Nerd Rant: Breaking Comic Canon

I watched X-Men: First Class yesterday night, and I must say, I was surprised when I was greeted with a movie that had a pretty coherent plot and good action sequences.  I guess I was expecting some kind of catastrophe like X-Men Origins: Wolverine, or even worse, X-Men: Last Stand.  Yet as I was watching, there were parts of me that couldn't help but cringe.  See, if it wasn't clear enough yet by the rest of my blog posts so far, I'm a huge comic nerd.  A huge one.  I have huge nerdgasms when something is done right in a comic-based movie, such as the recent Thor movie where he called himself Donald Blake.  But if there is some sort of inaccuracy, I go into such a nerdrage that whatever sort of nergasm I had going gets halted and I end up with the worst kind of metaphorical blue balls.  I want to be gratified by a movie, I do, but regardless of all the amazing things that would be done in the movie, there is always that nagging feeling in the back of my mind, whispering to me an unholy truth: "The movie did it wrong.  The whole movie is now wrong."  It is pretty goddamn annoying.  And now I present to you some of the most rage-inducing inaccuracies that I have had the misfortune to witness.

It's the Juggernaut (Bitch)
The Juggernaut is a recurring villain in X-Men story arcs.  He is Charles Xavier's step-brother, and a constant nuisance to the X-Men.  He is also practically indestructible.  This guy is a bad mofo.  Check it.

Wait wait wait.......who the hell is the guy next to him???  This is what was given to us in X-Men: The Last Stand.  This guy had no relation to Xavier, was found randomly in a truck, and was thwarted by Kitty Pryde.  Yeah, no thanks.  What they should've done: See any episode of X-Men: The Animated Series.  Ever.


Wait, Amnesia??
Yes, amnesia.  This was by far, the most ridiculous plot hole to be included in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  At the end of the movie, William Stryker loads a revolver with adamantium bullets, and shoots him in the head with the intent of removing his memory.  Wait, what?  Yes, here is an excerpt from the horrible, horrible script.

 CORNELIUS
          We saved the leftover adamantium
          from the Weapon X procedure.
          Stryker plucks one of the bullets from
          its niche and rolls it between his 
          fingers, examining it with a practiced
          eye.
          CORNELIUS (cont'd)
          Each one's got a high-explosive
          core. Two in the head and Logan's
          brain will have to regenerate from
          scratch.

          STRYKER
          They won't kill him?

          CORNELIUS
          According to the computer models we
          ran, there's a 30 percent chance
          his healing factor will
          reconstitute the gray matter. But
          those synaptic bridges that form
          our memories? Gone. If he survives,
          his brain will come back fresh.

What in the flying fuck??  Adamantium can't be destroyed, even by other adamantium.  This is why he can rub his claws together all he wants.  Worst that would happen if he were shot would be that he'd get a bad headache.  His body has been evaporated to the point of only leaving behind a skeleton, and he still remembered everything.

Not only that, but how the hell could they predict that it would erase his memory.  Honestly, the amount of effort that was put into making a coherent plot was almost as much as the money they put into the special effects for this movie: not much.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!111

In X-Men: First Class, they assemble a team of mutants to combat a new adversary, which I won't reveal.  What I will reveal is this: one of the members was Alex Summers, a.k.a. Havok.  Yes, the younger brother of Scott Summers that was one of Xavier's first students was on the team....in 1962.  What the fucking fuck??  There are so many things wrong with this!!!  First off, he is the YOUNGER brother, and Scott was only about 30 in the movies and series.  No fucking way Alex was alive in 1962.  Secondly, they made his powers only focus through his chest, even though he uses his arms.  Why do that?  That's just confusing, makes him seem like he's Chamber or something.  Now I know some people will say this is ok because Alex is older than Scott in the Ultimate continuity, but those people can't explain how Alex would more than a decade older than Scott when this is not the case in the Ultimate continuity.  Plus, Ultimate Marvel sucks; it's full of incest and people who should be white and have hair on their heads.  Case in point, Nick Fury.

I WANT MY NICK FURY TO BE WHITE DAMNIT!!!

Ok, I think that was some healthy venting.  This is probably the most geektastic thing I have ever written.  Keep in mind that these are just a bunch of pet peeves from a guy who grew up watching and reading this stuff.  This is not to say that the movies are bad (except for Origins and Last Stand): I thoroughly enjoyed most of the Marvel movies that have come out thus far, and have high hopes for the Captain America movie that is coming out later this summer.  I really hope I'm not the only person that is bugged by things like this.

Movie Recommendation: Dawn of the Dead

I'm a huge zombie fan.  I follow the zombie genre of any medium, be it games, movies, or comics.  The zombie scene seems to have exploded as of recent, and it is getting flooded with a lot of crap.  Really bad stuff.  So I'm here to try and steer anybody interested in the right direction.  My recommendation for this Friday:  Dawn of the Dead.

Now I recommend the remake over the original for a few reasons.  I think that it is much more interesting for someone who hasn't seen too many zombie films.  The original is a classic, but was plagued by a very low budget.  The remake takes a few liberties afforded to it by being set in modern days, and makes it work really well.  A zombie epidemic is set loose upon the world, and a few survivors are trying to hold up in an abandoned mall.  The movie has great character dynamics, as well as a few noticeable actors such as Ving Rhames and Mekhi Phifer.

The special effects are very nice, something that seems like a must these days.  But the effects aren't there to cover up a bad movie, only to expand on it.  My only gripe with this movie is the fast zombies.  I'm an old school zombie guy myself, but they make fast zombies work nonetheless.  If you guys want to go to the movies this weekend, go see The Hangover Part II.  If you want to stay in and watch a film, check out Dawn of the Dead.  Have a good Memorial Day weekend!