Just enjoyed a few films. Well, I can't say I enjoyed "Pan's Labyrinth," but I'm glad I watched it. I'll type about it another day. Today, it's "X-Men 3: Last Stand." Specifically, it's how one character made a choice. Or didn't make it.

I can imagine you're thinking, "Make up your mind already!"

That's the point, but here's the background, with as few spoilers as I can manage. The X-Men are mutants. This movie postulates the creation of some sort of cure for their mutation. It's permanent and pan-effective. Any mutation, any power, gone. Back to humanity for you.

One of the characters, Rogue, has the mutation where her touch absorbs the powers, lifeforce, memories and consciousness of whomever she's touching. Sucks to be her. Sucks worse to be her boyfriend. But wait, there's this cure...

So, which does she choose? Here's the big spoiler: they shot it both ways. She chose one way in the movie, but they shot an alternate deleted scene where she chose the other way.

Both scenes build up the same way. Both scenes have the same setting, the same characters (in almost the same wardrobe) and even the same prefacing dialogue. Only the "this is how ah chose" line and her boyfriend's words in response changed. The action is still the same -- she reaches out slowly to touch his hand. (In one, she's wearing gloves, but that's the same motion, just different costuming.)

What does this mean? Nothing. Zero. It means they didn't have a clue what to do with her and her powers. Yes, this is one of the 'telescope endings' to the characters, an answer to the perennial question, "What happened to...?"

I could be unfair for dinging the film for what could be a 'positioning move' for the next film, but I feel each film should stand alone. (If/when I write about Pirates III, I'll ding it for that -- it doesn't make sense if you haven't watched the other two. Hell, it barely makes sense at all.)

What this means is the scriptwriters had no feel for the character. They either had no feel that the character would unequivocally swing one way or the other for this dilemma, or they had no feel for how to effectively use the character's indecisiveness to further her own personality. (Her dalliance with the cure is more a plot turn against which for her boyfriend to react than any chance for the actress to show what's going on inside her.)

I forgot who said it, but one writer's rule is "Don't put a gun in the scene unless someone's going to use it." The corollary here is, "Don't put a choice in the plot unless someone's going to make it." Not just select an option, but to make the choice and bear the effects, one way or the other.

Here, she selected an option, but, as the deleted scene showed, she could have selected the exact opposite and the scene would have played almost the same way.

With gloves. Or without. Big difference.