X-Men: Days of Future Past

[pturtle]

Does this even have to be explained? I don't see how it isn't distasteful (mutant BS or not) honestly. It's really the only real problem I have with the film.

John F. Kennedy was a REAL person. It's cool seeing the television broadcasts of him in First Class (or in Forrest Gump or any film he's featured in), but to go as far as involving the plot during November 22, 1963 when he was killed? How is that respectful? Kennedy died before my time, but I don't see why any amount of time would make it appropriate. There's still family (Jackie and John Jr. might have died, but Caroline is still around.

Bottom line, the man wasn't a fictional character and it was a real tragedy. Implying he was some mutant creature (or supported them or whatever) and that a supervillain was involved in his death just isn't right. The fact that Singer and Fox released this,

To promote the film last year (which was the 50th anniversary of the murder by the way) via twitter, facebook, etc. isn't exactly tasteful at all in my opinion. You don't have to be age 50 (+) or from America to understand that. It's beyond ****ed up.

Ah, I see where you're coming from now, using his murder as a plot point is pretty messed up, but referring to Kennedy as a mutant seems okay to me.


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[DiFabio]

Age of Apocalypse will reveal that all the firefighters on 9/11 were Stryker's evil henchmen and it was Magneto who was actually trying to save people from the rubble.

Accuratez to teh comicz

 

[GeneralZodLives]

Great comic but I hate JRJrs art.

 

[GasparZizou]

Hhhhmmmm eeeeh, sorry still don't see anything wrong with it, it wasn't parodic, it didn't really involve him other than the fact of pronouncing him a mutant or a supporter, trying to explain other historical facts in the same manner would indeed make it a cheap trope, but I don't see anything offensive in gravitating a small plot point around the event.

 

[karamazov80]

John F. Kennedy was a REAL person. It's cool seeing the television broadcasts of him in First Class (or in Forrest Gump or any film he's featured in), but to go as far as involving the plot during November 22, 1963 when he was killed? How is that respectful?

Yet you say the Watchmen movie making the Comedian his killer was tasteful?

 

[DiFabio]

Hhhhmmmm eeeeh, sorry still don't see anything wrong with it, it wasn't parodic, it didn't really involve him other than the fact of pronouncing him a mutant or a supporter, trying to explain other historical facts in the same manner would indeed make it a cheap trope, but I don't see anything offensive in gravitating a small plot point around the event.

Who cares if it's not a parody (though, I could argue that the "bent bullet" BS is a parody of the Warren Commission's "single bullet" theory)? Does that make it okay? And it didn't really involve him?

- Viral/promotional Campaign for the film revolves around it (put up in an anniversary year of his death no less)
- a main character, Magneto has been out of the game since the events of First Class because of it
- Magneto was in Dallas (at the grassy knoll no less) to prevent Kennedy from getting shot
- the single bullet theory is now the "bent bullet" theory where some supervillain is blamed for using his special powers to send the bullet through Kennedy's body
- Magneto is imprisoned in the Pentagon because he killed the 35th President of the United States
- Magneto goes on a spiel about how he was just trying to save Kennedy from the bullet that killed him because he's "one of them"



How would explanations of other historical facts be a "cheap trope", but the exploitation of an assassination in which real people were killed/hurt, isn't? Pretty ****ed reasoning there.

 

[GasparZizou]

Except it wasn't a parody, unless you twist or completely change the meaning of the word, it's not, period.

Every single bullet point is resumed in "gravitating a small plot point around the event" and it changes nothing in my previous post.

I didn't mean the fact of other historical facts and not this one, I clearly meant the overuse of the resource, so indeed, pretty ****ed reasoning, but not mine.

 

[DiFabio]

Yet you say the Watchmen movie making the Comedian his killer was tasteful?

I think so. I think it was tastefully done for that opening montage (though, I'd have probably dropped it completely). I don't see it as a double standard. The careful recreation of the Zapruder footage is clearly respectful, right down to the agents jumping onto the car before it heads into the tunnel. Also,


- Watchmen didn't have a viral campaign taking advantage of the situation/anniversary of the event
- Watchmen didn't have a major subplot surrounding it
- The story is all about U.S. history. Every milestone from WWII, to the bay of pigs, to conspiracies, to Carl Bernstein/Watergate scandal to the 60s-1980s fear of Nuclear war, etc. is in there
- It's not some mutant magic abilities crap, it's another gunman. Many people believe that Oswald may not have acted alone and that there were/was other/another gunmen(s) (possibly CIA, FBI or Blackops). It's no different than the things depicted in Oliver Stone's JFK.
- the fictional character of Eddie Blake going to that suspicious fence (eye witnesses close to Zapruder have pointed out that area in reality), fits the bill.
- never implies or plays with the idea that Kennedy was anything other than a real President who was tragically killed on that fateful day


Now if the film had this major subplot where it's revealed that Dr. Manhattan was banished to mars because he tried to stop the bullet by turning it into dust (because Kennedy was a fellow Watchmen) but failed, and vaporized Kennedy by accident, then yeah, I'd say that's pretty tasteless. While on the subject, I think this is just as bad as what's in DOFP,

In that comic, it's implied that Jackie Onassis isn't faithful to JFK and considers having an affair with the Comedian. I think in later comics, he's even assigned to kill Marylin Monroe with drugs (by the Kennedy brothers no less).

 

[ronri]

I didn't think it was that distasteful about it in the film, and while perhaps misguided, seemed to promote JFK in a positive light. But beyond that, I can see why you'd feel offended about the viral marketing campaign which I only came to know after watching the film, honestly. While I didn't think it was that bad (the video anyway), putting it up during his death anniversary is just all kinds of nope.

 

[Josette]

Even without debating on whether it was inappropriately handled or not, I didn't like it. It felt like a forced bit to explain away the speeding up of the XFC timeline and for Charles as a character. Because they couldn't have Erik running around free causing havoc for 10 years and Charles on his serum not able to face him.

It's funny how much time this movie devotes to the past and the XFC cast and yet they still manage to feel disregarded in some ways. Pieces forced to go a certain way on the chessboard that seems just a bit awkward and out of place compared to other moves they could've made. Because the future.

As much as I love the scene on the plane, it doesn't feel entirely smooth even though the actors rock it, because as their first reunion since their beach "divorce" in XFC, it just doesn't quite work in a natural way, IMO.

 

[ronri]

@Josette: I thought the whole plane scene could've been handled better, no doubt. I get why they swept aside some of the cast of XFC, but instead of treating their loss as the current issue, it's told very much in retrospect, which makes it seem as though we missed an "X-Men: Second Class" or some such. Regardless, I did enjoy the general scenario played out between Erik and Charles in the plane scene, just not the haphazard way in which it swept some of XFC's cast under the rug.

 

[LipSmack]

The only bad thing about the Kennedy assassination was how poorly it was explained. I guess it was another situation like the beach scene of first class where charles is paralyzed, though youd think magneto could have stopped a single bullet

 

[pturtle]

I don't think they needed to go into great detail about it, we knew enough to get a sense of what happened.


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[Khev]

The only bad thing about the Kennedy assassination was how poorly it was explained. I guess it was another situation like the beach scene of first class where charles is paralyzed, though youd think magneto could have stopped a single bullet

This was really my issue with it as well.

So IIRC according to Eric the zigzagging bullet was due to him trying to stop it. Okay....

1. So the bullet was actually going to miss Kennedy and Magneto changed it's path so that of all places for it to go, it *accidentally* went into the president's head? Nice one Magneto. Apparently he's the most incompetent mutant of all time.

and

2. So how was he apprehended? He just gave up? Shouldn't there have been some dialogue on his part under the Pentagon about him being reluctant to leave his cell if he was there because he surrendered in the first place? And if he DIDN'T give up then how the hell did a bunch of average Secret Service men capture him if he didn't want to be captured?

 

[pturtle]

I would assume because of his "incompetence", when Kennedy got shot he was probably distraught, they had a chance to take him down. I don't think that really needed much explaining.


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[karamazov80]

If you want to microanalyze these movies, all of them have little holes. But the Mags thing is pretty easy to imagine. If he's concentrating on the bullet then he's not concentrating on himself, and all someone has to do is run up behind him and knock him out with the butt of their rifle. Keep him sedated until he's away from metal. As for the bullet trajectory, there could have been multiple bullets (as there were in reality), and Mags wasn't able to avert the path of all of them away from hitting vital organs.

 

[DiFabio]

They should have just scrapped the Kennedy idea all together. There are a million ways they could have explained Magneto's imprisonment. It could have been a brotherhood mission that just went bad.

The writer literally said that the reason they included Kennedy was because he thought it'd be "cool", That's it.


"Personally, I just really like the idea of explaining the curving [i.e. ‘magic’] bullet with a character that can move metal,” said Kinberg with a chuckle. “And then, as that subplot fleshed out, it seemed more interesting that in fact Erik hadn’t killed JFK, but had been trying to stop it. And that was the explanation for a bullet that curves. And from there, the question was, why would Erik try to stop it? Why would he try to save JFK? And then it just seemed interesting if the answer was, JFK was a mutant."


Whacked

 

[pturtle]

Why scrap it?

Singer's X-Men universe rely heavily on intertwining fictional mutant events with real historical events, these movies are period pieces and they took advantage of "the bent bullet". Most of the reviews I read actually appreciated how Singer/Kinberg incorporated Kennedy into the plot, so I don't think it hindered the film in any kind of way.

Again, I can understand feeling some kind away about using Kennedy's assassination for marketing purposes, but turning Kennedy into mutant is fine.

 

[DiFabio]

I don't think it should have been scrapped, because it sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Wut . . .

 

[pturtle]

Wut . . .

Sorry haha, I think my iPhone is on its way out, gotta upgrade soon.


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