And here comes their hetero love interest

aka stop trying to make Moira/Charles happen, it's not going to happen!

I've watched X-Men: Apocalypse and generally liked it. I've had some problems with it (further elaborated in my main blog), but in total it has been fun. One of my bigger problems will be discussed here since it ties with a broader issue.

There are quite a few people who didn't like the Sharon/Steve kiss in Captain America: Civil War. I understand them. It was unnecessary and ultimately reduces Sharon's character to a love interest and/or substitute for Peggy. (I'm not going to open the lid on how it should have been Steve/Bucky, because I like to stay out of the more aggressive discussions in fandom.) But at least it wasn't at all in focus and at least Sharon was somewhat relevant to the plot. Not so Moira McTaggert in XMA.

Moira is absolutely and totally unnecessary to the movie. Her character adds nothing and does nothing of note and is literally just there to remind the audience that oh yes Charles did have a hetero love interest. This is not fair to her character or to the fans. Let's backtrack a bit.
In X-Men: First Class Moira was introduced as a career driven woman who had to hold her own in a violently sexist CIA. Throughout that movie she decides to support the mutants regardless of what her superiors might say. Charles flirts with her in the very beginning, but becomes professional as soon as he realizes why she's there. All of their further interactions (up until the kiss in the end) are friendly but stay professional. Because of James McAvoy (Charles) and Michael Fassbender's (Erik) outstanding chemistry, they actually cut scenes that would have furthered Charles and Moira's relationship. A big part of the press said afterwards that First Class was the tragic love story of Charles and Erik. James McAvoy himself said on multiple occasions that that's what he was going for. But regardless of that and shippers' unique perspectives (I have to admit I am horribly biased, because I love Charles/Erik with all my heart and if I had an OTP this would be it) you have to admit that if they had wanted to set up Moira/Charles as the love story in the movieverse they should've done so more thoroughly. (Besides: why does a franchise such as X-Men so desperately need a love story at all? Their universe is filled to the brim with gripping and emotional motivators that do not rely on romantic love, but who am I to judge.)
Notably Moira is completely absent from the following Days of Future Past (and a love subplot is also thankfully absent). Anyone who wants to argue that it's actually about Erik and Charles somehow fighting over Raven's romantic affection, are free to do so at their leisure, but cannot expect me to believe a word of it. Once again the most emotional scenes are between Charles and Erik, adding to the chemistry of the younger versions the incredible chemistry Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart have.
Along comes XMA and informs us that Moira has always been on Charles' mind and that she has been his great love all along while giving her nothing to do plotwise. It feels more than unrealistic and implausible. (It's almost more out of the blue than Erik's sudden family.) Especially considering once again the scenes Charles and Erik share. You can't claim to want to convince the audience that 'yup there's totally nothing between them at all' and then have Erik break out of his violent rage/Apocalypse' manipulation by remembering what he and Charles had.


I hope I did not rage too much or wrote too much from my shipper's point of view. I just wanted to call attention to a rather prevalent strategy in movies where they introduce a female character for the explicit and only purpose of being a love interest. Either because they believe every story needs a love story (it doesn't. it really doesn't) or because they can't find a reason for women to be there otherwise or because they want to discourage shippers and further heteronormativity. Rant finished.

Satori has a lot of feelings about that

P.S. To say it with James McAvoy's very own words: "It's kind of like a love story where you don't always like the person you're in love with, but you still love them. It's like, Charles and Erik always hate the way they approach things. He's just like "Ahhhh, he's always wanting to kill the humans! He's always going on about the same old shit!". And yet, I love the guy. I can't kill him, I don't want to mind control him, I love him."

Can you?

I have a lot of feelings about androids and how human they are. This is a collage using pictures from different movies dealing with that topic. The collage addresses the topic of artificial life using a quote from the movie iRobot.

Featuring images from the movies Blade Runner, Ex Machina, A.I. and the show Almost Human (and the quote from iRobot).

Crake, Religion and Irony

In the novel Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood (which we read in my SciFi Uni class and which is amazing) the narrator looks after a new species of human. His childhood friend Crake obliterated nearly all of humanity in order for his brand new custom designed humans to live. He thinks that humanity is some sort of virus and hopelessly flawed. As a genetic engineer he designed the new humans exactly like he wanted. They are herbivores, do not need clothes, have a set and promiscious mating cycle, their pee holds off predators, they are good looking and kind, do not get sick and can heal injuries by purring. And they do not believe in any gods. Or at least that's what Crake intended.

The narrator tells the Crakers (as he calls the new humans) about the one who made them and consequently they view Crake as a sort of god and Snowman (what the narrator calls himself) as a sort of prophet who brings them stories from Crake. They are reverent and accept anything that Snowman tells them as a law, as long as he says it comes from Crake. He even pretends to be in contact with Crake through a broken wristwatch (the Crakers have no concept of thechnology) and says that Crake "came down" through a tornado. The Crakers readily believe him and rely on that belief in their daily lives. There is also another god. The goddess Oryx (who was the narrator's girlfriend in the old world and taught the Crakers about animals and plants). The Crakers call themselves "Children of Crake" and all animals "Children of Oryx". Because animals are sacred to Oryx they don't harm them, except for the fish they get for Snowman once a week and if they're in danger.

The narrator himself observes the irony of the present situation. Crake abhorred religion and religious sentiments and tried his best to erase them. And now in the new world that he is no longer part of he has become his new humanity's god.

 
Later on Snowman takes a longer journey and leaves the Crakers for a while. While he is gone they built a likeness of him and pray for his safe return. It seems that some form of artistic expression and spiritual belief is (at least in the novel) integral to human nature and be it a human nature so fundamentally altered like that of the Crakers.

Satori adores this novel and loves working with it