Why Jean joining with Magneto works

Nell2ThaIzzay

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I've seen some discussion over the matter of "why would Jean tag along with Magneto" and such... but the decision to have Jean side with Magneto makes perfect sense.

First of all, it's comic canon. Sure, she didn't side with the Brotherhood in the comics, but it was the Hellfire Club, who manipulated her Dark Phoenix state to their advantage, am I correct?

But it's simple. First, we have to look at the explanation of Jean and her powers.

As Xavier explained to Wolverine, Jean's powers are seeded in the subconcious part of her mind. Her potential was limitless, but here, where she couldn't control it, it could cause major destruction. So he put the psychic blocks in her mind to isolate the full potential of her powers. This created the Phoenix alter ego.

In X-Men, we seemingly have these psychic barriers destroyed by Magneto's machine. This gives Jean full access to her powers, which we see in X2, but because she's been "in control" for so long, the Phoenix personality doesn't come out. But we see that her powers are growing, and at times, beyond her control (the museum, the Blackbird).

She leaves the jet to save the X-Men from the flooding water. For all intents and purposes, this eliminates Jean Grey. Now, her subconcious powers emerge... they create the telekinetic cocoon around her... but because these powers are subconcious, and her conciousness is now gone, the Phoenix personality takes over. A personality that, as Xavier put it, is full of rage. It's also, to put in simply, on a power trip.

Jean rises, and she sees Cyclops. They have a romantic moment, and she uses her powers to control his optic blasts so that she can see his eyes... but her concious mind is fragile, and this use of power unleashes the Phoenix, which, full of rage, destroys Cyclops.

This display of power might not have been as great as what she did at the end of X2, by turning on the jet, lifting the jet, locking the ramp, parting the water, stopping Nightcrawler from teleporting to get her, and talking to her loved ones through Xavier. But at the end of X2, she was still in control, because of the psychic barriers. She had access to the power because the barriers were destroyed, but she was still in control.

After "dying", she lost control, because the subconcious took over. And this use of power unleashed her Phoenix alter ego, and it took over.

Cue the mansion. Phoenix wakes up to see Wolverine. She knows what Wolverine wants, and the Phoenix, full of desire and rage, gives in. This is NOT a sign that Jean truly wants Logan deep down inside. It's Phoenix toying with the mind of Wolverine, because, well, she can do that.

Wolverine realizes something is off after he's felt her up a bit. And when he mentions Scott, we have a brief instance of the Jean personality coming back. It isn't until Wolverine mentions the Professor "fixing" her, i.e. putting the blocks back in, that she goes Phoenix again. The mention of Scott brings out Jean. The mention of controlling her power brings out Phoenix.

Obviously, the entire psychic battle at Jean's house is Phoenix. Xavier mentions Scott, yes, but not in an emotional way. He doesn't use Scott to try to appeal to Jean. He mentions Scott as evidence that Phoenix needs to be controlled. And obviously, Phoenix doesn't like that. And she kills him.

Cue Magneto, and the whole point of this thread.

Check this line: "Charles did more for mutants than you'll ever know. My single greatest regret is that he had to die for our dream to live."

I.E.: Magneto respects Xavier, and is a dear friend, yes. But, in Magneto's eyes, Xavier's loss is a neccesary one for the better of all mutant kind. I.E.: The needs of the many (mutantkind) outweight the needs of the few (Xavier). Xavier's death was neccesary for mutantkind to prevail, as now Magneto can go on with his plans, unopposed. He may not like the situation, but it's neccesary. It's why he simply tells Jean "Come with me"

And why would Jean go with Magneto? Because unlike Xavier, who wanted to control her powers, Magneto wants to stop this cure, and he wants Jean to be who she is. He wants her to be what she is. He doesn't want to control her. In the eyes of Phoenix, this is totally the opposite of Xavier, who tried to contain her... this is someone who encourages her to be unleashed.

Unfortunatley for Magneto, and anyone on Alcatraz, he DOESN'T know what he's dealing with. Hence the "what have I done?" line. He encouraged her to be herself, to unleash and tap that full potential, not understanding that it'd be too extreme even for his viewpoint.

And when does Phoenix go "biblical" as so many reviews have put it? When her power is once again threatened by the bombardment of cure darts fired in her direction. This ultimate threat to her power is what sets her off once and for all. And it's not until the love of the X-Men, someone willing to fight and die for her, is shown to her that Jean Grey finally comes back.

Phoenix might be all powerful, and able to handle her own without the help of Magneto. But the fact is, her mind is still fragile. And she still needs direction / support. And Magneto gives this to her, while allowing her to tap into her full power. That's why she doesn't just blow up Xavier, and then go off on her own. That's why she's standing around with Magneto during his invasion on Alcatraz, instead of blowing **** up with the blink of an eye. Yes, she COULD, but she's still emotionally and mentally fragile. And it isn't until she feels directly threatened, through words or actions towards controlling her powers, that she unleashes her fury.

This might not be the Phoenix Saga that we're used to. It might not even be the one we wanted to see. But in it's own right, it's still a pretty good one, and works. It makes sense. Jean joining Magneto makes total sense. And I don't even see Wolverine's heroic killing of her to be as anti-Cyclops as it comes across at first glance. I see it as, the love that Jean has for those that she is close to conquering the corruption. Wolverine doesn't say "I love you" until AFTER she's regained control, and asks him to save her. And let's face it... Scott and Jean might be destined to be together, but Wolverine still does love her.

After 6 viewings that I'm up to now, the changes are bugging me a bit less and less. It's still not the way I wanted to see it, and having the savior be Wolverine and not Cyclops is not ideal, but it works. And Jean joining the Brotherhood makes total sense. Especially since there was some stuff going on with the Hellfire Club in the comics... there's a precedence for Jean siding with the side against the X-Men.
 
Six viewings! Wow! I'm about to do my third... and have bought the soundtrack CD and am on chapter 5 of the novelisation which i bought yesterday.
 
X-Maniac said:
Six viewings! Wow! I'm about to do my third... and have bought the soundtrack CD and am on chapter 5 of the novelisation which i bought yesterday.

Yea, I went every day for the first 5 days.

Thursday night (5 / 25) midnight showing
Friday night (5 / 26) opening day
Saturday night (5 / 27) after work
Sunday night (5 / 28) after work
Monday night (5 / 29) for my birthday

And I went again tonight after I got off of work.

My record for most theatre viewings of a film was 4 for X2: X-Men United. After that is 3, for a few movies: Titanic, and all 3 Lord of the Rings movies.

I saw X-Men twice.

So the first week alone, I've already shattered my record, and I'm sure I'll only add more to it. I work in the mall, so it's really easy and convenient to just hop on over to the brand new movie theatre in the mall after I get off of work to catch a showing.

I'm contemplating getting the soundtrack. I normally don't buy scores, as I never listen to them. Only time I'd ever listen to them is if I'm online, checking boards, and just want something in the background. But I'm normally listening to my rap music if I'm gonna listen to music.

But I think this score might be my favorite of the 3. The theme is definatley my favorite (although Ottman's for X2 is a close 2nd).

But anyways, back to my essay! Phoenix & Magneto good!

:D
 
Great post, Nell. I agree.
 
Great points. All Ratner did was replace the Hellfire Club with the Brotherhood. WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL???

I guess people wouldve preferred if Magneto use Mastermind's help to brainwash Jean Grey into working for him. Too bad Mastermind was already used in X2 by Singer for a story completely unrelated to the Phoenix Saga. In other words send your hate-mail to Singer, NOT Ratner. :)
 
Uh... Jason, the guy in the wheelchair who has the ability to create illusions...
he was also the little girl...

Great Post Nell. :D I agree! :D
 
it works because the movie was only a buck forty long............ well it didn't work IMO, but they had to have her join magneto, this film was to short to have two plots that didn't intertwine with each other
 
great post Nell......very good points!

I only saw it once.......I'll prob see it again when it comes out on DVD.....once in the theater is enough for me.......lol.

Yes, it does seem like Phoenix is a rather "selfish" entity. It seems only when HER (phoenix) well being is directly threatened, does she let loose and respond.

A lot of people have been complaining that she just stands around, doing nothing, during the final battle sequence....

Well....that's because none of the events really threatened her directly. Not the humans being attacked on the bridge.....or her fellow Xmen being attacked by the brotherhood........she was just standing there as a passive observer....thinking......"Not my Problem"

BUT......when Magneto gets cured and warns her that they are going to do the same to her ( and the rest of the mutants ).....and then the army tries to hit her with a volley of cure darts.......

Then.....her well being becomes directly threatened.........that's when the Phoenix gets angry again and destroys everything in her rage.....
 
Nell2ThaIzzay said:
Yea, I went every day for the first 5 days.

Thursday night (5 / 25) midnight showing
Friday night (5 / 26) opening day
Saturday night (5 / 27) after work
Sunday night (5 / 28) after work
Monday night (5 / 29) for my birthday

And I went again tonight after I got off of work.

My record for most theatre viewings of a film was 4 for X2: X-Men United. After that is 3, for a few movies: Titanic, and all 3 Lord of the Rings movies.

I saw X-Men twice.

So the first week alone, I've already shattered my record, and I'm sure I'll only add more to it. I work in the mall, so it's really easy and convenient to just hop on over to the brand new movie theatre in the mall after I get off of work to catch a showing.

I'm contemplating getting the soundtrack. I normally don't buy scores, as I never listen to them. Only time I'd ever listen to them is if I'm online, checking boards, and just want something in the background. But I'm normally listening to my rap music if I'm gonna listen to music.

But I think this score might be my favorite of the 3. The theme is definatley my favorite (although Ottman's for X2 is a close 2nd).

But anyways, back to my essay! Phoenix & Magneto good!

:D

:eek: HOW COULD YOU RE-WATCH THOSE MOVIES, THEY ARE SO LONG!!!
 
Watching all three of them again -- that's like 18 hours. [Neo]Whoa.[/Neo]
 
GREAT post, Nell! I agree with you 100%

People complain about how she just stood around. I didn't read any of the comics, but she did the exact same thing in the animated series when she was with the Hellfire club. She just stood around while everyone else was doing all the talking!
 
So Nell you finally agree it wasn't a good idea to shove Gambit in there??
 
my only complaint about the whole thing is that i wish we could see her struggle a lil more. The schizo personality i thought we would see a lot only really shows itself in the infirmary scene...
on a side note, i also didnt like how Magneto quickly recovers from the death of his once best friend and simply walks away with Phoenix. Had we more 20 seconds of Mags in awe, Phoenix looking with no regret and such, that could be even more of a classic scene...
running time, running time...i wouldnt mind having more 5 minutes of Phoenix/Jean...
 
The only gripe I have with movie Phoenix is appearance. So sad not to see the classic fiery bird appearance. But Famke did an A+ job. :up:
 
The point i want to ask it that it's all fine and dandy for jean to go with magneto

but what i want to know is why on earth would magneto want her.

he doesn't manipulate her into doing anything in the film, not one single act that works for his cause.

and he's already seen first hand how dangerous she can be, why risk having an element you cannot control on your side, it's always going to backfire on you, the master never takes a student more dangerous than themselves, even charles knows this and hence the mental blocks, everything needs order and needs to be controlled.

after acting like a magnificent ruler and master planner in the first two films, he falls short on this one based on a some really basic school boy errors.
 
The reason Jean goes with Mangento is because she has nowhere else to go. She's doesn't join him, nor does she let him control her. At this point, she's still finding herself and coming to terms with her expanded powers.
 
Odin's Lapdog said:
The point i want to ask it that it's all fine and dandy for jean to go with magneto

but what i want to know is why on earth would magneto want her.

he doesn't manipulate her into doing anything in the film, not one single act that works for his cause.

and he's already seen first hand how dangerous she can be, why risk having an element you cannot control on your side, it's always going to backfire on you, the master never takes a student more dangerous than themselves, even charles knows this and hence the mental blocks, everything needs order and needs to be controlled.

after acting like a magnificent ruler and master planner in the first two films, he falls short on this one based on a some really basic school boy errors.
Magneto has no idea how powerful the Dark Phoenix was. Xavier knew because he had sensed the power when he entered Jean Grey's mind.
 
well.....maybe Magneto was just trying to protect himself...

I mean....after seeing what Phoenix did to Prof X........maybe Magneto figured....."hey, I better get on her good-side and not piss her off"
 
blind_fury said:
Magneto has no idea how powerful the Dark Phoenix was. Xavier knew because he had sensed the power when he entered Jean Grey's mind.
but he gets to see how powerful she is first hand when she confronts charles and kills him.

everyone else in the world knows she has to be stopped then and there except for him.
 
Odin's Lapdog said:
but he gets to see how powerful she is first hand when she confronts charles and kills him.

everyone else in the world knows she has to be stopped then and there except for him.


Perhaps he felt that unlike Charles, he was no threat to her at all. He felt he was the one to "free" her, the one who wouldn't hold her back. She also represented a huge weapon for him, "a fury such as the world has never witnessed".

Almost certainly he was a bit deluded, but then again, that was his fatal flaw, and why he had to fail.
 
Nell2ThaIzzay said:
First of all, it's comic canon. Sure, she didn't side with the Brotherhood in the comics, but it was the Hellfire Club, who manipulated her Dark Phoenix state to their advantage, am I correct?

Well, sort of. I'll clarify a bit from what I can recall (and if I'm off, someone can clarify for me). "Jean" had already shown signs of being different prior to the entire HFC/DP arc. Mastermind manipulated her, feeding the hunger that was always a part of the Phoenix in order to gain an ally to the HFC, which helped free the darker side of Phoenix, who was overcome with that hunger and thirst.

The same elements are there - mental manipulation, allying with the bad guys - but I wouldn't call it canon. When I think of someone calling something canon, then I think of it being exactly how it happened. This isn't the case. Obviously aspects are changed significantly, such as Magneto taking the Dark Phoenix under his wing after her emergence versus Mastermind helping to push forward the Dark Phoenix aspect of "Jean." So with that being said, I'm not sure I'd use the comic version as a reason why the movie version worked. There are differences that really set apart the two. I definitely wouldn't go as far to call it comic canon.

That said, I think your explanation of why Jean teams with Magneto works very well in large part; however, I still have problems with the way the Phoenix was developed and handled from X2 to X3. I still see a couple of pretty big inconsistencies regarding issues of control, the visual manifestations, and the lack of this evil personality prior to X3, and while I appreciate the long explanation you provided, I don't think it satisfies any of these questions. My feeling is that the movie did a poor job of handling these issues, and in an attempt to rectify that, fans are trying to create some kind of explanation that works, when really that should have been the movie's job to begin with.

To me, the way it was handled in X3 would have been fine... for a stand-alone movie. But I think when you go back and try and look at the big picture of all three films while fitting in what X3 establishes, there are puzzle pieces that instead of fitting nice and neat, you have to pound on in order to get them to reasonably fit together. And ultimately for me, that's one of the movie's bigger disappointments.

I would elaborate in my own detail, but I did that in another thread and it led no where. It seems better (and less time consuming) to simply disagree and leave it at that.
 
Odin's Lapdog said:
The point i want to ask it that it's all fine and dandy for jean to go with magneto

but what i want to know is why on earth would magneto want her.

he doesn't manipulate her into doing anything in the film, not one single act that works for his cause.

and he's already seen first hand how dangerous she can be, why risk having an element you cannot control on your side, it's always going to backfire on you, the master never takes a student more dangerous than themselves, even charles knows this and hence the mental blocks, everything needs order and needs to be controlled.

after acting like a magnificent ruler and master planner in the first two films, he falls short on this one based on a some really basic school boy errors.

Because of his ego.

She was the "next stage of evolution". His ego towards mutantkind, and how great they are, and here, right before his very eyes, was essentially a goddess... the epitome of what mutantkind should be, in his eyes.
 
Cyke82 said:
Well, sort of. I'll clarify a bit from what I can recall (and if I'm off, someone can clarify for me). "Jean" had already shown signs of being different prior to the entire HFC/DP arc. Mastermind manipulated her, feeding the hunger that was always a part of the Phoenix in order to gain an ally to the HFC, which helped free the darker side of Phoenix, who was overcome with that hunger and thirst.

The same elements are there - mental manipulation, allying with the bad guys - but I wouldn't call it canon. When I think of someone calling something canon, then I think of it being exactly how it happened. This isn't the case. Obviously aspects are changed significantly, such as Magneto taking the Dark Phoenix under his wing after her emergence versus Mastermind helping to push forward the Dark Phoenix aspect of "Jean." So with that being said, I'm not sure I'd use the comic version as a reason why the movie version worked. There are differences that really set apart the two. I definitely wouldn't go as far to call it comic canon.

That said, I think your explanation of why Jean teams with Magneto works very well in large part; however, I still have problems with the way the Phoenix was developed and handled from X2 to X3. I still see a couple of pretty big inconsistencies regarding issues of control, the visual manifestations, and the lack of this evil personality prior to X3, and while I appreciate the long explanation you provided, I don't think it satisfies any of these questions. My feeling is that the movie did a poor job of handling these issues, and in an attempt to rectify that, fans are trying to create some kind of explanation that works, when really that should have been the movie's job to begin with.

To me, the way it was handled in X3 would have been fine... for a stand-alone movie. But I think when you go back and try and look at the big picture of all three films while fitting in what X3 establishes, there are puzzle pieces that instead of fitting nice and neat, you have to pound on in order to get them to reasonably fit together. And ultimately for me, that's one of the movie's bigger disappointments.

I would elaborate in my own detail, but I did that in another thread and it led no where. It seems better (and less time consuming) to simply disagree and leave it at that.

Honestly, I'm not trying to make stuff up in my mind to make it work. My post is exactly how it was explained in the movies.

But I guess if it didn't work for you, that's your opinion.
 
RedIsNotBlue said:
So Nell you finally agree it wasn't a good idea to shove Gambit in there??

I don't know what that has to do with this post, but um, no, I don't agree.

Gambit still should have been in this movie, in my opinion.
 

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