Dark Phoenix The James McAvoy/Professor X Thread

[The Guard]

There's having an ego and being a freakin' sociopath. I literally left the theater laughing it was so comical what they did with Xavier. This is where Kinberg fails miserably--it's the nuance of characterization. He wanted to show that Xavier was flawed and makes mistakes, but instead, made him an egotistical, self-absorbed maniac. Every "caring" moment he had felt hollow and disingenuous; you felt like Xavier was saying nice things to keep up a persona instead of actually caring, or trying to manipulate others to get what he wanted from them. In First Class, his arrogance is nuanced enough that you never feel he doesn't actually care for other people, just that he knows he's good at what he's doing, which is helping others reach their full potential.

You can reduce anything, but the film doesn't bear out what you're saying at all. In fact, inasmuch as the film goes to lengths to explore anything, the film makes it obvious that Xavier cares about people in DARK PHOENIX.

Especially Jean.

He clearly thought he was doing the right thing, and even when he's being essentially tortured by Jean/Dark Phoenix, his concern is for her.

As for Xavier being a sociopath and whatnot...that's...not far off from his comics history. Dude has made some questionable decisions over the years.

 

[The Original Bamfer]

I don’t mind Xavier being a more complex and questionable character, but wasn’t the ego thread enough? Explore that, alone, without retreading TLS by having him secretly meddle with Jean’s mind. Jean has enough reason to be pissed at him already by pushing her into exploring the extent of her power (and consequently her darkness) at the end of Apocalypse. Once she starts to lose it she could easily blame him for that and then be twisted further via other influences. But they barely even acknowledge the previous movie, so...

Xavier just ended up getting so much shirt from everyone. I can see his motive behind altering her memories, but it’s not the smartest plan. What if she used Cerebro or walked past her old house and ends up telepathically finding out her father’s alive? Or worse yet, reading Charles’ mind with her extensive power? I mean in the ten plus years before they even go to space! This whole parent subplot is just muddying and takes time away from all the other weakly-developed threads I’m the film.

McAvoy was great as always, though!

 

[Xeno]

After so many movies where the Charles/Erik bromance dominated the narrative, introducing Onslaught would have been far more interesting than Phoenix redux. Onslaught is hardly a favorite of mine, but the idea of Xavier and Magneto becoming fused into a single, malevolent entity would work with their shared past in this dead verse.

 

[jolldan]

I really liked what they did with Charles character in this movie I just thought they never went quite far enough with it. The whole wanting to be a saviour and wanting to help people so much that he was willing to cross some questionable moral lines was a great change for him.

I mean even though he makes a lot of mistakes I think you could argue he's still the noblest character in the story as its only really him and Scott who never give up in trying to save her (and as much as I enjoy Scott in this he isn't only thinking with his brain lol).

After so many movies where the Charles/Erik bromance dominated the narrative, introducing Onslaught would have been far more interesting than Phoenix redux. Onslaught is hardly a favorite of mine, but the idea of Xavier and Magneto becoming fused into a single, malevolent entity would work with their shared past in this dead verse.

 

[The Guard]

Didn't they consider mashing the Onslaught storyline into Apocalypse originally?