X-Men 3
Updates, Cool Stuff May 30th, 2006I’ve already mentioned that weekends throw off my groove. Holiday weekends do it doubly so. I wanted to be at 60k by the end of yesterday, but it doesn’t work that well for me when everybody’s home in a tiny apartment. I needed somewhere to go over the holiday if I was going to get any good writing done.
Evenings during the week are great because everybody is settling down from a long day of work or school. On weekends everybody’s up and doing things, and since I’m the only one who spends his spare time writing instead of having fun—yes, I’ve been a party pooper lately—it’s hard to find somewhere to go.
I also saw X-Men 3 on Friday. Good for a popcorn movie, but the director/writers missed a lot of opportunities to make the story very meaningful.
For those of you who have seen the movie, check out the link below to Eric James Stone’s list of how the climax could have been changed to make the movie more powerful. It’s helpful, too, as a writer to see how things could have been plotted differently to make a better story. Caution, this link contains spoilers!
May 30th, 2006 at 10:03 pm
The problem I see with Stone’s changes is that the movie would have two climaxes where it only needs one. I think it would feel too drawn out. It would also be way over the top, even for a movie where the Golden Gate Bridge gets levitated. Finally, I also would have liked to have seen the phoenix aura (or whatever you call it), but it doesn’t bother me that the movie doesn’t have it. Judging a mainstream movie negatively because it doesn’t meet every fanboy expectation is a bit unfair, especially since 99% of the audience wouldn’t care.
The only thing I would change in the movie is have it so Magneto fails to move the chess piece at the end. Allowing him to keep his power undermines the ironic justice of his losing it, as well as weakening the sense of finality that is proper to this, the final movie in the series.
May 30th, 2006 at 10:18 pm
Well, there are a few other things I’d change. I’d give more screentime to Scott and Rogue. After two movies, Scott Summers was finally becoming interesting, and then . . . poof! And Rogue’s dilemma with the mutant “cure” should have been given more development. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, though, since after the first movie, the series’ center has drifted away from her. I’m not certain yet whether that was a mistake or not.
May 31st, 2006 at 11:05 am
I agree with your changes as well, Tab. However, I didn’t see that Magneto moved the chess piece in the end. I thought that he had failed. If the piece moves, the filmmakers didn’t make it obvious enough. I saw a sad old man trying to do things that he can’t anymore.
May 31st, 2006 at 5:43 pm
At the very end, just a split second before the credits start, the chess piece wobbles slightly. It may be that Magneto’s powers are coming back or that his powers remain but are permanently reduced. I guess the answer depends on whether they make a sequel or not.
One thing I like about the 3rd movie is that it’s the first to actually consider the consequences of having superpowered people among us. In the previous movies, especially the first, it was all about the repressed minority alienated from society, blah, blah, blah. It’s teen angst writ large. The new movie shows how the government might actually respond to mutants. It develops safeguards and special police forces to deal with mutant criminals. It recruits other mutants to work for it, and so forth. I don’t think the movie goes far enough with the development of its extrapolations, but it’s more than I really expected. Perhaps we will get to see even more if there is a fourth movie or a TV spinoff or something. (One thing I won’t be doing is reading the comic book. Comic books have begun to irritate me. They are too expensive, and they are printed in such limited quantities that if you miss an issue, it is unlikely that you will ever find it. So I’ve pretty much sworn them off.)