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kaydeefalls
So having been forcibly restrained all weekend by virtue of working a theater schedule, I finally managed to go see "X-Men: First Class" after getting off my day job this afternoon.
Y HALO THAR OLD FANDOM, GOOD TO HAVE YOU BACK.
Oh my goodness that was so utterly fantastic in almost every way! Okay, so the Soviet missile plot was dumb, but let's face it, I don't go to comic book movies for the plots. And while I really enjoy the Avengers line of movies so far and am eagerly anticipating their continuation, the Avengers were never my superheroes growing up. The X-Men were. My friend Will made me play Storm to his Wolverine at age three, okay, my love of these characters runs deep.
So, first off: ASAJKDHAKLAKLNSJNFEORIHS JAMES MCAVOY, MY BULLETPROOF KINK IN ANY FILM. UNF UNF UNF. Um. Sorry. Had to get that out of my system.
Bullet points:
-So Charles/Erik is actually movieverse canon now, right? Because I really don't see how anything about that film makes sense without the underlying assumption that they are totally fucking. Nngk. Now I need to go trawling for all my old favorite OTP fics from back when I was actually active in this fandom, because I finally have a good mental image for young!Charles/Erik. I also totally believe that James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender grow up to be Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, it is awesometastic.
-Addendum to above: X-Men movieverse is the only fandom I've ever actively participated in (i.e. writing multiple fics as well as reading them) in which I never actually wrote my own OTP. Possibly I should rectify that now.
-January Jones definitely looked the part of Emma Frost, but she couldn't play it. Which is disappointing, because Emma Frost is a BAMF and deserves better casting.
-ALL THE OTHER PARTS WERE CAST PERFECTLY.
-...okay, in fairness, I spent most of Jennifer Lawrence's screen time focusing not on her performance as Mystique but rather evaluating her potential for Katniss in "Hunger Games". My bad. I quite liked her anyway, even though she's not my head!canon for young Raven -- but then again, she's VERY young Raven here.
-Speaking of Raven, love the continuity nod to the fact that her body ages much, much more slowly than anyone else's.
-It took me way too long to realize that was Moira McTaggart. I think I didn't catch her name the first time it was mentioned.
-I LOVE THE FIRST CLASS TEAM SO MUCH, I WANT ALL THE WACKY TEENAGE SHENANIGANS FIC. Also, Havoc is strangely attractive. I think it's his voice, mmm. And Hank is totally adorkable.
-Speaking of not-so-subtext, Havoc and Darwin totally had a little somethin' going on, right? I cannot be the only one who saw this.
-The Charles/Moira and Erik/Raven bits felt SO awkwardly shoehorned in, it was kind of hilarious. Way to fail to distract us from the Big Gay Love Story, filmmakers.
-I AM STILL LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY AT WOLVERINE'S CAMEO.
-I love the contrast between Charles and Erik's formative years, and how so very aware Erik is of Charles's class privilege. It's so crucial in understanding how divergent their mindsets become. Of COURSE Charles always wants to believe the best of humanity, he's had everything he ever wanted handed to him on a silver platter -- sure, he worked hard in school and whatnot, but he's always been told he can do anything and be anyone, and he believes that everyone else can be just as good and pure if they just put a little effort in. Which serves him so marvelously as a teacher -- I adored the training montage at the mansion -- but utterly fails him when dealing with the harshness of the real world. He has no fucking clue, even if he can read Erik's mind and memories. And of COURSE Erik chooses to fucking kill them all preemptively. It's so fucking tragic and beautiful.
-And, of course, when reality finally slaps him in the face, Charles's reaction is to run and hide. While I generally loathe reset buttons and erased memories, what he does to Moira is pitch perfect and wrong. Xavier is not always a good man, nor a nice one.
-My biggest complaint is that the filmmakers felt they had to condense this backstory into a single movie. Because I absolutely adore the final scenes on the beach, even as they broke my heart -- oh, god, Charles's paralysis as fucking collateral damage, it was absolutely perfect in every way, "I can't feel my legs" BRB sobbing forever even though I knew it was coming -- but. BUT. Not yet. Not so soon. The whole timeline of the movie was rushed -- not in terms of the plot, which demanded that pacing, but in terms of the character development. In my canon, Charles and Erik spent several years searching for mutants together, not weeks. They taught together at the school for decades. And far be it for me to defend X3 continuity -- but no, I'm going to, because that first scene with Charles and Erik meeting Jean Grey for the first time was the one truly good thing about X3, and that is my canon. I don't buy that these two were friends/colleagues(/lovers) for only a matter of weeks or months, and then enemies for forty years. No way. No fucking way. So I guess my head!canon ends the movie on the beach with no one stupid enough to fire all of the missiles at the remaining mutants, and then somewhere twenty-odd years down the line the last few scenes of the movie happen in some similar situation of some sort.
-BUT JESUS CHRIST I DID LOVE THAT HORRIBLE TRAGIC ENDING ON THE BEACH.
-In conclusion: bring on the fic! Preferably the sort that goes AUish at the end and actually follows, y'know, all the other canon ever in which Charles/Erik are BFFs with simmering issues for at least twenty years or so before the inevitable messy break-up and supervillain thing.
ETA: I'm sorry, I need to insert this absolutely mandatory quote from this interview with James McAvoy:
Two things: 1. I totally forgot that they were both in BoB together, and 2. WHERE IS THE OUTTAKE FOOTAGE OMG I NEED THIS IN MY LIFE RIGHT THE FUCK NOW.
Y HALO THAR OLD FANDOM, GOOD TO HAVE YOU BACK.
Oh my goodness that was so utterly fantastic in almost every way! Okay, so the Soviet missile plot was dumb, but let's face it, I don't go to comic book movies for the plots. And while I really enjoy the Avengers line of movies so far and am eagerly anticipating their continuation, the Avengers were never my superheroes growing up. The X-Men were. My friend Will made me play Storm to his Wolverine at age three, okay, my love of these characters runs deep.
So, first off: ASAJKDHAKLAKLNSJNFEORIHS JAMES MCAVOY, MY BULLETPROOF KINK IN ANY FILM. UNF UNF UNF. Um. Sorry. Had to get that out of my system.
Bullet points:
-So Charles/Erik is actually movieverse canon now, right? Because I really don't see how anything about that film makes sense without the underlying assumption that they are totally fucking. Nngk. Now I need to go trawling for all my old favorite OTP fics from back when I was actually active in this fandom, because I finally have a good mental image for young!Charles/Erik. I also totally believe that James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender grow up to be Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, it is awesometastic.
-Addendum to above: X-Men movieverse is the only fandom I've ever actively participated in (i.e. writing multiple fics as well as reading them) in which I never actually wrote my own OTP. Possibly I should rectify that now.
-January Jones definitely looked the part of Emma Frost, but she couldn't play it. Which is disappointing, because Emma Frost is a BAMF and deserves better casting.
-ALL THE OTHER PARTS WERE CAST PERFECTLY.
-...okay, in fairness, I spent most of Jennifer Lawrence's screen time focusing not on her performance as Mystique but rather evaluating her potential for Katniss in "Hunger Games". My bad. I quite liked her anyway, even though she's not my head!canon for young Raven -- but then again, she's VERY young Raven here.
-Speaking of Raven, love the continuity nod to the fact that her body ages much, much more slowly than anyone else's.
-It took me way too long to realize that was Moira McTaggart. I think I didn't catch her name the first time it was mentioned.
-I LOVE THE FIRST CLASS TEAM SO MUCH, I WANT ALL THE WACKY TEENAGE SHENANIGANS FIC. Also, Havoc is strangely attractive. I think it's his voice, mmm. And Hank is totally adorkable.
-Speaking of not-so-subtext, Havoc and Darwin totally had a little somethin' going on, right? I cannot be the only one who saw this.
-The Charles/Moira and Erik/Raven bits felt SO awkwardly shoehorned in, it was kind of hilarious. Way to fail to distract us from the Big Gay Love Story, filmmakers.
-I AM STILL LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY AT WOLVERINE'S CAMEO.
-I love the contrast between Charles and Erik's formative years, and how so very aware Erik is of Charles's class privilege. It's so crucial in understanding how divergent their mindsets become. Of COURSE Charles always wants to believe the best of humanity, he's had everything he ever wanted handed to him on a silver platter -- sure, he worked hard in school and whatnot, but he's always been told he can do anything and be anyone, and he believes that everyone else can be just as good and pure if they just put a little effort in. Which serves him so marvelously as a teacher -- I adored the training montage at the mansion -- but utterly fails him when dealing with the harshness of the real world. He has no fucking clue, even if he can read Erik's mind and memories. And of COURSE Erik chooses to fucking kill them all preemptively. It's so fucking tragic and beautiful.
-And, of course, when reality finally slaps him in the face, Charles's reaction is to run and hide. While I generally loathe reset buttons and erased memories, what he does to Moira is pitch perfect and wrong. Xavier is not always a good man, nor a nice one.
-My biggest complaint is that the filmmakers felt they had to condense this backstory into a single movie. Because I absolutely adore the final scenes on the beach, even as they broke my heart -- oh, god, Charles's paralysis as fucking collateral damage, it was absolutely perfect in every way, "I can't feel my legs" BRB sobbing forever even though I knew it was coming -- but. BUT. Not yet. Not so soon. The whole timeline of the movie was rushed -- not in terms of the plot, which demanded that pacing, but in terms of the character development. In my canon, Charles and Erik spent several years searching for mutants together, not weeks. They taught together at the school for decades. And far be it for me to defend X3 continuity -- but no, I'm going to, because that first scene with Charles and Erik meeting Jean Grey for the first time was the one truly good thing about X3, and that is my canon. I don't buy that these two were friends/colleagues(/lovers) for only a matter of weeks or months, and then enemies for forty years. No way. No fucking way. So I guess my head!canon ends the movie on the beach with no one stupid enough to fire all of the missiles at the remaining mutants, and then somewhere twenty-odd years down the line the last few scenes of the movie happen in some similar situation of some sort.
-BUT JESUS CHRIST I DID LOVE THAT HORRIBLE TRAGIC ENDING ON THE BEACH.
-In conclusion: bring on the fic! Preferably the sort that goes AUish at the end and actually follows, y'know, all the other canon ever in which Charles/Erik are BFFs with simmering issues for at least twenty years or so before the inevitable messy break-up and supervillain thing.
ETA: I'm sorry, I need to insert this absolutely mandatory quote from this interview with James McAvoy:
McAvoy and Irishman Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds, Hunger) have known each other since working on Band Of Brothers in 2000, so their First Class double act sprang to life quickly.
"When we met up to talk about doing this, we both agreed there's no point in making these big, silly pieces of fun unless you can enjoy it, too," McAvoy says.
"As hard as it was at times - because these things are very hard to make, they are a storm happening all around you every day for six months - we made a pact to try to make each other laugh as much as possible."
In a fab montage, the pair go on a recruiting drive, in which they perch on a strip-club bed.
"That scene got exceptionally silly at one point," says McAvoy. "I don't know if I'm even allowed to tell you what originally happened. But it got pretty f---in' kinky. I'm not joking."
Was the dashing duo's bromance, uh, consummated?
"Unfortunately no. But there was a little bit of cross-dressing going on. That's all you need to know."
(For the record, McAvoy would have preferred it if Xavier and Magneto stayed together. Like, really together. "It is a little bit of a mini-tragedy that him and Magneto don't, you know, have sex and become married and become best friends.")
Two things: 1. I totally forgot that they were both in BoB together, and 2. WHERE IS THE OUTTAKE FOOTAGE OMG I NEED THIS IN MY LIFE RIGHT THE FUCK NOW.
