X-Men/X2/X-Men The Last Stand : 81 for 81

X-Men/X2/X-Men The Last Stand

The reason I love the X-Men movies (besides my undying love for Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan) is that you not only get awesome action but also a really interesting dialogue about society, racism and prejudice.  As Lisa Alspector pointed out in her 2000 review of the original film:

After an opening sequence set in World War II Europe, this 2000 SF action adventure and allegory about the danger and irrationality of racism moves to a congressional witch-hunt in the U.S. sometime in the 21st century. The main characters, mutant superheroes introduced in 1963 by Marvel Comics, are shape-shifters, cyborgs, and telekineticists; they may have been dreamed up without the use of computer-generated imagery, but their behavior certainly lends itself to the technology.

All three films center on a debate of how the mutants should try to better their place in society - by working with the normal humans or by working against them.  Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan work well as good friends and even better enemies that have the same goal but drastically different ways of going about things.  

The first film centers on a law being passed that would make the world very anti-mutant - and as the passages of dialogue show, there are a few ways the mutants feel they should try to stop this:

Prof. Charles Francis Xavier: Don't give up on them, Erik.Magneto: What would you have me do, Charles? I've heard these arguments before.Prof. Charles Francis Xavier: That was a long time ago. Mankind has evolved since then.Magneto: Yes, into us.

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Magneto: Why not come out where I can see you, Charles?Prof. Charles Francis Xavier: What do you want her for?Magneto: Can't you read my mind? What now? Save the girl? You'll have to kill me, Charles. And what will that accomplish? Let them pass that law and they'll have you in chains with a number burned into your forehead.Prof. Charles Francis Xavier: It won't be that way.

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Magneto: Does it ever wake you in the middle of the night? The feeling that one day they will pass that foolish law or one just like it and come for you? And your children?Prof. Charles Francis Xavier: It does indeed.Magneto: What do you do, when you wake up to that?Prof. Charles Francis Xavier: I feel a great swell of pity for the poor fool who comes to that school... looking for trouble.

The sequels all have different plots but the theme of working with or against society remain strong.

Watch this film to see how it pushed the envelope and then takepart with the NAACP to promote tolerance.

X-Men/X2/X-Men The Last Stand were not nominated for and did not win an Academy Award®