Wolverine

What a silly, silly movie.

Everyone gets that I don't really write reviews, right?  I just talk about things.  So this post has a few plot spoilers, though I've tried to keep them minimal.  And honestly, this is not a movie to go see for the plot.  It's also not a movie to see if you have a problem with nails on a blackboard, because Wolverine is all about the very similar claws on all sorts of things.

Wolverine was part of the X-Men when I was reading that book regularly, but he was never one of my favorite characters.  I also stopped reading X-Men right around the time they started doing a lot more background and spinoff stuff with the character, so I'm not particularly well-informed about his history and origin story.  All of this may have been a real advantage in seeing Wolverine.  Having the background on the mutant universe but having no emotional stake in them getting it right, I could just enjoy the explosions and the very scenic Hugh Jackman, whose Wolverine is much more of a sensitive New Age guy than I remember from the comic book version of the early 1980s.  He does smoke cigars, though; I guess those are exempt from the general make-tobacco-vanish Hollywood rules that seem to apply even to period pieces like Watchmen.

The plot is full of gaping holes, so let me skip that for now and talk about the fun stuff.

I really, really enjoyed the explosions.  I particularly liked watching a nuclear reactor get taken down by a laser-like effect spiraling around and around the inside of it.  Speaking as someone who cannot peel an apple in a continuous spiral, I found this impressive, if completely unlikely, even by comic-book standards.

I liked Hugh Jackman.  I especially liked him naked running through the wilderness.  My favorite line in the entire movie was spoken by a nice little old farm-wife to her husband (I mentally dubbed them "Mr. and Mrs. Kent" and really thought we were about to have a Superman-style foster parenting situation, which is not quite how it worked out):

There's a naked man in our barn.

I can't explain just how funny that line was in the movie, but trust me, it was funny.  I was laughing helplessly for several minutes afterward.

Some of the mutant special effects were pretty cool.  I particularly liked Gambit's way with a deck of cards until he stopped using cards and started using a sort of skinny quarterstaff, which was much less cool.  As played by the delightfully named Taylor Kitsch, he was also bonus eye-candy, though I'm not sure why he was in this movie at all.  Did I mention that plot logic was not one of the film's strengths?

I didn't catch the name of the mutant mercenary with the katanas, but watching him spin them around at high speed intercepting bullets while taking out a room full of blood-diamond-merchant muscle was nifty-keen.

I loved seeing a young Scott (Cyclops) Summers, though I couldn't understand how exactly he was managing to attend a normal school while wearing red sunglasses.  I mean, let's think about this.  He wakes up at some point during puberty and WHAM! his eye-beams or whatever they're called take out the bedroom ceiling.  How does he figure out that red sunglasses help?  How many things get blasted during the trial and error phase of figuring out what sort of lenses to use?  Or if he had a mutant-mentor who slapped on the glasses before he took out his entire neighborhood, why isn't he under someone's protection and thus not available to be kidnapped and sent to the Island of Misfit Toys Kidnapped Teenage Mutants?  And why have his teachers let him wear the sunglasses in school until that day?  And how did he suddenly get to be a sort of walking MapQuest medium ("how do you know to go that way?"  "I just do.")?

Damnit, I'm thinking plot logic again.  Sorry.  But I think I've got to go there, at least briefly.  Real spoilers follow.

Setup: Wolverine was a sickly child, until he accidentally killed (via his retractable bone claws) the guy who was his father, who had just killed the guy whom he thought was his father.  No, I have no idea what any of that soap opera was about or why it was included.  So he and his brother, who has bone fingernails much like Wolverine's bone-claws, run away at what looked like about age 11 and 8.  Major temporal jump to them fighting in the American Civil War (which makes sense for Canadians, right?) and then in WWI and then on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day.  By this montage we learn that they are immortal (long-lived, ageless after adulthood (why?), and regenerating after injury up to and including death), that they like fighting, and that they generally have each other's backs.  They eventually end up as mercenaries for a secret government mutant task force, until Wolverine takes a hike after finally noticing that his brother is a sociopathic killer.  He then goes off to live in the wilderness with a gorgeous woman and work as a lumberjack.

If I'd known anything about the character's origin, I would have been annoyed by the brother thing; having that character be his brother is not canon.  Fortunately, I didn't know this until later, so I just shrugged it off as a trite rehash of the Corsican brothers added because a love/hate relationship with your brother is such a manly thing for an action hero to have.  Much better than too much gushy romance with a girl.

It is not a particular surprise that after the gorgeous woman sits on his lap and tells him a sad legend about true lovers that are parted forever, the whole idyll falls apart.  You can practically see the subtitle "here be foreshadowing."  First, his old government boss, Stryker, comes by to deliver a warning about how someone is killing off former team members (wait, didn't I just see that plot a few weeks ago in Watchmen?)  Then the someone turns out to be Adrian Veidt his brother.  End idyllic life and cue a big fight scene, but along with the fact that guys punching each other out doesn't actually do much for me, there's a problem with this.  Both of them are unkillable.  So what the heck is the point of them fighting?  Indestructible boy beats up on indestructible boy for awhile, trashing the local bar.  Whatever.

Wolverine is now extra-motivated to work with Stryker, whose brilliant idea is to coat his skeleton, including the claws, with handwavium adamantium.  This is painful and involves him being mostly naked in a tank of bubbling liquid while a giant Rube Goldberg acupuncture machine with appropriately ominous buttons and levers injects an entire syringe of adamantium through lots of strategically placed needles.

I would like to state for the record here that I said "oooh, shiny!" the first time the adamantium-coated claws came out, which was before his brother got a look at them and said the same thing.  I also helpfully added "mine's bigger than yours!" to the dialogue when Deadpool turned up and extended an adamantium katana from his knuckle.  I can't think why the filmmakers didn't put that line in.  Maybe because Deadpool's mouth was sewn shut.

Stryker turns out to be not a nice guy.  So after escaping from Stryker and running naked through the wilderness (mmm!), there are some more explosions before Wolverine goes off to find -- seriously -- a sort of mutant cowboy version of the Magic Negro, who will help him locate Gambit, who can tell him where the mysterious island is, which is where he will find Stryker, rescue the teenagers, have a couple more big fights, watch the reactor do the apple-peel thing, and get shot by adamantium bullets, which, like silver bullets to a werewolf, are actually dangerous to him. 

I'm not sure which was the stupidest bit of handwavium in the film, the bullets or the medically-unlkely injection which I will be vague about since it's plot-significant.

So the whole thing was quite silly, but it was a fun silly.  If you like either explosions or Hugh Jackman's, ah, muscles, and can turn off your brain temporarily to cope with the gaping plot holes, it's a nice, fluffy summer action movie that shouldn't offend anyone except possibly people who really care about getting origin stories correct to comic book canon.

Comments

[Neil Willcox]

Both of them are unkillable. So what the heck is the point of them fighting?

Reminds me of the scene in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (the movie) in which two unkillable characters fight each other. One of them comments "We'll be at this all day".

[jeff]

sigh, movies. we're babysitter shopping so we can see Trek together.

[AJ]

I also disliked Wolverine in the comics but like him in the movies. Must be Hugh Jackman magic.

One of my game group members is a humongous Deadpool fan and wept bitter tears when he heard about said character's mouth being sewn shut, seeing as wisecracks are what he's known for.

I'll be seeing this, because husband and I both enjoy dumb super hero action movies, but I don't expect to be too impressed.

[Susan de Guardiola]

AJ,

I think your Deadpool-fan friend will find plenty to like in this movie. Trust me on this.

[Amy F]

So, since I stopped reading the X-Men comics at roughly the same time you did, it shouldn't make me want to beat my head against the wall too badly? XD

[Susan de Guardiola]

Amy,
Nah, not on that basis. Just shut off the logic circuits before going in.

I actually like Wolverine better in this movie than I ever did in the comic.

[fidelio]

Hey, Hugh Jackman's physique did a lot to keep me happy during this movie.

I think the guy with the katanas was named Wade, and Stryker used him as the basis for Weapon 11/Deadpool.

I think the cigars are Wolverine's way of keeping from being distracted by scents, since he's supposed to have an extra-sharp sense of smell, and the stogies that close to his nose would probably blot out a lot of other smells. I notice that in the movie they aren't often lit.

[AJ]

Susan,

Hopefully he'll go to the movie and enjoy it. At the very least, he's happy because I told him that Hot Topic had a Deadpool t-shirt in their front window -- he went and bought two, and proceeded to thank me randomly for the rest of the night. Everyone should be so easy to please...

[Serge]

And how did he suddenly get to be a sort of walking MapQuest medium ("how do you know to go that way?" "I just do.")

That one is easy to figure out. Remember who shows up to take him away? As for the rest... I liked the movie better than I expected, but it was a half-baked mess inconsistent even with the earlier movies. I mean, when Jean Grey checked him out, one could clearly see on the scanner that his claws had springs to allow him to pop them out and thus that they were not adamantium-coated bones. Oh, and I'm amazed that, even though Scott was blindfolded in "Wolverine" so that he could not recognize him in "X-men", I'm amazed that none of the other young mutants thought to describe their rescuer to him. Oh, and if Sabertooth is Wolverine's bro, why do they have different family names?

[Susan de Guardiola]

[MapQuest medium]
Oh, right, I get it! Duh!

On the claws: actually, Len Wein's original conception seems to have been for them to be separate weapons built into his gloves. Check out this very interesting article on ComicMix about the different backstories they floated for Wolverine before settling on the current one. Since the comics weren't consistent over time having the movies likewise be inconsistent is sort of appropriate.

The brother thing is a mystery to me, but since I pretty much don't know or care about the character's official comic book backstory, it didn't really bother me in any way except that good/evil brothers are such a cliché.

[Serge]

Contradicting what's established in comics doesn't bother me either. I'm more interested in the essence than in the specifics. What bugged me is that the writers were so sloppy that they couldn't bother remembering that brothers usually have the same family name.

More sloppiness... "X-men" established that those stories are set in the near future. Fine. "X2" established that Wolverine last saw Stryker 15 years before. OK. In "Wolverine", he and Stryker meet during the Vietnam War, then the story jumps forward 6 years to the events that lead to their parting ways. Thus this places "X-men" smack in the middle of the 1990s.

As for Deadpool acquiring Scott's powers... It's a good thing for him that Stryker was able to give him an "off" switch.

MORE sloppiness... "X-men" clearly showed that, without the visor, what comes out of Scott's peepers are not tight beams, but wide-spraying ones. Not so in "Wolverine".

[Paul A.]

I've not seen the movie, but if (as Susan's description says) Wolverine starts out thinking some guy who isn't his father is his father, maybe he's kept that guy's surname and his brother uses his real father's surname?

(Incidentally, thanks for mentioning the issues of how Scott can be in this movie and not recognise him in 'X-Men' - that's been bugging me ever since I found out Scott was in this.)

[Serge]

Paul A... Regarding Wolverine and his bro having different names, yes, that could work. By the way, I have this feeling that we're NOT supposed to assume that Victor Creed is "X-men"'s Sabertooth. But who knows for sure, considering all the inconsistencies?

By the way, my own favorite X-man has always been Hank McCoy. That goes all the way back to 1970, when he appeared in a Hulk story where he and another mutant are having problems crossing the border into Canada so he picks her up and pretends to be a crazy monster who just abducted a beautiful girl.

[Susan de Guardiola]

On the fatherhood thing: IMDB's cast list suggests that in the film the supposed father of Wolverine is John Howlett and the father of Sabretooth, who claims to be Wolverine's father, is Thomas Logan. Presumably that's where Wolverine being called Logan comes from.

The odd guy out seems to be Sabretooth, who has a last name (Creed) that doesn't match that of either putative father. I assume there's an explanation for that somewhere in the comics, but I've no idea what it is.

[Susan de Guardiola]

Serge,
The timing regarding Vietnam etc. can be explained by the magical nature of time-compression in comics in general and the Marvel universe in specific, in which a group of teenagers first assembled in the 1960s (the X-Men) are for the most part merely young adults in the 2000s. The movie is operating on subjective character time, which is a much shorter period than the calendar.

I find it best not to think too hard about these things.

[Susan de Guardiola]

AJ,
According to ComicMix here, there's going to be a Deadpool movie for your friend to look forward to.

[Serge]

Susan... There is also the possibility that this is not the Vietnam War, or that this may be an alternate reality where the war lasted longer, but, like you said, it's better no to look too closely.

[AJ]

Susan, he was talking about it last night. In fact, most of the group would not stop talking about the Wolverine movie, the Wolverine movie tie-in video game, and the possible upcoming Gambit and Deadpool movies.

During our regular Wednesday night game.

I hate people.

Also, yes, it's best not to think about time in the Marvel universe. It will just make your head hurt. Probably also best not to think about family relationships, last names, etc. Just focus on Hugh Jackman's muscles and forget the rest ;D

[Serge]

AJ... I think it's pretty much the norm for comic-book realities to have characters that age much more slowly than the rest of History around them. The one exception I can think of is Kurt Busiek's AstroCity. It has been around for less than 15 years, but age in real-time along with that reality's History, which goes back to the Revolutionary War.

As for Hugh Jackman's shoulders...
Or Robert Downey Jr's goatee...

[Susan de Guardiola]

Serge,
And here I thought you were straight!

At least with Wolverine and Sabretooth the not-aging is explicitly stated as a reason why they stay the same physically, though it's never explained why they aged to adulthood and then stopped. (To be fair to the movie, it's not the sort of thing that lends itself to visual explanations, and I don't know that it was ever explained in print either.)

I am reminded of how well Peter O'Donnell's 1980 speculation about a Modesty Blaise reboot would have worked -- Modesty, having originated in comics, has the same non-aging thing that has left her in her late twenties from the 1960s to the 2000s -- IIRC, he simply changed her origin from being an orphaned World War II displaced person to being an orphan of political refugees in the 1970s in the Balkans. Few other changes were needed. Now, of course, he could go back to making her a war refugee from the Balkans from the 1990s. Sadly, war-origins are easy to reboot. (They did the same thing in the Iron Man movie, I assume, updating his origin-war to Afghanistan? Originally Vietnam, I'm guessing.)

[Serge]

Susan...

Oh, I am straight. My comments about Hugh and Bob were just me shaking my head at the realization that women are easily swayed by mere physical attributes. Men of course go for a deeper kind of beauty.

Right.

Rebooting Modesty... If they did that, I'd suggest actually going back to the original. Yes, that'd make the stories into Historicals, but I think people would like that. As we go further and further away from the 1960s, they acquire a glow of Good Old Days - provided one skips the part about the fight for Civil Rights, the KKK, Nixon, Vietnam, and women being kept away from the same professional opportunities as men.

[Serge]

More comic-book timewarping... The Fantastic Four originally rushed that famous spaceflight of theirs to beat the Soviets in the race to the Moon. Ororo Storm saw her parents killed in the Middle-East during the 1960s.

[AJ]

Serge, Hugh Jackman is by all accounts a pretty cool/nice guy as well as having a sexy accent and nice muscles. It's hard not to be swayed ;)

Non-aging is something that tried my patience back when I read comics. I felt like it kept characters from developing as well. And you have to feel bad for the teenage characters like Jubilee, stuck in endless puberty. I always felt like the comics would be better if characters were allowed to age and retire, allowing new heroes to take over, but I guess the publishers would worry that people wouldn't want to read comics once their favorites had been phased out.

[Serge]

AJ... I'm sure there are worse fates than being stuck in endless puberty, but... By the way, Reed Richards & Sue Storm's kids, Franklin & Valeria, actually are finally growing up, albeit slowly. Speaking of Franklin, I got a kick out of "X-men 2"'s scene where Mystique logs on to Stryker's computer. Ever noticed the icon titled 'Franklin Richards'?

As for Hugh Jackman... From what I've seen and heard, yes, he truly is a nice guy. I remember that interview in 2000 where he described how he discovered there is no Santa Claus. It involved his finding his longjohn-clad dad putting gifts under the Tree.

[AJ]

Huh, I think when I stopped reading comics, the Richards only had one kid, but then again, I didn't read Fantastic 4, but Franklin had moved in with the Generation X team to hang out with some Morlock kids.

This leads to the interesting question... how long do comic book pregnancies last? 9 months? Several years? Three days, like on-line roleplaying pregnancies?

Hugh Jackman was on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart last week and he was really funny, and I heard that he spent $4000 buying breakfast for fans who were waiting in line for Wolverine in the wee hours of the morning. Hard to top that sort of class act.

[Susan de Guardiola]

Ororo Storm

I think you mean Ororo Munroe, a.k.a Storm.

[Susan de Guardiola]

Back at the Grand Rapids airport, with the wireless connection dropping every minute or so...

The problem with making Modesty stories into period pieces, along with the fact that that causes problems for the ones written in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, is that nowadays we don't really do the 1960s seriously. It turns cynical and we end up with stuff like Austin Powers. Or, gawds, the first MB movie.

But O'Donnell is pretty careful about avoiding current events. The books aren't really hugely specific to the '60s except in bits of fashion (though for me it's lost among the Britishisms) and technological development. The MB books are hardly the only adventure/thriller/spy stories that would occasionally have their plots destroyed if the characters had had cell phones. It's even a plot point in at least one novel that they are trapped in a radio dead zone, since being out of communication is critical and Modesty and Willie are both ham radio enthusiasts.

[Susan de Guardiola]

I guess the publishers would worry that people wouldn't want to read comics once their favorites had been phased out.

I think it's a reasonable worry. I got sufficiently attached to "my" generation of X-Men that I am less interested in a different team under the same name. And that's with a team title where you can to some degree have people come and go without totally losing continuity. It would be a lot harder to replace, e.g., Spiderman. They do manage it with sidekicks, I think; haven't there been several Robins over the years in the Batman comics?

[Serge]

AJ... That does sound like Hugh Jackman.

[Serge]

Susan... how long do comic book pregnancies last?

In the case of their daughter Valeria, no time at all.

Back when John Byrne was writing "FF", Sue got pregnant, but it failed because the whole gang had gone cavorting around the Negative Zone while she was still in the early stages. A couple of years ago, there was some reality-shifting and, when the story was over, Sue was 9-month pregnant from that now unfailed event.

I kid you not.

[Serge]

I've heard so many horrible things about that 1960s Modesty Blaise movie that one day I'll have to see for myself.

Yes, I am a masochistic cinephile.
Why do you ask?

[AJ]

Serge,

Thank you ever so much for reminding me why I no longer read any comic that isn't creator-owned. Un-losing a baby? Right. If only it worked like that.

[Serge]

AJ... Not only that, but Sue Storm didn't have to go thru morning sickness and all that stuff this time around.

[AJ]

I guess the only solace is that suddenly becoming 9 months pregnant would give her some hellacious stretchmarks :P

[Serge]

AJ... As far as I remember, she didn't suddenly become hugely pregnant. A reality where her pregnancy had never failed reasserted itself, but she still had her original reality's memories.

Ah, comic-book science...

[AJ]

So she had a body that had been pregnant for 9 months and a mind that was going "WHAT?!?"

That doesn't even make sense. I'm pretty sure that a lot of comic book writers are on crack. Why do their editors even allow them to get away with these storylines?

[Serge]

Why, AJ? Well, they have an issue to fill up. By the way, as Sue was about to give birth to her daughter, they figured out there'd be complications so that had to ask Doctor Doom for his help. Yup. Doc Doom, superscientific midwife...

[AJ]

If I had to make a list of Marvel comics characters who I'd want as my OB-GYN, Doctor Doom would be near the bottom of the list, along with anyone with ice powers, sharp claws, or the IQ of a rock.

I almost suspect that this sort of garbage happens because comic artists don't want to spend the next 9+ months (since comic issues rarely cover an entire month of story) drawing a pregnant woman.

[Serge]

By the way, according to a She-Hulk story I read in the early 1990s, Doctor Doom's fifth cousin is a dentist. Eek.

[AJ]

Just saw this today with the husband. It was ok, but I would have enjoyed it more if my friends hadn't already spoiled most of the good parts. General thoughts:

Plenty of easy-on-the-eyes character. Taylor Kitsch was very well-cast as Gambit, I felt that he brought that perfect level of just barely not smarmy charm. Ryan Reynolds made a good Wade Wilson/Deadpool and I do hope that if they do a movie for him, they get good script writers and give him more witty dialogs and my friends don't quote every line before I see it (jerks).

Didn't care too much for the portrayal of Emma Frost. Liked her better as the corset-as-outer-wear-bedecked White Queen of the Hellfire Club/Headmistress of Generation X. She was very bland in this movie, and I don't know what all this crap is that my friends keep spouting about the diamond skin being her "secondary mutation." What, did Marvel decide there were too many telepaths running around?

Was very disappointed that one of the caged mutants looked like Chamber (my favorite character back in the 90s), and then he disappeared. *sigh*

It was entertaining, but really not up to the standards of the other X-Men movies or Iron Man.

[Susan de Guardiola]

AJ:
I agree about Emma Frost, and I've no idea what secondary mutations are all about either.

I hope I wasn't one of the spoiling-people. I make some effort to avoid that in my posts, or to at least give good warning.

[Serge]

The cpmcept of secondary mutation was introduced by Grant Morrison a few years ago, when he was writing "X-men", to explain mutants with more than one power. That's why Angel recently acquired healing powers.

[Serge]

By the way, does anybody else remember the TV movie based on "Generation X"? The only two adult mutants shown at Xavier's school were Emma Frost and the Banshee.

[Marilee J. Layman]

I saw Star Trek yesterday and it was great!

[AJ]

The TV movie based on Generation X made me weep. Well, maybe not, but they omitted some of the best characters, and I was highly disappointed with it. And it makes sense that Emma Frost and Banshee were the only adults there, as it was the same in the comics.

In the comics, that team was based out of a separate school, which, IIRC, was in Massachusetts (as opposed to NY like the main school), and it was for teenage mutants.

Which, come to think of it, makes the main X-Men team a whole bunch of perpetual students, constantly going to school instead of going out and getting a real job ;)

[AJ]

Susan, your minor spoilers were nothing compared to my friends, who had to, for instance, sit there and totally over-analyze Gambit's powers and decide if they jived with what he could do in the comics, and to do this, had to describe every single thing that he did.

(sometimes I wonder why I call these people "friends" but I think it's because it's shorter than typing "those guys who I game with once a week")

[Serge]

AJ... Your so-called friends sound like the one you once mentionned who'd have blithely told you who Citizen Kane's Rosebud was.

As for "Generation X"... I had never read the comic-book so my reaction was different from yours. At least they were trying to treat the material seriously. Still, I had major problems with the villain, who was played way over the top by Matt Frewer.

[Serge]

Marilee... I haven't seen "Star Trek" yet and am not sure when I will. Not that I am only vaguely interested. It's just that my wife refuses to go see it because she feels betrayed by the women wearing skirts. I'll have to sneak away one evening when my wife has recovered from her surgery, and somehow I'll make myself not notice the skirts, which I don't care for either - not in a military context anyway.

[Serge]

AJ... As for the main X-Men team being a whole bunch of perpetual students, constantly going to school instead of going out and getting a real job...

If I remember correctly, in the comics, they were supposed to be in their very early twenties. Still, in retrospect, bringing in the New Mutants (even Cannonball) was a good move, and made the originals into teachers, a smart move that the movies copied.

"What DO you teach, Professor Logan?"
"Art."

[Neil Willcox]

In a controlled environment, there's no reason that it might not be kept comfortably sub-tropical, making bare legs practical.

But in that case I'd expect male characters to be in shorts and bare arms to go with it.

But yes, it was a good film, and also a good Star Trek film. Thanks to some time travel stuff, it's explicitly stated that this isn't the original story of how Kirk, Spock, the Enterprise etc. got started, but is a brand new story, albeit related to the origial.

Things that AJ's friends would give away (note that the following is 100% not in the film):

Kirk and Spock turn out to be half-brothers;
Spock finally uses the Vulcan groin pinch;
Bones acquires a CGI smart-alec sidekick;
Khan Noonien Singh makes a surprise guest appearance;
Purple wigs and silver mini-dresses are standard unifrom for depe-space operations, string vests for underwater service, as shown in this clip;
At the end Samuel L. Jackson appears and offers the crew a job with the Avengers program

[Serge]

Neil... I'm not sure women working in Engineering would love climbing up inside the Jefferies Tube, especially with the guys at the bottom.

When you wrote "purple wigs", I was afraid I knew what I'd see at the end of that link. That being said, I want Ed Straker's jumpsuit.

[AJ]

At the end Samuel L. Jackson appears and offers the crew a job with the Avengers program

This is what happens when you let fan fic writers loose on a movie script ;)

Serge, regarding my friends, I'm thinking in this case, they may not have realized that Chris and I hadn't seen the movie yet, since everyone else had. The other friend, who now lives out of state, would continue to give spoilers even after you said "Dude, I haven't seen it yet and I'm going to see it tomorrow." He'd be all "Cool! So you're going to love the part where they find out that Rosebud is..."

[Serge]

AJ... Rosebud turns out to be Kirk as the Turnabout Intruder who fell thru the Guardian of Forever, winds up in Kane's Xanadu and, after a few drinks, one thing leads to another then Gary Seven shows up and hires Kirk (played by Teri Garr) who then meets the male Kirk.

[Susan de Guardiola]

Clearly I need to see Star Trek and give you guys a thread to discuss it, don't I?

In the meantime, avoid real spoilers for my sake, please! (The fake ones are great, though.)

[Neil Willcox]

I'm not sure women working in Engineering would love climbing up inside the Jefferies Tube, especially with the guys at the bottom.

You're right! Clearly they should be wearing hot pants.

What?

[Serge]

Neil... And silver go-go boots?

[AJ]

And the only way the outfit would be complete is with a halter top, with the Starfleet badge nestled between their breasts.

[Serge]

AJ... Isn't that the uniform that Starfleet women wear in the Evil Universe?

[Susan de Guardiola]

I'll make myself not notice the skirts, which I don't care for either - not in a military context anyway.

Well, that's a relief. I mean, really, I would NEVER, EVER wear a costume like that. Not even when I was a teenager at a Star Trek convention.

[Serge]

Susan... The 'funny' thing is that women originally wore pants too, both in The Menagerie and in Where No Man Has Gone Before. Guess whose idea it was to later have them wear those stupid skirts? Yup. Mister Progressive Male himself, Gene Roddenberry.

[Carol Witt]

My husband and I went to see Star Trek last night. Unfortunately, watching a movie filmed using a wobble/swoopy-cam on a giant screen plus medication that makes my brain wobble equals an extremely unhappy brain and stomach. I forced myself to stay for about fifteen minutes before fleeing.

[Serge]

Carol... "Star Trek - The Motion Sickness"?

[Marilee J. Layman]

Great costume, Susan!

Neil, I got suspended four times from high school (two each from two schools) and while I thought then they were all for free speech protests, I no longer believe that girls should be able to wear hot pants and halters to high school. It makes the boys idiots. (I had to borrow the hot pants and halter to wear to protest because I wouldn't have worn them.)

[AJ]

Boys are idiots no matter what the girls around them are wearing.

Point: At gaming last night, the two girls were both clothed normally. And yet two of the boys still thought it was a great idea to go tumbling screaming down the mountainside that we were supposed to be sneaking down.

Maybe if we'd been wearing halter tops, they'd have been too busy staring at our... assets... to make stupid decisions.

[Serge]

Marilee... I no longer believe that girls should be able to wear hot pants and halters to high school. It makes the boys idiots.

I just reread a comment made above and I have come to the conclusion that hot pants need not be around for me to be an idiot.

[Susan de Guardiola]

Great costume, Susan!

Thank you, Marilee! I was starting to feel unappreciated, with zero comments either here or from the two people to whom I emailed the URL.

I vaguely remember protests from the boys at my high school because girls could wear fairly short skirts and boys were not allowed to wear shorts of any length. So the boys protested by wearing skirts to school. I don't remember the outcome.

[Susan de Guardiola]

AJ,
Depending on the sort of gaming session it is and the relationship between the characters, having the boys act like idiots might actually be useful. Easier to beat them at strategy.

[Neil Willcox]

I no longer believe that girls should be able to wear hot pants and halters to high school. It makes the boys idiots.

Now I'm working in a High School, I agree with you. Not that boys won't act like idiots anyway, but hot pants and halters would not help one little bit.

There's a school uniform where I work. The other maths mentor, who is in his early 20s, once made the mistake of turning up in black trousers, a white shirt and a navy-blue cardigan, which made him look enough like a pupil that he could see other members of staff about to ask him where his tie was before realising that he wasn't bound by the pupil dress code.

[Neil Willcox]

Oops, I meant to say "Excellent costume - if some bizarre time-warp had brought you to the premiere of the film last week, the local paper would undoubtedly have run your picture"

[AJ]

Susan, the stupid boys in question are/were members of our adventuring group (if their characters survive, they're getting kicked out!) and were aware of the plan to sneak in. So, rather than a: run down and help them or b: run down and kill them, one of the non-idiot guys and I looked at each other, and decided they were now our distraction, and stealthed off without them :D

Also, I really love that the boys at your school protested by wearing skirts! Good for them.

[Serge]

I saw ST today. Hated it.

[Susan de Guardiola]

Neil,
Well, I still have the costume, but I'd need to lose twenty pounds or more to fit into it well. It didn't occur to me that it would be a good project to do this and wear it to the premiere.

[Serge]

Susan... Is that one of your first costumes, if not the first one? I am impressed.

[Susan de Guardiola]

It was my first masquerade entry, but I did not make the dress myself. I sewed the patch onto it, that's all. A high school friend made it.

After this one, I started making my own, starting with Catwoman.

[Serge]

I stand corrected, Susan. I did remember that Catwoman was your first masquerade costume, but I thought that maybe the Starfleet was an earlier outfit of yours but done as a hall costume. (Yes, I do split hairs. Why do you ask?)

[Susan de Guardiola]

I have done a lot of different hall costumes over the years, some of them probably predating the Trek costume.

[Paul A.]

One of my friends does a space opera webcomic where the setting is much influenced by Star Trek, including the costumes. Including the very short skirts. Which are optional -- for all crewmembers. To drive the point home, the ship's captain has been seen wearing the short-skirt version of the ship's uniform at least as often as any of his female subordinates.

[Serge]

ST-TNG tried to justify the miniskirts by having a bodybuilding male crewmember wear one. That didn't last long.

[Marilee J. Layman]

Susan, is Catwoman spandex? It looks accurate, but uncomfortable!

[Susan de Guardiola]

Yes, it's spandex. I used a silver spray on it to make it glitter like Julie Newmar's outfit did.

[Serge]

AJ... By the way, earlier, you refered to a mutant called Chambers. Who is he? The name sounds familiar and, yes, I could google it, but what's the fun in that?

[AJ]

Serge, Chamber was a bitter, sarcastic British guy in Generation X. His body was full of some sort of energy (telekinetic or something) and at some point in his past, it went kablooey and blew out a bunch of his chest and the lower half of his face. So he always walked around with his chest and lower face wrapped in leather straps, which I thought looked pretty damn cool.

I was pretty certain that in Wolverine, there was a guy in one of the mutant cages who had reddish hair and the lower face mask. But then I didn't see him in the herd of mutants following Cyclops and Emma Frost out of the mutant zoo, so maybe it was wishful thinking.

By the way, there's just something about me and the lower face mask, because my favorite character in Blade of the Immortal wears one, too.

[Serge]

AJ... Speaking of the imprisonned mutants in "Wolverine", one of them looked like Toad. He had the tongue, anyway. As for the one who was only a blur, I wonder if that's supposed to be Quicksilver. There were two girls who looked like identical twins. Not sure who they could be.

[Serge]

So, seen "Star Trek" yet, Susan?

[Susan de Guardiola]

Serge,
I wondered about the twins, too, but both my friend and I were stumped. It would be interesting to look at all the caged mutants with generous use of the pause button on a DVD player to try to figure them out.

No Trek yet. You'll see a blog post when I do. May not be until next week, since this week I am preparing for Balticon.

[Serge]

Have a good time at Balticon, Susan. As for "Star Tre", I am eager to read what if anything you have to say about the movie. And about Winona Ryder's strange bustline.

[AJ]

The twins were listed as "Mutant Twin 1" and "Mutant Twin 2" in the credits, so that sure doesn't help.

I always thought that The Toad was one of the most pathetic mutants out there.

Also, I keep getting mixed up on who has already shown up in the movies, due to having watched a few episodes of the "Wolverine and the X-Men" cartoon at Comic Con. The Toad was in that.

[Susan de Guardiola]

AJ,
Hmm, maybe they just made them up.

Oh, hey, wait...Alpha Flight. *wracks brain* Northstar and Aurora?

Serge,
I've got tentative plans to see Star Trek with a friend on Tuesday night if I'm not too tired after the con.

[Susan de Guardiola]

Serge,
I think the whole "secondary mutation" thing is a bit of a cop-out. But whatever.

AJ,
Which, come to think of it, makes the main X-Men team a whole bunch of perpetual students, constantly going to school instead of going out and getting a real job

Ever wonder how they're all supported financially? I can sort of see perpetual students -- it's like professional ballet dancers, who still take class on a regular (daily) basis because they need to to keep their skills honed to a high degree. And with slow aging I am not sure any of them are intended to be more than 22 or 23, so it's not like they're 50 and still going to school. I recall there used to be a definite divide between the "kids" like Kitty Pryde and the New Mutants and the full-fledged X-Men, too.

[Susan de Guardiola]

Short skirts on men are nice, at least if the man has the body for them.

[Serge]

Susan... About how the X-men are financially supported, in the comics anyway, that actually was explained. One of the original X-ment is Angel, aka Warren Worthington, who comes from a very wealthy family. I expect that there may also be contributions from other wealthy people, some of whom are closet-case mutants.

The comics have recently established that not all students can call themselves X-men. They have to have gone thru an ordeal of fire.

Not that there are many mutants left around the world. One of the "X" books apparently had the Scarlet Witch shut down the X-gene in almost all mutants, and there are only about 300 of them left. That may have increased Marvel's sales, but it has soured me a bit on the whole thing, especially since one of my favorite scenes in the 2nd X-men movie was when Xavier is inside Cerebro with Wolverine, who sees millions of lights.

"These lights represent every living person on the planet. These white lights are the humans... and these are the mutants. You see, Logan? We're not as alone as you think."

[Serge]

Susan... Short skirts on men are nice, at least if the man has the body for them

Some ladies,even a young Mormon woman, have complimented me on my upper body, but nobody has said anything about my legs.

[Susan de Guardiola]

Ah, I'd forgotten about Angel. I also fancy Xavier must have had some money of his own.

I suggest you ignore the comic that claimed there are only 300ish left. We are talking Marvel here. There will be as many as needed.

As far as complimenting your legs: well, are you wearing short skirts? :)

[Serge]

Unfortunately, the only X-men comic-book that I still read is the very one that keeps reminding us of how few mutants remain.

As for my legs... Nope, no skirt. No hot pants either. That my legs are always covered is probably why young Mormon ladies have never praised my lower limbs.

[Susan de Guardiola]

Serge:
I can tell you from personal experience that if you don't expose your legs, no one will comment on them. Perhaps you should get a pair of boots like mine. :)

[Serge]

General Zod in hot pants and cuissarde boots would definitely get me some comments.

[AJ]

Super heroes would have to have wealthy investors, or be millionaire playboys themselves, as really, it's impossible to hold down a day job when you're saving the world. This same problem crops up in roleplaying games set in the modern day.

Serge, you could get a Utilikilt and show off your legs. ThinkGeek sells them.

And thank you for reminding me once again why I don't read Marvel comics anymore. Shutting off the X gene? *eye roll*

[Serge]

I expect the X gene will be shut off until some riter decides that a way to increase sales is to turn it back on. My understanding is that the gene is off, but not gone, which means that their next generation's X gene would be on. Or something.

As for my wearig a kilt, I dunno... I could ask my wife, but she's not likely to be objective.