BF117946

17946 X-men: First Class

The movie I chose to do a response on is called “X-men: First Class”. It shows many developmental issues throughout the entire movie. The movie starts with Erik Lensherr later known as “Magneto” in Nazi Germany as a young boy being separated from his parents. As you could imagine this could cause any number of developmental problems for a child. On top of his parents being taken away he is a mutant and Kevin Bacon’s character is a scientist who is looking for other mutants and wants to experiment on them. The movie poses questions on how each character comes to terms with their being a mutant. Much like a normal person would have to figure out their own life and the different changes they are going through. Teenagers face this problem when they start to go through puberty; however, in the movie it is more extreme since instead of what is considered normal changes, they are going through extreme changes that are not understood by society. There are many characters that have issues that they have to come to terms with throughout the course of the movie. The first is Erik Lensherr who as a boy in Nazi Germany watches his mother executed right in front of him as a motivator to get him to use his power. As the movie progresses, he becomes consumed by revenge and has become very violent and lethal in the processes. Throughout this time he has only known one way to use his abilities to their fullest and it includes being in the moment and anger. Later, Charles Xavier, teaches Erik that in order to use his abilities to their full extent that he must find a balance between his anger and letting go of what happened to him. This happens when they are in training at the mansion and Charles asks Erik to turn a huge satellite dish with his power. Erik tries to use anger and force and fails but then Charles shows him a memory that he has of his mother and calms him and with that feeling, between force and serenity as Charles puts it, Erik is able to move the massive object. In the end, however, Erik chooses to go back to his fear and belief that people will always be afraid of what they do not know and that people like himself will have to fight everyone else. Another character, Charles Xavier, is almost the exact opposite of Erik except that his parents were not taken from him but they were not around all the same. He came from a very wealthy family and had little to no contact with his parents, unlike Erik who was very attached to his mother until she was forcibly taken away. Unlike Erik, Charles has no anger towards non mutants. All he wants is to be accepted for who he is and share that with other people since his parents were not interested or a part of his life. He tries everything he can to only see the good in people because he believes that if he can help people fit in he will be accepted himself as part of something. This is shown many times throughout the movie when Charles first comes into contact with Raven (mystique) who broke into his house and was stealing food. At the site of a blue girl, instead of being scared he embraces her with open arms and tries to take care of her. Another time it is shown is when he meets Erik for the first time. Erik is trying to kill Sebastian, Kevin Bacon’s character, and Charles saves him from drowning after Sebastian gets away in a submarine. Charles knows Erik’s intentions and yet still tries to see the good in him to try and bring yet another person closer to him to possibly fill a void left by his parents. Two other characters have a different problem than Charles and Erik’s whose were based on their issues with their parents. Raven and Hank McCoy are two people whose problems are more focused on their looks rather than emotional connections. Raven is a shape shifter whose normal form is blue. She struggles with her appearance always changing her form to hide her real self. Many teenagers experience the same thing as they grow up. The awkwardness of puberty causes many teens to try and hide or change the way they look to try and fit in. Raven just has the ability to completely change her appearance. It is only after meeting Erik that with his help she is finally able to accept who she is and how she looks. He tells her that she is beautiful just the way she is and that if she is using energy to hide who she is then she can never be able to fully live up to the potential that is in front of her. Hank McCoy is very similar to Raven in regards to his wanting to hide his physical mutations from everyone else out of fear of being seen as a “freak” or an outcast. He relies on his intelligence to try and find a cure to his feet, believing his problem is something he can solve with science. He meets Raven and thinks that the cure to both their problems lies in her mutation. He also believes that no matter what happens that they will never be accepted as beautiful. It is because of these reasons that he continues trying to find a cure for his appearance. Unlike Raven he can’t accept who he is and he injects himself with what he believes is a cure. It backfires on him and instead of curing his appearance makes it much worse. It turns him into a furry blue beast. After all this Raven tells him he has never looked better and his appearance finally reflects his uniqueness. He finally begins to accept himself. This movie shows extremes of different social and developmental situations. It uses mutation as a more visual and imaginative way to over emphasize the social and physical developmental differences. The emphasis on revenge of the death of his mother, in Erik’s case, or the absence of a mother in Charles’ case is just one way the director shows how the effect of a parent or lack thereof, can have on a child. The movie also shows mutants as outcasts and sometimes during the development of a child, they can feel like an outcast themselves. This gives the viewers something to relate to. The purpose of this movie from the director’s standpoint, and for most fictional works, is first and foremost to entertain the viewers. In the attempt to entertain the director uses these social and developmental issues to relate to the audience. It gives background information as well as creates an investment in the characters. This X-men movie is the 5th X-Men movie recently and it has a different way of presenting the characters then the previous ones. The previous movies were all about whether having superpowers was a blessing or a curse; however, this movie is more about how having superpowers is just like having any other skill. These skills are something that has to be developed and worked on just like any other skill in real life. In closing this movie was very entertaining. When most people think about this movie they think “X-Men, a movie about mutants and superpowers” but what they are really getting is a movie with relative developmental issues that every person goes through and can relate to. The disguise of it being a work of science-fiction lets a person relate to this movie while also bringing endless possibilities to a person’s imagination. To me the point of a movie is to be entertained by the creativeness and imagination of the film makers while also allowing me to relate and get invested with the characters.

X-Men: First Class (2011) Director: Matthew Vaughn
 * [|**Writing credits**] ||
 * [|Ashley Miller] ||  || (screenplay) (as Ashley Edward Miller) & ||
 * [|Zack Stentz] ||  || (screenplay) and ||
 * [|Jane Goldman] ||  || (screenplay) & ||
 * [|Matthew Vaughn] ||  || (screenplay) ||
 * [|Sheldon Turner] ||  || (story) and ||
 * [|Bryan Singer] ||  || (story) ||

__X-Men: First Class: Not Your Same Old Mutant Angst-__ Charlie Jane Anders http://io9.com/5808167/x+men-first-class-not-your-same-old-mutant-angst

__ Subject Matter—10 points out of 20 __ You need more textbook citations to show that you understand the specific relevant theories

__ Higher-Order Thinking—15 points out of 20 __ : You show that you have found depth in this show, but you do not relate that to the textbook concepts.

__Organization--30 points out of 30__ You do a good job comparing and contrasting the characters.

__ Format--0 points out of 10 __ No citations or references.

__ Grammar/Punctuation/Spelling--10 points out of 10 __

__ Readability/Style--8 points out of 10 __ Awkward paragraph transitions--try breaking them apart using empty lines (hit "enter" twice).

Grade: 73/100