X-Men:DoFP, NYC
Jun. 7th, 2014 02:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
schneefinkLast week I watched "X-Men: Days of Future Past" with friends. They had to persuade me because I'm not the biggest X-Men fan, but I didn't regret going.
The best part of the movie: Quicksilver. He was so much fun. (I haven't seen a gif of him with the duct tape on Tumblr yet, I'm disappointed.) I suspect that he's very different from canon Quicksilver, but idk. His powers are very cool & make him very powerful; super-speed like his or Tommy's is what I picked when a friend asked me which superpower I'd like. (Tommy can make things explode, too, not sure if Quicksilver can, but probably.)
The team in the future is pretty cool, but unfortunately we didn't seem much of them. Blink's powers are pretty neat, though we agreed afterwards that she probably could have used them even more effectively. In the beginning I was confused because I don't remember Kitty having these powers? Spontaneous plot device upgrade.
I still don't like Charles or Erik and don't find them interesting either. They're stubborn, and even worse, they're stupid about it and then complain about it at length and think everything's about them. Ugh.
I liked Raven being awesome! She doesn't give a shit that Charles and Erik are fighting over her, she's finding her own path. And being stupid about it, okay, but at least she's willing to learn and doing something.
Trask and his plan didn't make any sense. You have a mutant detector? Great! Now kill all the mutants? Uh, there are several steps in between here that nobody seems to have noticed, wtf. Even if you think mutants are a threat.
But it's not like I expected logic...
I'm stalled on my YA story because it's taking place in New York City. I've never been there, and I can't visualize where my characters are. If you're an alien race and you're fighting against New-York-based heroes, you'd probably destroy Manhattan first, right? Which parts of New York would likely be targets and who lives there and what does it look like? Which parts of the city, if destroyed, are likely to be renovated/cleared of debris first/last, and which would be abandoned? Where is a secret underground resistance movement likely to operate?
I thought I could just talk about "the city" and "the destroyed parts of the city" in very general terms, but my brain refuses to cooperate. If anyone familiar with NYC is willing to help that'd be great.
The best part of the movie: Quicksilver. He was so much fun. (I haven't seen a gif of him with the duct tape on Tumblr yet, I'm disappointed.) I suspect that he's very different from canon Quicksilver, but idk. His powers are very cool & make him very powerful; super-speed like his or Tommy's is what I picked when a friend asked me which superpower I'd like. (Tommy can make things explode, too, not sure if Quicksilver can, but probably.)
The team in the future is pretty cool, but unfortunately we didn't seem much of them. Blink's powers are pretty neat, though we agreed afterwards that she probably could have used them even more effectively. In the beginning I was confused because I don't remember Kitty having these powers? Spontaneous plot device upgrade.
I still don't like Charles or Erik and don't find them interesting either. They're stubborn, and even worse, they're stupid about it and then complain about it at length and think everything's about them. Ugh.
I liked Raven being awesome! She doesn't give a shit that Charles and Erik are fighting over her, she's finding her own path. And being stupid about it, okay, but at least she's willing to learn and doing something.
Trask and his plan didn't make any sense. You have a mutant detector? Great! Now kill all the mutants? Uh, there are several steps in between here that nobody seems to have noticed, wtf. Even if you think mutants are a threat.
But it's not like I expected logic...
I'm stalled on my YA story because it's taking place in New York City. I've never been there, and I can't visualize where my characters are. If you're an alien race and you're fighting against New-York-based heroes, you'd probably destroy Manhattan first, right? Which parts of New York would likely be targets and who lives there and what does it look like? Which parts of the city, if destroyed, are likely to be renovated/cleared of debris first/last, and which would be abandoned? Where is a secret underground resistance movement likely to operate?
I thought I could just talk about "the city" and "the destroyed parts of the city" in very general terms, but my brain refuses to cooperate. If anyone familiar with NYC is willing to help that'd be great.
no subject
Date: 2014-06-07 05:49 pm (UTC)You might put in some research time on movies actually shot in New York City, with the proviso that (a) you will mostly only see pretty/"upscale" neighborhoods and (b) there will be no sense of where anything is in relation to anything else. Also a subway map.
What do the aliens want? If "conquest," renovating NYC is not going to be a priority. If "fashion," they'll discover the garment district doesn't do as much manufacturing as they used to, and they might as well abstract Bloomingdales, Bergdorf Goodman, Barneys, and Saks, which are East Side. If "labor," they can abduct the population of Queens. If "nice restaurants," anywhere will do.
no subject
Date: 2014-06-07 06:41 pm (UTC)The aliens are conquering the world, so they're destroying things like the Avengers mansion and the Baxter Building that are most likely in Manhattan, and the rest of Manhattan is probably collateral damage. Same with the rest of the city, because aliens vs. people with superpowers is a pretty big battle.
In my story the alien conquest finished 3 years ago and since then humans have had time to try and rebuild. Where would they start and which parts wouldn't they bother with?
Thanks :)
no subject
Date: 2014-06-08 12:14 am (UTC)Hmmmm...Baxter Building is probably Midtown (I always suspected that Marvel's offices on Madison were the real Baxter Building, but I never got around to asking) and the Avengers mansion might be on the Upper East Side. So Huge Battle will probably take out most of Manhattan between, oh, SoHo and lower Harlem, which will not be good for the subways going to other boroughs since midtown is where most of the connections to Queens and the Bronx are. That'll be a repair priority. Streets and sidewalks next. Probably East or Spanish Harlem may have to deploy yelling politicians and demonstrations to get the rubble cleared out. (The East Side and Upper East Side are ritzyditzy, so will, if there are survivors, get a lot of repairs and clean-up.) Anything else would depend on what got smashed. Bridges, at a guess, because there aren't enough ferries for all the people the bridges serve.
(Just guessing, mostly. Extrapolating from the aftermath of 9/11. Sorry I can't be of more help.)
no subject
Date: 2014-06-08 04:14 pm (UTC)Thanks for the help! I think I know what I need to look up now, and it's good I thought about it now instead of later. I also remembered that Eli's grandparents live(d) in the Bronx, so that gives me a starting point.