Have you read the comic book?!

*HUGE SPOILERS HERE! Don't read until after you've seen the new Xmen movie!*

Yes, I'm going to use this whole post to whine about the new Xmen movie. I have read basically every Xmen comic for 4 years now, and I have read back issues as well as the books put out about Xmen and the history of Xmen. Yes, non comic book nerds, there are encyclopedias about different branches of superheros, and I have read the giant one about Xmen. When I get into something, I fully get into it. If you see my mom, ask her about my eary teen obsession with the Titanic. It didn't stop with beautiful Leonardo and the movie...I researched (hardcore researched) and read all I could about it. I constantly had new horridly depressing facts to share with Mom. She hated it...but at least I was learning what interested me. I digress. Rarely do I write a post about comic books, TV shows, or other things of the sort, but after watching Xmen: The Last Stand I was left with the question asked above, so I must get it all out here. Here it all is in categories, but it's not in any particular order.

Director
First it was obvious the film lost a lot by losing its director, Bryan Singer. Yes, he went to work on another super hero film. Yes, it's about Superman, and surely he must be making awesome work out of it all. I do believe there's merit to finishing what one started and not leaving it to someone else. No one can share your exact vision, and in my mind Singer left his vision in the wrong hands with someone who was half blind. I kept asking myself, "Did this man read the comic books? Did he do the research needed to make a movie with as complex a back story as X-men or any superheros for that matter??"

Storyline in General
Did anyone else feel there was too much story and too little time to smush it all in? Paul made a smart observation that the story of Jean/Dark Pheonix and the Cure could have been separate movies to give them the attention needed. I agree. It was too much. We needed more time to process each part.

Beast
I could have used a flashback to him kicking tail with the Xmen when he was first introduced. Since I know who he is, I was happy to see him, but people who don't read the comics could have been sitting there thinking, "ok so his mutation is that he's blue? Big whoop!" Explanation perhaps when Wolverine asked, "who's the furball?" would have been a good time for this. When we finally got to see him kick butt in the end, it was a great moment. Who knew Kelsey Grammer could pull off a mutant? Did he do his stunts? Anyone know? Because if so I've got a lot more respect for him as an actor.

Rogue/Bobby (Iceman)/Kitty/Colossus
In the comic books Kitty and Colossus are together (except during the whole Colossus is gay storyline which I choose to pretend isn't happening and/or never happened). There is no tension between Kitty and Bobby. Granted, Rogue is typically with Gambit (wish we'd seen him), but still I would have rather that sexual tension had been out, and the relationship between Kitty and Colossus would have been shown.

Ages
The ages of the characters are off. I won't go in depth, as the ages have been off for all of the movies, and that hasn't bothered me, but now I'm just annoyed, so I wanted to state it.

The Cure
For starters, I don't think Rogue would have taken it. Actually I know she wouldn't have. Would she have considered it? Heck yeah! Afterall, she always struggles with the need to touch others. However, she's always been a hardcore Xman. She fights for the greater good, and she would eventually come to the conclusion that despite the romantic downfalls of her mutation, she'd want to stay a mutant.

In the comics it's Beast who considers the cure. He's the one who wants to not be a mutant, and we did get a glimpse of this when he told Storm, "you don't shed on the furniture."

Finally would they have really used it on Magneto? I'm like Beri, I don't think if they're truly the good guys that they would have. It's a real ethical question. I think it was a low blow, and there should have been other ways.

Oh yeah, and what the heck, they cured Mystique??? No freakin way!

Jean
That's not how the Pheonix, Dark or otherwise, came to be. It was a possession, not the professor. She has died (twice or more?) and come back.

I don't think even as Dark Pheonix she would have killed Scott or the professor. Also the whole veins in her face things was just weird...not how I pictured it, but I'll leave that to creative liscence (no, I don't leave much to that!).

Yes, in the comics Wolverine does take her out, and yes it breaks his heart. Thank you for sticking to that.

Actors
Paul also said it seemed some actors just didn't have the time to be in this movie. Rebecca Romijn and James Marsden definately. If you sign up for something that involves more than one movie, make time to finish your character enough to do him/her justice. Don't make the fans miss out because you're overbooked.

The Missing
X2 brought one of my favorite characters into view. I LOVE Nightcrawler. Aside from Gambit, he's my favorite Xman, and we saw a ton of him in X2. We get to the last movie, and where is he? He helped round out the last movie, and he's gone now? Also where'd Toad and Sabertooth go? At least Sabertooth...if you're making a movie centered on Wolverine (because face it, that's who the movie starred), why not have his archenemy in it?

Why put in random, made up mutants when they could have put in some obscure or newer ones that the die hard fans would have recognized? The boy flying the paper airplanes with his hand/mind is a good example of when it would have been nice to see Hellion run by or see Golden Boy Josh pass with Laurie. At least they gave us Leech, but give us diehards something more to see in passing and figure out from our knowledge of the comics!

Sum Up
I just felt let down at the end of this movie. The characters didn't follow their true nature. Xmen have been around for decades, and their characters have built up over countless comic books, and then this movie is made that throws a lot of who these characters are away.

I know that there is such a thing as creative liscense, and with Harry Potter movies I'm more forgiving, but I think it's because the directors there stay true to the core of the characters. Should this have followed a specific comic book or strain of the comics? No. Should it have stayed true to how each character would have acted? Yes.

Redemption
The humor was good. I appreciated some of the places where I was actually able to really laugh hard. I loved the first interaction with Beast and Wolverine. The Juggernaut and Kitty at the end was fun as well. The moving of the bridge was great, and some of the new mutants they pulled in were really fun. I loved Quill's to cool for school vibe. Wolverine was, as usual, so HOT and perfectly sarcastic with his devil may care attitude. Storm finally got a good haircut that didn't look like a bad wig. Beast looked awesome. The camera shot at the end when the Xmen took their stand gave me chills. Angel's flight looked realistic instead of like a bad stunt. In fact all the stunt work was good.

Will I buy it on DVD? Yes. I want them to continue to make superhero movies, so I will support them to encourage it. Will I watch it again? Yes, because I want to search it for more redemption. Do I regret seeing it? No. When it comes down to it I love Xmen. I don't really regularly read any other comics, so anything with then is golden in my book. I blame this on the director change and the lack of research done.

Apologies
To anyone who knows more Xmen facts than I do, and notices I got stuff wrong in my superlong whine...sorry. Deal, love is pure, but sometimes memory is not. For those of you who could care less about this movie and it's inacurracies, sorry, deal with it. It's my blog. To those of you who read this whole thing, sorry you're so bored, but thanks for paying attention!

Later
I'll use another post another day to tell about the last day of school and the joy of being a teacher in the summer time. I'm loving not teaching right now! :-) I'll also let you know about my summer plans and such, but my sister says I've been typing forever, and so I must go to watch Everwood. Love to all 3 of my readers (3 may be too many...).

Debt Free!!! sort of...

Thanks to the extra TAKS tutoring I did recently and the SIOP training I did this year, I just paid off my college debt! :-) (Yea for it all finally coming through!) I paid off the credit card as well as my parents today! I cannot explain what an awesome feeling this is. Before my last semester in college, I'd never had any true debt to pay off. It's been hanging over my head this whole school year, and everytime I'd almost pay it off, I'd have some unexpected expense come up like airline tickets and car insurance. Anyways, it's just a great feeling, and I wanted to share it! I want to go out to lunch Sunday to celebrate (I haven't been going lately to save money). :-) I still have to pay off my SaladMaster cookware, but that's not such a big deal. Finally I can put money into savings, and I can not be on such a tight budget.

I think I might move this summer. I'd just move across Chapel Hill to a bigger apartment. I found a floorplan for a 1 bedroom, 1.5 bath that has a much bigger living area, dining room, and kitchen, which is where I am lacking space I need/want right now. The bedroom and master bath are about the same size I think, but I'm fine with that. Now for those of you who helped me move last summer and suffered through the stairs and the heat wave, I have good news...if and when I move, I am using movers! No more having friends do the dreaded favor of moving me in the summer. No more hating the heat and feeling so out of shape I want to die! NO MORE! I am an adult who can choose to hire people, and I'm chosing to do that. Granted this all depends on the apartment I want being open. Cross your fingers for me.

Love you all and hope things are going well. Give me a call if you're bored bc I've been super bored lately. I'm starting to follow my old college senior habit: change channels every half hour to find a new episode of Friends to last the evening. Granted I have added Will and Grace to this search...as well as a few regular shows I watch. Speaking of Will and Grace last night was the series finale. Towards the last few of the 8 years it ran, I have been watching the show. I know there's controvery that it can warp people's view of homosexuality, and it is, as some put it, "gay propaganda," but I enjoyed the friendship on that show. The closeness of Will and Grace and of Karen and Jack was really sweet. The humor was really funny, but the show would get serious sometimes too which reminded me of Friends. Anyways, the show is now over, and I think they actually had one of the better series finales out there. It wasn't too cheesy, and it wasn't something that made you sit there and cry at the end. It was just nice, and it made me think, "wow, I wish I had a friend that I was as close as to as Grace is to Will." The closest I have to that is my sister...which I'm not sad about. You'd think as much as we fought when we were growing up that we would have killed each other by now, but instead we've gotten closer and gained a friend in the process. Granted, we do have our battles, and because we're sisters, they tend to be real wars, but because we're sisters, we know behind it all that we love each other and everything will be ok in the end.

I'm rambling now...I'll stop. Have a good weekend ya'll!!

DWI and Police Run Ins

No, I didn't get a DWI, but didn't the title get your attention?? Today was the school's DWI re-inactment. It was really touching. They showed a video the kids had made of some students getting into drugs and going to a rave. One of the coaches from here was on the video talking to a girl about her future (how she could get into a good college with the good grades she was making) and about her choice in friends (bad ones). Anyways, the video shows him calling home to talk to his wife and then stay for a jog. The video ends with the kids rushing from the rave to take a girl who collapsed to the hospital, but there's 3 cars of them, and they've all been doing drugs and drinking alcohol. We then go outside and can hear the screams and see the wreck. 3 cars are crushed with kids in them. One kid has been thrown from a car and is pinned between the cars. The coach was hit by the cars and is laying in the street. All of them are covered in blood. Firetrucks came, police cars arrived, a hearse took away the kid who was thrown from the car, and the coach was airlifted out. It was just all so real. I've seen it before, but it breaks my heart each time. Today it was just so eye openning to see it as a teacher and not just a student and to think about how I'd feel if it was one of "my kids." Also, the statistics they presented today were all about people ages 14-24 which is still my age group! That's still me and some of my friends bloody in those cars if we make bad choices. Of course that's what it comes down to right? Bad choices? I hope the kids got the message. I was fighting back tears the whole time...

As for me, I had a run in with the police on Wednesday night. I got pulled over because the light for my license plate was out. Since it was after 11pm, and I was alone, I turned left into a well lit area (what I've been told to do since I learned to drive), and this ticked off the police man. He proceeded to lecture me about how he didn't know if was running from him or not, or if he was about to be in a persuit. (At this point I wanted to say, "How lucky for you to be to cop who gets a criminal who runs from you in such a manner that she can be caught easily...since I used my blinker signal and slowed down to 25 when you turned on your lights!") Instead I listened to his complaints to me and was respectful. Apparently you're only supossed to feel the need to go to a well lit area when the car is unmarked and only has lights in its grill. Otherwise ladies, forget the fear of a rapist in a stolen car or a crooked cop; pull over immediately in the dark, roll down your window, and pray to God for safety. I personally will call 911 next time to make sure it is a cop pulling me over and to tell them I am pulling into a well lit area. Of course next time I will also get the badge number and name of the cop who tells me off for being safe. (Oh yeah, no ticket bc my driving record is clean!)

Nothing else much is going on. This weekend I'm alone as LaRae and Randy are heading to Monroe. That means I'll sleep in tomorrow and not worry about hairbows. Free Comic Book Day is tomorrow and Paul and Randy are both out of town (the ones I'd go with if they were here), so tomorrow I'm heading out alone to the comic store to get my free comics and a free heroclic for Randy and try to swing an extra for Paul. I guess going alone on a day like that is just the final step in my coming out as a comic book loving nerd! Don't get me wrong, I'm actually quite proud of it. I'm really a nerd in many ways, let's count them:
1. I have a preference between Marvel and DC (MARVEL BABY!); I love comic books (and all movies that go with them).
2. Math is my profession.
3. I can't live without a computer.
4. TI is awesome!
5. I still love Numb3rs despite the overuse of some words.
6. Four letters: LotR! (Yes, Andrew, I'd dress up as a hobbit for a convention.)
7. One of my nicknames in college was "hobbit girl."
8. "Harry Potter" are two words that I drop often in my daily conversation.
9. Have you noticed the Mugglenet link on my blog?
10. I was in band and would still love to pick up my clarinet from time to time.
There are so many more, but I thought I'd stop and state the obvious ones first and come back to the more unknown ones at a later date.

I'm a little down tonight I guess. The DWI thing upset me, and I've got a headache, and in all honesty, I'm in a rather low mood. (LaRae, the answer is "yes I've been taking them.") Love you all. See you Sunday.

Heavy Stuff

Paul has already written on the VRCC and CCC possible merger. Everyone has commented on his site about it, but I want to say some stuff about it too. My first response on Sunday was to cry, so I didn't fight it and simply cried about it. Part of that is a comment Paul made to me as I was crying that "change is scary." Yeah, it is. Part of it is that I feel like I just found my place at VRCC and if we merge I'll have to find a whole new group of people to find my place with. It's scary to be single and make a place for yourself. I'm not identified with anyone else (well except for someone's sister and another's aunt). Other issues have been raised by Kent and Randy that I hadn't thought of, and those issues scare me even more. I'm going to the ice cream social, and I'm going to see what there is to learn about this option, but all in all, my initial thought right now at this very moment is that I'm apprehensive and not sure this truly is the answer to our situation.

Not much else is going on. There's a new Lost tonight, and I've got lots of junk to do until the end of the school year. WHOO HOO only about 3 more weeks until summer! I've never looked forward to the end of the school year as much as I do right now! It's a whole new world and a whole new outlook being a teacher. One last thing and then I will sign off:

I told LaRae last night that I'm really wanting to go back to being called by my full name: Joanna. Granted, I can't really do that at school (one because I introduced myself as Jo and put it on my paperwork, and two because there's another JoAnna, and that's confusing!), but I can do it at church. There is a complication with Katelyn bc she knows me as Jo. OF course we are adding Aunt to that later, so it won't be hard to elongate to Joanna I don't think. Now, finishing on the discourse about my name -- I would love for my friends to start calling me Joanna again, but I want to bring two things to your attention (which are part of the reason I liked going by Jo anyways):
1. It's spelled Joanna. The first "a" is lower case; it is one word; there are no spaces.
2. My name is pronounced (pardon my really bad phonics) Joe-anne-ah. There is an a at the end of it for a reason, and it is to be pronounced.
Yes, my name carries some pet peeves, but I believe that knowing how to say and spell a friend's name is important. It shows you care about them enough to know their moniker, and it shows you pay attention. I love you all, and I would love for you to go back to calling me Joanna, but if Joanna is too hard, feel free to stick with Jo.

There's my heavy thoughts as of late...go figure that they're really not that heavy...