X-Men (2000) - 30 questions

Question: Are Scott and Jean engaged? In the scene where Jean's reading Logan's mind, she appears to be wearing an engagement ring.

Answer: The ring she is wearing is not an engagement ring because they are not officially engaged until X2.

Question: Why is it that Storm has an accent in this film, but not in the other two?

Answer: It comes down to the simple fact that Halle Berry can't do accents worth squat. Storm comes from Kenya, so Berry is attempting some form of Kenyan accent in this first movie, but even here it is uneven and inconsistent. The decision was apparently made in 2 and 3 not to use the accent at all.

Question: What did Magneto mean when he said, "I've heard these arguments before"? What arguments?

Answer: He's talking about the government proposals to register mutants "for public safety" and so forth. He's comparing them to the Nazi programmes to weed out "undesirables" that ultimately led to the Holocaust and the deaths of Erik's family in the concentration camps.

Question: What exactly are the limits to Wolverine's power of regeneration?

Answer: Hard to be exact, as his ability level has varied a fair bit in the comics over the years and it's impossible to know which particular level the moviemakers have chosen. Generally speaking, Logan can heal wounds in a matter of seconds and has been shown to regenerate large quantities of destroyed soft tissue in a few minutes, but certain writers have taken it further. At the very extreme end of the scale, Logan has been shown to swiftly recover fully from the effects of a nearby nuclear explosion and also return to life after having all his flesh stripped from his skeleton, leaving him with just his brain within his adamantium-laced skull. Probably the best way to look at it is that Logan's healing factor operates at whatever level the writer needs it to operate at for the story that they're trying to tell.

Question: During the course of the movie, Magneto is shown to be using a form of flight in the presence of metal, such as the train and Statue of Liberty. Could he perhaps, be able to sustain flight without the presence of metal, such as manipulation via the Earth's magnetic field? Also, what are the limits of such flight?

Answer: It is never fully explained in the movie, however in the comics he is shown to be able to use Earth's magnetic field to engage in high speed flight.

Question: Jean and Storm combine their powers to get Wolverine to the top of The Statue of Liberty. Why is this? Wouldn't Jean's telekinesis be sufficient enough to levitate Wolverine to the top without Storm's power?

Answer: Jean's powers were not that powerful at the time.

Question: Instead of using his powers to rip open the train, why couldn't Magneto simply stop the train and open the door to get on? Surely a lot simpler?

Answer: He was making a statement. So the everyone inside the train carriage would take him seriously. If some random guy walked into my train carriage in a silly suit and helmet, I'd probably just laugh at him. If the train carriage was ripped open and I saw a guy fly in, I'd probably take him a little more seriously.

Question: During the Statue of Liberty sequence, Magneto uses his powers to bind and restrain the X-Men to the statue. My questions is, why doesn't Jean simply use her Telekinesis to remove said restraints?

Answer: Because his powers are stronger than hers (in this movie at least).

Question: During the Statue of Liberty scene, Magneto is clearly seen to be manipulating the copper inside the statue to bind and tie up the X-Men. How can this be? I thought magnetism wouldn't work on a non ferromagnetic metal.

Answer: True, but Magneto's power is not EXACTLY the same as magnetism. He can manipulate ANY metal, ferrous and non-ferrous alike. It's just handy to refer to it as "magnetism".

Question: On the train, how does Magneto know who Wolverine is?

Answer: He and Xavier has been keeping track of mutants for years, in part by using Cerebro (as seen in X2: X-Men United). And as Logan is a very powerful mutant, as well as part of a government-funded project (which leaves a paper trail), they would definitely know of him and would have collected as much data as possible about him. When Magneto then detected his adamantium skeleton, it was easy to deduce Logan's identity.

Question: Instead of using Rogue to power the machine, why not just build in some sort of automated system? Surely a lot less time consuming.

Answer: Maybe they tried it and they couldn't. Maybe there's something about the specific energies of Magneto's powers that makes the system work. Maybe it would have made for a far less dramatic film if they had. Script-writers make the choices that they make with the aim of crafting as good a film as possible. Dramatically, it's far more interesting to have Rogue used as an unwilling power source than them building some power reactor thing. You may disagree, but it's the choice that they made.

Question: In the comics, Magneto can use his magnetism to achieve a wide range of effects, such as super strength, supersonic flight, invisibility, radiation manipulation etc. Is there any indication at all as to why he can't do any of these in the movie?

Answer: Probably the primary rationale is that they'd then have to somehow explain exactly how you use a magnetism power to do that sort of stuff - let's face it, it's not immediately obvious how, for example, you become invisible using the power to create and manipulate magnetic fields. Comics have captions and thought bubbles to explain the (often very dodgy) science that goes into these things - in a film, all they can do is have a character verbally explain, which would (a) sound pretty ridiculous and (b) require even more exposition in a film that already has a fair bit. As a result, it would make a lot of sense to restrict his abilities to those that obviously stem from his magnetic power and thus avoid too much explanation.

Question: When Magneto has kidnapped Rogue, she asks him if he is going to kill her to which he answers "Yes". I don't understand - Magneto wants to use Rogue as a vessel to transfer all his power into, not kill her.

Answer: As we saw earlier when Magneto used the machine on Senator Kelly, it severely drained his strength and had nearly died. Using the machine on the much grander scale on Ellis Island would certainly kill the person at the controls which is why Magneto needed someone to do it for him. Rogue would have been killed had Wolverine, Storm, Jean & Cyclops not rescued her at the last minute.

Question: Is the rivalry between Cyclops and Wolverine present in the comics, or is it made-up by the screenwriters?

Answer: It's there in the comics, although it's largely been replaced with a mutual respect after working together for as long as they have in the comic stories.

Question: Something I never completely understood about the ending. When we see senator Kelly on the TV at the end, we realize that it is actually mystique in disguise. But when the X-men told magneto that Kelly was dead.he didn't believe them. And since Kelly vaporized into water, there would be no body or any proof that he was dead. So wasn't mystique worried that she might come into contact with the real Kelly at some point?

Answer: You are working under the assumption that Mystique would not believe this either. However, with Magneto in prison and no sign of the senator she could happily take on his identity. Also, even if Kelly was alive, after she gave a press statement backing mutants, it would be unlikely that a polotician would change his mind so suddenly again and he would therefore not come clean that it was not him.

Question: Does Magneto understand that his special radiation machine kills normal humans or not? He ignores Storm when she tells him she saw Sen. Kelly die. Is his plan to make the world leaders mutants so they'll become sympathetic to the mutant cause, or is it to just kill everybody?

Answer: No, he doesn't realise that it ultimately kills them. His entire aim is to turn the world's leaders into mutants, thus getting them onto his side. If he killed them, he'd simply put new leaders into office who now had even more of a reason to hate mutants, which really isn't going to help matters. When Storm tells him that Kelly died, he simply asks her if she really saw what she thinks she saw - a certain degree of denial, but one that's understandable. After all, he wouldn't want to think that all his planning was for naught.

Question: A woman named Hannah Groves is credited in the movie as Rita, but I don't remember anyone named Rita in the movie. Can someone tell me who she is?

Answer: Somewhat confused by this, as a check down the cast listings for X-Men, X-Men 1.5 (the extended version) and X2 (just in case) has failed to show any credit for either an actress or character with those names. Nor is there a Hannah Groves listed on the IMDb. Your information may simply be wrong.

Question: Since Cyclops' optic blast is on 24/7, how can he see anything?

Answer: It seems that it is a very long, drawn out answer that can be found here: http://www.marveldirectory.com/individuals/c/cyclops.htm.

Question: In the scene where Bobby and Rogue meet in the classroom, what subject was Storm teaching?

Answer: The blackboard has "THE ROMAN EMPIRE" written at the top, so presumably it was a history class.

Question: How can Sabertooth take so much damage from Wolverine and still be fighting fit throughout their confrontation? He takes at least two deep stabs in the chest from Wolverine yet seems almost totally unaffected. Can Sabertooth regenerate like Wolverine?

Answer: Yes, Sabertooth regenerates like Wolverine. In the comics, he has at times been presented as Logan's father, although at other times other writers have disagreed.