Days of Future Past The Official James McAvoy/Professor Xavier Thread - Part 1

[Weather Witch]

Given that the original Professor X never experienced the new events in the past, it's likely that he never learned this important lesson and thus why he did what he did with Jean.

Looking at it this way might actually make me appriciate X3 a little bit more.

 

[Leenie]

James McAvoy was the single best aspect of Days of Future Past for me. I loved the movie as a whole, but McAvoy's performance blew me away. Some of the best acting I've seen in a comic book movie, to be quite honest!

 

[psylockolussus]

Looking at it this way might actually make me appriciate X3 a little bit more.

In my opinion, TW and DOFP really made X3 better by acknowledging the events of X3.

 

[Smilodon]

That's totally how I thought of it too! We'll see the events of X2 and X3 unfold differently because McAvoy Xavier saw how he originally handled the powers of the Phoenix and how they worked out (which ended up killing himself). I thought that was a super genius way to handle X3 as well as of DOFP. It makes it seem like all the events of X1,X2,X3 and the 2023 part of DOFP lead up to sending Wolverine back to teach Charles not only how to be the leader he is meant to be, but avoid certain shortcomings he had in the original timeline. Perhaps Jean's brighter, more Phoenix-y look in the future is supposed to be hint at that.

 

[AnneFan]

In my opinion, TW and DOFP really made X3 better by acknowledging the events of X3.

No doubt about it. DOFP made X3 less of a mistake and the franchise more of a tapestry.

 

[Leenie]

No doubt about it. DOFP made X3 less of a mistake and the franchise more of a tapestry.

Absolutely. It caters to people who liked X3 and to people who hated X3. It's great how DOFP managed to pull that off.

 

[AnneFan]

Absolutely. It caters to people who liked X3 and to people who hated X3. It's great how DOFP managed to pull that off.

Yes. That's one of the reasons why it's successful. It's a context changer (making it an important X-Men event) with the best components of First Class and X2.

 

[Loganbabe]

The article is more about Filth, but I really like what the author had to say about James' role in the X-films, especially DOFP. Loved the bit I put in bold, because I think it resumes well his acting:

It’d be difficult for any actor to stand out in the X-Men movies, lest he or she play a mutant whose superpower is commanding everyone’s attention at all times or growing 20-feet tall whenever they’re being ignored. Especially in the latest installment, X-Men: Days of Future Past, the star power is stronger than Hank "Beast" McCoy on the Ryan Braun diet. You’ve got Hugh Jackman and his ridiculously ripped physique muscling around as the sequel’s time-traveling hero, Wolverine, and Oscar darling Jennifer Lawrence leaving fanboys all googily-eyed as the sultry and dangerous shape-shifter Mystique, while using her Herculean acting skills to give the character endearing depth and vulnerability.
Take another look at X-Men: Days of Future Past’s poster, though, and pay close attention to the long-haired gent occupying Jackman's left pec: James McAvoy. He’s the always impressive Scot who, despite his lower profile, is the best thing about both X-Men: Days of Future Past and its predecessor, X-Men: First Class (2011), even if he's been relegated to 'Wolverine's chest' one-sheet placement.

McAvoy plays the young Professor Charles Xavier with a wry sense of humor and an inner turmoil that’s never on-the-nose, unlike, say, Jackman’s Wolverine, whose droll one-liners are funny but often telegraphed. McAvoy never signals where Professor X’s emotions are leaning. He doesn’t own the dialogue so much as live within it. In a franchise dominated by showy performances and supernaturally powerful mutants, his Charles Xavier is the necessary straight-man who keeps the larger-than-life enterprise on course.

(...) You get the sense that he’s signed on for numerous X-Men movies for two reasons: He wants to have some big-budgeted fun and he’s able to understand the complexity of a character like Charles Xavier.

http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2014/05/filth-movie-review

 

[Farren]

That's totally how I thought of it too! We'll see the events of X2 and X3 unfold differently because McAvoy Xavier saw how he originally handled the powers of the Phoenix and how they worked out (which ended up killing himself). I thought that was a super genius way to handle X3 as well as of DOFP. It makes it seem like all the events of X1,X2,X3 and the 2023 part of DOFP lead up to sending Wolverine back to teach Charles not only how to be the leader he is meant to be, but avoid certain shortcomings he had in the original timeline. Perhaps Jean's brighter, more Phoenix-y look in the future is supposed to be hint at that.

Agreed. Something that really bothered me in X3 was Xavier's actions towards Jean and his arrogant inability to admit that he may have made a mistake (which he HAD). So I like that DoFP sort of acknowledged that -- even in a subtle way, and offered Xavier himself a means of rectifying the situation.

I also like to think that his realization that he needed to stop trying to control Raven may have influenced how he later treated Jean.

 

[herolee10]

You know, I just realized that James's professor x is largely responsible for preventing not one, but two different dystopian-like futures within the xmen universe.

He was the one that stopped Russia and the US from going into a nuclear war with each other when he mind controlled one of the Russian generals into blowing up their own cargo ship from passing the border line... and he was the one that convinced raven into not killing trask, thus preventing the dystopian future that we saw at the beginning of dofp

 

[X-Maniac]

Agreed. Something that really bothered me in X3 was Xavier's actions towards Jean and his arrogant inability to admit that he may have made a mistake (which he HAD). So I like that DoFP sort of acknowledged that -- even in a subtle way, and offered Xavier himself a means of rectifying the situation.

I also like to think that his realization that he needed to stop trying to control Raven may have influenced how he later treated Jean.

Yes, Absolutely! Perfect reasoning for Xavier not doing the mindblocks on Jean!

 

[antonydelfini]

I just want to say that McAvoy made me an xavier fan. Xavier was never one of my fave X-Men, McAvoy (Matthew Vaughn in First Class and Singer in DOFP) changed all that. Hopefully, he'll continue to play this character for many years to come.

 

[Mrs Vimes]

Yes, Absolutely! Perfect reasoning for Xavier not doing the mindblocks on Jean!

So how would he handle the Phoenix problem this time around?

Little Jean at the start of X3 totally gave me the Omen vibes, BTW.

 

[Nerial]

So how would he handle the Phoenix problem this time around?

Little Jean at the start of X3 totally gave me the Omen vibes, BTW.

That is a good question. One of the biggest problems I had with X3 was how they handled Xavier (even before I became a huge fan of the character). He was so horribly inconsistent, and when he tells Logan, "she has to be controlled," and especially, "I don't need to explain myself, especially to you,"--God, it's one of the main reasons I was worried about Kinberg writing the DOFP script. Just awful, awful writing in X3. Xavier can be manipulative; he can be controlling, but this was just over the top immoral stuff here.

I am happy in DOFP that it shows Xavier will be less of a control freak in the future, but it does beg the question--how does he deal with Jean when she is, as you say, Omen-ish as a kid?

Maybe they'll show her in the next movie as a new student, and Xavier has to figure out how to help her without controlling her. It'd be kinda cool to see that as a subplot.

 

[Farren]

So how would he handle the Phoenix problem this time around?

Little Jean at the start of X3 totally gave me the Omen vibes, BTW.

There was no Phoenix until Charles added psychic blocks to her mind. He was the one who created it.

 

[X-Maniac]

So how would he handle the Phoenix problem this time around?

Little Jean at the start of X3 totally gave me the Omen vibes, BTW.

Well, we're going to need someone like Omen-Jean - prone to bursts of massive, unpredictable power - if Apocalypse is the opponent.

Xavier would this time have learned his lesson from Mystique and be more understanding, offering training and guidance rather than doing a psychic lobotomy.

 

[X-Maniac]

That is a good question. One of the biggest problems I had with X3 was how they handled Xavier (even before I became a huge fan of the character). He was so horribly inconsistent, and when he tells Logan, "she has to be controlled," and especially, "I don't need to explain myself, especially to you,"--God, it's one of the main reasons I was worried about Kinberg writing the DOFP script. Just awful, awful writing in X3. Xavier can be manipulative; he can be controlling, but this was just over the top immoral stuff here.

I agree, I don't know why they made Xavier so unlikeable, such an unsympathetic character.

I am happy in DOFP that it shows Xavier will be less of a control freak in the future, but it does beg the question--how does he deal with Jean when she is, as you say, Omen-ish as a kid?

Maybe they'll show her in the next movie as a new student, and Xavier has to figure out how to help her without controlling her. It'd be kinda cool to see that as a subplot.

He will deal with her, hopefully, by not putting in mindblocks. Even if he has to temporarily stop her going out of control in a certain situation, it won't be as harsh as permanently installing blocks in her mind.

 

[Smilodon]

I rather like how Charles can be manipulative when necessary, as shown with the Xavier Protocols in the comics, and thought that the reveal of him controlling Jean's powers from when she was a child I think provided an interesting new dimension to him that we didn't have at the time. Of course, with FC and DOFP we have loads of Xavier exposition and backstory so it just looks out of place now but yeah, I think we'll have him approach the powers of the Phoenix much differently now.

I think it'd be cool, knowing how truly powerful and omnipresent the Phoenix is to be aware of the previous timeline and how Xavier controlled her once in an alternate universe and have Xavier try and be a better teacher to Jean this time around. But that might be too confusing for the general audience but I'd rather have the Phoenix be a bit more than an alternate persona to Jean. Singer envisioned it as a mutant god or something when he was making X3 so I think making it more god-like would be cool.

I think with an actual villain this time in Apocalypse it might be a bit easier to implement a subplot about Xavier learning how to deal with Jean versus "The Phoenix is just too powerful for Jean I have to control her etc." in X3. I'm hoping we get to channel some more of the actual team-building and teaching aspect that Vaughn brought to us in FC because the OT never really had that, and the learning how the powers of the Phoenix work might fit in perfectly.

 

[herolee10]

There was no Phoenix until Charles added psychic blocks to her mind. He was the one who created it.

Agreed. If xavier had originally trusted jean enough to allow her in balancing herself out, then her mind wouldn't have been so fragile once Xavier's mind blocks were broken

 

[eledoremassis02]

Thats why I hope they deal with Jeans God-like power by mirroring how Apocalypse deals with his, and that, that will be the lesson rather than what we got in X3. If anything maybe this could be the X3 we didnt get

 

[antonydelfini]

Im pretty excited that Xavier will still be a focus on X-Men Apocalypse according to Kinberg. Xavier at his peak power! Exciting!

“If First Class was Eric’s story and Days Of Future Past is Charles’s story, then Apocalypse will be both of their stories. The first movie was about Eric becoming empowered. That’s the origin story of a man’s power. Days Of Future Past is about a guy who is a mess, masterminding the end of this massive movie. So they are both at their peak powers at the start of Apocalypse, so Apocalypse for me is culmination of that three-act love story.”

 

[Mrs Vimes]

I took it from the general news thread into a more Charles-specific thread:

My favorite sequence in the whole film is the one which begins with Charles not taking the serum, accepting the chair, trying to use Cerebro and failing, reading Logan's mind and then meeting his future self. Like many have said here, that was the heart of the film, and the acting was brilliant - emotional, but never over the top.

I thought that James was great in those scenes but I have major major problems with how Charles' transformative arc was handled. It should have been the heart of the film for me too, particularly as I was looking forward to Charles' story in DoFP the most, but I just felt like it was something solved way too quickly, seemingly for the sake of the plot because at that point Charles' skills were needed to track Mystique down. The movie didn't even bother to set up Charles' problems with his powers properly - it was something brought up suddenly midway through the movie and fixed five minutes later.

I also wondered why exactly the scene of young!Charles meeting old!Charles didn't have much dramatic oomph for me, apart from the mere fact that it was cool to see Stewart and McAvoy together onscreen. Which made me think of other similar scenes in other movies, where a dejected/disillusioned etc. hero is lifted by a speech from another character. Which made me realise that what they had in common is the fact that the character who's giving the speech (say Spock's father in Star Trek reboot, Sam in LoTR: The Two Towers), is someone that the hero personally knows/loves and has some kind of connection with. Whereas here in DoFP, I don't think that the connection really exists. Maybe on the part of old!Charles who can remember himself as a messed up young man, but to young!Charles this old bald guy is pretty much a stranger. So maybe that's why it didn't feel quite as emotional.

 

[Loganbabe]

I thought that James was great in those scenes but I have major major problems with how Charles' transformative arc was handled. It should have been the heart of the film for me too, particularly as I was looking forward to Charles' story in DoFP the most, but I just felt like it was something solved way too quickly, seemingly for the sake of the plot because at that point Charles' skills were needed to track Mystique down. The movie didn't even bother to set up Charles' problems with his powers properly - it was something brought up suddenly midway through the movie and fixed five minutes later.

I understand. You see, I'm probably the biggest McAvoy fan on this board and I love the way he portrays Charles, so I was really looking forward his arc the most. I agree with you that a lot of things were rushed for the sake of the plot. After years of isolation and depression, I think that Charles would hardly agree to help Wolverine that quickly. I can see him being highly paranoid and suspicious, giving Logan a hard time. Plus, his decision based on "I love Raven and I still remember her as the little girl in the kitchen" was way too forced.

But...even though the absolute majority of viewers agree that Charles is the heart of the story and James' portrayal is brilliant, I've seen some complaints here and there about Charles being "too emo" and annoying (even if this sounds absurd; really, what did people expect him to do after all that happened to him? ). I guess the writer/director etc worried that if they spent too much time giving enough room for Charles to deal with his personal issues properly, they would have lost the interest of viewers who were waiting for some action to happen. I think that there could have been a way for them to stay with Charles a bit more and still make the film action-oriented and not slow, and giving the film an extra ten minutes for the characters' personal development, especially Charles', wouldn't hurt - but alas. It didn't happen, and there wouldn't be anything I would love more.

But like I said before, they are lucky to have an actor like James to give life to Charles, because even with the script problems concerning his arc, the man delivers. I think that his intensity and commitment fill the story gaps, and no wonder that people are so impressed with him. Of course I can't help but imagine how transcendent it would have been if he had ten minutes more.

I have to say that the plane scene bothers me more than anything else, because I really dislike the fact that there wasn't more of an argument between them. I'm maybe in the minority here but I thought that Erik's speech was too forced and emotionless, and it didn't set well with Charles/James emotional delivery. Big dictatorial speeches leave no room for good character development. I know a lot of people love this about Magneto, but I don't. It's the most irritating and lazy cliche about him, imo.

Maybe on the part of old!Charles who can remember himself as a messed up young man, but to young!Charles this old bald guy is pretty much a stranger. So maybe that's why it didn't feel quite as emotional.

Good point, even though it felt completely different to me. I guess that the idea of seeing myself in the future being so wise and zen - if I happened to be a mess, completely lost and confused - would have given me a lot of strenght and conviction to try and do the right thing. To believe in me. I guess that was all that Charles needed - to believe in himself. So, I love the scene unconditionally.

 

[Mrs Vimes]

I have to say that the plane scene bothers me more than anything else, because I really dislike the fact that there wasn't more of an argument between them. I'm maybe in the minority here but I thought that Erik's speech was too forced and emotionless, and it didn't set well with Charles/James emotional delivery. Big dictatorial speeches leave no room for good character development. I know a lot of people love this about Magneto, but I don't. It's the most irritating and lazy cliche about him, imo.

Maybe it was Ian McKellen or maybe it was because the character still felt fresh, but that never bugged me about the OT!Magneto. With his younger version though, yeah it really bores me at this point. It's like, when Erik had all that anger and intensity in FC over Shaw, his mother and Holocaust in general, it made the character thrilling to watch. But when in DoFP he channels it into his big mutant cause, it just makes the character a humourless bore somehow. Also, maybe Erik's speech on the plane would feel different if we actually saw him spend any amount of time with Emma, Azazel and the rest, and actually got to see those characters die.

I also wonder if there was more to the plane scenes that got edited down in the final cut. In the second scene, the transition from discussing JFK to Charles saying that the humans will wipe them out seemed kinda random.

 

[herolee10]

Maybe it's just me, but upon my second viewing of the film...for the scene when Young Charles uses Cerebero for the first time (only to end up overloading the thing due to his emotional instability), did it look like all the of the mutants that he was sensing were all in pain..possibly as a result of him unintentionally focusing too hard on them?