A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

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Title: X2: X-Men United

Date Viewed: 5/3/03

Details:

Patrick Stewart

Hugh Jackman

Ian McKellen

Halle Berry

Famke Janssen

James Marsden

Rebecca Romijn-Stamos

Anna Paquin

Alan Cumming

Directed by Bryan Singer

Score: 1/2

The Review: "Every 1000 years, evolution takes a leap" (or words to that effect) is claimed as the logical underpinning to the world of the X-Men, captured by Marvel comics. Who knows -- perhaps this is based on some echo of science, perhaps the theories of punctuated equilibria suggested by Niles Eldridge and Stephen Jay Gould (first published in 1972)? However, looking at the dates and guessing that 423 monthly issues of X-Men comics go back much farther than 1972, this connection seems unlikely. What's curious is, although it's taken several decades, that there is an emerging body of work that offers a molecular mechanism for such gaps. Independently and together, Susan Lindquist and Suzanne Rutherford have investigated the class of proteins called chaperones, and have gone so far as to suggest that hsp90 and others in this family act as "evolutionary capacitors." They work by buffering underlying (silent) genomic change and the consequent divergent protein structures that might be produced by coercing a targeted protein refolding which acts to mask the variant phenotypes that would otherwise be expressed. So when the organism is stressed (and many different types of environmental situations might be interpreted as stress), these heretofore hidden or camouflaged genomic changes become exposed, phenotypically visible and operable. ("Manipulating Hsp90's buffering capacity offers a tool for harnessing cryptic genetic variation and for elucidating the interplay between genotypes, environments and stochastic events in the determination of phenotype.") One can imagine that there could be several classes of cumulated, invisible mutations in the Homo sapiens background, merely awaiting some stressor for the phenotype to reveal themselves. One can imagine some unusual stressors working through some unusual corners of neurobiology involving some aspects of the chaperone system as yet uncharacterized.

But even if one grants these ideas and imaginings as a decent basis set, there are several problems. First, the timeframe is indeterminate: the saltatory gap could be a thousand years, it could be 100,000 years or a million years; there's no magic cycle tied to millennia (an artifact of human base-10 counting and the mystique of large round numbers: see S.J. Gould). And considering the epiglacial pace of evolutionary change seen in sedimentary strata, 1000 years is as the blink of an eye. Second, there's the nature of diversity itself and the qualitative nature of the mutations evoked. In the universe of the X-Men, there is nothing said about an increase in apparent infertility or frequency of stillborn children (anticipated consequences of the expected high frequency of developmental mutations), nor is there a visible alteration of the population dynamics of skin pigmentation, or any number of benign (superficial and visible) phenotypic variations that might become apparent in a general scan of the population. Such variation will not be directed, nor is there any evidence implying that cognitive, mental or paranormal powers are collectively standing in the queue for their turn on the mutational lathe. And third, there's the nature of the mutations proposed, including a large variety that appear to strain beyond the edges of the known laws of physics. Yes, I know this is a movie and that it is entertainment, but I'll come back to these problems later, after we interrupt this science essay for a brief movie review.

X2 picks up where the original X-Men left off: a world reeling from the unexplained but rapid appearance of a human subpopulation with a wide variety of powerful, disturbing, manipulative -- and scary -- mental powers. As humans have done since time out of mind, the stranger is outcast, but guilt for so treating our immediate offspring provides some tension. Outright antagonism, opportunism and the beginnings of an internecine war provide the rest.

To some extent, X2 falls prey to typical sequel syndrome, but its greater failing is fantastic silliness. There's ample opportunity to introduce some new talents, and reacquaint us with the more familiar originals. Perhaps this is a fault of the original comic series, but when the going gets tough, the tough get another mutant. Deus ex machina? No, mutans dei est -- or at least some of them would have you believe it. This episode hinges on interpretations of the maxim "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" (a convoluted concept even in a world with bimodal logic, impossible in our world with multivariate illogic), giving play for the potential merger of mutant skills against a common non-mutant enemy (i.e., the rest of the human race). The conflict is not unrealistic, even if the convenient plethora of powers is.

Let's look at what mutations are postulated in the X-Men universe (see this fan-site for a full X-Men inventory), where they fall on a scale from biological to physical, and which provide the most strain on the disbelief suspension. But don't forget that several of the characters are not so much mutants as they are engineered and augmented humans of typical form (e.g., Jackman's Wolverine), or that's what we're told.

• telepathy (Grey and Xavier), reception both of identity and generalized non-verbalized communication and mood: given a heterodox model for human memory based on time-independent self-telepathy, with the various portions of the sapiens brain not storing memories so much as accessing when the experience was fresh (circuits of the brain as a self-similar retrieval engine, not a database storage system) -- then one can imagine extending this across individuals (and maybe across an entire species -- a racial memory or sub-mind, anyone?) with little mutational effort;
• telepathy (Stryker's son), projection of hallucinogenic dreamscapes: ditto, once an individual's barriers are down and the mechanism for reception postulated, one can imagine transmission;
• telekinesis (Grey), of the type characterized by macro-scale flux-gate channel operations: one can imagine a spectrum of telekinesis talents, from one end with nano-scale direct actions on individual molecules or cells using energy directly proportional to the effort involved (and generated by the biological system itself), to the other end where the TK talent and individual do not generate the energy necessary but act as a channel or flux-gate to control with very little energy (think: field-effect transistor) the flow of vast quantities (generated or stolen elsewhere). X2 foregoes the more reasonable former for the more spectacular latter.
• teleportation (Nightcrawler), possibly limited by past experience and personal knowledge: acting upon the matter of which the individual is comprised, there's a bit of the bootstrapping problem ñ one, however, that has been dealt with time and again starting as long ago as Alfred Bester's "The Stars Our Destination" (remember: "ad astra per aspera"?). But there's no mention of the conservation of momentum, or of the disposal of excess kinetic energy -- ala Niven's teleporting pads -- a major problem considering the sudden radical shifts of vector involved in the first five minutes of the movie.
• chameleon-like transmutation of form and appearance (Mystique): what is not clear is if this intended to be a morphological talent (substantial epidermal modifications), or is a cognitive talent akin to mental projection (remember: "the Shadow clouds men's minds"?). The former strains credibility, but the latter is simply a variant on projective telepathy, and implies that certain mutants would be immune to being spoofed.
• selective temporal freezing: this appears to be new in X2, and it's not clear if this is a modulation of time itself or the selective slowing of individual perception; the latter is (again) a simple variant on projective telepathy.
• and a host of macro-scale interactions with surrounding matter: i.e., local and remote modulation and control of atomic motion on all scales (temperature: freezing, fireballs or projected heat); atmospheric composition and air-mass motion (weather and fireballs); electromagnetic fields; amplification and projection of fireballs or intense heat, etc.

It's the latter macro-scale interventions that present the most difficulty, with clear and persistent violation of simple principles of conservation of energy and momentum. Granted, some of the mutants purport to recognize limits on their talents, and some are even reasonable (Pyro must start with a standing flame, and cannot project fireballs in the absence of such a flame). This is clearly not the universe of Anne MacCaffrey's "Pegasus" stories, where scrupulous attention was paid to the behavior of matter at the macro-scale, the conservation of energy, appropriate application of appropriate force, exercise of a nano-talent at the nano-scale (the 1968 story: "A Womanly Talent"), etc. In X2 we are closer to the wish-fulfillment universe of Jack Chalker's "Well World," with computer-assisted and god-like powers permitting macro-intervention without being called to the docket for breaking physical laws.

But, hey, it's a fantasy. Check your brain at the door and try to enjoy. And how can anyone fault them when the designers of their jet transport chose the SR-71 Blackbird as their model?!

(9-May-2003)

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