Film / Logan

This page contains several unmarked spoilers. You Have Been Warned!

"Nature made me a freak. Man made me a weapon. And God made it last too long."

"There's no living with a killing. There's no going back from it. Right or wrong, it's a brand. A brand that sticks. There's no going back. Now you run on home to your mother and tell her... tell her everything's alright, and there aren't any more guns in the valley."

— Shane

Logan is a Neo-Western Superhero film in the X-Men film series that follows the mutant superhero James "Logan" Howlett ("Wolverine") after X-Men Origins: Wolverine and The Wolverine, the latter of which shares a director with this movie in James Mangold. This film features both Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier, and also stars Dafne Keen as Laura, Richard E. Grant as Doctor Zander Rice, Boyd Holbrook as Donald Pierce, Stephen Merchant as Caliban, Eriq LaSalle, and Elise Neal. The original "Old Man Logan" story arc; X-23: Innocence Lost; and classic westerns such as The Cowboys, The Shootist, and Shane are cited as the story's primary influences.

In the year 2029, in an Alternate Timeline to the main X-Men and Wolverine movies, the majority of mutantkind is extinct. With the age of Superheroes now long gone, an aged Logan tries to live quietly on the Mexican border as he cares for a mentally ill Charles Xavier, even as his own Healing Factor decays. But when a young girl with powers identical to Logan's named Laura comes looking for the aging mutant, Logan soon lands in the middle of one last battle, this time against mutant-hunting mercenaries and a MegaCorp that wants Laura for their own sinister purposes.

A black-and-white version of the film (Logan Noir) was given a one-night showing in select theaters on May 16, 2017, one week before the film's home video release. This version of the film was packaged alongside the original version in the film's Blu-ray release. Logan is also notable for being the first-ever film adaptation of a superhero comic book to receive an Academy Award nomination in the Best Adapted Screenplay category.

While Hugh Jackman stated that he had plans to play Wolverine for as long as he possibly could, he ultimately changed his mind upon learning about this movie's story and instead decided that it would be the perfect Swan Song for his long tenure as the superhero. (In addition, a conversation with Jerry Seinfeld, of all people, helped him make this decision.) Afterward, he was said to be involved with Fox's producers in recasting the character for future X-Men and Wolverine movies. Nothing ever came of this, however, due to Disney's acquisition of Twentieth Century Fox and their own plans to reboot the franchise — and while some remained hopeful that Jackman would return to the role, he seemed content with ending his tenure as Wolverine on a high note, letting this film mark the End of an Age... at least until Ryan Reynolds eventually convinced him to change his mind and return as Wolverine for the Marvel Studios-produced Deadpool & Wolverine as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, though they have also confirmed that the movie will not interfere with the events of Logan and will be set before it.

A short film teasing Deadpool 2, No Good Deed, played before Logan in US and Canadian theaters. It has no actual connection to this film, though.

In July 2022, this movie, along with Deadpool and Deadpool 2, became the first R-rated films to stream on Disney+ in the United States.

Previews: Trailer 1, International Trailer 1, Trailer 2, International Trailer 2.

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Logan includes the following tropes:

# to B

• 20 Minutes into the Future: Invoked by director James Mangold, who wanted to keep the film much more grounded — hence the lack of futuristic amenities like Xavier's hoverchair from Days of Future Past. The film is set in 2029; for the most part, it looks similar to the contemporary late-2010s, albeit with a few futuristic elements:
  • Tigers are extinct.
  • Logan's limousine is a sleek and slightly concept-car-looking Chrysler with a completely digital dashboard. Pierce refers to it as a "'24 Chrysler", suggesting the model was first released in 2024 or late 2023.
  • Advanced robotic limbs which are commonplace (at least among the mercenaries)
  • The hotel room television in Oklahoma City is much larger, thinner, and sleeker than most current models (especially those found in hotels).
  • The cars being sold at the beater lot that Logan buys the pickup from all appear to be from the late 2010s.
  • Numerous self-driving freight trucks are seen on the highways, completely devoid of cabins in order to maximise room for storage.
  • Logan and Will Munson talk briefly about the huge (but only distantly-seen) automated farming machines harvesting a cornfield.
    • Said fields are used to produce GMO corn to make a new syrup that is very popular in food and drinks and supposedly has many health benefits. It actually modifies a population's DNA over time; specifically, it wipes out mutant genes, thus sterilizing and ultimately shrinking the mutant population.
  • Genetic engineering, in general, is highly advanced; it allows Transigen to artificially inseminate women from simple blood samples to create the X-23 series experiments, rather than requiring harvested gametes. Additionally, the science has reached the point of growing a fully sentient adult clone of Logan in a matter of weeks from parts grown in vats that are later surgically assembled.
• Aborted Arc: The Stinger for X-Men: Apocalypse featured the Essex Corporation taking Wolverine's blood samples in a set-up for this film, strongly suggesting that Mister Sinister would be the primary antagonist — or at least the Essex Corporation in his place, who would use Wolverine's blood samples to make Laura. Mister Sinister is nowhere to be found in this movie, however, and the people responsible for making Laura are Transigen instead (presumably through the same methods that the Essex Corporation were employing).^note Although, nothing rules out that Transigen is not a subsidiary or licensee to the Essex Corporation, as an offhand remark mentions that Transigen is an offshoot of an American corporation. Later statements made by producer Simon Kinberg would reveal that Sinister was intended to appear in a different X-Men movie instead, which would suggest that Essex Corporation is planned for that movie.^note The New Mutants, the last X-Men film set in the pre-Disney continuity, confirms that Transigen was indeed an offshoot of the Essex Corporation, although Sinister doesn't appear as anything except an implied, offscreen Greater-Scope Villain.
• Accidental Murder: The film heavily implies that one of Charles's seizures accidentally killed several of the X-Men.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: Pierce is not much to look at in the comics, but in the movie, he's played by model/actor Boyd Holbrook.
• Adaptational Heroism: In the comic, Laura had killed hundreds of innocent people. In the film, she is one of many untested experiments, and while she kills people and feels bad about it, they were all bad guys who were after her.
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • Donald Pierce, for all his crimes against mutantkind and X-23 child abuse, is quite a lot less heinous than his Hate Sink comics counterpart. Contrasting with comics Pierce's outward psychopathy and supreme Fantastic Racism, this Pierce is still a Psycho for Hire, but is more just a Faux Affably Evil Smug Snake who admits to being a fan of Wolverine and even Caliban, and Boyd Holbrook even implies that he may even have a twisted soft spot for mutants after all.
  • Zander Rice, too, though more of a zig-zag; in his original depiction in X-23: Innocence Lost, he was an impulsive and violent individual without any redeeming qualities, consumed entirely by his desire to avenge his father at all costs. This incarnation is a lot more relaxed in demeanor, seeming more Faux Affably Evil and has a Lack of Empathy as opposed to petty cruelty. But while Rice is no longer an unhinged maniac, his one redeeming value — compassion for his father — is gone, as he dismisses his death like it was some embarrassing middle school prank. Other than that, he's every bit as vile as he was in the comics.
• Adaptational Wimp:
  • This is the case for Pierce and his Reavers. In the comics, they were mutant-hating cyborgs and one of the deadliest threats to the X-Men; in Logan, they're simply normal human Private Military Contractors with a few cybernetic limbs instead of full body conversions.
  • This also extends to Logan; in the original comic, he wasn't losing his Healing Factor, though it was slowing down.
  • In the comics, Caliban is a formidable fighter with Super-Strength (at least, after his transformation at the hands of Apocalypse). In Logan, he is a Non-Action Guy (which actually matches his earlier appearance with the Morlocks).
• Adaptation Distillation:
  • Logan quit being a hero in Old Man Logan because a hypnosis attack against him made him think the X-Men were all villains and he killed them all. Here, a senile Xavier has degenerative disease-induced seizures, which causes him to telepathically attack everyone around him. The film implies that a prior episode accidentally killed several of the X-Men. Said mental attack in the comics was also done by Mysterio, who Fox obviously could not use in this movie.
  • Logan's adamantium skeleton poisoning him and slowing down his healing factor is an important plot point; it is also something that the comics ran with for a time.
  • The film also adapts elements of Death of Wolverine, including Logan's healing factor giving out, the regeneration serum, and Logan dying in the end.
  • In keeping with the movie's grounded nature, the mutant gene has been wiped out by Transigen's modified corn syrup. Contrast this with Scarlet Witch's reality-warping in House of M and Decimation, which de-powered damn near every mutant in the world.
  • Much of Laura's original backstory was simplified in Logan to the bare minimum of detail, such as her being both a lab experiment and Logan's genetic daughter, while Zander Rice is an amalgamation of Rice, Sarah Kinney, and Martin Sutter from the original story. This makes sense, given that her backstory took two entire miniseries to tell (and Logan primarily draws from X-23: Innocence Lost), which leaves plenty of room for an adaptation of Target X.
• Adaptation Personality Change:
  • The film's version of Zander Rice is nicer than his comics counterpart. They both see Laura as a weapon, but comics Rice also delighted in torturing her and went out of his way to make her life pure hell.
  • This accidentally happens to Caliban as well, as he is very different here from his appearance in X-Men: Apocalypse, which came out less than a year prior. As it turns out, the writers for each movie were unaware that the other would be using the character, and when they found out, both refused to change their version to match the other's.
• Adapted Out: Dr. Sarah Kinney, the woman who gave birth to Laura and helped her escape in the comics, does not appear. Instead, the film shows that Laura was birthed by an anonymous Mexican woman, and a nurse named Gabriela helps Laura escape from her handlers.
• Age Lift:
  • This is slightly inverted with Laura, who was somewhere between 13 to 15 during Target X, which chronicles the aftermath of her escape from the facility that created her. She was 15 when she met Wolverine. In Logan, she is 11.
  • Similarly, Rictor is portrayed as slightly younger than his comic book counterpart.
  • Zander Rice was only in his early thirties at most in the comics; in Logan, he is pushing sixty.
• All for Nothing: In this particular timeline — which isn't the main one — all the struggling that Professor Xavier and his X-Men went through to protect mutantkind in the previous movies, especially in X-Men: Days of Future Past, comes across as a moot point, given the fact that most mutants died out anyway, along with several of the X-Men themselves, not due to some big final battle, but thanks to one of Xavier's telepathic seizures. Pretty much the whole saga is ultimately for nothing and comes to a horrible end, which is why Logan himself is suicidally apathetic at the start although the mutant children that Logan fights so hard to rescue manage to escape, thus giving Logan a purpose, and both him and the saga a well-earned good ending.
  • All said, though, it still shows that the future, while deeply flawed, is a far cry from the living hell that the DOFP future was. While mutantkind was indeed decimated, humans with potential x-genes or associates to mutants are no longer being rounded up or exterminated. The tragedy is that all these mutant-hating , xenophobic, racist humans who are so hell-bent on killing Logan and Laura have no idea it's him they have to thank for even existing anymore.
• All There in the Manual: The script reveals a few details that weren't made explicit in the films:
  • Caliban is stated to be in his 60s, which would fit his age based upon his appearance in Apocalypse.
  • Laura's fascination with Nate Munson, although hinted at in the final film and confirmed by invokedWord of God, is much more blatantly established in the script.
• Alternate Monochrome Version: The film received a black-and-white version titled Logan Noir. While the original is a color film, it was reportedly shot with an expectation that it would play well as a black-and-white film, naturally leading to this new version to be played in select theatres before becoming available on Blu-Ray.
• Alternate Timeline: While it's never explicitly stated in the film, Marvel have confirmed that the movie is set in a Darker and Edgier Alternate Universe to the main X-Men movies. In this timeline, the events of Days of Future Past still happened and a Sentinel-run future was averted, but some offscreen tragedy ended up killing a bunch of mutants anyway. Presumably, Fox's intent was for this film to be a standalone to send off Hugh Jackman's version of the character before they recast Wolverine with a new actor to keep playing him, although due to Disney's acquisition of the company and Marvel's plans to reboot the franchise, this never happened. The biggest hint in the film is Logan stating that no new mutants have been born in 25 years. The film takes place in 2029, so that would mean the last mutants were born in 2004. The ending scene of Days of Future Past is in 2023, and it includes mutant children that appear to be elementary school age.
• Always Someone Better:
  • Transigen finally succeeded at everything William Stryker aimed for in the previous movies: they successfully wiped out the mutant gene and created a perfect clone of Wolverine.
  • Nate Munson. All the rodeo trophies in his room? He never placed higher than second.
  • Logan himself cannot keep up with Laura, and he is also obviously outmatched by X-24. This is justified, as he is well past his prime thanks to old age and adamantium poisoning wearing him down.
• Amazing Freaking Grace: Used to great effect in the Super Bowl trailer.
• And I Must Scream: Whenever Xavier has one of his seizures, everyone within a good distance of him is put into an extremely painful, statue-like paralyzed state. They are unable to stop anything that happens to them, such as driving into an oncoming obstacle, fend off any attackers...or breathe
• And Starring: The film's opening credits end with "And Introducing Dafne Keen."
• Anyone Can Die: No one is safe from death in this film. Most of the X-Men and the mutant race as a whole have died as part of the backstory. Of the film's main and supporting cast, only Laura and the other X-23s lucky enough to escape into Canada make it through the film alive.
• Arc Words: Throughout the film, people keep asking Logan if he "feels" something. It coincides with his deteriorating Healing Factor as well as his reluctance to have a personal connection with others. Both are echoed in his final words.
• An Arm and a Leg: The film takes great pleasure in showing numerous people losing a variety of limbs in various (and all gruesome) ways.
• Ascended Fridge Horror: Remember back in X2: X-Men United, when Xavier caused mutants and then humans horrible, debilitating pain for a few minutes, worldwide? Which probably led to shedloads of accidents and fatalities, and could easily have been lethal if he had wanted? Now the world's most powerful telepath has a degenerative brain disease that causes dangerous seizures when he is not medicated. One of them killed several X-Men, and the ones we see in the film cause paralysis and incredible pain for hundreds of people at once.
• Asleep for Days: Logan loses consciousness for two days straight once he makes it to the X-23s' hideout, completely worn out from both mental and physical exhaustion from being on the run for an entire week.
• Asshole Victim:
  • The carjackers in the opening scene.
  • The corrupt ranchers who try to attack Logan and Mr. Munson at the water pump. They show up again at the worst possible time and get cut to pieces by X-24.
  • For that matter, Pierce, Rice, the Reavers, and X-24 all get extremely brutal yet very-much-warranted deaths after all the shit they've pulled — Pierce is slowly and painfully murdered by a combination of all the X-23 children's powers, Rice is shot in the throat and left to choke on his own blood, and X-24 is shot in the head with an adamantium bullet that blows most of his skull off.
• Ax-Crazy:
  • X-24 is a clone of Logan himself, but stripped bare of all his positive traits. He's a ruthless ball of unrestrained rage with no compunctions against slaughtering anything in his path. And if that's not enough, he's a Hero Killer, murdering a helpless Charles Xavier in cold blood and ultimately fatally wounding Logan himself.
  • Donald Pierce is a sadistic Smug Snake who Would Hurt a Child and is even heard laughing while dragging one's body into what looks like a crematorium. He also tortures Caliban by exposing him to sunlight and murders two innocent civilians For the Evulz.
• Bad Future: A downplayed example, as the film's future setting is not nearly as dystopic as the Sentinel-dominated future depicted in Days of Future Past. Mutants may be near-extinct in this timeline, and life seems to be pretty miserable for Logan and Xavier, but civilization and the environment appear to still be intact for the most part.
• Bait-and-Switch: With Deadpool: No Good Deed, although it's only an example for the theatrical releases that opened with it; writer Rhett Reese stated that the tone of the film's opening was meant to fool audiences into thinking Logan had actually started. Averted on home media releases, which keep No Good Deed separate from Logan.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Why Laura sticks with Gabriela, and then with Charles and Logan. They're the only people she knows, apart from the other X-23s, that treat her like a person instead of as a weapon. Though Logan takes a little longer to adapt.
• Bested by the Inexperienced: Wolverine gets his ass kicked and eventually killed by X-24, his perfect clone. While X-24 is a perfect clone, he doesn't have the experience that Logan has. A running theme in the film is that Logan is Dented Iron.
• Bilingual Bonus: When Laura blows up at Logan after revealing she can talk and rants at him in very fast and angry Spanish for several long moments, the dialogue is left untranslated. However, Spanish speakers will realize that Laura is actually chewing his ass out for the way he's been treating her to that point, and reveals that this is why she hadn't spoken with him before.
  Laura: Why do you want me to talk to you if you're always insulting me, yelling at me, if you try to leave me behind? You want me to open my mouth...
• Bilingual Dialogue: When Laura finally speaks, she talks only in Spanish at first. Logan replies in English, and both are swearing profusely, but they seem to understand each other just fine (especially the times that Laura punches him in the face).
• Bittersweet Ending: Hard emphasis on the bitter part. The X-Men are no more, and natural-born mutantkind is already doomed to extinction, but Logan, Charles, and Caliban all find peace before and in death. Transigen has been destroyed with the deaths of its leaders Rice and Pierce as well as its greatest creation, X-24, and Laura and the surviving X-23 mutants are now free to live their lives in peace. Even the final shot is heartbreakingly beautiful and sweet: Laura turns the cross on Logan's grave into an X, as if a sendoff to everything and everyone the X-Men were.
• Bland-Name Product: The X-Men comics made for the film are distributed by "X-Men Comics Group" rather than "Marvel Comics Group", since Fox are not legally allowed to use real Marvel comic books.
• Blatant Lies:
  • Transigen told its Mexican nurses that the mutant children being raised in the facility were part of a "drug trial". Gabriela says that none of them believed that for a second.
  • Gabriela told Wolverine that he would get $50,000 if he took Laura to North Dakota. $20,000 to begin with, and the rest when they get there. She revealed in her video that it was a lie — there was no more money after the initial payment.
• Bloodier and Gorier:
  • Manigold aimed for an R-rating so the film could be more visceral than previous X-Men films, and it shows. The entire film is filled with graphic violence. There are detailed bullet wounds on Logan and Laura, bloody messes left behind following claw swipes and stabs, limbs being pierced and sliced clean off, decapitations, instances of people being blown into Ludicrous Gibs, impaled bodies, and tons of blood falling from wounds. In stark contrast to Deadpool, the violence here isn't stylized or played for comedy, it's portrayed as realistically and horrifically as possible to match the Darker and Edgier tone of the film overall.
  • The film was actually given a C rating in Mexico^note films with that rating in the country are considered suitable only for ages 18 and up purely because of the violence. Many theater chains were required to ask moviegoers for their IDs before buying tickets.
• Bloodless Carnage: This trope is averted for the first time in X-Men movie history. Everyone who expected the franchise's standard level of (mostly harmless) violence got a massive surprise barely a minute into the opening when Logan demonstrates just how messy any fight against the Wolverine can get.
• Body Horror:
  • We get to see the damage Logan inflicts and receives. We get to see him struggling in a shitty hotel room, his body slowly pushing out bullets. We get to see him drinking himself to death.
  • Caliban's mutation leaves him vulnerable to sunlight, such that exposer is used to torture him. We get to see him suffer and scream.
• Bookends:
  • Funerals/burials are shown at the opening, middle, and endpoints of the film.
  • Logan's first appearance involved giving a ride to a young mutant running away from her home (Rogue). His swan song involves him doing the same for another young mutant (Laura).
  • A Call-Back to X-Men Origins: Wolverine: Logan's journey to becoming one of the X-Men started with William Stryker shooting him in the head with an adamantium bullet. What helps Logan end his journey is his clone, X-24, getting shot in the head with an adamantium bullet.
• Boom, Headshot!: The fates of Zander Rice and X-24.
• Break His Heart to Save Him: When Laura is reunited with the other X-23 kids, Logan intends to leave her with them and head out on his own again. The two get into a fight, and Logan tells her that he is not what she thinks he is, making snide remarks about having done what he agreed to do before pointedly telling her the people he cares about tend to die. Hurt by this rejection, Laura snipes back that in that case, she has nothing to worry about, and leaves.
• Broad Strokes:
  • In an interesting back and forth, Jackman described the film in this manner, saying it was a slightly different universe and implying that it was not based directly on past continuity. Mangold responded by saying that the film is firmly in the reset timeline from the end of X-Men: Days of Future Past, five years afterwards. In the movie itself, specific events from the original timeline are brought up, such as the battle on the Statue of Liberty and Logan still having the Yashida family's samurai sword, so this trope is likely in effect regardless.
  • This is played straight with Caliban, who has little to no resemblance to the character's previous portrayal in X-Men: Apocalypse.^note Apparently, both directors used Caliban separately and did not consult each other. Caliban shows little sign of aging from Apocalypse, despite the two films being over forty years apart ^note His actor in this movie, Stephen Merchant, is only three years older than Tómas Lemarquis, who portrays Caliban in Apocalypse. and there is no mention of Caliban's previous appearance and role in Apocalypse. The portrayal of his powers is also different in both films, as the character's mutant tracking in Apocalypse is shown to be similar to Xavier's telepathy, while in Logan his tracking is more animalistic, similar to a bloodhound or a truffle pig.
• Bullying a Dragon: When Pierce first brings out the Reavers in Logan's presence, he has most of them confront Logan and sends a few inside Logan's hideout to find Laura. Pierce is later shown to have been an enforcer of the X-23 program, which means he is likely familiar with Laura's general powers. For her part, Laura sees the men coming but makes no effort to run away. She subsequently throws one of their severed heads at Pierce's feet as she stalks towards them with murder in her eyes. The film does not make clear if Laura has killed before, but Pierce is either underestimating or downright ignorant of the savage animal side of Logan's genes, and most of the Reavers are not equipped or trained to fight her.

C to F

• Call-Back: The film has enough of these to warrant a separate page for them.
• Canon Foreigner: The Munson family, Gabriela, and X-24 were all created for the movie, although Gabriela is a partial Expy for Sarah Kinney, particularly her role as Laura's primary caretaker and the one who helps her escape captivity.
• Capitalism Is Bad: The overall subtext of the film. The villains are a MegaCorp named Transigen that is more or less a N.G.O. Superpower with its own private army, full authority to run a patch of land near the Mexican border as a private fiefdom, using Mexican women and children like serfs, and introducing genetically engineered foods into the global diet to suppress the X-Gene and more or less reverse natural evolutionary processes. Likewise, large agribuses use automated self-driving technology that farmers like the Munsons can't compete against.
• Car Fu: Both Logan and Will Munson, as mentioned in Badass Driver above, effectively use their respective cars in combat. Will Munson, in a move reminiscent of The Lost Boys, even uses his to ram X-24 through a tractor's protruding spikes, putting him out of commission for a good time.
• Central Theme: This is the last time both Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart perform as Logan and Xavier, respectively; as such, the writers did everything they could to cement a theme of finality throughout the movie. The majority of the mutants have long since died, to the point where speaking of their demise has become casual conversation, new up-and-coming mutants like Laura and X-24 prove how old and withered their previous generation has become, and both Logan and Xavier die by the end of the movie.
• Chair Reveal: When Logan finds Gabriela in her apartment sitting with her back to the camera. The camera swings around to show her cold, dead face.
• Changed My Mind, Kid: After safely getting Laura to Eden (for a given definition of "safely"), Logan fully intends to leave her with the other kids and go his own way. He even tries to pull a It's Not You, It's My Enemies to Break Her Heart To Save Her as justification, and Laura angrily tells him off. The next morning, he wakes up to find the kids gone, and discovers Transigen is hot on their heels and on the verge of running them down. Cue Roaring Rampage of Rescue into the film's climax.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Mr. Munson shows Logan the corporate-owned cornfields that surround his property, and notes that they are all genetically modified crops and used mainly for corn syrup. Dr. Rice and Transigen used tainted corn just like it to spread their anti-mutant Sterility Plague.
  • Gabriela's video shows several adult male body parts being grown in vats, and warns Logan that Transigen is making 'something new'. It's X-24, a full clone of Logan.
  • Laura keeps a photo of her fellow test subjects and their caretakers with her. Later, Pierce gets his hands on it, and uses the GPS coordinates written on the back to find and attack their sanctuary in North Dakota.
  • The adamantium bullet that Logan carries, which ends up being what allows Laura to kill X-24. Logan helpfully explains prior that he was planning on shooting himself in the head with it, since it's one of the few things capable of killing him.
  • Laura's comic books. When Logan flips through them after finding the photo with the GPS coordinates on the back, he realizes that they match the location of Eden in the comics. Logan believes that it means Gabriela and Laura's story of Eden is just a lie. However he later learns after meeting Rictor and the other children that those coordinates were chosen as a rendezvous point, from which they would proceed into Canada.
• Child Soldier:
  • Transigen created the X-23 children so they could raise them to be controllable, super-powered soldiers.
  • X-24 is more or less a toddler in a hulking adult body as a result of being a "successful" clone grown to do nothing but follow orders to kill. He probably is not able to talk and has no control over his emotions beyond (somewhat) Rice giving him instructions.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Another way the movie takes advantage of the R-rating, as everyone swears like nobody's business. There are 48 uses of the f-word — compare to Deadpool, which has 72. In fact, one is Logan's very first line of dialog in the movie. Even Professor X gets in on the action in his more senile moments.
• Colossus Climb: A subdued variation with Laura, who because of her small size is as much as two feet shorter than many of her opponents. As a result, she can be seen doing this throughout the movie, using people as springboards to leap up and attack other people. It's occasionally played straight as well, such as during her fight against X-24.
• Combat Pragmatist:
  • Charles has a seizure at the hotel, paralyzing everyone but Logan and Laura, including the mercs sent to capture Laura. Logan makes sure to kill every single one of them before he gives Xavier his medicine.
  • So, Logan, you are completely surrounded, the green medicine has worn off, you don't heal easily now, and your claws will not really help that much. What are you going to do? Use a gun, bub.
• Combined Energy Attack: The X-23 kids (except for Laura and Rictor, who are helping Logan) use their powers together to kill Pierce.
• Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: The film ties this trope in knots, playing it straight, subverting, averting, and inverting it.
  • It's played straight with the film's title, which simply uses Logan's name rather than referencing "Wolverine." Additionally, Logan is referred to by that name for most of the film. In fact, this is also the first film since Origins where Logan's actual name, James Howlett, is used.^note It appears on the dashboard of his limo and on Laura's medical records, and Pierce calls him James in the climax.
  • Averted: he is called Wolverine a couple of times by Pierce, Gabriela, and the Reavers, while Rice at one point calls him Weapon X.
  • Subverted: Laura is never called X-23 on film, but Rice does refer to all the children collectively as "X-23s." Additionally, a Freeze-Frame Bonus in Gabriela's whistleblower video and in the Transigen medical records Logan recovers from her reveals that rather than being an individual designation, X-23 is part of a serial number. As a Mythology Gag, Laura's own serial number is X23-23.
  • Inverted: Rictor is only called by his codename, and his real name, Julio Richter, is never mentioned. Rictor is even the name used in Transigen's files.
• Comic Books Are Real: Played with. There are X-Men comic books being published in-universe; Wolverine says that only a fourth of all the things in them really happened, and not the way they do in the comics. He tries to take Laura to a safe haven for mutants, with the exact coordinates, and then finds out that those coordinates are taken from Laura's comic book. Eventually, he accepts to take Laura there, only so that she can see that there's nothing there. And yet, there is a safe haven there, its location implied to be chosen specifically because of the comics; but it's actually the other X-23 kids, who won't stand a chance in there if the Transigen guys find them, so they have to keep moving.
• Composite Character:
  • Xavier seems to partially take on the role of Hawkeye from the original comic of being an older ally of Wolverine. It's also implied that he accidentally killed several of the X-Men with his powers during a seizure, taking Wolverine's role as their unknowing killer.
  • Donald Pierce is X-23's handler and pursuer, becoming a stand-in for Kimura in the process.
  • X-24 in three ways: (1) the visual appearance, superior strength, and animal ferocity of Victor Creed; (2) Logan's estranged son Daken, with all the abilities and ruthlessness in his prime; and (3) Albert, the android clone of Wolverine serving as Pierce and the Reavers' lap dog.
  • Zander Rice is built on elements of both Rice in the books (Logan killing his father during his rampage escaping Weapon X), along with Martin Sutter (being the outright head of the project, like Sutter, not just the lead scientist as Rice was in the books) and Sarah Kinney (being the geneticist responsible for Laura's creation, not just a surgeon as Rice was in the books).
  • The modified crops Transigen made to kill mutants combines both the depowering of mutants after House of M (in part since the events of Old Man Logan had the villains rise up after Civil War) and the Legacy Virus (a stand-in for AIDS during the '90s comics).
• Continuity Nod:
  • Logan's dog tags from previous films make a reappearance, establishing that in this timeline, he did not leave them behind at Alkali Lake with Stryker when the forest flooded.
  • A delusional Xavier warns Logan about the Statue of Liberty. Logan thinks he's referencing the events of the first film. However, Logan meets Laura for the first time at a motel, which has a neon sign with a prominent Statue of Liberty on it.
  • In the same scene, Xavier bitterly recounts how Logan was nothing but a drunken cage fighter when the X-Men found him and welcomed him into their home, something else that happened in the first movie.
  • Logan carries an adamantium bullet on him, implied to be the one from X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
  • In Logan's bedroom, a katana can be seen mounted on the wall, presumably acquired during the events of The Wolverine.
  • A Freeze-Frame Bonus reveals that Transigen has somehow acquired the DNA of Chris Bradley.
  • One that didn't make the final film: during the original cut of the dinner scene, the Munsons ask if Logan was married. Xavier intercedes with a wistful remembrance of Jean Grey, before referencing her death and Logan's hands during the climax of X-Men: The Last Stand (implied to be from him reading Logan's memories of the old timeline). The part about Jean was ultimately cut for being too dark for the scene.
• Continuity Snarl: According to Word of God from James Mangold, the film occurs in the adjusted timeline from the end of Days of Future Past, but various mismatches still exist in the Continuity Nods to many events, all of them from the original timeline films, which are suggested to still have happened in this film, despite things like Jean Grey's Phoenix powers surfacing in the 1980s instead of 2000s, and Deadpool being born years later (and having no involvement in the Weapon X project) in the reset timeline. Though, some of this can be chalked up to Charles and Logan both having knowledge of the original timeline by 2029, and the general difficulty of Temporal Mutability as theorized by Hank back in Days of Future Past. Much could also be a result of Broad Strokes: certain events still occur in the new timeline, but not in quite the same way.
• Conveniently Timed Attack from Behind: How X-24 meets his end: Laura shoots him in the back of the head with an adamantium bullet when he attempts to finish off Logan after impaling him on a log.
• Cosy Catastrophe: Sure, a bunch of mutants died, but the world itself looks like it's semi-functional, if a bit decrepit, after whatever incident killed them all. And it's still better than the Sentinel-run future. It turns out that Transigen used engineered corn syrup to eradicate the mutant gene in people, with no more new mutants having been born since the early 00's and the rest killed by Reavers or attrition.
• Counting to Three: The baddie cowboy messing with the farm's water pipes does a Dramatic Gun Cock and says he will count to three for Munson and Logan to walk away. He only gets to "two" before Logan takes care of his big mouth — and finishes the count for him.
  Jackson: I'mma count to three, and you're gonna start walkin' away.
  Will: I got rights to this water.
  Jackson: One...
  Will: I have a lawyer now.
  Jackson: Two...
  (Logan takes Jackson's shotgun and smacks him in the chin with it)
  Logan: Three. You know the drill. Get the hell outta here. GO!
• Country Matters: Although not in the final cut of the film, one take of the scene in which Laura speaks for the first time was a bit more profanity-laced, with Dafne Keen slipping the word in during her explosive rant. Jackman only discovered this when he apologized to her mother (who happened to be on set during the take) about screaming obscenities in her daughter's face while filming, and she told him not to worry about it because Keen had just called him a cunt in Spanish.
• Credits Gag: The words "Alpha Flight" appears under Camera Units. Alpha Flight is the name of a Canadian superhero group that Wolverine was originally a member of in the comics.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Pierce gets killed by several mutant children using their powers on him all at once, and it is not pretty. To further clarify, he's warped to the ground, crushed and Buried Alive by razor-sharp blades of grass and telekinetic force, while the other children freeze him and electrocute him —- all at the same time.
• Cruel to Be Kind: At the start of the film, Logan and Caliban are keeping Professor Xavier locked up in an old water tower in the middle of the Mexican desert, drugging him with black market medication to keep him docile and under control. It turns out they're keeping him isolated from other people so he won't kill innocents with his seizure-induced mental attacks, which is what happened to seven of the X-Men years earlier, and so the government won't find him to kill him.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Subverted with Logan versus the cholos attempting to steal the rims off his limo; in his prime, it wouldn't have even been a contest, but with arthritis and a raging hangover taking their toll and his healing factor not what it used to be, they actually put up a halfway decent fight before Logan gets riled up enough to start letting loose like he usually does. Played much straighter with X-24 versus the corrupt farmers.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique:
  • The green "medicine"/mutant growth hormone seen a few times throughout the movie enhances mutant powers, but makes the user increasingly aggressive and unstable when taken in large doses.
  • The Reavers offhandedly mention Xavier's brain as being classed as a Weapon of Mass Destruction. Later on, we see why. In his seizures, his ability to stop people psychically is enhanced; however, the people affected feel the power forcing them to remain still, to the point of not breathing. Charles forces himself into a seizure when the Reavers arrive to apprehend Laura, knowing he won't be able to stop himself, and will need Logan or Laura to bring him out of it.
• Darker and Edgier: This is the darkest film of the X-Men Film Series and the second film in the X-Men film series to be rated R after Deadpool. A screenplay page that was revealed by James Mangold started like this: "Now might be a good time to talk about the 'fights' described in the 100 next or so pages. Basically, if you're on the make for a hyper choreographed, gravity defying, city-block destroying, CG fuckathon, this ain't your movie." Mangold also described it as Little Miss Sunshine meets Scarface (1983). In fact, it is far more intense than Deadpool itself. To be clear, Logan walks into a trashed hotel room with the body of a pregnant woman who has been tortured to death, while trying to hide a tormented and dying Xavier and suffering the effects of aging himself.
• Dark Reprise: Inverted. "Old Man Logan" (a bleak, depressing western-type track) plays at the beginning, while we see the muted agony he lives through day by day (as he's pulling out his stuck claw with his bare hands, while hungover and covered in fresh wounds). However, at the very end, when he finally dies, having saved the mutant kids, with his daughter holding his hand, we hear the same music start, only to turn into the sweet, emotional reprise "Don't Be What They Made You".
• Death Seeker: Logan is feeling his age. His claws no longer fully extend, his wounds don't heal as quickly, he has a limp, and he carries an adamantium bullet.
• Decapitation Presentation: When Pierce sends a squad in to grab Laura at the scrapyard, she emerges a few moments later carrying the head of the lead mook, which she tosses at Pierce. Cue Mass "Oh, Crap!" from the villains.
  Pierce: No, no, no!
• Decomposite Character:
  • Dr. Sarah Kinney does not appear in the film but three characters share parts of her personality and actions in the comics. Zander Rice has her brilliant geneticist mind and made Laura, while Gabriela has her compassion and freed Laura. Finally, Logan is the one who is killed in the climax attempting to free her from her pursuers, with whom she spends a heartbreaking final moment, and whose death most profoundly affects her. Four if you want to count the unnamed, unseen woman who birthed Laura.
  • As noted under Composite Character, the parts of the story that adapt Old Man Logan sometimes have characters besides Logan take on the role of his comic-book counterpart. Specifically, Professor Xavier takes Logan's role as the unknowing killer of the X-Men.
  • Laura is known as X-23 in the source material. Here, she is only one of a group of "X-23" mutants. She is specifically known as X23-23.
• Deliberately Monochrome: The teaser images of the film released by the official Instagram account are all in black and white. The film also has an entire Alternate Monochrome Version titled Logan Noir.
• Dented Iron: Logan's many decades of adventuring is starting to catch up to him, as his Healing Factor is failing due to adamantium poisoning. His body is riddled with scars and half-healed wounds, and he frequently walks with a limp.
• Despair Event Horizon: After Logan's Trauma Conga Line, he is finally broken once he has to bury Charles Xavier. He can't even perform a proper eulogy for Charles out of sheer despair.
• Didn't See That Coming: At the climax, when Logan is surrounded by the Reavers and the "green stuff" has run out, Logan pulls out a gun and shoots Rice in the throat. It works because everyone knows Wolverine doesn't use guns, so of course nobody was expecting it.
• Distant Finale: Jackman and Stewart's last portrayals of Wolverine and Xavier respectively are set in 2029, far off from the early 2000s settings of their first three portrayals.
• The Dog Bites Back:
  • Laura and the other Transigen kids were horrifically tortured and abused by their makers. In fact, Pierce treats Laura like a disobedient puppy when he tries to recapture her at Logan's hideaway. Laura especially makes a mess of them once they've been pushed too far. The others work together to kill Pierce.
  • Caliban is captured, tortured with sunlight by Pierce, and then forced to use his powers to track Logan, Laura, and Charles while locked in a cage. When one of the Reavers leaves some grenades within his reach, he doesn't hesitate to pull the pins and take them all out.
• Double Meaning: Logan's last words — "So that's what it feels like." — are about having a family as Laura's "dad" and him finally meeting death.
• Driven to Suicide: Gabriela's recording of Transigen's atrocities includes footage of one of the children they're experimenting on jumping from a roof to kill himself rather than put up with the abuse he's suffering. Logan, meanwhile, carries a special adamantium bullet everywhere he goes, planning on using it to end his own life once his task of looking after Charles is done.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Exaggerated; the mass majority of mutantkind, along with seven of the X-Men aside from Xavier and Logan, have been killed off. Transigen managed to genetically modify corn syrup stocks to the point where it would suppress the mutant gene, but Charles Xavier himself is responsible for the end of the X-Men, having suffered a lethal seizure when his unnamed degenerative brain disease manifested.
• Due to the Dead: Xavier as well as Logan get as much of a proper burial as the situation allows.
• Dying as Yourself: Invoked by the title itself. Unlike the previous two movies, it's named for The Hero's actual nickname rather than his superhero codename. And he dies at the end.
• Dying Declaration of Love: Logan's final words are him finally accepting Laura as his daughter, and urging her not to be what her makers wanted her to be. As she breaks down in tears and calls him "Daddy," Logan muses "So that's what it feels like," as a Call-Back to Xavier's own words on life and family at the Munsons' home.
• Dying Moment of Awesome:
  • Caliban, held captive by the Reavers, steals a couple of grenades and sets them off. While he fails to kill Pierce or Rice, he distracts them long enough for Logan and Laura to get away.
  • Will Munson, mortally wounded by X-24, manages to pin him to the tractor and gives him a couple of point-blank blasts with his shotgun for good measure. He then turns his gun on Logan, intending to put him down for bringing that hell to his family, and Logan is prepared to take it, but Munson runs out of shells and finally succumbs to his wounds.
  • Logan himself, first pumping himself full of the serum that kicks his Healing Factor into overdrive, and even after it wears off and his body rapidly begins to break down, he keeps on fighting to protect Laura and the other X-23 kids, even though X-24 has him completely outmatched.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: X-24 is unfailingly loyal to his master, Dr. Rice, so much so that he goes ballistic once he realizes that Logan killed him.
• Everybody Owns a Ford: FIAT Chrysler automobiles ^note Currently as Stellantis as of 2021. make up the bulk of the vehicles with any real screen time; Logan drives a futuristic Chrysler limo and later a modern Dodge pickup truck, Gabreilla drives a Fiat, and the Reavers' vehicles are a mixture of up-armored Dodge and Ford pickups. Unusually for a sponsored car, Logan's pickup unceremoniously breaks down and gets trashed by Logan.
• Evil Wears Black: The antagonists are mostly clad in black fatigues. The only exceptions are Pierce, who's wearing a brown Badass Longcoat, and Rice, who's clad in white. The symbolism is particularly apparent in the final fight, where Logan and his opponent X-24 are wearing very similar outfits, except that Logan's tank top is white and X-24's is black.
• Extinct in the Future: Donald Pierce remarks that the claw marks on Logan's victims look like they could have been done by a tiger or by Freddy Krueger, except the former is extinct and the latter is fictional. The film takes place in 2029.
• Face Doodling: The X-23 kids prank-trim Logan's beard in his sleep into his classic muttonchop look.
• Failed a Spot Check: Logan finally has to buy reading glasses, and he forgets to take off the tag.
• Family of Choice: Charles is dying and his brain is failing, causing agony to the people around him. Logan's response is to try desperately to raise the money needed to buy a yacht so he can disappear into the ocean and keep his friend away from all the people he could hurt or kill with his seizures.
• Fanservice Extra: An unnamed partying woman riding in Logan's limo pulls down her top to tease Logan, providing some uncensored frontal nudity.
• Film Noir: Although not to the same extent as The Wolverine, Logan nonetheless draws from the genre. It's especially evident in the film techniques themselves, with the editing, framing, and lighting all showing a strong Noir influence. The Alternate Monochrome Version on the home release is even called Logan Noir. The situation at the start of the film, with Logan as a low-rent poor driver, dragged into taking a dangerous task by a woman whose motives he doesn't entirely trust, and being threatened by shady trenchcoat-wearing thugs to walk away is more or less the situation of 80% of all noir films. Likewise, the situation of Logan going back and forth from the Mexican border suggests Touch of Evil, the film that ended the original noir movement.
• Final Speech: Xavier is well aware that he is knocking on death's door. By the time he, Logan, and Laura are finally able to take a moment of true rest while on the run from Transigen, Xavier takes a moment to deliver an absolutely heart-rending soliloquy to Logan in which he recognizes the unbelievable difficulties Logan has faced in his life, and apologizes for the pain he caused in their relationship. Cruelly subverted, when it's revealed that he wasn't speaking to Logan, but to X-24 — just before X-24 kills him.
• Foil: Logan and Xavier are played up as this to each other. Both of them are long past their prime and are haunted by the tragedies surrounding the X-Men and the eradication of the mutant gene, but while Logan's more jaded than ever, Xavier remains hopeful despite the depressing circumstances of their journey. Majorly Played for Drama later on when it turns out that Xavier accidentally killed several X-Men when he suffered an aneurysm — while Logan manages to provide the new generation of mutants a fresh chance at survival at the cost of his own life.
• Foreshadowing:
  • When Xavier is giving Laura a meal, Laura — who is sitting down — easily stops Logan from taking her backpack in a tug of war.
  • One of Laura's X-Men comic books (specifically created for the film) have the X-Men attending a burial. The film gives you two burials in addition to the funeral service seen at the beginning.
  • An example that doesn't even happen in the movie: Deadpool: No Good Deed (which aired right before Logan during the film's theatrical run) ends with a heavily modified rendition of The Old Man and the Sea. In the film proper, Logan wants to buy a boat so he can take Charles offshore and prevent him from hurting anyone again with his powers.
  • During his first scene in the movie, Xavier says Logan is waiting for him to die. Turns out he's right.
• Found Footage: Gabriela's video message to Logan is made to look like she recorded all of it on her phone. Part of it was used in the "Laura's Origin" promotional clip.
• Foreign-Language Tirade: Wolverine spends half the movie thinking that Laura is The Voiceless, only to discover otherwise after giving a Grudging "Thank You" to her for taking him to a doctor.
  Laura: De nada.^note "You're welcome."
  Wolverine: Yeah... (Double Take) You can talk? (she nods) You can talk. Fuck. Well, why the fuck... What's all this bullshit for the last two thousand fucking miles?!
  Laura: (shouting) ¿Tú pretendes que hable contigo si siempre me insultas, si me gritas, si me intentas dejar atrás? Tú pretendes que abra la boca— ^note "Why do you want me to talk to you if you're always insulting me, yelling at me, if you try to leave me behind? You want me to open my mouth—"
  Wolverine: All right, shut up, shut up, SHUT THE FUCK UP!
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • Logan comes across a group of men trying to steal the wheels from his limo and tells them that they're going to strip the chrome plating off of the lugs. In the ensuing brawl, one of the men hits Logan with the tire iron and sure enough, flakes of chrome can briefly be seen glittering in the air.
  • The corpse of the gas station attendant that Laura encountered is seen among Caliban and other dead "assets" at the Transigen base, implying that Pierce murdered him and anyone else who happened to be at the gas station when he and the Reavers arrived that day. The bodies of the Munsons are also being stored there.
  • A brief glimpse of their Transigen files reveals that Bobby's genetic material came from Chris Bradley, and Rictor's came from Dominic Petrakis (Avalanche, a mutant with very similar powers).
  • Laura's Transigen files reveal a couple of interesting items:
    • As a Mythology Gag, her Transigen ID is X23-23.
    • Her blood type is O-negative, making her a universal donor. This is, presumably, a result of her Healing Factor.
  • Right before Zander Rice is shot dead by Logan, you can see a subtle look of disbelief on Zander's face, towards the fact that the Wolverine just took out a gun.

G to J

• Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: Mutantkind has been successfully wiped out through foodstuffs made with a GMO that suppresses the mutant gene.
• Genre-Busting: It's basically superhero movie meets western — shades of Shane, but plenty more of Unforgiven, both in plot and style — with a Road Trip Plot in-between, elements of Film Noir, and plenty of character-based drama.
• Gone Horribly Right:
  • Unlike Weapon X and many subsequent projects working with mutants, Transigen has managed to create real living weapons. Unfortunately for them, the one abused X-23 child that did turn out to be a natural killer reviles them in addition to being a threat to anyone else.
  • X-24 succeeds where the X-23 kids "failed" in that he has no empathy whatsoever and will do what he's told. The side effect of skipping the whole "human" part is that he can't do much besides attack in a seething rage. Like think. Dr. Rice can't rein him in once he gets his bloodlust up against the corrupt ranchers, even though it is counterproductive to the mission, and he only outfights Laura by virtue of being several times her mass.
• Gorn: The film does not shy away from showing how brutal Wolverine can be. Limbs get cut off, throats are turned into pez dispensers, blades are shoved into people's faces, decapitations and fountains of blood galore. Even the mutant kids get in on this when dealing with the Reavers, with some literally exploding into meaty chunks.
• Gory Discretion Shot: We don't see what Pierce does to the convenience store clerk that previously encountered Laura, but to judge from his screams, which are audible even outside the store, it's not pretty.
• Grand Finale: To Jackman's portrayal of Wolverine, along with Stewart's portrayal of Charles Xavier. Both Charles and Logan are dead by the end of the film. However, Stewart would subsequently return to play an alternate-reality version of Xavier in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Jackman's coming back to play Wolverine in Deadpool & Wolverine.
• Greater-Scope Villain:
  • Provided that the American company that funded Transigen is Essex Corporation, Mr. Sinister is this without appearing or even being mentioned in the film, which makes sense given that the film takes place in the future and Sinister was likely dealt with in the past already.
  • Transigen also appears to be answering to the US military; following the disastrous confrontation at the Munson farm, Rice gets reamed out by an Army major over the mess.
• Groin Attack: Laura repeatedly exploits the fact that a grown man's jewels are a weak point even someone of her size can attack without having to resort to Waif-Fu. It's... painful to watch every time it happens.
• Happy Ending Override: The film takes place after the "good future" shown in X-Men: Days of Future Past, with mutants having disappeared anyway during the intervening years. Downplayed, however: Transigen's machinations and some typical urban decay aside, unlike the Terminator-esque hellscape of the previous film, the late-2020s are mostly chugging along just fine for the rest of the population. However, given that Marvel's official explanation is that this movie takes place in an Alternate Timeline, this technically preserves the happy ending for the "Prime" X-Men movie universe, only leaving this depressing future as an unfulfilled possibility.
• Hate Sink: Dr. Rice is undoubtedly the most deplorable villain in the X-Men Film Series; causing the extinction of the mutantkind for greed, sacrificing countless innocent Mexican women for his experiments, conducting excruciatingly torturous experiments upon the mutant children, callously ordering the X-24 mutant to slaughter the Munsons, and just being a downright heartless man in general. It's definitely cathartic when he meets his death from the hands of Logan.
• Hell Is That Noise: A rare heroic example during the climax. When the Reavers hear the distant roar of a very angry Logan just out of sight, they pretty much all shit themselves simultaneously.
• He Knows Too Much: The other implied function of Donald Pierce and the Reavers. The corpse of the unlucky gas station attendant can be seen alongside Caliban and other "assets" at the Transigen base. It seems that anyone who comes into contact with an escaped test subject is killed to keep their silence.
• The Hero Dies: Logan dies protecting the X-23 kids at the end of the movie. He is unable to defeat X-24; between the serum wearing off and his Healing Factor completely shutting down, it looks to be all over, until Laura shoots X-24 with Logan's adamantium bullet. The audience believes the movie to be over, but Logan is too injured to continue, and finally gets his wish of a warrior's death. Professor Xavier is also killed when X-24 stabs him in bed while he was trying to sleep.
• Heroic Second Wind: Tired, in pain, and out of options, Logan injects the entire vial of mutation-enhancing serum into himself to turbocharge his Healing Factor for one last battle.
• Hero Killer:
  • X-24 successfully murders both Charles and Logan.
  • In a case of Accidental Murder, Charles is this to the rest of the X-Men barring Logan and Caliban.
• Heroic Suicide: Caliban gets ahold of some grenades to kill himself and his captors with at the first opportunity, which prevents him from being coerced into helping them track down the last mutants anymore (it doubles as a suicide attack).
• Hero Stole My Bike: Logan's collapsed. Their truck has broken down. Someone got out of his old beater to do some fishing within sight. What is a socially maladjusted Tyke Bomb to do...?
• Homage Shot: The international poster, which depicts Logan carrying X-23, references a variant cover for the Old Man Logan-Secret Wars tie-in drawn by Gabriele Dell Otto.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: Logan is a washed up drunk. Xavier is a broken old man with a degenerative condition trapped in a collapsed water tower. The X-Men are dead and gone.
• Humble Goal: All that Logan and Xavier want is to get enough money to buy a ship and live in the sea, where Xavier's outbursts won't kill anyone.
• Idiot Ball:
  • Logan tasks Caliban with dumping the alive-but-unconscious Pierce at an isolated location, alone. Besides not being a fighter, Caliban is a mutant GPS. This allows Pierce to ambush and torture him to track down Logan and Laura, and everything goes to hell after that. Had they left behind Pierce as a group, they would have bought a lot more time in escaping, avoided the deaths of almost everyone, and robbed the Reavers of Caliban's tracking skill. Even Caliban himself can be heard mocking the idea after taking Pierce away.
    Caliban: Oh, yeah, take the gun...dump the body. Text me on the way back. What else do you need, food for the kid?
  • Pierce and Rice take quite a while to modify their tactics once it becomes apparent that Laura not only is fighting back but regards their men as kill-on-sight.
  • Charles also grabs it by accepting the Munsons' invitation, despite knowing that an army of ruthless, murderous psychos is on their way and any unnecessary stop could endanger them. It not only gets him killed but also the innocent family, kid included.
• If We Get Through This…: Xavier's line "And then we buy the Sunseeker." destined him for not making it to the end credits.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: This is a given with Wolverine and X-23, but the movie brings it up to eleven.
  • Pierce shoots Laura with a harpoon gun through her torso, and later he puts a harpoon through Logan's thigh.
  • At one point, X-24 gets rammed with a pick-up truck, right through a tractor's spikes. Rice's healing serum lets him fully recover by the finale.
  • In the final battle, X-24 shoves Logan through a jagged branch jutting out of a log, meathook style. It's not pretty.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Despite at least several of them having their weapons aimed and ready to fire, the Reavers seem to be unable to hit Laura at close range when she confronts a huge group of them out in the open at Logan's compound in Mexico.
• Improbable Infant Survival: Of the main characters, only Laura survives, and her friends who had escaped from Transigen also make it out of the final confrontation without casualties.
• Important Haircut: While the kids do it to Logan as a prank, trimming Logan's Beard of Sorrow down to his classic muttonchop design foreshadows his final assault on Rice's forces in part.
• Incurable Cough of Death: Logan, of all people, suffers from a pretty nasty cough throughout the film, which signifies the fact that he's Secretly Dying from the adamantium on his bones.
• Instant Sedation: Whenever Logan administers medication to Charles via syringe, the effect sets in immediately.
• Internal Homage:
  • Logan is Xavier's full-time caregiver, just like Hank McCoy was in the 1973 scenes of X-Men: Days of Future Past.
  • When Laura raids the gas station, "I Got A Name" by Jim Croce is played. Another of Croce's songs, "Time In A Bottle", was listened to by Quicksilver in X-Men: Days of Future Past.
  • A piece of Found Footage viral marketing shows Laura's claws being bonded with adamantium. The surgery scene directly echoes a similar scene in X-23: Innocence Lost, while a shot of Laura cutting herself with her claws is framed to resemble the cover of NYX #4. The same shot also gives a nod to scenes of her cutting herself and playing with her claws in her cell from her origin series.
• Ironic Death:
  • Pierce ends up getting killed by what he considered to be just "failed experiments".
  • Logan himself may also count. He has spent most of his life fighting his own inner demons, trying to keep them from harming the people he cares about. He eventually dies trying to protect the children under his care from X-24, who is practically a physical manifestation of his own berserker rage.
• Ironic Echo: Pierce coerces Caliban to work for him, telling him "Beware the light" before letting the sunlight burn him. Later, Caliban uses the same line before blowing up some Reavers and himself.
• It Always Rains at Funerals: The funeral in the opening has everyone carrying umbrellas.
• It's Not You, It's My Enemies: Logan tries to use this as his explanation for why he's not going to accompany Laura into Canada. Rather than softening the blow as he intended, it only hurts her more, and when he remarks that the people he cares about all die, she snipes back that in that case, she has nothing to worry about.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • As evil as Zander Rice and Pierce are, it's hard to deny their argument that Professor X and other mutants by extension are Persons of Mass Destruction. The fact that there's no way to ensure survival from Xavier's uncontrollable telepathic attacks means that there's no safer alternative than neutralizing him. Not Helping Your Case is that Xavier himself, and Logan, cited similar justifications for neutralizing and killing the Phoenix in The Last Stand. On the other hand, mutants capable of doing that kind of damage are so rare that it's hard to justify targeting all of them.
  • While Pierce and Rice are after Laura largely because she is an escaped illegal experiment that was supposed to have been scrubbed from the face of the earth, she truly does pose a clear and present danger to everyone in her path either way, as she is murderously violent, wildly unpredictable, and virtually feral. Before Logan and Xavier come along, her relationship with Gabriela was literally her only shred of humanity.
• Job-Stealing Robot:
  • Automation is discussed in the scene between Logan and the Munsons, and it's generally seen and resented as a way for the corporations who own the machines to cut out the poor, who get left with nothing. Indeed, the movie's portrayal of automation was cited by US senator and future vice president Kamala Harris, noting that it highlights a very real problem affecting the post-industrial world.
  • In a symbolic sense, this is what has happened to the mutants as well. Transigen has established control over the mutant gene and suppressed its organic growth, but have mastered genetic experimentation so well that they can make mutants of their own entirely for their own purpose and interests, as X-23 shows clearly. Indeed, on coming across Caliban's body, Xander Rice insists that they take it and harvest its genes for future cloning use.

K to N

• Kick the Dog: Gabriela's video shows the nurses throwing a birthday party for one of the X-23 children in the facility, complete with a cake and candles and decorations. Pierce and his mercenaries break it up and drag the kids back to their cells while Dr. Rice chews out the staff for treating the 'subjects' like actual children.
• Kids Driving Cars: The 11-year-old Laura is able to drive around a truck that she and Logan are traveling in. It's perplexing that her feet can even reach the pedals.
• Killed Offscreen: Many, if not all, of the X-Men, save for Charles and Logan, are dead by the start of the film. Some were accidentally killed by Charles himself during a seizure.
• Lack of Empathy:
  • Zander Rice shows no remorse for the cruelty he brings upon the X-23 children or any other innocent people who perish from his hands. For example, once X-24 slaughters the entire Munson family, child included, he simply admits it's fantastic.
  • Pierce's callous murder of Gabriela and the mutant children who "failed" him just shows how unempathetic he is. He also breaks up a birthday party for the X-23s and drags one off to his apparent death with glee.
• Last of His Kind: The film is set in a 2029 where no new mutants have been born in years, and Logan, Charles, and Caliban appear to the last living mutants. After the deaths of Caliban and Charles and the discovery of the young mutants created by Transigen, Logan is left as the last of the old generation of mutants and the last member of the X-Men until he dies protecting Laura and the young mutants.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When Laura tries to get the coin-op horse working, she's about to impale it with her claws in frustration. Before she can dismantle it, Logan stops her, holding out another coin for the machine and saying "Last ride. You're welcome."^note Logan is the final time that Hugh Jackman plays Logan/Wolverine.
• Let's Get Out of Here: Logan utters the old familiar line "We gotta get out of here" in the hotel room after the Reavers' attack on Charles has been foiled.
• Lighter and Softer: Laura's origin compared to the comics, to an extent. For example, a clip of Laura's claws getting bonded with adamantium shows her being put under for the procedure. However, in the original X-23: Innocence Lost Zander Rice performed the procedure himself, and denied her an anesthetic. The film will also be skipping her time as a prostitute (fortunately, considering this version of Laura is even younger than her comics self).
• Little "No": Laura utters a string of them when she sees Logan impaled and dying on the log.
• Little Stowaway: Somehow, Laura escaped the Reavers and sneaked offscreen into the trunk of Logan's car, which brings her to Logan's hideout.
• Live-Action Escort Mission: Logan's paid mission is to escort Laura to the Safe Zone Hope Spot at North Dakota.
• Logo Joke: Logan Noir plays with the 20th Century Fox bumper at the beginning, forgoing the current pan-around CGI logo for one that more explicitly mimics the classic still logo in use from 1953-1981 for its CinemaScope pictures. In fact, it even uses the CinemaScope title card after the Fox logo leaves the screen.
  • The Marvel logo features comic-book images of the X-Men in its pages, taken from X-Men: The Last Stand.
• Lost in the Maize: Logan escapes the Reavers by crossing through a field of maize.
• Manly Tears: A lot throughout the movie, most notably when Logan buries Xavier and he's trying to keep his composure.
  Logan: Well, it's got water... it's got water.
• Meaningful Echo: Laura's "There are no more guns in the valley" speech at the end, quoting directly from Shane, which she watched on the TV in the hotel in Oklahoma City.
• Medical Rape and Impregnate: How Laura, Rictor, and all the other children from Transigen were born, as shown and mentioned in Gabriela's Video Wills. The Reavers kidnapped several Mexican girls, and Dr. Rice had them forcibly impregnated with mutant embryos before most likely killing them after they gave birth.
• Mirror Match: Logan has this with Laura/X-23, because she was bred and born from his powers and claws, making it a lot harder to keep her in control, but it is Logan's fights with his clone X-24 where this becomes the most apparent.
• Modern Stasis: Zigzagged. While there are a few instances of futuristic technology seen on display throughout the film, such as the self-driving semi-trucks, the automated corn farming machines, and some futuristic looking billboards, the characters also use contemporary smartphones, televisions and other electronic devices.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • Deadpool: No Good Deed was attached at the beginning of the theatrical release, effectively serving as a pre-opening-credits Stinger that emphasizes Black Comedy of the lowbrow variety. And then it's followed by the story of a suicidal old man trying to save a mute eleven-year-old from enslavement by a group of murderers and thugs.
  • Within the movie itself, Xavier's confession to Logan turns from tragically heartfelt to horrifying when it turns out that it's not Logan who's listening, but X-24, who is there to kill the old man.
• Mook Horror Show:
  • Laura delivers one to the Reavers in the battle at Logan's home. As they pursue her through the various outbuildings, Laura ambushes and picks them off one-by-one, using her small size and agility to decimate them.
  • The mercenaries who hunt down Charles at the casino get a truly terrifying version of this: paralyzed by a powerful mutant, they have to watch, only able to move their eyes, as another mutant slowly hunts down and kills every one of them.
  • Implied when X-24 hacks apart the ranchers at the Munson home. Most of their deaths are discreet but undeniably brutal.
  • Played straight in the end after Logan takes the mutant growth hormone, complete with terrifying roar heard from afar through a forest, followed by a cut to a bunch of guys screaming in fear and running away from him before getting cut down in quick succession.
• More Deadly Than the Male: Discussed when Charles mentions how lionesses can defend themselves better than lions. He suggests that Laura's feet claws are analogous to that.
• The Mountains of Illinois: North Dakota doesn't have the rocky, dry terrain we see at Eden. While there are mountains and mountainous areas (Turtle Mountain is very close to the coordinates given in Laura's comics, being a bit further to the east), there's nothing that looks like what's presented in the film. Primary filming for the movie took place in New Mexico and New Orleans, Louisiana, and Eden resembles the former far more than North Dakota.
• Mugging the Monster:
  • The nigh-immortal Logan wakes up to find some gang members stealing the rims of his car. This is a Downplayed Trope, however, as he finds the inevitable slaughter much harder going than we've seen in previous movies.
  • Played straight when the ranchers try to take on X-24.
• My Card: Pierce leaves his business card with Logan during their first encounter.
• My Car Hates Me: After burying Xavier, Logan goes back to his truck, and it refuses to start, pushing him over the edge into bashing up the vehicle with a shovel in frustration.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Poor Charles when he starts to remember what happened in Westchester.
• Mythology Gag: Has its own page.
• Nature Versus Nurture: The entire theme of Laura's arc is this — will she become an animal or will Logan help her into becoming someone normal? This is hit on its head while Laura watches Logan, still grieving from Charles' death, trashing the car they were using, and then sees a man playing with his dog, just having a normal day, seeing the difference between a man who's doubtless lived a relatively happy life versus one whose life has been filled with endless tragedy.
• Never Trust a Trailer:
  • The marketing all gives the impression that the film's setting is a Mad Max-esque wasteland, which is actually just because it's mostly set right on the US/Mexico border. The rest of the world is still just fine, and Logan is even working as a limo driver.
  • For a smaller example, Logan saying "Someone will come along," and Xavier saying "Someone HAS come along," in the trailer makes it sound like they are talking about taking care of Laura. In the movie proper, they are talking about a family whose car they were indirectly responsible for driving off the road whose horses are running around a freeway full of automatically driven trucks.
• New Old West: The movie's genre; it takes many cues from classic westerns, and Shane in particular is one of the biggest inspirations.
• N.G.O. Superpower: Transigen, supposedly a medical research and pharmaceutical company, is able to deploy entire armies of cyborg mercenary soldiers with impunity in Mexico and the United States. They even have the direct support of law enforcement and the military in both countries.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Charles accepts the Munsons' offer to stay for dinner and the night despite Logan's insistence they should keep traveling. This ends with the entire family, and Charles himself, meeting their deaths.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The corrupt farmers distract X-24 as he carries Laura to Rice, giving Logan time to interfere.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The nice family that shows kindness to Logan and his friends and invite them to stay for the night? Yeah, they're all dead. Again.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown:
  • Laura vs. X-24. In Laura's favor. X-24 may be almost twice her size, but Laura is much faster and more agile, and while not a living mass of seething rage, still manages to be even more vicious as she tears into him. She completely controls the fight until X-24 finally manages to shake her off and then knocks her flat with one hit, which isn't surprising, considering she's a child.
  • Logan ends up on the receiving end of this more often than not. He gets beat down by the carjackers in the beginning, beaten down again by the Reavers, and even ignored while hunting for Laura, and is utterly annihilated in both fights against X-24. Again justified with his healing factor on the decline and his old age.
• No Kill like Overkill: Pierce's death — all of the X-23 kids attack him simultaneously with their powers.
• Nobody Poops: Averted; there is a scene where Logan has to help Charles use the restroom at a gas station.
• Noodle Incident: Played for Drama with the "Westchester incident" that led to Xavier being a wanted fugitive. We never hear the full details, but what we do hear is bad enough.
• Not Wearing Tights: The Wolverine shown in the comic books is wearing his classic costume. Not so much in real life, as he notes that the people making the comics were taking Artistic License with his life.

O to R

• Obi-Wan Moment: Logan's death is preceded by a calm and heartwarming moment of being emotionally reunited with his daughter.
• Off-into-the-Distance Ending: The film ends with a fixed shot of Logan's resting place with, in the background, Laura and her friends heading off into the distance to start their new life.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Laura dealing with the first group of Reavers that enter the mill looking for her. The film cuts to the outside of the building as screams and gunshots are heard, then Laura emerges with the restraints they were going to use on her and the lead mook's severed head.
• Off with His Head!: Numerous mook heads get brutally lopped off, and the adamantium bullet destroys half of X-24's skull.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Gabriela has one when Laura accidentally breaks a window at the motel with her ball, and the manager comes out to yell at her. Considering what Laura nearly did to the convenience store clerk when he took her food away...
  • The Reaver who suddenly sees Logan approaching him outside the hotel room and is unable to do anything about it, as Xavier's telepathic seizure has frozen all his motor functions along with everyone in the casino-hotel, making him unable to even fall down when Logan stabs him in the face.
  • The baddie rangers have such a moment when they see X-24 not being bothered by their gunshots and their leader getting his head chopped off.
• Old Superhero: Charles and Logan are both falling apart due to age. Charles is losing his mind and suffering seizures, while Logan is losing body and struggling with PTDS due to Who Wants to Live Forever?.
• Older Hero vs. Younger Villain: The aging Logan is pitted against the relatively youthful Pierce and the middle-aged Zander Rice. Taken to the extreme with X-24, who isn't even a month old and deliberately resembles Logan in his prime.
• Ominously Open Door: Logan's suspicion is aroused when seeing the door to Gabriela's apartment ajar. Inside, he finds her killed by the Reavers.
• The Oner: Logan's first Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the Reavers after taking the enhancement drug is shown in a single continuous shot.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The first thing we see of Xavier is a senile old man bumping around in a wheelchair. Then the next thing we see of the now-medicated Xavier is a pissed-off old man swearing at Logan.
• Outcast Refuge: Eden, a supposed refuge for mutantkind after their population has been decimated during the 20 Minutes into the Future Time Skip, is a Subversion. Logan, recognizing it from a comic book and despite his warning her that it probably isn't real, helps Laura get there... only to see that it's an old abandoned camp. The subversion comes in where it's actually a rendevous point before they cross the border into Canada.
• Our Clones Are Different: The film changes the backstory of Laura Kinney by making her biologically Wolverine's daughter through artificial insemination of his DNA into a migrant woman. It also reveals partway through that an identical clone of Logan in his prime has been developed by Transigen, with it being fully grown by growing body parts in separate tanks before grafting them together. The clone has none of Logan's personality other than his natural savagery and is conditioned to follow his creator's commands, with enough personality to feel vengeful when Logan kills him.
• The Patient Has Left the Building: After his collapse, Logan leaves the emergency room against the doctor's warnings.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: One of the influences cited is Old Man Logan, which was even cited as Logan's "adaptation" for its entry in the Best Adapted Screenplay category at the Academy Awards. However, as the film rights for many of the characters are tied to Marvel Studios, it means that a number of characters including the Red Skull, the Hulk, and Hawkeye are Adapted Out and the movie is made to fit within the existing X-Men film continuity. Hugh Jackman himself notes that the film draws much more influence from Kyle and Yost's X-23: Innocence Lost in the Making Of documentary accompanying the Blu-ray release.
• The Precious, Precious Car: Logan's 2024 Chrysler limo. When the movie starts, he's even taking bullets that would hit the car. Naturally, it gets so battered that he's forced to give it away for free and buy a beater from a used car lot.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Caliban when dropping the grenades in the truck, doubling as an Ironic Echo:
  "Beware the light."
• Production Throwback:
  • A subtle one: the first teaser trailer is scored with Johnny Cash's cover of "Hurt." The cover page of Kyle and Yost's script for X-23: Innocence Lost, X-23's origin book, included a quote from the original Nine Inch Nails version of the song.
  • Somewhat connected, but due to the trailer's usage of said song, it's also one for director James Mangold, who had previously directed the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line. Noted by him in this interview by Empire. And the movie itself ends with a Cash song!
• Product Placement:
  • Charles advertises Taco Bell during his crazy rant by quoting a commercial word for word.
  • Laura is eating a bowl of Kellogg's Corn Flakes with the box in clear view for multiple shots.
  • One scene features Laura eating a tube of Pringles potato chips with a Snickers logo in the background, after which she shoplifts a pair of Shopkins sunglasses. She wears these shades throughout the rest of the movie.
  • There's also Logan's Chrysler limousine and Gabriela's Fiat 500, and a lot of prominently placed Ford cars from a wide range of eras.
  • The featuring of the food products is actually justified in that it is revealed that corn syrup has been used to target the mutant gene. Showing the characters eating convenience food — exactly the kinds of thing that depend on corn syrup in their production — subtly foreshadows the plot point. Charles's quoting of the Taco Bell commercial could even be his trying to communicate something he has picked up telepathically since Taco Bell is so, well, corny.
  • An entire sequence takes place at (a fictional) Harrah's Casino and Hotel in Oklahoma City.
• Prophecy Twist: As a Call-Back to The Wolverine, Yukio's premonition of Logan's death finds him lying on his back with blood all around, holding his heart in his hand. Come the end of Logan, and he dies lying on his back with blood all around. The twist? He's holding the hand of Laura, his daughter, whom he has come to love.
• Protagonist Title: It's a no-brainer who the main character of the film is — it's Logan, who is better known as the Wolverine. Using his real name not only calls Shane, an inspiration for Logan, to mind, it also describes the more grounded and character-based nature of Logan compared to the fantastical and crazy X-Men movies.
• Put on a Bus: Mariko and Yukio from The Wolverine are completely absent, and don't even get mentioned, despite the last film ending with Yukio becoming Logan's traveling companion. However, it's justified in that the timeline was shifted thanks to X-Men: Days of Future Past; The Wolverine takes place before it while Logan is set in the new timeline.
• Raised in a Lab: The child mutants were raised as bioweapons in a Mexican lab, with any attempt by the nurses at dealing with them like normal humans severely reprimanded by higher-ups.
• Ramming Always Works: Subverted. Logan tries to smash the limousine through the chain link fence of the compound where Charles lives, but the realistic outcome happens and the fencing holds together, eventually stopping the limo in its tracks, forcing him to pull back. Played straight when he smashes the limo through the front gate, since it's only being held by a simple chain and padlock that easily snap under the force of a moving limo.
  Honest Trailers: That NEVER happens.
• Rasputinian Death: X-24 is clawed repeatedly, pinned onto a tractor with a car, and has an entire shotgun unloaded into him and a truck dropped on him. None of this works, and he's finally put down by having half his skull blown off with an adamantium bullet.
• "Ray of Hope" Ending: The mutant race is almost extinct, the historical efforts of the X-Men are reduced to nothing, and their last members die on the trip to save Laura. Several other innocent people die as a result of their trip. But the culprits of the mutant extinction are dead, which opens the door to a resurgence, and Laura and her fellow young mutants have a shot at a better life.
• Rebuilt Pedestal: The X-23 kids meet their hero, only to learn he's a broken old man dying of poison thanks to his "upgrade". They even give him back his classic beard, only to be yelled at. Then he comes screaming through the forest to save them from Transigen, almost back at his best. He dies struggling to be the hero they deserve, and they give him the funeral he deserves.
• Recursive Fiction:
  • X-Men comic books exist in the universe of the film, though Logan is sure to note they are only Very Loosely Based on a True Story. For instance, he never wore yellow spandex.
  • A deleted scene has Laura's friend Bobby playing with action figures of Wolverine and Sabretooth. He then asks Logan if Sabretooth was ever real, or just a bad guy from the comic books.
  • During Logan's funeral, Bobby's shown clutching a Wolverine action figure close to his chest.
• Redemption Equals Death: Caliban, Xavier, Logan and, to a lesser extent, Gabriela. Xavier literally dies the minute he remembers what he did, making the audience briefly wonder if Logan killed him because of it.
• Refusal of the Call: When Gabriela tracks down Logan and begs him for help, he brushes her off and refuses to get involved, even when he finds out that Pierce is hunting her and Laura. It takes a very large bribe to get him to even talk to her, and by the time he decides to drive them to North Dakota, Gabriela has been killed and Laura and the Reavers have followed him home.
• Retraux: The X-Men comics shown were specifically made for the film, and they mimic the style of pre-90s Marvel comics very convincingly.
• Roaring Rampage of Rescue: At the end of the film, the X-23 kids are running for the border with Transigen in pursuit, and are on the verge of being run down. After Logan takes the whole bottle of serum to boost his healing factor, Laura pauses when the Wolverine's battle howl echoes across the forest, followed shortly after by Logan charging into the flank of the Reavers to rescue the kids.
• Rousseau Was Right: Laura is a Roaring Rampage of Revenge Tyke Bomb who slaughters her way through dozens of soldiers/cops. And then she provides Charles with a Bulletproof Human Shield as Logan desperately tries to get them to safety.
• R-Rated Opening: The opening fight would never get away with a PG-13. Logan's first line is "Fuck," a couple of gang members are trying to jack his limo's rims, he's shot by them, and in the fight that follows, Logan severs limbs and skewers an adversary's head with his claws. The small-scale brutality of the fight also establishes that this is going to be a much more brutal experience than any of the other X-Men movies.
• Ruder and Cruder: While almost every X-Men film has at least one Precision F-Strike, this is not the case with Logan, which is not only the darkest and most violent X-Men film to date, but also the most profane in the Wolverine trilogy, with about 55 usages of the F-word.
• Rule of Symbolism: The final battle between Logan and X-24 is a figurative and literal fight between Logan and the pure rage that exists within him, or more symbolically, Logan's duel with the Wolverine. It even extends to meta. The main reason Hugh Jackman is bowing out of the role is because his aging body can no longer keep with the demands of the character's longevity, hence Logan dying after battling a younger clone of himself.
  • Nature vs nurture. The final fight consists of the elemental powers of the X-23 kids (ice, plants, earth, and electricity) and one of the last naturally born mutants (Logan) who've lived in the wilderness versus the modernized, tech-based mercenaries and scientists of corporate Transigen.
• Run for the Border: Eden, in North Dakota, is not actually the final destination of the escaped X-23 kids. It's just a rendezvous site before they make a run for Canada.

S to Y

• Safe Zone Hope Spot: Played with. Gabriela is trying to get Laura to a place called "Eden", where she can be safe. While Logan is looking through Laura's X-Men comics, one issue has a supposed safe haven for mutants called Eden, and its coordinates match the coordinates he's taking Laura to. Even when he tries to explain the situation to Laura, she's adamant they keep moving. When they finally reach Eden, Logan finds that it's a small, secret hideout in the middle of nowhere where the other X-23 kids have come. It was an agreed-upon meeting spot, inspired by the comic, where all the kids can meet up before they Run for the Border into Canada.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: While Charles' situation is more tragic than funny, his confused ramblings and familial bickering with Logan provide some moments of levity in the first half of the film. After Charles is killed, that all stops.
• Shot to the Heart: When Charles is first seen experiencing a seizure, Logan struggles to jab his medication into Charles' heart.
• Shooting Superman: Called out in the smelting plant fight. The Reavers unload on Laura after she shows her claws for the first time, and kills two of them. Pierce angrily stops them, and yells at them that she heals before sending them in to subdue her the hard way, and when Pierce does shoot her, he uses a harpoon gun that can actually restrain her. Of course, it doesn't stop the Reavers from wasting tons of ammunition against both Logan and Laura later in the movie.
• Shout-Out:
  • Donald Pierce mentions Freddy Krueger when describing Logan's claw marks.
  • The Munsons' situation (a corrupt big business trying to force them to give up their home) parallels the Starretts in Shane, made more explicit by the film itself being shown in the hotel room scene, and Laura later quoting it at Logan's makeshift grave. Furthermore, Mangold himself cites Shane as one of the film's influences.
  • A young girl is a victim, told she is the villain because it's her nature, and wears sunglasses.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: During the climax, Rice is giving a Motive Rant. Logan responds by shooting him in the head mid-sentence.
• Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer: Fox did a masterful job of hiding X-24, the final antagonist of the movie. He's not featured in any of the promotion for the movie, making him a big surprise for most viewers unless you want to count the brief shot of him crossing claws with Logan...◊ and even then, you don't see his face.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Almost every other line by Stewart and Jackman contains an F-bomb.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: Xavier and Logan bicker Like an Old Married Couple.
  Logan: Motherfucking autotrucks!
  Xavier: Language, Logan. And you're screaming at a machine.
  Logan: Oh, what? She can gut a man with her feet, but she can't hear a few naughty words?
• The Sociopath:
  • Rice is a cold, ruthless, For Science! monster who has no qualms about the implied murder of who knows how many young Mexican girls and women used as part of his experiments, treated the children they carried as things with the intent of turning them into Living Weapons, and callously had them disposed of when they proved uncontrollable and useless for his purposes. And then he unleashes X-24 onto an innocent family to get Laura back, casually dismissing Caliban's protests by essentially claiming his hand was forced.
  • Pierce does the majority of Rice's dirty work, and any funny scenes he has are done in such a darkly twisted manner that they bring nothing but discomfort to the audience.
• So Happy Together: After enjoying dinner with the Munsons, Xavier tells Logan that tonight was the most perfect night he's had in a very long time. Then he tells Logan he doesn't deserve it. Unfortunately, it's not Logan he's talking to, but X-24, who kills Xavier on the spot.
• Sorting Algorithm of Evil: After the Reavers prove incapable of even fighting Logan and Laura, much less recapturing the latter, Rice unleashes X-24, a clone of Logan with none of his conscience or humanity, instead.
• Spiritual Antithesis: To Deadpool (2016). Both are graphically-violent R-rated spin-offs from the X-Men Film Series, but whereas Deadpool was a Bloody Hilarious, cheerfully-amoral black comedy, this is an elegiac modern western about two beloved characters from the earlier films getting old and dying. Honest Trailers even lampshades it, to Deadpool (2016)'s consternation:
  Honest Trailers Voice Guy: You're not threatened by another R-rated superhero movie? Full of violence and cursing? Where the hero lives with a senior? With a kickass girl sidekick? Huh?
  Deadpool: Oh, you motherfuckers!
• Squib: The fight scenes and deaths are VERY squibtastic, fitting with this movie's dark and gritty tone.
• Super-Strength: Logan continues to display his superhuman strength that was present in the 2013 film, albeit toned down due to his advanced age and poisoning, but he's still able to easily grapple and toss a Reaver with such force that he knocks a group of them down.
  • X-24, however, is another story, being a clone of Logan in peak condition. He tosses an adamantium-heavy Logan through the air like a beach ball, donkey-kicks him over a parked Humvee, and easily lifts an armored truck up and off himself.
• Stealth Pun:
  • When he's helping with the Munsons' water problems, Logan is asked how long Laura's been mute. Laura later shows to be able to talk... but with Pierce's habit of abbreviating 'mutant', Logan isn't wrong when he says she's been a 'mute' from the beginning.
  • The Reavers are seen using the CMMG Mk47 rifles. The gun is colloquially known as the "Mutant".
• Sterility Plague: The cause of mutantkind's extinction — Transigen Corp poisoned the world's corn syrup supply with gene therapy that targeted the X-Gene, keeping any more mutants from being born.
• The Stinger: Inverted. The No Good Deed teaser for Deadpool 2 is shown before even the studio logo appears, almost as if it were one of the theatrical trailer previews. It doesn't appear outside the U.S. and Canada, though.
• Suicide Attack: Caliban goes out by detonating some grenades against his captors and kills himself in the process.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Logan drives into a fence and the result is the car gets stuck in the fence. Shortly thereafter, he dodges a train and the result is that he barely survives the train.
• Suspiciously Apropos Music: As Logan stops in a gas station, Laura enters the convenience store, where it's playing Jim Croce's "I Got A Name", with some really appropriate lyrics ("Movin' me down the highway, rollin' me down the highway/Movin' ahead so life won't pass me by...")
• Taking the Bullet: A Black Comedy version when a carjacker starts firing wildly at Logan and threatening to hit the limousine instead — Logan tries to put himself in the path of the bullets, as he's less vulnerable than the vehicle that's his only source of income.
• Taking You with Me: Caliban detonates some grenades to take out some mooks, killing himself in the process.
• Talk to the Fist: Laura pulls this on Logan after Charles' death, and she reveals for the first time she can talk. The two get into a heated argument where Laura insists Logan make good on his agreement to take her to Eden, and Logan loses his temper and screams at her to shut up. Her response is to punch him in the face. Better yet, it works: Logan gives in, and takes her the rest of the way (at least until he passes out from his wounds and Laura has to take over at the wheel).
• Tap on the Head: Laura delivers one to Pierce. With a length of pipe. That she threw. When Caliban is told to dump Pierce somewhere else, he asks what he should do if he wakes up early, so Logan kicks Pierce in the head for good measure. He still wakes up too early.
• Technicolor Science: Gabriela's footage of the lab where they experimented on the X-23 subjects features test tubes with colorful contents.
• That Thing Is Not My Child!: Logan spends much of the film distancing himself from Laura, even after he finds out she was made with his genetic material. A downplayed example, as it's not so much because of Laura as it is Logan's jaded attitude when it comes to relationships. Upon reaching the other X-23 kids, Logan outright states that he'll be leaving her alone after they cross the border into Canada. He eventually has a change of heart, but he is mortally wounded not long after.
• This Is Reality: According to Logan, things didn't happen the way they were recounted in Laura's X-Men comics, when they even did happen at all (which he claims is only about a quarter of the material).
  Logan: In the real world, people die.
• Time-Shifted Actor: Although unintentionally, as neither film's creatives knew the others were using the character, Stephen Merchant takes over as Caliban, replacing Tómas Lemarquis from X-Men: Apocalypse. The time difference between the two movies is 46 years.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • The carjackers at the beginning of the film who don't seem to acknowledge Logan's claws or inhuman durability.
  • While he survives it, Pierce's initial confrontation with Logan at Logan's hideout is very poorly considered. He's alone without ready backup against one person he knows has killing claws and is all-but-immune to guns, looking for a second person he should know has similar lethal potential and does not like him. Laura ambushes him with a thrown pipe to the head, and he lives only because Logan merely stomps on his head and gives Caliban a gun instead of straight-up beheading him.
  • While facing Logan, a villain goes on a Motive Rant near the end of the movie, explaining why he's trying to hurt Logan and those around him. Naturally, Logan just kills him. The villain is Zander Rice, who brags about wiping out the mutants in front of the most dangerous mutant alive.
• Trailers Always Spoil: At least one trailer and TV spot show Caliban setting off two grenades, indicating he's getting ready to die. Averted with X-24, who does not appear in any of the previews for the film and wasn't even known to exist until the film came out proper.
• Train Escape: Logan, Charles, and Laura escape from the Reavers in Mexico by crossing the railway line just before an enormously long freight train passes. Played with in that they wouldn't have made it, but Logan pulls it off by cutting to the outside of a Reaver truck pulling up alongside them, and nudging the truck into the train's path as he turns towards the tracks. The truck takes the full force of the impact, which then catches the back end of the limo and swings it safely around to the other side.
• Translation Convention: In the birthday party video, the nurses sing a translation of "Happy Birthday To You". Mexican nurses of humble extraction would sing "Las Mañanitas" instead.
• A True Story in My Universe: X-Men comics are shown to exist based on the actual X-Men's adventures.
• Twilight of the Supers: Mutantkind is practically wiped out thanks to Transigen Corps crops that suppress the X-Gene and Xavier accidentally killing most of the X-Men in a fit of dementia.
• Tyke Bomb: Laura is X-23, an unstoppable badass trained to kill and who has every reason to do so.
• Underestimating Badassery: The soldiers sent to recover Laura don't quite seem to understand what a monster she can be. Given it's been twenty years since a mutant has been born, they can be excused, if not forgiven.
• Undying Loyalty: The reason Logan is taking care of Professor Xavier.
• Universal Ammunition: It's a good thing the revolver Logan took off a Reaver was the same caliber as the adamantium bullet.
  • Justified, as .357 Magnum/.38 Special really is the universal revolver round — outside of plinking or Hand Cannon, .38 caliber is the only available round.
• Upgrade vs. Prototype Fight: The aged and weary Logan ends up fighting a young clone of himself twice in the movie. Unfortunately, Logan can't keep up with his clone and ends up being killed by it.
• Video Wills: Gabriela recorded one where she detailed the whole X-23 program and all the things endured by the kids.
• Waking Up Elsewhere: After collapsing by the car, Logan awakes to see a mobile hanging overhead and hear a doctor speaking.
  • Later, after seeing the Eden cabin on a mountaintop, he collapses again. He awakes to see the sky above him as he's being hoisted up the cliff.
• We Have Reserves: The Reavers, whose numbers almost seem infinite no matter how many Laura and Logan kill and are further boosted by using local assets like Mexican federales and the US Army.
• Wham Line:
  • Laura's "De nada." It's not what she says, but the fact that she can speak at all. Played for Laughs, as Logan is very annoyed that she didn't say anything before.
  • In a more serious sense, Xavier realizing that he killed some of the X-Men is also one, as we only got a hint of this earlier, and it changes the aspect of Xavier being a funny old man into quite the Tragic Hero.
  • An earlier example when we first see Xavier. Logan walks in silently while Charles is rambling on about Taco Bell and other random things. Just when you think they're going to start playing the Scatterbrained Senior trope for comedy, Charles looks at Logan, one of his oldest friends, and says "Who are you?"
• Wham Shot: Charles's heartfelt speech being interrupted by what appears to be Wolverine's claws slamming into his chest. Not only that, but the person who did it has much shorter hair than Logan, yet looks exactly like him in his prime.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Although a dozen children make it to Eden, not a single one of their caretakers is seen. Whether they all died on the run, abandoned their charges and fled, or made it to Eden only to leave afterwards is never said. A deleted scene reveals that at least one of the nurses is in Rice's custody, and has apparently been beaten up as well.
• What Measure Is a Mook?:
  • Discussed, after a fashion: Logan awakes from a nightmare while recuperating at Eden. Laura is there watching over him, and he admits the dream was about hurting people. After a short conversation, Laura admits that she's hurt people as well, and Logan tells her she'll have to learn to live with it. When she justifies her actions by calling them "bad people," he gently reproaches her by telling her "all the same."
  • Logan and Laura massacre quite a few Mexican police during their first battle together, but as they are Faceless Goons working with the Reavers, we're not supposed to emphasize with them.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Charles to Logan, reminding him that he was squandering his gifts as a cage fighter when they found him and is doing the same again. The fact that he can deliver this in his first scene really sets the tone.
  • It's untranslated in the film, but Laura's angry outburst of Spanish when she reveals she actually can speak is actually her chewing him out over the way he had been treating her up to that point:
    Laura: ¿Tú pretendes que hable contigo si siempre me insultas, si me gritas, si me intentas dejar tirada? Tú pretendes que abra la boca— (Why do you want me to talk to you if you're always insulting me, yelling at me, if you try to leave me behind? You want me to open my mouth—)
• Weak, but Skilled:
  • Laura is a highly-skilled fighter and killer packing adamantium Wolverine Claws. She's also an 11-year-old girl fighting grown men twice her size, and while she appears to have some degree of superhuman strength, she's still a tiny preteen girl, and while she can overpower grown men who are close to three times her size, she needs the element of surprise to do so. Her Waif-Fu is strong, but when she can't control the fight, catch her adversaries by surprise, or get help, she can be overwhelmed (even if it costs her assailants a few limbs in the process).
  • The Transigen kids have powers, but they're also children. Although a few manage to use their powers to devastating effect in the final pursuit, the Reavers are ultimately too many, too strong, and too well-equipped for them to handle.
• White Shirt of Death:
  • Charles is fatally stabbed by X-24's Wolverine Claws while wearing a white shirt and robe.
  • Rice is unceremoniously killed while wearing his usual white labcoat.
  • Logan succumbs to his wounds while wearing his trademark white tanktop.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: For mutantkind as a whole, as they have yet again been subjected to near extinction at the hands of Transigen after the events of Days of Future Past prevented exactly that.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: In between episodes where he swears at Logan and insists the latter is keeping him prisoner, Charles insists that Logan is the Wolverine, not merely the tired drunk we saw at the beginning of the movie.
• You Can Talk?: Logan's reaction when Laura finally speaks.
• You Killed My Father:
  • A downplayed example with Zander Rice. When Logan and Dr. Rice meet, Rice reveals that his father was a scientist in the Weapon X program, and Logan correctly assumes that he killed him. However, unlike his comic counterpart, Rice seems to hold no grudge against Logan for this, and actually seems to agree that his father was an asshole.
  • X-24's less than happy when Pierce reveals that Logan killed Dr. Rice, his creator.
• You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: An aged and hungover Logan finds himself being mostly curb-stomped by the carjackers until a shotgun blast hitting his limousine starts to piss him off.

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♫ There's a man goin' 'round takin' names
And he decides who to free and who to blame
Everybody won't be treated all the same
There'll be a golden ladder reachin' down
When the man comes around... ♫

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