It's possible he had allies, but we weren't shown that.
Correction. It's highly probable that he had allies and of course we weren't shown that because it was unnecessary to show it.
All we know is that (as he tells Wolverine) he had been fighting for mutant rights since before Logan had claws. This might simply mean he built up a reputation as an intelligent expert on mutants and an articulate speaker on the mutant 'issue' (he was speaking about mutants on TV in X2, in a human form which might well be a disguise or even prior to his mutation advancing to its blue furry stage). The details of his appointment to that government post are not given. But, even so, he quit the government. It doesn't automatically follow he would want to contact the President or any of his allies if he left his post on bitter terms, disillusioned and angry.
I agree with the exception of Beast not contacting the government. Not wanting to is irrelevant because any decent citizen would have tried to help the government especially one with as much political influence as Beast.
As it happened, his decision not to tell the government didn't matter so much, as the President had already stationed troops with plastic cure darts on Alcatraz. Would they have been able to do much more had they known of Magneto's plan to go there? Relocate the boy perhaps? Move some of the cure stored on the island? Would those things have stopped Magneto?
Of course his decision mattered. A greater number of troops at Alcatraz could have been deployed and they would have been better prepared if Beast had told them. The boy could have been relocated and all the doctors inside the facilities could have been evacuated. The port authorities could have temporarily shut down the golden gate bridge thereby preventing 100s of people from being terrorized. All of these things would have temporarily stopped Magneto and considering the brotherhood new nothing about the plastic needles they might have been defeated with an ambush. Did you even consider the repercussions of what would happen if Magneto one the battle as a result of Beast's decision? I will address this issue later.
I simply meant that she would not be encouraging Beast to tell the government what was going on. She was angry over the cure and once she knew it had been weaponised, her anger would be stronger and it would be directed at the government.
A clear thinking Beast still would have made the right choice inspite of being around the Storm in X3 who clearly had an attitude problem.
Again, I meant his earlier distrust would mean he wasn't going to be encouraging Beast to tell the government.
A clear thinking Beast still would have made the right choice inspite of being around a mutant whose political opinions were irrelevant.
I read that response. But it's still a debatable point that the X-Men didn't try to sound a warning to the leaders at the world summit. The X-Men relied on their ability to stop the machine, which almost failed, rather than on also trying to evacuate the people the machine was targeting. If the leaders had been evacuated, the threat of the machine would have been lessened considerably.
Okay. Now I know you read my response. What's the point in regurgitating the same things already stated about this argument? Restating this information does not make my argument less valid.
But the point is that the weaponisation of the cure was, as Beast put it, a slippery slope. It could lead to other use/abuse/misuse of the cure or other anti-mutant measures.
Yes, that was a slippery slope. However, Beast should have understood why the government's intentions were intially good because the weapon was being used to protect mutants and humans against terrorist mutants. Since beast couldn't stomache the idea of imagining mutant cure serum being fired at terrorist mutants would he rather have the military and law enforcement commit suicide by firing bullets at Magneto's army?
The President weaponised the cure as a defensive measure, at a point when there was no immediate wide-scale threat.
What do you mean there was not a wide scale threat? In the first X-Men film most of the world leaders were meeting at Liberty Island to discuss the politcal repercussions of the mutant registraction act so it's that other countries had mutant problems just like America. There's no evidence that these worldwide problems suddenly fixed themselves in the second and third X-Men films.
It was arguably an abuse of the cure to secretly use it for such means.
It was a controversial decision and arguably the only means the government had against stopping the mutant terrorists.
So what would the president have done had he known that Magneto was marching towards Alcatraz? Gone even further down that slippery slope.
So what would the president have done if Beast's failure to inform the government about Magneto's plan allowed Magneto to win the battle at Alcatraz? Gone even further down that slipperly slope.
But all that work was undone when the President used the cure as a weapon without consulting the Secretary of Mutant Affairs.
What do you mean? Beast was informed about the cure at the beginning of the film must have known about it's potential to be a weapon. All those things I mentioned happened after Beast was informed so there was more than enough evidence for him to see that the government would do everything in their power to not misuse the cure as a weapon.
and when, at that point, there was no wide-scale threat and no massive social campaign for such a measure.
I already addressed this. X-Men 1 showed the relationship between mutants and humans was becoming a worldwide problem. X-Men 2 showed that the human and mutant relationship was on the verge of falling apart. These problems didn't just go away during the events which took place in between X2 and X3. I blame Ratner for not showing the wide scale threat and the massive social campaigns for this measure because all evidence suggests they existed.
The X-Men's decision merely meant a delay in the arrival at Alcatraz of ground troops who had gone to Magneto's forest camp believing he and his army were there.
What? So now I'm supposed to believe the troops searching for Magneto's camp were the only troops who could have been sent to help the ones already at Alcatraz. There were no other military troops in San Fransisco that could have gone to Alcatraz to prepare for the attack?
It meant fewer soldiers on Alcatraz, but the troops on the island already had plastic cure darts.
Yep. Just imagine what a force of 300 troops could have done to Magneto's army who had no knowledge of the plastic needles. The battle would have been over immediately after it started.
I suppose the government might have moved the boy somewhere else had they known Alcatraz was about to be attacked by Magneto.
Yep.
Other than that, the normal military measures like tanks and jets would be useless against Magneto, as Trask tells the President.
Of course the military on Alcatraz wouldn't have used these measures. All they needed were more troops to fire more of the mutant cure guns. These troops could have been deployed to Alcatraz in minutes once the government had been warned.
The exact details aren't important, it's enough to know a threat was stopped, rifts were healed and it was a somewhat better world for mutants. I think it would be up to a future movie to deal with the ramifications of the cure and whether it still exists or is being used, the way the world now deals with terrorist mutants, and the government's exact position on the mutant issue. For this movie, it was presented that a balance or peace of sorts had been reached for the moment, with the stopping of Magneto (and Phoenix).
I didn't need to see exact details. However, I did want X-Men 3 to fit well in the X-Men series. Unfortunately, for us Ratner didn't consider the worldwide political ramifications of the previous movies. I hated the end of X3 because it leaves us with more questions than answers. Anyone who has seen all three X-Men movies knows that whatever peace resulted after the battle of Alcatraz must be temporary. The government's decision in appointing Beast as ambassador happened so quickly I suspect it was done mainly to have a political impact domestically and worldwide. In the real world discrimination is something that will always exist in some form so in the X-Men movie world I think it's farfeteched to believe the fragile and worldwide relationship between humans and mutants was restored a few months after the events at Alcatraz.
And those were part of the slippery slope that Beast feared the President was on.
Interesting. You've basically proved my point for me. Beast being worried about all these things and not telling the government about Magneto's plan wouldn't have stopped the government from doing these things if they were determined to.
The government knew who the X-Men were in X3 and most likely saw them as strong allies who would aid them in their fight against terrorist mutants. Just imagine what would have happened if Magneto's army actually won the battle at Alcatraz and the X-Men were either all killed or at the very least recognized as traitors for not informing the government of the attack. There's a strong posibility the government would have resorted to all those tactics that Beast feared.
His decision was a very high risk that resulted with a decent reward. The decision he should have choosen was less risky and the reward would have been similar with the exception of there being less destruction, less causualties, and chaos. So once again I still don't understand what Beast was trying to accomplish by not informing the government about Magneto's attack.
Disrespecting prisoners' rights could well be the start of harsh anti-mutant measures - and it is an important issue in the human rights agenda. The huge news coverage of Guantanamo Bay in our own world shows how much rights can matter even when referring to detainees and prisoners.
Who said anything about disrespecting prisoners rights? First of all, I was talking about the rights of mutant terrorists. Not terrorists mutant prisoners. Secondly, what rights do any terrorists have who are trying to take away the rights of those they disagree with through terrorism? If I'm not mistaken terrorists have virtually no rights under the geneva convention rules. The few rights they are given are a priviledge they don't deserve. Of course I believe all prisoners should have some basic rights but, the Guantanamo Bay example is a horrible one. I'm always amused when I hear about these so-called human rights organizations being concerned about the rights of people who have no respect for human life. Then these same people ignore the plight of all the other poor people who are having their rights violated in 3 of the other 7 continents.
