X-Men 3 (2006) - 37 questions

Question: I have a few questions. Firstly the latest X-men film showed that although looking only 30ish, Mystique is as old as Professor X. That can only be cause of her mutation. So why after she was cured didn't she age into an older woman? Secondly, if Wolverine had been cured (assuming it would even have worked, given his healing ability), would it have killed him? Given his age and all the adamantium inside him, i couldn't imagine it, but am I wrong?

Answer: Both Wolverine and Mystique's mutations cause them to age slowly; effectively the normal human body deterioration is slowed for them, giving them a younger physical age than their actual chronological age. If that mutation was removed, then the factor that slowed their ageing would no longer function, but they wouldn't abruptly "catch up" with their actual age, they would simply possess a body at their current physical age which would age as a normal human after that point. As for the adamantium lacing Logan's bones, were his healing factor removed, he might well swiftly suffer extreme levels of toxic shock, which would likely prove fatal.

Question: I have three questions about the lake scene. One: When Cyclops fires his lasers, he falls to the ground afterwards. Is that draining his life or something? Two: When Cyclops kisses Jean, how come his face was wavy? Three: Does anyone know why Jean is knocked out when Wolverine and Storm found her? Or why mist is everywhere and everything is floating?

Answer: 1 - Cyclops fell to the ground because he was in psychological pain from being in the place where he lost the woman he loved. 2 - His face was wavy because it was being disrupted by her telekinesis, the same way he eventually died. 3 - She was knocked out because her power overwhelmed her. The strange things going on are because she can no longer control her powers.

Question: At the end of the movie, we see that the cure eventually wears off, but doesn't this mean that Rogue and Mystique's powers will return, and that she would join Magneto again, and Rogue stays as an X-Men?

Answer: This is just a little tease thrown in at the end of the movie. Magneto's still got some power left. Will he get his full power back? They don't say. Will other individuals also get theirs back? We don't know. If another film in the series is made that follows this one, some of these questions may be answered - without that, speculation about what characters might do based on a tease shot is, for the most part, pointless. Their powers might return. Mystique might rejoin Magneto, although she might well not - she was pretty angry at him for abandoning her. Rogue might stick with the X-Men. That's it. A whole load of "might".

Question: What exactly happened to Cyclops?

Answer: De-atomized. The same thing that was happening to Wolverine at the climax, except Cyclops couldn't heal himself as it was happening.

Question: I have a couple of questions regarding Jean Grey: 1) What exactly caused her to turn against the X-Men and join Magneto and the Brotherhood of Mutants? 2) Why did she kill Scott and Professor Xavier?

Answer: It's not exactly Jean. It is her alternate personality known as the Phoenix that has full control. the Phoenix, unlike Jean, wishes to use her powers for her own needs. She kills Scott so he won't get in her way, and kills Xavier because he is able to lock her back in Jean's mind.

Question: Instead of Magneto using the bridge to get his army to the island, why doesn't Jean/Phoenix simply fly them across with her advanced telekinesis?

Answer: There are an infinite number of different ways Magneto and the army could have gotten onto the island. Yes, Jean using her telekinetic powers is one of them. However Magneto, throughout the 3 movies, is shown that he likes to make a statement to invoke fear in everyone. He wanted to start a fight just like in the other movies. Moving an entire bridge (unnecessarily) makes a huge statement.

Question: How does the so called 'cure' work exactly? I thought it was supposed to be perfect, yet at the end of the film we see Magneto's powers return even though he's been injected with the cure.

Answer: Exactly how it works is never explained. As for it not being "perfect", there's no indication that the long-term effects of the "cure" have been studied in depth. It would seem, from the final scene, that it ultimately wears off.

Question: I'd like to know what happens to Pyro in the final battle. He is knocked pretty good on the head by Iceman, so does he get obliterated by Phoenix? Also, once Professor X has transferred himself into the body of the other man, why does his voice still sound the same?

Answer: Pyro's fate is unclear in the film, although the novel (which differs in places from the film and therefore may not be canonical) states that Iceman dragged him clear of the battle site after defeating him. As for the voice sounding the same, it's suggested that, should there be a fourth film, the comatose patient will turn out to be Xavier's twin brother (a departure from the comics, where Xavier has a twin sister), thus allowing Patrick Stewart to return to the series if he wishes to.

Question: The mistakes page says that a fly lands on Wolverine's shoulder. What scene is this?

Answer: This is when he is visiting the Professor's grave.

Question: So i saw the movie and the one mistake that popped out on me was the change from day to night at the bridge scene. I would think a movie editor that does that job for life would see that. Why didn't they catch that?

Answer: It's just one of those things. Sort like how you could proof read a term paper over and over and not see any errors, but hand it to someone else and they spot five in the first paragraph. You may as well ask why any other mistake wasn't caught in any other film. They just missed it. Or found it, but didn't have time to fix it.

Question: Has any reason ever been given for Gambit's absence from all the X-men movies? He's an interesting and cool character and is a fan favorite, so why leave him out?

Answer: They actually were going to put in a quick scene in X2 that showed Gambit reacting when Jason is targetting all of the mutants, and if you look on the screen of the computer when Mystique is in Stryker's office, figuring out where Magneto is being held, you can see Gambit's real name flash on screen. But why he didn't appear can simply be summed up with "It just didn't happen." They seem to use the mutants that help out the story that they are trying to tell, and Gambit doesn't really stand out in a number of ways. In ability, he's quite similar to Cyclops and in attitude, he's very much like Wolverine.

Question: Did the mutants always have a class system or was this just for the movie? I'm curious because at the meeting we are told Pyro is above a class 3 and the girl that has the speed and ability to find mutants is under a class 3. Shouldn't she be rated higher than Pyro since she has two powers and he only has one?

Answer: There is a classification system in the comics, although precise details have never been spelled out. Omega-level is considered the most powerful, allocated only to those with effectively unlimited potential and thus is the equivalent of the Class Five mentioned in the film. The next most powerful are classified as Alpha-level, followed by Beta and so forth. Other ranks apparently exist - Jean Grey's nephew and niece, both latent mutants, were referred to as being classified as Epsilon-Delta, which may be the lowest level, reserved for mutants whose abilities have not yet manifested. The number of powers is not necessarily an indication of level; what matters more is the level at which those powers function. Callisto, despite having two powers to Pyro's one, may operate at a generally lower level and thus be ranked lower. Alternatively, it is suggested in the novelisation of the film that Callisto simply wasn't including herself when she stated that there wasn't anybody else higher than a class three present.

Question: Why did they cast an English actor to play Juggernaut when in the comics he is born and raised in America?

Answer: Because they felt Vinnie Jones was best suited for the part. Movie-makers are in no way required to adhere to every single little detail about the comic book characters, and in fact made several small changes to better suit the story and the media of film.

Question: What is this website talking about where it says "Please note: For this movie, Juggernaut is a mutant like everyone else - it's irrelevant how he got his powers in the comics. And no-one cares that there's an insect on Wolverine's shoulder."

Answer: This is something that's often done when submissions are frequently received about something that's not actually considered a mistake. So, to take the examples cited here, there were a number of submissions claiming that it was a mistake that Juggernaut was a mutant because, in the comics, he isn't. Site policy states that differences between a movie and whatever source material it uses are not considered to be errors, so Juggernaut being a mutant in the movie is not error-worthy. The note was put there in an effort to stop anyone else submitting it. The second one refers to a shot where a fly can be seen on Wolverine's shoulder, which was also the subject of a number of submissions. Flies land on people, it happens in real life, so it can hardly be considered a mistake if it happens in a movie. As such, a note was added to try to prevent it being resubmitted.

Question: Just after Mystique takes the bullet for Magneto, he does acknowledge that she saved him, but walks away. It was very obvious that she did save him so the line wasn't put there for explanation, so why have Magneto say that she saved him if he didn't care?

Answer: As you said yourself, he's acknowledging to her that she saved him. Whether he now cares about her or not, an acknowledgement is hardly unreasonable.

Question: Why didn't they just shoot Mystique with the cure, rather then hold her in a cell like they did? Knowing how dangerous she is, and how she can shape-shift into anyone, why keep her incarcerated? Surely they knew that Magneto would try to rescue her, and how unstoppable he could be. It would have been in their best interest to just "cure" her.

Answer: Because they're not allowed to. You can't just beat a potentially violent prisoner unconscious. This is along the same lines. The legality of usage of "the cure" has not been fully clarified. So all personnel were given the order not to use it unless absolutely necessary.

Question: On Alcatraz, Who was the mutant that teleported around like Nightcrawler?

Answer: That was Callisto, a morlock in the original comics. Rather than teleporting as such, she is just moving very fast. This is why she could only get to a flying storm from jumping off the roof (if she was teleporting she may as well have gone straight there).

Question: Is there an excuse given for Kurt's disappearance anywhere? I've only seen this film once, and I can't remember.

Answer: Not in the film, unfortunately. Kurt leaves the X-Men in the video game, "X-Men: The Official Game", which takes place between the two movies. His reason is that he wants a more peaceful life.

Question: Where can I get information about the mutant who clapped her hands, creating a blast of energy (I think her name was something like 'Arch light')? I've not come across her before and, though she was really under-used, she looked like an interesting character.

Question: Did Angel know he could fly before he took off?

Answer: Yes.