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Jun. 12th, 2011 10:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretSo I saw X-Men First Class last night. And let's get this out of the way: Alex Summers is Scott Summer's brother. I insist on this, no matter what the movie is trying to do.
The X-Men are my main comic book fandom. I also grew up with Batman, Spiderman, and the Fantastic Four, but my longest subscription as a kid, my greatest engagement with a superhero team, was the Uncanny X-Men. I go into most comic book movies with some familiarity with the cast of characters, but I go into X-Men with EXPECTATIONS.
To some degree, the film didn't live up to those expectations. There's the aforementioned Havok business, but there's also the lip-service sop to the fundamental diversity of the X-teams. And there's Charles's lack of criticality about his own ideology.
On the other hand, there's Erik. Nobody will be able to convince me that the writers weren't writing him as the hero of that movie. And whilemarina's made some good points about the problems with that, of the movie's failure to engage with the flaws in the New Jew ideology, it was still fucking awesome. Two years after Inglourious Basterds, this movie and Erik in particular stirred the same complicated feelings in me, the joy in seeing a Jew stand up to his oppressors and write his own version of the history of the Holocaust, the pain and the suffering and the loss and the associated rebirth [As I write this, my father is attending a memorial service for my grandfather's best friend, a Survivor who lost his parents, siblings, and most of the rest of his immediate family in the Shoah. He lived a full, meaningful life, with children, many friends, a community that he inhabited joyfully until the end. And yet his life was never far away from pain. The last of the Survivors are dying and we are learning that Never Forget is more than just a slogan, it's a nuanced and difficult obligation my generation can't walk away from even though our lives are so much easier than those of generations before us.]
Magneto's always been my favorite X-Man and I've always loved the way the comics wrote him so plausibly, so sympathetically. Despite his brutality, there is always something in his appeal for the Brotherhood that made sense. And I say in spite of his brutality advisedly. It is never just vengeance that he is preaching. Fundamentally Erik is calling for unity, brotherhood, protection. He trusts no one, but he is seeking, just like Charles, to build a community of people who trust each other with their lives. There is a reason that mutants continually defect from the X-teams to the Brotherhood. It is not mere seduction. Magneto offers them hope.
what else did I like about the movie? I liked Kevin Bacon, I loved Mystique (Marina was so right about how they used her to showcase Charles's douchiness. It was fantastic.) I liked the way they repurposed the Cuban Missile Crisis. I liked Banshee, I thought Hank was given a bigger spotlight than I expected, and Angel was pretty cool. Too much has been said about the problems with Darwin being the only one to die, but I can second that. Darwin was cool. I probably would have liked Havok too if not for the fact that my brain was exploding about Havok being there at all. ALEX SUMMERS IS SCOTT SUMMERS'S BROTHER, DAMNIT.
Lastly, I hope someone makes an Erik fanvid to Remedy's "Never Again".
The X-Men are my main comic book fandom. I also grew up with Batman, Spiderman, and the Fantastic Four, but my longest subscription as a kid, my greatest engagement with a superhero team, was the Uncanny X-Men. I go into most comic book movies with some familiarity with the cast of characters, but I go into X-Men with EXPECTATIONS.
To some degree, the film didn't live up to those expectations. There's the aforementioned Havok business, but there's also the lip-service sop to the fundamental diversity of the X-teams. And there's Charles's lack of criticality about his own ideology.
On the other hand, there's Erik. Nobody will be able to convince me that the writers weren't writing him as the hero of that movie. And while
marina's made some good points about the problems with that, of the movie's failure to engage with the flaws in the New Jew ideology, it was still fucking awesome. Two years after Inglourious Basterds, this movie and Erik in particular stirred the same complicated feelings in me, the joy in seeing a Jew stand up to his oppressors and write his own version of the history of the Holocaust, the pain and the suffering and the loss and the associated rebirth [As I write this, my father is attending a memorial service for my grandfather's best friend, a Survivor who lost his parents, siblings, and most of the rest of his immediate family in the Shoah. He lived a full, meaningful life, with children, many friends, a community that he inhabited joyfully until the end. And yet his life was never far away from pain. The last of the Survivors are dying and we are learning that Never Forget is more than just a slogan, it's a nuanced and difficult obligation my generation can't walk away from even though our lives are so much easier than those of generations before us.]Magneto's always been my favorite X-Man and I've always loved the way the comics wrote him so plausibly, so sympathetically. Despite his brutality, there is always something in his appeal for the Brotherhood that made sense. And I say in spite of his brutality advisedly. It is never just vengeance that he is preaching. Fundamentally Erik is calling for unity, brotherhood, protection. He trusts no one, but he is seeking, just like Charles, to build a community of people who trust each other with their lives. There is a reason that mutants continually defect from the X-teams to the Brotherhood. It is not mere seduction. Magneto offers them hope.
what else did I like about the movie? I liked Kevin Bacon, I loved Mystique (Marina was so right about how they used her to showcase Charles's douchiness. It was fantastic.) I liked the way they repurposed the Cuban Missile Crisis. I liked Banshee, I thought Hank was given a bigger spotlight than I expected, and Angel was pretty cool. Too much has been said about the problems with Darwin being the only one to die, but I can second that. Darwin was cool. I probably would have liked Havok too if not for the fact that my brain was exploding about Havok being there at all. ALEX SUMMERS IS SCOTT SUMMERS'S BROTHER, DAMNIT.
Lastly, I hope someone makes an Erik fanvid to Remedy's "Never Again".
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Date: 2011-06-12 06:57 pm (UTC)