I think that Stryker’s son was supposed to be Jason Wyngarde (Mastermind) as someone mentioned on page one of this thread. In the comics, he used his illusions to make himself appear more attractive – he didn’t have that breathing apparatus like in the movie, but he did look like a freak – and eventually was able to turn Jean Grey into Dark Phoenix. So I think he’ll be in the third movie.
The only other character I can think that Stryker’s son is based on is Legion (Xavier’s son in the comics)…he has two different colored eyes, but his powers are a little different.
No, to block Cerebro - but since Xavier using Cerebro is the most powerful telepath imaginable, it blocks all other telepathy as well.
Blocking Xavier with the helmet is like using a nuclear bomb to knock down a wall - it works, but it wasn’t designed for that purpose.
I suspect you may be right. Maybe it came out when Magneto led the X-Men for a time.
OTOH, it not only explains Cerebro but also why the whole of Xavier’s underground facility seems to be made of metal; rather than pay for enormously expensive and intrusive construction work, Magneto built it.
Was the kid with the glasses also in the first movie, or am I imagining it? I’m thinking he’s the kid with teleportation ability who cheats when playing basketball during Prof Xavier’s intro of the “school” to Wolverine. Not that this actually identifies who he is, I’m just curious.
Everyone keeps talking about “Jasons respirator” and “breathing aparatus” etc. Surely the pipes we saw are the draining pipes to extract the serum from his brain? They are nowhere near his nose or mouth, they appear to go into the back of his head. I kept waiting for Magneto to pull the nice shiny metal out of Jasons head :shudder:
Nightcrawler has no special defences. One sniper tranq dart and wham! Lights out. drug him silly and the fuzzy blue boy ain’t goin noplace.
Does anyone here think that perhaps there is just a little too much analysis goign on here? Geez, lets dissassemble the movie till it breaks, now. Maybe I’ll try an analyze your life sometime and annoy you by constantly harping on all your inconsistancies.
I understand the instinct, but the answers are usually there if you stop a minute and think about it. More importantly, it seems like it kind of gets silly after a while. Its one thing to ask about some background. Its another to demand flawless consistancy of a fantasy/conspiracy/action movie.
Not unless he’s both impervious to falling concrete and can breathe water. Unless I missed it, I didn’t see anyone carrying him out of the collapsing Cerebro and soon-to-be submerged base.
I think Jason Stryker is an amalgamation of several different characters, including:
Jason Wyngarde, aka Mastermind, who lent his first name and powers.
In “God Loves, Man Kills”, the graphic novel the movie is loosely based off of, Rev. William Stryker murders his newborn son when he discovers the baby is a mutant. The movie transformed him from a bigoted preacher into a bigoted colonel and his son into Jason Stryker.
In the comics, the original creator of the Sentinels (mutant-hunting robots) hated mutants but secretly had a mutant son. Sound familiar?
Legion, Prof. X’s immensely powerful autistic son with MPD. Some physical traits were borrowed (namely the differently-colored eyes) and the failed parental relationship between Xavier and Jason.
I think Jason Stryker is an amalgamation of several different characters, including:
Jason Wyngarde, aka Mastermind, who lent his first name and powers.
In “God Loves, Man Kills”, the graphic novel the movie is loosely based off of, Rev. William Stryker murders his newborn son when he discovers the baby is a mutant. The movie transformed him from a bigoted preacher into a bigoted colonel and his son into Jason Stryker.
In the comics, the original creator of the Sentinels (mutant-hunting robots) hated mutants but secretly had a mutant son. Sound familiar?
Legion, Prof. X’s immensely powerful autistic son with MPD. Some physical traits were borrowed (namely the differently-colored eyes) and the failed parental relationship between Xavier and Jason.
Thanks, Nichol. That’s the one loose end that’s been bugging me the most. And I can’t find that graphic novel, everyone’s sold out. Been looking on eBay, too. Oh well, one day…
Glad I could be of help. Looks like Amazon doesn’t have any copies of “God Loves, Man Kills” either, sorry. It’s a damn good story, one of my favorites, and well worth hunting down.
Get thee to a comic shop! I saw a new reprint edition on the racks at my local store…last week? The week before? It’s in a standard comic-book size, rather than the original graphic-novel size.
I have probably been somewhat negligent in not posting again to a thread I started, but I’ve really enjoyed all that’s been said here. I’ve been reading X-titles since the beginning of Excalibur (which I found on the comics rack at my local railway station ye many moons ago). and yet I’ve learnt a LOT with this thread.
Anyhoo, I’m de-lurking to say this is the first thread I’ve ever started and it’s now had 6740 views!
Someone mentioned this earlier, I think, but I am not going to go back to look for it. Did anyone else think the President might be a mutant? When Prof-X attacks all the humans, we see the President reacting, but doesn’t he look a little “forced?” Also, when Stryker asks for the ok to take out the mansion, the Presdient seems awfully concerned about the mutant children, and then there is the problem he has with the language of the speach. I suppose Prof-X would know if he was a mutant or not, but maybe the good President has been getting by as a normal human…I have seen the movie twice, and I think there is something going on with him. Maybe he is just supposed to be ambivalent about the mutant ‘problem’, thoughts?
Wouldn’t that actually make him the Robin of the X-Men?
“You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.” [sup]—Bill Bixby for President![/sup]
Excellent movie. Big fun. Loved how everybody was given something to do - an extreme rarity in stories with such large ensembles.
And how great for the further geekification of my wife. She knew nothing about Kurt, but is now a wholehearted Nightcrawler fan. “He’s my favorite!”
One question, is he scarified in the comics? I’ve only seen maybe 2 issues with him and don’t remember seeing it. And let me say how nice to see a very devout Catholic portrayed so wholesomely!
First a general point. Why anyone is discussing Uncanny X-Men continuity for anything other than curiosity purposes is beyond me. The movie quite obviously has created an entirely new continuity, with some characters retaining more of their character (Cyclops, Magneto) than others (like Pyro, who might as well be unique to the movie’s continuity). We can certainly make conjectures about their powers and so on based on history from the books, but if anything we know from the books is contradicted in the movie, and there are a lot of things that are, that doesn’t make the movie wrong. Speaking for myself, the only way I could enjoy this movie was taking it that way; it obviously was not a movie ‘version’ of the X-Men that I grew up with (I used to get pissed at the cartoons as a kid because they mixed everything up, would have enjoyed them more if I thought of them as totally separate). Sorry, that’s just my personal grinding-axe.
Oh, another short one: why bother using spoiler boxes in this thread? Huh?
-Regarding iron content in blood: IIRC it’s long been established in the books that there isn’t enough iron in the blood for Magnus to mess with. That’s why he made his debonair magenta and purple suit out of chainmail.
-Regarding the Wolvie bullet. Watching the movie (both times) I had the same gripe. Wouldn’t have penetrated his skull at all. Feel your forehead – how much flesh is there? It would have dinged right off. Minor nitpick to be sure.
-Regarding Gambit, Remy’s name was the only one I noticed on Stryker’s screen the first time I watched the movie. The second time I made sure to look further down and I saw Dani and Jamie. I also noticed a couple of the other folders on his desktop like the Wideawake one and a few others that I couldn’t remember afterwards. I don’t think this means in any way that Gambit will be in the next movie; I thought it was just one of very many minor touches that were thrown in to make all us fanboys wet our pants, which I duly did.
-I have an original, graphic novel sized, glossy paged version of God Loves, Man Kills. Envy me (should I be selling it on EBay?)
-Regarding Rogue and her Ms. Marvel powers: Why in the world would they incorporate any of that into the next movie? That’s such incidental backstory as far as the movies are concerned, and it’s not like the Rogue character isn’t already completely rewritten. I don’t see any reason to assume that would be included.
-Regarding a post from earlier in this thread (page 3 I think)
This is totally wrong. In Marvel comics, there has in fact always been a clear dividing line. Being genetically altered after birth and being born with a genetic mutation are completely different and are kept totally distinct in the Marvel universe. I have a lot of doubts about the second paragraph, too. Strong Guy is ‘psionically bending the universe’? No. He’s just strong. It’s his genes.
-FlyingDragonFan was right about the possibility of Jason being in X3. He was very clearly left to die in the collapsing dam, which absolutely shocked me. Kurt 'ported Storm out of Cerebro2, 'ported back in to get Xavier, and 'ported out again and then left. It was totally ridiculous that he, Xavier, or most of the other X-Men present would have been willing to leave Jason to his death. Thanks to Nichol_Storm for the wonderful explanation of the different influences on the Jason Stryker character in X2. Didn’t leave anything out.
-Thanks also to Nichol_Storm for the link to the screen capture (which I have now… lost…) of Stryker’s computer screen. I knew something like that had to be out there somewhere.
-RickJay, Deptford, regarding Wolvie’s origins, in the books the Weapon X program is repeatedly shown to be a Canadian military secret program. I was slightly miffed that they rewrote that to be American for the movie, but you do what you gotta. So whatever flashbacks they showed in the movie are totally made up for movie continuity (although the flashbacks they showed in X2 I thought captured perfectly the sense of those times that’s been portrayed forever in the books).
-gex gex: And Nightcrawler too
-Sol Grundy: Back off, pal. Famke is my girl. And at least I can spell her name right! Famke JansSen. God. Could she have been hotter? I’ve always liked her, but she has never looked better. And I finally realized why they cast James Marsden: He is a stiff and a pretty boy, just like Scott, and he’s taller than Famke (she’s 5’11", he’s 6’1"). Should have cast me, though, to get the height differential a little more accurately.
-Regarding ‘bamf’: How anyone can complain about this is beyond me. I thought they absolutely freaking nailed the ‘bamf.’ Nightcrawler made me wet my pants. He was so good. I was worried about Alan Cumming too, especially after the first few character schematics they released for Kurt that made him look like a clown, but he was just so perfect in the movie. Perfect. Even worked in the mix of humility and self-hate with optimism and boisteriousness that characterizes him in the books. And he’s a ladies man! Storm was on the nuts! Good match if you ask me.
And finally, the thing that I’ve been thinking about most of all: The Phoenix. Number Six and I discussed it a bit in another thread, and I really don’t think they’re going to introduce the Phoenix Force. How could they? Think they’re going to go into the Professor getting wounded, getting taken by the Shi’ar (Magneto running the school in the meantime, plus the New Mutants), the X-Men getting caught up by the SpellJammers, the M’Kraan crystal, (I forgot the name of the Shi’ar chick that loved Xavier), her brother going power mad, the clone under the sea, the Phoenix Force falling in love with Scott, Maddy Pryor, Rachel Summers, the Professor walking again (and then not walking again) X-Force, blah, blah blah… no. How much of that would have to be included? Too much.
In my opinion her transformation is going to be totally internal, so they can leave out all that other stuff. I mean, it’s gotta be. But that image under the water near the end of X2… gave me chills for real.
After the movie I was speculating as to what X3 would look like. I kind of wanted there to be Sentinels, but I’m not sure how that could work given Magnus’ strong presence in the movies. In the books whenever the Sentinels rolled around he was usually off doing something else, or couldn’t be bothered, or was indirectly involved somehow, but any time he was directly involved he would both toss the robots around and make fun of whoever thought it would be a good idea to attack him with giant metal things. Obviously he’s not going to be a minor character in X3 so I’m not sure how there could be Sentinels unless he gets captured again first or something, or they copout and say they’re giant plastic robots or something which would be weak.
And who will the next crop be? Colossus, I hope. Unlike pretty much everyone, I was extremely disappointed with his role in X2. Personally I thought his transforming shot was really hokey and stupid-looking. The guy they cast to play him was picture-perfect, though. I literally groaned out loud when Wolvie told him to take the kids instead of fighting and he went (even the second time when I knew he was going to do it). I wanted to see him kick some butt. So hopefully he’ll be a bigger part of X3. And Kitty too.
So that’s what I have to say. I’ve been looking for this thread (hey, you try searching for ‘X2’) for a while so I had a lot to say… and of course I had to respond to like every single other post here, heh. All in all, the movie totally rocked. I didn’t think it was that great as a movie, the pacing was a little off and the storyline could have been a lot more compelling (like somebody said… doomsday device, bleh. There was really never any tension in the plot, all the tension was character driven, but they kept cutting that back to focus on the boring plot), but as an experience it was fully incredible. The coolness factor was off the charts and their homage to the X-Men, and the constant tidbits thrown in for the fanboys among us (tv debate between Hank McCoy and ‘Dr. Shaw,’ onscreen for 1 second! Artie! All of it!) were completely and utterly awesome. I only had one or two major gripes, but overall it was just amazing. Uncanny you might say. I watched it twice in two days and might get caught going to see it again.
[sup]—Bill Bixby for President![/sup]
