Freaks and geeks
We went to see X3
yesterday, since for us the early Tuesday evening is the best time to
see movies. Tickets cost less, there are few other people in the
theater to yap and blab, plus Tuesdays my wife gets off work early so
we can catch an early screening. I was going to write something about
this movie, but then noticed that Udolpho has already "taken a stand" and summed up pretty much everything that needs to be said in his post "X-Ecrable".
Oh all right, maybe I'd question for a moment the strategic and tactical wisdom shown by both sides during this human-mutant conflict. First, if you are the government official who decides that it would be smart to store imprisoned mutant criminals in trucks that are constantly on the move, it might also be smart to make these trucks and their escorts a little less conspicuous. Threat assessment has also once again gone totally wrong: either Magneto's forces will not find these trucks, in which case their escorts are needless, or they will find them, in which case their piddly escorts are useless. Later, when you have mass-manufactured magic guns that work against mutants, it might also be smart to instruct the troops using these guns that in case of a swarm of mutants attacking your troops, you don't just have to shoot the front row redshirts, but at least somebody could also take a shot or two at the cool guys who remain standing at the back with no cover. They are the ones who are going to do something cool, you see.
But then again, it's not like Magneto was that brilliant either. For a guy with his powers, there just has to be a simpler way to get his troops to the island that the Alcatraz prison is in. I would also seriously question the strategic wisdom of sending all your troops and personally escorting them to a place that can permanently cancel your powers in an instant, but that's just me. As far as I can tell, the Speed Sister (or whatever her codename was, I didn't recognize the character) could do the job in the blink of the eye.
Seeing all these mutants in action, I would also think that if humans hate and fear "your kind", you should use your magnificient powers to do something useful to help humanity and get the TV newscrews to document this. For example, when some city needs to extend its subway system, Magneto and Phoenix could together save them billions of dollars by using their vast powers to instantly do the excavation work that is needed for the "cut and cover" type of subway construction. In the large-scale construction of condo skyscrapers, Magneto could easily erect the massive steel structures, while thousands of bystanders cheer for him Simpsons-style, joyous to see their inexpensive future housing coming up! Few things dispel fear and suspicion as quickly as a working prototype for something that obviously makes your life much better! I am sure that other mutants could similarly perform many important and profitable tasks that are currently prohibitely expensive or difficult to do with the present sorry state of human technology. I can't even begin to imagine the enormous possibilities that Mystique would have in movie and television entertainment industries, or what Storm could do in basic agriculture. Professor Xavier could easily locate Osama and his cronies, while the lesser telepaths could work for police and legal system. Meanwhile, if she was working for Enron or some other corrupted organization, Phoenix could quickly shred all documents and thus erase the incriminating paper trail. Everybody wins!
My favourite character was, no contest, that Asian porcupine mutant. He should have been given way more screen time. And if they haven't done so already, they should totally cast the actor who played this character to star in his own movie as a young and angry Asian-American man who is pissed off about the white guys liking anime and ninjas and other "Asian" stuff and who think that he is a kungfu expert. This character could also be really bitter about the sexual discrepancy in that white guys consider Asian women sexy and vice versa, whereas most white women consider Asian men to be disgusting, making Asian men big losers in interracial marriage. (By the way, isn't it downright hilarious when white men turn out to be significantly less racist and less superficial than white women, their supposed moral superiors?)
I read in Toronto Star that in the flashback scene set twenty years ago, the faces of the actors who played Xavier and Magneto were digitally combined with the photos of their younger selves, this way giving them a "digital facelift" to make them look twenty years younger. I was intrigued by this technique, and immediately wondered whether it requires that the photos have to be of the same person, or would it be possible to use this technique create a character whose face was, say, one third Harrison Ford, one third Tom Cruise and one third Angelina Jolie. Bits is bits, as I sometimes say.
Oh all right, maybe I'd question for a moment the strategic and tactical wisdom shown by both sides during this human-mutant conflict. First, if you are the government official who decides that it would be smart to store imprisoned mutant criminals in trucks that are constantly on the move, it might also be smart to make these trucks and their escorts a little less conspicuous. Threat assessment has also once again gone totally wrong: either Magneto's forces will not find these trucks, in which case their escorts are needless, or they will find them, in which case their piddly escorts are useless. Later, when you have mass-manufactured magic guns that work against mutants, it might also be smart to instruct the troops using these guns that in case of a swarm of mutants attacking your troops, you don't just have to shoot the front row redshirts, but at least somebody could also take a shot or two at the cool guys who remain standing at the back with no cover. They are the ones who are going to do something cool, you see.
But then again, it's not like Magneto was that brilliant either. For a guy with his powers, there just has to be a simpler way to get his troops to the island that the Alcatraz prison is in. I would also seriously question the strategic wisdom of sending all your troops and personally escorting them to a place that can permanently cancel your powers in an instant, but that's just me. As far as I can tell, the Speed Sister (or whatever her codename was, I didn't recognize the character) could do the job in the blink of the eye.
Seeing all these mutants in action, I would also think that if humans hate and fear "your kind", you should use your magnificient powers to do something useful to help humanity and get the TV newscrews to document this. For example, when some city needs to extend its subway system, Magneto and Phoenix could together save them billions of dollars by using their vast powers to instantly do the excavation work that is needed for the "cut and cover" type of subway construction. In the large-scale construction of condo skyscrapers, Magneto could easily erect the massive steel structures, while thousands of bystanders cheer for him Simpsons-style, joyous to see their inexpensive future housing coming up! Few things dispel fear and suspicion as quickly as a working prototype for something that obviously makes your life much better! I am sure that other mutants could similarly perform many important and profitable tasks that are currently prohibitely expensive or difficult to do with the present sorry state of human technology. I can't even begin to imagine the enormous possibilities that Mystique would have in movie and television entertainment industries, or what Storm could do in basic agriculture. Professor Xavier could easily locate Osama and his cronies, while the lesser telepaths could work for police and legal system. Meanwhile, if she was working for Enron or some other corrupted organization, Phoenix could quickly shred all documents and thus erase the incriminating paper trail. Everybody wins!
My favourite character was, no contest, that Asian porcupine mutant. He should have been given way more screen time. And if they haven't done so already, they should totally cast the actor who played this character to star in his own movie as a young and angry Asian-American man who is pissed off about the white guys liking anime and ninjas and other "Asian" stuff and who think that he is a kungfu expert. This character could also be really bitter about the sexual discrepancy in that white guys consider Asian women sexy and vice versa, whereas most white women consider Asian men to be disgusting, making Asian men big losers in interracial marriage. (By the way, isn't it downright hilarious when white men turn out to be significantly less racist and less superficial than white women, their supposed moral superiors?)
I read in Toronto Star that in the flashback scene set twenty years ago, the faces of the actors who played Xavier and Magneto were digitally combined with the photos of their younger selves, this way giving them a "digital facelift" to make them look twenty years younger. I was intrigued by this technique, and immediately wondered whether it requires that the photos have to be of the same person, or would it be possible to use this technique create a character whose face was, say, one third Harrison Ford, one third Tom Cruise and one third Angelina Jolie. Bits is bits, as I sometimes say.
Wouldn't the mutants then be despised by all the blue-collar schlubs they put in the poorhouse through their unpaid construction work? I tell, you, those poor mutants can't win.
Posted by Fred S. | 6:28 PM
You can combine any face and average it, although all the ones I've seen are the same gender. Dienekes blog has had a lot of these.
Regarding the angry young asian-american male, Steve Sailer once linked to a short student film on that issue, except it was comedic. I think it was called "Yellow Fever" or something like it. At the end the protagonist's Indian-American friend tells him that his kind have it even worse. I'm not sure about it, but then again what do I know?
Posted by tggp | 1:17 AM