Jump to content

X-Men Days of Future Past (SPOILERS)


Nictarion

Recommended Posts

Just got back from a screening. At work now so will put down some detailed thoughts later but I thought it was a very entertaining film and one of the nicest retcons I've seen take place on screen. It's like Singer has looked at all the films (including Wolverine's) and cherry picked what he likes. Meaning X3 is gone, along with Origins. He was a bit harsh in how he dealt with the characters from First Class by having them all killed and dissected.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

I saw it over the weekend. It was fun, but I only ever saw the first and third movies and dont remember much of them, so I was pretty lost at first. Things like what magneto and the prof were being friends in the future, and if I was supposed to know who Ellen page and friends were. Also had the sentinels been introduced at the end of the last movie, or was the future brand new to the whole audience?

That's mostly on me though, and I did like the movie quite a bit. Except I was a bit disturbed by the ending, specifically the implication that Logan has essentially killed the alternative version of himself. He woke up back in his body again, not remembering the past 50 years, but everyone recognized him, so clearly he wad around and didn't just appear back in the future. What happened to the consciousness that experience d this new timeline?

X2 was, before this, the best X film. I'd advise visiting that one. First Class was decent as well, and that sets up the Magneto/Professor Xavier friendship...at least in the sense that you see there was always a strong foundation for it. The future mutants were mostly new -- Blink, Bishop, Sunspot, and Warpath. This was the first time Sentinels were used in a film, but for a Danger Room tease in the original trilogy.

Good question about Wolvie's forgotten 50 years. It might make a decent premise to the next Wolverine film, and ironically enough, it mirrors his origin. Wolvie couldn't remember his life pre-Weapon X. By agreeing to change the future, he pretty much doomed himself to a similar fate. Wolvie seems to live his life in a state of perpetual amnesia.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A really simple fix would be that Xavier read Wolverines mind every couple of weeks with a back-up of what happened to him. After the film concludes Xavier pops his memories back in and we're left with a Logan who has two timelines in his head.


I agree that the reboot does allow for a lot of space to do a film filling in the blanks. From the ending of the film it seems clear that X3 never happened, Origins may (hopefully) be undone and huge chunks of "the wolverine" are nullified as he can't mope around about Jean's death. Luckily Logan still remembers though so "the wolverine" remains intact. It'd be nice to know what happened with the claws as he had them back in this film.



Also the ending of "the wolverine". Was that supposed to be Xavier and Magneto getting a team together to fight the emerging super sentinel threat?


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also the ending of "the wolverine". Was that supposed to be Xavier and Magneto getting a team together to fight the emerging super sentinel threat?

I think that was meant to be the idea. If I remember correctly there was a Trask Industries advert displayed prominently somewhere in that scene as a hint.

I'm a bit puzzled about the development of the Sentinels in the original timeline. Future-Xavier suggests that the Sentinels are developed from Trask's prototypes after his assassination by Mystique convinces the government that the mutants are a genuine threat, but it appears that they're not used (at least not openly) for another four decades (if they were available before that presumably Stryker would have used them in X2). Maybe they're just meant to have taken a really long time to make them into the Sentinels we see in the future scenes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think that was meant to be the idea. If I remember correctly there was a Trask Industries advert displayed prominently somewhere in that scene as a hint.

I'm a bit puzzled about the development of the Sentinels in the original timeline. Future-Xavier suggests that the Sentinels are developed from Trask's prototypes after his assassination by Mystique convinces the government that the mutants are a genuine threat, but it appears that they're not used (at least not openly) for another four decades (if they were available before that presumably Stryker would have used them in X2). Maybe they're just meant to have taken a really long time to make them into the Sentinels we see in the future scenes.

Yeah - it doesn't really fit with the original films as we never saw the sentinels outside of the danger room. The only thing i can think of is that the original sentinels simply weren't that effective/too expensive and the likes of Stryker found using mutants to fight mutants more effective. It may also explain the ludicrous plot of Mystique's mutant cells making super sentinels because last time I checked sticking some DNA into a machine doesn't make it better (in the way that lubricating a bicycle with Cheetah sperm won't make it faster). So maybe it did take 40 years to make that non-sensical connection?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Out of work now and had a few hours to think about it and damn, that was a well made super-hero film. It had a genuine sense of threat/gravitas (something the MArvel films largely lack) and the humour/serious balance was just right (not Nolan dark or too quippy).



Fassbender, Mcavoy and Jackman were excellent. Jackman has always deserved to have another excellent film as Wolverine and he's finally got one (here's hoping they can get a solo film out that builds on this). I'm surprised to say it but Fassbender blew McKellan away in this one - I know McKellan had less screen time but it really felt like Mckellan's heart wasn't in it. Stewart did a good job with his scenes though (although it would have been nice to know how Xavier returned). Lawrence was ok. Her part didn't give her a great deal to do other than kick-ass in blue body paint (which isn't all bad) and I like how the Mystique character is more independent. Dinklage should be in more films and possibly be present in sequels. It would have been nice to have some more depth to the character eg why does he hate mutants so much (especially when a parallel could be made to his dwarfism).



And Evan Peters as Quicksilver was a revelation, Just goes to show that a shitty costume design doesn't mean a shitty character and the only fault I could see with his role was that it was a damn shame (and almost illogical) to leave him out of the second half of the film. I also loved the onscreen confirmation that he's Magneto's son.



I also liked all the future characters despite them not getting to say much and I'd like to see them appear in future films. Blink was super cute and her power was pretty mind bending while Warpath and Bishop both seemed to evoke a lot of empathy despite not saying much (in stark contrast to the "extras" in First class). If there was one criticism I have of the film is that I'd have liked to have seen more segments in the future. At least a montage of how things got from "the wolverine" to where we see the characters at the start of the film. It may have also been nice to have them doing something that was integral to saving the past other than sitting around letting Pryde and Logan do their thing (which to be fair was integral to everything working).



The ending was superb though. When Logan woke up and we got all the surprise guest appearances (I had no idea Cyclops, Jean and future beast were going to appear) it just felt as if things were "right". Especially with the return of Cyclops. The only issue now is that I'm torn between which incarnation I'd like to see feature in the sequel. The original team are now back to normal so it would be great to see one more film with them. On the other hand McAvoy and Fassbender are also great so seeing them with maybe a young Cyclops and Jean on board would be nice as well. Which leads to the post credits scene - Apocalypse (and his four horsemen). I cannot wait to see how they handle this character who is pretty much the X-men's "Darkseid/Thanos". No idea how he was building the pyramids but I did like the chanting and his design was very similar to his origin series comic from the 90s.



Nice to get a film with characters I can give a shit about after Spidey 2 and Godzilla and it looks as though the X-men franchise is looking as healthy as ever. Here's hoping the allegations against Snyder are false and that we get him directing the sequel. To be blunt this has been his best film since X2 and it seems he genuinely cares for the franchise.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dinklage should be in more films and possibly be present in sequels. It would have been nice to have some more depth to the character eg why does he hate mutants so much (especially when a parallel could be made to his dwarfism).

Weak characterization aside, I didn't get the impression that Trask hated mutants. It just looked like he felt the rise of mutants was a threat to humanity and he would do what he could to stop that threat before it truly materialized. Not sure you need to "hate" to recognize a threat.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Weak characterization aside, I didn't get the impression that Trask hated mutants. It just looked like he felt the rise of mutants was a threat to humanity and he would do what he could to stop that threat before it truly materialized. Not sure you need to "hate" to recognize a threat.

He basically says so in the movie.

He doesn't hate the mutants, he admires them from a scientific standpoint. He just doesn't want to be the neanderthal in the equation.

Despite that, Trask is a pretty shallow character in the movie. Dinkleage gave a good performance but there just wasn't much there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Weak characterization aside, I didn't get the impression that Trask hated mutants. It just looked like he felt the rise of mutants was a threat to humanity and he would do what he could to stop that threat before it truly materialized. Not sure you need to "hate" to recognize a threat.

Imo Trask was a utilitarian. In his mind humans were divided into two fronts, ready to destroy each other with nuclear devices. Combatting the mutants would unite normal homo sapiens behind one goal, thus avoiding a nuclear holocaust.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Imo Trask was a utilitarian. In his mind humans were divided into two fronts, ready to destroy each other with nuclear devices. Combatting the mutants would unite normal homo sapiens behind one goal, thus avoiding a nuclear holocaust.

Sounds like Ozymandias from Watchmen. I feel he just truly feared their capabilities. Like he said in the movie, Mystique could literally impersonate the President of the United States.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sounds like Ozymandias from Watchmen. I feel he just truly feared their capabilities. Like he said in the movie, Mystique could literally impersonate the President of the United States.

Probably a bit of both. He was rambling about a common cause while talking to Stryker (before Magneto infuses the Sentinels with metal).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I missed that part. When did that happen?

It wasn't explicit. But there was a scene where QS stated that his mom once dated a man who had Magneto's powers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Going forward, I'd love it if they kept the flagship X-Men films era-based, as in all in the past...gives them a chance to continue connecting mutants to real historical events, and it allows them to cast younger versions of the original X-Men -- Cyke, Jean, Storm, etc.



FOX can use films like X-Force to create the contemporary films...maybe even films based completely in the future. That way, we can see awesome characters like Blink again.



That said, you can tie the two franchises together every so often with time travel movies...i.e. Cable can be in X-Force, yet time travel to interact with the 80s crew at some point.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just further to the question of the Professor being alive...



I was confused about that when watching the movie, too. I did recall his consciousness transferring to the coma patient in the post credits scene of X3, but that didn't explain why he should look like Patrick Stewart. (I wondered if the character actually doesn't look like Patrick Stewart anymore, but they just wanted to use the same actor to portray him so that audiences wouldn't be confused about who he was).



I've since read elsewhere on the interwebs, however, that the commentary on the DVD for X3 explains that the coma patient was the professor's twin brother. And apparently the same thing happened in the comics at one time. (I've neither watched the DVD nor read the comics - so I can't comment on how accurate the info is.)



I think it's still unfortunate that it wasn't somehow explained in the movie and we're forced to go to sources outside of the movies to understand what is happening. But I can understand that revealing that information might have been difficult to shoe-horn in. I mean... all the mutants would well and truly know the history at that point, so it's not going to elicit any comment when the professor appears.



Not ideal perhaps, but it doesn't much diminish an otherwise fantastic movie.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just further to the question of the Professor being alive...

I was confused about that when watching the movie, too. I did recall his consciousness transferring to the coma patient in the post credits scene of X3, but that didn't explain why he should look like Patrick Stewart. (I wondered if the character actually doesn't look like Patrick Stewart anymore, but they just wanted to use the same actor to portray him so that audiences wouldn't be confused about who he was).

I've since read elsewhere on the interwebs, however, that the commentary on the DVD for X3 explains that the coma patient was the professor's twin brother. And apparently the same thing happened in the comics at one time. (I've neither watched the DVD nor read the comics - so I can't comment on how accurate the info is.)

I think it's still unfortunate that it wasn't somehow explained in the movie and we're forced to go to sources outside of the movies to understand what is happening. But I can understand that revealing that information might have been difficult to shoe-horn in. I mean... all the mutants would well and truly know the history at that point, so it's not going to elicit any comment when the professor appears.

No ideal perhaps, but it doesn't much diminish an otherwise fantastic movie.

I recently read somewhere that they talked a lot about what to do with the Xavier continuity, and eventually decided to just go with it. Even then they knew they wanted to forget about the plot of the not to be named movie.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just watched it last night. I really enjoyed it, probably my favorite X Men movie to date. I have no idea why Kitty was able to send people back in time (I don't know if this has been addressed in the thread yet, sorry if it has), but overall I thought it was awesome.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...