Tag: holocaust

“This is a moment. A moment to repeat the mistakes of the past. Or to work together for a better future.”

From: X-2: X-Men United

Genre: Movies

Who said it?: Charles Xavier

The story behind the quote: This week’s quote comes from the 2003 Marvel superhero movie, X-2: X-Men United. The plot revolves around a government operative named William Stryker and his plans to hunt and incarcerate all mutants of the world by kidnapping Charles Xavier, leader of the X-Men, and using his mutant abilities to kill all mutants in the world. This leads the X-Men to attempt to rescue their mentor.

The quote comes from the end of the film. The President of the United States is about to give a speech about how all mutants are a threat. Before he does, Charles Xavier (played by Patrick Steward) hands the President files proving that Stryker orchestrated the events of the film. Xavier, in the hopes the President will change his mind, delivers the quote.

Geek wisdom: We all never forget about the atrocities of the past but we must also recognize them as mistakes we have made. It is only then when we can learn from them and work together to move on to a better tomorrow.

“If you know you can deflect it, then you’re not challenging yourself.”

From: X-Men: First Class

Genre: Movies

Who said it?: Charles Xavier

The story behind the quote: The very first live-action X-Men films, which was shown in 2000, clearly showed that the friendship between Charles Xavier (who would become Professor X and the founder of the X-Men) and Erik Lehnsherr (also known as the mutant terrorist, Magneto) has ended. While they do behave cordially when they talk, it is clear that they have opposite ideals for how mutants should interact with the ordinary humans. However, the films never explored their friendship as deep as the pseudo-reboot in X-Men: First Class.

The film starts in the 60’s around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. A mutant named Sebastian Shaw is attempting to start World War III in the hopes that mutants will take over after the war. Erik Lehnsherr has a personal stake on this as he witnessed Shaw kill his mother during the Holocaust.

Since he has been training his mutant ability at an extremely young age, he believes that he has gained ultimate mastery of it. As proof, he tells Xavier to shoot at him point blank with a gun since he knows he’ll be able to stop the bullet as it fires. Xavier then tells him that, if that’s the case, then he’ll never really become as strong with his ability as he can.

Geek wisdom: It easy to play it safe and be satisfied with what we know, never really venturing outside our comfort zone. Even thinking of trying to do something that is extremely difficult makes us uneasy and, mentally, we can give up without trying. But the only way we can improve ourselves is if we try to do something difficult.

It’s like when we were toddlers; we could could move around by crawling. There was really no need to walk since crawling was sufficient. We don’t remember it but we all struggled with learning how to simply stand up and we fell down a lot. However, with practice, we all now able to stand on our own two feet.

Any task can seem daunting and even impossible. However, unless we try and practice several times, we will never really be able to say it’s impossible.