Yeah! I wondered that myself. How can Mystique be able to duplicate anyone’s appearance, right down to their fingerprints and retinal patters (as we saw in the first X-Men movie), and yet still be unable to erase scars from her body?
The only possibility I could think of was: She was toying with Wolverine, and wanted him to notice that she wasn’t really Jean Gray after she got to first base with him.
Don’t think this one’s been answered yet:
Umm… get them smackies ready…
That second missile, the one that blew a hole in the top of the jet, so that Rogue got sucked out, so that Kurt hadda teleport (blind, no less) out and grab her.
Nope. You probably saw it in one o’ the various trailers for the flick. Actually, IIRC, it was in the very first teaser trailer released.
As others have said, yeah, it’s self imposed. He could do it, but he’s afraid of turning himself into The Astounding Wall-Man! Hence the whole bit about having faith, and Storm having faith in him, that he wouldn’t get them both killed. Faith in, and acceptance of, oneself was pretty much the driving theme of this one.
[sub]All that, and two-fisted mutant fightin’ action! Who could ask for anything more?[/sub]
Notice the times he does teleport blind:
Going after Rogue, in midair, very little chance of hitting anything solid. When he bamfs back into the plane, he “knows” that everyone’s strapped in, and the aisle is clear, plus, it’s life or death.
In the intro (when he’s not in his right mind, anyway) whenever he jumps blind he always appears high up in midair, again, small chance of teleporting into something ouchie.
Situational awareness is more important than direct line of sight, mebbe.
[Aside]
In the comics, he had a vertical limit of something like two or three miles IIRC, letting him go from aboard a plane in flight, to a couple hundred feet off the ground, and so on down to solid ground, in a series of jumps, as he scouted out the empty terrain for a “landing zone.”
I may be misremembering, but I think he was once effectively trapped by some bad guy or another by being imprisoned in a lightless, sealed room, with no idea where he was, or what was outside the room. Sounds like an Arcade-style trap, as I think about it.
[/Aside]
NO!
Rogue flew the jet over to them, remember? Then, they restarted the jet, then it shut down, then Jean goes outside.
Myst is supposed to be able to heal otherwise non-fatal wounds completely in the comics.
I felt sort of so so. I agree: the opening scene set the bar, but the rest was sort of down a notch. We have yet to see a real X-men style anything-goes fight between two groups of mutants. If Stryker had just let loose his captured slaves on the X-Men en masse, it would have rocked. Instead we got a single Cyclops battle that didn’t even really showcase his skills)
I thought Jean was too underdeveloped to “die” the way she did: and the explanation of why she did was silly and awkward afterwards. If she really has planning her own death, they should have developed that more. Made it clearer that she was afraid of her powers. If she felt she was the only one who could have saved them in only that way, they should have made plain why that was (why couldn’t she do it from INSIDE the Blackbird? If she was afraid her powers would fry everyone, why didn’t they develop that?) Why could Xavier stop her? Was he too drained? Was she too powerful? It wouldhave been nice to have something there. While I loved Nightcrawler, they also didn’t have time to develop him. Basically, they took him out of the church and he just trotted along behind the X-men for the rest of the movie: we never really got to see him in any other element.
By the way: “Artie” is in the comics, though I don’t think he looks that human in the comics. He was also a surviving Morlock.
Mystique owned this movie: ever scene she was in was great (especially her big fight scene that ended with the finger). I just wish they’d shied away from her silly vocal effect. Aside from “we shouldn’t have to” her deadened line readings didn’t live up to her incredible physical action (her and Mags were great: like an old longtime couple) Still, she’s basically a flunkie in this version: the comic mystique at least had a more “I go it my own way” 'tude.
Whoops. Forgot that bit.
[Rationalization Mode: ON]
Well, it was all the electrical systems damage caused by the missile’s concussion, Magneto’s wanton abuse of EMFs, and the sideways “crash” landing that Rogue executed.
[Rationalization Mode: OFF]
Yeah, that was what I meant to type.
[sub]Or it could have been, y’know, a cheap dramatic plot device.[/sub]
On Preview:
I’ll need a second viewing to be sure, but I thought both movies made it pretty clear that Jean was afraid of her powers, or at least their full potential. Her scene with Logan, in the first movie, where she’s hesitant to read his mind, and the dialogue they have. (Something about her having nowhere near the level of power that Xavier does, and Logan asking “are you sure?”)
And, I thought that someone said exactly that (she was afraid of her potential) in the second flick, but my memory’s obviously failing me all of a sudden tonight.
As far as her “death” happening the way it did, mostly unexplained to the casual fans…
Blatant sequel set-up by Singer. The studio’s just gotta fork over the bucks to get Jackman and Berry back for a third film now, so they can finish this epic story arc he’s started with this film.
[sub]Or maybe I’m just being hopeful/cynical.[/sub]
I loved loved loved LOVED this movie.
I’m a huge fan of the first movie, the way they treated it not as a comic book movie, but a movie about what it would be like to have these weird mutant powers. It had plenty of scenes that were truly suspenseful (Magneto suspending bullets right before impact, and nearly pulling apart Wolverine’s skeleton) and genuinely surprising (Rogue’s waking up Wolverine). And it still managed to get the right balance, adding in all the references to the comics and still having the fun of a comic book. Without making the common mistake of “comics are childish, so we’re going to be adult and make it grittier and edgier.”
And the sequel has all that, plus loads of incredible action scenes! And villains that are actually multi-dimensional instead of “all good” or “all evil!” And even more references to please the fans without seeming like they’ve been shoe-horned in! And lots of close-ups of Famke Jansen!
(After seeing the preview posters with nothing but Halle Berry and Hugh Jackman (who is cool as hell, granted (I mean, it takes somebody pretty damn cool to pull off that hairstyle without looking like a complete ass (plus he’s had to deal with a name that’s just one step removed from Hugh Jass all his life)), I was afraid that they’d catered to the Big Name Star process and reduced the roles for the non-Oscar-winners. On the contrary, they gave Jean Grey and Mystique at least as much development as anyone else.)
All that said, it was plenty gruesome. I almost would’ve expected an R-rating. All the action scenes were cool, but more violent and even more gory than I would’ve expected. The guy next to me had a kid with him who looked no older than 10, and I was getting a little uncomfortable, what with all the bleeding and slicing and injecting and so on.
Spoiler boxes, just in case someone isn’t already spoiled.
I don’t think the final action sequence was a cop-out or plot device at all. I got the impression that the jet was already damaged from the missile hit, and Rogue’s attempt to fly it just made things worse. If they didn’t come right out and say it, it was definitely implied. As for why Bobby couldn’t have frozen the water, he had to be touching it and he might not’ve had that much power yet since he was still a student. As for why Jean couldn’t have done what she did from within the plane, she was afraid of what she’d do to all the people around her. They said over and over again in the first movie that she was unsure of her powers, and they said several times in this movie that she couldn’t control the new powers that were developing within her. That’s partly what the scene with Nightcrawler was about; she goes a little out of control and profusely apologizes afterwards.
As for its being a “blatant sequel set-up,” that’s a weird way of putting it; it’s a little like saying that the end of The Two Tours is just a blatant set-up for a pandering concluding movie where they go to Mordor. I’ve read exactly one X-Men comic, I’m don’t follow Marvel in general, and I never watched the animated series – and I still know basically what happens to Jean Grey. It’s a big part of the story.
And since I’ve admitted to not knowing much about the comics, I’ve got a few questions:
– I always thought that one of the main rules of the Marvel universe were that each mutant’s powers were unique. Is that not true? If it is, then what’s the deal with “Deathstrike?”
– They implied that Deathstrike was under the control of Stryker’s mind-control neck juice. Was she a good guy? There was a scene right towards the end that could’ve been read either as her coming back to consciousness and regretting what she’d done, or just “Ouch, this really hurts.”
– Mutants have to be mutants from birth, right? So was the reference to Hank McCoy (which I recognized, although I don’t know how) just a fan-teaser, or are they setting him up to appear in future movie(s)? Does the Beast’s origin involve him appearing human at some point?
And finally, anybody have any recommendations for how to start reading the comics? There are so many separate series, and so many collections even, I don’t know where to begin. I went out right after the movie and bought the Dark Phoenix Saga collection; what else is out there worth reading that doesn’t require intimate knowledge of a huge backstory? Preferably in TPB format?
Bleh. That should be The Two Towers, of course, not the imaginary but no less interesting film The Two Tours.
And I think I need to find people as geeky as me to watch these movies with.
After The Fellowship of the Ring, my friend was baffled as to why they’d hire a name as big as Ian McKellan to appear in only one film in a series. And after X-Men 2, she was very upset that they killed off Jean Grey.
Nah, I don’t see it that way. With LOTR you’ve already got an established story, and you’re adapting that.
[sub]Well, more or less.[/sub]
With the X-Flicks, you’re borrowing stuff from all over the history of the comic book, and re-inventing the whole thing as you go. There are huge divergences from the original storyline(s) to the screenplay.
The short version is that the story as it stands, has been told. Jean could just be dead, after a noble, if misguided, self sacrifice, and no mention of the Phoenix Force need be made, if there are no more films in the franchise. Of course, the way Singer did slip in the oblique references to it, the studio heads could be facing a torch bearing lynch mob if they refuse to fund another X-Flick.
[sub]'S’how I see it, anyway.[/sub]
I’ll address this next in a spoiler box, as it could be a spoiler for those reading back issues of the comics.
[spoiler]
Well, it was never really a rule. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, Wolverine, Sabretooth (after some character changes) and Lady Deathstrike all have basically the same abilities: Massive regenerative abilities, offensive claw-like weapons, and enhanced physical senses.
Deathstrike was created as a direct foil to Logan, by someone or other’s black ops project, in a semi-recreation of the project that originally created Wolverine. (We’re talkin’ about years of comic book stories here, with lots of revisionism and rewrites, so there’s no real hard and fast explanation.) IIRC, she also had a personal grudge against him, for rejecting her romantically in a long complex story arc involving Logan and his Japanese lady love, Mariko. But she was never (as Deathstrike, at least, after the procedure) considered a “good guy.” In the movie… it was never explained in any detail that I caught. She was just “there” as someone who could survive getting sliced up by Logan.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]
You got it in one. Hank was a member of the original team of X-Men, and started out as a mostly normal looking guy. He was highly educated (Oh my stars and garters was that boy smart!) but vaguely… apelike: short, squat, and muscular. But no blue fur. That came later, as a result of… someone help me out here? Can’t recall if it was simply a “natural” mutation to his genes, or the result of some super-villain’s plot or another.
Possibly it was explained both ways, at different times, depending on who was writing the comic that week.[/spoiler]
Following your lead, I’ll respond to the McCoy question in spoiler box
Hank actually is the one at fault for his own transformation. He drank some special chemical to disguise himself: but it hada time limit before becoming permanent, and he missed it. Originally, he was gray, but he eventually became blue and joined up with the Avengers(?) for quite some time. Later on, he regained his (mostly) human form. Then, he lost it again. Now, he’s a big blue cat. Go figure.
About Jean: I know that they were hinting her powers all throughout. But the hints were too subtle, and her character really didn’t get a storyline other than: “no, I won’t sleep with you” and “I love you Scott.” Her sacrifice didn’t feel like it was culminating a lot of character development,and because her and Cyke were so underplayed as far as development or characterization went, her death and his grief just seemed… kinda thin. Especially if it’s a major sequel set-up.
Following your lead, I’ll respond to the McCoy question in spoiler box
Hank actually is the one at fault for his own transformation. He drank some special chemical to disguise himself: but it hada time limit before becoming permanent, and he missed it. Originally, he was gray, but he eventually became blue and joined up with the Avengers(?) for quite some time. Later on, he regained his (mostly) human form. Then, he lost it again. Now, he’s a big blue cat. Go figure.
About Jean: I know that they were hinting her powers all throughout. But the hints were too subtle, and her character really didn’t get a storyline other than: “no, I won’t sleep with you” and “I love you Scott.” Her sacrifice didn’t feel like it was culminating a lot of character development,and because her and Cyke were so underplayed as far as development or characterization went, her death and his grief just seemed… kinda thin. Especially if it’s a major sequel set-up.
I think Hank drank a formula or something that changed his appearance. It’s at the marvel website.
Following your lead, I’ll respond to the McCoy question in spoiler box
Hank actually is the one at fault for his own transformation. He drank some special chemical to disguise himself: but it hada time limit before becoming permanent, and he missed it. Originally, he was gray, but he eventually became blue and joined up with the Avengers(?) for quite some time. Later on, he regained his (mostly) human form. Then, he lost it again. Now, he’s a big blue cat. Go figure.
About Jean: I know that they were hinting her powers all throughout. But the hints were too subtle, and her character really didn’t get a storyline other than: “no, I won’t sleep with you” and “I love you Scott.” Her sacrifice didn’t feel like it was culminating a lot of character development,and because her and Cyke were so underplayed as far as development or characterization went, her death and his grief just seemed… kinda thin. Especially if it’s a major sequel set-up.
Fair 'nuff.
Me, I’d like to see a series of about ten or twelve films, two to three hours in length, to cover all the details and storylines available.
Ain’t gonna happen, though.
[sub]But wouldn’t the movie that covers Logan’s solo story during the Brood War be a friggin’ FX bonanza? Talk aboutcher slice and dice action… plus, we’d get Lockheed.[/sub]
Following your lead, I’ll respond to the McCoy question in spoiler box
Hank actually is the one at fault for his own transformation. He drank some special chemical to disguise himself: but it hada time limit before becoming permanent, and he missed it. Originally, he was gray, but he eventually became blue and joined up with the Avengers(?) for quite some time. Later on, he regained his (mostly) human form. Then, he lost it again. Now, he’s a big blue cat. Go figure.
About Jean: I know that they were hinting her powers all throughout. But the hints were too subtle, and her character really didn’t get a storyline other than: “no, I won’t sleep with you” and “I love you Scott.” Her sacrifice didn’t feel like it was culminating a lot of character development,and because her and Cyke were so underplayed as far as development or characterization went, her death and his grief just seemed… kinda thin. Especially if it’s a major sequel set-up.
Hank originally got all blue and furry by his own hand. He was working on a serum that would remove mutations, and tried it on himself. It didn’t work, and actually mutated him further.
In the comics, Lady Deathstrike had herself altered into someone who could actually fight Wolverine, since she had a vendetta against him. She was much uglier after the change, totally cyborged, with wires and circuits visible on her skin. She had the speed and reflexes, and the finger-claws, but did not have Wolverine’s healing factor.
Even in the movie, the healing didn’t make much sense. Stryker had the technology to alter both their skeletons, but he couldn’t create specific mutations to order.
Always was puzzled by that. The whole reason Logan was chosen for the adamantium bonding process was his healing factor. He was the only one who could survive the process. I always figured that, to get something so similar done, she had to have developed/been given the same abilities.
Looks like I blew that call.
Yuriko, (or was it Yukio?) before her own bonding, was just a normal human, then. How the hell did she get jobbed up, and survive it? Somewhere in this time period was where I stopped collecting and reading, both because of the increasing cost, and the downward spiral in story quality.
[sub]I was also gonna ask if the boards seemed awfully congested to anyone else, tonight. The last six posts or so seem to answer that one quite nicely.[/sub]
I was under the impression that they changed Deathstrike’s backstory completely… instead of being a Wolverine-hating normal human, she’s now a mutant similar to Wolverine (and the movie Sabertooth) who underwent the same adamantium enhancement. There isn’t even any reference made to a particular dislike of Wolvie, much less a vendetta- it seemed to me that her role was primarily to act as a mind-controlled bodyguard for Stryker. The scene in which she begins flexing on her own, until Stryker injects his mind-control juice into her neck, combined with that sudden flash of something (regret? horror?) in her eyes right before she dies indicated that she was not acting of her own free will.
She certainly wouldn’t be the first mutant that was heavily altered for the films… just look at Rogue and Iceman.
Apos, what’s the deal with Hank McCoy? Maybe you should reply in a spoiler box. 
I’m glad to find out that I wasn’t just imagining the “Bird Shape Under the Water” part.
And I have to admit, I was expecting a Hollywood style “Bobby stops the water by intensely focusing his powers, which has the side effect of him gaining the ability to turn himself to ice, which gives him an immunity to Rogue’s powers, which leads to the scene ending with Anna Paquin french kissing a CGI Iceman.” You know, just like the end of Karate Kid. 
By the by, did anyone catch any other “familiar” names on Stryker’s computer, besides “LeBeau, Remy”?
I thought the movie was great! The audience was really into it. People were cheering and applauding throughout the movie. Like when Nightcrawler rescued Rogue in midair. Awesome!
I wish I could have paused the movie to see all the names. The only one I remember is Madroxx, Jamie aka Multiple Man.