Wolverine Analysis

Originally Posted to firesofcreation.gaia.com on May 19th, 2009

This is a revealing movie poster. Wolverine played by Hugh Jackman strains to look up towards his highest Chakra while struggling to break free from the biological bonds pulling him back down towards the violence of lower consciousness. 

 Warning: Contains Spoilers

Saw X-Men Origins: Wolverine and initially didn't think it was very good, aside from great special effects, memorable cinematic sequences, acting and a great soundtrack. A lot of the film was too far out and even silly at times where it was supposed to be serious. Even though it's one of the more violent movies I've seen recently, after reflecting on the story for awhile, I came to recognize a message within that is capable of connecting the viewer with higher consciousness. 

The movie begins in North West territories Canada in the year 1845. We are introduced to a young Wolverine; Logan, (probably around 9 years old) and his older brother Sabertooth; Victor (probably around 14 years old). Both are mutant children living in a household with someone Logan refers to as "father" (step father) but Victor refers to as "sir". We hear a commotion downstairs as Logan's step father looks at Victor and tells him that his dad is drunk again.  

Logan's father exits the room and goes down stairs with Victor behind him. We hear intense fighting, "I told you to never come back!" and then a gun shot, followed by a woman shrieking. Logan exits his bedroom and rushes down stairs where he finds his father lying dead on the ground, shot by another man who is holding his mother by the arm and carries a shot gun in the other. Man with gun - "James, there are things you don't understand." Mother - "Don't!" Man - "I need him to know! No more lies!" It is here where we discover what kind of mutant Logan is. Three claw like blades extend from each of his fists. Now he screams in anger as he rushes the man with the gun and stabs him in the stomach with all six of his claws. As the man sinks to the ground about to breathe his last breath, he is able to speak one last time: "He wasn't your father, son." Now his head sinks to the side and the life passes from him. 

His mother looks at her son, horrified and asks, "What are you?" Logan doesn't quite know the answer and he takes off out of the house running from himself and what he just did to his real dad. Victor is right behind him and tackles his brother to the ground. Logan rises back on his feet and holds his fists up again, ready to fight his brother. Logan - "I didn't mean it. Victor - "Yes you did! He deserved it and you gave it to him" Logan - "I want to go home." Victor - "We can't, we stick together no matter what and take care of anyone who gets in our way." 

The brothers continue fleeing through the woods. Although both are pledged to protect each other as inseparable brothers, both have a consciousness that is beginning to split off towards different directions and allegiances. Victor and Logan's real father was a drunk, violent man who killed the new husband of his ex-wife; a kinder, gentler man who presumably knows how to treat a woman, which is why Logan and Victor's mother left for him. As archetypes, the real father represents the masculine side who has killed the feminine, and because of this, he is suffering, violent and willing to murder the man his former wife now loves. 

Perhaps Logan wasn't told who his biological father was in an attempt to shield him from the truth that may be too harsh for any young child to see. Perhaps his mother wanted to instead connect her son with a spiritual father who not only loves his mother, but deeply cares about all his step children. 

Logan recognized this spiritual father as his dad but it was his brother Victor who wouldn't, referring to him as an informal "sir". Even though Victor seemed pleased that his brother physically killed his real dad, he still psychologically lives on inside his mind. Victor only believes in revenge and to "...take care of anyone who gets in our way." He is still dominated by the biological just like his father was, and thus unable to connect with the higher consciousness of spirit. In masculine terms, the biological is subservient to the hormone Testosterone who the American Philosopher Ken Wilber has described as having the two primary drives of killing and seeking sex. 

Throughout the rest of the movie, we see the first part of this drive, dominating both brothers. Because they are both immortal mutants with super human strength, they become killing machines participating in every major American battle from the Civil War, World War I, World War II to the Vietnam war. Not only is Victor dominated by the first drive of testosterone, he has crossed it with the second. We see him not only murdering and killing natives in Vietnam, there is also a scene where he carries a crying Vietnamese woman into a shack and throws her onto a bed, presumably to rape her. One of his fellow soldiers tries to stop him but he turns around and shoots him with his own gun. 

It is during the Vietnam war where we see Logan showing signs of diverging from testosterone's drive to kill. In a helicopter, he watches in horror as his brother seems to be indiscriminately shooting people below while enjoying it. When he is unable to stop him, he instead turns the helicopter around to face the other direction. 

Victor's blood lust and killing spree finally turns his unit against him. Logan tries to protect his brother but after a firing squad fails to kill them, they both are eventually discharged and picked up by a special forces general named William Stryker. He drools over the possibilities behind the brother's super human powers that can be used to serve his interests as killing machines. They team up with a handful of other unsavory mutants who go around maiming and killing diamond dealers and innocent villagers in Africa. It is here where Logan makes a clean break from his biological father ruling his consciousness. After again witnessing Victor about to senselessly kill an innocent native, he walks away from the US government and his brother for good.  

Logan has decided to move back to the Canadian rockies for "clean living" and to take a simple job as forest logger. Although he only pulls in 18 grand a year, he no longer kills anybody and is able to follow the other primary drive of testosterone which helps connect him with the feminine who appears in the form of a beautiful woman, Kayla. Both are inseparable lovers and live in a beautiful house overlooking a gorgeous vista of mountains. 

Meanwhile, Logan's brother has moved away from the sex drive of testosterone to be completely dominated by its drive to kill. He slowly murders off all former special forces mutants who have left the government while also hunting down and killing or kidnapping new mutants to be used in Stryker's sinister Frankenstein uber mutant; engineered to combine all their possible powers into one body.

Back in Canada, Logan sometimes is haunted by his drive to kill. He wakes up from a nightmare and cuts his girlfriend's arm with his claws by accident. Kayla - "Was it the wars?" Logan nods. "Which one?" Logan - "All of them." The next day, Logan is confronted at work by Stryker. He tries to get Logan to join him again but Logan refuses. As he drives away, Stryker yells after him, "I know you Logan, I know who you are!" Stryker is referring to knowing Logan before he was able to get in touch with the feminine side and the peace of spirit. 

Logan goes to pick up his girlfriend who is a school teacher. As they drive together home, Logan tells Kayla about Stryker's visit. Kayla - "Why is he bothering you after all these years?" Logan - "Because I'm the best there is at what I do and what I do best isn't very nice" (referring to his ability to kill) Kayla - "You are not an animal Logan. What you have is a gift." Logan - "Gift? You can return a gift." Because Kayla has connected Logan to the feminine and spiritual side of life, she sees the Masculine drives as something that can be tamed and used towards ends of higher consciousness and greater wholeness. During their drive, a couple of loggers on the road have stopped their cars to talk, obstructing anybody from passing them. Logan honks the horn for them to move but one of the guys ignores it and just flips him off. 

Logan is ready to get out and confront the men but Kayla councils him to just stay in the car. Logan ignores her and steps out and approaches the men. One of them becomes confrontational and shoves Logan hard. Now the masculine drive to fight begins burning strong. The man tries to punch but Logan catches his fist in the vice like grip of his hand. Meanwhile, Kayla has exited the car, walked over and put her hand on the man's shoulder to look directly in his eyes. "Please let us pass." The man is disarmed from his aggression, gets in his car and pulls it forward. Kayla - "Thank you."

Logan - "How did you do that?" Kayla - "Female powers of persuasion. It's a gift." Logan - "Do you have those powers over me?" Kayla - "Well, you didn't stay in the car, did you." Kayla's gift represents the other side of the spectrum from Yang energy, which is more connected to disarming aggression through means that don't incite violence.

That night, Kayla tells Logan a story at their home. "Why is the moon so lonely?" "Why?" "Because she used to have a lover. His name was Qua Quiatsu and they lived in the spirit world together. Every night they would wander the skies together, but one of the other spirits was jealous. Trickster wanted the moon for himself so he told Qua Quiatsu that the moon had asked for flowers. He told him to come to our world and pick her some wild roses. But  Qua Quiatsu didn't know that once you leave the spirit world, you can never go back. And every night he looks up in the sky and sees the moon and howls her name. But he can never touch her again." "Wow, looks like Koo Koo Ka Chu got screwed." "Qua Quiatsu. It means the Wolverine."

Kayla's story ominously punctuates the next half of the movie as a metaphor for what happens next to Logan. The next day he is cutting trees with the loggers but comes across a decapitated Wolverine and massive claw marks on a tree. Sensing his brother behind it and that Kayla was in danger, he takes off through the forest and some how intuits where her car is. He finds it empty and stumbles across her lifeless body nearby. Wolverine is enraged and screams at the top of his lungs. He now leaves the peaceful life he created for himself to once again embraces his animal side, seeking vengeance and blood. 

The rest of Wolverine is even more violent than the first half and documents Logan's new mission of killing his brother. New enemies and allies are made along the way as well as more casualties among the innocent and guilty. The mayhem only begins to subside when Logan confronts Stryker in his new mad scientist compound at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. It is here where Logan discovers the truth about Kayla, who has betrayed him into thinking she died simply to help Stryker accomplish what he wanted; to use Wolverine as a guinea pig as first step in completing the uber mutant, Weapon XI. 

All the crazy violence and mayhem committed by Logan after Kayla's deception, was provoked by a passion for revenge that blinded him to the truth. Although Kayla seems genuinely sorry for what she has done to use Wolverine simply for getting Stryker to promise that he would release her mutant sister from captivity, the damage has already been done. She ends up getting shot in the stomach while Logan is shot in the head by an Atomantium bullet, causing him to forget his connection to her and his past. 

The major smack-down between Wolverine and Weapon XI turns into another object lesson; today's enemies are tomorrow's friends, and todays friends are tomorrow's enemies. Victor appears at the nick of time as the two brothers are reunited to fight together back to back. Logan eventually decapitates Weapon XI as he falls to his doom inside of the nuclear reactor chamber.  

The movie tragically ends as Kayla reveals her love for Wolverine, and proves it with a kiss. Wolverine tries to save her but Stryker returns and exacts his revenge with the Atomantium bullet. After taking out Wolverine, he turns the gun on Kayla, but her female powers of persuasion compel Stryker to turn the gun on himself. "I should make you pull the trigger." But before he is compelled to pull the trigger, Kayla stops. "But that would make us no better than you." Kayla refers here to the feminine side of spirit, whose ultimate allegiance transcends the biological hold of the masculine side and its compulsion towards an eye for an eye mentality, bringing revenge and warfare. "Throw the gun away. Walk until your feet bleed and then keep walking." Stryker obeys and walks away as Kayla is left alone to breathe her last breath and die. 

Wolverine is a tragic film with tragic characters unable to unshackle the chains of biological conditioning for the freedom found in the power of the truth of spirit. Even the character personifying this quality the most; Kayla, becomes a slave to deception in service of the masculine archetype that has been corrupted by the lust for power in creating the ultimate super weapon. In an earlier scene, Stryker reveals the bent of his agenda to a general viewing his twisted work. "We can win this war before it starts and save countless lives in the process. Preemptive action is the only action here general. The days of our country sitting on the sidelines are over. We need to take the fight to the enemy before they take the fight to us." We can only hope that human history will play out differently and that unlike Wolverine, we'll have a lasting awakening at the culmination of our endless chain of wars that have cursed our past and now threaten to destroy our civilization, if we are foolish enough to unleash the ultimate weapons of death to ignite a nuclear holocaust.