X-Men: First Class/Headscratchers

• Okay, are we certain that this movie is supposed to take place in the same continuity as the the other four? Because, as far I can see, this is more a continuity reboot than a prequel, even in very broad strokes.
  • It's possible to see it as canon - if you assume that there just happen to be two diamondy people named Emma in the world, and Beast is clever enough to make himself a holographic disguise by the time of X2, and Magneto suffers from a serious case of Heel Face Revolving Door in between this film and the original trilogy, coming back to Charles's side every so often to help improve Cerebro or track down Jean Gray, and Xavier and Mystique are too pained by their memories to mention their relationship ever again... but yeah, we're looking at very, very Broad Strokes. There's also Charles' line in the first movie about discovering his powers when he was 15 and meeting Erik when he was 17, and the fact that Magneto's helmet looks completely different between the two and that Xavier is completely unaware that Magneto has the helmet in the earlier parts of the first movie. In addition, the starting scenes of the first X-Men are stated to occur "in the very near future" and suggest that awareness that mutants exist is a recent phenomenon (given that Congress is having Jean Grey explain mutants to them, and that Senator Kelly emphasizes that yes, mutants are real), whereas in First Class, the government, at least, has known mutants exist by 1962; there's no way they could have been successfully keeping it a secret that long.
  • On the side of it being in continuity, there's really just the concentration camp scene at the beginning, which is very similar to the one in the first movie, and the cameos from Jackman and Romjin, and those can just function as minor references directed at fans of the earlier movies, rather than indicating full continuity. Judi Dench reprised her role as M in Casino Royale, yet that was a reboot.
  • Alternatively, Emma in Wolverine is the daughter of Emma in First Class. Her sister Kayla also has mind control-related powers. Walking Xavier is simply an astral projection. Beast created a cure from his serum by the time of X2, only to have it turn out imperfect and change into other furry but more human-like form in X3... In general, many things could happen in intervening years that led to Magneto working with Xavier again, Charles remembering certain things wrong and Mystique becoming willing to kill him, but I guess, I'm trying too hard.
  • Here's another thing to add to the "Wolverine" part of the canon debate: The Wolverine is treating Origins as strictly non-canon, and that also has Hugh Jackman reprising his role. The best two possible explanations I've seen put forth are the "strict reboot" and "the non-Singer films (X3 and Origins) are non-canon".
  • Oh come on, if anyone thinks "Charles said he met Erik at 17 instead of 24" or "Erik was working with Xavier in the '70s but became a villain in the '60s" are such big discrepancies that they require calling the movies a "reboot," their heads will a'splode from reading the full history of the comic-book X-Men. Just do what comic-book fans have long since learned to do: think of the stuff that doesn't line up exactly right as Broad Strokes.
  • Possibly the greatest evidence that this is a continuity reboot is the fact that it's bald yet not crippled Xavier that meets Jean Grey for the first time in X3. Seeing as First Class Xavier was crippled as a young man with a full head of hair there is no way whatsoever that X3 Xavier is the same man.
    • • Xavier's paralysis was healed sometime before he met Jean Grey. Then he got injured and ended up back in a wheelchair. If that sounds unlikely, keep in mind that it's happened several times in the comic books.
        • Well, it didn't make sense in the comic books, either.
  • There's less problems fitting First Class with the other X-Men films as canon than there are fitting the Star Wars prequels with their cannon ("Your father was a kind man, dedicated pilot, owned a cargo ship, Yoda trained me, and Leia was raised by your birth mother." according to Obi-Wan and Leia) Minor fluctuations in age don't really matter much (17 or 24, it doesn't matter - the point is they met when they were young men), the writers confirmed that Havok is intended to be the father of the original trilogy's Cyclops, Beast's appearance shifts many times in the comics, and Professor X had to rebuild his own version of Cerebro (possibly with Magneto's help, even if another bigger mutant threat like Onslaught or Apocalypse appeared in the intervening 40 years). The only thing that raises an eyebrow is Emma's agelessness, but MANY MANY mutants have retarded aging as a minor power, so I'm perfectly willing to let that slide. Even Professor X has regained and lost the ability to walk many, many times and Magneto is a Heel Face Revolving Door, explaining why they would still occasionally cooperate with each other to do this like interview Jean Grey or rebuild Cerebro or other mutually beneficial acts. Word of God also claims it was intended to be in-canon with the other films and 40 years between movies is a lot of time for all that stuff above to happen.
  • Emma Frost in the comics was quoted as saying that she had the best body money could buy, implying that she was fond of plastic surgery to maintain her looks. Of course, she's a telepath, she can make others see her however she wishes. She could be an old hag, and she could still make others see her as young and beautiful.
    • She does precisely that in the Old Man Logan series, set fifty-some years in the future.
    • The issue isn't just her appearance, but her characterization as a scared young woman imprisoned by Stryker. The closest you could get to explaining that is to assume she too was working, willingly, for Stryker's Weapon X project, changed her appearance for that purpose, and used her telepathy to make Kayla think she was her sister, so that Kayla and Stryker could manipulate Wolverine into getting the adamantium treatment.
      • The closest you can get to explaining it is to say that they are two different characters who just happen to have one similar power. Which is easy, because the film never calls her Emma Frost, and if I remember right the only time she's even called Emma is in the end credits.

• Charles, I got it, killing Shaw won't bring peace to Erik (it certainly didn't), but what other option do we exactly have? The guy just absorbed the better part of the power from a nuclear reactor. If he even think about it, bang, there goes Cuba first and then the world. Killing the bastard right now is 200% justified, even before you factor in the fact that he is a former Nazi, a Complete Monster, an Omnicidal Maniac, a Person of Mass Destruction, and he killed Erik's mom just before his eyes.
  • It's Charles Xavier. It's his job to carry the Hero Ball in the face of blinding pragmatism. Plus, he's clever enough to know that killing Shaw won't just not bring Erik peace - it'll be the catalyst for his becoming Magneto. Y'know, the guy whose villainy is what Charles'll spend most of the film series having to fight?
    • But even so, what else WERE they going to do to Shaw? He'd just absorbed power on a nuclear level, and Charles himself said he couldn't hold him for very long. Imprisonment at that point is impossible; killing seems to be the only option. Did Charles just want someone else to do it?
      • Most likely. As stated above he didn't want Erik to become the very thing he hated and tried to get Erik to be above it; he probably wasn't thinking about the logistics of it too hard.
  • My question is where did all that energy go?

• From what I understand, Shaw's plan is basically to wipe the human race out through nuclear warfare, so that the mutant race will reign supreme!...over a barren, radioactive wasteland, with a disrupted climate, though Riptide could possibly remedy that. Oh, and a practically nonexistant population of superior beings, of course, considering there'll probably be lots of mutant casualties in amidst all the human ones when the bombs hit and the nuclear winter starts in full; and there aren't exactly a lot of them at the moment anyway. Let's not even begin to wonder whether or not mutants are as susceptible to radiation poisoning and/or development of cancer as humans; in that way lies madness.
  • Shaw was more than willing, and did, shoot Erik's mother in order to activate his powers and killed Darwin as an example. Shaw, despite viewing other mutants as the next phase, is not really one to care how many mutants die and probably thinks that those who live will be the most powerful. And as for the radiation, he can absorb enrgey and as noted above Tempest can create water, making any nuclear wasteland livable. Presumably Shaw also hid some supplies away, so food wouldn't be an issue. And to add to the survival theory, Charles stated earlier in the film that radiation presumabley sped up the dawn of mutation, so Shaw, who being so obsessed with evolution probably figured out the same thing, figures it will create a few new ones. The only hiccup is radiation poisoning but Shaw probably doesn't care about the number of mutants left, just that they are all that is left.
  • Shaw called mutants "the children of the Atom"; he probably assumes they're immune to radiation poisoning
    • Given that Emma and Magneto are able to step into a (even protected) nuclear reactor with no ill effects for decades after, we can only assume that Shaw is right and mutants in the movies are immune to radiation poisoning and carcinogens.
    • Or rather Sebastian is immune to radiation. Both Emma and Magneto stepped into a powered-down reactor, and Magneto still looked like he was under a lot of stress at keeping the radiation away from him with his powers. Anyway, Sebastian dosen't age and his plan also was long-term. He had time to wait for the radiation to disperse, and could oversee generations of new mutants that would arise in the next few centuries, even if the first couple generations died due to the holocaust.
    • Even if all (or most) mutants are immune to radiation, they aren't immune to explosions. Russia and the U.S. had a lot of bombs in the 1960s; a full nuclear war would've killed plenty of mutants from the explosive force alone. Granted, maybe Shawn doesn't care so long as there's at least one mutant left to be the "winner" of the human/mutant conflict. Still, it's a crazy plan.
    • Plans that start with "incite a nuclear holocaust" tend to be.
      • Agreed. Shaw's plan didn't really have to make perfect sense since he was a typical movie villain and his plan was meant to be stopped. The fact that Shaw didn't care how many mutants would die in the initial blasts was proof alone of how much a Complete Monster he was.
  • His plan really isn't as unworkable as it sounds. Even a full nuclear exchange between the US and Russia would probably kill, at most, 90% of humanity directly or indirectly. That still leaves hundreds of millions of people still alive, between survivors in collapsed remnants of the nuked nations, and the many nations of the world not targeted. Assuming he made proper preparations, its hardly impossible for him to build a new nation afterwards, given personal power and a pre-prepared resource base.

• So, Darwin, the mutant whose power is to instantly evolve and adapt to any potentially damaging or fatal situation... is killed?
  • You can see his body try to adapt several times, but there was simply too much energy to dissipate or absorb, even by comic book physics.
    • In which case, Darwin evolves an energy absorption or emitting power, or teleports away leaving the energy to detonate harmlessly, or converts to an energy being, or...
    • Not to mention it can't be too much energy for him to gain a power that lets him survive it; Shaw just absorbed that attack. So Mutant Powers of energy absorption are clearly sufficient to withstand Havoc's attack...and for some reason the man whose power is whatever mutation will let him live through the situation he's in right now can't develop the exact same powers as the guy who just lived through the attack that killed him?
    • Not all powers are created equal. There's power, then there's power scale. Jean and Xavier have the same power (telepathy), but Xavier's clearly the stronger. There's probably other mutants out there that can manipulate metal, but not nearly to Magneto's skill and ability. Shaw isn't just an energy absorber, he's an extremely strong energy absorber.
    • But Darwin gets powers that let him survive the situation, not ones that would let him survive if the situation were less dangerous. His body becomes exactly resiliant enough not to die when he's being attacked from the outside, so why would he not gain energy absorption exactly strong enough to live through Havoc's attack? Hell, in the comics Darwin gets powers that let him survive being in the way of the frigging Hulk, even if that power is "be somewhere else".
    • There is always an upper limit. Him teleporting away from the Hulk is a perfect example: His power determined that the best way to survive was to be somewhere else--and by implication, decided that it wasn't up to the task of making him able to survive getting punched by the Hulk.
      • This troper thought his death was rather well done, but it did seem rather suspect that the only black charecter in the entire film had the power of "Can't be killed" and then died in his first fight scene. Without it even being a real fight.
  • No matter how contrived it may be, he HAD to die - His borderline invulnerability is a game breaker. Heck; Wolverine's healing ability is a game breaker and it's, in theory, nowhere near as powerful.
    • No, Darwin's not a gamebreaker. He has the ability to not die, but nothing offensive in his abilities. He's actually not that useful in the comics aside from being someone you can depend on to come back from a mundane assignment.
• In the final battle between Erik and Shaw, why didn't Erik just use his powers to crush Shaw's head like tin foil? That helmet Shaw was wearing was almost certainly metal. I thought that scene in the beginning where those Nazi soldiers had their skulls crushed was Foreshadowing.
  • Shaw would just absorb it. You can see earlier when Darwin tries to hit him, he absorbs the kinetic energy from that.
  • Not all metal is magnetic. In fact, a metal (or whatever material) that could block telepathy would probably be non-conductive, so magnetism might not affect it.
    • Magneto's displayed the ability to control non-magnetic metals plenty of times though (like the silver coin or the lead bullets).
  • This is supported by the fact that Erik has to create a "tentacle" of metal to grab the helmet off Shaw, rather than grabbing it directly with his powers. Either the helmet blocks his powers too, or else whatever it's made out of simply wasn't magnetic to begin with.
    • Or alternatively, exerting magnetic force on something in skin contact with Shaw would trigger his power, and the magnetism would be absorbed.
  • Erik was obviously also already planning on taking the thing for himself and didn't want it damaged.

• Young Erik kills two guards and trashes a whole room after Shaw shoots his mother--and then just STANDS there and lets SHAW go?
  • I was under the impression that he had no control of his powers at the time and was simply uncontrollably squeezing and flinging whatever was metal within his reach, and the soldiers just had a bit of bad luck by wearing metal helmets.
  • Truth. At that point I feel he was too overcome with sorrow following the realization that his mother was dead. (After the blinding rage, of course.) It's likely that by the time he had the skill and control to really fight back, Shaw was already gone.
    • I don't think a kid distressed the way that poor thing was would have reacted with a BIG NO the way Erik did
    • They still could have had one of the numerous knives on the back wall fly in Shaw's general direction, even if it missed.
      • I think they did, just in a more subtle way. The first thing to start bending was the bell on Shaw's desk, and then the filing cabinet behind him. It looked like Erik's powers were instinctively lashing out at Shaw, but Shaw was probably protecting himself by absorbing the magnetic energy.
  • This is an Erik who doesn't even fully understand that he has a power, let alone have any control over it. When he trashed the room and crushed the guard's helmets, it was just him raging at the death of his mother, he had no real control. Once the inital rage had subsided he was just a kid who couldn't move a coin even when he tried, at that point there was nothing he could do against Shaw.
• When Magneto passes the coin through Shaw's head at the end of the movie, Charles screams the whole time, leading the audience to believe that Charles can feel the coin passing through his head. But the brain has no pain sensors inside it--the only pain he'd have felt would've been at the point of entry and exit. So presumably Charles was just screaming from the pain radiating from the initial entry point that whole time...?
  • You're forgetting it was a psychic thing. It was the mental backlash he was feeling.
  • I imagine having a dull object slowly driven into your skull would cause that amount of screaming pain.
  • His mind was in contact with that a person who was dying...by having his brain (and therefore his "mind" slowly torn apart. As the coin passed through different regions of Shaw's, parts of his mind would shut down with no rhyme, reason, or warning. According the comics, being in the mind of a dying person isn't fun to begin with and it would likely be even worse as a coin was pushed through a brain.
• Why didn't Emma Frost escape from her prison? She's a telepath second only in power to Charles and has been shown to have no scruples whatsoever about manipulating minds, and her diamond form can cut through glass at least...and yet she's still there at the end of the film for Magneto to recruit. I'd understand if they'd drugged her or something to keep her contained, but she seemed perfectly fine when talking to Erik. What, did she just go and sit back down after snarking at the CIA?
  • She's in a secure location loaded with guards, and her diamond form is likely still damaged/injured. Emma probably figured her odds of making an escape were not good; she'd have to mind control a /lot/ of people to escape, and if she were violently confronted, she couldn't rely on her diamond form as protection. Until and unless they showed signs of planning on executing her, her best bet was to sit back and wait for rescue.
  • In addition - she'd lost her ability to influence Shaw when he got the helmet, so she had no real reason to return to him: if he lost she'd be killed or imprisoned anyway, and if he won (which she seemed fairly certain of) he'd come break her out. Makes it a bit strange that she went with Magneto when he had the helmet, but he's (comparatively) young and she probably thought she'd have a good chance at influencing him even without telepathy.
• Is Alex SUMMERS meant to be related to Cyclops, Scott Summers. At all?
  • Given that this Alex Summers has the same powers, code name and last name as in the comics, where he is Scott's brother, he's probably well Scott's brother, just older instead of younger like the comics.
  • Word of God says Alex is Scott's father in this cannon, which explains why Cyclops is so diciplined. He's been there since he was born.
    • Word of God didn't confirm that (if so, I'd like a link) and if this continuity is the same as Wolverine Origins, Cyclops hadn't been at the Xavier mansion since he was born.
• Emma Frost supposedly has a diamond form. When she transforms, Erik is manages to bind her with the bed post, which is okay, except the twisting bed post nearly crushes her in the process. How the heck do you crush a diamond? Why, did she get downgraded from diamond to glass?
  • Diamond hardness references the difficulty in scratching it. It's relatively easy to fracture if you hit it on the right plane.
  • In the comics (and Wolverine and the X-Men) she has one very small fracture point, utilized in both aforementioned 'verses. Hit it right and she shatters.
  • Even if it's called her "diamond" form, it might not actually be diamond.
    • Erik could, when really pushing himself, lift an entire submarine. It takes vastly less force to reduce diamond to dust. He was simply able to squeeze her harder than she could tolerate.

• So Charles erases Moria's memory so that she won't be able to tell the CIA where him and his team are. Only problem is that earlier in the film Charles personally met with several directors of the CIA and participated in CIA missions all under his real name of Professor Charles Xavier, and the hiding place that he wiped Moria's memory to protect is none other than the mansion where he has lived his entire life and is his address of record, not only that but he's now running the Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters out of it. I don't think that the CIA would really have that much difficulty tracking him down even without Moria's memories. So Charles has basically mind raped his friend and possible love interest for nothing.
  • So, you mean to say he's totally in character? ;)
  • There are actually four reasons it's not for nothing, though the last ones more of an alternate theory: 1. The CIA would have done far worse to her in order to get her to talk and give them the specifics, so it was ruin her career or have her locked in some government prison cell for the rest of her life. 2. Showing he could do something that powerful as wipe out weeks of her life, he could do the same to them or even brainwash any soldiers they send as his own army (he wouldn't, of course, but they don't know that), so now even if they do find the mansion, they probably wouldn't try rushing in. 3. Charles is most likely working on security for the mansion and is skilled enough in illusions that even if they did try he could make them see ruins or a smoldering crater while he and his students hid somewhere safe. and finally 4. Theirs the possibility Moira is just faking being mind wiped for the same reasons 1 and 2, so they'd see Charles as too powerful to just try making a strike at and so she wouldn't have to rot in jail.
    • If anything, the fact that she was confirmed to have had her mind compromised by a telepath who is considered an enemy of the state, is the reason why they would lock her away.
  • I wonder if it was meant only as a message to the CIA: "if anyone tries to make trouble for us, I can do this and more to them." I didn't get the impression that her career was ruined, though; that quip about "the CIA's no place for a woman" seemed more like just a casually sexist remark about her blushing over a half-remembered kiss than a real career decision, and an ironic setup for Erik showing up to break Emma out (which immediately gave Moira's bosses bigger things to worry about).

• Forgive this troper's lack of comic canon knowledge and physics, but if Charles couldn't knock Shaw out, would it have been possible for Erik to do something about the radiation that Shaw had absorbed? It's electromagnetic, after all: might have been possible for him to absorb it and redistribute it as some large EMP. Would have killed the ships and communication for everyone, though.
  • Interesting question - the comic book and cartoon Magneto could produce electromagnetic force fields to repel bullets and such so conceivably, if movie Magneto's powers are similar, he probably could manipulate it somehow. The problem is it would almost certainly have killed him given how unlikely it would be for him to escape that reactor room in time.
  • It depends on the kind of radiation. Alpha and beta radiation are charged particles, so Erik could deflect them with the right magnetic field and strength. But since photons aren't affected by magnetic fields, there's nothing he can do to stop the x-rays and gamma radiation from irradiating everything. So he could somewhat contain the radiation, but not completely and not the worst part of it; in short, it wouldn't really help much. And Erik at the time of the movie may not have known enough about radiation, or possessed enough fine-tune control over his powers, to think of trying that.
    • There's also two other problems. One, Shaw might not store absorbed energy in a form Erik could manipulate; its very likely he converts all forms of energy into some "mutant bio-energy" for storage. Two, he would have to contest Shaw for control over said energy, even if he could attempt this, and its not at all clear who would win.

• How exactly did the coin go through Shaw's head so easily? It would've made sense if it was fired like a bullet on the count of three, but it wasn't - it was pushed very slowly. Just as if someone pushed on your forehead really hard with a finger, Shaw should've been pushed back, and perhaps gotten a nasty forehead bruise, but no worse without a resisting force. Xavier isn't telekinetic, he wasn't physically holding the head in place (and why would he), it was just Shaw's own muscles maintaining posture. Without a sharp edge, at that speed, there's no way his skull would've been penetrated instead of him just tilting backwards.
  • I was under the impression (I could be wrong) that it was fired like a bullet; they were just showing it in a slow-motion shot.
  • I think it was because Erik was pressing an incredible amount of force onto it; think how a freight train only moves at about 40 miles an hour, but has the force of a small nuclear detonation behind it. Since Shaw's head couldn't move out of the way or with it due to Charles holding it in place, it went right on through.
    • But, again, the only thing physically holding Shaw in place was himself (via Xavier). If you got hit by a train moving at 40 miles per hour, the train would push you backwards rather than simply splattering through you. (Though this "push" would give you awful bruising and possibly kill you.)
  • Also the coin could have sharp edge. Magneto could've sharpen it with his powers.
    • We saw the coin. It didn't look sharp.
      • In the comics (and the movies this troper has seen), Magneto's power is more like "telekinesis that only effects metal" than the actual generation and manipulation of EM fields. If Magneto simply forced the coin to retain its shape - all the way down to the molecular level - and exerted all of his power on it, he could theoretically send the coin through almost anything, from a human skull to the heart of the Sun. Even if his power in First Class was just creating EM fields, he could have wrapped the coin in an incredibly powerful field that would keep it from deforming under the impact of hitting Shaw's head with enough force to pierce bone, or accelerated it just long enough to punch through the bone before slowing it down again.
  • The real problem isn't the coin, its that Shaw is not braced. Pushing against his head should just tip him backwards. I suppose the writers should have had Erik wrap the back of Shaw's head in some pieces of metal, so he could hold him in place. However, I'm willing to overlook the minor plot hole, as the intent was reasonably clear.

• So Charles and Erik go to recruit Wolverine in a bar, they try to instigate a conversation, he tells them to go fuck themselves, and they...immediately give up and go home. Really? No attempt to coerce him? No attempts to tell him to fight for the greater good or anything like that? Just immediately declare him a lost cause and pack it up?
  • Well, Charles can read minds, so this troper just figured that he realized nothing they said would convice Wolverine.
  • He was also the only one who was clearly an adult and older than both of them. All of the other recruits were their age or younger, and I don't think either one of them would've felt comfortable attempting to order around a man 20 years their senior in appearance and nearly 90 years their senior in actuality.
  • When a huge, dangerous, possibly drunk man^[1] responds to your introduction with "Go fuck yourself" then you listen.
  • Also, Rule of Funny.
  • There were plenty of other mutants to recruit, perhaps some right in the same town. Why waste time with the nasty guy?
  • I never interpreted this scene to have any story meaning other than as an in-joke to the fans, telling them Wolverine wouldn't be in the movie.
• Neanderthals were a mutant offshoot of Homo sapiens, not the other way around. And in many ways Neanderthals were superior to humans as far as being adapted to the climate of Ice Age Europe. It was climate change and sheer numbers of migrating humans that displaced the Neanderthal. Granted, this might be a case of Science Marches On since that could have very well been the prevailing theory in the 1960s, but now everyone is going to go home thinking humans are mutant Neanderthals instead of the other way around.
  • Neaderthals and Homo sapiens are actually both mutant offshoots of the earlier Homo erectus. Neadanderthals were a distinct offshoot species in Europe and the Middle East thousands of years before Homo Sapiens evolved in Africa.
    • Homo sapiens and Neanderthals are offshoots of Homo heidelbergensis, actually.
  • Bear in mind this is the 1960's: that was (probably, don't quote me) their understanding of evolution at the time.
• If Darwin adapts to survive in any environment, why is he a black man in the 1960s in New York? Sure, his powers keep him safe from hate crimes but his skin color is, let's face it, harmful to his job prospects. Or did they think the Beast/Mystique quandary about changing your appearance to be accepted by society would hit a little too close to home if a black man chose to become white?
  • It allows him to survive, not live comfortably. If he were homeless and starving to death or being attacked by racists, then yeah, his powers may kick-in to adapt to the situation, but it won't kick in simply to allow him to get paid more.
  • In the comics, this is actually what happens. Darwin is technically of African American descent but his ethnic features morph to match whoever has the majority of control in his immediate surroundings. And yes, people did chew him out for it.
    • Maybe that's the reason for Charles and Erik telling him to drive to Richmond, Virginia - because he would turn into a white person and it's simplest way that doesn't involve putting him in immediate physical danger to get him to reveal his powers.
      • Or, his powers in the movie simply don't work like that. They adapt to environmental conditions, not abstract social constructs.

• Okay, I know that First Class in no way is expected to be an exact replica of the comics, but what really bugged me was having another mutant being responsible for killing Magneto's mother. It had been my understanding that Erik looked back on his experience with the Nazis and saw it as the sheer brutality of what humans were capable of against people who are different. Obviously, his ideology is filled with contradictions over the years, but the fact is it was pretty jarring this wasn't really addressed. Of course, humans (presuming Shaw wasn't influencing Hitler too) were still responsible for most of the atrocities of World War II, but there was always the slim possibility Erik's mother would have survived in the concentration camp long enough to be liberated had it not been for a mutant trying to prove a point.
  • I highly, highly doubt that the death of Erik's mother was the only suffering he endured in a Nazi concentration camp. It may have been personal with Shaw, because of what he specifically did, but I felt the whole "I've seen the worst of what humanity can offer and it's convinced me that humans and mutants can never coexist" bit of Magneto's characterization easily remains intact.
  • Also, Erik didn't know that Shaw was a mutant until much later in his life. By that time his views of humanity and mutants had been cemented, and the detail that the guy personally responsible for his mother's death later turned out to be a mutant didn't have much of an impact on those views.
• I haven't read the comics so forgive me if this is an obvious question but how exactly were mutants born from radiation? at first I thought the nuclear tests had somehow mutated the normal human DNA but then I realized that Sebastian and Wolverine are far older than the Manhattan project so was there some event that took place that merely required radiation as a catalyst?
  • In the comics, at least, mutants pre-date atomic weapons but went through a mutant baby-boom following World War II and the rise of nuclear power plants. A human being exposed to radiation in the Marvel universe means that there's a higher chance your offspring will be born a mutant, but it's not a direct "cause and effect" thing, just a "risk factor".
  • Charles, Erik, and Raven also predate the detonation of the atomic bomb. Going by the comics, the world's oldest mutant (that I'm aware of) is Apocalypse, who dates all the way back to ancient Egypt (immortality, obviously, is one of his powers). So, while it would be accurate to say that the atomic bomb was a catalyst that caused more mutant births, all mutants being "Children of the Atom" was just Shaw being poetic.
    • The only thing that confuses me is that Shaw didn't come across as being poetic: he actually said "radiation gave birth to us" and seemed to be saying that mutants would thrive in a nuclear war due to that fact. Which is a strange thing to say since he himself predates the atomic age, along with at least Erik (whom he knows of personally), Xavier, Raven and Logan. While natural radiation can cause mutation, other things can too, and it doesn't seem like Shaw has enough evidence to narrow it down like that (or if he did, like knowing that mutant births have been spiking bigtime since WW 2, he didn't bring it up). There is the possibility that Shaw is just plain crazy, but you'd think Xavier would have given the audience some clue of that, like saying "that's crazy!" the moment he read Emma's mind and found out about it. Or alternately, maybe it's a case of Viewers Are Geniuses and the writers are counting on the audience to put the pieces together and realize that nuclear power's the reason why more and more mutants are being born.
    • I saw that line completely differently: He wasn't referring to Mutants, he was referring to life in general. Radiation from the sun is, basically, the reason that life on earth as we know it exists and persists. It was going back to Xavier's pickup lines, actually, that random mutation led to life as we know it.
      • Huh, I didn't read it that way, but that might work, especially as a Dark Reprise of Xavier's lines.
      • Having watched the movie again, Charles does tell the CIA that nuclear testing has greatly increased the mutant birth rate, so the pieces are there in the movie. The scene starts right as he's finishing his report, and none of the characters listening follow up on it, so it's easy to miss.
• After Erik traps Emma Frost to the bed frame and gets her diamond form to crack, he says something along the lines of "touch her in her diamond form now, and she will shatter into a million pieces." Yet, when Magneto breaks her out of prison, she's able to use it again. How? Can she regrow diamonds/glass/polymer/whatever it is?
  • Shapeshifting from flesh to an alternate form heals most wounds in the Marvel universe. With Iceman, Colossus, and Emma, the damage to their ice, steel, and diamond forms or even human forms isn't permanent because they're not swapping between two bodies stored in hyper-space or something, they're altering the physical make-up their body from scratch each time - rebuilding their bodies in the selected material each time. Like if you cloned a person who was crippled in an accident, their clone wouldn't be crippled. Same concept.
  • Magneto cracking her diamond form was not ever considered a major injury that she could not recover from; it didn't exactly cause her any pain when it happened, it just made her vunerable to much more serious damage at that moment if she retook diamond form. Between the time that Magneto cracked her diamond form and the time that he broke her out of prison at least several weeks had passed posibly more, easily enough time for her to have recovered.
• Why was the Soviet cargo ship steaming towards an empty beach? It was clearly on that course for a while since Azazel murdered the bridge crew shortly before the X-Men arrived. And for that matter, when both fleets saw an completely unknown aircraft show up and start circling in the middle of a naval standoff, why didn't any of them attempt to hail it?
  • Who says they didn't? What would Beast tell them, exactly? Their existence was still secret.
    • If a mysterious aircraft comes onto the scene and can't or won't identify itself, someone should have shot at it. I understand if they didn't want to start WW 3 but neither Navy even seems to consider the option.
    • Neither side really wants to start a war. And for all either side knows, that aircraft is one of the other side's, and firing on it might instigate WWIII as much as firing on one of the ships. Given the aircraft wasn't firing on them, it was prudent not to fire on it and risk setting off whoever it did belong to.
      • But the mutant battle was damaging the ships (mostly the Americans' IIRC). Angel and Banshee were flying around with their blasts hitting the boats.
    • The mutants were firing at each other, so they still couldn't tell whose side they were on.
      • At that point the plane had crashed on the beach so they where a little late in shooting it down.
• So, Magneto convinces Mystique that she shouldn't have to hide behind her disguises, which is fine. However, how exactly does it transcribe into "she should walk around naked"? Later she's shown without a disguise but fully clothed so what was up with that scene (and, by extension, the whole original trilogy)? After all, other mutant supremacists, both male and female, don't regard their opposition to humanity as an excuse to streak.
  • I assumed it was because she can't shapeshift real clothes that she puts on, and that maintaining the appearance of clothes that she creates herself (which she is obviously capable of) takes distracting effort, like Magneto was talking about in the weight-lifting scene. Thus, being naked allows her to shapeshift into any form at a moment's notice while letting her maintain focus while not "in character".
  • And, though the dialogue was vague about it, he's probably thinking that clothes are redundant for her in the same way that a bulletproof vest is redundant for him. She doesn't have to wear clothes to avoid walking around naked: she can simply adjust her form to expose or conceal as much of herself as she wants.
  • I think nudity for her is (in part) meant to be a statement, like "HEY! NOTICE THIS! I'M MUTANT AND I'M PROUD OF IT!". This works especially for her because she's all blue and scaly, which obviously indicates mutation. (If some other mutant like Magneto walked around naked, he would just look like a normal naked guy, so it wouldn't send the same message.)
  • This seemed like a Double Standard / Broken Aesop to me as well. Erik tells her her natural form is just as valid as a normal human body. But hers is "different" enough that it's not worth covering up like a normal human body - you don't see him going around without clothes. Plus, in the same scene he compares her to an animal (tiger) and describes her as a "creature".
• Why was the US Navy not briefed about Shaw? Xavier had captured and probed Emma, so the CIA knew what Shaw's plan was. Even if you filter out the bit about mutants, you could still provide a briefing on the order of "A Nazi war criminal with contacts in Russia is trying to maneuver NATO and the Warsaw Pact into a nuclear war so that his Master Race can rule what's left of the world when the shooting stops". The only difference between that plan, which the US Government as a whole would accept, and the truth is that it implies that the 'Master Race' in question is Aryan rather than Mutant. At a minimum, they should have been on the lookout for unexpected submarines. The most obvious way for Shaw to have ignited the war he wanted at the blockade would have been to fire a Russian torpedo at a US warship (Or an American torpedo at a Soviet ship).
  • Yeah...they should've been informed about Shaw. That didn't make sense.
• If the reason Xavier says the wrong thing at the end was because he can't read Erik's mind to find the right thing, what was the right thing? Saying how those men have mothers too? Pointing out how the superior race considers them necessary sacrifices, which forces Erik to think about how close he's being to a Nazi?
  • Considering how certain each man was of his own ideology, there may not have even been a right thing that Charles could have said to dissuade him. (In a more humorous light, this might have done the trick.)
    • There probably wasn't anything Charles could have said that would have made Erik back down, but something like "These men have families" would at worst have been neutral instead of making him more upset.
      • Agreed. If he said something like that, I could maybe see Erik doing a "warning shot" ( like flinging the missiles back, but have them land in the water just short of the fleets ), instead of actually trying to sink them all.
      • Which may have been the thing to say: "If you just chuck the missiles at them but don't detonate them, you make your point in the show of superior force without the human casualties". But in light of the fact that Erik was basically "returning fire" against the ships after both sides tried to kill them, Erik was probably not in the right state of mind for rational considerations.

• When attempting to convince a homicidal Holocaust survivor not to kill a bunch of people, who the hell decides to wrap up a speech about how they're good people by saying they're just following orders? This should be common sense.
  • See Fridge Brilliance for this one. Somebody stated on there that because Charles naturally uses his telepathy as a crutch, when he's blocked from Erik's mind he loses his ability to intuitively know what words to say, and so he fumbles it. With disastrous consequences.
    • Not that that's any excuse for Charles' stupidity, when you consider how big a deal the Nuremberg trial made of the "Just following orders" defense that the "Just following orders" defense is fairly well-ingrained into our culture that Charles should have at least heard of the phrase.
• When Alex is demonstrating his powers, he shoots an energy ring that slices a statue in half, sets it on fire, and drops it on the grass below. It was awesome, but how come the grass didn't catch fire?
  • At the late hour this scene took place, the grass was likely slick with sprinkler water and/or dew. It's very hard to ignite something that's wet, no matter how flammable it may be.
  • You also that to remember that the grass also has water inside it, that's why it's very hard to actually ignite living vegetation, it tends to just smolder.
• Isn't Sebastian's plan doomed to utter failure from the beginning? For starters, nuclear power is nuclear. It tends to kill people. If your mutant power is something like flight, or sonic waves, or whatever, you probably won't have the required durability to survive a nuclear apocalypse; unless you have a Healing Factor or enhance endurance (and even then the odds aren't always in your favour, as we saw in Darwin's case). Also, given that the mutant/human ratio is extremely low, and their small numbers are only really just beginning to enter the public eye, how long is it going to be until the new mutant race has to resort to inbreeding? You need a certain amount of people to keep a population going, and I really don't think the mutants have enough in the time of the movie. On the subject of which, how badly do you want to bed that either or both factors will have serious negative repercussions on the mutant gene pool... seriously, Sebastian, all your taste in stylish clothing does not save you from being a Generic Doomsday Villain.
  • Physics in First Class works on the 1960s comic book model, where you can pass an Oxford defense with a thesis which hinges on the average nuclear reactor emiting a noteworthy amount of radiation (hint: if any radiation escapes the core, everyone should be panicing), which then causes superpowers instead of birth defects. While there is no assurance that the existing mutants will do a better job of surviving the war, the radiation infested world would lead to a dramatic shift in birth rates in favor of mutants. Further, following said 60's comic model, the radiation may cause previously "baseline" humans to become mutants as well. The real question is why anyone would rally to the guy who ended the world.
  • Actually, mutants being at least resistant to radiation has precedent in the film series already. Remember Magneto's plot in the first movie? Generate radiation, which turns humans into mutants--but does not affect mutants.
    • But Sebastian is still planning on launching nuclear missiles. Even if mutants survive the radiation, most of them probably won't survive the nuclear explosions.
      • Based on nuclear doctrine of the time, there are large sections of both America and the Soviet Union that would not be targeted, due to the absence of military assets or a sufficient population density for a proper counter-value strike (Siberia, Kamchaka, etc. in the Soviet Union, any part of "flyover country" that is more than 10 miles away from a military base in the U.S.), which would result in multiple megadeaths but leave a large number of survivors. Same but less with Canada, due to them allowing the Americans to set up early warning assets that are viable targets. Europe and the U.K. is pretty Boolaean, in that they either stay out of it and get away clean, or they go all in and become a nuke-blasted fuckhole, due to the distribution of military assets and population centers in a relatively small area. China is a coin toss, as they were already sliding away from the Soviets to do their own thing at this point, and as such may not get hit at all. Japan is f'd worse than Europe, because they are tight enough in with the Americans that slipping under the radar is unlikely. Major population centers in Latin and South America, Africa are likely to get away clean, and Australia has pretty good odds of staying out of it. End result is an immediate survivor population either in the billions with a good amount of surviving infrastructure (best case) or high millions in a shattered wreck of a planet (worst case), with likely 20-40% additional casualties from illness and starvation in the following 1-5 years and (assuming Xavier's thesis is correct) a dramatic spike in visible mutation among the surivors and the first generation born after the exchange. Such a world could be filled with prime targets for a charismatic wackball with easy answers (Blame the Humans!)and a secretary who can make the Articles of Surrender look like a voucher for free cotton candy.
• Could Beast's formula increase anybody's mutant powers?
  • Maybe, but in this continuity I took it more as Hank was going change into that form anyway, but was young enough that his mutation hadn't fully developed (hence Raven telling him that this is who he was meant to be). The formula just made the change happen in a few agonizing minutes instead of gradually happening over several months. If that's true then injecting it into a young mutant might make their powers jump to their peak instantly, but it wouldn't have any effect on an adult mutant.
  • The thing that bothers me most is that his serum is supposed to change his appearance to "normal" without affecting his powers. This presumably means making his feet look normal as opposed to the more ape-like hand-shaped feet he has, but if that's true than a lot of his abilities go out the window, such as his climbing and ability to Wall Crawl since human feet just aren't made to do that.
• Why does Emma Frost take "get me a danish"-level orders from Shaw, when up until halfway through the movie he has exactly zero defense against her powers?
  • She might have really been in love with him (or she was at one point and finally gave up on him over the course of the movie), or she was a loyal follower and a believer in his vision... or she was just biding her time and letting him do all the world-conquering work before she betrayed him.
  • Given that there seems to be no sense of loyalty in Shaw's camp whatsoever. Magneto murders their leader and they automatically decide to follow him instead, rather than, I dunno, going off on their own. Betrayal and self-preservation are common traits among many of the members of the Brotherhood of Mutants, even in the comics.
• How did the X-Men get off Cuba after the finale? The plane and submarine are both smashed beyond repair, the one guy who can fly isn't qualified to carry all of them, in front of them are not one but two hostile fleets, and behind them is Cuba, whose army would most likely gun them down on the assumption that this is Bay of Pigs II: Electric Boogaloo.
  • Stryker Sr. was the one who called for the missile attack, and once that move horribly backfired, I'd imagine the CIA director took charge of the situation again and ordered the ships to retrieve Moira's strike team and just do whatever she says. And, though he's seriously wounded, they do have Charles to Jedi Mind Trick their way over any rough spots between the beach and the hospital.
• Shaw's helmet prevents Xavier from getting inside his head, but Shaw's three other henchmen are still vulnerable. During the beach fight, Xavier could have just put the three of them to sleep.
  • Xavier was probably too busy panicking about Erik being wiped off the mental map to think about the henchmen.
• Will other Marvel movies be set in the 60's as well?
  • The X-Men films aren't in the same continuity as most of the other current Marvel films (being made by Fox rather than Marvel Studios, or Sony who have Spider-Man). There's no reason why Marvel couldn't make a movie set in the 60's (Captain America is set during WWII so it's not like they're committed to using modern day settings) but there's no reason to suspect they will anytime soon.
• When was Charles in this continuity supposed to have been born? The credits say that 24-year-old Charles is played by James McAvoy — so, he's 24 in 1962. Okay. The credits then say that he's 12 years old in 1944. To be 12 in '44, he'd be born in '32. To be 24 in '62, he'd be born in '38. Um... did he just spend six years in the TARDIS, or...
  • The filmmakers clearly can't do basic math. I'd assume that he and Erik and both in their late 20s in the main part of the movie.
• Why couldn't either fleet detect Shaw's submarine? Sonar is a standard aboard ships and it is standard procedure to use it. Shaw's submarine was never said to have had any sort of stealth features. There is no reason why he was able to remain undetected.
  • Perhaps both fleets detected it and just figured it belonged to the other side. They weren't exactly calling each other up to chat about the local wildlife.
    • Because Shaw's on the submarine. He can absorb all types of energy. Which includes the kinetic and auditory energy of sonar.
• Why does Beast an accomplished scientist and engineer tell Banshee to make his sound waves supersonic?
  • He's explaining something to a kid who can't understand the technical terms.
• So, by the end of the movie Charles and the X-Men are hiding from the government in the house his family has owned for generations?
  • Where's the one place no one will look for something hidden? In plain sight.
    • Realistically, that's not going to work. Xavier has met with the CIA directors in person, using his real name, and now he has a mutant training facility in his house. Somebody is going to figure this out. You're better off claiming that Xavier is using his mind powers to keep the CIA away somehow.

• Okay, here's the film's biggest, most glaring plothole: the death of Sebastian Shaw just makes no damned sense at all. Period. Consider: 1) Shaw's energy absorption ability is not a voluntary power; rather, it is on all the time. This is shown by the fact that he's shot in the back several times by CIA guards and the bullets simply bounce. 2) This is also one of the ways we know he can absorb simple kinetic energy (the bullets), along with his absorbing the blastwave of the hand grenade. So, we've got a man who basically absorbs the energy every time he suffers any sort of impact, be it a bullet of the drumming of the water while he's taking a shower. So... and here is the question... how can having a coin magnetically tossed at his head, regardless of how quickly the coin was moving, kill him? That coin ought to have bounced off of his skull like any number of the CIA's bullets already had.
  • If his powers worked the way you're suggesting, where every impact anything makes on him is absorbed and bounced off, and he had no control whatsoever over it, it'd be impossible for him to do such basic things as walk and manipulate hand-held objects. Also, the coin wasn't moving quickly--therefore, his ability to absorb kinetic energy wouldn't provide much protection. It was moving slowly, and mashing his brain as it went through.
  • I always got the impression that Shaw's power was something he had to actively use. With Xavier in his head shutting his body down, the metaphorical switch was set to "off" and jammed there, making Shaw as defenseless against attack as any other human.
  • Or Magneto's power to forcefully push the coin through overrode Shaw's power. Remember that the bullets and other energy have a limit; the bullet is fired once, then it stops. Magneto was pushing the power continuously; he'd have to put through a lot of force to force it through a human head otherwise the coin would just knock Shaw backwards like any object.
• It's pretty obvious Charles doesn't want Erik to kill Shaw. But the only reason Erik even has a chance to kill Shaw is because Charles is telepathically paralysing him. They both know there is no way to control Shaw for any significant length of time, so the choice is to kill him right then and there or to let him go. When Charles realises that no amount of reasoning or pleading is going to make Erik change his mind, why doesn't he just release Shaw?
  • Because releasing Shaw means letting him start a nuclear war?
  • Charles knows that holding Shaw will inevitably mean Erik will kill him. At that point, if Charles is so desperate to stop that from happening, wouldn't releasing Shaw be the obvious thing to do? What other way out of the situation did Charles have in mind? He knew he couldn't hold Shaw much longer anyway...
    • Because "stop Erik from killing Shaw" was a little lower priority than "stop Shaw from inciting nuclear war". And at that point, those two are mutually exclusive. They're not operating in a vacuum here.
• So at the end of the movie, we see magneto's brand new Brotherhood of Mutants: Himself, Mystique, Frost, Azazel and... Angel? her wings were burnt off making her completely useless to him. Sure, she can still belch small fireballs, but against a man with a gun or against any of the X-Men she is now a complete liability to the rest of the squad.
  • Her wings were damaged, not burned off. If they're biological, they can probably heal. And belching fireballs puts her at better natural, unarmed combat ability than Mystique by virtue of range.
  • It seems to me Magneto isn't very picky. It's enough for him if a person is a) a mutant and b) willing to join the Brotherhood. Nevermind if they're not incredibly powerful.
• What was up with Emma's prison? The CIA has captured a known telepath (surely Xavier would've informed them of her powers), but they allow her to remain conscious and thus presumably capable of using her powers on the guards etc.. In fact two CIA guys are show right outside her cell, chatting like there's no chance she could hear them or manipulate them.
  • Maybe those weird-looking walls have an anti-telepathy effect?
  • They clearly had no means of containing her. She was able to hear their entire conversation through that glass (which is soundproof), so nothing was stopping her. Mutants are new to these people, they'd have no means of containing them.
• What's up with that scene where Emma's in prison, and two CIA guys are talking behind a glass wall. Emma walks up, cuts a hole in the glass, and makes a comment. Two questions: (1) Who designs a prison cell such that the prisoner can easily cut a hole in one of the walls? (And remember that Xavier delivered Emma so presumably he told the CIA about her powers). And (2) Why don't the CIA guys react in any way to a prisoner cutting a hole in one of the walls of her prison? They don't say anything, there's no alarms that go off, no guns that get cocked, nothing. I guess maybe all that happened offscreen a few moments later?
  • One, it's a one-way mirror, which are usually tougher than glass. Two, they learned mutants existed for real not very long ago. Three, she's made of living diamond, so "easily" is subjective. They can't exactly take her tools. Four, where are they going to get a cell that's custom-built to hold someone like her on short notice? The fact that she stayed locked up at all is impressive.
• When Angel reveals her powers to Xavier and Erik, look behind her. She's in front of a big glass wall. There are clearly people on the other side. Can't they see her? Hasn't she just revealed herself to everyone?
  • Um...maybe the glass is supposed to be tinted or something.
  • Those kinds of rooms use one-way glass. They can see out, no one can see in. It wouldn't be a "private show" if people could just watch from the bar.
• Banshee dives into the ocean, face-first and at high velocity, in order to pull his "sonar" trick. But he suffers no apparent injury from the impact with the water.
  • Apparently he has a Required Secondary Power of resistance-to-smashing-your-face. Or it's just a case of Soft Water.
    • Or he had just enough sonic energy in front of him to soften the impact.
• Beast says his formula will affect appearances, not powers. But Mystique's power is her appearance. How can her change her appearance without affecting her powers? And what exactly would she end up looking like if she used the formula, anyway? Her "white blonde girl" form is just as arbitrary as anything else, there's no reason to think she would wind up in that form. In fact she might come out looking like a guy. More realistically, it seems that a serum to mess with her appearance-causing cells would just revert her to her standard blue form, but that can't be right either because obviously Beast isn't intending to cause that form with the serum.
  • He meant that she'd keep her shapeshifting, but lose the blue-skinned default form, having a default human form instead. Presumably, for the sake of saving on the budget, she'd look like the actress portraying her.
  • Another related question; what would Beast's powers be if his cure worked as intended? His power was, at that point, super-agility based on having hand-shaped feet. It would be like Angel (either Angel) somehow being able to fly without their wings.
    • Beast's ability would require far more than his feet. Altered muscular structure throughout his body would be necessary for the feats he pulls off. He wouldn't be able to hang off things like he did at the start, but losing the feet wouldn't change his powers.
• Why do both the Americans and the Russians suddenly decide to kill all the mutants on the beach?
  • Both sets got orders from the top, on the basis that Mutants were a mutual threat (a bunch of them had just tried to incite nuclear war, after all). They kinda say this out loud, explicitly, in the film when it happens, as I recall.
• Why couldn't Darwin just spit out the energy from Shaw instead of trying to "adapt" to it?
• With Shaw dead, where did all that nuclear energy he absorbed go?
  • Shaw's body can obviously contain the energy safely. Since he didn't explode, it should just bleed out. One could also surmise that he used a fair amount in the reactor fight.
• Why do fanfiction writers continually portray Charles' mother as a hateful, drunken shrew? Was there ANYTHING in the movie to indicate this?
  • The only mention of her is at the beginning, where Charles says that his mother has never been in the kitchen, and has certainly never made him any hot chocolate. People extrapolate from that, I guess. As a general rule, don't go into fanfic looking for things to resemble the actual source. It happens, rarely, but much more often the writer really doesn't know what they're doing or is just warping everyone to fit their story/ship.
  • Hollywood screenwriters suffer Flanderization only slightly less horribly than fanfic writers. In the movie, Charles' mother is a typical rich wife: probably caring and loving, but they have enough money to have servants/cooks/whatevers take care of most of the menial work around the house. Filter it through... Less-than-original minds, and "spoiled, but a good person" turns into "disgustingly self-centered/destructive".
• So...in the end, when Charles looks onto the Aral Sea and sees Azazel has killed everyone so the boat won't stop...why doesn't he just mind-control Azazel and make him stop the ship?

1. ↑ As far as they know