is that I don't like when a character or situation is set up in the beginning of the movie, then ignored at the end because the script decides someone needs to die. The writers need to take into account earlier actions when they are going to do something pivotal. If they were driving a Lemon Surplus jet that can't be depended upon in a crisis, they need to show it having quirks and blowing smoke out the tail pipe earlier in the movie. If making a big wall of ice is too much for the ice guy, they need to show him having a limitation before a perfect situation for his abilities is presented and he mysteriously fails to act. Other characters could have saved the day without someone needing to die. That scene was important and needed to be written better.

I was going along great until that scene. I left the movie thinking "those people are idiots, they rely upon deficient machinery, and ice-boy is a hysterical coward that won't be there when you need him". The rest of the movie wasn't like that, so I was really surprised at the end. I wonder if, like the first movie, something important was left on the editing room floppy drive?