History Headscratchers / XMenFirstClass

* Forgive this troper's lack of comic canon knowledge ''and'' physics, but if Charles couldn't knock Shaw out, would it have been possible for Erik to do something about the radiation that Shaw had absorbed? It's electromagnetic, after all: might have been possible for him to absorb it and redistribute it as some large EMP. Would have killed the ships and communication for everyone, though.

* Why do fanfiction writers continually portray Charles' mother as a hateful, drunken shrew? Was there ANYTHING in the movie to indicate this?
** The only mention of her is at the beginning, where Charles says that his mother has never been in the kitchen, and has certainly never made him any hot chocolate. People extrapolate from that, I guess. As a general rule, don't go into fanfic looking for things to resemble the actual source. It happens, rarely, but much more often the writer really doesn't know what they're doing or is just warping everyone to fit their story/ship.
** Hollywood screenwriters suffer {{Flanderization}} only ''slightly'' less horribly than fanfic writers. In the movie, Charles' mother is a typical rich wife: probably caring and loving, but they have enough money to have servants/cooks/whatevers take care of most of the menial work around the house. Filter it through... Less-than-original minds, and "spoiled, but a good person" turns into "disgustingly self-centered/destructive".
** In the comics, Sharon Xavier loses her husband and remarries a man who doesn't love her. As a result she turns to alcoholism and is at least neglectful if not out right abusive toward Charles. Since we have no real idea what movie Sharon is actually like its safe to say she probably shares some traits with her comic counterpart. So while fanfic writers have a reputation for twisting canon to fit their needs, this is one case where they have some grounds.

** As of ''Film/XMenDaysOfFuturePast'' they are definitely in the same continuity; BroadStrokes in force though.

*** Most likely. As stated above he didn't want Erik to become the very thing he hated and tried to get Erik to be above it; he probably wasn't thinking about the logistics of it too hard.

* From what I understand, Shaw's plan is basically to wipe the human race out through nuclear warfare, so that the mutant race will ''reign supreme!''...over a barren, radioactive wasteland, with a disrupted climate, though Riptide could possibly remedy that. Oh, and a practically nonexistant population of superior beings, of course, considering there'll probably be ''lots'' of mutant casualties in amidst all the human ones when the bombs hit and the nuclear winter starts in full; and there aren't exactly a lot of them at the moment anyway. Let's not even begin to wonder whether or not mutants are as susceptible to radiation poisoning and/or development of cancer as humans; in that way lies madness.
** Shaw was more than willing, and did, shoot Erik's mother in order to activate his powers and killed Darwin as an example. Shaw, despite viewing other mutants as the next phase, is not really one to care how many mutants die and probably thinks that those who live will be the most powerful. And as for the radiation, he can absorb energy and as noted above Tempest can create water, making any nuclear wasteland livable. Presumably Shaw also hid some supplies away, so food wouldn't be an issue. And to add to the survival theory, Charles stated earlier in the film that radiation presumably sped up the dawn of mutation, so Shaw, who being so obsessed with evolution probably figured out the same thing, figures it will create a few new ones. The only hiccup is radiation poisoning but Shaw probably doesn't care about the number of mutants left, just that they are all that is left.

*** Or rather Sebastian is immune to radiation. Both Emma and Magneto stepped into a powered-down reactor, and Magneto still looked like he was under a lot of stress at keeping the radiation away from him with his powers. Anyway, Sebastian doesn't age and his plan also was long-term. He had time to wait for the radiation to disperse, and could oversee generations of new mutants that would arise in the next few centuries, even if the first couple generations died due to the holocaust.
*** Even if all (or most) mutants are immune to radiation, they aren't immune to ''explosions''. Russia and the U.S. had a ''lot'' of bombs in the 1960s; a full nuclear war would've killed plenty of mutants from the explosive force alone. Granted, maybe Shawn doesn't care so long as there's at least one mutant left to be the "winner" of the human/mutant conflict. Still, it's a crazy plan.

*** Agreed. Shaw's plan didn't really have to make perfect sense since he was a typical movie villain and his plan was meant to be stopped. The fact that Shaw didn't care how many mutants would die in the initial blasts was proof alone of how bad he was.
** His plan really isn't as unworkable as it sounds. Even a full nuclear exchange between the US and Russia would probably kill, at most, 90% of humanity directly or indirectly. That still leaves hundreds of millions of people still alive, between survivors in collapsed remnants of the nuked nations, and the many nations of the world not targeted. Assuming he made proper preparations, its hardly impossible for him to build a new nation afterwards, given personal power and a preprepared resource base.
*** In 1962 there were around 3.136 billion people on Earth killing 90% of them off would leave about 150m alive, and the vast majority not in America as Shaw appears to assume (given that when Charles read Emma's mind, he saw Shaw had his capital in Washington D.C. in the BadFuture she imagined). Probably the world would be covered in darkness for centuries so plant and alive life would struggle to survive, so Shaw would basically be King of a DeathWorld. On the ''other'' hand, it could be argued that in 1962 most people did not actually know just how destructive nuclear war would be- this is in fact the basis of the plot of the ''Film/JamesBond'' movie ''Film/YouOnlyLiveTwice'', set in 1967, where the villains assume that nuclear war between Russia and America would destroy both countries, but the majority of the world would survive and a new superpower (who hired the villains, presumably Red China) would TakeOverTheWorld. The heroes don't bother to correct them, because back in the 60's the full effects of radiation poisoning were not known. Thus, it could all be FridgeBrilliance- Shaw's evil plan hinges on the fact that neither he nor anyone else fully understands just how much destruction will result from global nuclear war, or that they will all likely die from radiation poisoning before getting a chance to build a new world order.

*** Not to mention it ''can't'' be too much energy for him to gain a power that lets him survive it; Shaw ''just absorbed that attack''. So Mutant Powers of energy absorption are clearly sufficient to withstand Havoc's attack...and for some reason the man whose power is whatever mutation will let him live through the situation he's in right now can't develop the exact same powers as the guy who just lived through the attack that killed him?

*** There is always an upper limit. Him teleporting away from the Hulk is a perfect example: His power determined that the best way to survive was to be somewhere else--and by implication, decided that it wasn't up to the task of making him able to survive getting punched by the Hulk.
*** When Darwin fought the Hulk he had no problem being hit he adapted the power to absorb the Hulk's own Gamma energy, which after a while his powers determined there was to much to realistically end the fight at any point so then it teleported him. So a faithful Darwin would have literally been able to adapt nearly the same power as Shaw so no there really isn't much of a limit for him.

*** Darwin wasn't the only black character as Angel was black. And his ability is not "can't be killed", it's adaptive defense. I'd like to assume, along with many others, that he may have survived.

** No matter how contrived it may be, he HAD to die - His borderline invulnerability is a game breaker. Heck; Wolverine's healing ability is a game breaker and it's, in theory, nowhere near as powerful.

That said, Darwin was a very young and fairly untrained mutant whereas Shaw hade been at it for a while. Humans have adapted to survive pretty much any enviroment and situation but we are still being killed by falling rocks and patches of ice every day.

*** Magneto's displayed the ability to control non-magnetic metals plenty of times though (like the silver coin or the lead bullets).

** As some other fans have pointed out, silver coins aren't 100% silver—apparently reichmarks were about 90% silver and that 10% could easily contain magnetic metals. Same probably goes for bullets—in fact, tha would explain why the most evidence we see in XM:FC of his ability to stop bullets going the wrong places is...below par. If he's still learning how to use his powers he might not be able to identify or manipulate the trace magnetic metals in bullets as fast as the bullet can hit the wrong target. However, the silver coin is shown to be something of an obsession for him, so he could well have learned to manipulate it intuitively before understading the principles of it.

* Young Erik kills two guards and trashes a whole room after Shaw shoots his mother--and then just STANDS there and lets SHAW go?

*** I don't think a kid distressed the way that poor thing was would have reacted with a BIG NO the way Erik did

** This is an Erik who doesn't even fully understand that he has a power, let alone have any control over it. When he trashed the room and crushed the guard's helmets, it was just him raging at the death of his mother, he had no real control. Once the inital rage had subsided he was just a kid who couldn't move a coin even when he tried, at that point there was nothing he could do against Shaw.
* When Magneto passes the coin through Shaw's head at the end of the movie, Charles screams the whole time, leading the audience to believe that Charles can feel the coin passing through his head. But the brain has no pain sensors inside it--the only pain he'd have felt would've been at the point of entry and exit. So presumably Charles was just screaming from the pain radiating from the initial entry point that whole time...?

** His mind was in contact with that a person who was dying...by having his brain (and therefore his "mind" slowly torn apart. As the coin passed through different regions of Shaw's, parts of his mind would shut down with no rhyme, reason, or warning. According the comics, being in the mind of a dying person isn't fun to begin with and it would likely be even worse as a coin was pushed through a brain.
** Brain tissue doesn't have pain receptors, but the blood vessels that nourish the brain would. Every time the coin hit one of those, there's be physical pain, at least until its passage destroyed the area of the parietal lobe where headaches are felt.

** There's less problems fitting First Class with the other X-Men films as canon than there are fitting the Franchise/StarWars prequels with their canon ([[JediTruth "Your father was a kind man, dedicated pilot, owned a cargo ship, Yoda trained me, and Leia was raised by your birth mother."]] according to Obi-Wan and Leia) Minor fluctuations in age don't really matter much (17 or 24, it doesn't matter - the point is they met when they were young men), the writers confirmed that Havok is intended to be the father of the original trilogy's Cyclops, Beast's appearance shifts many times in the comics, and Professor X had to rebuild his own version of Cerebro (possibly with Magneto's help, even if another bigger mutant threat like Onslaught or Apocalypse appeared in the intervening 40 years). The only thing that raises an eyebrow is Emma's agelessness, but MANY MANY mutants have retarded aging as a minor power, so I'm perfectly willing to let that slide. Even Professor X has regained and lost the ability to walk many, many times and Magneto is a HeelFaceRevolvingDoor, explaining why they would still occasionally cooperate with each other to do this like interview Jean Grey or rebuild Cerebro or other mutually beneficial acts. WordOfGod also claims it was intended to be in-canon with the other films and 40 years between movies is ''a lot'' of time for all that stuff above to happen.

* So...just what is Shaw's helmet made out of that prevents telepaths from reading his mind?
** Isn't it made of metal? Why couldn't Magneto just take it off of him from a distance?
*** Not all metals are magnetic.
** Probably the same material as the nuclear chamber in his sub, since Charles couldn't reach anyone that went inside.
** [[ComicBook/CaptainAmerica Vibranium?]].
** Thought why would he need it, since Shaw specifically mentions being able to absorb energy, and unlike his comic version, it isn't limited to kinetic energy, as he was able to absorb both a grenade blast and a lot of radiation. Shouldn't that count for whatever energy is used for telepaths to read minds? Assuming the phrase 'Psychic energy' often used in comics to describe telepaths and telekinetics use of their powers applies to the films too, as noted previously, thought now removed for some reason.
*** Actually a grenade blast is kinetic energy.

* So Xavier wipes [=Mctaggart=]'s memory to protect himself and his pupil... But the entire CIA knows who he is (As seen when they question a mind-wiped [=Mctaggart=] and he's not wiped their memories. And even if he did, they got written files. AND it's not like he chose a secret hideout - he's in his family's ancestral HUGE mansion. How does the memory wipe accomplish anything?

** [[YouShouldKnowThisAlready Did you seriously just ask why a bunch of humans decided to irrationally attack mutants in the X-Men franchise?]]

*** In 1962 there were around 3.136 billion people on Earth killing 90% of them off would leave about 150m alive, and the vast majority not in America as Shaw appears to assume (given that when Charles read Emma's mind, he saw Shaw had his capital in Washington D.C. in the BadFuture she imagined). Probably the world would be covered in darkness for centuries so plant and alive life would struggle to survive, so Shaw would basically be King of a DeathWorld. On the ''other'' hand, it could be argued that in 1962 most people did not actually know just how destructive nuclear war would be- this is in fact the basis of the plot of the ''Film/JamesBond'' movie ''Film/YouOnlyLiveTwice'', set in 1967, where the villains assume that nuclear war between Russia and America would destroy both countries, but the majority of the world would survive and a new superpower (the BiggerBad who hired the villains, presumably Red China) would TakeOverTheWorld. The heroes don't bother to correct them, because back in the 60's the full effects of radiation poisoning were not known. Thus, it could all be FridgeBrilliance- Shaw's evil plan hinges on the fact that neither he nor anyone else fully understands just how much destruction will result from global nuclear war, or that they will all likely die from radiation poisoning before getting a chance to build a new world order.

** There's less problems fitting First Class with the other X-Men films as canon than there are fitting the StarWars prequels with their canon ([[JediTruth "Your father was a kind man, dedicated pilot, owned a cargo ship, Yoda trained me, and Leia was raised by your birth mother."]] according to Obi-Wan and Leia) Minor fluctuations in age don't really matter much (17 or 24, it doesn't matter - the point is they met when they were young men), the writers confirmed that Havok is intended to be the father of the original trilogy's Cyclops, Beast's appearance shifts many times in the comics, and Professor X had to rebuild his own version of Cerebro (possibly with Magneto's help, even if another bigger mutant threat like Onslaught or Apocalypse appeared in the intervening 40 years). The only thing that raises an eyebrow is Emma's agelessness, but MANY MANY mutants have retarded aging as a minor power, so I'm perfectly willing to let that slide. Even Professor X has regained and lost the ability to walk many, many times and Magneto is a HeelFaceRevolvingDoor, explaining why they would still occasionally cooperate with each other to do this like interview Jean Grey or rebuild Cerebro or other mutually beneficial acts. WordOfGod also claims it was intended to be in-canon with the other films and 40 years between movies is ''a lot'' of time for all that stuff above to happen.

* Why does Beast an accomplished scientist and engineer tell Banshee to make his [[YouFailPhysicsForever sound waves supersonic?]]

*** We actually SEE him make her forget, so what, he just ended with "Ha, jsut kidding, we're gonna fake it."?

** Shapeshifting from flesh to an alternate form heals most wounds in the Marvel universe. With Iceman, Colossus, and Emma, the damage to their ice, steel, and diamond forms or even human forms isn't permanent because they're not swapping between two bodies stored in hyper-space or something, they're altering the physical make-up their body from scratch each time - rebuilding their bodies in the selected material each time. Like if you cloned a person who was crippled in an accident, their clone wouldn't be crippled. Same concept.

** Physics in First Class works on the 1960s comic book model, where you can pass an Oxford defense with a thesis which hinges on the average nuclear reactor emiting a noteworthy amount of radiation (hint: if any radiation escapes the core, everyone should be panicing), which then causes superpowers instead of birth defects. While there is no assurance that the existing mutants will do a better job of surviving the war, the radiation infested world would lead to a dramatic shift in birth rates in favor of mutants. Further, following said 60's comic model, the radiation may cause previously "baseline" humans to become mutants as well. The real question is why anyone would rally to the guy who ended the world.

*** Based on nuclear doctrine of the time, there are large sections of both America and the Soviet Union that would not be targeted, due to the absence of military assets or a sufficient population density for a proper counter-value strike (Siberia, Kamchaka, etc. in the Soviet Union, any part of "flyover country" that is more than 10 miles away from a military base in the U.S.), which would result in multiple megadeaths but leave a large number of survivors. Same but less with Canada, due to them allowing the Americans to set up early warning assets that are viable targets. Europe and the U.K. is pretty Boolaean, in that they either stay out of it and get away clean, or they go all in and become a nuke-blasted fuckhole, due to the distribution of military assets and population centers in a relatively small area. China is a coin toss, as they were already sliding away from the Soviets to do their own thing at this point, and as such may not get hit at all. Japan is f'd worse than Europe, because they are tight enough in with the Americans that slipping under the radar is unlikely. Major population centers in Latin and South America, Africa are likely to get away clean, and Australia has pretty good odds of staying out of it. End result is an immediate survivor population either in the billions with a good amount of surviving infrastructure (best case) or high millions in a shattered wreck of a planet (worst case), with likely 20-40% additional casualties from illness and starvation in the following 1-5 years and (assuming Xavier's thesis is correct) a dramatic spike in visible mutation among the surivors and the first generation born after the exchange. Such a world could be filled with prime targets for a charismatic wackball with easy answers (Blame the Humans!)and a secretary who can make the Articles of Surrender look like a voucher for free cotton candy.

** He seemed to switch English. The Nazi asks "Who’what are you?" in German while Erik drinks his beer, the camera zooms in as he finishes the bear, and without any dramatic change in the music, replies in English "Lets just say I'm Frankenstein's monster," turned around to walk and walked over to the picture of Shaw and the Nazis too stare at it, continued with "I'm looking for my creator," before taking the gun from the dead Argentinian man and shooting the man.

*** The only thing that confuses me is that Shaw didn't come across as being poetic: he actually said "radiation gave birth to us" and seemed to be saying that mutants would thrive in a nuclear war due to that fact. Which is a strange thing to say since ''he himself'' predates the atomic age, along with at least Erik (whom he knows of personally), Xavier, Raven and Logan. While natural radiation can cause mutation, other things can too, and it doesn't seem like Shaw has enough evidence to narrow it down like that (or if he did, like knowing that mutant births have been spiking bigtime since WW2, he didn't bring it up). There is the possibility that Shaw is just plain crazy, but you'd think Xavier would have given the audience some clue of that, like saying "that's crazy!" the moment he read Emma's mind and found out about it. Or alternately, maybe it's a case of ViewersAreGeniuses and the writers are counting on the audience to put the pieces together and realize that nuclear power's the reason why more and more mutants are being born.