X3

[jack]

I saw X-men 3 again. It's still well done (though still silly in all the ways people said it was before).

* It definitely benefits from a big screen
* Magneto and the tattoo, magneto and the bridge, Hank "There comes a time when any man... oh, you get the idea", are all my favourite moments.
* It's still stupid to build a magneto-proof prison out of metal. What's next, out of money or high explosives?
* I notice Magneto, despite being willing to kill all humans in the world last film, still attacks on foot rather than, eg. dropping a nickel-iron asteroid on alcatrz island
* Alternatively, I notice Storm, Magneto, Wolverine, Charles, Pyro, etc could nearly run the economy of a small country. What would it be worth to never have any storms devastate any coast for ever, or free space travel, or free heat, or free meat? Oil barons get legal breaks, how about mutants? :)

ETA: Did Magneto's powers start coming back for any particular reason? Is he just that cool? Do class 4 mutants have greater powers in other ways? Or did they just not have enough long term testing for the cure and it's going to wear off for *everyone*. That would have been handy to know before.

ETA: The academy is going to be fun with Jimmy in some classes, it'll keep some people on their toes.

Comments

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

It's odd: I keep using the word "normal" whereas you say "human"

Ooh, good point. I think I was just picking up the terminology from them (though I'm not certain). Certainly, "humans" is disturbing, I'd definitely include mutants in humanity, even phoenix, the suggestion otherwise is disturbing. (But it didn't bother *me* particularly because I'm used to the idea of non-humans automatically being people and having the same rights, etc)

But then, "normal" has awkward connotations too. You use it to mean most common, but it could alternatively suggest there's something wrong with people who *aren't* normal.

If you admit "mutant" as an objective word for the people in X-men, what is a fair word for everyone else? Mundane suggests itself, but is offensive the other way.

[simont]

Indeed, "mundane" is of course how the Psi Corps refer to normals behind their backs.

I can just about see your point about "normal", but I still think it's less bad than either "mundane" or "human", and importantly although some people think there's automatically something wrong with not being normal, not everyone does. Both the other terms are hard to see as anything other than insulting on the part of whoever thought them up.

I don't know what you'd pick if you still weren't happy. Hmm. "Mutant" means "changed", so we're implicitly recognising that humans used to not have special powers and now some of them do. So "original", or some synonym of that, might be a place to look which doesn't introduce any more connotations than are already implicit in "mutant"?