If you haven’t seen X-Men: Days of Future Past then what are you doing? Go see it, go see it right now. It’s a thrilling film and you can read the Movie Buzzer’s review for it here.
If you haven’t seen it then this article definitely isn’t for you.
MAJOR SPOILERS TO COME!
Honestly, it you keep reading then a lot of the film will be ruined for you. Continue at your own risk.
There’s a scene that has been stuck in my head since seeing DOFP. Partway into the film, after Logan has gone back to the ’70s, Hank/Beast discusses a theory about the ripples in a river after a pebble has been thrown into the water, and that no matter how big of a pebble you throw and how big of a ripple you cause, the water will always correct itself and begin to flow in it’s original direction again.
So following the events of DOFP, and the pretty damn big ripple that it left in the water, the question is, will the river actually correct itself again?
In his bid to right the wrongs of X-Men: The Last Stand, Bryan Singer has created an unfathomable time-line following all the events of Days of Future Past. Chances are he’ll never fully explain everything and we’re just going to have to accept that. So lets try and focus on some of the main points moving forward in the franchise.
#1: Logan/Wolverine.
First and foremost, and perhaps the most complex, what’s going to happen to our constantly pissed off hero. How have his actions and where his character ultimately ended up (the bottom of a river) affected his own personal time-line. Will X-Men Origins: Wolverine ever have happened? We can only hope! In fact, can that be erased from history like, for real? The question is, if it doesn’t happen, then does he have his adamantium skeleton? If so, how does he get it now? What about his time in Japan, seeing as he didn’t have to mourn over the death of Jean Grey? It’s all very timey-wimey and full of RetCon’s. We don’t need (or want) another origins film, please god no, just a brief re-back story of sorts. Of course modern day Wolverine remembers all the events of Days of Future Past and all the previous films. He’ll actually be the only one who will ever remember the previous past, and in turn won’t know about his own, now current, back story. Come 2016 though we’ll be with the Wolverine of the ’80s, so we’re likely to see what happened to our angry hero. With X-Men: Apocalypse taking place in the ’80s we’ll get a blank canvas for all involved, including Hugh Jackman‘s iconic character. It’ll be interesting to see not only how he turns out in Apocalypse, but how his third stand-alone film a year later works all of these complex issues into the fold.
#2: Have We Seen The Last Of Patrick Stewart And Co?
Yes. No. Maybe. I don’t know! Director Bryan Singer (who now might not be directing due to his lawsuit) is moving forward with the younger First Class cast and continuing on their story, but there’s been whisperings of cameo appearances from the older cast yet again. Whether this is done in the form of flash forward scenes or once again involving time travel I couldn’t answer, probably only Bryan Singer knows that right now and I’m sure he’ll be keeping those cards very close to his chest for the next year while the screenplay is written.
#3: The Original X-Men Trilogy
Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh! They’re all alive! All of them!! When James Marsden showed up, I’m not going to lie, I did a little dance in my seat at the cinema. Say what you will about the casting of Marsden, die hard fans, James Marsden is awesome, so him as Cyclops is perfectly fine by me. Of course Jean, Xavier and all the rest are alive and well too. And while there’s still no real answer to why Xavier is alive in his own form at the beginning of Days of Future Past, now it doesn’t really need explaining, which is annoying, but a let off for Singer. So what does it mean about the original trilogy? Well it appears to be null and void now. It never really happened, or perhaps it did? Back to the pebble theory, maybe with certain key points the river has manage to correct itself, without the awfulness of The Last Stand and such. But if Mystique and Magneto aren’t matey-mates any more, could it really have all happened? My head hurts. It appears irrelevant anyway. Apocalypse will continue the use of the First Class cast and be set 10 years following on from DOFP, and with this new younger cast Singer has already created a new, robust X-Men universe for future films to thrive on. X-Men has great momentum moving forward with the franchise and is reportedly set to build on that by featuring much younger versions of many of the key characters such as Jean, Storm and Cyclops. While Singer has hinted that some of the original cast are set to be apart of the film (Hugh Jackman is pretty much guaranteed) it will primarily focus on the younger cast.
#4: X-Men: Apocalypse
So that weird looking dude at the very end of the credits turned out to be none other than the title character of the next X-Men film, Apocalypse. Though it will be a completely different actor playing him due to the time jump. Not much else is known so far. We know we’ll be introduced once again to mutants like Gambit (Channing Tatum) and Quicksilver will be given a larger role after his stand out performance in Days of Future Past. The big question will inevitably be will Magneto and Mystique reunite? Will Xavier and Mystique reunite? What is Mystique planning on doing with 1970’s Wolverine? When will James McAvoy start going bald? All these questions yet to be answered. This will be the real test for Bryan Singer, how much (if at all) will the rippled water correct itself?
Days of Future Past was big, bright and ambitious. There’s no reason why Apocalypse can’t go even bigger, Bryan Singer is like the philanthropist of the comic book world. Without him and his original X-Men vision, it might not be the beast it is today, or at the very least wouldn’t have received the jump-start it did. Everything needs to be right about Apocalypse now, the big questions needs to be answered and just like The Avengers project, everything needs to start living in the same universe, which means the next Wolverine sequel needs to work directly hand-in-hand with these new films because they’ve gone and used their one and only reset with X-Men: Days of Future Past.
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