tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13604760.post114912533854959477..comments2024-01-01T05:14:46.672-05:00Comments on Double Articulation: Deconstructing Brett Ratner’s X3 (2006): How to Fuck It All Up and Betray Your Principles Without Really TryingJim Roeghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16381244745309535742noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13604760.post-87891410925630017572009-04-29T02:07:00.000-04:002009-04-29T02:07:00.000-04:00Why not have a sequel titled sex-men instead of x-...Why not have a sequel titled sex-men instead of x-men. <br /><br />Or start a Halloween remake called hex-men. <br /><br />Or a Bush Biopsy called Tex-men. <br /><br />Finally how about a "The Shining: Part II" labeled axe-men!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13604760.post-1156750054527121072006-08-28T03:27:00.000-04:002006-08-28T03:27:00.000-04:00I DONT think Xavier was justified by blocking Jean...I DONT think Xavier was justified by blocking Jean's power. By blocking the true nature of her powers HE caused Jean's mind to compensate and create the Phoenix personality. If he had just left her alone (of course teaching her to develop her power) she would've been better off. Xavier said that Jean's powers are seated in her unconscious mind...funny...because look at Storm. Storm's powers can be influenced by her emotions as well (conscious and unconscious). Why not block Storm's powers too?? Poor Jean...Xavier is the overprotective parent figure who dosen't want his poor little baby to go out in the world and be the best she can be. Jean's obviously pissed about it too. In X-Men she was only able to use Cerebro after Xavier was in a coma. And what about the climax? She and Storm had to use their powers to get Wolverine to the top of the Statue of Liberty. What a waste. Keeping your prized student from being able to telekinetically levitate 1 person through the air to save the life of an innocent. What an asshole. Xavier better be glad his mental blocks didn't last long in Jean's mind or else he and all of the other X-Men would all be at the bottom of Alkali Lake. Storm too..."Yeah they're ready, but are YOU ready to do what YOU have to do when the time comes" (she says to Wolverine), and "She's made her choice!" BITCH, she got multiple personality disorder!! The Heifa ain't got no fucking control! DAMN! And I thought Jean and Storm were best friends. Hell, at least in the comics. That bitch dosen't understand a DAMN thing. I wish Storm was killed and not Scott and I dont even like Cyclops. You fuck with Jean, you fuck with me.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13604760.post-1149511660564313872006-06-05T08:47:00.000-04:002006-06-05T08:47:00.000-04:00My pleasure, David - I love those Star Wars posts....My pleasure, <B>David</B> - I love those Star Wars posts. I am planning to watch the trilogy again this summer with them in mind. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on X3!Jim Roeghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16381244745309535742noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13604760.post-1149471205740943052006-06-04T21:33:00.000-04:002006-06-04T21:33:00.000-04:00Hi Jim! Thanks for the link - and I have a little ...Hi Jim! Thanks for the link - and I have a little more about Jar Jar <A HREF="http://pah2.golding.id.au/thePhantomMenace/" REL="nofollow">here</A>.<BR/><BR/>But I couldn't disagree more about that wonderful third <I>X-Men</I> movie! Thoughts to follow...David Goldinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12988083380983768496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13604760.post-1149277747990742302006-06-02T15:49:00.000-04:002006-06-02T15:49:00.000-04:00frank - no doubt they do! And in some ways, I thi...<B>frank</B> - no doubt they do! And in some ways, I think that the film's mutant metaphor works really well as an anti-homophobia message (the weaponizing of the cure in the syringe-gun, and indeed the whole Angel-plot is one of the more successful elements of the film, I think). I just wish that Ratner hadn't felt the need to enlist the X-Men on the side quackery and to make Rogue the spokeswoman for "going straight." Talk about one step forward, two steps back!Jim Roeghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16381244745309535742noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13604760.post-1149276056932094342006-06-02T15:20:00.000-04:002006-06-02T15:20:00.000-04:00Jim- I'm sure that the fundies running the quacke...Jim- I'm sure that the fundies running the quackeries where people are "cured" of their homosexuality intend a permanent result too...Frankhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09749596034713283231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13604760.post-1149265716877141102006-06-02T12:28:00.000-04:002006-06-02T12:28:00.000-04:00Interesting comments, anonymous--there was a good ...Interesting comments, <B>anonymous</B>--there was a good movie in there somewhere...and I think that <B>Thomas</B> found it! Check out his amazing response to the X-bashing <A HREF="http://doublearticulation.blogspot.com/2006/06/little-scott-in-slumberland-or-how-i.html" REL="nofollow">here</A>!<BR/><BR/>And btw, <B>marc</B>, thanks for catching my goof about the prof's suppression of the Phoenix using "psychic circuit-breakers." Obviously I have to go back and reread the comic! I've corrected it in the original post.Jim Roeghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16381244745309535742noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13604760.post-1149259493249207332006-06-02T10:44:00.000-04:002006-06-02T10:44:00.000-04:00I agree totally with your post. On a thematic leve...I agree totally with your post. On a thematic level, there was a very interesting movie here about how change isn't necessarily good and isn't ever total. The movie even ends with a perfectly symbolic climax, with Jean stripping away Logan's X-costume and skin, which represent all of the humanity and compassion that he's learned and accepted since the first movie. And it's only by rejecting those lessons and indulging the monster inside him that he can end the threat. Combined with the Jean-Xavier scene and some of the scenes with Angel and Beast reaccepting his place as a hero, there was an interesting movie in there somewhere.<BR/><BR/>However, you're totally right. Tying it into the mutant concept makes that interesting movie merely odious.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13604760.post-1149255182723918602006-06-02T09:33:00.000-04:002006-06-02T09:33:00.000-04:00gorjus - Oh GOD, what a TERRIBLE line...even witho...<B>gorjus</B> - Oh GOD, what a TERRIBLE line...even without the needless (and I must say ubiquitous) "bitch"-tag on the end. Love to see that feminist reading!<BR/><BR/><B>marc</B> - thanks! And about Phoenix as metaphor for desire rather than difference, I couldn't agree more. But, as you also say, it's precisely because the film <I>does</I> lump these incongruous plots together that she ends up being shoe-horned into the metaphor-for-difference argument in this very broad and unsatisfactory way. (At least, if you're a viewer with a rage for order.) Something I didn't make very clear in that original post was that (to the extent that the battle[s] with Phoenix can be understood within the context of the suppression of difference metaphor) she provides a complementary (not parallel) set of justifications for the film's nasty message: whereas Rogue is there to persuade us that "mutants" must have "the right to choose," Jean is there to persuade us that sometimes "we" also have that right on "their" behalf. And just to add to the awfulness (and to pick up on your comment about the X-Men's use of the weaponized "cure") it's very interesting that of all people to use the "cure" against Magneto, it's the Beast who does so--a (to the movies) brand new character who is parachuted in. Yet another example of how the film hedges its bets, a lame gesture of bad conscience towards keeping the core X-Men as ideologically "clean" as possible, even as they're obviously and dramatically violating their core principles. (Of course, as a friend of mine pointed out to my wife when they went to see the film, Beast becomes a sort of "Uncle Tom" figure in the end, just to make sure that the film leaves us with a REALLY bad taste in our mouths.)<BR/><BR/>Kitty's presence in the film was weird for me. As <B>gorjus</B> and I have discussed before, she's a point-of-view character for fanboys and girls of our generation, yet her role was really usurped by a young Rogue in the films. Her materialization in X3 as just another of the relatively blank apprentice mutants was just sotta ho-hum. Who is this gal?<BR/><BR/>And in case I didn't say so explicitly in the post: Rogue's depowering? Barf.<BR/><BR/><B>frank</B> - it's not so much that I think that the cure itself is "superficial and temporary" (actually, I think it's supposed to be permanent); rather, it's that the <I>plot device</I> of a "cure for mutuant powers" is a "superficial" concept because it is used on the literal level of the story to justify the X-Men's betrayal of their (real) metaphorical meaning (which is, as Storm says, to defend the principle that difference doesn't need to be "cured"). But maybe I'm misunderstanding your point!Jim Roeghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16381244745309535742noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13604760.post-1149239040295669032006-06-02T05:04:00.000-04:002006-06-02T05:04:00.000-04:00I have to disagree with you about your main critis...I have to disagree with you about your main critisism here. The fact that the "cure" is superficial and temporary doesn't reduce the parallels to other kinds of difference it increases them.Frankhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09749596034713283231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13604760.post-1149201986477536042006-06-01T18:46:00.000-04:002006-06-01T18:46:00.000-04:00Great post, Jim; you've perfectly encapsulated (an...Great post, Jim; you've perfectly encapsulated (and explicated) my problems with the movie. And you barely even got into the parts I found most troubling, the X-Men's use of the weaponized cure and Rogue's renunciation of her mutant powers/difference. They operate in exactly the manner you describe, though, with reasonable decisions on the in-story level of the vehicle justifying atrocious messages on the extranarrative level of the tenor.<BR/><BR/>One quibble: I don't associate the Phoenix with "difference" so much as "desire." Xavier doesn't make Jean any less a mutant (the psychic circuit-breakers do come from the comics, btw), he just restrains her id/desire; the Phoeninx, esp. Dark, is essentially a femme fatale who gives into her desires to the point of murder and self-destruction. Famke Janssen gets exactly one good scene along those lines with Jackman in the X-Mansion and then she's reduced to a plot device. Nevertheless, I don't see the X-Men's battle with Phoenix as any sort of commentary on difference. It's only the confused logic of the movie, combining two such radically unrelated plots, that blurs the two themes.<BR/><BR/>(To indulge in my own armchair directing, I would have made the third movie the cure plot, letting Jean's menace build slowly up to the climax, which initiates an all-Dark Phoenix fourth movie. Needless to say, Cyclops is around for all of it.)<BR/><BR/>Kitty's insubstantiality doesn't bother me at all. It's inherited from the comics--and a tradition of superheroines who become invisible, insubstantial, miniscule, or otherwise unimportant, to be sure--but she uses her power creatively and effectively, and when deprived of it she uses her wits to take down the speaker of the aforementioned misogynistic line. Kitty's the only part that doesn't suffer under a feminist reading.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13604760.post-1149188197747177872006-06-01T14:56:00.000-04:002006-06-01T14:56:00.000-04:00Nothing to add--other than my continuing revulsion...Nothing to add--other than my continuing revulsion at the "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch" phrase, in a unecessarily misogynistic moment in a somewhat dull and terrible movie.<BR/><BR/>The movie seemed clearly stitched together from multiple comics from over thirty years. There was no theme or overarching story as in the first two. It was just gross.<BR/><BR/>I may write up a feminist reponse to the movie shortly (Halle Berry is a do-nothing, Jean is killed, Rogue is de-powered, and as Jim noted, Kitty Pryde is literally unsubstantial).gorjushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13184937227327518682noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13604760.post-1149181799537247282006-06-01T13:09:00.000-04:002006-06-01T13:09:00.000-04:00Thomas - you know I fear your surrealist karate, b...<B>Thomas</B> - you know I fear your surrealist karate, but please, PLEASE, don't break out...THE RESTORT. Anything but that! See you in the snowy wilds--just be prepared for: no murcy! Er, no mercy.<BR/><BR/>And as you can see, I'm already gathering a ninja army. <B>ragnell</B> is not to be trifled with. (Thanks <B>ragnell</B>!)<BR/><BR/><B>naladahc</B> - As you could tell from the review, I'm perhaps not jaded enough, and thus more easily disappointed. What can I say? Idealism dies hard.Jim Roeghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16381244745309535742noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13604760.post-1149180605671446272006-06-01T12:50:00.000-04:002006-06-01T12:50:00.000-04:00Oh man... that was supposed to be "retort"! See w...Oh man... that was supposed to be "retort"! See what happens when geeks try to sound tough?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13604760.post-1149180442297209172006-06-01T12:47:00.000-04:002006-06-01T12:47:00.000-04:00Jim... Jim... Jim... Do I have a restort? Are you...Jim... Jim... Jim... Do I have a restort? Are you kidding? You bet I do! The kid gloves are coming off now. <BR/><BR/>Just give me a bit of time, then you and I are getting into that cage, up in the snowy wilderness of Canada, where we all first meet Wolverine back in 2000. Your deconstructive kung-fu will be no match for my surrealist karate!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13604760.post-1149162019667485012006-06-01T07:40:00.000-04:002006-06-01T07:40:00.000-04:00I'm of two minds of this film and the one side rea...I'm of two minds of this film and the one side read your post and totally agrees with it.<BR/><BR/>The other side, now pretty much jaded to superhero comics and comics-to-film in general, just didn't care.<BR/><BR/>I suppose that's why I can't say I loved it nor can I say I hated it.<BR/><BR/>I just watched it, ate my chocolate-covered raisins, and sat back and said "why didn't Wolverine throw Leech at Jean" or something.<BR/><BR/>But indeed, dispatching Scott in such a poor off-screen method can't even be justified. <BR/><BR/>Then again, he didn't exactly have much to do in X2 either.naladahchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02105525754360171571noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13604760.post-1149136828446676692006-06-01T00:40:00.000-04:002006-06-01T00:40:00.000-04:00Right on every word.One of the huge problems we co...Right on every word.<BR/><BR/>One of the huge problems we could see clearly on this one was no moral victory. They used the cure as a weapon, Storm killed Callisto, and Xavier cheated. No wonder, they thematically betrayed the moral with the plot.Ragnellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00373059673228550524noreply@blogger.com