The X-Men Cinematic Universe (General Discussion)

How I miss the days where Jar Jar’s scenes where the worst thing ever in Star Wars. Alas, those days are long gone after Disney’s soft reboot of the franchise...

 

To my mind, a "retcon" usually involves some in-universe explanation for the change, usually in the form of the characters (and thus the audience) being deliberately deceived or not having all of the information or making incorrect assumptions. For example, in Iron Man, we assumed that Tony Stark's parents were killed in a random car accident. In Captain America: Civil War, it was revealed that they were actually murdered by the Winter Soldier. There's no in-universe contradiction; it's just that important facts were being kept from us. Similarly, Star Wars: A New Hope led us to believe that Darth Vader betrayed & murdered Anakin Skywalker but later films revealed that Obi-Wan Kenobi lied about that. And then there's all the stuff that Star Trek did with the Klingon foreheads. Another form of "retcon" would be when something that is at first portrayed to be a one-off thing is later revealed to be part of a bigger system, like when Harry Potter revealed that Tom Riddle's diary from The Chamber of Secrets was a Horcrux, which would become very important in the later stories.

On the other hand, contradicting information that the characters had no reason to lie about in the first place and where the contradiction is never explained is just a continuity error. Professor Xavier had no reason to lie to Wolverine about how old he was when he first met Magneto. But since it was a fleeting reference in an 11 year old movie, the X-Men: First Class filmmakers felt free to ignore it because it didn't fit in with the story they were trying to tell. It's completely forgivable and I don't have a problem with it but it's still a continuity error. (And it's far less problematic than trying to reconcile the 2 vastly different portrayals of Moira MacTaggert, first as a Scottish doctor played by Olivia Williams in X-Men: The Last Stand and then as an American CIA agent played by Rose Byrne in X-Men: First Class & X-Men: Apocalypse. I've got a cool theory for how that happened but it's convoluted as hell.)

As for Harry Potter's Marcus Flint, presumably there's nothing in the novels to preclude the idea that either he wasn't as old as the other characters assumed or that he had to repeat a grade for some reason.

Given that all of Jubilee's scenes were pretty much cut from the previous films, I would argue that X-Men: Apocalypse is her only onscreen appearance in the films. All we can say for sure about X-Men as released is that there's a young woman in the background wearing a yellow jacket in a few scenes.

I've had to separate quite a few characters from each other in order to make the continuity work in the movies. As far as I'm concerned, Victor Creed from X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Sabretooth from X-Men are not the same person. Also, despite both having similar but different diamond skin mutations, Kayla's sister from X-Men Origins: Wolverine is not the same person as Emma Frost from X-Men: First Class. Same thing with the fleeting glimpse of some redheaded mutant that we were originally supposed to assume was Banshee, who was also caged up by Col. Stryker on Three Mile Island.

 

Jubilee is referred to by name in X2, although the subtitles mistakenly refer to her as "Julie".

 

I never heard that. I assume it's somewhere in the background of the museum scene at the beginning?

 

It's when she's captive at Strykers base. Storm calls down to her at the bottom of the pit by name.

 

Several things:
1) Yes, the term retcon covers the insertion of new information that wasn't in a previous work, but the term also covers the alteration of previously established information, which is the type of retcon represented by X-Men First Class' portrayal of the timing and circumstances of Charles and Erik's first meeting

2) Trying to treat Liev Schreiber and Tyler Mane's versions of Sabertooth as different characters is just creating narrative headaches for yourself unnecessarily. However, such is not the case with First Class' Emma Frost and Kayla's sister Emma from Origins: Wolverine, because the two characters are in fact Canonically disparate

3) I really don't understand why it's so difficult for people to accept the conceptual mechanics of Alternate Timelines in the XMCU - which are relied on heavily when it comes to introducing new versions of certain characters such as Angel, Psylocke, and Jubilee - when those same conceptual mechanics are easily accepted in other franchises, such as Star Trek.

 

in my personal head canon x-men cinematic universe
which exists entirely, probably, in my brain
the 1985 John Cusack/Daphne Zuniga romantic comedy film The Sure Thing
is 100% canon, and totally happened there exactly as shown
and i felt it important just now for everyone to be made aware
of this fact


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IMO, trying to treat them as the same character is just creating narrative headaches for yourself unnecessarily. Not that I care much, since both versions were terrible.

 

Because the characters as seen in Apocalypse were born before the timeline alteration.

 

Ripples in time just like with Star Trek.

 

I don't buy it from Pegg and I don't buy it here. It's either time travel or it's an alternate timeline completely.

 

Those things aren’t exclusive but if you don’t like it then that’s that.

For me personally Pegg’s interpretation is the only explanation given that makes sense. It was the previous Abrams/Orci parallel timeline theory that seemed inconsistent (to me).

 

What's wrong with "alternate timeline that Spock thinks is the past of his own timeline"?

 

Too many to write about in an X-Men thread. But not to sound evasive and to give you an example to me it looked like a brand new timeline even before Narada’s time travel in 2233. It was only after Pegg’s "ripples" explanation that I thought to myself "ahh, okay, that makes sense". That’s why I have no problem accepting the same in the X-Men Cinematic Universe.

 

Being based on comic books which are known for rewriting their own history over and over, and having sliding timelines so key characters never age, I'd think most would be okay with X-Men's loose cinematic continuity.

 

The Kelvin timeline works like this:
The Narada enters, and changes the future, including which other time travel incidents that happen in the future, this changes the past before the Narada arrives, and then changes the future time travel incidents yet again. This happens over and over until the timeline settles down and becomes stable. From our perspective it happens instantaneously.

 

The problem is that, given all of the rich history between the Sabretooth & Wolverine in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, it just feels deeply unsatisfying to not have any of that come up when they're finally reunited 15 years later in X-Men. Granted, Wolverine wouldn't remember it anyway but Sabretooth would. And I really liked Liev Schreiber's portrayal of the character. I was super disappointed that he never came back in The Wolverine or Logan.

I think Simon Pegg's "ripples" idea is complete BS. (Also unnecessary since I don't believe Sulu's sexuality was ever definitively established on screen in the original timeline anyway.)

As for the X-Men that you mentioned, I'll need to rewatch the relevant scene in X2 to say for sure but I still say that, if you squint, Jubilee disappears from the movie entirely. IIRC, Psylocke was never named on screen in X-Men: The Last Stand, so all we can say for sure there is that Magneto had a henchwoman with a purple streak in her hair in that film. As for Angel, my pet theory is that the version seen in X-Men: The Last Stand is actually the son of the character from X-Men: Apocalypse. Warren Worthington was actually his grandfather, who disowned his freak mutant son and raised his grandson as if he were his own son.

 

I never understood how people who loved comics could have such trouble with the idea of alternate versions of characters that weren't exactly like their favorite version. But I don't think the continuity comparison flies - movies have much more immediacy and realism than comics, which means they have a bigger need for continuity. They also come in much smaller groups, which means continuity should be much easier to maintain if one simply puts in the effort.

I don't recall Angel ever really being named in Apocalypse, either. He could've been any mutant with wings (yes, he used the name 'the Angel' in the cage fight, but that's a really obvious codename for the power).

 

And there was already the other unrelated "Angel" mutant played by Zoe Kravitz in X-Men: First Class. (Maybe I can add that to my theory. Maybe Warren Worthington had a one-night stand with Kravitz's stripper character, who got pregnant and subsequently dumped the kid on Worthington's doorstep. The timeline roughly works.)