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

[Captaindemotion]

I say it's her daughter

 

[FPAlpha]

Days of Future Past clearly did not erase the first movie as Rogue still has the white stripe in her hair thus indicating she spent time in Magneto's machine.

For that matter, I don't believe the third movie was completely erased either, just the ending of the event changed. In my opinion the only movie that was completely erased by the new movie X2. Even X Men Origins Wolverine hasn't been completely erased, as all the pre 1973 stuff would still stand.

Well.. given the quantum theory multi-universe thing the X3 universe somewhere does exist on but the movie universe took a different step after 1973 as evident by the last scene of the movie - Rogue is still in a relationship with Iceman, Jean and Scott are still alive etc so there's bound to be some changes (and some probably not so Wolverine still gets captured by Stryker and gets his adamantium treatment).

It was a very good move and one of the better retcons i've seen as they surely were aware of the mostly negative reaction X3 has received.

Fortunately they did a very good reboot with X-Men First Class and this movie even improved on it.

X:Men Apocalypse is going to be great, anyone know if it's planned as a single movie or a series of movies?

 

[RoJoHen]

Finally saw this yesterday. Thought it was great. I'm not going to dig through pages and pages of posts to get all caught up on the reviews. All I'm going to say that I predicted they would use the time travel aspects of this movie to undo X3...AND I'M SO GLAD THEY DID!!!

Seriously, the last 5 minutes of this film made me giddy.

Well, it also undid X1+2, as well, are you glad about that?

I can live with it.

Honestly, X3 wasn't even that bad. I doubt Singer himself would have done any better given how hyped up it had become by then.

I doubt Singer would have allowed Professor X, Cyclops, and Jean to all die in the same movie.

 

[Saul]

About that there ending: I assume Erik didn't take the helmet with him as he flew away because Xavier mind-told/didn't allow him to? Clarifying that might have detracted from the simplicity of a beautiful film moment, but it did give me a minor "huh?".

Also, now that the government's captured the helmet for a second time, where do you think they'll bury it now, assuming they either can't destroy it or want to keep it around for protection against a future telepath? Hangar 51, next to the Ark?

Couldn't he make a new one? Was there anything special about this one?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Erik didn't make it.

The Soviets made it for Sebastian Shaw in First Class.

I'm assuming that he would have to rip a nuclear reactor in half to construct a new one.

 

[Set Harth]

so Wolverine still gets captured by Stryker and gets his adamantium treatment

We have no way of knowing that for certain.

Well.. given the quantum theory multi-universe thing the X3 universe somewhere does exist on

But did DOFP adhere to that theory? I got the impression it was using a "single-timeline" model as opposed to the Star Trek 2009 version in which the Prime universe goes on. The X-Men comics may have used branching, but I don't think the film followed suit.

It was a very good move and one of the better retcons i've seen as they surely were aware of the mostly negative reaction X3 has received.

A timeline alteration due to time travel is not a retcon.

I doubt Singer would have allowed Professor X, Cyclops, and Jean to all die in the same movie.

Professor X didn't die...

 

[Anwar]

I doubt Singer would have allowed Professor X, Cyclops, and Jean to all die in the same movie.

He wasted Cyclops regardless, he would have gotten rid of Jean and killing Xavier was a good way of showing how serious things were. If X3 was supposed to be the end, killing off/eliminating the "Old Guard" (Xavier and Magneto) isn't a bad way to do it.

The problem was that he didn't bother giving prominence to anyone else aside from Xavier, Magneto and Wolverine throughout the series.

 

[JacksonArcher]

According to X2 co-writer Michael Dougherty, Cyclops was originally going to have a much larger role in X-Men 3. He was asked once about how Singer and his writing team (which included Dougherty) would have handled X-Men 3 and this is a snippet of what he said:

"The one idea that I loved, that I really wanted to do, was that Cyclops would build the Danger Room. Cyclops felt guilty, he felt that because the X-Men were too weak, they weren't strong enough, they weren't fast enough, that was the reason Jean died. If they were a little bit better at fighting, then she might still be alive. It was all about this guilt he had about her death and so he built the Danger Room to train them to be better. But in the end it really was about him not being able to let go of her, so that causes all the chaos and disruption in the movie. But in the end it's about him letting her go."

"Ultimately she kind of becomes that cosmic force that Phoenix is known to be, she choose to leave Earth and become a god, or at least a higher level of intelligence, and she goes into the cosmos possibly to kick-start life somewhere else... The final scene for me would have been her telling Cyclops or her telling the X-Men 'I'll be watching.' Essentially she becomes a god."

You can read the rest here but it sounds like Cyclops would have been given a decent role and the Phoenix story would have been handled so much better than it was in X-Men: The Last Stand, especially if you read everything else Dougherty had to say. Although I'll agree Cyclops' role in the original trilogy got progressively marginalized as the series went on. The same can be said for Rogue and other characters. I think Storm got beefier roles in X2 and X-Men: The Last Stand, but that's probably because her star power got bigger between X-Men and X2 (similar to how Jennifer Lawrence became a bigger star between X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past, which is probably why she has a bigger role in the latter film).

 

[Anwar]

Cyclops hadn't been built up enough or given enough focus in the prior two movies for his suddenly major hypothetical role in the 3rd movie to work out that well. If they'd done more with him aside from just have him be Xavier's right hand man in the first two movies then it might've worked.

Yes yes, I know that people say "If it weren't for characters like Wolverine X-Men would've been canceled back in the 70s" but Kurt Busiek showed that the original X-Men were just as worthwhile as characters as Claremont's new X-men. The problem wasn't the characters, it was the lack of inventive writers.

Heck, the "X-Men Evolution" series did a great job with Cyclops and Rogue's characters while having Wolverine as a background character. It was entertaining and inventive.

As it is, that description would've just had him be this Jean-obsessed nutter with no other characterization beyond that.

X3's problem was that the Studio wanted a shorter film and they took two plots that weren't all that compatible (Dark Phoenix and the Cure) and did them all at once.

 

[Professor Zoom]

Finally saw this yesterday. Thought it was great. I'm not going to dig through pages and pages of posts to get all caught up on the reviews. All I'm going to say that I predicted they would use the time travel aspects of this movie to undo X3...AND I'M SO GLAD THEY DID!!!

Seriously, the last 5 minutes of this film made me giddy.

Well, it also undid X1+2, as well, are you glad about that?

I can live with it.

Me, too. My DVDs still exist of those movies, and the chances of them revisiting the events of X1 and X2 are about zero... so... No complaints here.

So, yeah, happy.

 

[Tyberius]

I doubt Singer would have allowed Professor X, Cyclops, and Jean to all die in the same movie.

Shouldn't have directed Superman then. His choice.

But, as I recall:
Professor X - did not die
Cyclops - no body, so probably not dead
Jean - a phoenix, so death and then rebirth

Yeah, I liked X3. It provided a lot of what was missing previously; more mutants, Wolverine berserking, it showed to what lengths Xavier would go to not forcibly control Jean (I believe he could have stopped her mind if he wanted to, but instead allowed himself to be "killed" to not impose his will.), it gave us really cool scenes, such as the tattoo scene, the various Multiple Man scenes, and the Shadowcat/Juggernaut fight, among others.

------------------------------

Finally got to see it this Tuesday. Almost perfect movie. I wish the older cast had a bit more screen time, but hopefully they'll include those deleted scenes in the home release.

One minor niggle, and maybe it can be explained, but so far I cannot wrap my head around it:
In FC, the basement of the mansion appeared to be unfinished, just an old bomb shelter with some quickly made targets and whatnot. Xavier gets shot at the end of the movie and then gets all morose and Hank gives him the injections.

So when did the basement get finished?

I thought they should have had the Doppler station Cerebro in the backyard or something and ignored the basement.

If the basement was finished between the two movies, how did he become morose? It feels like there is a missing bit of the story there.

 

[JacksonArcher]

Cyclops hadn't been built up enough or given enough focus in the prior two movies for his suddenly major hypothetical role in the 3rd movie to work out that well. If they'd done more with him aside from just have him be Xavier's right hand man in the first two movies then it might've worked.

I think it could've worked. I don't think he would have all of the sudden received a major leading role - the original trilogy was always dominated by Hugh Jackman's Wolverine and Halle Berry's Storm - but I think he would have at the very least been given a decent supporting role. If Dougherty's description is any indication.

I mean, it is no different than Jennifer Lawrence, who had a supporting role in X-Men: First Class, suddenly having a leading role in X-Men: Days of Future Past. It might've been jarring, but it can work. It just depends if the character is properly interwoven into the plot. It sounds like Cyclops' role, given his relationship and guilt over Jean, would be integral to the story - which I think would have made his transition from non-ancillary character to supporting or lead less jarring.

X3's problem was that the Studio wanted a shorter film and they took two plots that weren't all that compatible (Dark Phoenix and the Cure) and did them all at once.

I agree with you on this, although it was director Brett Ratner that wanted the shorter film. The Cure storyline and the Dark Phoenix storyline are both great arcs and they could have co-existed in the same film if the script was written well. Unfortunately, X-Men: The Last Stand suffered from poor writing & direction, so those storylines never had a chance to properly co-exist.

 

[Mister Fandango]

At what point was Cyclops ever shown to have the technical expertise to build the Danger Room at all? At best, he was kinda-sorta shown to be a pilot and driving enthusiast, but that was the extent of his talents.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Unfortunately, X-Men: The Last Stand suffered from poor writing & direction, so those storylines never had a chance to properly co-exist.

IIRC, there was also the problem of an accelerated production schedule required to meet a barely reasonable release-date. If FOX (specifically FOX exec Tom Rothman) had allowed for a little more production time, there would have been time for one more draft of the script, something the film may have greatly benefited from.

 

[Anwar]

I think it could've worked. I don't think he would have all of the sudden received a major leading role - the original trilogy was always dominated by Hugh Jackman's Wolverine and Halle Berry's Storm - but I think he would have at the very least been given a decent supporting role. If Dougherty's description is any indication.

Having Wolverine be super-important after the first movie wasn't really all that necessary. They could have started expanding on the other characters in X2 after using Wolverine as the introduction character in X1. The series had its' footing by then and could've moved onto other plotlines and characters.

I mean, it is no different than Jennifer Lawrence, who had a supporting role in X-Men: First Class, suddenly having a
leading role in X-Men: Days of Future Past.

They accomplished that by killing off nearly everyone from First Class except Xavier, Beast and Magneto. Mystique was made more prominent on those other characters' corpses. Unless they were going to wipe out most of X1 and X2's characters to give more for Cyclops to do, it probably wouldn't have worked.

I agree with you on this, although it was director Brett Ratner that wanted the shorter film. The Cure storyline and the Dark Phoenix storyline are both great arcs and they could have co-existed in the same film if the script was written well.

It's probably best for a series known for a large cast to only have one major plotline per film. All the other X-Films had only one plotline.

They shouldn't have had Magneto as the only major mutant villain after X1 as well. But when you cast a guy like Ian McKellen it makes sense to get him in it as much as possible.

 

[Gaith]

According to X2 co-writer Michael Dougherty, Cyclops was originally going to have a much larger role in X-Men 3. He was asked once about how Singer and his writing team (which included Dougherty) would have handled X-Men 3 and this is a snippet of what he said:

"The one idea that I loved, that I really wanted to do, was that Cyclops would build the Danger Room. Cyclops felt guilty, he felt that because the X-Men were too weak, they weren't strong enough, they weren't fast enough, that was the reason Jean died. If they were a little bit better at fighting, then she might still be alive. It was all about this guilt he had about her death and so he built the Danger Room to train them to be better. But in the end it really was about him not being able to let go of her, so that causes all the chaos and disruption in the movie. But in the end it's about him letting her go."

"Ultimately she kind of becomes that cosmic force that Phoenix is known to be, she choose to leave Earth and become a god, or at least a higher level of intelligence, and she goes into the cosmos possibly to kick-start life somewhere else... The final scene for me would have been her telling Cyclops or her telling the X-Men 'I'll be watching.' Essentially she becomes a god."

That sounds like a really first-rate movie. Shame we never got it, and had to put up with Superman Returns instead, but we've now got four excellent X-films so far, and that's nothing at all to sneer at.

 

[Random_Spock]

Got a question about Magneto:

Spoiler: About his change of face...

Was it just his true nature coming out? The whole Brotherhood thing (hinting at the Brotherhood of Evil)... Was he even trying to help Charles and co. at all, or was he just working at his own ends this time around?

 

[Destructor]

Honestly, X3 wasn't even that bad. I doubt Singer himself would have done any better given how hyped up it had become by then.

I'm a fan of X3, I think it's unfairly maligned.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Honestly, X3 wasn't even that bad. I doubt Singer himself would have done any better given how hyped up it had become by then.

I'm a fan of X3, I think it's unfairly maligned.

I agree. One thing it had over the otehr films was to place the battle out there in the real world. The other films had their battles set on very localized, confined stages (statue, underground base) and this movie brought the mutant/ human conflict out to the open.

 

[Anwar]

Got a question about Magneto:

Spoiler: About his change of face...

Was it just his true nature coming out? The whole Brotherhood thing (hinting at the Brotherhood of Evil)... Was he even trying to help Charles and co. at all, or was he just working at his own ends this time around?

Magneto's repeatedly been shown to be a murderous bastard totally willing to kill his own people to get what he wants. He was fine with sacrificing Rogue in X1 because he was unwilling to sacrifice himself. He was a-okay annihilating all of mankind, including billions of innocent people who did nothing to him, as well as sacrificing Charles and every other mutant in the Weapon X base. His turn in X3 was nothing new.