X-tra questions

Saw X-Men: The Last Stand tonight. Liked it, it was interesting. Continues series' central themes of science as a double-edged sword, and it's what's on the inside that matters, not what's on the outside.

Movie has some specific real-world applications, can think of the persecuted mutants in the movie as gay people; or, because some of the mutants fight back violently, as Muslims. The film centers around an industrialist developing a drug, derived from a mutant boy's power, that makes someone who's a mutant 'normal'. The company makes the drug available to any mutant who wants to take it, which engenders first demonstrations and then when Eric/Magneto's band gets involved, war.

Significant side plot is Dr. Jean Grey--who seemingly sacrificed herself at the end of the previous movie to save the X-Men--actually still being alive, having built herself a 'psychic shield' underwater.

And apparently she's such a powerful mutant that Professor Xavier had had to instill 'mental barriers' in her mind after he first met her to allow her to control her powers. The uncontrolled personality calls herself 'Phoenix', and has been suppressed all these years.

The film starts with Professor Xavier and Magneto visiting Jean Grey as a girl, essentially the Professor convinces her to come to his school, although at first she's reading his mind and levitating things outside outof pique.

After that there's what looks like a battle, but it turns out it's just a simulation at the school meant to help four of the students--Rogue, Iceman, Kitty Pryde and Colossus work on their fighting skills. It's interesting, Wolverine has Colossus throw him, he cuts off the head of the robot. He's always hated technology.

Meanwhile, the president and his staff are meeting, they show their director of mutant affairs that they've captured Mystique, while she was trying to steal information the FDA has about the anti-mutant drug the private company developed. I think this is important--it's no longer bad governments we have to fear, but companies operating beyond the reach of elections, driven by profit or other motives.

Around this time, Scott leaves the school, because he keeps on hearing Jean mentally calling to him, he assumes he's going nuts, goes to Alkali Lake where he last saw her. There he's overcome by the strength of her calling, kindof goes nuts and winds up shooting an energy beam into the lake, which releases her (a phoenix traditionally needs to be burned alive before it's reborn, in this case I think it's not that literal, his heat vaporizes the water above her she's been using all her strength to hold back, allowing her enough space to create a whirlpool, which sucks her out).

They kiss, she tells him she wants to see his eyes, saying she can control his heat, he winds up taking off his glasses, and that's the last you see of him. Meanwhile, the government's announced the availability of the anti-mutant drug, mutants hold a meeting at which Eric reveals himself, preaches fighting, and gets some new followers, including a mutant who can locate other mutants, he uses her to find where Mystique is being held.

Around this time the owner of the company decides to test the drug, on his son--who earlier had been trying to saw off his wings. He changes his mind, but they try to continue, he manages to bust outof the lab and flies off.

Back in school, the professor's teaching some kids, they show a training video with a nurse and a man in a coma who's alive but has no brain functions, question of whether if you could transplant consciousness is it okay to put somebody else into this body. The session's interrupted, the company's announced the drug is available for any mutant who wants to take it.

At some point Wolverine and Storm come to look for Scott, Storm clears the area of its mist and it turns out everything's floating free of gravity. They find Jean passed out, take her back home, the Professor tries to reharness her mind, but the process is never finished or doesn't work.

At any rate Wolverine is looking at her when she reawakes, they start kissing passionately--Phoenix is uncontrolled so while Jean Grey had managed to repress her feelings for Wolverine outof consideration for her relationship with Scott, Phoenix has no such restraints. But he realizes something's wrong, this isn't like Jean at all and although in some ways he likes it, he always wants it to be authentic and really her, not some uncivilized animal. Interesting, because he's always fought this battle with himself, tells you he's really been convinced by Professor Xavier, it's not brainwashing. Jean, however, tells Wolverine to kill her now, that she as Phoenix is too dangerous; Wolverine doesn't believe her, but does stop kissing her, then Phoenix--who'd been levitating things and generally making a mess of the room in the throes of passion--hurls him against a wall and walks out.

After that you see Magneto and his band busting up the convoy that's shuttling the imprisoned mutants around the country, significantly a guard who's not quite dead manages to fire a dart filled with anti-mutant serum at Magneto, Mystique takes the dart instead, but after she's 'transformed' back into her human self Magneto leaves her, he only deals in mutants. She's left upset, ultimately angry.

The Professor and Magneto meet up at Jean Grey's childhood home--they tell their comrades to stay outside, go inside, each attempting to persuade Jean--the Professor asking her to return so they can work on controlling Phonenix, Magneto saying she shouldn't submit to his control anymore. She basically ignores Magneto, she and the Professor engage in a battle of wills, she's so powerful she destroys the house, throwing Magneto into the kitchen, and levitates the Professor; all the chaos brings the others in, but fighting, Magneto's forces get the better of it but Wolverine is able to work his way into the room, where he sees Phoenix dispersing the professor into a million particles, but not before the Professor appeals to Jean to control her powers.

Phoenix/Jean kindof goes limp, Magneto convinces her to come with him, off they go to his mutant army camp. There's then a funeral at the school for the Professor, after that they decide to keep the school open after a short discussion of closing it, the winged boy shows up and has some impact on the discussion. Storm's now in charge, as the Professor had said to her earlier she would be. Iceman and Kitty Pryde have a moment out on the ice, Rogue sees it, along with a few other things is jealous and sad, decides to take the anti-mutant drug so as to be able to touch her boyfriend.

Wolverine hears Jean calling him, goes to her, has to fight his way in, hears Magneto telling his troops he's planning to go to war. He tries to make his way to Jean afterwards, but Magneto fights him and knocks him outof there. He doesn't want her talking to Jean....

After that Pyro firebombs the distribution center for the drug, Magneto goes on tv to say it's the opening of the war. He decides to take over the drug facility and the mutant it's all based on, as part of the war. Meanwhile, the government decides to attack his camp; they launch the attack, but it's empty, just one mutant pretending to be hundreds.

Eric and his troops are gathered overlooking Alcatraz where the drug headquarters are, he drags the Golden Gate bridge over so they can get over to the island. Wolverine, Storm, Dr. Hank McCoy/Beast--who's resigned from the government to rejoin his comrades--and the four kids get ready to try and stop Eric, Wolverine tells them all they have to fight and can't let what the Professor stood for die, Storm at the end tells him I hope you're ready to do what you have to.

Final big battle, Eric's side is doing well, sends in Juggernaut and a couple others to get the kid while most of his forces are fighting the government out front. The X-Men show up, they stand with the troops and battle Eric, while Kitty walks through walls and stuff to find the mutant boy, gets to him before Juggernaut, nobody's powers works around him, they take advantage of that and Juggernaut knocks himself out running into, instead of through, a wall.

Magneto and Pyro are getting the better of the battle, Wolverine comes up with a plan, sends Iceman to battle Pyro one-on-one, Iceman wins. Meanwhile Wolverine gets Colossus to throw him, Magneto stops him, says you never learn, Wolverine says actually I do, Beast has come around behind Magneto and stabs him with four anti-mutant darts, he loses his power.

It's an interesting moment, not just because the mutants had to use anti-mutant technololgy to defeat the greater evil but also because Wolverine/nature warped by technology is able to defeat Magneto/ultimate representation of technology in that he controls metal only by using Beast/nature at its most pure stripped of his suit-wearing ways. So there's a time and place for the fury of nature, but only when consciously directed by the intellect.

The government's reinforcements arrive, however, and fire a bunchof darts at the X-Men. Luckily Jean/Phoenix stops the darts; she basically stops everything in their tracks, but then starts destroying everything. Wolverine tells Storm to lead the others, including the mutant boy, out, only he can stop Phoenix. He approaches her, she tries to disintegrate him but he self-heals pretty quickly, gets close to her, tries to reason with her, she's outof control, so he gets closer, winds up killing her. As she dies Jean is back, says thank you or words to that effect.

Film winds down with Jean's grave and Scott's next to the Professor's; school is back in session, Beast is appointed UN ambassador to represent all Americans internationally. Final scene is Eric in a park, trying--perhaps succeeding--in regaining his power to move metal, via a chess piece that wobbles.

Then, after the credits--a quick scene, the nurse and patient in a coma, then the professor's voice, then the nurse says 'Charles?' Nobody else saw this, but I don't think Charles' voice came from the body, it came from the left, like in a chair off to the side or something. Not at all sure about this, and unclear why it would be true.

[Further Internet research: the 'nurse' is actually Moira MacTaggert, who's apparently the leading human associate of the X-Men, a scientist, and the former fiancee of Charles. She's at her computer, hears a voice to her left say 'Moira', turns around, says 'Charles?']

In any case, Charles apparently isn't 'dead' although he's lost his temporal body, either he himself was able to put his consciousness into this body, or Jean was able to help him in response to his last-minute appeal to her to control her power.

Phoenix essentially is uncontrolled Jean; too much of a good thing is always bad. Throughout Phoenix's powers are extremes of Jean's. Jean has always had the ability to read people's minds, Phoenix does that to the point where Scott is in pain and thinks he's crazy. But later, it's Jean who uses the calling to get Wolverine to come find her at Eric's mutant army camp (and kill her), so Jean is clearly not just present but sometimes able to counteract Phoenix.

Another power Jean's had is the ability to 'freeze' time, which I read actually as the ability to manipulate particle movement. The freezing is always localized, not worldwide. Also, this same power explains her levitation power--she simply stops the natural tendency of particles to fall toward earth (gravity's pull). But in Phoenix's hand the uncontrolled power means things 'explode', or actually objects disintegrate. Read this as she just accelerates particles' natural movement to the point where it's outof control (like Juggernaut, who once he builds up momentum is unstoppable]

A friend asked afterwards why does Jean/Phoenix kill Scott. It's a good question, taps into the larger issue of who is Phoenix and why is she necessary in the film. Possible explanations:

1) She needed his energy. Phoenix definitely needed Scott initially, his burst of energy is what frees her. After that, while they were kissing and she told him to take off his glasses, it was almost like she was sucking in his life force or something. Jean Grey's been trapped for so long her hair has grown really long, maybe she was 'hungry' as well and sucked his life force out of him.

2) It was a mistake. After being freed, Phoenix says something you can imagine a grateful lover saying to another, take off your glasses, I want to see your eyes--and don't worry, I can control your fire. (This echoes Iceman in X-Men 2 saying to Rogue he wanted to kiss her, and could prevent her from killing him; but miscalculating and almost dying (as she sucks the life outof him), having let love rule his head). Likewise, maybe Phoenix was wrong, was still finding her own strength and her powers are too strong/uncontrollable, trying to control Scott's fire (mentally?) she killed him by mistake in the heat of passion. There is some support for this, when Wolverine/Storm find her she's unconscious herself.

3) Phoenix fights against control. She was kissing Scott, realized his love of her is controlling because he wants her to suppress her feelings for Wolverine and just be with him, kills him outof an inability to abide any control now that she's been freed from Charles' inhibitors.

Slight corollary to this, Phoenix, or uncontrolled Jean Grey, is inherently unstable and thus bad, so things like this happen when passion is unfettered. It's interesting, she doesn't kill people she doesn't love. She throws away Magneto like he's not even worth dealing with at the house--when she threatens him later in the camp, it's with the anti-mutant serum, not with dissolution. The Professor, on the other hand, she engages with; but I think is swayed in part by Magneto's words that Charles wants to control her, so fights against that. She doesn't try to kill Wolverine the first time around, though--maybe because she recognizes that he's at heart an unfettered animal like her. He actually controls himself in deciding not to have sex with her.

At the end of the movie she does try to kill him, but only in the act of destroying everything around her (Samson pulling the temple down), besides which by that point she's deteriorated mentally and Jean has almost no control over Phoenix.

I think this last explanation fits with the theme of the movie, that powerful forces have to be kept under control, otherwise even if they're 'good'--like science--they become bad. In essence, to be effectively human is to be aware yet restrained. Wolverine with just his animal nature is bad, as we see in the first X-Men movie. So is Beast, he needs to be a scientist and dressed up in suits and take part in politics and engage humans in order to be effective and do good in the real world.

So by this theme, of course uncontrolled Jean kills even or especially those she loves, since they're the ones who are in closest proximity to her. She kills oddly enough not out of hate, but in some ways because she cares too much. When the Professor came for her, she didn't just listen to him, listen to Eric, and then walk away with Eric--she sat and listened to Charles only and engaged with him, ignoring Eric--literally throwing him out of the discussion.

Unfortunately for Charles' wheelchair self, the intensity of the battle of wills grew too much and she wasn't able to control herself. It's probably worth noting this battle took place in her childhood home; given that Charles had taken her outof this home and put her in therapy to try to control Phoenix, the therapy was unsuccessful so he had to resort to instilling subconscious inhibitors in her, it's not surprising that Phoenix returns to where she last was, before she was boxed up (links also to how therapists always root everything in childhood).

In a sense, you could say Phoenix is the original wild child, man's savage nature before things like schooling/society/civilization tamed it or at least controlled it somewhat. hat traditionally harkens back to Adam and Eve, of course--and the movie definitely has a substrata of woman vs. man (Mystique vs. Magneto, Rogue vs. Iceman, Kitty vs. Juggernaut, Phoenix vs. Scott/Charles/Magneto/Wolverine) that feeds into nature vs. technology, passion vs. intellect, excess vs. control, orthodoxy vs. tolerance.

Each of these women/men pairings end in death or great pain, which doesn't bode well for the outcomes of the conflict between the other extended metaphors. But that's a topic for another day.

It's interesting by the way that the one relationship in the film that perhaps doesn't end horribly, Rogue vs. Iceman, requires the woman to kill an inherently destructive but also innate part of herself in order to try and make the relationship, in her mind at least, work.

Maybe the movie really should have be called XX-Men.