X-Men -- ***Spoilers***

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Yeah, and come to think of it, many airplanes are designed to be able to survive a lightning hit so it can at least land...

[Lieutenant Kije]

Yeah, I know, there's a suspension of disbelief.  But the fairly casual way they introduced Prof X's ability ("oh yeah, he can kill everyone on the planet just by thinking about it") was a little much for me.  You'd think someone would keep that kind of stuff a little more secret.  Loose lips sink ships (or get everyone and their mother sending in hit squads to kill you just because you can do what you do.)

[Spriggan]

Prof X can only do that with Ceribrol (or however you spell that computer).

[Fellfrosch]

Actually, they DID send a hit squad to kill him.

[Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock]

Cerebro man, Cerebro.

[EUOL]

You know, this could be its own thread--'heroes' who, if you think about it, probably just wasted a bunch of innocent people.  One of my favorites is in Ocean's 11.  How many people do you think bit it when the guys decided to blow the power in the entire city?

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

The characters in Ocean's 11 aren't a good example of heroes. They don't do anything heroic or even good, except that they steal from someon with even MORE whacked priorities than themselves.

[42]

I have to agree, the main characters in Ocean's 11 are crooks in both the new and original versions.

[Fellfrosch]

That's why I liked it: more heroes should be crooks.

[42]

There's something disturbing about that statement.

[EUOL]

Ah, but despite logical complaints, the characters in Ocean's 11 were indeed presented as heroes, and not anti-heroes.  The plotting and characterization of the movie produced empathy for the characters, and a desire for them to succeed.  While they did illegal things, their actions were presented in the 'loveable rogue' vein.  We aren't supposed to think 'these are ruthless men who would kill dozens of people to get what they want' we're supposed to think 'aw, look at all those nice people who are stealing from the big bad gambling-kingpin.'  In fact, I think that the characters presented--if confronted with factual knowledge that they were going to kill people with their little electricity thing--would probably have found another way.  As it stands, it's just an example of 'don't think too hard about this' plotting.

Of course, despite being a great movie, it was rife with that kind of plotting sloppiness.  I mean, what was the point of carving up explosives like gemstones and going through all of the trouble of sending them down in a briefcase when you have a guy sneaking into the vault in one of the money bins?  Couldn't he have just taken the explosives with him. . . .

[Tage]

What exactly makes anyone think that people were killed in a power outage? Power outages happen all the time, and the cities don't fall into deadly chaos.

[Mr_Pleasington]

Hospitals all have backup generators to prevent such death from a power outage, actually.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

EUOL, I disagree, just because someone is presented empathetically, even if he is a protagonist, does not necessarily make him heroic, even as opposed to anti-heroic. Peter David's Sir Apropos of Nothing is an example. No, I don't think they're heroes, even if they are the "good guys"

[Fellfrosch]

Unless you're using an overly literate definition, the good guys are always heroes. That's a colloquial definition. This reminds me of the time my English teacher tried to convince me that Luke wasn't a hero because he didn't get the girl.