There is plenty to like in X-Men: Days of Future Past. There is great acting all around, dazzling special effects, and a story that (sort of) gives a fresh start to the franchise.
Of course, you are not reading this article to hear me praise this movie. Be warned that there will be multiple spoilers throughout this article, so stop here if you have not yet seen it. You should also take note that these are nitpicky problems, so if you think any of these complaints are too small and inconsequential, then you are reading the wrong article, bub.
How Beastly
Admittedly, there is an upside to Beast having a serum that allows him to easily transform between his blue-and-furry-form and his nerdy-human-form. It eliminates a continuity error in X-2, when we see Dr. Hank McCoy on a TV screen, talking about mutants. However, I would have preferred to think that he was using an image inducer, or just someone else with the same name.
Why? Because having the ability to transform back and forth between the two forms is something Beast never had in the comics. Also, why on earth is anger what triggers the transformation? This is Hank McCoy, not Bruce Banner.
On the plus side, some of his transformation scenes were very cool, but I still would have preferred Beast to be blue and furry the whole movie.
“Do you know what happens to a Storm when she is impaled by a robot?”
This complaint is not technically with the film itself, but with the marketing used to promote it. In multiple trailers and TV spots, we see Iceman making an ice bridge around a Sentinel, which has been frozen solid. Suddenly, the Sentinel breaks free, and grabs Bobby’s head. The merciless robot decapitates the poor mutant, and then crushes his head with its foot.
Okay, the decapitation and foot stomping might have come as a surprise when viewed in the theater, but the fact that Iceman dies was extremely predictable. It might not be much of a spoiler, since it happens at the beginning of the movie, but was it really necessary to use this in the trailer?
What happens to Storm is even worse. She is impaled from behind by a Sentinel, and it happens toward the end of the movie. Considering she is the first X-Man to die in the climactic final battle, her death should have been a surprise. Of course, it was not, since we see this clip in the trailer, less than a moment before she is stabbed.
Amnesia Sure Sucks
At some point in the movie, when Charles is feeling discouraged, Wolverine tells him that he needs to bring the X-Men together. Yes, Logan, that is what a downtrodden Charles needs at the moment, more responsibility. Then Wolverine tells him to remember these names: Scott, Jean Storm.
Um, am I the only one who thinks that someone is missing? Is Wolverine just naming those three because Professor X told him they were his first students, and they were already at the mansion when he arrived? Was there not another X-Man that Logan was close to, who was a lot more vulnerable than those three?
If you have not already guessed, I am talking about Rogue. The two had a sibling-like relationship in the trilogy (especially the first one), so why is he not trying to protect her like he is with Cyclops, Storm and Jean?
Does Wolverine assume he will arrive at the mansion at the same time Rogue does? Is he too stupid to realize that things will probably not happen that way in this reality, and that it is all his fault?
X-Men: Ways to Kill the Previous Cast
I was hoping to see a sequel to X-Men: First Class because I was hoping to see what happened next to all of the characters in that franchise, not just the big four. However, I am not really bothered by this, because a reunion of the cast of the trilogy is actually far more interesting.
With that said, it really irritated me that a movie that was designed to resurrect characters that died in previous movies also killed off all of the supporting characters from X-Men: First Class.
Simon Kinberg, the writer of X-Men: Days of Future Past, said “For me, the fun of this movie from when I said, 'We should do Days of Future Past,' was literally the scene of changing the future and Jean is going to come back and Jean and Wolverine are going to have a reunion.”
Basically, Kinberg wrote this movie to resurrect Jean, because he feels terrible about how he handled the Dark Phoenix Saga (he also wrote X-Men: The Last Stand). In the process he killed off Banshee, Emma Frost, Angel Salvadore, Azazel, and probably Riptide. Not only that, they all died offscreen. This is almost comparable to Cyclops’ death in X-3. The only reason that these deaths did not ignite the same outrage as Cyclops’ death was because none of these characters are nearly as important to the X-Men mythos.
At Least it is Still Plural
When it comes to the amount of X-Men on a team, I prefer to have a minimum of five, four at the smallest. The more the merrier, I say, but with a maximum of nine or ten.
How many X-Men are in Days of Future Past?
Two.
There are three, if you count Professor X, but since he is in a wheelchair the majority of the movie, and cannot use his powers throughout the other half, I do not really consider him to be an X-Man. The only X-Men in this movie are Wolverine and Beast.
Of course, I am only referring to the past. There are nine X-Men in the future, and that is not even counting Professor X and Magneto. However, the main story takes place in the past, and none of the X-Men in the future has a significant amount of screentime, save perhaps Iceman and Kitty.
Why did Havok have to join the army? Why did Banshee have to die? Why could they not have been at the mansion, taking care of things, like Beast?
If it is an X-Men movie, then it should be about the X-Men.
Sure, you’re dead now, but you’ll get better!
The opening of the movie was fairly shocking, as we saw multiple future X-Men slaughtered by the Sentinels. Then, only a few moments later, all the mutants that we just watched die are alive and well! What an astonishing opening, and what a great surprise!
It was also a great way to rob the story of any of its tension.
In the original comic book storyline, the X-Men were not certain that their time-traveling-save-the-world plan would work. Rachel Grey knew that she could successfully send Kitty back in time, but she did not know if they would be able to change the past. She thought that perhaps Kitty would merely create a new timeline.
Of course, she was right. Kitty managed to save Senator Kelly, and prevented the dystopian future she came from. However, she only prevented it in that timeline, as she could not change the one she came from.
I assumed the same uncertainty would be present in the movie. Instead, we learn that the younger X-Men have changed the past, and saved themselves many times already.
You could argue that every time Kitty sends Bishop back in time, they are actually creating a new timeline, and we only see the results of the timeline they saved. I would argue that we never see the timeline where they were not saved because that timeline was erased from existence.
This is starting to sound extremely complicated. My brain hurts. If only I could talk to Kitty, and have her send someone back in time to tell me not to write this article. At the very least, they could tell you not to read it.
How to Ruin a Franchise With One Scene
Boy, that scene at the end was great! Wolverine changed the past, he changed the future, and he managed to save Beast, Rogue, Cyclops, and Jean! With one scene they gave the franchise a clean slate!
Of course, they also dirtied up that slate within the same scene.
The easiest way to explain what I mean is to use the newly rebooted Star Trek as an example. In the 2009 film, Nero’s actions create a separate timeline, and arguably erase the old one. I realize that plenty of die-hard fans hated this movie, but it was able to successfully create a new version of the Star Trek universe where the filmmakers could do whatever they wanted. It was not technically a prequel, because it did not precede anything that had come before.
When it was announced that Days of Future Past would be the next X-Men film, many people assumed the same thing would happen with the X-Men franchise. In a way, it did, with one huge difference. Whereas the Star Trek franchise can now do whatever the filmmakers want because it is no longer a prequel to anything, the X-Men franchise does not have that kind of freedom, because every movie that is released from here on out is a prequel to that scene.
That means that none of the characters in that scene can be killed, and eventually everyone ends up in the mansion. Does this actually ruin the franchise? No, but it takes away a lot of creative freedom from future filmmakers, and it tells us that we do not need to be worried if certain characters will survive or not. This is the nature of all prequels, but it could have been easily avoided.
You have reached the end of this article! Do you have any complaints about X-Men: Days of Future Past? Did you want to complain about how much you hated this article? Do you want to complain about something, but it is too much work to touch the keys? Let me know in the comments!