X-Men: Days of Future Past - Discussion Thread - SPOILERS

[Cyke101]

Yeah, the tag scene in "The Wolverine" feels like an inconsistency. I thought that scene was setting up them sending him back into the past, but that happens decades in the future not in the present. Was it merely supposed to be showing how Wolverine rejoined the X-Men? But why would Present Day Magneto and Xavier agree to work together before any of the horrible things happened?

Here are your answers.
http://www.25moments.com/#!/moments/1962

As for this movie's tag scene. I agree that it would be confusing to non-comics fans. What they should have done is have the same scene only with chanting subtitled as "Apocalypse! Apocalypse!" and then end with a title card saying X-MEN APOCALYPSE COMING IN 2016.

Also, where the &*$& were the blue lips and the blue lines running from his mouth to his ears dammit?????

As for En Saba Nur; I suppose they are going for an androgynous look. Male actor with female features for cross beauty appeal.

We'd also have to consider that the tag scene is one where we're seeing how the Pyramids were actually built, which places it at round 3000 B.C. In the comics, Apocalypse was a child during this era.

The scary thing is, if Apocalypse could create pyramids as a skinny teenager, imagine what he could do as a fully-grown adult with 5,000 years of experience!

 

[Agent Richard07]

Ian McKellan turns 75 today. Happy birthday!

 

[davejames]

Thought the movie was pretty good for the most part, although I kinda had trouble buying the central conceit that the fate of humanity and the entire world hinged simply on whether Mystique would kill somebody. Or that the X-Men, with all their powers and abilities, wouldn't have found a way to infiltrate and destroy the Sentinel program long before things got so bad (hell, from the looks of it, Quicksilver could have done the job all by himself!)

Not to mention that it still feels odd that a character who was just a glorified henchwoman in the first three movies is now so incredibly pivotal and crucial to the story for some reason.

Still though, I thought everything else about the story worked really well, and couldn't help but admire the way Singer was able to pull together all the different storylines and continuity, and make it all seem so natural and effortless.

So ultimately I'd probably give it a B+.

 

[Agent Richard07]

Not to mention that it still feels odd that a character who was just a glorified henchwoman in the first three movies is now so incredibly pivotal and crucial to the story for some reason.

That reason is Jennifer Lawrence.

 

[M.A.C.O.]

Jackman's last rodeo as Wolverine will be in 2016. His last solo outing Wolverine film. X-Men Apocalypse will be First Class 3. With McAvroy, Fassbender, Hoult and new actors cast as Scott, Jean and Storm.

As far as I know, Apocalypse is supposed to be in 2016 and the solo Wolverine film is supposed to be in 2017. Jennifer Lawrence is supposedly in Apocalypse so that implies they'd pick up where they left off with her and Wolverine.

It seems Jackman has changed his mind. He will be in both a 3rd solo Wolverine movie and Apocalypse. All I can say is YAAASS
http://www.firstshowing.net/2014/hugh-jackman-pulls-back-on-ending-mutant-run-after-wolverine-2/

 

[Set Harth]

He never said he wasn't going to be in Apocalypse. He said the third solo Wolverine movie would be his last. That would have been after Apocalypse anyway.

 

[MacLeod]

Well the estimated opening Weekend Box Office is in

Worldwide: US$261.8m
US: US$90.7m
Rest of the World: US$171.1m

http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=xmen2014.htm

 

[davejames]

Yup, people are still loving the superhero movies.

 

[Kitty]

Not to mention that it still feels odd that a character who was just a glorified henchwoman in the first three movies is now so incredibly pivotal and crucial to the story for some reason.

But DoFP explained why she was just a henchman in the alternate future of the first 3 movies. She never had that moment with Prof X where he made her realize that she had other contributions to make. Magneto changed her into that killing machine but this timeline allowed her the opportunity to see that there was another way. It was perfect.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Thought the movie was pretty good for the most part, although I kinda had trouble buying the central conceit that the fate of humanity and the entire world hinged simply on whether Mystique would kill somebody.

That is actually same central conceit of the original DoFP story in the comics. In the comics, she (by way of her Brotherhood of Evil Mutants) killed Senator Robert Kelly, thus bringing about the Sentinel future.

Not to mention that it still feels odd that a character who was just a glorified henchwoman in the first three movies is now so incredibly pivotal and crucial to the story for some reason.

But DoFP explained why she was just a henchman in the alternate future of the first 3 movies. She never had that moment with Prof X where he made her realize that she had other contributions to make. Magneto changed her into that killing machine but this timeline allowed her the opportunity to see that there was another way. It was perfect.

No, the humans turned her into that by way of years of torture and experimentation. Humans turned her into a deadly weapon, Magneto just aimed her towards her targets.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Not to mention that it still feels odd that a character who was just a glorified henchwoman in the first three movies is now so incredibly pivotal and crucial to the story for some reason.

Even though she was number two to Magneto, Mystique was pretty pivotal to the plot of all the movies.

In X-Men, she (along with Toad) kidnaps Senator Kelly. She sabotages Cerebro. She's the one doing the bulk of the fighting at the Statue of Liberty. She impersonates the now dead Kelly and gets the Mutant Registration Act to fail.

In X-2, she continues posing as Kelly (and taking up pro-Mutant causes) on her own while Magneto is in prison, and presumably commands the Brotherhood. She tries to convince the President not to authorize the attack on Xavier's school. She steals the secrets to Stryker's plans and the dark Cerebro. She helps Magneto escape prison. She single-handedly breaks through the base defenses, hacks the computers, and helps rescue the mutant kids Stryker captured.

In X-3, she got caught so she could cause the breakout from the prison transport. She jumped in front of Magneto so he wouldn't get hit with cure darts, and then he left her behind like a dickbag. After which she revealed his secret lair and plans to the Feds.

So she was the catalyst for several major events, rescued Erik more than once, continued operating on her own while Erik was in prison (just as she does in DoFP), and was willing to turn against Erik when betrayed. So she wasn't just a simple henchwoman.

 

[Trekker4747]

Thought the movie was pretty good for the most part, although I kinda had trouble buying the central conceit that the fate of humanity and the entire world hinged simply on whether Mystique would kill somebody. Or that the X-Men, with all their powers and abilities, wouldn't have found a way to infiltrate and destroy the Sentinel program long before things got so bad (hell, from the looks of it, Quicksilver could have done the job all by himself!)

Not to mention that it still feels odd that a character who was just a glorified henchwoman in the first three movies is now so incredibly pivotal and crucial to the story for some reason.

Still though, I thought everything else about the story worked really well, and couldn't help but admire the way Singer was able to pull together all the different storylines and continuity, and make it all seem so natural and effortless.

So ultimately I'd probably give it a B+.

Yeah, some 50 years pass between the introduction of the Sentinels in the 1970s and the breaking point of the war in this movie (2020s) and it was Dinklage's death in the 70's that started the Sentinels. So where were they all of this time? What was the breaking point between somewhat of a normal world and the apocalypse? When the upgrades between the old-school looking Sentinels and the advanded ones with the mutant power mimickery?

Seems like we're missing a movie to explain what happened between The Wolverine tag scene (in the "present") and the events of this movie (some 10 years into the future.)

It was nice at the end to see Rogue, Jean Grey, Cyclops and a friendly greeting from Beast in the hall to Logan.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Well, the Danger Room sequence in "The Last Stand" was a simulation against a Sentinel, so they were obviously around. I believe promotional materials identify the future models as being mark 10.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

And Project: WIDEAWAKE (which used Sentinels) was a folder on Stryker's/Deathstrike's computer in X2.

 

[Trekker4747]

Well, the Danger Room sequence in "The Last Stand" was a simulation against a Sentinel, so they were obviously around. I believe promotional materials identify the future models as being mark 10.

Yeah the Danger Room sequence was on my mind too. Seems odd we've never really seen or heard from them until now, I menan X1 opens with the discussion of the Registration Act, seems like an odd step to start with AFTER yhe Sentinel Program.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Until they brought out those stupid robots, it felt like they could only make plans for the sentinels because the current levels of tech just weren't there to bring this shite to light.

Then they roll out those things near the end that are impossible still by today's standards.

In 1973, a transistor powered Sentinel to do what they wanted it to do, would have to have been the size of a skyscraper, and it's computer brain would have occupied 70 percent of it's body yet still been barely smarter than an Ipod.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Well, the Danger Room sequence in "The Last Stand" was a simulation against a Sentinel, so they were obviously around. I believe promotional materials identify the future models as being mark 10.

Yeah the Danger Room sequence was on my mind too. Seems odd we've never really seen or heard from them until now, I menan X1 opens with the discussion of the Registration Act, seems like an odd step to start with AFTER yhe Sentinel Program.

Well, the Mutant Registration Act was a very public initiative, while the Sentinel program (and presumably Project: WIDEAWAKE) were described as being "off the books".

As for not really seeing the Sentinels in other movies, well consider how much history in both timelines that we are not privy to. How many times had X-Men fought Magneto's Brotherhood prior to the events of X1? How many other threats and menaces had they encountered? The X-Men were presented as experienced heroes with a long-standing battle against Magneto and his crew before Wolverine joined them. I'm sure that the various X-Men throughout the last 50 years had had several encounters with Sentinels, it just wasn't that important to the story to tell the audience about it.

In the real world it was a money issue. Bryan Singer wanted to have few Sentinels in the sequence when the military attacked the school in X2, but they were cut for budgetary reasons.

 

[Admiral2]

A!

I was hooked in the first scenes when I saw Iceman using his ice slides!

I was so distracted by the film's goodness in fact that I had to think about it for a second when Prof X said Logan was teaching history. (Me: "Well, why would Wolverine be teaching His...oh, duh!")

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

As with a lot of these movies, I think I'll need to see it a couple more times before I really know what I think about it. But, overall, I'm unimpressed. The movie doesn't make any major blunders but it just didn't engage me as much as some of the others did. It certainly didn't come anywhere close to eclipsing X-Men: First Class as my favorite movie of the series.

I think part of that is because DOFP isn't quite as heartfelt as First Class. Every time I watch First Class, my heart totally breaks for Mystique because all she really wants is one person to love her for who she really is. And the white-hot rage driving Magneto's quest for revenge against Sebastian Shaw is quite palpable too. But in DOFP, the themes are much more vague, like "hope" & "being the better person."

I was also disappointed that we didn't see more of the First Class characters this time around. While we did get lots of Xavier, Magneto, Mystique, & Beast; Havok was only in 1 scene; and practically everyone else was killed off-screen. It seems like a terrible waste of Banshee & Emma Frost.

And it feels really wierd to get such a thorough glimpse of the restored future where Beast, Cyclops, Jean Grey, & Rogue are back but not see what happened to Magneto & Mystique. And why give us such a thorough glimpse of the future if the next movie is going to be back in the past again with the McAvoy/Fassbender/Lawence/Hoult cast?

Also: Needs more Quicksilver!

The real reason I entered this thread... Did Kennedy's Mutant powers have everything to do with him claiming the presidency or nothing to with him claiming the presidency?

I'm told that the point of no return where his victory was certaintalized was the Television debate where he looked like a movie star and Nixon looked like a sweating hog.

Is it possible he had heat based powers and JFK made Nixon look like a wet guilty liar by increasing the air temperature around his plump jowly face by 12 degrees?

You don't need super powers to be better looking than Nixon!

Quick question: Was that actually Kelsey Grammer playing Beast in the sequence at the end? I thought it sounded like him but I didn't get a good look at him. Was it actually him or did they just get him to do the voice or was it a sound-alike?

 

[Agent Richard07]

Quick question: Was that actually Kelsey Grammer playing Beast in the sequence at the end? I thought it sounded like him but I didn't get a good look at him. Was it actually him or did they just get him to do the voice or was it a sound-alike?

It was him.

I had the same thought though because of the make-up job.