Here’s my attempt in patching up the “mess”(discrepancies and inconsistencies) the movie makers did with “our” movies, by trying to explain and connect things within the context of the movies. I am not going with there’s a different set of filmmakers logic but try to come up with sound ideas that are acceptable foremost to me then hopefully to most moviegoers (comic book fans or not).
Here’s an official description from Marvel.com of Cyclops’ power (Optic Blast):
Cyclops possesses the mutant ability to project a beam of heatless ruby-colored concussive force from his eyes, which act as inter-dimensional apertures between this universe and another. Cyclops' body constantly absorbs ambient energy, such as sunlight, from his environment into his body's cells that allows him to open the apertures. Cyclops' mind generates a psionic field that is attuned to the forces that maintain the apertures. Because this field envelops his body, it automatically shunts the other-dimensional particles back into their point of origin when they collide with his body. Thus, his body is protected from the effects of the particles, and even the thin membranes of his eyelids are sufficient to block the emission of energy. The synthetic ruby quartz crystal used to fashion the lenses of Cyclops' eye wear is resonant to his minds' psionic field and is similarly protected.
This is clearly what the filmmakers from X-Men, X2, and X-Men: The Last Stand was following for Cyclops’ optic blast (heatless and concussive). This is evident in his use throughout those series, one example was on the train station scene on the first X-Men movie where he blew up the roof of the station. It was obviously a concussive force that tore the roof out as there were no indication of any heat involved. Unlike the scene in Wolverine Origins where we have a similar scene at Scott’s school but this time around you could clearly see embers around which indicates that young Cyclops optic blast was more laser-like.
So how did this happen?
Here are my theories.
Theory 1: Stryker’s experiment
Stryker was pooling mutant powers to create his Weapon XI. He took Cyclops’ powers to create his ultimate weapon. Flaw in this theory is that Cyclops still has his heat blast even after the experimentation. We see this on the scene where the mutant kids were escaping and he fired a blast. There were still glowing embers around the edges where his blast hit. To make this theory acceptable we could reason out that the process took some time to diminish the power until it leveled out to what Cyclops optic blast currently is. Another beauty in this theory is that we could insert a comic continuity nod by having Mr. Sinister(in disguise maybe) as a part of Stryker’s team in coming up with the experiments. Most of us know the connection of Cyclops with Mr. Sinister.
Theory 2: Professor X tampering
The Professor has a history of diminishing mutant powers to what he deems controllable level. Prime example on the movieverse would be Phoenix. So, it is not unlikely he did the same thing with Scott, reasoning that the heat blast might be too dangerous to handle. If this is the case then Scott’s ability ranges from that concussive blast to that “plasma” blast. Then you might be wondering why there was no mention of Scott having this ability in X-Men to X-Men: The Last Stand. We could turn back again to the Professor for the answer, Mind Wipe. The Professor did this to protect Scott and to erase also the negative memory he had when he was experimented on. Proof of this is on the first X-Men movie when Cyclops asked who would do an experiment on Logan/Mutants when in the movie timeline he would have went thru a similar experimentation under Stryker. Prof. X reply to Cyclops’ query was that experimentation with mutants are not unheard of (Note: it’s a nice coincidence that Patrick Stewarts’ acting a bit shady in this moment which gives more credence to him altering Cyclops memory).
I’m satisfied with my reasoning but I would like to hear your comments or theories because I know a lot of you out there has better theories. Again I would appreciate if you try to put in the context of the story of the movie.
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-ACCESS out. Godspeed and MABUHAY!