Logan’s Grand Promise: Finality

by Terence A Anthony

For legends to be created, heroes need to die. Death need not come in the literal sense, but it may come in a figurative sense.

FIRST IMAGE FROM THE SET OF "LOGAN" BY DIRECTOR JAMES MANGOLD | SOURCE: SCREENRANT.COM

Throughout the X-Men franchise, there has been one constant; Wolverine. It’s no coincidence. The character is hard to be recasted. Even if Hugh Jackman were to defy all the jokes about the Canucklehead’s height, it’s hard to remove him from popular imagination. We’ve been told this was a man that was immortal and couldn’t get hurt. Unless of course, if you count his heart and feelings. Include the fact that the series never rebooted itself like the Spiderman franchise (in a technical sense), you’d expect this man to look the next same whenever a Wolverine movie comes up.

There’s Reeves and Superman. There’s Harrison Ford and Indiana. There’s Bruce Willis and John McClane. There are some characters are meant for certain actors.

Hugh Jackman’s grand R-Rated departure marks the end of an era. But it also promises something what superhero films and narratives (be it political or cultural) has never offered before. It offers a sense of finality that everyone seems so afraid to touch.

This is for a good reason. Forging mythologies comes into two ways.

One way, is to create a multi-arching story with characters and storylines that overlap each other, creating a story that is grander than the average tale. We’ve seen this in what Marvel has tried to create. The problem is that there is a risk in where the next instalment might disrupt plans in the rest of the franchise, destroying the hopes and dreams of that mythology. X-Men did this mistake. It was hard to fix things after The Last Stand.

It was harder to fix after the solo Wolverine outing. They sort of put Jackman back on the respect train in Days of Future Past, but not at the risk of butchering other characters like Kitty Pryde, destroying what was one of the more female empowering story arcs in the 80s.

However the idea of the mythology has been chopped up, diced, and minced since no one has any idea which story still stands and now rendered non-canon. Like Marvel, there is a possibility that people might feel some level of fatigue because we are following an arc that never seems to end. You are at the edge of your seat for the wrong reasons. There is no finality because everything is in a mess.

The second way to create a mythology is to tell a grand epic story, told from an eagle’s eye view. This is how the Lord of the Rings managed to forged itself. The core story is about Frodo and Sam on their quest to destroy the One True Ring. Everything else informs the story, including the Similarion. They don’t exist to interrupt the narrative, but it enhances what is a simple, straightforward film.

It is an epic tale that has a clear story arc ending. Even if, Tolkien actually had some plans where Sam goes on his own adventure to slay orcs locked up somewhere in Oxford, Frodo’s story has been tied up beautifully.

This is what Logan promises for all fans of Wolverine.

I’ve Hurt Myself Today, To See If I Could Feel

STILL FROM JOHNNY CASH'S HURT (NINE INCH NAILS COVER) | SOURCE: THE INDEPENDENT

Trent Reznor said when he first heard Johnny Cash’s cover of his song “Hurt”, it felt like losing a girlfriend. To him in this metaphor, he lost somebody who he has cared for, and invested his feelings over but she fell head over heels for somebody else and it wasn’t appropriate to do anything about it.

The love of his heart fell in love with another man. That was how powerful the song “Hurt” was.

When I heard the first few chords of the song in the movie trailer for Logan, I knew if fit him well in several aspects.

The first would be the lore. At least what that has been portrayed on screen so far. Logan, or Wolverine fell in love Jean Grey but she instead fell in love with Scott Summers aka Cyclops. This complicated love triangle has never been taken to its logical limit. So this is where I suspect that Logan (as in the upcoming movie) would sort of touch the idea of him losing all this and letting the woman he love to go on to love the people they love. It’s one of the greatest lesson that Logan can learn and perfect for his character arc where he has been the rough distant character, but sympathetic to the emotions of others.

In short, this allows the lore to expand to its logical conclusion that heroes (or anti-heroes) don’t need to win all battles to be the better person, especially when the terms of “winning” the battle means compromising other people’s feelings for selfish gains.

  

The irony here is that to be the hero, is to concede and sacrifice. It is to be the better man is to realize that you that you don’t have to be on top all the time. Sometimes, being the hero is the least glamourous position in the overarching narrative.

This is like how Trent Reznor thought that the song “Hurt” was no longer his but was Johnny Cash’s.

The second part would be the cycle of redemption that Logan needs to complete and how it reflects his powers.

The downside of immortality and super-fast healing powers is that you see the world around you crumble while you are forced to stay alive. Your immortality is no longer a gift, but a punishment in an eternal prison. To quote one of my favourite soul-crushing Sludge Metal band, Crowbar, “Existence is Punishment.” This was explored in the comic book this movie is expected to be loosely adapted from; Old Man Logan.

The comic was one of my first few purchases as a serious comic fan ever. I remember being pissed when this person I knew back then dog-eared some of the pages. It felt like somebody just slapped in my face in the middle of nowhere. I guess some people don’t understand how it feels like to save up to but a paperback.

Back to the song played in the trailer.

The second way the track fits Logan’s journey is the tumultuous journey the idea of Wolverine has gone through throughout it’s on screen production. While the actor is the same, the interpretation and spirit of the character has evolved. And I don’t mean character evolution in the right way.

The production team is very well aware of this and they are also aware of how the people who saw the first interpretation of Wolverine evolved too. The best part is that they seem to understand the mistakes made along the way, unlike most cash grabbers. Most probably because of the rabid fan base Logan has. It is a production crew that understands it is flawed.

The song that accompanied the trailer is a love letter to the fans, telling them that they’re sorry for how they’ve treated a beloved character. The fact that Jackman took a pay cut for the film to be R-rated like what the fans wants shows how much he was into pleasing the people who has given the franchise multiple chances. The horrible CGI blades in the first standalone still hurt my brain.

How many franchises have been forgiven like Wolverine or the X-Men franchise has? Fantastic Four has a horrible track record but you don’t see a Sue Storm spin off and Jessica Alba making millions out of it.

So it’s only apt that the production team act like Jean Val Jean and “repent” from their old ways.

Crown of Thorns

EARLY STORYBOARD FOR LOGAN. NOTICE THAT LIBERTY HOTEL IS KEPT IN THE FINAL IMAGE ABOVE. | SOURCE: SCREENRANT.COM

But the final part why the song Hurt felt important is that it shows that an ending, no matter how tragic can be a path to salvation. In the case of Logan, there is a great promise to it.

Everyone in the trailer seems to be suffering. Patrick Stewart is in agony and in a way we have never seen before from a blockbuster franchise. Hugh Jackman is an alcoholic, working out his emotional problems while trying to get away from some kind of guilt. Whether it has to do with the death of the X-Men (like in the Old Man Logan comics) is yet to be revealed.

Logan being weak and with death looming over his head, shows that for great art come by, sometimes there needs to be sense of finality. Johnny Cash’s greatest comeback came during his twilight years.

Maybe, for a great Wolverine movie to occur, this franchise or at least Jackman’s role in it, has to end. The mythology-like story telling that Marvel is trying to play out will end with a whimper if they don’t end with a brave move. I am hoping that Logan sparks that creative push.

Marvel’s movies have become stale. None of the characters feel as if they have a stake at it. Everyone goes home happy. The status quo is there. It never changes. The closest we ever got was from The Winter Soldier. Even then, I was not sure what the implications are because Age of Ultron showed that the one game changer that ever happened in the universe didn’t matter.

The reason why we remember stories like Uncle Ben’s death or the death of Bruce Wayne’s parents is because it’s permanent. There’s a sense of finality to it. It closes a beautiful story arc.

When you start a feral machine like Wolverine, you want the story to stay in the minds of people. The only way for them to stay, is to tell them that this is the end.