Days of Future Past The Official James McAvoy/Professor Xavier Thread - Part 1

[HIA]

with this creative team, the movies wont ever be about the X-Men, but more about Charles and his friends/enemies.

 

[Loganbabe]

That is funny. Geeky minds think alike??? t:

I guess so!

Mcavoy was a great young Xavier, now its time to hand the role back over to Stewart.

 

[Nerial]

My only issue is that I don't see how Xavier can/should carry yet another film. He should return to being the guy who goes "Go X-Men!" and then the movie should be about the actual X-Men.

Hahaha...you're on the wrong thread for that idea, my friend!

I absolutely love how they're taking the "spiritual leader" of the group and showing his backstory, which is perfect for prequels. Second, Kinberg has already confirmed that, while FC was Erik's story and DOFP was Charles', Apocalypse will be both their stories.

If young Xavier is pushed to the sidelines now, I won't bother even watching the next film. He's played an important role in the last two movies and it's been great--why stop now?

 

[Loganbabe]

If young Xavier is pushed to the sidelines now, I won't bother even watching the next film. He's played an important role in the last two movies and it's been great--why stop now?

Exactly. Charles won't be pushed to the sidelines, I'm pretty sure, but if they by some reason decide to do it, I won't bother watching the next film too.

Charles' - and Erik's - story - is the single most important aspect about the whole series, and it's getting more and more intriguing. What will happen between them in Apocalypse? Why did Erik left the helmet and what is Charles going to do about it? Will their friendship and alliance truly be settled in the next film? It's so exciting to think about it, can't wait to see what they'll do. I ask the same as Nerial, why would they stop it?

 

[JP]

BTW, y'all should help Chuck out. You can post once a day.

http://forums.superherohype.com/showthread.php?t=479463&page=14

 

[ciscostudent561]

He's played an important role in the last two movies and it's been great--why stop now?

why would they stop it?

thats why
and a real good reason why too.

 

[Great Mind(s)]

I love young Xavier but so far we have established Magneto with FC and Xavier with DOFP, so shouldn't we start getting the X-Men team developed? I would hate if Apocalypse does to Cyke and Jean what FC did to like Banshee and Havok. Not that they were bad, just kinda one note supporting characters to the real stars McAvoy, Lawrence and Fassbender.

I want an arc for young Xavier in Apocalypse but he should be more of the mentor now. Give Cyclops a big role, maybe let the film be through the X-Men's pov not Xavier's...

 

[Nerial]

Exactly. Charles won't be pushed to the sidelines, I'm pretty sure, but if they by some reason decide to do it, I won't bother watching the next film too.

Charles' - and Erik's - story - is the single most important aspect about the whole series, and it's getting more and more intriguing. What will happen between them in Apocalypse? Why did Erik left the helmet and what is Charles going to do about it? Will their friendship and alliance truly be settled in the next film? It's so exciting to think about it, can't wait to see what they'll do. I ask the same as Nerial, why would they stop it?

One thing that I really feel they need to do in Apocalypse--just one time--is have Magneto actually do something good for Charles. I don't mean bake him cupcakes... ...but where something happens, something horrible like Apocalypse starts killing weaker mutants, and Magneto actually steps in to help Charles stop him, and maybe even risks his life at some point to do so.

The reason I say is because, although I loved DOFP, the young Charles/Erik friendship really does feel very one-sided. I need to see some reason why Charles would believe Erik has some humanity, not just "Well, when he's older and wiser, Erik will be a good guy." Something's gotta give earlier than that, even if it's just a glimpse, into why Charles would try to help someone who is clearly dangerous to be around.

Oh, and I definitely want to see the students--Scott, Jean, Storm--heck, yeah. But it's a perfect opportunity for them to be young and inexperienced, and in need of Xavier and his school. I'd love to see how that student/mentor relationship started, and why the school is so important to those young students.

 

[psylockolussus]

I love young Xavier but so far we have established Magneto with FC and Xavier with DOFP, so shouldn't we start getting the X-Men team developed? I would hate if Apocalypse does to Cyke and Jean what FC did to like Banshee and Havok. Not that they were bad, just kinda one note supporting characters to the real stars McAvoy, Lawrence and Fassbender.

I want an arc for young Xavier in Apocalypse but he should be more of the mentor now. Give Cyclops a big role, maybe let the film be through the X-Men's pov not Xavier's...

I don't think see Cyke/Storm/Jean getting a role similar to Havok and Banshee in FC because that would be just a letdown. Maybe something similar to the role of Beast/Mystique in FC.

 

[Loganbabe]

One thing that I really feel they need to do in Apocalypse--just one time--is have Magneto actually do something good for Charles. I don't mean bake him cupcakes... ...but where something happens, something horrible like Apocalypse starts killing weaker mutants, and Magneto actually steps in to help Charles stop him, and maybe even risks his life at some point to do so.

The reason I say is because, although I loved DOFP, the young Charles/Erik friendship really does feel very one-sided. I need to see some reason why Charles would believe Erik has some humanity, not just "Well, when he's older and wiser, Erik will be a good guy." Something's gotta give earlier than that, even if it's just a glimpse, into why Charles would try to help someone who is clearly dangerous to be around.

Yes, exactly. I was kind of expecting this to happen in DOFP - Erik doing something for Charles, anything. Instead, he just betrayed him again and put him in another life-risking situation. At this point, it's getting really hard to believe in any semblance of friendship, at least from Erik's side. He's so blinded by his rage against humanity that he could very well wipe out anything on his way, including his only friend.

So I expect this to change in Apocalypse. It's interesting what James said in an interview "In the end Erik says 'goodbye old friend' but Charles just says 'goodbye'". So even though he let Magneto go, he's feeling colder towards him. I guess it's up to Erik to put their friendship on the right path, in the next film. Especially because we can't deal with another "joins them, betrays them" storyline.

 

[Bren]

I found Charles whiny.
Well-acted whiny, but whiny nonetheless.

Yeah, of course. Once you are a man and you show people that you're suffering, you're whiny. Real men don't suffer or cry.

Yeah of course, once you prefer a character/actor, noone is allowed to dislike said character/actor.

Different strokes and all that.

Edit: I do agree that there really needs some element of true friendship from Magneto's side. So far it's all been Xavier...

 

[Mrs Vimes]

Why would she have to save herself? Erik isn't trying to kill her anymore; her blood has already been collected by Trask. All Raven needed to do was step out of the bunker as herself (it's not like the humans had guns at that point) and walk away from the up-coming bloodshed.

I never got the impression she pretended to be Nixon to save herself--she even tells Erik to kill her and spare everything else.

Fair point, Raven didn't necessarily need to save herself, but I find it totally implausible that she would risk her life in order to save everyone in the bunker. It kinda felt more like she wanted to get Erik out of the way so that she could get on with her own agenda.

Raven really seemed absurdly fanatical about her mission to kill Trask, to the point of following him into the bunker which was frankly suicidal. After what happened in Paris, he was bound to have the mutant beeper thing on him at all times.

This follows her original argument with Erik in the phone booth (or whatever that was), that she didn't want a war; she just wanted Trask dead because he was solely responsible for killing mutants.

Well if she didn't want the war, then executing Trask in front of the president and his aides and potentially the world TV audience is not exactly the brightest idea. Nor was the idea of killing him in front of politicians and military guys in Paris.

And that whole conversation with Erik didn't make much sense to me to be honest. How come Erik's explanation about her blood dooming them all make perfect sense to Raven? If she somehow managed to learn everything about the Sentinels and the future war, why does it seem to bother her so little? I mean yes, Erik's solution is all sorts of wrong, but Raven's "I don't want war" makes little sense when yeah, in fact there will be a war, and yet she still seems to care about nothing else except her personal revenge mission? And if she doesn't care for Erik's view, then what's with her "it's either us or them" line to Charles at the end of the airport conversation, which sounds just like something Erik would say?

I guess my complaints about Raven and other characters are all to do with the fact that, with this movie, I felt like the characters were there to serve the plot and move it forward, whereas the best movies in these series were the opposite. Magneto's plot in X1, for instance, was IMO total and utter nonsense, but it never bothered me because the plot in X1 was really secondary to the characters and their interactions.

How can he convince Raven to think of the big picture when he just, not minutes before, got the message himself from older Xavier? Before that, young Charles wasn't even convinced.

I didn't get that impression. When Charles was telling Erik on the plane that humans were going to eradicate them, to me it sounded like, at that point, he already accepted Logan's story.

The bottom line is--he could have stopped her for the third time, but then what? Should he just keep tracking her down all around the world, freezing her every time she gets close to Trask or someone else she feels needs to be killed? In the end, she had to make the choice not to kill Trask, and nothing else would have worked besides Charles locking her in a basement the rest of her life or killing her.

Well yes, Raven had to be convinced to stop. But convincing could have been done after getting her away from the scene first. I mean, yes we know perfectly well that Raven is not going to shoot Trask, because it's the end of the movie and we're not watching some nihilistic indie film. But really, Charles gambled a lot there.

One thing that I really feel they need to do in Apocalypse--just one time--is have Magneto actually do something good for Charles. I don't mean bake him cupcakes... ...but where something happens, something horrible like Apocalypse starts killing weaker mutants, and Magneto actually steps in to help Charles stop him, and maybe even risks his life at some point to do so.

The reason I say is because, although I loved DOFP, the young Charles/Erik friendship really does feel very one-sided. I need to see some reason why Charles would believe Erik has some humanity, not just "Well, when he's older and wiser, Erik will be a good guy." Something's gotta give earlier than that, even if it's just a glimpse, into why Charles would try to help someone who is clearly dangerous to be around.

Yeah. Especially now that the future where old Erik and Charles work together is no longer the future of their younger selves we see in DoFP, so it becomes irrelevant. And really, Erik didn't become a good guy because he was older and wiser - it kinda took the end of the world to change him.

My worry though is that the film makers will simply roll with this newly re-established status quo - Erik is a near-sociopath who will sacrifice anything for his goals, Charles has an eternal hope for Erik despite everything - and not see much reason to change it in any way. Like it's enough for them to simply call each other friends without any acts of friendship on Erik's part. Especially now that Singer is back; I've no doubt he loves the characters and their relationship, but he might just have a very certain and very set view on how the relationship works.

And now that they also threw Raven into the mix, there might be even less reason. Because if they continue with the whole saving-Raven's-soul thing in Apocalypse and make Erik and Charles' relationship be all about Raven again, then it's like Erik has to be the bad guy and the "devil" on Raven's shoulder, so to speak.

I'd totally watch Erik baking cupcakes for Charles BTW

Oh, and I definitely want to see the students--Scott, Jean, Storm--heck, yeah. But it's a perfect opportunity for them to be young and inexperienced, and in need of Xavier and his school. I'd love to see how that student/mentor relationship started, and why the school is so important to those young students.

I can't wait for Charles to have students again t:

It's interesting what James said in an interview "In the end Erik says 'goodbye old friend' but Charles just says 'goodbye'". So even though he let Magneto go, he's feeling colder towards him.

Though at the same time, his feelings towards Erik are in a way better place than they were at the beginning of DoFP, when he just wanted to smash his face in and called him a monster.

 

[X-Maniac]

One thing that I really feel they need to do in Apocalypse--just one time--is have Magneto actually do something good for Charles. I don't mean bake him cupcakes... ...but where something happens, something horrible like Apocalypse starts killing weaker mutants, and Magneto actually steps in to help Charles stop him, and maybe even risks his life at some point to do so.

The reason I say is because, although I loved DOFP, the young Charles/Erik friendship really does feel very one-sided. I need to see some reason why Charles would believe Erik has some humanity, not just "Well, when he's older and wiser, Erik will be a good guy." Something's gotta give earlier than that, even if it's just a glimpse, into why Charles would try to help someone who is clearly dangerous to be around.

Oh, and I definitely want to see the students--Scott, Jean, Storm--heck, yeah. But it's a perfect opportunity for them to be young and inexperienced, and in need of Xavier and his school. I'd love to see how that student/mentor relationship started, and why the school is so important to those young students.

That's a good point, and it would be worth them showing that.

But I would say that Xavier always harbours some hope for Erik's salvation - that Erik can be 'saved' from himself.

Charles saw the good in Erik when he accessed his mind, and he also saw that terrible experiences (at the hands of Shaw) shaped him into someone vengeful, driven and unforgiving. He still hopes, though, that Erik can be persuaded to be a force for good. Perhaps he is partly a little terrified at what Erik could do as a force for pure evil - he could end any hope of human/mutant co-existence and make mutants seen as terrorists and evil abominations for which Sentinels would be fully justified.

The arrival of Apocalypse - someone who has no qualms about removing the weakest of humans and mutants - should be an ideal opportunity to show that Erik is not THAT far gone, not utterly and remorselessly evil...

 

[Loganbabe]

James is the new face of Prada menswear.

 

[The Guard]

That is a good question. One of the biggest problems I had with X3 was how they handled Xavier (even before I became a huge fan of the character). He was so horribly inconsistent, and when he tells Logan, "she has to be controlled," and especially, "I don't need to explain myself, especially to you,"--God, it's one of the main reasons I was worried about Kinberg writing the DOFP script. Just awful, awful writing in X3. Xavier can be manipulative; he can be controlling, but this was just over the top immoral stuff here.

What's inconsistent, exactly?

Xavier has secrets, Xavier does what he has to do much of the time.

And Xavier had a point. If anyone understood "doing what had to be done", Logan should have.

As for him being occassionally unlikeable, manipulative, ends-justify-the-means, etc...I wish people would read a comic book sometimes.

 

[mabromov]

Hahaha this is hilarous. It's a little messed up but still funny.

http://youtu.be/I-iMVsi0IuY

 

[herolee10]

Original timeline wise, I just realized that Professor X is somewhat involuntarily responsible for having played a hand in not only creating/allowing the dark and grim future that we saw at the start of "DOFP", but for also having help create the three biggest modern day threats in the form of Magneto, Mystique, and the Phoenix.

I mean he helped Erik gain a better understanding of how to use his full potential, let alone getting him started on the "Mutant Agenda" in the first place...he took Raven in as a child and also got her down the path as well, and he was responsible for having created the Phoenix persona when he placed mental blocks in Jean's mind.

In a big way, DOFP was like Professor X's big redemption arc/film in having solved most of the mistakes that he made (which cost Earth big time) in the past.

 

[JP]

Original timeline wise, I just realized that Professor X is somewhat involuntarily responsible for having played a hand in not only creating/allowing the dark and grim future that we saw at the start of "DOFP", but for also having help create the three biggest modern day threats in the form of Magneto, Mystique, and the Phoenix.

I mean he helped Erik gain a better understanding of how to use his full potential, let alone getting him started on the "Mutant Agenda" in the first place...he took Raven in as a child and also got her down the path as well, and he was responsible for having created the Phoenix persona when he placed mental blocks in Jean's mind.

In a big way, DOFP was like Professor X's big redemption arc/film in having solved most of the mistakes that he made (which cost Earth big time) in the past.

Another reason why the film is so powerful for me.

 

[Nerial]

Original timeline wise, I just realized that Professor X is somewhat involuntarily responsible for having played a hand in not only creating/allowing the dark and grim future that we saw at the start of "DOFP", but for also having help create the three biggest modern day threats in the form of Magneto, Mystique, and the Phoenix.

I mean he helped Erik gain a better understanding of how to use his full potential, let alone getting him started on the "Mutant Agenda" in the first place...he took Raven in as a child and also got her down the path as well, and he was responsible for having created the Phoenix persona when he placed mental blocks in Jean's mind.

In a big way, DOFP was like Professor X's big redemption arc/film in having solved most of the mistakes that he made (which cost Earth big time) in the past.

That's an interesting way of looking at it. But I also like to think that he's not responsible for what other people ultimately decide to do. He helped Erik harness his power, but it was Erik's decision to follow Shaw's philosophies instead of Charles'. The worst Charles did to Raven was treat her like a little sister--it was her decision to leave, to pick up Erik's cause, to kill Trask, which led to her capture and it was humans torturing her/experimenting on her that led to her downfall and the creation of the Sentinels.

As for the Phoenix...(sigh). Another poop-coated present from Ratner and X3, but I guess we have to consider it canon, so that's probably Xavier's biggest mistake, trying to control Jean with his powers.

That all said, I do see your point--DOFP does redeem his character and the mistakes he did make (or, to be fair, contributed to). I think he did much more good than harm throughout the saga, but just like most things in X-men, it's never easy to package as "good" or "evil"--it falls within that blurry gray area.

Which is one of the reasons it works so well.

 

[Dark Raven]

How come, if Professor X can read minds, he couldn't recite what Wolverine said to him in First class? He says that he remembers him, and that he's going to say to Wolverine the same thing he told him: to **** off. But Wolverine didn't say that. He said to him to go **** himself.

And Wolverine didn't even turn around but had his back to him and Magneto in First Class. How would Xavier remember his face?

 

[psylockolussus]

His power during that was a little off since he was taking some serum to inactivate his mutant powers. He was also drinking a lot.

And Xavier most likely first saw his face in Cerebro.