So as the title states, this will be another gap week! I already thank you for your patience, X-Fans - Part 6 will be even more worth the wait than the last; full-packed and life-changing (do I mean for you or for the characters? You'll have to read it to find out!)!
But I don't want to leave you with just this - I've decided each time it's a gap week, I'll share something on what makes the X-Men movies stand out to me. Today's topic is one that is rather poetic when considering the mutants' plight: the fact that I think the script treats the characters as people first, above all other identities.
The example of this I want to draw attention to is one from X2 after the X-Jet has been shot down; the start of or lead-in to the "Jean and Wolverine Scene". Jean comes down the ramp of the jet (with what looks like a cloth and device piece in hand) Logan: "How're we doin'?" Jean: "Not good. It'll take four or five hours before I can get it off the ground."
My read of that is Jean is repairing the X-Jet. I feel like in any other movie or TV show I've seen, anytime a female character has any mechanical know-how (much less for a jet), the script always feels the need to qualify it. This usually takes the form of another character in the scene (typically a male) having a surprised and/or impressed reaction, then the female character explaining their knowledge in a way that relates back to another male character i.e. "well, when you grow up with brothers" ; "[male person in family] was a mechanic" ; "my father wanted to make sure his little girl knew how a car worked before he'd get me one of my own". The implication being male characters just have an interest in this stuff and pick it up, but a female character must always have been introduced to it by a male. X2 doesn't do that. They even could've, very naturally, by one of two ways: 1. As all the original X-Men (Storm, Cyclops and Jean Grey) know how to fly the jet, it makes sense to have mechanical knowledge as part of that instruction. Which would relate things back to Xavier as this would've been part of their* X-Men training. 2. Scott/Cyclops, Jean Grey's fiancé, teaches mechanics class at the Xavier Institute. In the first movie even, during Logan's tour, we can briefly see Jean seemingly just sitting in on that class (though for all we know, maybe they teach it together? I like that). Which would even have served to shift the conversation towards Scott, as the scene required.
*worth noting, while Storm is there as well (not in that scene but in that location), the implication is that Jean alone is repairing the jet. Given the urgency of things (Xavier and Cyclops have been kidnapped for a day at this point), you'd think if they both could, they would.
But instead that scene in X2 is just allowed to be, it just is. You can even miss it. It's not made into a thing, at all.
Jean's repairing the jet. 'nuff said.**
**in the immortal words of Stan Lee.
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