#189 – X-Men: First Class (2011)

Welcome back to Marvel Maniac and MCU After Show. I'm your host, Eric Cicada, aka Mr. Honest. And today we're stepping just a little bit outside the MCU proper to revisit one of the boldest and most underrated superhero films of the last 15 years. X Men First Class. I saw this in theaters, and, oh, my goodness, I just can't believe it came out in the year 2011 before the first Avengers movie. I mean, I. It's like, you, sir, you are getting old. No, it's just time. Time is moving fast. It's a. I'm in denial here, guys. Anyways, why cover this? Well, the mutants are officially on the horizon for Marvel Studios, and if there's one film that proves how powerful their stories can be, it's this one. And it's a little bit more than just a prequel story to the first 3x men that we covered. I like to consider it just a slightly alternate universe because some of the history, let's say, for example, with Mystique and Charles Xavier, I feel like that would have been felt a little bit more in the first 3x men if they were having an intentional history. If they ever had an intentional history and those movies were made after this one, it'd definitely be some more powerful moments between those two characters. But First Class isn't just an origin. It's a lesson in ideology, friendship, and tragedy. And this movie really redefines the X Men in a way that we didn't need Wolverine for this one. I mean, that's the main example I'm going to give you. Wolverine is usually. Usually the anchor of the X Men movies, usually the main eyes, the main character. And in this series, at least this start of the series, there's four of these movies. Ironically, Wolverine takes the main character slot for the next one. I just realized, however, this movie is Charles Xavier's story and how he comes to be Professor X and how Magneto becomes Magneto. So let's dive back into the 1960s, where the cold War is heating up, the Cuban Missile Crisis is looming, and the X Men are taking shape for the very first time. Our first section will be about the Cold War origins here. So it's set against one of the tensest moments in modern history. First Class drops our mutants right into the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis. It kind of reinvents the history of the Cuban Missile Crisis. It's a brilliant storytelling, storytelling move. And because the stakes are already sky high without a single superpower in the mix, and then you add the mutants to the equation. Suddenly, the allegory is crystal clear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the people who are different. Governments scrambling to weaponize what they don't understand. Mutants have always represented that other. And here it is, front and center. If there's one thing we know about any alternate futures from the first 3x Men movies, this is only the beginning of the war between mutant and man. And the people who believe mutants are good and the people who believe mutants are bad. And there's very complex good and evil at play in the future. This is just the beginning. And Magneto, we could see kind of spring effects that at the end of this movie. And maybe why I felt like this movie didn't come out in 2011, my goodness, 14 full years ago, is probably because it's a timeless movie. That's. That's how good the movie is. It feels still like a modern X Men movie and modern origin story. And these actors, you know, James MacAvoy, Michael Fastbender playing ex Professor X. Magneto, such a brilliant cast. They have such good chemistry that it makes me want to see the see them be the definitive, maybe alternate universe of the MCU X Men someday. Because they're still growing into their parts. I think they're great counters to their older Ian McKellen and Sir Patrick Stewart counterparts. And that's what's really fun about X Men. Days of future past, which we'll be covering sometime soon. This is just one of those superhero films that could be re released tomorrow and just still feel timely. That's part of why it's aged so well. Let's talk a little bit. Since I kind of got into it already about Charles and Eric. Let's be honest, the real heart of this movie, it really isn't the historical setting. It is the relationship between Charles. Charles Xavier and Eric Lancashire. Sorry, Professor X and Magneto, before they became enemies. James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender, absolutely, as I said, Crush these roles. McAvoy plays Xavier is hopefully not bald, almost idealistic, a man who truly believes humans and mutants can coexist peacefully. It's a very similar message we see him carry in previous films as well. That character Fassbender, meanwhile, is all raw trauma and steel. His Magneto is a survivor of the Holocaust, scarred, driven by vengeance, and unwilling to trust humanity again. This movie's opening is very similar to the opening of the original X Men, where we do get to see a young Magneto gets separated from his parents, but there's a little more aftermath and a Little more happening in this version. Kevin Bacon plays a pretty great villain. And it's his death scene is insanely cool too. I love the fact that Magneto just wants this revenge this whole movie, and by the end of it, he pretty much just gets exactly what he wants. But back to the meat of the film, when Xavier helps Eric unlock his true power by balancing painless serenity. It's intimate and vulnerable. That satellite dish scene, pure chills. They make such a good team and they are such good friends. And you just kind of want them to stay together and deal with the mutants, you know, the mutant problem or the mutant solution, because it's not really a problem. It's. It's argued about. That's the politics of this whole thing is, are they, Are they good, are they bad? Well, nothing is black and white, as we all know. As we look back at modern history, it's very complicated. And it's just a little sad to see Eric fall fully into Magneto. And it's all due to the trauma he suffered. And once he kind of gets that revenge, we learn that his ideals aren't even that different than Kevin Bacon's. Super mutant. He. He agrees with him pretty much on everything he's doing. Turning the humans against each other so the mutants can rule supreme. However, it's just a pure revenge thing for Eric. And this is how Magneto is actually born. This is how he gets his helmet. This is how he becomes a little more egotistical. After he finally gets his revenge, he moves into a more sinister direction. And this is all the brilliance of this movie. You really want to see ar, Eric and Charles succeed together, even though you know they won't. Now let's talk about the actual first class themselves. The students, Havoc, Banshee, angel and Darwin. The so called first class. This is where the movie lightens up a bit. The training sequences are campy, colorful, and so much fun in a way that really shows the potential of a younger X Men team. Watching them learn their powers in that montage scene, they do it together. Watching them learn their powers together brings that sense of discovery, the way the comics always had. But then there's Darwin. The moment he dies, he sacrificed himself in a way that feels cruel and unfair. The tone shifts. His death lands like a truck. Not just because he's a likable character, but because he. It proves Magneto's worldview. Charles can preach coexistence all he wants, but Darwin's death is living proof that mutants aren't safe completely yet, or at all. In human hands, he did. Do you know Darwin? Actually, I thought he was only a Fishman until I realized I think he could have. Could have turned into a couple different things. Dust wasn't one of them until he died. I'm sorry, that's not funny. It just rubs me the wrong way that he died that way. But he's the most. Maybe. Okay. There's two brutal deaths in this movie. This is one of them. And the the next is Kevin Bacon's character, pre Magneto, Nazi Kevin Bacon, who is also canonically in the MCU as Kevin Bacon in the Guardians of Galaxy Holiday special. So is this a. So who's a variant of who? You know what I mean? Who's a variant of who? Is. Is this a variant of Kevin Bacon or is. Is Kevin Bacon a variant of him? This is. This is so deep it almost could help us answer the Iron man question. Like, how did he become Dr. Doom? Definitely getting ahead of myself. And Darwin was the one student that we didn't get to see out in the battlefield. It was a very shocking self sacrifice. And wow, it. It was, it was something else. Let's talk villains. Kevin Bacon actually has a name. It's not Kevin Bacon in the movie. It's Sebastian Shaw. And he's one of the most underrated performances in superhero films. Honestly. He's smooth, terrifying, and absolutely committed to his cause. Spark World War iii, wipe out humanity, and let mutants inherit the Earth. It's pure one sided extremism. And you don't really see his justification. He's kind of a just a, you know, mustache twirling bad guy. He wants to rule the world. As simple as you could put it. His connection to Eric makes the story that much more personal. He's the man who murdered Eric's mother in front of him. That, beginning at the Nazi concentration camp, became a lot heavier in this movie because of this. The source of Eric's lifelong pain, watching his mother die and always wanting revenge for that. It makes their final confrontation inevitable and devastating. The coin through the head scene, this is that second death I'm talking about. It's iconic, brutal, chilling, and one of the most memorable kills in any comic book movie to date. Then we get to the beach. Mutants lined up, missiles in the air, and Charles and Eric finally forced to confront the reality of their philosophies. Magneto stops the missiles, one of the coolest looking scenes in the entire movie, but only to turn them back on humanity. Xavier pleads with him, and in the struggle, a bullet ricochets into Charles's spine and he can't feel his legs anymore. I was wondering what would happen to him and how he would, you know, get put in the chair. And it happened very abruptly in a moment of selflessness, trying to stop pretty much a giant war from breaking out. The way Magneto brings Shaw, his mortal enemy, out of the of the submarine and kind of just throws them on the ground in front of everyone. Even Shaw's associate. Mutants don't know what to do. They're just all there watching. Magneto, the new. Well, the new boss, I guess you'd call him, right? He pretty much puts a line in the sand. He wants everyone to be of the same cause. But as you know, and as Professor X knows, he is not the same as Eric. They have different world views and they want. He wants peace when Eric mostly wants war. And we know that from all the X Men movies to date. And any of the comic. Comic viewers out there, no, it's inevitable that they're on opposite ends of a, well, the same struggle. So it's heartbreaking, especially when he loses the feeling in his. In his legs, and he loses some of his people, including Mystique, who he has a huge history with. But she wins. She gets won over by Magneto because he believes she's beautiful as the mutant form. Pretty much the Mystique we come to know. And it does kind of tie into the trilogy that takes place far down the line in that she is working with Magneto in that movie, but we just don't have any of that history with Charles Xavier, because it wasn't written yet, it wasn't decided yet. That's why the X Men universe, I believe, is broken down into maybe three separate timelines or something like that. I gotta say, as evil as it was, I did really like seeing Magneto down that helmet. It's just iconic. And I think that origin is something people wanted to see more than how Xavier got put in his chair. It's the base of everything we've come to know. And even if it's not the same exact, same exact timeline as the future X Men movies, AKA the original trilogy, it leads into that in a lot of ways. And it does answer a lot of those questions. And in Days of Future Past, it actually is connecting these series together. And when we talk about that one, it's going to be a lot of fun. It's a whole different, different class than First Class. So let's talk about the legacy and the lessons learned in this one. So what makes First Class so special? Honestly, for me, it's the way that it strips the X Men down to their core characters, ideology and relationships. It doesn't drown in an oversized cast. It. It doesn't lean on a spectacle. It focuses on what these stories are really about, what it means to be different in a world that fears you. This movie shows us that X Men are strongest when they're about people, not powers. The stories come first, and the superpowers come afterward. And it's about ideas, not explosions. And if Marvel Studios really does want to bring the Mutants into the MCU successfully, that's the lesson they should really need to know to carry forward. There are elements of this film that I want them to keep. If it's going to be a new multiverse after Secret War, I don't see why we can't even catch the same two guys as the official Magneto and Xavier. These actors have immense chemistry. Not it'll be similar to like the Daredevil pickup where the history is there, but it's a brand new show, brand new set of movies. Or they may just go a completely different way and give it to an unknown actor or somebody who we knew, do know and just don't expect. But personally, I just hope and I think they will. Marvel does a great job of balancing character with characters with power. And I that's the reason why I like the Eternals so much. I'm one of the only people, apparently. Do you like the eternals? Side note, Marvelmaniacpod Gmail.com I want to go back and talk about that one. The because apparently they're not going to be in Secret wars, which is kind of a disappointment. They. They seem to have a lot of faith about the Eternals and thought it would be a bigger film than it was instead of it got a lot of criticism. I think Marvel fans are the greatest critics in the moment. And then five years later, everyone changes their mind about the movie because it brings back nostalgia and it's just not up on some sort of pedestal that you have to compare to every movie. It's just a good movie on its own. So I don't know, maybe I'm the only one there. What do you think? Again, I love your thoughts. I was enjoying the relationship between Mystique and Beast in this movie. And then Beast said the meanest thing to Mystique by accident. That she looks more beautiful covered up than in her blue form with red hair. And that really, truly, honestly, in my opinion, hurts her so bad that that is exactly why she goes to the other side at the end of the movie, because Magneto always says to her throughout the movie, you look great just as you are. And if you spend half your energy, you know, using being this human form, then you're not fully using your powers focused in the right direction. And he has a point. And I think that sticks with her big time. I think to feel accepted as she is without having to cover herself up to the world, that feels right. And honestly, if I were that way too, I'd want to be accepted for who I was as well. It's a good metaphor for we can change ourselves. We can put on makeup, we can put on wigs, we can pretend to be different people, but at the core of it, we are who we are. And if that can't be accepted by the people in your life, then there's really no good point to be with them because they don't stand with you on the same page. And anyway, the. The serum that he gives her, I wonder what it would have done to her, because when Beast takes it, it turns him into full on blue monsters Beast. And heck, it's freaking glorious. I'm so glad that they did that. Beast is a character I want to see more of. I hope we get the live action Gambit. Not in these, this series, but I'm talking about more or less in the future of the MCU Slash the Mutant Saga. We've always called it the Mutant Saga, but it might not be called that after the Multiverse Saga. They could be dismantling and putting things back together right now. And I heard there's a chance we may get some Eternals follow up. Eternals is kind of like the ancient X Men, in my opinion. I thought that's kind of how I thought about it when I was watching it, because they're a team of super powered individuals. I mean, aside from their origins could be completely different. The. The beef of the. I don't know. I don't know why I use meat, but I'll just stick with it. The beef of the story in Eternals is superhero team coming together to take down a force that's bigger than all of them. But in the end, the X Men are the X Men, and people are going to prefer them over a team of it like the Eternals. It was a long shot, but I hope they bring them back in some way. I'm comparing them only because they do remind me a little bit of a, like, ancient X Men type deal. So maybe we'll see something along the lines of that later down the road. If Audiences demand it. Anyways, that was X Men's First Class, a film about family, ideology and impossible choices. Thank you so much for joining me on this journey back through one of the best superhero films outside the mcu. 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I'll tweet you back because I love. I love tweeting and it's not even Twitter, it's X. Okay. So anyway, a big celebration. Thankful to and acknowledge and announce that it took a long time but Apple Podcast has officially made us current again. If you go and look at our podcast page, Marvel Maniac and MCU after show we are ongoing, not completed it said completed this whole last year. So I've been making episodes. So there's a lot of people from that platform that maybe used to listen that don't even know we've been back. And next episode we post they'll finally be able to see what we've been doing. 100 plus episodes in over a year and I got to personally thank Apple Podcast for making that happen. For me. I had to push them kind of hard, but it worked in a sense and they really fixed the problem. They worked really hard on it and they apparently it's not something people do. Once you leave a podcast, people just leave and they don't want to come back. But for me it's been a journey. We can talk about that another day. Maybe episode 200 will be the story of Marvel Maniac and origin. Marvel Maniac First Class, something like that. Anyway, I'm going to start taking out less, a little less of your time here. I'm Eric Cicada, aka Mr. Honest, and this has been Marvel Maniac, an MCU after show. And until next time, X Men disassemble.