"My stylist got an emergency phone call during my coloring, how does it look?"

X-MEN

The Abridged Script

FADE IN:

EXT. SNOWY ROAD

HUGH JACKMAN discovers ANNA PAQUIN

ANNA PAQUIN

I am a mutant too! You should take me under your wing as a pseudo father figure for my dejected self. Perhaps I can develop a crush on you later that makes the tension between us kind of weird.

HUGH JACKMAN

Sure, bub. What's your power?

ANNA PAQUIN

I can pout.

(pouting)

See? I am so alone and rejected from this world. Boo hoo.

Suddenly, TYLER MANE arrives.

TYLER MANE

MEOW! Someone forgot to empty my damn litter box! Grrrrr!

He throws HUGH around a bit until JAMES MARSDEN and HALLE BERRY show up and blast TYLER MANE.

HUGH JACKMAN

Who the hell are you?

JAMES MARSDEN

We're X-men. I have the ability to take up part of any given frame of a movie yet seem like I'm not here at all thanks to my zero dimensional personality.

HALLE BERRY

I am a master of the script. I can recite lines word for word from the screenplay without any emotion at all.

JAMES MARSDEN

Join us at Picard's mansion.

INT. PATRICK STEWART'S MANSION SCHOOL

PATRICK wheels around, watching gifted children with special powers whose names allude to other x-men characters to come of age in sequels.

ANNA PAQUIN

I am young, take me in! Help!

HUGH JACKMAN

I am a loner, a rebel. I reject the rules of this school. What are your powers, anyway?

PATRICK STEWART

My mind-reading abilities allow me to know exactly how to say my absurd lines in a way that doesn't cause people to lose respect for my acting abilities. If you stay at my school and help us in our sequel-inspiring adventures, perhaps one day you will discover the identities of the men behind your experiments.

HUGH JACKMAN

Will my discoveries be anything like revelations in the comic book in which all of the main mutants happen to be related to all of the others in some obscure way that is only revealed when storylines are running dry?

PATRICK STEWART

Only time and sequels will tell.

INT. SENATE HEARING

BRUCE DAVISON

I am a bigot! I am very much against mutants! Mutants should die! Do you want mutants in our schools? Do you want mutants raising your children? God commands that mutants are abhorrent! I propose a bill which will immediately outlaw the Mutant Pride Parade and blow up San Francisco, home to many mutants!

FAMKE JANSSEN

Mutants are just like regular people. Except with powers. They should have the same rights as everyone else.

HUMANITY

Boo! Mutants suck! Outlaw mutant marriages!

DIRECTOR BRYAN SINGER

Gosh, humans are AWFULLY INTOLERANT of other people. Like gay people, who the mutants in this movie do not symbolize, I swear.

IAN MCKELLEN abducts BRUCE and ANNA PAQUIN and takes them onto a helicopter where REBECCA ROMIJN guards them and shapeshifts.

BRUCE DAVISON

Oh my Holy God, creator of all humanity and hater of mutants! You can shapeshift!!

REBECCA ROMIJN

Yeah. You wouldn't know how to transfer powers, would you? I'd kill to turn John Stamos into someone else.

BRUCE DAVISON

Hey, I've been wanting to ask you, did it ever kind of creep you out that he spent his career calling his wife on the show Full House "Rebecca" and then married you?

REBECCA ROMIJN

(kicking Bruce repeatedly)

Fuck you! At least he's not David Copperfield!

BRUCE DAVISON

Ow! Ow! Ow! I had to go after mutants, didn't I? I couldn't just attack Napster, nooooo. I had to attack freaks that know kung fu.

RAY PARK

We're here.

IAN MCKELLEN

Muahaha. I shall first turn Bruce into some kind of water mutant.

He does this.

IAN MCKELLEN

For my next trick, I will use Anna Paquin to turn all of the world's leaders into mutants on Ellis Island. Either that or I will kill them, whatever.

INT. PATRICK STEWART'S MANSION SCHOOL

PATRICK STEWART

We must get Anna back. Everyone go to the statue of liberty to have an anti- climactic battle. Use the high-tech, CGI jet.

Everyone piles into the jet.

HUGH JACKMAN

This is stupid.

HALLE takes the wheel and flies the jet to Ellis Island. On the way, she hits another jet and speeds away as quickly as she can.

They arrive and battle bad guys.

RAY PARK slimes FAMKE and pisses off HALLE a whole lot. She flies up, cape whipping behind her, making a very intimidating entrance.

HALLE BERRY

Do you know what happens to a Ray Park when he's struck by lightning?

(pause)

The same thing that happens to everything else!

RAY PARK

What? That was lame.

She zaps him into the water. JAMES zaps the RAY PARK GOO off of FAMKE.

DIRECTOR BRYAN SINGER

Please notice that these mutants, rejected by society for being different, are doing battle on the Statue of Liberty. Symbol of equality. Eh? EH?

HUGH tries to save ANNA, strapped into an EVIL MACHINE, but IAN uses his powers to stop him.

HUGH JACKMAN

Shoot him, dammit!

JAMES MARSDEN

I can't! I..uh.. I'll get you and Anna.

HUGH JACKMAN

You blasted Ray Park Spit off your girlfriend's face! You have to have some pretty good control of that thing.

JAMES MARSDEN

Um, no, sorry, I can't shoot to help you.

The expanding bubble of mutant-making radiation from the machine is getting closer to the RICH, IMPORTANT PEOPLE.

JAMES MARSDEN

Okay, now I can shoot him.

He shoots him and saves the day in the nick of time!

INT. PLASTIC JAIL CELL

IAN and PATRICK are playing chess.

IAN MCKELLEN

This chess game is civilized and dignified, yet with an undertone of strong competition and battle, much like our typical interactions.

PATRICK STEWART

Astute of you to notice that, old friend and also arch-nemesis.

IAN MCKELLEN

This plastic prison can't hold me until the sequel, Patrick.

PATRICK STEWART

Obviously. Hell, you could just use your powers to control the iron in a guard's blood to kill him and steal his most likely metal keys to escape.

DIRECTOR BRYAN SINGER

Um, quiet. See you in a few years, everyone!

END

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