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NO_CREDIT
July 16, 2000
About the X-men movie:
One could quibble with many things,
but the immediately striking thing
is that it did not radically suck.
This is bucking the general
tendency of Hollywood films
these days.
Here's two things of substance that
could be said though:
The line "By any means necessary" is
put into Magneto's mouth, implying that
he is the Malcolm X to Xavier's MLK.
It could be I've missed something
somewhere, but I've heard a number
of recordings of Malcolm X speeches,
and where ever he's used this famous
catch phrase "by any means
necessary", he was never talking
about anything more radical then
self-defense for black people.
I think the fact that this
was interpreted by some
people as a call to violent
revolution says much more Though there was one speech
about the tenor of the by Malcom X where he said
times, and the bad something like "You'd
conscience of the dominant better stop singing and
culture, than it does about start swinging!".
Malcolm X.
More recently (February
And having this 21, 2005) I've heard a
villain who's just later speech with lines
tried to kill everyone something like "The
in New York City white man made the
recite a Malcolm X mistake of letting me
phrase, that leaves read his history
a bad taste in my mouth. books."; "There was
nothing non-violent
about Patrick Henry."
INSIDE_AND_OUT
The other item:
Stan Lee is mentioned by
name in the credits. He was given a
cameo part as a hot dog vendor, and
I think they did the "based on
characters created by" business.
The trouble is that he didn't
create these characters. Not
all of them anyway: he worked
on Xavier, Cyclops, Iceman,
Magneto, and the Toad (who is
only sort-of in this film) but
that's it.
No one would care about these
characters today if they hadn't been
revived by Chris Claremont, who I
believe can also be credited with
creating: Wolverine, Orroro, Rogue, (I gather that "Wolverine"
Mystique... was technically created by
someone else, all Claremont
So why no Claremont credit? did was turn him into a
memorable character.)
Notice that the same thing was done
with Frank Miller, and the Batman
movie... they bring on some aging
"creator" on the staff to provide
some credibility with the fen,
but the real, living, creative
force is ignored, because it's still
out there creating, and it ain't
owned by the company... I might also bitch
about the Nike,
By the way: McDonalds and
Coca-cola ads they
One of the main plot points of this led off the film
movie was lifted from X-Men 173: with. I don't like
Wolverine transfers his healing to pay to see ads.
power to Rogue to save her life at I'm funny that way.
risk to himself. This was written
by Chris Claremont. If they had any
interest in getting
repeat business from
me, it was definitely a
mistake for them to hit
me with those ads.
SELF_IDENTIFICATION
Whenever I consider
going to see some silly
Hollywood film, I don't
think "boy that sounds
like fun!" I think how
angry I'm going to be if
they make me sit through
a fucking Microsoft ad.
Not to mention all
the "product placement"...
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