My mind drifted when Stryker explained his what his son’s power was. Actually, I think my mind drifted alot. What was the deal with the scenes switching back from Xavier in one place to him in another? I’m assuming the little girl was really Jason but I don’t know the link. Also, why did Stryker create “Wolverine” in the first place? Do we know anything more in this movie about Wolverine’s real origins?
His power was to use his mind to control the actions of another person / make that person believe he was seeing something else. Stryker had to use him b/c he knew Xavier was too powerful for the controlling syrum. (I always thought Magneto was equally powerful, but Stryker had no trouble controlling Magneto with the same syrum <shrug>). So Xavier believed he was back at the school, showing the little girl how to use the Cerebro. I believe in the comics the son’s power was akin to Mesmero.
Apparently we learn that Wolverine volunteered for the job to become Wolverine - IOW, he was one of Stryker’s soldiers and wanted to undergo the surgery to become a lethal military assassin. He has apparently decided that he’d rather fight for good. (c.f. Total Recall). No mention yet as to how old Wolverine is, but you can assume his memory was erased when the adamantium was added ~15 years prior, IIRC. I was a little confused by this - I didn’t think Stryker would have had a mutant as one of his soldiers…
Stryker’s son Jason had the psychic ability to project whatever illusion he wished upon those around him. I guess he got a bit carried away, seeing as how he drove his mother to drilling into her own temple.
Xavier kept switching from one place to another to portray the shifts from reality to what Xavier THOUGHT was reality.
The little girl was how Jason chose to appear in Xavier’s mind.
I’ve never read a X-Men comic, but I think Wolverine was probably created as some kind of military weapon, or perhaps as a bodyguard.
Jason can create situations taking place only in the person’s head to try to convince them to do something (like the first one he tried on Prof X. where X was standing up). The scenes with the little girl took place in Xavier’s head; it was what he believed was going on (being at the school, students are lost, going to his own Cerebro to find them). The shots with Jason were reality. I thought it was a pretty neat effect, myself.
As for Wolverine, the comic continuity had the government trying to create a super soldier/spy/special ops. Wolverine had his mutant healing which allowed him to survive the adamantium application. Logan went nuts after the procedure and escaped. As for his real origins, in the movie universe we still don’t know where he came from, why he’d volunteer, or who he really is. Marvel did a comic series (last year?) where they did Logan’s origin story, but I don’t know what they covered.
So why was Xavier taking instructions from the girl to “find”/kill all the mutants if he was showing her Cerebro? Also, and this is starting to get embarrassing, what became of Magneto?
Showing her Cerebro was just how he got Xavier to go into the Cerebro room and put on the helmet - once that was accomplished, he was able to make him do whatever he wanted.
Magneto, Mystique and Pyro all flew away in Stryker’s helicopter at the end while the X-Men were trying to keep Xavier from killing all the humans.
Perhaps you should see the movie again? 
I should explain that better - he didn’t have to wait for Xavier to put the hellemt on before he could make him do whatever he wanted - he controlled Xavier the entire time - the sequence of getting him in there and all related scenes involving the little girlr was just to show off some cool F/X.
I got the impression that the serum was made from Jason somehow. I’m not sure what I founded that impression on, but was I correct?
Stryker tells Prof. X that the serum is made from Jason’s brain fluid.
Mild hijack here, but the question, “Why did Stryker create Wolverine?” is actually a darned good one. Has it occurred to anyone else that the entire Weapon X program was frankly more than a little goofy, even for comics? Creating a super-soldier is all very well and good, but look at the way they went about it! They spend fifty kajillion Canadian dollars, create a huge underground research lab, go to all the trouble of processing and refining liquid adamantium, locate the one mutant on the planet who can survive the bonding process, and for what? To give him harder bones. Hey, message to Canadian Black Ops from the American Dairy Council: Milk! It does a body good! Just give the poor bastard more calcium.
Really, I have to think that if you’re trying to create the ultimate living weapon, giving him a metal skeleton, while admittedly a nice touch, is not going to be too high on the list of priorities. At the very least, it’s going to be several pages down on the list of add-ons, after thermal vision, improved reflexes, and fart suppression. Though I freely confess to never having tried to turn a hairy, unemployed Canadian into a ruthless killing machine, I would suggest that indestructible armor is perhaps better located outside the body, so as to protect the vulnerable fleshy bits. Granted, as the movie illustrates, an indestructible adamantium skull will successfully prevent anyone from shooting you through the head, but then so will a helmet. Why go to the trouble of filling the guy up with priceless liquid metal when you can just buy him a hat?
Some may argue that having a metal skeleton would be useful for covert operations, but this would seem to be of limited use. There are few situations where such an edge would be particularly helpful, and quite a few where it would be a positive hindrance:
WHITE HOUSE SECURITY GUARD: Okay, Mr. Logan… Your I.D. seems to check out. Sorry about the hassle, but we’ve recieved an anonymous tip that someone may be trying to sneak in and decapitate the President. Now, if you’ll just place your keys and loose change in the tray, and step into the scanner–
METAL DETECTOR: WOOP! WOOP! WOOP! (bells, whistles, flashing lights)
WHITE HOUSE SECURITY GUARD: Errr… Oooo-kay… that’s, uh, that’s the alarm that… that tells us that everything is *fine. * Yes…no problems here, everything’s normal… Now, if you’ll, er, just hold very still so we can, er, take your picture for your visitor’s badge…
(activates hidden flamethrower control)
At the very least they should have gone with carbon composites–safer and more cost effective.
Well, I just got back from seeing the movie and really enjoyed it. I hope KidCharlemagne doesn’t mind if I borrow his thread to ask a question of my own. I’ve never read a single comic book or anything–and I barely remembered the first X-Men movie–so pardon me if I seem a bit stupid, but where did Pyro come from? Somehow I missed that. Did he escape from the school with them? I totally blanked out that part somehow. I think he was my favorite character! Being evil is so cool. 
I’ve only seen the movies, but I’d think the nature of Xavier’s power as well as the strength is what makes him invulnerable to the serum.
Yeah, he escaped from the school with Bobby and Rogue. He was with them when they went back for Wolverine.
Remember the scene in the museum with the guys hassling Bobby, Rogue and another boy, asking for a light for their cigarettes? Right before Professor X froze everyone in the museum? The other boy was Pyro.
Ah… okay. Thanks. That scene was confusing for me. But cool nonetheless.
To be fair, that’s only about $350 USD.
Xavier’s power is such that unfortunately he has to be taken out sometime early in the movie, either by putting him in a coma (as in the first movie) or gassing him into a stupor (as in this one). Otherwise, his mental abilities could wrap up the problem in just a few seconds.
I predict that sometime within the first 20 minutes of the third movie, Xavier will encounter a mutant whose ability is to unerringly find ticklish spots, and he’ll spend the whole movie paralyzed with laughter, only recovering when the crisis has passed.
In some sense, it’s like the contrived ways that kryptonite would pop up in Superman stories, or how Billy Batson gets gagged before he can shout “SHAZAM!”
Since the OP is concerned with Jason, I also have a question about the movie. What happened to Jason? Did the X-Men just leave him to die? That’s kind of sad.
That was the impression I got.
You could argue that Kurt went back and grabbed Jason after the scenes we saw, but it seemed that letting him die was the kinder fate.
He apparently never had much self control, or just plain wasn’t a nice guy, considering he drove his own mother to suicide. It looked like he’d been lobotomized, by the scars of the side of his head, not to mention that he was on a respirator, to boot, in that wheelchair. He had (or so I gathered) just enough cognitive function left to excercise his illusion creating abilities, so long as he was provided direct instruction to do so.
(I didn’t imagine the Darth Vader-like breathing noises coming from him, in the first shot we see him in, did I?)
Well, what else is the adamantium gonna be used for? I mean, sure, it could be used to make vehicles and armor, but if the opportunity presents itself to use it on a person, then why not?
Perhaps technology has not reached that point where thermal vision, improved reflexes, and fart suppression are readily available options.
So, they’re stuck with this adamantium.
I always assumed that the whole “Weapon-X” program was a post-facto justification. I figured the scientists really wanted to use Logan as a lab rat, researching how humans react to adamantium. The bodyguard/assassin spiel was just to get funding.
Hal
How was Logan’s skeleton replaced with (or augmented by) adamantium anyway? It seems like his super-immune system would have thwarted any such attempts.
Meaning, wouldn’t his bones regrow as soon as they drilled into them to create the screw holes or whatever they used to attach the adamantium plates? Or, wouldn’t the adamantium eventually become detached from the bones, encapsulated with scar tissue, and gradually worked upward and out through Logan’s skin?
Or did Stryker use some kind of immune suppression?