The virus relinquishes its grip

[pameladean]

EDITED TO ADD: SERIOUSLY EXTENSIVE SPOILERS FOR X-3 ARE NOW SCATTERED THROUGH THE COMMENTS.

I'll put up a new post in a bit for people who want to talk about gardening or whatever without being spoiled.


I feel a little whiny complaining about my illness when so many people on my friendslist are in the acute phase of nasty illnesses acquired at Wiscon. But this virus really was evil. I started coughing on May 11, and yesterday was really the first day I felt ordinarily alert and energetic. Raphael and Lydy and I all had it, and the house resounded with cries of, "I haven't been this sick in years!" I got that over the telephone too, since most unfortunately I gave the evil ailment to my mother on Mother's Day. At least she got to call and see how she'd feel in three days.

I think I'll do updates behind cut tags, with subjects and everything, instead of the ususal muddle.


The book is really behaving pretty well. My brain, not so much. My latest idiocy was to have mislaid Bec, Arry and Con and Beldi's father. I had to write a scene in which Arry is stubbornly writing a letter to him before I realized that inquiries about him would have been made much earlier. I have just about figured out what I'm doing and where he fits in, but it's very annoying when one's characters have to resort to such tricks. Mine do not ordinarily address me directly or seem to know I exist, so this is an extreme measure.


We have a pair of catbirds and a pair of cardinals. We have extremely loud crows who perch on the gutters and yell and then flap heavily next door and do it again. We have house sparrows nesting under my bedroom air conditioner. We have chickadees. I saw a single house wren, which strikes me as peculiar. Bluejays are making a lot of noise, as are starlings and grackles. The grackles are especially noticeable, since they are making a kind of "shcheeeeeeer" noise that sounds more like insects than birds. I have seen them emitting the sound, however, very clearly. I also saw a downy or hairy woodpecker much closer to the house than usual. I'm getting a lot of traffic at the bird bath, and also when I run the sprinkler, predominantly from robins, starlings, grackles, and mourning doves.

A week or so ago I went outside to turn off the sprinkler and saw three bats racing around in the air not far above the back yard. One of them rose up and left, and the other two then proceeded to bonk against one another in mid-air, squeaking audibly. I suppose it was mating season. I saw just one bat yesterday evening, swooping in circles and, I trust, eating the gnats.



We are well supplied with gigantic bumblebees, flies and wasps, cabbage butterflies, and damselflies. I've seen a female whitetail dragonfly as well, and one each of the monarch, painted lady, and yellow swallowtail butterflies. There are a lot of gnats and a huge number of biting ants. I forgive the ants, however, because they are tending the peonies.



Both the mock orange bushes are blooming heavily. I lost my sense of smell about a week into the virus's depredations, and it's only just coming back. If I stick my nose right into a flower and end up with an ant on my cheek, I smell a scent that you might smell if there were a lot of mock oranges blooming about a block away.

The white rose of York is blooming heavily as well. I think it's benefitting from the unfortunate damage that the neighbors' ancient lilac suffered in the heavy March snowfall. The red rose of Lancaster has given up. It is not meant for this climate. The Henry Kelsey is taking a breather. It has three live canes, one of which is blooming. I need to prune the rest of the dead canes back. I've already fed it, which makes me fear that next year it will annex the garage.

Dame's rocket is blooming, though past its peak. The peonies are behaving extravagantly. I counted thirteen buds and blooms on one pale pink one that is not even the largest that we have. The red one, for some reason, is sulking and not blooming at all. It may be discombobulated by the extra sunlight afforded it by the lilac's absence; I don't know. Chives are blooming, and white clover, and the first of the daisy fleabane and the white daisies proper. The daylily buds began by looking like a green waterbird trying to swallow a green fish; now they look more like a green waterbird trying to do a magic trick with green scarves that won't unroll properly. The true lilies have buds. Penstemon and baptisia are trying to bloom, but they're finding the dry weather a bit of a trial. (They just went in this year.) The coreopsis moonbeam returned, cautiously. The threadleaf coreopsis is gigantic. Neither is ready to bloom just yet.

The remaining allium caeruleum, valiantly poking up between the leaves of the marauding daylilies, has buds.

In general gardening news, I have severely cut back the Japanese knotweed so that it won't smack us in the face as we walk along the south side of the house, and put down grass seed, and planted three tomato plants, again on the south side of the house where I hope the microclimate created by stucco and concrete will offset the lateness of their arrival. I've got a bunch of seesd that really need to go in this week, or there won't be much point to planting them at all.
?


I was already in a mood. A writer whom I admire, truly, quite the wrong side of idolatry, posted a minor humorous little bit that implied that all college students are male. Then I read a review of an upcoming biography of James Tiptree, Jr., and indignantly told Raphael that when the reviewer listed some examples of Tiptree winners at the end, there were "about six men and two women!" This is not true; there are three of each, which strikes me as still somewhat dicey, but certainly not at all what I initially perceived.

Then we went to see X-3, which displayed a truly remarkable fear of powerful female characters. Rogue goes meekly off and gets the cure because she's jealous; Jean Gray becomes a force so powerful that she must be controlled or destroyed, even though, aside from a few murders, all she does is stand around and look decayed; Mystique is cured inadvertently and then abandoned in a scene that I DO NOT BELIEVE AND WILL NOT BELIEVE, EVER. Storm is pretty much okay, but she sure seems to need a lot of pep talks from men. Kitty Pryde, now, is great. She's gone to rescue the kid who can "cure" mutants, arriving just ahead of Juggernaut. She tries to take the kid through the wall, but she can't, because within a certain radius of him (don't think about the science, just don't) all mutant powers fail. Does she panic? She does not. She tells the kid to stay close and lures Juggernaut into crashing into the wall and knocking himself silly. But then, she's young and winsome and hasn't had a lot of practice. I suppose they'll get rid of her eventually, the morons.

*snarl* If the idiots supposedly running this country were not using up presumably valuable legislative time trying to amend the Constitution to define marriage as "between a man and a woman" -- which doesn't even make any goddamn sense; do they mean it has to constantly walk between them and hold their hands or it's unconstitional? What is their problem? -- I might be less touchy.

Maybe. *snarl*

P.

*snarl*

Comments

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

Bats! I love bats. I miss bats. If I were ever to get a house, a big reason would be to put bathouses in the backyard.

Rogue goes meekly off and gets the cure because she's jealous; Jean Gray becomes a force so powerful that she must be controlled or destroyed, even though, aside from a few murders, all she does is stand around and look decayed; Mystique is cured inadvertently and then abandoned in a scene that I DO NOT BELIEVE AND WILL NOT BELIEVE, EVER

((sigh)) Yeah, I've been heavily spoiled for this movie, and it sounds just....dreadful. I love the DP storyline, and it sounds like it's just been pretty much wrecked. I couldn't believe the scene wrt Mystique and Magneto, either. Just....no!

[pameladean]

I don't know where ours are llving, but they like the back yard. I figure I've planted stuff that attracts insects, so I've done my part. I always worry about cleaning bat houses, perhaps foolishly.

P.

[rocza.livejournal.com]

Nope, the movie was great. The choices they made make a lot of sense. Consider, for example, Rogue. She's a pretty useless mutant in her movie incarnation, because she hasn't absorbed Ms. Marvel's powers - no superhuman strength, no ability to fly. She just... drains people, and falls over for it. Not terribly efficient in combat. While I think Bobby was a catalyst for her choice, I think the fact that she can't touch anyone, ever... can never have human contact, is what made her do it. And, it's consistent with the Rogue of the comics, who has said repeatedly that if given the chance, she would ditch that "ability" in a heartbeat.

My main unhappiness with the Phoenix saga is how it was handled - in its explanation. I understand the desire to not have space aliens and such, but what was given was lame. And her death was necessary for Wolvie's character development (well, and that she wanted too much money to continue making movies) - the scene is an almost literal frame by frame replication of Mariko's death.

The scene with Mystique and Magneto was completely and utterly in line with Movie-Magneto's attitude towards the non-mutated. If he hadn't done that, abandoned her, he would have been too much like Charles, willing to bend his line in the sand. Magneto was not - he was very much black or white (technically mutant or not) for the first two, and this, movie. The point was his character development, of the person he becomes at the end of the movie. It's the shift necessary to put him in charge of the school.

As for Storm - best role in three movies for her. I disagree with Ms. Dean, in that I found her to be a strong character who refused to sit down and allow the mutant cure to be called a cure, arguing that there was nothing needing curing. She also took charge later, and didn't let the school close down, as well as sent Logan to kill Jean. She morphed into the leader she was when she wrested control of the X-Men from Scott in the comics.



...ahem. Sorry. :) Perhaps I should just say that I enjoyed the movie, and that I felt the characters acted in line with the established movie history and with delightful homages to their comic incarnations. My only regret about it is that it was two movies mooshed into one; I would have liked to see the Phoenix saga play out over one movie, and merge from that into the mutant cure saga. However, I understand that with Singer leaving, they dropped the two movie back to back deal because people began renegotiating and demanding way too much money.

[pameladean]

I'm actually glad that somebody enjoyed it -- I liked bits and pieces here and there, mostly near the beginning -- but, well, nothing is going to persuade me that it was great.

Storm certainly shone compared to the first two movies, but aside from her heartfelt "there's nothing wrong with us," she still seemed tentative to me, and she did get the pep talks.

It's not just Magneto's rejection that bothers me, it's the hideous raped-and-blamed-for-it imagery. And I don't think he'd make that lightning-fast a turnaround. It doesn't make sense to me.

P.

[tanac.livejournal.com]

I also found that disturbing - but also disturbing to me was the way that Charles basically rewrote Jean's personality and powers when she was young (movie history only, here) - something I'm certain she would not have agreed to. Talk about control. That part still bothers me.

[pameladean]

It would have bothered me more if I hadn't gotten hung up on the essential incoherence of his explanation, but yeah. I say below somewhere that arguably he deserved for Jean to kill him. But he comes back! And if she does we don't get any clue about it.

P.

[redbird]

You got sick a fortnight before Wiscon started. I think you're entitled to complain, now that you have the energy to do so.

[pameladean]

Can I complain for a fortnight?

P.

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

While watering this morning I had an alarmingly large bumblebee come and romance the hose wand several times. Considering that the wand is blue with black plastic bits, I find it a bit confusing, but then so did the bumblebee. At least we're all confused together. I didn't see Rogue's desire for the cure (ineffective, as we saw at the end) as out of jealousy but more yearning for human contact. I can see several ways around it but I'm inventive and oversexed.

I wish that they had cast Summer Glau as Kitty Pryde. :( Juggernaut was Sphinx from Gone In 60 Seconds. I could handle seeing a lot more of him, Bad Mutant or no.

[pameladean]

The hose wand probably looked completely different to a bumblebee.

Perhaps the movie wanted us to think that Rogue wanted human contact, but it did a lousy job of it, if so. The whole thing was so stereotyped and slight. And for heaven's sake, if Rogue's situation does not make one inventive and oversexed, just what the hell would? A grain of imagination would suffice.

I liked the actress who played Kitty. If they'd cast Summer Glau, frankly, I'd have felt she was being wasted.

P.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

Storm is pretty much okay

You have to admit, that's the best any character manages in the film. It's not like the male characters come off well, except Beast, who is also "pretty much okay." Well, and Nightcrawler, blessedly spared because they forgot he existed.

Kitty does pretty well in the climactic scene, but I can't forgive her for the googly-eyes over Iceman, any more than I can pseudo-Rogue.

I can't imagine they're going to try to make a fourth movie.

[pameladean]

Well, my undying love for Ian McKellen makes me say that, aside from the stupid out-of-character nonsense referenced above, I thought Magneto came off fine; ditto Xavier, though I really do not know how even Patrick Stewart could have got through that idiotic explanation of what happened with Jean without cracking up had he not had so much practice on Star Trek. Beast was pretty nice. The thing is, though, that they are all intact or becoming so at the end, unlike the female characters; they are not smacked down mercilessly and without regard to sense or previous character development for no good reason except, apparently, to remove their powers.

Ilike "pseudo-Rogue." And what a waste. Anna Paquuin is dynamite; they could at least let her blow something up.

I expect googly eyes in teenagers; it didn't bother me.

P.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

Magneto's a complete moron throughout the movie. He completely forgets how to think ahead multiple times. And then he attacks Alcatraz with ground troops? Dude, you can fling large masses of metal around. Did he need Vizzini to tell him what his way was? "Pick up one of those oil tankers lying around Richmond there. When the Rock comes in to view, hit it with the ship." Magneto probably doesn't care that it's not very sportsmanlike.

I don't think Charles came out at all well either, especially in his whiny vindictive confrontations with Wolverine. Beast was OK, but they seemed to think that once they'd cast Kelsey Grammer in the part they'd established his intelligence and didn't need to actually show any of it. Then there's all the phony Iceman-Pyro pathos they built up only to blow it on a lame battle and one of the worst lines in a bad dialogue instructional.

I expect googly eyes in teenagers; it didn't bother me.

It's not their existence, but their direction.

The thing is, though, that they are all intact or becoming so at the end,

Who's intact at the end? Storm, Wolverine, Beast, Kitty, and Iceman. I don't know that I'm willing to count Colossus or Angel, as there's no real there there. Three to two's not really an overwhelming majority, especially when one of the three is Iceman. (Why couldn't he get killed?)

[markgritter.livejournal.com]

"Pick up one of those oil tankers lying around Richmond there..."

Sorry, IJHTM "Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet" here. ;)

[pameladean]

Intact or becoming so. Xavier is not dead, Magneto is getting his powers back. Presumably Mystique is too, but do we see her contemplating a bit of blue on her elbow? We do not.

As for your other arguments, oh dear. I really shouldn't post about movies where people who know something can see. I'm sure it's as exasperating as I find certain deeply engaged but naive readers to be. Having gotten here, though, I'll just say that Magneto's failures as described fall, for me, not under character, but under, "The plot is stupid." That may be a weird place to draw the line, and I mostly wouldn't do that for a novel, but I do with movies.

I think the real chink in my perception is Scott. He is deprived of his powers by Jean and killed off-camera. I still think that there is something extra-creepy about how most of the female characters are treated.

Xavier's scene with Wolverine was lame, but he deserved something of the sort. It's hard to actually figure out, since the explanation is so muddled, but arguably, he deserved for Jean to kill him. He gets to come back, though, while, again, there's no reference to her after her death.

I can't manage to dislike Bobby, really.

P.

[avram]

I didn’t read that as Scott being deprived of his powers. I read that as her holding his eyebeams in so he could see things directly for the first time since childhood — she does the same thing for him in the comics.

Dying offscreen, though, you’re right about. The way the movie just discards him is pretty cheap.

logically, but

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine they're going to try to make a fourth movie.

This one is making a lot of money in our neck of woods. With this industry, that doesn't bode well. I pretty much agree on the characters although the movies do seem very focused on Wolverine.

I was reading one of the essays on Morrison's run with the series today, and I think that is what caught mainly. It's another retro rewrite and one that jumps back a step. Kitty came off well but it was in a child rescue roll and there'd been quite a bit of time devoted to build up of her as vulnerable. I was just thinking now about her origins.

The funny thing about this movie for me is how it made me go back and read the original DP run and how much it has made me think about that, why the story and the X-men had such a big impact.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

. . . and that sums up why I'm not going to see X-Men. (My son went, I asked about the plot because I like spoilers first, and then uh huh, no way are they getting my twelve bux: due to our financial sitch, we are limiting ourselves to max one movie a month (I haven't seen one since around Christmas) and that sure isn't going to waste my June ticket.

Feel better! Thre's a crud going around here, and without any con fun first. How unfair is that?

[pameladean]

You can see the good bits when it ends up on TV.

It is completely unfair to have crud with no con. I shall write to the Times.

P.

[whapnoggin.livejournal.com]

Have you posted about the other X-Men movies?

[pameladean]

You know, I can't remember. I've seen them all and saw X-2 twice. I'll try to poke around in the archives and see if there's anything worth pointing anybody to.

P.

I know this isn't what you meant

[eileenlufkin.livejournal.com]

but I was reading this earlier today:

http://www.thechicagoloop.net/yahtzee/XMMfic/HeWeTheyI.htm

A very good short story set after the first movie.

Re: I know this isn't what you meant

[pameladean]

Thank you, that was very good indeed. And funny, which is always such a relief.

P.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

It's very nice that York is flourishing and Lancaster is skulking. Things are as they should be.

[pameladean]

I thought you would like that.

P.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

I am COMPLETELY convinced, with even some textual evidence from the movie, that Magneto leaving Mystique there was part of their plot to begin with, given that she gave them all this information about where Magneto's headquarters were, and then lo and behold, the only person left there was Jamie Madrox (the Multiple Man).

[pameladean]

That occurred to me too, but if so it was pretty clumsily done, and the awful scene where she's abandoned was gratuitous in many respects. Besides, the fumbling attempts at thematic unity seem to argue against this. On the other hand, the movie was so clumsy in so many regards that I wouldn't be unbearably surprised if things are as you say.

P.

the case for that reading

[(Anonymous)]

would be much, much much stronger if Magneto's parting remark hadn't been "she was so beautiful".

I took the point of that scene to establish that Magneto was stark, staring bonkers, completely lost to basic human virtues of empathy and compassion; that he had, in effect, turned himself into exactly the kind of monster he regards normal humans as being.

The bizarre babble about messing with Jean's head strikes me as just plain bad script writing; it's relatively easy to miss (because it's far from the only thing there) that in the original Dark Phoenix saga that the core problem is a sort of divine exaltation, of really being something greater than mortal, and that's the only tack that could have saved this one from the case of Girlfriend in Fridge syndrome it's (to me) plainly got.

-- Graydon, who finally got to see it. :)