X-Men '97

Roberto:
Whenever I do this… it just reminds me that I’m different. That I'm lying to them. "Be an X-Man", Jubilee? I don't even want to be myself.

Jean:
There are times when I think about the baby -- his future, and I... If he's a mutant, how do I tell him he's different? That the world will remind him of it every day? That he must always be careful, always be on guard, or else...

Storm:
You wish him to be born human.

[Jean looks at Storm with surprise, then turns away, beginning to cry.]

Storm:
I have wondered what it would be like to be human; it is a tempting daydream. But then, I remember how my mutant gifts brought me to this mansion -- to this family. To a sister.

Magneto:
Xavier's sacrifice brought about a world more tolerant towards mutants. I am indebted to honor his last wish, even if his X-Men won't trust me. Perhaps they are right not to. My past is too littered with error.

Rogue:
Mine was too, remember? But the X-Men still took me in. The thing is, I didn't go about demanding their trust -- I earned it.

Magneto:
As a boy, my people's homes were burned to ash because we dared to call God by another name. Then, my people hunted me with those who had once hunted them. I was a freak, born a mutant -- an abomination to their misnamed gods. In history's sad song, there is a refrain: "Believe differently, love differently, be of different sex or skin, and be punished." We sing this song to one another. The oppressed become oppressors. Xavier knew this, and dreamed we could change. Find harmony -- a future where human and mutant could relinquish the past and finally... ugh... You claim justice is overdue. Indeed. But so is healing.

[After being told that anti-mutant protestors want the judges as well as the mutants.]

Southern Judge:
What in the blazes did we do?!

Magneto:
You gave a monster a trial. Now you are traitors to your kind. Oh, to play by the rules, and still they come for you...

Magneto:
This is your dream. My kind splayed before you, powerless and afraid. All the X-Men have done is use their awesome power to protect a world that hates and fears them. Behold their reward. What must we do to be good enough? Is this the high road's destination? If so, I say as I have too many times before, "never again".

Magneto:
[To the X-ecutioner] Bigot. Ingrate. Sycophant. Worm. So small, I could smite you with a step. [to the Judges] There was a time I would smite you all for what was done to Storm. But today, I have saved you from your own. For an old friend has challenged me to remember this view of Earth -- how vast it is, versus how small we make it. Charles Xavier entrusted me with his dream, and it does not ask you to love or embrace my kind as your own. But merely to accept that this is a shared world with a common future and that my kind, like yours, have the right to live in it. I am trying to be better. Please... do not make me let you down.

Magneto:
If I may offer advice, Scott: Be wary. Be vigilant. Tragedy lures with fortune first.

Storm:
Jean, my sister: You of all the X-Men know the heartbreak of saying goodbye, having said it so many times. So I ask that you help the others understand why I could not stay to say it this day. My faith in your family's future is strong, and I cannot rob you of a bond you have more than earned. It is human nature to crave connection, as it is also mutant nature to be heard. Seen. To feel another's soul finally seeing yours... Connection is a fragile treasure -- one we sacrifice so much to maintain. Only to then sometimes watch it break in a blink that changes your life forever. We are no longer connected, Jean. And now, we walk in two very different worlds. But trust that I will cherish what we shared as X-Men, memories that already feel like a lifetime ago...

Jean:
[reading the letter] "...like another woman's life, or another person's dream. Love, Ororo."

Dr. Valerie Cooper:
Most other nations don't allow a terrorist to be their leader.

Magneto:
Yet so many allow their leaders to be terrorists.

Dr. Valerie Cooper:
You know, in Genosha, I felt a lot of things: pain, grief, admiration for those who fought despite the odds. But you know what the oddest thing was? No one seemed shocked or surprised — not even me. Yes, I was scared, but really I just had the most profound sense of déjà vu, as if past, present, and future didn't matter and never had, because we always end up in the same ugly place. Thing is, Magneto knows us better than Charles ever did, knows we know better, that most of us experience tragedies like Genosha as a bit of déjà vu before getting on with our day. But the scariest thing about Genosha wasn't the death or the chaos. It was a thought, the only sane thought you can have when being chased by giant robots that were built to crush you: Magneto was right.

Magneto:
Enough. [triggers an EMP that utterly obliterates Earth's technology in retaliation for the attack on Genosha]

Wolverine:
Magneto actually did it.

Morph:
What, saved our hides?

Wolverine:
No. Declared war.

Charles Xavier:
I only hope I'm not too late. [sends out a telepathic call] To me, my X-Men!

Magneto:
I am not the one who needs to be reasoned with, Charles.

Xavier:
There is a large asteroid hovering over my home that begs otherwise.

Cable:
Am I going to war, or a circus?

Cyclops:
What did you expect? Black leather?

Xavier:
In under an hour, civilization as we know it ends. Much like in the past, my X-Men and I are your best hope to avoid that future.

President Kelly:
If you're wrong, Xavier, my hand will be forced.

Xavier:
We have been here before, President Kelly. If you don't trust me, trust my X-Men.

Magneto:
I promised a boy a future free of fear, only to watch his frightened eyes be vaporized inside his tiny skull because he believed in me. In the dream you had me sell. How many more of your bones will pave the way to Xavier's future, where we simper like beggars for tolerance? Your Professor's dream is dead, so I offer a new one! A home to replace what they stole from us, a new Genosha! We have gotten here by walking this man's path. We are left with but two choices, cling to this dying world or rise to your future and look down upon this fallen pig-sty planet!

Wolverine:
Been in a lot of wars, bub. The brave always die first.

Magnus:
God. You're suicidal! Or sentimental, maybe. Though either will kill you...

Charles:
Would we be here, helping the survivors, if we cared about staying alive? We care about others -- as do most, I believe! And if indeed, mutants exist--

Magnus:
They don't.

Charles:
If they exist, why wouldn't they use their abilities to make the world to better for all people?

Magnus:
People don't want to be better. They're already the best everything! Best tribe, best faith, they even fight over who's the best victim. These are tense times. Be mindful not to sound like you actually are a mutant.

Charles:
What if I were?

Magnus:
Run and hide, before someone starts dreaming of camps.

Magnus:
Turn this nostalgic parlor trick back to my childhood, and heed what happened when my village used reason while others used tanks.

Bastion:
Poetic, isn't it? The inevitability of my vision. Even now, Professor Xavier must pave the path to my dream in order to honor his own. A dream as crippled as its dreamer, built to die. You mutants lost at birth, too. The Neanderthal 2.0. Buggy stillborns flapping upstream, draining yourselves dry so that the tide can more easily drown you. See me. The future's tide. Despite this little toy you X-Men would use to abort the bond to my creations.

Beast:
Your creations are prisoners! Held hostage by ignorance and coercion! [Bastion blasts him with a laser beam, rendering him unconscious]

Storm:
Hank!

Bastion:
Think. Had the good professor taken me in when mother begged him, I'd be hanging here with you freaks. In the name of peace, tolerance, and equal opportunity suicide. Even then, fate got my back.

Storm:
Charles Xavier wanted to help you! He came to your mother, but she was too afraid! You would have been one of the first X- [Bastion grabs her by the neck]

Forge:
Get your filthy paws off her!

Bastion:
I didn't ask for this, either. To be born with this... programming... This destiny inside me. The urges.

Storm:
None choose to be born, Bastion, thus why we must never begrudge them being!

Bastion:
Did you just try to appeal to my humanity? Look at me. Yet another reason why Operation Zero Tolerance must skip to final phase. [Bastion lets go of Storm's neck]

Forge:
Slavery and genocide ain't enough?

Bastion:
As I told Dr. Cooper right before she betrayed me and her kind, people are good. Too damn good. Thus, to protect humanity, I must protect humanity from itself. From the hearts that start dripping red at the latest token underdog. From seeing themselves in those that would use their same hearts against them. Tolerance is extinction. What is worse, is empathy.

King T'Chaka:
Robert -- vote "Yes", and you best pray our children read their textbooks more than their Bibles. For only history could be conned into forgiving us.

Rogue:
His name was Gambit. Remember it!

Gambit:
The name's Gambit, Mon Ami. Remember it.

Xavier:
Want to know a secret? Coexistence is messy. Thus, my love for education, for my X-Men. Their heroism teaches a lesson we mustn’t forget. That the universe is very old, and all of us, very young. Born of ancient stardust, and all children of the atom.

Ross:
Aren't you people meant to be the good guys?

Rogue:
You killed those, sugar. Now you deal with me.