Formless wrote:First, continuity doesn't matter, remember? The film doesn't fit into the timeline, and doesn't appear to want to either.
Actually, the Director explicitly stated that the movie takes place in the DoFP timeline. You can pretend in your head canon that the previous films do not apply, but in-canon they do.
Formless wrote:Second, you can't call something "likely" when we didn't see it happen that way. That's not how probability works.
We didn't see anything past the point where they continue the trek towards the border. We have no idea if they were successful or not (barring a sequel), my speculation is that they likely didn't given
all the other history in the franchise. Or if they did, it wasn't via official government support. Maybe there was some kind of "PETA" like group that smuggled them into the country or something.
Formless wrote:The crops just suppress the X-gene, it isn't comparable to violence in the slightest. Its ethically dubious, certainly, but not the same.
So if someone came up with the supress (insert minority here) gene, you wouldn't consider that anything more than "ethically dubious" if they decided to quietly disperse it throughout the food chain? Ya great, they're not flat out killing you. They're just discreetly sterilising you in such a way that you are either infertile or at the very least are unable to have children like you.
So much better. It's genocide as far as I am concerned.
Except all it required was for the crops to be economically successful, to the point that high-fructose corn syrup made by Transgen or GMO corn seed sold by Transgen were ubiquitous in the US and the First world. This isn't complicated; while the idea is is not flawless on logical grounds I think the clear intent by the filmmakers was that this is a plausible way for Mutants to have been eliminated (not killed, notice) without anyone figuring out that it was a deliberate conspiracy against mutants. There is no need within the film to suppose that Transgen has any kind of international sway, because that does not fit their MO nor the tone of the film.
And no government at any point since Transgien started developing and shipping said crops ever made any sort of serious study of their products and never made any sort of connection that the mutant birthrate started dropping off drastically as that product became widely distributed. Anywhere in the world, since apparently there hasn't been a mutant born
anywhere in over 25 years. The same governments which in every other film in the franchise had zero problems going after mutants whenever it served their interests, and would frequently lie about their intentions. Right.
And my speculation is supported by onscreen evidence. Your speculation violates parsimony, in no small part because it relies on evidence from other films when this film refuses to clarify its temporal and causal relationship to those films.
Even excluding Word of God we know that events from the DoFP timeline still takes place (like the obvious one that Wolverine is part of the Weapon X project and bonded with Adamantium). And apart from a bunch of kids thinking that they'll be safe and the mercenaries apparently being reluctant to cross the border (which could mean a number of things, such as them having to admit failure for instance) there is nothing to suggest that they would
actually be safe. Given that apparently they wouldn't be safe in the US, why would Canada be any better?
I don't mean that you dislike the film, I mean that you seem dead set on making the ending out to be less hopeful than it was intended, ignoring Xavier's dialogue that establishes the theme of hope within its context, and that you are doing so by appealing to things not shown or told to us in the story.
Actually, Xavier's dialog works just as well the other way, such as the "But its real to her" comment. She thinks she's going to be rescued, but there's no actual evidence to suggest that she will be... and even if we were generous and assumed that the Canadian government's initial intentions
were to offer them safety, there would be an incredible amount of pressure to at the
very least keep them contained. And out of public sight. They cannot risk someone else trying to capture them for their own use.
Formless wrote:Clearly we both watched the film, but I don't care what happened in the other X-Men movies. They are not this film, and even if they are somehow connected (and good luck sorting out that mess) I still think you are overly focused on how the Canadian government was portrayed in movies that take place decades before this one without considering the fact that things change.
Actually the connection is clear - it's the DoFP timeline, set five years later. Logan was explicitly stated not to remember events between his falling unconscious after being thrown in the water by Magneto,and waking up at the end of DoFP, which explains why he still references things in the old timeline.
And really, whether or not the Canadian government was involved in the genocide or what Transgien was up to is irrelevant (see below). It's what they do once they release what was going on that matters.
Formless wrote:I mean, come on, people escaping to Canada seeking safe haven is such an obvious metaphor for the Underground Railroad its amazing how little the film calls attention to it.
Which raises a good question: why
weren't they safe in the US? If the US was not involved in some way then they shouldn't have had any trouble once they crossed the border from Mexico into the USA, one would think?
If the US was involved in some fashion and demanded that Canada hand them over, do you think the Canadian government would say no? Unless the US suffered an even massive decline than it looks like it might be about to undergo, I doubt it. Would Canada turn this into an international dispute, if necessary? Remember, these kids aren't your regular refugees, they are beings with superpowers that were deliberately bred for no other purpose than combat. A group of people who everybody apparently thought could no longer be born/made.
Formless wrote:Yeah, but its not as if supersoldiers are such a strange idea that no one else could come up with it on their own. The fact that no one else tried suggests that there are good reasons not to attempt it besides ethical ones. Like, say, the fact that you spinning a roulett wheel over what powers the mutant will receive even if you are working from the genetic code of someone whose mutation is well known. Or the fact that the clones are either children with no desire to be soldiers, or true science fiction vat grown clones that are wild and unpredictable, as demonstrated in the movie via X-24. Seriously, the villain of the film is supposed to be as crazy as he is smart, literally believing that he can do a better job at controlling mutation than mother nature. I'm pretty sure that no matter how unethical the government is, they aren't that kind of stupid.
Which doesn't refute my point - Canada cannot allow (nor any government for that matter) for the word to get out that it's still possible to create mutants as weapons. Even if no government tried (and I strongly doubt
that) there would inevitably be
someone that would, if they haven't started already. Canada (nor nay government in the same situation) would not risk having those kids in the public for an instant, no matter how much they are told to keep things quiet and not use their powers. They will either be quietly killed or isolated, take your pick.
"I reject your reality and substitute my own!" - The official Troll motto, as stated by Adam Savage