I said that he didn't have to be rescued. It just would've been fun to me.How you do that is simply retain his backstory and give a natural reasoning for his age. I'm liking the magnetism reasons more and more. I'm not advocating for changing main parts. I just thought it would be fun to do. It doesn't have to be a huge part of his character. It's kinda offensive to change his heritage.You don't have that much to explain. You have a simple approach of a man seeing society turn on those who are different to fuel his perception that mutants will suffer the same fate. Changing the structure of his situation is grander than making it so he ages slowly.Cap is out of time currently. He wasn't always. The out of time aspect was added when he was brought into the Avengers, wasn't it? Just like any reasoning for Magneto has been given in comics or could be given in the MCU. But how out of time he is has been changed multiple times in comics. Yet that was still maintained for the MCU. Magneto aging slower doesn't make him out of time. It makes him a seasoned man. It's different from Cap. Cap didn't live the 70 years he was frozen. There's no reason to not give Magneto the same benefit Cap is given in the MCU. Changing the name or changing the background, it makes no difference. It's all but creating a new character for no reason. There's no adding a bunch of things. Just the slowing of his age. It doesn't change anything.And we have Spider-Man: Homecoming and The Incredible Hulk showing that the audience doesn't need the same story retold in a different way. X-Men will be coming off of 18 years, 9 movies (12 counting Deadpool 1&2/The New Mutants) and 3 movies of an origin story for the X-Men. You can build a new world and have it be lived in. You don't have to completely be at 0. The audience knows what this is. It doesn't need to be over-explained.
Anti-aging is not natural. You keep suggesting unnatural/supernatural things while thinking the are natural, and so now I understand why we disagree so broadly. Putting him in a different location doesn't change the structure of his situation, just the location, like moving a house. Cap didn't have a more recent righteous American war that would support his arc, so he was out of time, and is iconically so, because it was necessary for the character's theme. Magneto doesn't have that problem, so he doesn't need that, nor would it benefit him, because of the rule of show don't tell, and occam's razor. Being an 85 year old man instead of a 35 year old man adds a bunch of things. Ask any 85 year old.
You can build a lived-in universe, but it's only the characters that you start from the beginning of their journey with that matter. Compare Singer's Cyclops and Singer's Wolverine. It doesn't need to be over-explained, but it needs to be experienced to be good. Show don't tell.
I kinda get the feeling that we will never agree here, no matter what is said. You seem very confident that supernatural things are natural, and that age doesn't matter much, and these things are so untrue in my experience that if observing the natural world hasn't convinced you otherwise, nothing I say ever will, and I get that without these principles, your argument sounds very compelling. So, I'm going to have to leave you to it.
I say they just have Magneto show up in the future and don't address his background. He doesn't need to keep harping on about him being the victim of the Holocaust. If audiences want to associate him with that, they can. But maybe the general audience won't remember. It might be only the fans who do.
Spider-Man Homecoming didn't mention Uncle Ben, who is seen as vital to the mythos. They just kept it vague and got on with the story. They can do the same with Magneto.
This seems most likely. That Magneto won't be directly mentioned and his background even less so.
I'd still go with the the idea of mutants naturally having a longer life span than humans. The idea that they're the next evolution and could naturally outlive us by 50 to 70 years would be an easy explanation for Xavier and Magnus. It would also be a fear factor for mutant haters, instant fear that homosapiens are being replaced by freaks that are more powerful and could out live us.
It's still amazing to see people who feel being faithful to the time period of Magneto's childhood is more important than being faithful to the definition of what a mutant is.
My question then is what makes Magneto being Jewish and a Holocaust survivor absolutely necessary? Because keeping that requires then adding the convolution of exposition about extended life expectancy or some macguffin or other character extending his life.
This is my question. No one seems to be able to answer it.
I think that saying Magneto has decelerated aging is a smaller change than getting rid of the Holocaust origin.
Getting rid of the Holocaust origin would rub me the wrong way, it's critical.
Criticla for what, exactly? How is it critical for that? Why would it rub you the wrong way?
Yeah there are certain aspects of characters and their history thats important. Magnetos one is. And I dont think changing him to another race that have endured the same horrors will make anyone particularly happy. I cant see that going down well.
Why is the particular time period of Magneto so important?
Do you really need to ask the question? Of course the Holocaust is more resonant in the world than Yugoslavia or Rwanda. That history plays a huge part of the pathos of the character, and makes the audience sympathetic to his position. Make it Yugoslavia or Rwanda it won't resonate with the audience nearly as much.
Well, you're wrong about that. World War II may be getting more distant, but people haven't exactly forgotten it. The Holocaust hasn't been forgotten. I'm a high school teacher now, and talking about the Holocaust in high school now is no less prevalent than when I was in high school and my class was taken to the movies to watch Schindler's List. We're still reading The Diary of Anne Frank and Elie Wiesel's Night. Holocaust survivors are still being asked to speak. The history is no less raw.
This is an answer. You're not talking about rawness, but familiarity, rehearsal. The truth is that The Holocaust is the genocide constantly put in front of us, and so it resonates more, out of recognition. The sympathy that Magneto gets for his background isn't because of his experience, it's because of
ours. Magneto could have all the same pathos from a number of genocides, but we don't, and in fact, we're trained not to care about other genocides, about even the more devastating or more analagous suffering of others, especially brown skinned peoples, and so many would care about Magneto less, sympathize less, if he wasn't using the genocide we're told to care about most.
You just presented the best argument for why his origin SHOULDN'T be changed, and why historical events aren't interchangeable. Sorry, but Iraq and Afghanistan? They don't have the effect on the psyche of the public consciousness that Vietnam had. They just don't. And to say otherwise is historical ignorance. And sadly, disconnecting the Punisher from Vietnam has weakened the character. He needs the jungle, the dirtiness, and the death count of that war to shape him into who he is, and he doesn't get from our modern day conflicts.
Historical events are not interchangeable when it comes to the weight they have on the public consciousness. That's true when it comes to wars, and that's true when it comes to genocides.
I think the Punisher parallel is far off, as other genocides do offer the same grit and pain as the Holocaust, but the reality is the weight of public consciousness is on the Holocaust.
I think this sort of explains why Magneto, despite being a great character in his conception, will never be the top villain of all time, and I think as the form and shape and effect of genocide on real life becomes more and more removed from the Holocaust, Magneto's quest to prevent a mutant Holocaust will become more and more removed from reality. Another way to put it is that deep familiarity with European history and heroism over all others is itself part of racial injustice, and so Magneto's execution ends up actually working against his theme on a deep level. As that chasm between the prejudicial experiences of the day continue to depart from those of WWII, Magneto will become increasingly less relevant, just like any 85 year old trying to lead a modern social movement would. He will never have his 'Winter Soldier' 'Man out of Time' moment as Cap has to keep his relevance, because to do so we'd have to question the relevance of the Holocaust to what's happening today, and not only are we not willing to do that, but to do so would undermine Magneto's 'entire character.' This is unavoidable when a character's appeal is not based on the pathos of their story, but on the curriculum of the American education system.
I think that more than anything is why Feige won't be touching this character, and why this whole discussion is basically moot.
I'm okay with that.
