Daily Dialogue — June 29, 2012

Charles: From what I know about you, I’m surprised you managed to stay this long.
Eric: What do you know about me?
Charles: Everything.
Erik: Then you know to stay out of my head.
Charles: I am sorry, Erik, but I’ve seen what Shaw did to you. I felt your agony. I can help you.
Erik: I don’t need your help.
Charles: Don’t kid yourself, you needed my help last night. It’s not just me you’re walking away from. Here you have the chance to be part of something much bigger than yourself. I won’t stop you leaving. I could, but I won’t.
[Charles heads back inside]
Charles: Shaw’s got friends. You could do with some.

— Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy), Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender), X-Men: First Class (2011), screenplay by Ashley Miller & Zack Stentz and Jane Goldman & Matthew Vaughn, story by Sheldon Turner and Bryan Singer

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is the Herald’s Call suggested by JasperLamarCrab. Today’s suggestion by Debbie Moon.

Trivia: Josh Schwartz wrote an early version of the screenplay, but once Bryan Singer became attached, Schwartz’s script was ditched as Singer wanted to take the story in a different direction. Jamie Moss was subsequently hired to write a new draft.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Debbie asks this question: My question: Charles Xavier is Heralding all right, but is this strictly a Call to Adventure? Erik already has an adventure — Nazi-hunting, to avenge his people and find the man who killed his mother and destroyed his childhood. His motives may be selfish (that is, personal), and the adventure is destroying him rather helping him grow as a person, but structurally it’s still a Hero’s Journey -style adventure. So what’s Charles calling him to? The right adventure, perhaps. The one that will make you, not destroy you. I hadn’t considered before that a character can already be engaged in an adventure, when a call arrives that forces them to make a choice between adventures…

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