PotC: Dead Man's Chest was terrible

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

And Magneto can fly; was there any reason for the Golden Gate Bridge bit OTHER than "it looked cool?"

this is the only point of your slam of x3 that doesnt stick (the rest is all AMAZINGLY accurate) 

it had a two fold purpose,

1.  like any act of terroism it is to scare, impress and get attentio.  It does both of those in spades.

2.  He needed a bridge for his horde of cannon fodder becuase a lot of them cant fly.  yes he could have found some other way to get them there but hey see reason one. 

[Hebs]

X3 was okay, but could have been better imo.

Get some Chris Nolan into that beee-aaaaatch

Word.

At least Nolan has finesse.

[gbeenie]

Cyclops suffers from what I like to call the Leonardo Syndrome. It's what happens to a character when his only defining trait is "Leader." See also: Duke, Rodimus Prime, Blossom...

Yeah, my roommate and I call it Leader Syndrome. From the TMNT thread:

Poor Leonardo suffers from Leader Syndrome. For some reason leader characters in cartoons are only ever given leader personalities and lines. Let's go! Look out! We have to stop them! And so forth. Leonardo, Optimus Prime, Duke, Liono, etc. It happens in comics, too. Cyclops is the perfect example. Even characters who can be interesting in their own books end up boring when they lead teams. Superman in Justice League, Captain America in Avengers, and Robin in Teen Titans become dull, one-dimensional characters. That's the curse of Leader Syndrome.

If you get a chance, have a gander at Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men. Apart from being Really Fucking Good, the book finally makes Cyclops interesting.

Yeah, by pretty much changing Scott into a completely different character. I appreciate what Joss has tried to do with him, but that guy's not Cyclops. None of what Joss has done will stick.

How so? I'm curious.

[Sharktopus]

If you get a chance, have a gander at Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men. Apart from being Really Fucking Good, the book finally makes Cyclops interesting.

Yeah, by pretty much changing Scott into a completely different character. I appreciate what Joss has tried to do with him, but that guy's not Cyclops. None of what Joss has done will stick.

How so? I'm curious.

Well, I've been reading the TPBs, so I'm not up-to-date, but the last I saw, Emma had turned off Scott's power (I know it's more complicated than that...) and he's acting like a sullen Logan-style badass. Yeah, Cyclops is more interesting in Astonishing, but once Joss is done and those characters inevitably get folded back into the other X-books, he'll be back to the same old vanilla Cyclops - wearing the visor, shouting orders, and and constantly acting holier-than-thou to Havok.

[gbeenie]

If you get a chance, have a gander at Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men. Apart from being Really Fucking Good, the book finally makes Cyclops interesting.

Yeah, by pretty much changing Scott into a completely different character. I appreciate what Joss has tried to do with him, but that guy's not Cyclops. None of what Joss has done will stick.

How so? I'm curious.

Well, I've been reading the TPBs, so I'm not up-to-date, but the last I saw, Emma had turned off Scott's power (I know it's more complicated than that...) and he's acting like a sullen Logan-style badass. Yeah, Cyclops is more interesting in Astonishing, but once Joss is done and those characters inevitably get folded back into the other X-books, he'll be back to the same old vanilla Cyclops - wearing the visor, shouting orders, and and constantly acting holier-than-thou to Havok.

As for your last point, I would have to agree; the nature of comics makes it almost impossible to prevent that sort of thing. As for Joss' characterization, the way Cyclops is acting is unbalanced, and I would submit that that's not even remotely out-of-character for him. It goes all the way back to the early 80's (how long was Jean Grey dead [the first time] before Scott hooked up with Madelyne Pryor?); read some of the first forty or fifty issues of X-Factor, and a very different picture of Scott Summers starts to emerge. I can't speak as to the last fifteen years of X-comics (cause I ain't read 'em), but as a character Cyclops has almost always been wracked by crippling self-doubt, which sets him up perfectly for the fall that Joss Whedon has subjected him to.

And, I'm sorry, but the bit where

Scott leans down to talk to Colossus whilst shooting Sebastian Shaw (whom he's not even looking at) and saying, "Pete, hey. You would not believe the day I'm having."

is just a classic Joss Whedon moment, and it makes me smile every time I read it.

[Sharktopus]

Well, I've been reading the TPBs, so I'm not up-to-date, but the last I saw, Emma had turned off Scott's power (I know it's more complicated than that...) and he's acting like a sullen Logan-style badass. Yeah, Cyclops is more interesting in Astonishing, but once Joss is done and those characters inevitably get folded back into the other X-books, he'll be back to the same old vanilla Cyclops - wearing the visor, shouting orders, and and constantly acting holier-than-thou to Havok.

As for your last point, I would have to agree; the nature of comics makes it almost impossible to prevent that sort of thing. As for Joss' characterization, the way Cyclops is acting is unbalanced, and I would submit that that's not even remotely out-of-character for him. It goes all the way back to the early 80's (how long was Jean Grey dead [the first time] before Scott hooked up with Madelyne Pryor?); read some of the first forty or fifty issues of X-Factor, and a very different picture of Scott Summers starts to emerge. I can't speak as to the last fifteen years of X-comics (cause I ain't read 'em), but as a character Cyclops has almost always been wracked by crippling self-doubt, which sets him up perfectly for the fall that Joss Whedon has subjected him to.

And, I'm sorry, but the bit where

Scott leans down to talk to Colossus whilst shooting Sebastian Shaw (whom he's not even looking at) and saying, "Pete, hey. You would not believe the day I'm having."

is just a classic Joss Whedon moment, and it makes me smile every time I read it.

I agree completely - Joss has done a great job, at least characterization-wise. It's just that, deep down, I know that it'll all be for naught once someone else starts writing Cyclops on a regualr basis. I do think there's a chance for what he's done with Kitty to survive, though.

It's funny, the title of biggest horndog in the Marvel U usually goes to Matt Murdock, Johnny Storm, or Clint Barton, but Scott can get around. Sure, he's been with Jean so long that it defines his character, but every time she dies, it's barely a week before he's in some other superbabe's spandex. The ladies love a grieving superhero on the rebound.

You know you're taking about comics when you find yourself saying "every time she dies."

[BobEvil]

Cyclops suffers from what I like to call the Leonardo Syndrome. It's what happens to a character when his only defining trait is "Leader." See also: Duke, Rodimus Prime, Blossom...

Anybody else read the webcomic "Joe Loves Crappy Movies"? I mean, he addresses this issue with the same exact comparison!

Anywhoo..I hated both X3 AND PoTC2. X3 was a constant disappointment with every twist and turn...it's like...they took any advancement or interest from the first two movies and just crapped right on it! And that whole scene at the end of the credits? I was so pissed at everyone who insisted I sit through the credits to see that since it was about 3 seconds long and added almost nothing to the story. Big whoop.
As for PoTC2, it did nothing the entire movie. It spent it's entire time just raising more questions, wasting time  with overdrawn and/or extremely overdone scenes...or focused on Johnny Depp's annoying breathy syllable emphasis with twirling little hand gestures as he "comedically" overstates his sentences. I went to a midnight showing of both movies...and at PoTC2, people were actually dressed as Jack, Will, and...uh....Kierra Knightley's character....person....with a name.

[Nunyerbiz]

Maybe I'm stuck in my ways.... but there is no excuse, ever, for a damn pirate movie to run two and a half hours. To echo some other comments from this thread... I didn't hate Dead Man's Chest, but it did leave me flat. Everything that was fresh and amusing in the first movie was overdrawn and ponderous in the sequel.

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

but there is no excuse, ever, for a damn pirate movie to run two and a half hours.

not even horatio hornblower or disneys treasure island?

[Sharktopus]

but there is no excuse, ever, for a damn pirate movie to run two and a half hours.

not even horatio hornblower or disneys treasure island?

Horatio Hornblower's not a pirate, he's a naval officer.

Anyway, I have no problem with a pirate movie running 2 1/2 hours or more, so long as it has a sufficiently gripping story to tell, and not just a loose plot stringing together action sequences and wacky character moments.

[Nunyerbiz]

Well, I don't know if I would go so far as to classify the first PotC movie as having a "gripping story to tell". A loose plot stringing together action sequences is basically the definition of the summer blockbuster genre. Nothing necessarily wrong with that when it's pulled off correctly. The problem with the Pirates sequel was that everything seemed forced. Where the first movie just fell into a perfect groove, the sequel was too bloated to fit into the same groove but made a ton of noise trying.

[J-Proof]

Maybe I'm stuck in my ways.... but there is no excuse, ever, for a damn pirate movie to run two and a half hours. To echo some other comments from this thread... I didn't hate Dead Man's Chest, but it did leave me flat. Everything that was fresh and amusing in the first movie was overdrawn and ponderous in the sequel.

Yeah -- that's the result of a sequel being made out of a movie that wasn't intended to originally /have/ a sequel =)

The bonus features in the special edition set illustrate how the filming of the movie was happening before the writers were even close to finishing, and how the writers and Gore Verbinski had some very tense stand-offs

PotC2 was like Season 2 of LOST -- the entire story is due to wrap up in the third movie, and the writers were excited to get it to the third movie, but that pesky second movie had to be done first =)

That being said -- I LOVE the pirates movies!! Wooo!!