WEBVTT - X2: X-Men United (2003) 0:00:00.830 --> 0:00:05.990 Warning, today's episode can aid spoilers for 2003's X2, X-Men United. 0:00:06.150 --> 0:00:12.330 Be warned. I found evidence of a mutant training facility 0:00:12.350 --> 0:00:13.270 in upstate New York. 0:00:14.610 --> 0:00:16.390 This facility is a school. 0:00:17.130 --> 0:00:17.690 Sure it is. 0:00:18.950 --> 0:00:21.200 Mr. Stryker, do you really want to turn this into 0:00:21.230 --> 0:00:21.750 some kind of war? 0:00:22.620 --> 0:00:24.500 I was pulling a Black Ops missions in the jungles 0:00:24.540 --> 0:00:26.279 of North Vietnam while you were sucking on your mama's 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:29.820 tit at Woodstock, Kelly. Don't lecture me about war. This 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:45.330 is already war. Hello, my name is Jason Concepcion. 0:00:45.810 --> 0:00:46.590 And I'm Rosie Knight. 0:00:47.090 --> 0:00:49.209 Welcome back to X-Ray Vision, the podcast where we dive 0:00:49.250 --> 0:00:52.950 deep into your favorite shows, movies, comics, and pop culture. 0:00:54.230 --> 0:00:57.530 Welcome back to our weekly impending doomsday where we run 0:00:57.590 --> 0:01:02.110 down the official Disney approved list of the 14 movies 0:01:02.170 --> 0:01:04.660 and one TV show you need to watch before doomsday 0:01:04.690 --> 0:01:06.600 so you don't have to or so you can watch 0:01:06.740 --> 0:01:09.300 and listen along with us. So we'll start by telling 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:11.480 you some facts. What was it like in 2003 when 0:01:11.500 --> 0:01:13.729 the movie was coming out? How did it happen? How 0:01:13.770 --> 0:01:16.230 did the production go down? Then we'll recap. And at 0:01:16.270 --> 0:01:19.030 the end, we will tell you why we think it's 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:21.030 included in the list. How is it going to tie 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:23.380 into Doomsday? What are our craziest theories? What are our 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:25.179 biggest hopes? We'll let you know. 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:28.960 First up, some quick hitting facts about X2, X-Men United. 0:01:28.980 --> 0:01:33.060 Alan Cumming, who plays Nightcrawler, had never heard of the X-Men. 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:36.140 He says on his own website, quote, I'd never heard 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:38.040 of the X-Men before. I can't do it in a 0:01:38.060 --> 0:01:41.470 Scottish accent. I'd never heard of the X-Men before. before 0:01:41.530 --> 0:01:44.490 I met Brian to talk about doing this movie. I 0:01:44.590 --> 0:01:47.890 certainly had no idea who Nightcrawler was, and he spent 0:01:47.910 --> 0:01:50.810 the shoot, quote, having to spend over four hours a 0:01:50.830 --> 0:01:53.990 day having two men poke my face. All of those 0:01:54.230 --> 0:01:58.140 little Kirk Wagner tattoos were applied by hand. He told 0:01:58.180 --> 0:02:02.020 Variety in 2025 that they can do that in like 0:02:02.020 --> 0:02:05.280 90 minutes now. Fox, by the way, took an option 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:07.380 on coming just in case he was going to do 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:11.310 a second film production in the X-Men franchise, the same 0:02:11.330 --> 0:02:14.570 thing they did with basically all of the original cast 0:02:14.610 --> 0:02:17.750 of the first movie. But as we all know, he 0:02:17.790 --> 0:02:20.010 never ended up appearing in another film. 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:27.739 Fox mounted what was billed as the wildest globe, the widest, widest. Yeah, 0:02:27.760 --> 0:02:30.730 I was like, this wasn't that wild. Fox mounted what 0:02:30.750 --> 0:02:34.549 was billed as the widest global premiere ever staged, and 0:02:34.590 --> 0:02:38.850 the reason was piracy. It opened day and date in 0:02:38.850 --> 0:02:41.859 93 international markets on 7,600 prints, plus a record 3,741 0:02:41.860 --> 0:02:48.940 screens worldwide. in theaters in the U.S., that's actually still 0:02:48.960 --> 0:02:49.880 a huge wide release now. 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:51.060 It's unheard of today. 0:02:51.380 --> 0:02:54.640 Yeah. Breaking the... You've got to be the biggest, biggest movie. 0:02:55.000 --> 0:03:01.530 It's 3,600... It actually broke the 3,682 record of Chamber 0:03:01.550 --> 0:03:04.489 of Secrets. It's set six months earlier. Suck it. Screen 0:03:04.510 --> 0:03:09.750 International's headline, X2 Global Rampage Keeps Pirates at Bay. 0:03:10.230 --> 0:03:17.669 We kind of forget pre... pre-infrared cameras in theaters and anti-piracy, like, stuff. 0:03:17.690 --> 0:03:20.970 And also streaming, which just changed piracy completely. 0:03:21.010 --> 0:03:23.190 What a big deal it was for people to, like, 0:03:23.330 --> 0:03:26.389 sneak a camcorder into the theater and then, like, put 0:03:27.370 --> 0:03:30.250 the rip on the internet, like, immediately. That was, like, 0:03:30.510 --> 0:03:32.019 such a huge thing at the time. 0:03:32.540 --> 0:03:35.660 Day-and-date releases were, like, unheard of. When I was growing up, 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:37.780 you sometimes had to wait, like, six months to get 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:40.880 a movie that had released in America to come to England. So, like, 0:03:41.590 --> 0:03:43.770 And obviously that got shorter and shorter, and now it's 0:03:43.810 --> 0:03:46.680 always within the same week, usually. Though for indie movies, 0:03:46.690 --> 0:03:48.480 it can be longer. But yeah, I mean, doing it 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:50.840 all on one day, so crazy. And also a great 0:03:50.860 --> 0:03:51.560 way to build the hype. 0:03:51.900 --> 0:03:56.220 Yes. The sequel matched the entire first movie's haul in 0:03:56.240 --> 0:03:57.960 about a week and a half. X2 opened to 85 million, 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:05.210 85.5 million, exactly 31 million above X-Men's opening. the fourth 0:04:05.250 --> 0:04:09.430 biggest domestic opening ever at the time. Huge movie. Ten 0:04:09.450 --> 0:04:14.660 days in, it had hauled in $ 147 million. The first 0:04:14.740 --> 0:04:16.500 film's whole domestic run was $ 157 million. 0:04:16.580 --> 0:04:21.029 So, huge hit. Dude, how crazy is inflation? Because now 0:04:21.089 --> 0:04:23.430 if a movie opened for that on the weekend, they'd 0:04:23.450 --> 0:04:26.450 be like, is it a hit? Okay, so one of 0:04:26.470 --> 0:04:29.270 the big inspiration source materials for this is God Loves, 0:04:29.310 --> 0:04:33.330 Man Kills, published as a Marvel graphic novel number five. 0:04:33.450 --> 0:04:35.980 It's very famous if you've seen it. by Chris Clemon 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:39.539 and Bren Anderson. But in the film, William Stryker is 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:42.080 completely changed. On the page, Marvel describes him as a 0:04:42.140 --> 0:04:46.500 televangelist who turned his vast fortune and small army of 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:49.540 followers against mutants with words that inspired fear and hatred. 0:04:49.660 --> 0:04:53.340 On screen, he's a soldier and Variety's review called him 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:57.230 an intolerant right-wing militarist. I mean, fair. 0:05:00.230 --> 0:05:05.789 Singer and executive producer Tom DeSanto... had a huge blow 0:05:05.890 --> 0:05:10.970 up on the set during production. Both men's accounts is 0:05:11.050 --> 0:05:14.229 of a heated personal argument and that they reconciled the 0:05:14.250 --> 0:05:18.630 next day. The Hollywood Reporter's 2020 investigation described something much larger, 0:05:18.750 --> 0:05:22.350 a dispute over whether to keep shooting a stunt that 0:05:22.490 --> 0:05:28.200 injured Hugh Jackman, which ended up resulting in, I guess, 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:31.180 a day or more of lost production. And Fox ended 0:05:31.260 --> 0:05:34.849 up siding with Singer, Pretty crazy stuff. 0:05:35.510 --> 0:05:38.890 Crazy. I mean, the Bryan Singer of it all is 0:05:38.970 --> 0:05:41.609 just too horrible to even get into, but the drama 0:05:41.650 --> 0:05:44.030 behind every single one of these movies all the way 0:05:44.089 --> 0:05:46.900 to Days of Future Past is just completely crazy. 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:48.800 Let's take a quick break and we'll be back with 0:05:48.820 --> 0:06:11.150 the recap. And we're back. X2 X-Men United from 2003. 0:06:11.150 --> 0:06:14.090 We open as a tour group. 0:06:14.950 --> 0:06:16.710 Another incredible cold open! 0:06:16.970 --> 0:06:21.230 Incredible character introductions throughout the first two movies. A tour 0:06:21.270 --> 0:06:24.810 group is touring the White House, East Wing. And, you know, 0:06:24.850 --> 0:06:30.740 the docent is reading them Lincoln's, I think, inaugural address. 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:33.460 The quote being, you know, we must not be enemies. 0:06:33.500 --> 0:06:37.450 We must be friends. There is a strange kind of 0:06:37.529 --> 0:06:41.260 blue-looking guy in a trench coat and a hat pulled 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:42.560 low and sunglasses. 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:43.659 Classic Avengers costume. 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:46.900 He's kind of lurking around. The guard comes up and 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:48.980 is like, can I help you? And then a tail 0:06:49.060 --> 0:06:52.450 pops up behind the guy, and it's just chaos from there. 0:06:52.510 --> 0:06:58.029 The man is moving chaotically, bounding, and then disappearing and 0:06:58.050 --> 0:07:02.580 then reappearing elsewhere. Um, the secret service rushes into the 0:07:02.660 --> 0:07:04.540 Oval Office to tell the president, like, we gotta get 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:06.339 out of here. But then they realize they're kind of 0:07:06.380 --> 0:07:14.220 trapped in that room. And suddenly, boom, Nightcrawler teleports into 0:07:14.260 --> 0:07:16.560 the room in a flash of smoke. There is, like, 0:07:17.300 --> 0:07:22.980 gunfire erupting. And in this incredible sequence, he just, like, 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:27.010 teleports from guy to guy, taking them out one at 0:07:27.050 --> 0:07:29.930 a time, throwing them around, punching them. And then finally 0:07:29.990 --> 0:07:35.390 he leaps onto the president on top of the resolute desk. 0:07:36.010 --> 0:07:39.490 He's got in his tail a knife that he's about 0:07:39.570 --> 0:07:42.450 to stab the president with, but he doesn't stab the president. 0:07:42.510 --> 0:07:44.710 He jams the knife down next to the president's head, 0:07:45.390 --> 0:07:48.550 and the knife has a note attached to it that says, 0:07:48.670 --> 0:07:49.970 Mutant Freedom Now. 0:07:50.750 --> 0:07:56.200 I gotta say, this sequence... blew me away. Visually, it 0:07:56.260 --> 0:07:58.820 has not aged a day. And I will, that is 0:07:58.900 --> 0:08:01.100 a hill I will die on. It's amazing. I was 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:04.760 standing next to my TV screen like a dad trying 0:08:04.780 --> 0:08:08.540 to understand how they did the Nightcrawler effects. They look 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:13.940 so fluid, so real, so tangible, like you could touch them, 0:08:13.980 --> 0:08:17.740 but also kind of so effervescent. It never dips. It 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:20.710 has held up so much better than than kind of 0:08:21.030 --> 0:08:24.550 any of these other effects that we see, you know, storms, lightning. 0:08:24.990 --> 0:08:27.010 It blew my mind how good it is. And also 0:08:27.450 --> 0:08:30.720 Alan Cumming, like the range that that man fucking has, 0:08:30.760 --> 0:08:34.400 because he's unbelievable in this movie. Total standout. Yes. 0:08:35.620 --> 0:08:39.439 The X-Men learn about this on TV as they're like 0:08:39.500 --> 0:08:43.570 at a museum. At the food court, Bobby Drake and 0:08:43.650 --> 0:08:47.830 Rogue are getting into it with a bunch of regular 0:08:47.929 --> 0:08:52.010 human teenagers. There's a new character called John, who we 0:08:52.030 --> 0:08:56.429 will later learn is called Pyro there. Pyro ends up 0:08:56.530 --> 0:09:00.350 using his powers to kind of brush back the humans 0:09:00.390 --> 0:09:03.950 who are being a little aggressive and harassing. Bobby then 0:09:04.210 --> 0:09:08.809 uses his ice powers to kind of like put out 0:09:08.910 --> 0:09:12.650 the flames. And the whole thing results in Professor X 0:09:12.670 --> 0:09:15.500 having to freeze the entire museum and wipe everybody's mind 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:16.520 so that they can leave. 0:09:16.850 --> 0:09:19.150 Look, I got to tell you, Charles Xavier, you can't 0:09:19.190 --> 0:09:22.390 take these kids anywhere. You really can't. This is not acceptable. 0:09:22.890 --> 0:09:24.950 When I was a kid, I went to a school 0:09:24.970 --> 0:09:26.710 where there was quite a lot of bad behavior, right? 0:09:27.050 --> 0:09:28.569 We even had, when I was growing up, this is 0:09:28.590 --> 0:09:31.550 how long ago I went to school, guys. In the school, 0:09:31.670 --> 0:09:34.600 within the grounds, there was a smoking area where the 0:09:34.620 --> 0:09:36.620 kids were allowed to smoke at break. It was that 0:09:36.660 --> 0:09:39.020 kind of school. But believe me, if we went to 0:09:39.040 --> 0:09:41.320 the museum, we weren't allowed to smoke a cigarette in 0:09:41.340 --> 0:09:43.680 the museum or outside the museum on a school trip. 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:46.340 We didn't do it. Charles, just keep them keep the 0:09:46.380 --> 0:09:48.920 behavior in school. Let them use the powers in school. 0:09:48.940 --> 0:09:51.380 There's got to be a no no powers rule. Like, 0:09:51.420 --> 0:09:53.590 this is crazy that this happened in a public place. 0:09:53.650 --> 0:09:57.429 And you just mind wiped everyone. Also, Charles Xavier's freezing 0:09:57.530 --> 0:10:00.750 time powers really like coming in handy a lot in 0:10:00.770 --> 0:10:01.590 this really. 0:10:01.390 --> 0:10:06.630 Is uh xavier immediately understands that this assassination is some 0:10:06.670 --> 0:10:09.840 sort of false flag it's not magneto it's not the 0:10:09.890 --> 0:10:15.760 brotherhood it is some act designed to spark a confrontation 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:17.900 between humans and mutants Because also. 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:20.920 Eric would have just killed the president. Like, let's be real. Like, 0:10:20.940 --> 0:10:22.540 he wouldn't have just left a little note. 0:10:22.940 --> 0:10:25.220 We go back to the White House. Lady Deathstrike is 0:10:25.250 --> 0:10:27.429 out in the foyer cracking her knuckles. 0:10:27.650 --> 0:10:28.650 Kelly Hu, we love you. 0:10:28.910 --> 0:10:31.450 Yes, we love her. Inside the Oval Office, Colonel William 0:10:31.490 --> 0:10:36.470 Stryker is presenting to the president evidence of a mutant 0:10:36.490 --> 0:10:39.110 training facility in upstate New York, and he's asking the 0:10:39.150 --> 0:10:43.530 president for authorization to basically raid the facility. He shows 0:10:43.550 --> 0:10:47.620 the president, like, picture of a top secret some sort 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:50.450 of advanced jet coming up out of the basketball court 0:10:51.170 --> 0:10:52.730 and it's clear the striker has a lot of inside 0:10:52.770 --> 0:10:55.170 information about this place he knows a lot and and 0:10:56.330 --> 0:10:59.090 senator kelly who we know is mystique because kelly is 0:10:59.130 --> 0:11:02.410 dead standing across from him is like how do you 0:11:02.450 --> 0:11:05.190 know all this and he's like oh you know the 0:11:05.230 --> 0:11:10.410 terrorist leader magneto and this really gets mystique's attention as 0:11:10.490 --> 0:11:12.370 kelly she's like oh do you have access to him 0:11:12.410 --> 0:11:15.460 like how do how can i visit him Stryker Lee, 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:18.459 you can't visit him. No way. Anyway, the president ends 0:11:18.540 --> 0:11:21.699 up signing the authorization with the instructions that, like, I 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:25.179 don't want to see dead kids, mutant or otherwise, on 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:29.660 the evening news. Back at school, Logan has come home 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:33.830 from Very, very poorly we are to discover exploring the 0:11:33.870 --> 0:11:35.310 Weapon X facility at Alkali Lake. 0:11:35.350 --> 0:11:40.310 This map is absolutely useless. I gotta say. This is 0:11:40.370 --> 0:11:43.770 like ADHD levels of like, oh, why did I come 0:11:43.850 --> 0:11:46.010 in here? It's like he walked into Weapon X and 0:11:46.030 --> 0:11:48.710 was like, oh, what happened? I guess there's nothing here. 0:11:48.790 --> 0:11:50.650 I guess there's nothing here. I guess we'll just go. 0:11:50.670 --> 0:11:52.949 Can't you smell stuff? 0:11:53.010 --> 0:11:57.670 It's fucking crazy. He actually went there and didn't find anything, 0:11:57.740 --> 0:12:01.350 it turns out, which will be crazy. When we learn 0:12:02.170 --> 0:12:04.030 what is actually going on. 0:12:04.929 --> 0:12:06.580 He is. 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:13.620 Chatting it up with Rogue. Rogue introduces her boyfriend, Iceman, 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:17.080 Bobby Drake. Xavier takes Logan into Cerebro and is like, 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:18.310 I got to show you this. Check this out. 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:20.939 And also he says, don't be smoking in here or 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:22.750 I'll make you a six-year-old girl for the rest of 0:12:22.790 --> 0:12:25.150 your life and I'll make Jean braid your hair. Okay. 0:12:25.550 --> 0:12:27.850 Crazy thing to say, Charles. Just tell him to stop smoking. 0:12:27.910 --> 0:12:32.040 That is actually like an insane thing. But listen, apparently 0:12:32.260 --> 0:12:34.630 if you move it all in there, it really throws 0:12:34.670 --> 0:12:35.510 them off. Anyway. 0:12:35.530 --> 0:12:37.729 Yeah, and also I think the floor drops away. The 0:12:37.750 --> 0:12:38.990 floor drops away the whole thing. 0:12:39.309 --> 0:12:42.550 So he fires up Cerebro. We get our first real 0:12:42.590 --> 0:12:46.630 look at what Cerebro can actually do. Fucking sick. And 0:12:46.650 --> 0:12:51.059 Xavier pulls up every mutant in the world, which he 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:55.179 can tell somehow through Cerebro who are all the mutants 0:12:55.220 --> 0:12:58.559 and he can pinpoint them. And there's this wonderful... image 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:00.510 of all these glowing dots all across the world there's 0:13:00.530 --> 0:13:02.069 a lot a lot of mutants and this is like 0:13:02.429 --> 0:13:05.109 charles's way of telling logan hey you don't need to 0:13:05.130 --> 0:13:06.910 feel alone there's a lot of us like we can 0:13:07.530 --> 0:13:09.550 we can you know you can find a family here 0:13:10.150 --> 0:13:14.240 logan is like hey i went up to alkali lake 0:13:14.300 --> 0:13:16.880 i didn't find anything could you just go into my 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:19.340 memories and like unlock this stuff and xavier is like 0:13:19.540 --> 0:13:22.319 it doesn't work like that and we will later kind 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:25.719 of discover that Yes, he could do that, but he 0:13:25.740 --> 0:13:26.480 chooses not to. 0:13:26.500 --> 0:13:30.060 What's the ramifications? And I will say, they do actually 0:13:30.100 --> 0:13:34.140 establish in a nice bit of storytelling in X1, which 0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:36.220 you can hear us talk about on our first Impending 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:40.590 Doomsday episode, our first weekly one, but it's when they're 0:13:40.710 --> 0:13:46.089 in that situation of diverging myself. No, they set it 0:13:46.110 --> 0:13:47.130 up really nicely. 0:13:47.750 --> 0:13:51.189 Storm and Jean fly to Boston to find this teleporter mutant. 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:54.860 They discover his name is Kurt Wagner from the Munich Circus. 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:59.449 And it's the incredible Nightcrawler. His body is covered in 0:13:59.470 --> 0:14:02.689 all these tattoos and scars, angelic symbols that he says 0:14:02.770 --> 0:14:05.570 is one for every sin. He's a very religious man. 0:14:06.010 --> 0:14:09.690 He remembers the White House attack like it was happening 0:14:09.710 --> 0:14:11.729 to someone else. It's very clear there's some sort of 0:14:11.770 --> 0:14:15.560 mind control was involved. Xavier and Scott, meanwhile, go to 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:19.460 visit Eric at the plastic prison to find out what 0:14:19.500 --> 0:14:22.980 he knows. Scott waits outside while Charles goes all the 0:14:23.020 --> 0:14:27.180 way into the plastic prison. And Eric looks very, very 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:34.850 tired and very haggard. He gives Charles a tidbit that 0:14:34.910 --> 0:14:36.770 he's kind of been sitting on. It's like, hey, remember 0:14:36.790 --> 0:14:39.150 William Stryker? He's been coming to see me. He doesn't 0:14:39.190 --> 0:14:44.110 like you. Remember he had a son, Jason, who is 0:14:44.390 --> 0:14:47.840 modeled after Jason Wingard from the comics, who is Mastermind. 0:14:48.500 --> 0:14:50.720 who was a student at your school, and apparently you 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:53.540 couldn't do anything for him, and that's why Stryker is 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:57.090 really fucking pissed at you. And then Charles can tell 0:14:57.150 --> 0:14:59.550 there's something else. He's like, what else? And Eric's like, listen, 0:14:59.570 --> 0:15:02.350 I'm sorry. I told him everything about the X-Mansion, apparently. 0:15:02.850 --> 0:15:06.250 Then gas starts coming into the room, and Charles and 0:15:06.270 --> 0:15:10.250 Magneto are passing out. Scott sees this happening, and he 0:15:10.290 --> 0:15:12.910 starts to swing the action, but Lady Deathstrike really too 0:15:13.050 --> 0:15:14.170 easily takes him out. 0:15:14.530 --> 0:15:17.500 Oh my gosh. Way, way too easily. 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:20.620 Stryker then begins his raid on the school. 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:24.450 Oh, this is so evil. This was making me want 0:15:24.470 --> 0:15:27.490 to punch the TV evil. So I just want to say, 0:15:27.570 --> 0:15:30.610 great villains. No villain problem in this movie. 0:15:30.650 --> 0:15:31.390 No, no, no, no. 0:15:31.570 --> 0:15:34.310 Logan is in the kitchen hanging out with Bobby drinking 0:15:34.350 --> 0:15:37.180 beer when the soldiers attack. And Logan can kind of 0:15:37.220 --> 0:15:40.660 hear them and smell that something's wrong. The soldiers are 0:15:40.700 --> 0:15:43.900 in the hallways. They're like tranking people. the mutant kids 0:15:43.980 --> 0:15:46.400 and carrying some of them away, but other kids are 0:15:46.440 --> 0:15:48.830 realizing what's happening. They're using their powers to escape. Kitty, 0:15:49.210 --> 0:15:53.010 Kitty prizes phases through the floor. Colossus is there. He 0:15:53.070 --> 0:15:57.670 transforms into his metal form. He takes out some soldiers. Meanwhile, 0:15:57.690 --> 0:16:00.850 the soldiers burst into the kitchen and Logan like fucking 0:16:01.170 --> 0:16:05.350 stabs them. Yeah. Berserker bit pins them to the fucking fridge. 0:16:05.410 --> 0:16:07.850 And Bobby is like, Oh my God, this is horrific. 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:11.720 Logan and Colossus meet. He tells, Logan tells Colossus, like, 0:16:11.740 --> 0:16:13.780 take all the kids to safety. Like, that's how you 0:16:13.820 --> 0:16:17.070 can help me. And then Logan is just like tearing 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:23.750 through guys. At the climax of this, Stryker confronts them 0:16:23.910 --> 0:16:29.090 across like a room. Stryker is like, Wolverine, don't shoot him. 0:16:29.310 --> 0:16:32.770 He says, don't shoot him. Don't shoot him. Don't do it. Wolverine, 0:16:32.820 --> 0:16:35.660 is that you? How long has it been? 15 years? 0:16:36.460 --> 0:16:39.610 And it's clear that he knows a lot about Wolverine. 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:44.770 Logan is getting these flashes like, what the fuck? Bobby, luckily, 0:16:45.010 --> 0:16:47.030 has his wits about him. He builds a huge ice 0:16:47.050 --> 0:16:51.430 wall between them and they escape. Stryker and his guys 0:16:52.210 --> 0:16:54.450 go back to the main mission, which is Cerebro. So 0:16:54.490 --> 0:16:56.470 they go down to Cerebro, they take all the bunch 0:16:56.510 --> 0:17:00.840 of stuff and their plan is to reverse engineer Cerebro. Mystique, 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:08.560 while this is happening, finds Magneto's fat guard from the plastic, fat, brutal, 0:17:08.720 --> 0:17:12.520 mean bully guard from the plastic prison in a dive bar, 0:17:12.540 --> 0:17:15.780 just drinking his troubles away. Hank McCoy is on the, 0:17:16.140 --> 0:17:20.340 is being interviewed on TV about something. She is disguised 0:17:20.500 --> 0:17:22.480 as Rebecca Romijn, swimsuit model. 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:23.720 Sexy. 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:29.750 And she roofies him and injects him with like a big, big, 0:17:30.190 --> 0:17:34.130 like needle full of microscopic bits of metal. 0:17:34.790 --> 0:17:37.570 Yeah, like it's like iron in your blood or something. 0:17:37.869 --> 0:17:41.070 Who knows? But it's incredible. I love this plan. Mystique, 0:17:41.090 --> 0:17:43.649 she would never leave Eric. She's always got a scheme. 0:17:43.910 --> 0:17:48.300 We then get the next great Magneto sequence here. As 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:53.859 this guard delivers Magneto his meal, Eric can feel something 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:58.080 different about you. Too much iron in your blood. And 0:17:58.100 --> 0:18:00.900 then he pulls the iron out of his chest, killing him. 0:18:02.050 --> 0:18:06.810 He turns the iron into these three metal balls, which 0:18:06.850 --> 0:18:09.680 he then uses to smash his person, kill the guards, 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:12.660 and escape. I feel like they should have made the plastic. 0:18:13.700 --> 0:18:16.250 like more bulletproof i feel like they didn't really think 0:18:16.290 --> 0:18:19.370 this through but i love this it's such a good 0:18:19.430 --> 0:18:23.230 sequence i was like blown away by just how many 0:18:23.270 --> 0:18:25.730 murders there are in this movie like this is a 0:18:25.790 --> 0:18:28.090 hardcore murder movie but then i will say and we'll 0:18:28.130 --> 0:18:28.810 get to this they. 0:18:28.710 --> 0:18:31.429 Deserve to die a lot of these people deserve to 0:18:31.470 --> 0:18:35.590 die and there is some hypocritical like judgment among the 0:18:35.770 --> 0:18:38.409 x-men around who is and isn't allowed to be killed 0:18:38.470 --> 0:18:40.270 Which I think I would find a problem. 0:18:40.050 --> 0:18:40.590 As a student. 0:18:40.970 --> 0:18:42.710 I can't wait to talk about this in our theorizing 0:18:42.750 --> 0:18:48.780 section because I do, the amount of how militarized the 0:18:48.900 --> 0:18:51.820 X-Men are, I think might be something that plays into Doomsday. 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:52.560 Oh, I agree. 0:18:52.600 --> 0:18:56.700 Anyway, we continue. Stryker takes Charles, who he has now captured, 0:18:56.780 --> 0:18:59.880 to Alkali Lake and fits him with a neural inhibitor, 0:18:59.940 --> 0:19:02.419 something that maybe could be important to Doomsday. 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:02.920 We'll see. 0:19:03.550 --> 0:19:07.310 Stryker is just fucking pissed about it. He's really pissed 0:19:07.330 --> 0:19:12.240 about Jason, his son. Apparently, when Charles sent Jason back, 0:19:12.940 --> 0:19:20.359 Jason would put demented, strange, troubling scenarios into he and 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:25.399 Stryker's wife's mind. And his wife was driven so insane 0:19:25.420 --> 0:19:28.959 that she committed suicide with a power drill. And Stryker 0:19:29.020 --> 0:19:32.090 had his son lobotomized. He wheels the man in. 0:19:32.109 --> 0:19:32.900 So nasty. 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:37.150 He's hooked up to this. And Charles is like, God! 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:39.040 This is your son. 0:19:39.060 --> 0:19:39.139 Yeah. 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:41.900 No, it's not. 0:19:41.900 --> 0:19:45.070 My son died. And then, you know, the boy is 0:19:45.070 --> 0:19:48.040 completely not. boy, he's a man, full grown man, a 0:19:48.100 --> 0:19:51.040 middle-aged man maybe. He's completely mute now. He's in a 0:19:51.060 --> 0:19:55.140 wheelchair and he's hooked up to this like machine that 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:59.810 harvests the juice from his brain. And it's that brain 0:19:59.869 --> 0:20:05.010 juice that Stryker is using to control his minions, including 0:20:05.050 --> 0:20:08.050 Deathstrike and previously Nightcrawler. And it's clear that he's going 0:20:08.070 --> 0:20:09.929 to use this to break Charles in the sand. 0:20:10.350 --> 0:20:12.300 Again, we don't need to know how the machine works. 0:20:12.410 --> 0:20:13.440 It works and it's terrifying. 0:20:13.460 --> 0:20:14.359 It's brain juice. 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:16.060 Great storytelling. 0:20:16.280 --> 0:20:18.580 I got my son's brain juice. I'm going to use it. 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:19.689 I'm going to use it. 0:20:20.580 --> 0:20:23.119 The escaped X-Men go to Bobby Drake's parents' house for 0:20:23.160 --> 0:20:23.620 so many reasons. 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:26.120 Don't even get me started on this. Why did they 0:20:26.180 --> 0:20:26.790 go there? 0:20:27.330 --> 0:20:31.629 This is one of those, like, in the moment, I'm like, why? Anyway, 0:20:32.330 --> 0:20:35.689 still to this day, I'm like, why? Anyway, they go 0:20:35.730 --> 0:20:39.380 to Bobby's house. Logan tries to use one of the X-phones, 0:20:39.420 --> 0:20:42.320 but he's not getting anybody on it. Bobby tells his 0:20:42.380 --> 0:20:45.240 mom that he's a mutant, and his mom is like, 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:47.110 you ever try not being a mutant? 0:20:47.220 --> 0:20:49.369 Also, I'm like, didn't they send him to Charles Xavier's 0:20:49.390 --> 0:20:51.669 because he's a mutant? I guess they just believed he 0:20:51.710 --> 0:20:52.710 was a gifted child. 0:20:53.170 --> 0:20:59.290 Meanwhile, Bobby's young Charlie Kirk brother is upstairs calling the police. 0:20:59.369 --> 0:21:02.369 What the fuck? This fucking snitch? 0:21:03.550 --> 0:21:07.940 Officers come, surround the house. They shoot Logan in the head, 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:12.460 which knocks him out. Pyro goes Firestarter the movie on 0:21:12.500 --> 0:21:14.580 them and starts blowing up cruisers and the whole thing. 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:14.929 Can I just say. 0:21:15.700 --> 0:21:19.129 correctly what he had learned. When Logan. 0:21:19.250 --> 0:21:19.869 What's he supposed to do? 0:21:19.869 --> 0:21:23.010 When Logan protected the X-Mansion when it got attacked by 0:21:23.050 --> 0:21:26.449 killing a bunch of people, right? Pyro saw that. Oh, 0:21:26.470 --> 0:21:28.550 they shot this guy in the head. Guess I better 0:21:28.570 --> 0:21:31.189 just blow up all these cop cars. That's what he 0:21:31.230 --> 0:21:33.750 was taught. And then suddenly they're like, no, don't do it. 0:21:33.770 --> 0:21:38.449 So Logan can decapitate people in defense of mutants. But anyway, 0:21:39.070 --> 0:21:42.530 Rogue drains a little bit of Pyro to kind of 0:21:42.570 --> 0:21:43.990 get him to chill out and the rest of the 0:21:44.090 --> 0:21:47.530 X-Men show up and spirit them all away. The reassembled X-Men, 0:21:47.850 --> 0:21:52.480 which is now Logan, Storm, Nightcrawler, Bobby, Johnny, Rogue, Scott, 0:21:52.520 --> 0:21:57.080 and Gene are flying away in the Blackbird when jets 0:21:57.119 --> 0:22:02.659 attack it. A jet fires. Well, first of all, Rogue 0:22:02.720 --> 0:22:06.070 builds like a wall of multiple tornadoes, which is so 0:22:06.130 --> 0:22:06.970 fucking sick. 0:22:07.190 --> 0:22:09.550 Yes. It's one of the best uses of Storm's powers 0:22:09.590 --> 0:22:10.030 we've seen. 0:22:10.150 --> 0:22:13.570 That hurls planes away. But one plane manages to launch 0:22:13.609 --> 0:22:20.560 its missiles. Jean, suddenly tapping in to hidden reserves of power, 0:22:20.640 --> 0:22:26.690