I don't get where there isn't any warmth in the other films? X1 has more emotion than anything in X3, that, and the fact that the scenes were given enough time to sink in and last...you people are talking about X3 having more emotion, but it was in short, spastic bursts...that's not more emotion if you can't experience it for yourself.
X1: Opening scene at Auschwitz, overcomes any emotional scene in X3, in my opinion. What an impact, what a way to introduce a character, to help us understand him, and in the end to help us care.
X1:Rogue's introduction scene. We see her fiesty nature, the tension in the scene is there, the anticipation, then it's all stripped away in one moment.
X1: Conversation between Xavier and Magneto at the Senate hearing. The history between the two is there and you can feel the companionship between the two, the emotion goes up and down, you feel compassion for one another.
X1:The conversation between Rogue and Wolverine when they first meet has some emotion, when they reveal a little about who they actually are. "So, what kind of a name is Rogue?" "I don't know, what kind of a name is Wovlerine?" "Name's Logan" "Marie" it's subtle, but present. There began a connection between the characters, but it's interupted.
X1: The conversation between Logan and Marie at the train station is another one that, to me, isn't comparable to X3, we care about the characters, we understand what they're going through.
X1: When Xavier has been "poisoned" by Mystique, the monologue by Cyclops is more powerful than anything X3 offered with Cyclops. We care about his character yet again.
X1: Senator Kelly and Storm's talk, yeah some complain that Storm, "I suppose, sometimes I am afraid of dem." that the line has no background, but still she has emotion, she has a fear...and that beats her throwing more lightning around, having a chic haircut, and an angry stance about some political issue anytime.
X1: The liberty scene towards the end, when Magneto stops Wolverine from destroying the machine, and we're waiting for Cyclops to do something, the tension is unbearable, "Scott, wait!"
X1: Logan attempting to revive Marie, again, beats X3 stuff for me.
X1: The little conversation between Logan and Jean, "You know, I think she's a little taken with you." "Tell her my heart belongs to someone else" There is warmth among the characters.
X1: End conversation between Logan and Rogue.
These are all of course my own opinions, but don't tell me that X3 is CLEARLY more emotional than the first two...because clearly to me, it isn't.
I agree. If anything, I think it's
X-Men that's the most emotional of the trilogy. There's barely any action in the movie, it's all about the characters and what they are going through.
X2 takes that down and ups the action a bit, but I think
X-Men is a pretty damned good movie for character and emotion.
I think there are some pretty good emotional scenes in
X-Men: The Last Stand, the problem is, as X-Maniac said, they aren't allowed to sink in, or they aren't developed. We know that Storm is against the cure, but we aren't told why. We know that Rogue wants the cure, but we don't see an internal struggle to make it more meaningful to us. We don't learn why Angel decides to reject the cure and embrace his mutation.
The best emotional scenes come from Jean. I think the scene with her and Wolverine in the infirmary is pretty good. I think her psi battle vs. Xavier is pretty emotionally powerful, and the same goes to the final confrontation between her and Wolverine. I think there's some really good emotional scenes in that arc.
But aside from that, I don't think the other emotional scenes were done all that well. Or at least handled properly. There are some brilliant scenes with Beast, Angel, Storm, Rogue, and others in this movie, yet the effect of those scenes isn't allowed to truly have an effect because they aren't followed up on.
What makes the train scene with Wolverine and Rogue in
X-Men so great? It's the fact that we know that Rogue has nothing. She's run away, after putting her boyfriend in a coma for 3 weeks, just by touching him. She's alone with nothing, nobody. We see this in the train scene, when she's watching the mother touch her son's face, and Rogue reacts because she can never do that. It's because Wolverine is the big tough loner brute, who has a harsh and cold exterior. But we see something that he found where he seems to have found a true purpose in life through her. Through caring for her, and protecting her. It's because of her that he stays at the mansion at all, it's because of her that he becomes part of the X-Men.
All of that is given to us through the span of the movie, and it makes that scene great.
X-Men: The Last Stand has a great scene with Storm proclaiming "There's nothing wrong with you, or any of us for that matter", but there is no care given to that character trait to make it mean anything. So it just becomes a random line with no true significance other than a mutant who doesn't like the cure (but don't we have that in Magneto and his followers?) There is a great scene between Wolverine and Rogue as she goes off to get the cure, but it becomes a pointless, random scene because what Wolverine told her means absolutley nothing, because she gets cured anyways. There is no internal struggle, it's portrayed that her getting cured is inherently better. Struggle breeds emotion, not a singular, clear cut choice.
That's where most of my problems lie with
X-Men: The Last Stand, because the emotion that is there, that could have made the movie truly greater than the others, is merely just there and then forgotten. A "payoff" line about "We work as a team" from Wolverine, or "No, it's what I wanted" from Rogue does not constitute developing the emotion that was established earlier. It does
NOT give it significance because you merely randomly mention that line again later. And
THAT is where this movie suffers from bad writing and filmmaking.
That is why this movie is so bittersweet to me, because it is so good, it does do so much right, but where it does something right, it does something else wrong, and it holds the movie back from being what it truly could have been. Despite the fact that I don't think they told as good of stories as
X-Men: The Last Stand, I don't feel that
X-Men or
X2 "could have been" better, because they tell their stories so brilliantly. When I watch
X-Men or
X2, I'm left wanting more for a good reason, because the film is so well done I want to see how it continues. I'm not left wanting more because, like
X-Men: The Last Stand, there are literally pieces missing from the puzzle.
X-Men: The Last Stand could have been so much more. It was so close. The pieces were there. All that was left was to make the picture in the puzzle look like the picture on the box. But instead, we get the picture on the box, but not all the pieces are there. There are holes all over the place that would have made the film complete.
Is the movie good? I think so. I love it. But it could have been, and should have been, a lot better than it was.
t:
), but I am a big Star Wars fan who's still bummed about most of the prequel trilogy, so I can relate.
And I can only blame Ratner for this. So, I say "No thanks" for him in another X-men movie. Ever.
