Livewatching: "X-Men: First Class"

 

The CIA guy was totally expecting people to come out shooting, but instead we got what is quite possibly my favorite shot in the whole movie :P

Livewatching: "X-Men: First Class"

Also, Charles, you were the one who recruited them as child soldiers and now they’ve lost one battle you’re telling them they have to stay uninvolved but Erik’s right, it is too late

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And I mean, it’s so obvious, too, that Charles can feel the coin and he knows what’s coming and yet he doesn’t let go–and there’s no way to know if it’s because he thinks Shaw is better off dead or if it’s to protect Erik’s life but either way, ust the fact that he’s still standing afterward is impressive as fuck

And like, I get that this is an action franchise with limited time (and willingness) to address things like trauma and moral implications but oh man I wish we had more acknowledgement of what that must have been like, to feel the coing go in and out because that is a very fucked up thing to go through at the hand of your best friend

#My Posts#Fanfan Watches#XMen#First Class#LW: XMFC#AND THEN CHARLES WITH THE WORST WORD CHOICE EVER

Livewatching: "X-Men: First Class"

The funny thing here is that Erik gets more backstory than anyone else in First Class, as far as I can remember–we know pretty much nothing of Charles or Raven or anyone else really. Just Erik.

Which is interesting because he’s an antagonist (and switches to villain toward the end) and usually they’re not the ones who get the expanded, sympathetic backstory.

Livewatching: "X-Men: First Class"

The French is actually pretty good, if you ignore the swiss man’s accent is too english for the setting xD

Also “that gold is all that’s left of my people” well yeah but also the franchise in general spends a lot of time forgetting about that unless they need to have Magneto become a serial murderer/mass killer

The only positive association with judaism I remember off the top of my head is the memory of his mother Charles unearthes later on (where I believe they’re celebrating Hanukka?) and even that is later turned into an accessory to Erik’s killing.

and don’t get me wrong, the whole revenge thing I can understand, but it seems to me that this is a very shallow & destructive way of presenting his judaism where it could also be a source of comfort for Erik? Idk I mean, I’m gentile so it’s not like my opinion matters much, but it makes me sad that this is all Erik gets here honestly

Livewatching: "X-Men: First Class"

When you think about it, Raven’s position at this point sucks a lot ore than the movie lets on tho. Like, sure, she’s not out on the streets or whatever but she’s hiding who she is all the time, her only friend (that we know of) can’t stand the thought of her being blue (I mean, the complete heel-face turn during the bathroom conversation is proof enough) and she has to deal not only with Charles kinda dragging her along but also with people looking at her like she’s a disappointment who can’t compare to her brother’s accomplishements

I’d grow to hate the place too tbh

Livewatching: "X-Men: First Class"

I have now come to the conclusion I would loathe right-out-of-Oxford Charles Xavier honestly

Also that the way they make the telepathy work doesn’t make sense to me. See, kid Charles’ first scene implies that he can hear people by default and has to actively try not to listen in. This would mean that he’s perfectly aware of people’s opinion of him, good or bad (and in this moment LMoira is definitely not impressed by him) but somehow I can’t help but think that if it’s the case, he should either be more of an ass or less of one

I guess that’s why I remembered “implied loneliness” from my first watch of this movie, although in retrospect the kitchen dialogue isn’t all that indicative of a distant mother (and aside from the lack of mention of Charles’ mother, there isn’t really any additional element). Because if you hear what people say/think about you (in which you know they’re not lying) unless you protect yourself (as I said, implied earlier in the movie but also confirmed in Days of Future Past and Apocalypse) at best it’s an extremely alienating experience, even with the people who actually like you, and I can’t help feeling like that kind of loneliness doesn’t usually result in the sort of air that Charles is projecting right now.

(Then again, since we have pretty much zero backstory for him, it’s difficult to say what kind of factors may have influenced him so)

Livewatching: "X-Men: First Class"

I think one of the reasons I appreciated Charles the most in this movie despite the arrogance is that this arrogant, baby-faced priviledged prick of a guy sees someone drowning and jumps in the water with zero guarantee of success or even surviving the ordeal

And yeah, sure, telepathy means he’s safe from a lot of things Erik would try to do but idk, it’s still the sign that there’s something worth caring about in Charles.

Under the dickishness, that is

Livewatching: "X-Men: First Class"

Raven and Hank are pretty good foils to each other too tbh. As in, when she sees Hank, she thinks he’s amazing because of his mutation, where Hank thinks she likes him despite his mutation.

Which on the whole is representative of the paths they end up chosing–Charles and the X-Men may not explicitely say they’re acceptable “despite” their mutations, but they do put quite a lot of effort into making themselves sound less scary, less powerful (and therefore, yes, potentially dangerous) than they really are.

In many ways, Charles and the XMen are a much more palatable kind of activists and while I agree that you have to learn how to compromise at some point, I’m still sad we didn’t get to see more of the XMen kind of leaning toward Erik’s radicalism while remaining at the school.

(I’m guessing there was some of that in the comics, possibly still is, but tbqh I do not have the patience to try and get into that)

Livewatching: "X-Men: First Class"

I like the subtle way Emma gets confused after Shaw puts the helmet on tbh–it’s a very (too?) subtle indication of how weird it must feel for a telepath not to be able to know what others are thinking (which is a consistent point no matter which working rule of telepathy you use through your movies)

Livewatching: "X-Men: First Class"

The problem, Charles, is that Erik has already been part of something bigger than himself and it turned out horribly wrong.

(By contrast, I imagine this is the kind of situation Charles has dreamed of as a kid, like many kids do. You know, just be a hero, do something big. He’s probably delighted right now. Doesn’t know what’s gonna hit him.)

Livewatching: "X-Men: First Class"

Listen, I know there were countless gifs of Erik’s face in proto-cerebro with the caption “Perfection” but honestly this must be such an ambivalent moment for him–on the one hand it’s the first time he’s connecting with mutants and that’s such an important thing: he’s not alone! He has a people again!

But on the other hand he has been a lab rat before and he is, once again, in a military facility doing things he didn’t intend to do because (tengentially) of Schmidt, and that can’t possibly be a good association.

(I’d also like to know if someone has already talked about how all the mutants they pick up are battle-usable. Like, whether or not Charles admits it, it remains that the people he picked up were found with battlefield situations in mind and that, no matter how reluctant he might be to admit it, is a pretty important parameter because it shows that, consciously or not, he’s very much preparing for the worst.)

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I also like that, if pressed, Charles makes it clear from the start that he’ll always pick Mutants over humans

Posted on : Tue 31 May
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My Posts Fanfan Watches XMen First Class LW: XMFC And Erik over many people but still Also he looks so disgusted by Emma's illusion xD

Livewatching: "X-Men: First Class"

“Honestly Charles, I don’t know how you survived living in such hardship”

“Well it was a hardship suffered by me”

I remember when the movie first came out, there were interpretations of this saying that maybe this was a way to hint at a more difficult past for Charles, and while I did kind of adhere to that for a long time (and you can make a case for telepathy being an inherently isolating experience no matter the wealth or company you have) right now I’m thinking it’s more a case of Raven feeling like she has to be thankful for what she found in Westchester.

Like, despite all of Charles’ flaws (and he has a lot of them), he did still find a thief in his kitchen and welcomed her as a sister when he had zero obligation to (presumably, there was mental manipulation involved, which probably explains why the movie didn’t want to dwell on that too much) and no matter his attitude about that later on, if we assume that Raven’s pre-Charles backstory is the same as RoMystique’s (ie. her parents tried to drown her and she ran) she would have been extremely aware of how much of a godsend that was, and I doubt it’s gone away with time.

So honestly at this point I think it’s more of a “okay but this ‘harship’ saved my life and I feel like I have to defend it” moment than anything else tbh

Livewatching: "X-Men: First Class"

Okay wait–I never caught the line about Charles’ stepfather before oO

And the only stepfather I know of for Charles (brought to me through the filter of fandom) is Cain/Kurt Marko (one of them) who, in the comics, was an abusive dude iirc.

It’s just one line but that plus the (debatable) hints at Sharon Xavier not being a very present mother leaves the possibility of things really not being all that rosy for Charles when he was a kid…and if that’s the case, one has to wonder how it affected Raven tbh, and why (as in: if there really was an abusive step dad, did he hit Raven too or not? and if not, was it because he chose to or because of Charles? Lots of room for creativity there tbh.)

Livewatching: "X-Men: First Class"

There’s the Hanukka flashback I was talking about earlier. It’s still sad that Erik’s entire powers, ideals and being are shaped by his judaism yet the franchise doesn’t acknowledge it unless it feels forced to do it.

Also on a different note, I’m only now noticing that in this scene, Charles is functionally Erik’s love interest. Like, shipping goggles aside, what he’s doing there is exactl the kind of emotional labor and validation that female characters often end up providing to their love interests in movies (I reblogged a post recently about how Natasha did this for Bruce in Age of Ultron) and in some tengential ways, he continues to do that through the franchise.

(I don’t know about the comics, really, but in both movie trilogies, Charles is Erik’s main redeeming element, used even above the discussion and understanding of the trauma he went through)

 

Which in turn might explain why so many Cherik fics I’ve seen seem to have Charles stuck in that role and not really expanded upon.

Livewatching: "X-Men: First Class"

All this beautiful speech, so true and character-defining and brave and it’s all left into the dust–right now because Hank is an asshole, and later on because the franchise can’t and won’t handle a woman like Mystique

Livewatching: "X-Men: First Class"

This moment always makes me so sad for Hank though like. There’s an enormous difference between Raven’s realization that she doesn’t have to hide and his being forced to face who he is

Livewatching: "X-Men: First Class"

Honestly I don’t hink you can blame Charles for wanting to fit into the world, it’s the fact that he’s willing to do this at the expanse of others that’s a problem.

Livewatching: "X-Men: First Class"

The fact that Raven’s suit is unzipped so she’s got a major cleavage keeps making me angry tbh ><

Livewatching: "X-Men: First Class"

The problem, too, with framing Erik as a villain in this movie (and in a slightly lesser way, in the other ones) is that you can’t just assume he does it because he’s evil. What he does or wants to do is not right, that’s true, but then again he’s lashing out in the face of someone who literally tortured him and that’s not the kind of trauma you can just ignore, you know?

I mean it’s not like you can look at this and assume this is a sadist getting his kick

Livewatching: "X-Men: First Class"

Note, interestingly enough, that Erik does not use his power to stop Charles from tackling him or block him at any point

Posted on : Tue 31 May
with : 0 notes

My Posts Fanfan Watches XMen First Class LW: XMFC I saw a lot of hate for Moira about the bullet and yeah I was in the 'that's a stupid fucking move' crowd too but really what else was she supposed to do?

Livewatching: "X-Men: First Class"

YEAH MUTANT AND PROUD EXCEPT FOR THE PART WHERE THE TWO OF YOU HAVE LIKE 25MN OF CUMULATED BLUE TIME IN THE NEXT TWO FUCKING MOVIES

Livewatching: "X-Men: First Class"

Oh yeah, the X-Men were founded that day remember? And then ten years later Charles was a freaking junkie and ten years after that they created the XMen again

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It’s the 31st of May and I’m ccurrently sittin in my thickest socks with a pull over, a blanket around my shoulders and mittens on.

Sometimes the world makes it hard to remember about Global Warming