X-Men Days of Future Past (SPOILERS)

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

Shouldn't somebody who's super fast alsobe superstrong and superdurable? I mean his neck doesn't snap and his insides don't turn to mush from all those g forces.

I guess nit-picking comic book physics is pointless though.

[Kalbear]

Inertial frame of reference actually explains that fairly well.

[polishgenius]

The Marvel and DC universes seem to have a different scale, DC characters across the board often seem to be more powerful to me.

Oh absolutely. Just compare an average Avengers roster to an average Justice League roster. It's going to be one of the challenges of the Justice League movie(s).

In speed terms though, the DC has, to a much greater extent than Marvel it seems, been run in recent years by editors and writers who much prefer to just ignore the scale of the universe when it suits the story. There were some particularly absurd situation during and around Infinite Crisis as a result of this, like basically every character on Earth capable of space-flight (a lot, it turns out) maxing it to the center of the universe in what seemed like about ten minutes. It bugs me more than it probably should...

Possibly the New 52 has fixed this, I've not read as much of that as I want to, but with Geoff Johns in charge of a lot of the main titles, I doubt it.

Gone slightly off subject there...

Shouldn't somebody who's super fast alsobe superstrong and superdurable? I mean his neck doesn't snap and his insides don't turn to mush from all those g forces.

I guess nit-picking comic book physics is pointless though.

They generally have some sort of secondary power that accounts for it, if a writer feels the need to address it at all.

[Jon AS]

The Marvel and DC universes seem to have a different scale, DC characters across the board often seem to be more powerful to me.

There's actually an issue of Quasar that pits the fastest runners of the Marvel universe against each other. Makkari seems bound to win (since he's part of the series' regular cast that's kind of expected), but then a guy in red rags who is referred to as "Buried Alien" shows up and overtakes everybody.

[Raksha 2014]

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.

If movie-Trask feared the mutants because of Mystique's capacity for near-infinite mischief/danger by impersonation of U.S. presidents and any other movers/shakers, why couldn't a man of his apparent genius have worked more with the mutant detection device that he had already built; that at least would lead to a dust-up about mutant identification and individual rights, but not towards mutant imprisonment and genoicide. Install a Mystique-detecting alarm with the secret service, and never worry about impersonation of the president again, etc.

Anyway, I wish they had given us a bit more of Trask's background. Not sure that President Nixon would have signed on for the idea of giant robots hunting down potential voters, but the movie as a whole was a giant thrill ride with heart, so I decided to forgive some of the details. Heck, I'd have forgiven all of them just for Quicksilver; who was a delight.

I loved the central conflict of the film being not just a battle for the future of all humanity but a more private war, of sorts, between the younger Magneto and Xavier, for Mystique's soul. Especially since Charles and Erik had revived their old friendship, out of necessity and heartbreak, in the horrible future. Jennifer Lawrence convinced me that she was this angry, powerful woman hungering for vengeance for her slain friends but also yearning to go "home" to the 'family' of her childhood, to Charles, who had loved and protected her as a brother.

The actors did a fine job, the effects were credible; and the new folks (Bishop, Sunspot, Blink, Warpath, etc.) interesting. Loved Storm taking out Sentinels; the depiction of her powers was great; and it was sad to see the character slaughtered. I couldn't help but notice that Warpath was quite handsome.

A very enjoyable movie, one of the best of the franchise and up there in my top 10 or top 5 comic book-spawned movies. I will get the dvd when it comes out.

[Batman]

You'd think Xavier and Wolverine would be wise to Magneto's antics now. Every time he teams up with them to fight a great evil he usually finds a way to instantly screw them over an potentially make things worse. I bet old Magneto would have tried screwing the survivors over if he (or any of them) had survived.

It is weird that they tell Wolverine "you'll need me as well" but they really didn't. They actually would have been done way quicker if they had not taken the time to break Magneto out. Plus there would not have been a guy trying to fuck up their plans at every turn.

[red snow]

It is weird that they tell Wolverine "you'll need me as well" but they really didn't. They actually would have been done way quicker if they had not taken the time to break Magneto out. Plus there would not have been a guy trying to fuck up their plans at every turn.

Thinking about it, you're right. There was some hand waving about him being able to persuade Mystique at stopping (which I guess he would have with the whole trying to kill her plan) but ultimately he just gave the world a really good reason to be terrified of mutants and to come up with some way of effectively containing them.

[Muttering Bill]

Thinking about it, you're right. There was some hand waving about him being able to persuade Mystique at stopping (which I guess he would have with the whole trying to kill her plan) but ultimately he just gave the world a really good reason to be terrified of mutants and to come up with some way of effectively containing them.

Magneto being able to threaten the President and Cabinet, and escaping, should have been a worse scenario for the mutants. It's a better incentive to roll out the Sentinel program than just killing Trask, who was kind of a nobody when he was killed in the original timeline.

[denstorebog]

Thinking about it, you're right. There was some hand waving about him being able to persuade Mystique at stopping (which I guess he would have with the whole trying to kill her plan) but ultimately he just gave the world a really good reason to be terrified of mutants and to come up with some way of effectively containing them.

Yeah, you need to accept that the time travel plan is really poorly conceived because they want certain elements in the movie. In the same vein: The plan is to go back to stop Mystique from killing the man responsible for the Sentinels and then hope that public opinion and Washington doesn't find another motivation for using the Sentinels, which are now hanging around. Why not just, you know, go back and prevent the Sentinels from being made? Sarah Connor thought of this, surely Xavier and Magneto can too? They know exactly who is solely responsible for creating them and at what time, and they have an immortal beast-man warrior at their disposal. But instead their plan is to prevent the Sentinel creator from getting killed in order to secure some popularity points with the public - not the world's most stable currency. Even destroying the Sentinels should be absolutely possible. Magneto is on a goddamn train with the dormant Sentinels and able to completely retool them without any resistance, alone. Now imagine what the rest of the past X-Men could have done if they just set their minds to destroying the Sentinels altogether. Yes, new Sentinels might get created later on, but it's still a much more impactful fix than jumping through a million hoops to help the creator of the Sentinels stay alive.

[SerArthurHeath]

Yeah, you need to accept that the time travel plan is really poorly conceived because they want certain elements in the movie. In the same vein: The plan is to go back to stop Mystique from killing the man responsible for the Sentinels and then hope that public opinion and Washington doesn't find another motivation for using the Sentinels, which are now hanging around. Why not just, you know, go back and prevent the Sentinels from being made? Sarah Connor thought of this, surely Xavier and Magneto can too? They know exactly who is solely responsible for creating them and at what time, and they have an immortal beast-man warrior at their disposal. But instead their plan is to prevent the Sentinel creator from getting killed in order to secure some popularity points with the public - not the world's most stable currency. Even destroying the Sentinels should be absolutely possible. Magneto is on a goddamn train with the dormant Sentinels and able to completely retool them without any resistance, alone. Now imagine what the rest of the past X-Men could have done if they just set their minds to destroying the Sentinels altogether. Yes, new Sentinels might get created later on, but it's still a much more impactful fix than jumping through a million hoops to help the creator of the Sentinels stay alive.

They have to go back to a specific time they know something will occur with a limited timeframe, because Logan's mind seems to go at the same rate as it would in the present and they are being hunted down by killing machines. And Magneto is an untrustworthy douche. And there are no other x men. As the sentinels were created after Dink's death, it's also not clear exactly how they could stop them being made.

Now, not trying to convince Quicksilver to help more is an actual plot hole

[Baelor Swyft]

You'd think Xavier and Wolverine would be wise to Magneto's antics now. Every time he teams up with them to fight a great evil he usually finds a way to instantly screw them over an potentially make things worse. I bet old Magneto would have tried screwing the survivors over if he (or any of them) had survived.

If by that you mean he would have used it as an opportunity to create a mutant utopia free from the ignorance of humans... even if it means being a huge douche to everyone and possibly killing his friends.... yes he totally would have done that. :D

[denstorebog]

They have to go back to a specific time they know something will occur with a limited timeframe, because Logan's mind seems to go at the same rate as it would in the present and they are being hunted down by killing machines. And Magneto is an untrustworthy douche. And there are no other x men. As the sentinels were created after Dink's death, it's also not clear exactly how they could stop them being made.

Not sure what you mean. The program is greenlit after his death, but the Sentinels have already been made. Trask unveils the Sentinels in the movie around the exact same time as the attempted murder, give or take a few days, so the Sentinels were created by Trask before Mystique murders him. So if he dies, there'll be Sentinels and a desire to use them. If he doesn't die, there'll be Sentinels and no immediate desire to use them, but the designer will still be alive and around to create more Sentinels and lobby for their use. The idea that Mystique's murder of Trask is the tipping point for whether or not Sentinels are likely to be used is kinda ludicrous. As for operating within a limited timeframe, I don't see the relevance. Imagine these two plans:

1. We'll send back Wolverine. He'll convince our past selves to help him out. They'll spring Magneto, who almost instigated the end of the world in Cuba, out of a high-tech prison to help prevent mutants from becoming unpopular. We're betting everything that he can and will convince Mystique to not kill the world's primary anatgonizer of mutants (something that Magneto is very unlikely to want to help with, given everything), and once the plan is done, we'll have nullified an immediate excuse to use the Sentinels, but they'll still exist, as will the designer and the company who made them.

2. We'll send back Wolverine. He'll convince our past selves to help him out. They'll infiltrate Trask Industries (imagine how easy this would be with Quicksilver) and render the Sentinels useless. Destroy the facility. And for good measure, we can even get Trask out of Mystique's way if we still want to prevent the murder. We now have the same end result as in #1, except Magneto is still imprisoned, there's no public outrage, Sentinel production has been halted and it was all a hell of a lot less contrived and dubious than #1. Obviously also has less dramatic potential, but there you go.

[red snow]

Maybe Dinklage and Nixon's hearts were warmed sufficiently when a shape-changing mutant saved their lives? That's the only way I can really think they'd keep the cat out of the bag.

I think the key thing is Mystique. Dinklage or his successors don't get her and therefore the super sentinels are never created. The bog standard sentinels may still have rolled out but they aren't that effective hence Stryker uses mutants to capture mutants,

At first I thought "how does this bring Jean and Cyclops back to life?" but I put that down to Xavier training them better/keeping an eye on them or Wolverine dished out specific spoilers as he continued to live through to the present.

More of a head scratcher is how Logan actually woke up in the present as if he'd leapt 30 years into the future. I think the film stated earlier that the "present/future" timeline just ceases to exist while the past version merely catches up to where they would have been before being sent back. So we never should have had that scene. But it was a great scene so timey wimey :)

[red snow]

If by that you mean he would have used it as an opportunity to create a mutant utopia free from the ignorance of humans... even if it means being a huge douche to everyone and possibly killing his friends.... yes he totally would have done that. :D

especially if it means being a huge douche and killing his friends :)

[SerArthurHeath]

They'd have to know exactly when they could do this and then do it within a limited time. They only have one shot, as they say at the very start. They have to focus on one act they can influence and they know about. Unless they have more knowledge than they let on about when and where the sentinels were kept from the start, it's even riskier. For example, if Logan goes back an extra week before any outcome can be influenced, he'd die mid-task and it would be game over

[denstorebog]

They'd have to know exactly when they could do this and then do it within a limited time. They only have one shot, as they say at the very start. They have to focus on one act they can influence and they know about.

The idea that they can't just go for the Sentinels because it's more complicated would make sense if the movie didn't show us a scene where Magneto just hops on a train and not just destroys, but outright remakes the Sentinels with no problem.

I don't feel that this problem with the movie is a dealbreaker; it's a classic dilemma with time travel movies. Why didn't Skynet send back its machines further to a time where technology, law enforcement etc. was even less likely to pose a problem. Kill Connor's grandfather instead of himself? This is the exact same problem. The movie needs to go for the point in time where dramatic potential is highest, but there's absolutely no way that going for the fickle hearts of the public is the battle that the X-Men want to be fighting, nor that they'll ever win a lasting victory that way.

[The BlackBear]

Also Trask went to prison after for selling military secrets, so wasn't that much in favour. Plus the breakthrough that made the sentinels as dangerous as they became in the future (mystiques dna and tissue samples) was kept from them (Trask only got a tiny portion.)

My question was Kitty Pryde supposed to have stayed awake, and been expending energy constantly for the three or four days that Wolverine was in the past? The last day or two of which she was bleeding from a very deep wolverine cut.

[red snow]

Also Trask went to prison after for selling military secrets, so wasn't that much in favour. Plus the breakthrough that made the sentinels as dangerous as they became in the future (mystiques dna and tissue samples) was kept from them (Trask only got a tiny portion.)

My question was Kitty Pryde supposed to have stayed awake, and been expending energy constantly for the three or four days that Wolverine was in the past? The last day or two of which she was bleeding from a very deep wolverine cut.

She did look pretty exhausted. I'm guessing Xavier was helping her stay alert as he seemed to hang around her the whole time.

[Fez]

The idea that they can't just go for the Sentinels because it's more complicated would make sense if the movie didn't show us a scene where Magneto just hops on a train and not just destroys, but outright remakes the Sentinels with no problem.

I don't feel that this problem with the movie is a dealbreaker; it's a classic dilemma with time travel movies. Why didn't Skynet send back its machines further to a time where technology, law enforcement etc. was even less likely to pose a problem. Kill Connor's grandfather instead of himself? This is the exact same problem. The movie needs to go for the point in time where dramatic potential is highest, but there's absolutely no way that going for the fickle hearts of the public is the battle that the X-Men want to be fighting, nor that they'll ever win a lasting victory that way.

Yeah, that's a good point. Wolverine could've just gotten sent to any point in time far enough back where any major event would've completely changed the future. Or he could've just gone back to the 19th century and left a bunch of handwritten notes to himself (along with proof that this is real, like describing what will happen in the next few major sporting events/political events/etc.) and give his prior self over 70 years to figure out a solution.

But I try to ignore things like that, and every other major problem that exists with time travel movies.

[Muttering Bill]

Yeah, that's a good point. Wolverine could've just gotten sent to any point in time far enough back where any major event would've completely changed the future. Or he could've just gone back to the 19th century and left a bunch of handwritten notes to himself (along with proof that this is real, like describing what will happen in the next few major sporting events/political events/etc.) and give his prior self over 70 years to figure out a solution.

But I try to ignore things like that, and every other major problem that exists with time travel movies.

Or gone back just a hadfull of years earlier and knifed Trask somewhere out of sight, eliminating the Sentinel progam before it ever starts.