X-Men Origins - Wolverine and Damaging Character History
The Mystery of Wolverine - Crafting a Backstory that Works
If you know where a character has been, it is far simpler to decide where they’re going – humans are bound by how they understand certain situations. No two reactions are alike, and there are certainly multiple ways for any one person to deal with a situation, but understanding where any moment fits into the entire context of their life means a writer can better craft a meaningful arc.
That doesn’t mean that divulging every detail of a character’s life makes for a better story. Unless it is absolutely essential, a story is better the leaner it is, each detail working for the story and character rather than adding to distracting narrative bulk.
The Mystery of Wolverine
Wolverine is a character that thrives on mystery. During his creative heyday, the character was defined by a subtle juxtaposition; the reader knew he had a past, but he lacked a working knowledge of it. That made him the ultimate variable in any story. A reader knew him rather deeply, thanks to solid storytelling and a few well-crafted details, but it was impossible to know exactly what he brought to any given story. He was at the same time easily understood and completely unknowable.
The X-Men films used this template to great success. The franchise’s critical highpoint, X2: X-Men United is all about Wolverine’s past, even if the script gives the viewer virtually no concrete details. All a viewer needs to know is that Wolverine was a very bad man, who did very bad things for Colonel William Stryker. They were allowed to place their own moral values onto the story, which means the film has a better chance of getting its point across.
If all a viewer is told is that Wolverine was bad, then he was bad. They cannot rationalize the character’s actions in any other way. The film can then make its case without dealing with the different ideas of morality, justice, and violence any given viewer brings to the theater.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Demystification
Ultimately, the decision to tell almost every available inch of Wolverine’s back story doomed X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The film takes him from his youth to his appearance in the first X-Men film, at least cognitively. What it doesn’t do is provide any insight, because an active viewer already has all the information it contains. They know Wolverine was in the military, that he has a violent past with both Sabretooth and William Stryker, and that he is beset by trauma.
Contextualizing all of those factors makes them less powerful, since the script frames Wolverine as a heroic character when he’s supposed to be committing all of the sins for which he’s seeking redemption. He fought in multiple wars, but war is not a universally despised idea. A good portion of viewers may believe it is a necessary, even honorable, concept. He doesn’t seem to do it for the wrong reasons, and is portrayed as stopping war crimes rather than committing them.
His time with Stryker is similarly weakened by the way it is shown onscreen. He was part of a violent task force, but he was seemingly their moral center, leaving when the team began to do things that were unethical in the face of battle.
A viewer learns that Wolverine was never all that evil, if only because he’s the film’s hero and his previous misdeeds are now easily rationalized. His crimes were fueled by war or revenge. They were passionate, not morally evil by the standards of fictional vigilantes.
So his redemption is no longer the main thrust of the films (and the X-Men films are about Wolverine, whether he’s in the subtitle or not), then the revelations of his past in X-Men Origins: Wolverine frame the films around his lack of memories. In the other films he never gets them back, and he doesn’t learn anything particularly important, so there is no longer any closure. Wolverine’s acceptance of his role as an X-Man in X3 becomes largely unimportant, because he no longer needs that symbolic gesture of heroism.
Building a Better History
Making the history of a character work for the writer is all about choice. A writer needs to understand his or her character completely, but a viewer doesn’t – they only need to know the details that develop their role in the narrative and defines their motivation.
It is, then, as much about what a writer chooses not to reveal as what appears onscreen. The elegant use of historical details can make a character powerful and memorable, but too much information can mean a writer no longer has control of their story.
Too much backstory can weaken any film.
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