Since when has any film featuring superhumans (villains or heroes) 'clearly defined' their limits? Are we expected to see some computer screen showing such a thing, or a caption along the bottom of the screen?
Has there been any other comic book franchise with a multitude of potentially overpowered characters like X-Men? (let's focus on comic book movies as an example of superhuman movies for the sake of comparison). The MCU until recently (with the introduction of Scarlet Witch) only had characters with physical abilities or who rely on technology. Thor was a Norse God of Thunder who wields a super powered hammer. Spider Man had all the abilities of a spider. Hulk turns green and grows big when he's angry. Even if limits are not clearly defined, we still know the general area of what their powers should entail.
Scarlet Witch could potentially fall in this trap, but the writers seem pretty insistent on keeping her powers limited to telekinesis and slight psychic abilities, because it's easier to write a story knowing what her limits are.
Superman is the only one I know who comes close to be comparable to Apocalypse in terms of the multitude of random powers they have, and I can't speak for Superman because I've never watched those movies.
Apocalypse as written in the movie, with his in-universe justification of having all sorts of powers because they were taken from other people, could sprout insect wings at any moment and fly and it would still be adhering to the rules established in-universe. And that's... fine, but it's pretty lazy writing. He can use any power as a cop out of any situation and all we can do is shrug and say 'Well, he must have gotten it from some mutant somewhere'.
I have to add this is not an area I'm an expert in though because I'm not a fan of comic book movies in general, X-Men just happen to be the only one I like XD. This is why I'm approaching it from a film screenwriting perspective in general, and am not gonna give a pass just cause it's a comic book movie.
Secondly, human/superhuman limitations can't be so neatly determined. People can exceed, or fail to reach, their own previous limits in different circumstances, such as stress, fatigue, illness, drugs or a life-or-death situation.
Whether comics, or movies, or our reality, you will always see variations in what are thought to be the limits of a person/character.
'Reality is no defense for fiction'. (I'm gonna annoy the hell out of you but I've just attended a screenwriting seminar so I'll be using what I've learned from it a lot, bear with me).
A story is obviously different from reality. Just because we as humans need to eat food does not mean we need to see our characters eat anything. We gloss over it because it's not important to the story, nor is it interesting.
Same applies here. Just because limits can vary in real life does not mean it makes for an interesting or coherent story.
We are always hearing 'why did/didn't XX do this or that' when it comes to comic book adaptations. It's been raised several times regarding the X-Men movies over the years when what someone did in one scene is compared with what they did or didn't do in another scene. And now you're just walking into the trap.
It involves full-on nitpickery and pedantry, which brings me to your latest post...
Again, not an expert in comic book movies. The only major X-Men movie example I can think of is Magneto in X3, with him not dropping the bridge atop Alcatraz Island, and I guess complaints about X3 Phoenix in general. But notice how they are both from a script written partially by Kinberg and in a movie already riddled with bad writing all around?
Otherwise, the good X-Men movies have made attempts to address and clearly define what are the limitations of our characters' powers. I may be remembering wrongly but this leads to my next point.
When a movie is overall written well, plot holes when it comes to power levels can be glossed over because the overall product is so good it pulls people in the story that they buy it and just gloss over the plot holes.
What is nitpicking but an inability to be drawn into the story and buy what's going on? When the writing is shaky, a viewer is left unsure what they can gloss over in the story and what they can just accept (again a lesson learned from the seminar). Dismissing people's nitpicks I think is not helpful. The nitpicks are there and show that there are aspects of the story that can be written tighter. It's whether you allow those nitpicks to affect your enjoyment of the story or not. People nitpicking usually does not mean that they do it for the sake of it, they do it because they cannot buy the story.
Maybe Singer will address this on the commentary track but your suggestion still ends up with multiple abilities in one person as a result of the molecular control power, so it's no real improvement.
But we know generally what their multiple abilities should entail. An Apocalypse according to my suggestion won't suddenly have psychic powers or weather controlling powers.
And at what point in the movie would 'control of molecules' be explained in some expository manner? It would also make him, in effect, a super-Mystique.
And would a super-Mystique be a bad explanation? You've literally just summed it up in a single phrase. Would draw an ever closer parallel during the scene when Apocalypse confronts and chokes Mystique.
And how would the limits of each of those things above (size, mass changes, etc) be determined? How would we know he couldn't make himself 40,000 feet tall and just stomp on an entire country.
Again, that's where limits come into play. You've clearly defined what his powers are, now show us what his limits are. It's screenwriting, anything is possible as long as it's executed well.
I'm happy enough with what we got and it would have strayed beyond 'show not tell' if there had been some point where his powers had been determined - we saw what he could do and an intelligent viewer could assemble that information.
And I respect that, but it obviously hasn't worked for a majority of critics. Again you're assuming that clearly defining powers involves a giant exposition scene. It doesn't. It just involves a few lines at most, and powers that adhere to the rules of those few lines and powers which make the character interesting. Again, it's now common knowledge even among casual audiences that an overpowered take over the world bad guy is boring.
Except the intelligent viewers are coming up with contradictory interpretations of what's going on. That is the very definition of muddled. Are the Horsemen brainwashed, or are they of their own free will? Everyone has their own opinion on it.
The subatomic thing does give her a lot of leeway that is very undefined.
And there's a reason why the writers had to limit her by making her crazy and constantly fighting a presumed internal battle with Jean. And when she does finally cut loose, she is quickly dispatched.
Apocalypse spends an entire movie being of his own agency with his powers at his disposal, but he still fails to accomplish anything threatening. Havok's death and the Mansion explosion wasn't even directly attributed to him.
It's not muddled. We're told he has amassed various powers and through the course of the movie we are shown what they are. Some, like teleportation and control of matter (sand/walls) are pretty obvious. Some, like shielding the horsemen from Xavier's reach, are directly explained in dialogue.
Again, he could sprout insect wings and fly (in addition to his teleportation, telekinesis etc) and we wouldn't be able to say anything. Not muddled maybe, but a cheat certainly.
Why four? The real world Bible tells of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse so it's pretty much set in stone. We could hardly suddenly have 7 horsemen of the Apocalypse. The four seem to represent the main destructive forces of the ancient world, the things that most threatened the balance of civilisation in those times. Conquest (or sometimes Pestilence), War, Famine and Death are the usual names for the four. Whether the number is symbolic, ritualistic, magical, numerological or has deeper historical interpretations doesn't really matter, the movie was marrying itself to the ancient Biblical tale and i don't think there's anything wrong with that. Again, you're being far too literal.
How does the movie marry itself to the Biblical tale? Conquest/Pestilence, War, Famine and Death weren't even mentioned in the movie. A character that think he's a god, and a brief exposition scene which suggests that he is at least related to Biblical myth, is not marrying itself to the Biblical tale. It's gesturing broadly at a theme that the movie wants to explore but ends up not actually exploring. The Angel vs Demon dichotomy in Angel and Nightcrawler, and shots of people in prayer, again are gestures. They are not a story.
This movie is not a biblical story at all. That was Singer and Kinberg's intention, and it does not come through. That's what I mean by muddled. Listening to them talk about their intentions with the movie is more interesting than the movie itself. The movie is essentially about a superpowered egomanic being awakened, gathering four henchmen and trying to take over the world. That's it. No commentary on religion, none on cults, nothing. Just hints of themes.
He was never shown as being able to project a physical shield over anything other than himself (unlike the woman horseman in the prologue). Nor was it indicated that he could create or sustain a shield of such a size (it would be pretty vast).
This is pure nitpickery.
Again, nitpickery is the result of a movie that is already shaky to begin with. Especially from someone like me, who NEVER nitpicks at movies if the end result is good.
He doesn't know where he is. He can sense him through the connection but doesn't have a physical location.
That's inferred. There's no actual dialogue that supports it, considering he teleported all four Horsemen to the concentration camp in one scene, Cairo in another, all without a connection.
Well, there is some weight to that thought, because Apocalypse's voice changed at the time he recruited each of his horsemen, and i feel there was some mesmeric/persuasive/controlling effect going on.
And that defeats the purpose of Singer and Kinberg's intentions, which was to explore the concept of a cult and how it preys on the weak. Taking away people's agency is not an interesting direction with which to take a cult, it reduces it to something supernatural and cannot be compared to real life. Again, muddled.
He had to be shown to be an extremely powerful force/character. But still, he can't take over the world unless/until he has Xavier's powers added, that much is pretty clear.
Which the scene with the missiles (a fantastic scene) already did. I was just browsing TV Tropes the entire day, and it pointed out if Apocalypse just did the transference immediately without wasting any time giving a grand speech to the world, he would have succeeded.
Now this could be an interesting if that scene serves to explore his egomaniac personality but A) it's generally accepted that egomaniac villains by themselves are already cliche B) we don't do much with his egomania (not as well as it's handled by say, Voldermort in the Harry Potter books where we delved deep into his personality).
Some things could have been done better, but I think Apocalypse's powers, intentions and role are really not that muddled.
I think we have to agree to disagree. We just fundamentally disagree. XD I'm having fun though.
It doesn't help that the screenwriting seminar I just attended has made the flaws in the writing stand out even more to me. If you can gloss over it, more power to you, but the screenwriting rules broken here are indisputable IMO.
