History Film / XmenFirstClass

''X-Men: First Class'' is the [[Film/XMenOriginsWolverine second]] {{prequel}} in the ''Film/XMenFilmSeries'' set in [[TheSixties 1962]] [[AlternateHistory during the]] [[UsefulNotes/HistoryOfTheColdWar Cuban Missile Crisis]].

* TheFarmerAndTheViper:
** Charles believed that he could help the emotionally damaged Erik find some measure of peace and happiness by offering the latter friendship and a home, but [[spoiler:Erik repays Charles' kindness with betrayal, abandonment, and a permanent (if accidental) spinal cord injury]].
** Xavier believes that humanity as a whole will accept them because they desire peaceful coexistence. [[spoiler:As soon as they avert a mutually destructive nuclear war, both sides open fire on them.]]

* PayEvilUntoEvil: Much of the film is composed of Erik (later Magneto) doing this. He's Jewish, as a child he and his family are sent to Auschwitz, and a Nazi there (who we later find out is the mutant Sebastian Shaw) murders Erik's mother when Erik is unable to use his (latent) powers. As an adult, the first part of the film has Erik hunting down, torturing and murdering Nazis and their supporters. At the end of the movie [[spoiler:he gives Shaw a very KarmicDeath - the film clearly intends it to be a JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope moment, but Shaw's such a dangerous madman that he deserves such a kick, especially as there's little reason to believe Shaw could be safely captured. ''Then'' the US and Soviet militaries try to murder the mutants who just saved them from nuclear war, and Erik turns their missiles back on them]]. Paying evil to evil is his personal philosophy, contrasting with Charles' pay-good-unto-evil-and-maybe-they'll-have-a-change-of-heart ethos (and influenced by the fact that Erik's seen a lot more of evil than [[WideEyedIdealist Charles has at this point]]), and it's a substantial part of what ultimately separates them.

* PersonalHateBeforeCommonGoals: At the end of the film, main villain Sebastian Shaw is still trying to convince Magneto that they are on the same side, even while their climactic battle is taking place. Magneto finally admits that he thinks Shaw is right. That the experiences he put him through as a kid made him stronger, and that he made him the man that he is today. And that his idea of mutants taking the initiative, attacking the humans before they could try to wipe mutants out, is the right one. But just as Magneto takes the initiative of the fight, he reveals his one problem: Shaw still killed his mother. Cue to Magneto putting a coin through Shaw's head.

* DisabledLoveInterest: It's hinted that [[spoiler:Charles briefly had a romance with Moira after his spinal cord injury, but he is forced to end their relationship to protect himself and his students from the CIA]].

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** Telling Magneto that men were [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH_VtXj6c2o&feature=related "Just following orders"]] sends him into a murderous rage.

-->'''Xavier''': The point between [[UnstoppableRage rage]] and [[DissonantSerenity serenity]].

* EnemyMine: The ending implies that the Americans and Soviets have found a common enemy in the mutants.

** When we first see Xavier as a kid, the framed photos on his night table are of Charles Darwin, Hedy Lamarr (who was both a Hollywood sex symbol and the [[http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/shortcuts/2011/dec/04/hedy-lamarr-wifi co-inventor of a radio-guided torpedo system]]) and Albert Einstein. He would later grow up to be a scientist with an appreciation for both brains and beauty.

* JustFollowingOrders: One of the Nazis that Erik confronts trots out this line as an excuse for their actions. It's clearly a desperate last attempt at placation, the fact that he says this just after Erik deflects the ''Nazi dagger'' he tried to stab him with does little to help his case.
** Charles later makes the mistake of echoing it while trying to calm Magneto down. Definitely an OhCrap moment for the audience when he says it.
-->'''Magneto:''' [[ShutUpKirk I've been at the mercy of men just following orders. Never again.]]

** Strings of Suspense: twice in the film's last 15 minutes. Both are Charles imploring Magneto to spare first Shaw, then the [=US=] and [=USSR=] navies.

* MoralMyopia: Sebastian Shaw tells Erik the justification for his plan to [[spoiler:start a nuclear war that would probably kill hundreds of millions or billions of people]]. Erik then says, [[spoiler:"I agree with everything you say. Unfortunately, you killed my mother." Erik then kills him in a KarmicDeath]].

** For any audience member who knows [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany what made it famous]], the moment when the last line in [[spoiler:Charles's 'please don't kill those people' speech to Erik is [[JustFollowingOrders "they were just following orders."]]]]

* OpenMouthInsertFoot: Charles urging Erik to show mercy to two navies that just fired on them because the sailors aboard said ships were "[[JustFollowingOrders just following orders]]" is probably the worst thing he could have said to a Holocaust survivor.

* TranslationConvention: Averted for the most part: All the scenes with the Nazis/the Swiss bankteller/former German soldiers as well as the scenes with the Russians are spoken in German, French, Spanish, and Russian where appropriate, with subtitles in English. A couple scenes use the technique of starting in foreign language, then shifting to English for the last few (and most dramatically important) lines. Unfortunately, the actors have trouble with pronunciation and accents.
** This is a {{Narm}} source for Germans, because of the accents. 'Evolution', while written the same in german and english, has the stress ''just'' the other way around.
** The scene in Argentina is a notable exception thanks to all actors involved being German, or of German origin in the case of Fassbender.
** Argentina (particularly in the Buenos Aires province, where Villa Gessel is located) has a distinctive local accent, but the few Spanish lines shown there were delivered Spain-style, which is a very different accent.

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* CoolGun:
** Moira [=MacTaggert=] uses a Walther PPK as her sidearm.
** An [=M1911A1=] is featured prominently in a scene in which Magneto asks Xavier to shoot him in the head, as he can stop the bullet before it hits him.

* {{Prequel}}: This movie serves as a prequel to the original X-Men trilogy. With the release of ''Days of Future Past'', it became the start of a new series. However, due to continuity issues, it works better as a reboot.