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Dear Puffin,
James Hance of Relentlessly Cheerful Art has been at it again, this time with a series of mashups of Up! and Star Wars. I LOVE IT!
Are you ready to choke up a little bit?
And here’s one from his original Wookie the Chew series that I had never noticed before.
Dawwwww!
Enjoy Puffin
Love
MacGuffin
Dear Puffin,
I’m taking a rest from hardcore political blogging to return to my poster art roots. Today I’ve rounded up some great sci fi propaganda posters, much like the ones I wrote about here and here and here and here.
First we have Princess Leia/Rosie the Riveter, by Tom Sullivan.
We’ve also got an excellent Halo victory poster by The Fearsome Blooming Skull.
There’s a whole series of Battlestar Galactica posters from Thinkgeek.
These posters from Kick-Ass are excellent, although I can’t really pin down the name of the artist. Possibly someone named Ignition Print?
Aaron Wood has also done a great series of social networking propaganda posters, which I like even better than the last batch I posted. You can guy them from his Etsy store.
And with that, Puffin, I leave you. Remember, loose lips sink ships!
Love
MacGuffin
Dear Puffin,
It seems I was either way ahead of the curve or slightly psychic when I did my own personal resurrection of Arrested Development a few weeks ago. There is a bone fide rumor going around, started by no less than the Boston Herald, that Arrested Development is being brought back for a “limited” season. This is in addition to the movie, which I guess/hope/pray is really happening. Someone on Twitter says that the “limited run tv series would allow exposition for what each character has done for past 5 yrs then movie screenplay can jump right in.” And you know, it’s on Twitter so it must be true. The New Yorker’s official Twitter seems to be confirming.
Will Arnett and Jason Bateman are confirming as well.
If this isn’t true then it may be the greatest troll of all time. Tomorrow’s tweet will be from the New Yorker: “We’ve made a huge mistake…..”
Let’s hope this is real Puffin
Love
MacGuffin, who just blue herself
(How to read this post: When a number (like these ➊) appears in the text, go to the corresponding number in the key at the foot of the post and follow the directions.)
Dear Puffin,
As I spent a relaxing Saturday morning watching The Penguins of Madagascar and drinking a coffee ➊, I was confronted with a blast from the past ➋. Now, I have long complained that the biggest problem with The Penguins of Madagascar is that they’re shown on Nickelodeon, which means that you pretty much can’t avoid the Saturday morning advertising, which is broadcast directly from the pits of Hell ➌. Every time an ad for iCarly comes on I cower in fear in the corner of the sofa. But that was nothing compared the the truly frightening discovery that Smell-O-Vision has become a sinister reality! Remember Smell-O-Vision, also known as AromaRama, Scent-O-Vision or OdorAma? This shit used to be a joke, something generally accepted to be one of the worst ideas of all time. (Seriously, Time Magazine voted it one of the 100 Worst Ideas of All Time, which is actually impressive in a twisted way.)
So I guess it’s fitting that this terrible idea should be paired with an abysmal movie, such as Spy Kids 4. Which, the infernal broadcast informs me, is in ’4D AromaScope’. First problem: smell is not the 4th dimension. Smell is not a dimension at all. The 1950s have officially returned. Apparently they’ve improved the original idea a bit though. Instead of spraying the theater audience with noxious chemicals pumped in through the air system, you get a scratch and sniff card. So that’s an improvement over major flops like Scent of Mystery, but still not a winner, especially if Alonso Duralde’s experience is typical. “First things first: All eight scratch-and-sniff scents on the “Aroma-Scope” card I was handed at Spy Kids 4D: All the Time in the World smelled like Trix cereal and cardboard.”
Not a smash hit, apparently. But then, why would you want to smell along (what a bizarre phrase to find myself typing!) to a generic action movie like Spy Kids 4? Surely this technology would be better for a movie that involves interesting smells. Obvious choices would be movies about food. Mystic Pizza, Julie and Julia, Chocolat, Big Night. In an action movie I don’t quite see how it would add to the experience. I mean, take The Bourne Identity, a truly great action flick. When Jason’s body is pulled out of the Mediterranean by a fishing ship are you going to try to recreate the scent of a damp, dirty fishing boat on a rainy night?➍ God I hope not. Do you have any idea what that shit smells like? Let me tell you, it does not lend verisimilitude to the cinematic experience. What it adds is a god awful stench. And what about the car chase? Do they plan to pump in the smell of burning tires and an overheating Mini-Cooper engine backed up by the smell of Paris on garbage day?➎ I hope not.
I find the future confusing Puffin. Especially when it looks so much like the past.
MacGuffin
Key
➊ This was fair trade Chocolate roast from Fresh Market. Mix up a cup of dark roast coffee grounds with a 98% cacao Lindt bar and drink it at the dead of night in the bottom of an abandoned coal mine, and you might get close to how utterly inky black my coffee really is.
➋ The musty odor of the past can best be duplicated by finding a stuffy attic or garage and inhaling deeply. Multi dealer antique stores are also a good bet.
➌ Combine 3 parts brimstone and 2 parts sulphur in a cocktail shaker, add 3 frozen condemned souls and shake. Garnish with razor wire. Pour into a large syringe and inject the mixture up your nose. This will both accurately recreate the smell of Hell and also give you a rough idea of how I feel whenever I fail to mute an iCarly or Big Time Rush ad.
➍ 3 days old Galouise smoke, fish, foot fungus, bilge water and sweat. Usually so thick you could cut it with a knife.
➎ I would guess that it smells about like Scranton when there’s a tire fire. A smell I hope never to experience again. Route 81 right next to a burning scrap yard is not a good place to be stuck in traffic in a car without working AC.
Warning: spoilers ahead!
Dear Tortefeasor,
I know you’ll be thrilled to hear that I finally saw Hesher. Since you and I are respectively Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s #1 and #2 fangirls, I figured I should see it ASAP. Also the opportunity to see a shirtless JGL striding around to a soundtrack of pure Metallica is, as far as I’m concerned, the stuff that wet dreams are made of. Unfortunately there is somewhat less Metallica than I had been led to expect. And equally unfortunately, I’m still not sure if Hesher is a good movie or not. It’s interesting, there are moments of genuine tension, the acting is simply fantastic, and the characters are compelling. But the film doesn’t quite resolve in a way that works, and the end loses steam and devolves into something that is, at the same time, outrageous and formulaic.
It’s never really clear whether Hesher is a failure or a philosopher. He clearly has a different view on life than that of the middle class family whose grief stricken stupor he invades with such destructive glee. Unfortunately the plot is fairly formulaic. It’s unquestionably a reworking of the mysterious stranger shows middle class family what it means to really live trope, albeit a somewhat twisted one.
When you boil Hesher down it becomes apparent that this is another story about boundless grief being expressed by the breaking of boundaries. The film that did this best was Death at a Funeral, which broke every boundary, pushed every envelope, and challenged every taboo in the book. And Hesher is clearly, especially in the funeral scene, hearkening back to that trope. The family grieves in inadequate but seemly silence, while their emotional traumas fester away. And their inexpressible grief is given voice by an uncouth sociopath who violates every rule and shows up drunk to grandma’s funeral to tell it how it really was. Familiar, right? (We all know that story. In fact it’s pretty much exactly the story John Cleese satirized in his eulogy for Graham Chapman. “Anything” he said, “but mindless good taste.” )And that, for all the extreme violence, disgusting jokes and severed noses that have gone before, is exactly how Hesher ends. The raging, angry, injured, unspeakable pain of their loss is manifested in Hesher, externalized in the form of a dirty, drunk, tattooed, heavy metal enthusiast who invades their lives when they are least able to cope with him and sets up shop in the middle of their house. There are even some interesting scenes where Hesher is literally sitting between TJ and his father, like an impenetrable brick wall.
But the movie falters when you realize that the flaws which motivate the plot are mirrored in the structure of the movie as a whole, and what might be interesting as a statement about resolution becomes simply irritating when inflicted on the viewer in the form of an unresolved plot. The family is stuck in a limbo state after the tragic death of TJ’s mother, and they seem unable or unwilling to escape the slough of despond (I’ve always wanted to use that phrase!) that they find themselves in. And Hesher, an uncivilized barbarian of a man, who knows no limits and respects no boundaries, is supposed to arrive in their lives like a storm and force some sort of resolution. And he does. The arrival and antics of Hesher does serve to shake TJ and his father out of their shock.
So Hesher is an agent of resolution, but then the plot totally fails to resolve Hesher! Which is a problem, since the grief of the family has been comprehensively upstaged by the mysterious and enigmatic title character. Who the heck is Hesher? What is his deal? Is he actually insane? How the hell old is he? Actually ages are one of the biggest problems in this film and made it difficult to fully engage with the characters. How old is this kid, really?
TJ seems to be a child. He certainly shops in the children’s section. But then he’s shown in what appears to be a high school. I originally thought he was maybe 10, but I guess he’s meant to be trembling on the verge of adolescence, as they say.
And then there’s Natalie Portman as Nicole. How old is she supposed to be? Frankly she could be anywhere between 17 and 30. Is she a high school student? She say’s she can’t make rent so maybe she’s like, 27, but then what the hell is she doing hanging around with TJ? This is compounded by the awkward love that TJ develops for Nicole, which is either puppy love, adolescent lust, or a desire for a new mother figure, and the film never really decides which. Maybe it’s meant to be all at once, and to be expressive of TJ’s confusion and volatile emotions. But it just came off as befuddling.
Then there’s Hesher. Like Nicole, he hovers awkwardly and somewhat ominously between misguided youth and felonious adulthood. He drives a terrifying van, blows things up, lives completely alone, with no friends or parents. And then there he he is in the high school with TJ. Is he a fellow student? I’m unsure. I understand setting a film in Anytown USA, and Anyyear AD, in order to make a story universal. And I guess I see why you might leave the ages uncertain, since then you can’t know what’s subversive, transgressive or rebellious and what isn’t. But it’s more likely that it will lead to a confused and irritated audience losing their engagement with the story as they wonder why the unemployed, violent drifter is hanging out in a high school.
There’s a deeper problem with it too, which is that it keeps you from knowing Hesher’s level of rebellion. Is this a lifestyle choice? Has Hesher rejected society and chosen to live outside it, in abandoned houses and garages, with no job, and his penchant for arson as his only entertainment? Or is this the result of neglect? When he barges into TJ’s house is he there to act as a fucked up mentor to TJ, to take revenge on him, or is it because he really needs a place to stay because he’s a kid too. Basically, is Hesher Hesher because he chose to be, or as a reaction to abuse? I think it makes a huge difference, but the story leaves that question not only unanswered, but unasked. It isn’t necessary that we understand Hesher, arguably he’s better as an unknowable force of nature, but it’s important that we get some idea of how much of this is intentional. Hesher makes a lot more sense as a jaded adult who has checked out of the rat race than an angsty teenager.
In fact, what would be really interesting is if Hesher turned out, many years ago, to have been Brendan from Brick. Crushed at the death of his girlfriend, surrounded by a drug culture, with enemies everywhere, Brendan begins a downward spiral that ultimately leads to him becoming Hesher.
And this is where the disconnect with the movie becomes a problem. The character study of Hesher and the plot of Hesher don’t actually coexist very well. Hesher is interesting enough to be worth a whole movie on his own, and Hesher as a study in externalized grief is also pretty good. And Joseph Gordon-Levitt is versatile enough to play either of those roles, which is basically what he ends up doing anyway, and it’s a tribute to his amazing abilities that he comes so close to pulling it off. Either of those movies could have been good. But unfortunately Hesher the enigmatic psycho completely upstaged Hesher the movie, and the two got confused.
So in the end I don’t really know what to make of Hesher. I wanted to see it initially because it combined two of my favorite things- nearly naked Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Metallica. And I’m not sure what I got instead. Some seriously amazing acting, that’s for sure, and whole bunch of production stills of JGL looking like this:
And this:
So it’s not all bad. I think Natalie agrees with me. She and I are both thinking the same thing. “I never thought that Tommy from 3rd Rock from the Sun could ever in a million years grown up to look like that.” I really wish my 17 year old self could see this.
I hope you get to see it sometime soon Torte. The acting alone is worth it. Heck, JGL’s unexpected pecs alone are worth it.
Love
MacGuffin
Other reviews:
Dear Puffin
DeviantArtist Mr Bluebird has done some lovely minimal Pixar posters! We have the Sunnyside Daycare and Al’s Toy Barn from Toy Story.
Everyone remembers the Pizza Planet truck, right? The 1978 Gyoza pickup truck that shows up in every Pixar movie? And Insuricare is the company that Mr. Incredible works for while trying to be a normal-type person in The Incredibles. I still love that movie.
This one is my favorite. I loved Ratatouille, and this poster just nailed the movie’s aesthetic. Well done Mr Bluebird.
I also found some great minimal fairy tale posters by Christian Jackson of Square Inch Design. For sale here.
Disney has done a neat little cross-promo, putting Sam the American Eagle in Captain America’s outfit. Via Comicsalliance.
I won’t be writing tomorrow Puffin, since I’ll be bitching my way through a house move. Fortunately I’m moving out of a 6th floor Manhattan building with a flukey elevator, and not into one. Thank god for small mercies.
Love
MacGuffin
Dear Puffin,
I have received a communiqué from one of our reporters in the field. Bigwig, of The Album Project and Animal News; The Podcast has been working in South Korea for last year or so, and has finally managed to smuggle out a dispatch hidden, as is traditional, in the navel of a lady who is beyond reproach and unlikely to be groped by the TSA. I decoded it for you Puffin, and here it is:
Dear MacGuffin and Puffin,
As a huge fan of your blog, I’ve been keeping my eye out for contributions to it. I love your Asshole stamped posts, and I really enjoy the internet tourism, but by far, my favorite is the various Art related posts that you guys do. So, when I stumbled across Tommervik’s Picasso inspired cubist Star Wars paintings, I knew that I had to send it in.
Look, I love Star Wars. I love the Original Trilogy. I appreciate the intent of the prequels. The iconic visuals of the series are actually embedded in my brain. I remember when I made my first home movies, I purposefully aped the whole thing. So, whenever I see the mask of Vader, or the lightsaber, or R2, I feel my body get involved.
This is why this was such a cool find. Picasso and Star Wars together?
Really, all of them are pretty damn beautiful, but my personal favorite is the Yoda one. I would love to get a print of that for my wall.
Anyway, hope you guys liked these as much as I did, and I hope you guys like this letter. It’s not as good as yours, but it’s words!
Bigwig
PS. If it is cool for me to plug my stuff, I’d love it if your readers would check out my podcast, The Animal News or my music blog, The Album Project. Thanks!
Well Puffin, what do you think? I think Bigwig has stumbled on something quite wonderful. I checked out Tommervik’s site, and there are more Picasso Star Wars pictures as well as some really neat sports paintings. He has a lovely expressive way with curves, which works well with the already exaggerated body shape of football players in their padding. The Star Wars ones would be golden purely for their nerd-cred, and I’m no art critic, but I think these are pretty damn fine art. Certainly a worthy addition to my over-crowded bathroom nerd shrine. Why the hell do I keep my nerd art in the bathroom anyway Puffin? I must move them all at some point.
Love
MacGuffin
Dear Puffin,
Remember the Firefly travel posters I have in my nerd shrine bathroom? And the art nouveau Doctor Who posters from Bill Mudron, that I talk about constantly? Well, everything seems to have come together. Megan Lara has just released this incredible series of art nouveau, Alphone Mucha style Firefly posters.
I’ve often felt that you can learn a lot about a guy by which Firefly girl he goes for. 99% go for Inara or Kaylee, the occasional one goes for River, but I’ve never once heard a guy go for Zoe. Clearly, none of you have ever been with a warrior woman!
You can buy them all here.
I also found some art nouveau versions of Starbuck and Boomer, from Battlestar Galactica, by Deviantartist Moon-Pookah.
Mudron’s got a new piece out too, although it isn’t art nouveau. It’s more of a Japanese woodblock print knockoff, featuring Madame Vastra and Jenny battling a pair of Cybermen. And it’s awesome! Click to embiggen.
And finally, a little piece of whimsy to brighten this horribly hot and sticky day: The Doctor and the Little Prince, by Deviant artist JaviDLuffy.
Love
MacGuffin
Other posts about Poster Art
Art Nouveau Slave Leia, sinful Disney princesses, and more
Late Breaking Doctor Who Art News!
Star Wars Propaganda posters, redux. Also Doctor Who, Mad Men, Battlestar, etc
Variations on a theme: Game of Thrones
Poster art roundup: Ghostbusters, Narnia, Tron etc.
Dalek Propaganda Posters and Doctor Who Miscellany
Vintage Star Wars Posters (its a compulsion, OK?)
With the recent confirmation of the Good Omens TV series, which is apparently under the care of Terry Jones (yes that Terry Jones, not that Terry Jones), Puffin and I have been wondering how they’ll manage to fuck it up. Which is not to say that I don’t like Terry Jones. I do, very much. And actually I’ve quite liked the SkyOne adaption of Hogfather. But Good Omens……lets just say that there have been some frantic IM conversations between Puffin and myself, fretting about everything from cuts to mismanagement to the ever looming threat of Tim Burton, and worst of all…… casting. If ever there was a story that needed the perfect cast to pull it off, this is it.
The usual Imaginary Casting Couch rules apply:
- The space time continuum does not apply- actors can magically go back in time and star as their younger selves. (This rule was established primarily to allow MacGuffin to keep Leonardo DiCaprio around indefinitely.) Similarly, the dead can come back to life, which allows Alec Guinness to star in everything ever.
- The space time continuum may not apply, but accent rules do apply. MacGuffin and Puffin do not endorse Americans attempting British accents. It never works. In certain cases, however, you can simply let the character have an American accent. I truly believe that the uncanny valley of accents is a real thing that exists. An American can do a technically perfect imitation of a British accent, but it can still just be skin crawlingly awful. Take, for example, Peter Dinklage in Game of Thrones, or Robert Downey Jr in Sherlock Holmes.
- We reserve the right to ignore certain facts about an actors career. The fact that Michael Caine was in The Swarm, for example, will not be held against him.
- Certain movies shall not be meddled with: The original Star Wars, The Man Who Would be King, The Godfather pts I and II, anything by Billy Wilder, Casablanca, Firefly, A Fish Called Wanda, and finally and most importantly, Buckaroo Banzai.
- Tim Burton is banned for life.
- Johnny Depp is banned for life.
- Michael Cera is banned from playing Michael Cera for life.
So here we go, our initial picks for the dream cast of Good Omens:
Further ideas? I’m especially happy about Simon Pegg as Newton Pulsifer. I think he’s perfect. I mean, think of him as a slightly nerdier Sean of the Dead.
What are your thoughts?
Love
MacGuffin
Other Imaginary Casting Couch posts:
Dear Puffin
The wonderful Tortefeasor has sent us her thoughts on X-Men: First Class. She pretty much nailed all the things I hated about it. Now I know that you liked it (I still don’t know why) but I freaking hated it, and Torte’s critique is right on the money (Money that I wish I could get back because I can’t believe I spent $10 on that piece of shit movie.)
Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to Tortefeasor:
When I first heard about the new X-Men movie, I was terribly excited. Professor X and Magneto back when they were BFFs? That’s probably one of the most interesting storylines in all of the Marvelverse (Civil War aside). Sixties era setting? I appreciate go-go girls as much as the next person, and besides, this makes Magneto and Prof. X contemporaries with a certain Mr. Bond. Happens BEFORE the X-Trilogy takes place? Even better: Cyclops is still alive out there somewhere, we don’t have to deal with Rogue’s emo-tantrums, and we can all pretend that Wolverine: Origins just never happened. (And seriously, they came up with marketing stuff like this- MacGuffin). Then I saw these posters. I probably should have given up any expectations then.
Who thought this was a good idea? I get that this movie focuses on Charles and Erik’s roles as mutant forefathers, but did they have to make that point literally, by having their faces sprout from their loins? Unfortunately, these posters seemed to accurate predict the movie itself as a series of missed opportunities. I don’t know much about movie reviewing, but I do like to think I know a bit about storytelling. And I can recognize a missed opportunity when I see one.
1. Professor X and Magneto
In my opinion, James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender were excellent for these roles. Fassbender’s Magneto was a brutal, sexy version of James Bond, except darker and more vicious. McAvoy’s Professor X was perfect. Snarky and pretentious, I was delighted to be suppressing my urge to punch him in the face throughout the movie. Nobody can be that sanguine without having been a complete prick at some point; it was refreshing to see Professor X portrayed as something besides a saint.
Unlike some of the other characters (but more on that later), Professor X and Magneto were actually well developed. To be fair, given their detailed history in the comics, how could they have not been? What was disappointing, however, was that their relationship was not as well developed as they had been individually. Maybe the writers intended to emphasize each man as his own maverick. I’m not sure. What I do know is the main reason why I gave this movie a chance was because I was curious to see what the writers had come up with for the enigma of how Charles and Erik became friends.
The best we got was a cheap friendship montage: the young mutants get trained, Charles and Erik become best friends, and a good time is had by all until Kevin Bacon strolls by and rains on everybody’s parade. Instead of rehashing the first movie (yes, I think we can all take for granted by now that Magneto was a victim of the Holocaust–and by the way, when did that become a trope instead of a tragedy?), maybe they should have spent their efforts developing actual relationships between characters. Furthermore, the ending was a major disappointment. Rather than Erik blindly tossing bullets over his shoulder, it would have been more interesting if Erik, lost in a blind rage, intentionally shoots Charles. At the very least, it’s better character development than a mere accident. Once he has realized what has happened, he is penitent–but he also has a moment of recognition. He sees that Charles’s path of peace and reconciliation could never be his own. The moment becomes poignant because Erik sees himself for what he is: a monster. In one moment, he is horrified by what he sees and hates himself for paralyzing his best friend, but also is strangely excited and relishes in his power. The sun eclipses; the dark side wins. Charles grieves for his friend, but more importantly he grieves for himself and can’t help but resent Erik for what he has done. He knows he will spend the rest of his life confined to a wheelchair. He tries not to hold his condition against Erik, but he knows deep within him that he will never be able to rise above it. The actors were talented and certainly could have dealt with such a complex scene–its a shame that the writers couldn’t.
2. Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique
I’ve heard such promising things about Jennifer Lawrence. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see any of it during First Class.
Mystique’s development was such a missed opportunity in the movie. Yes, we get that she is young and vulnerable. We get that she wasn’t always the vicious, savvy villainness we typically see. And I don’t argue with her initial portrayal as your standard insecure teenager–I just wish that somehow throughout the movie, she moved beyond that. For being what turns out to be one of the most powerful female characters in comicbookdom, Mystique was sadly one-dimensional. She essentially played a stock character: insecure teenage girl with body image issues who has difficulty accepting herself for who she was. For Chrissakes, that’s the plot of She’s All That.
What would have been better is if we had seen the evolution of Mystique from that whiny, insecure girl and seen a glimpse of the dangerous, unpredictable rogue she becomes. Instead of remaining attention-starved and relatively docile, desperate for Charles’s affirmation, Mystique ought to have asserted her right to play with the boys as their equal. In particular, grounding Mystique’s origins as a budding feminist would have made for more interesting character development.
Her mutant power is a physical manifestation of a woman’s body image issues. Rather than using it to objectify herself in pathetic attempt to win attention by playing up male fantasies, we should have seen her using her power arbitrarily, recklessly, for the mere reason that she could. It would have established Mystique as a loose cannon and shown that she was more dangerous than the men had estimated her to be. Yes, appealing to male fantasies by shifting into female forms would have been a nice way to have her start the movie, but it would have been interesting if Mystique recognized her potential wasn’t limited to her feminine form. If she had shifted into the shape of a man, it would have been symbolic of her liberation and allowed her to evolve into Mystique, as I know her: an uncontrollable, unpredictable force to be reckoned with. She’s completely unrecognizable as Charles’s docile lapdog, cowering in the corner when any fighting occurs. And by the way, if Emma Frost remained the ditzy companion of Sebastian Shaw, this version of Mystique would have been a great foil to contrast the docile housewife to the independent, self-realized woman.
3. The Rag-tag Gang of Mutants
Forgive me if I’m mistaken, but I was under the impression that the reason comic book movies are made and funded is because they promise epic action scenes. X-Men boils down to the promise that the audience will see a handful of impressively powered mutants fight an all out battle with another group of somewhat less sympathetic mutants with equally impressive but slightly different mutant powers.
Somehow in First Class we ended up with Banshee. Banshee? Really? We also managed to snag butterfly girl and toanrdo man, too. The only person who could have been lamer than these sorry mutants would be Jubilee (sparkles!). I get that the first trilogy exhausted many of the more interesting and better known characters, but were these mutants really the best in show? There must have been lesser known mutants with cooler powers. Hell, they could have made up mutants with cooler powers.
In addition to having really, really lame powers, none of the auxiliary mutants were developed. At all. If the excuse for having less cool mutants was to introduce new characters to the franchise, then I don’t know, actually create real characters that are interesting and have some depth to them. We get it. Angel has daddy issues. (I’m still not sure why she defected. Was it because she saw some sort of acceptance from Shaw that she couldn’t get from the X-Men? Was that ever made clear?) Havok can’t control his powers. (But why? Could he maybe be trying to prove something/steal attention from his saint of a older/younger brother Cyclops?) Banshee… pretty much has no personality. Darwin is black. (Seriously–that was the extent of his character development. When did basing entire character profiles off race become okay?) I wasn’t compelled by any of these characters.
Instead of having the the ragtag team of no-name mutants, they should have just started off with the classic lineup. I get that we’ve seen Jean Grey, Cyclops, Iceman and Angel (Warren Worthington III) in the later films. It doesn’t matter. Cast them as their younger selves. We’re already tossing chronological consistency out the window by having Havok (who must have fallen into some sort of wormhole in order to be a teenager in the 60s if he’s Cyclops younger brother) and Emma Frost (who must have added backwards aging in addition to diamond form and telepathy to her powers since she’s about 12 in Wolverine) in the movie.
The classic lineup is good. And who cares that we’ve seen them before; we could have gotten a different spin on the characters. I would have loved to see a younger version of Jean Grey that foreshadows her development as Dark Phoenix. Wouldn’t it have been great if she were this rebellious, Beatles-crazed teenage terrified and fascinated by her power and throwing herself at poor Cyclops much to Charles’s dismay and Erik’s interest? She could have been what Rogue should have been in the first movie. I know we’ve seen this group of mutants before, but let’s be honest, their substitutes in this movie weren’t good enough to justify eliminating the classics. Jean could have been a rival for Charles’s affections with Mystique. Clearly, Jean Grey would ultimately win–which would provide more impetus for Mystique to leave and go rogue. All in all, the movie wasn’t terrible…but there were many things that could have made it great. For seeing all of its lost potential, it seems somehow a little more disappointing than if it had no promise at all to begin with.
Love
MacGuffin here: as far as I’m concerned, this was the only good moment in the whole film. Click to see the animation, because apparently WordPress doesn’t like Gifs.
