I’m super excited about X-Men:
Days of Future Past. But I’m also a little nervous. Don’t worry, I’m not
THAT fanboy. I’m not so naïve as to go in with the expectation that it will be
a faithful adaptation of the classic storyline it’s named after. I’ve seen
enough superhero movies by now to know that the filmmakers borrow elements from
the comic and then run with their own ideas. But I’ve also gone into an X-Men
movie with high hopes and been burned by the scorching flames of the Phoenix
(more on that later).
After the disasters that were X-Men 3: The Last Stand and X-Men
Origins: Wolverine (the less said about the latter the better, so I won’t),
FOX kinda sorta wiped the slate clean with X-Men:
First Class, a major step in the right direction. While it wasn’t the X-Men
movie of my dreams, it came the closest since X2. Now the original X-Men director Bryan Singer has returned to
helm Days of Future Past, which is
the biggest X-Men movie to date, and has a lot riding on it. Singer, whose
potential hasn’t always lived up to my expectations after giving us The Usual Suspects, has directed one
mediocre X-Men movie (the original) and one good one (X2). Early word is this one is living up to the hype, so hopefully
he’s learned some new tricks during his absence from the franchise and this
will mark his triumphant return.
Now with a time travel element added to the mix, Singer
expressed the desire to “fix a few things,” specifically in regards to X3,
where he bowed out to direct the ill-fated Superman
Returns. This is something that gives me a lot of hope that Days of Future Past could achieve “X-Men
movie of my dreams” status. After I saw X3, I was pretty frustrated. The most
aggravating thing is that it started off on a high note. The beginning of the
movie dropped us right into the action with the X-Men in a Danger Room training
sequence ripped straight out of the pages of the Days of Future Past timeline.
They even had Colossus chuck Wolverine in a “fastball special” towards an
unseen robot assailant and afterwards a giant sentinel head came crashing down.
At this point in the movie I could not have been more pumped. This had to be
foreshadowing for more sentinels to come, right? It turns out all we got was a
head.
At least Days of
Future Past will deliver on the sentinels. Cyclops’ death marked the
downward plummet which the movie never recovers from. So many missed
opportunities and so many confusing and misguided decisions that I don’t know
where to begin (such as, how you can have Juggernaut and Colossus in a movie together and not have them fight?). I knew that if the X-Men
franchise would live on, that something had to change to justify what I had
just watched. But then it hit me. I knew how to fix X-Men; time travel!
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| The good news is we're getting Bishop minus the mullet |
It was too late to save X3, but it wasn’t too late for the
future of the X-Men movie franchise. I went as far as to outline my own spec
script for X-Men 4, which would involve the time traveling mutant, Bishop,
traveling back in time from a post-apocalyptic future, into the events of X3
(think Back to the Future Part II) to
correct all the mistakes. The fact that DoFP combines the new and old cast,
meant that we could create a new path for these characters and their fates. For
example, Professor Xavier dies in X3, one of the most pointless deaths scenes
in an X-Men movie to date. We fans know that Xavier’s death in the comics has
some major ramifications on the future, kicking off the Age of Apocalypse
storyline. So obviously killing off Xavier was a bad idea in the movie. But
what if we could take it back? Enter Bishop, who goes back to stop this from
occurring to try and prevent the post-apocalyptic future from ever existing.
Done. Next thing that needs fixing? The Phoenix Saga.
Fox really mangled this storyline. Honestly if you can’t do
something right, don’t do it at all, but they went for it and the result was
pretty pathetic. Worst of all, they tried to cram The Cure storyline into the
same movie with it. I think Harry Knowles of Ain’t It Cool said it best – It’s
like if MGM decided the James Bond franchise would conclude with Goldfinger but then wedged in a little Thunderball and a dash of Moonraker then called it a day. That’s
basically what X3 amounted to, just throwing everything at the wall with little
regard to what stuck.
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| THIS is the Rogue fans want to see on screen |
So Jean, as Phoenix, dies in the end by Wolverine’s hands
and that’s that. Jean dies in the comics so I won’t hold that against the
writers, but here’s an alternative solution – Rogue, up until this point, has
been one of the most boring characters in the movies, a complete contrast to
her spunky persona we comic fans had become accustomed to. They introduce her
with her original mutant power, the ability to absorb other mutants’ abilities,
which factors into the plot of the first movie. In X2, it’s obvious they didn’t
really know what to do with her, and they couldn’t take the time to introduce
Ms. Marvel and give Rogue her flying and super strength abilities - that would
have bogged the movie down. So let’s say, because this is a movie and not the
comics, as an alternative solution, we go back into X3 and she were to absorb
the Phoenix’s powers, in affect, saving Jean’s life and giving Rogue all her
powers, so she can finally become the kickass X-woman we know and love. How
cool would that have been to see an army of sentinels land on Alcatraz in the
final battle and Rogue flipping them over her shoulder? So, no, not exactly
like in the comics, but a way more satisfying outcome for Rogue’s development
as a mutant as opposed to getting cured and that’s it. Supposedly, Rogue was
cut out of DoFP and then added back in for a “pivotal scene,” so hopefully they
finally figured out what to do with her.
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| Cable and Wolverine share a moment in time |
As for Cyclops… he got the shaft in these movies, no more so
than in X3. He was barely there in X2 and then he’s unceremoniously killed off
in the first act of X3. The third movie pretty much became the Wolverine and
Storm show so I guess there was just not enough screen time to accommodate poor
Cyke. I attended a Comic Con panel where Zak Penn spoke about this and the way
he explained it was that they wanted a major character to die early on so right
off the bat, fans were given the heads up and that anything can and will happen
in this movie. More accurately, it was a scheduling conflict as when Singer
left to shoot Superman at the same time, he took James Marsden with him. This
is another major event that could have catastrophic repercussions on the
future. With no Scott Summers and no Jean Grey, that means no Cable, the future
leader of X-Force who is our best hope against a world ruled by Apocalypse.
Again, enter Bishop to save Cable’s parents from perishing and preventing the
world from going to hell. I understand that James Marsden won’t be in DoFP, so
that won’t be happening, but how cool would that be? Cable would be an awesome addition to the cast and would really help bridge the gap between the present day and the future.
So the good news is that Bishop is in this movie, and we
will have time traveling mutants, in this case Wolverine (who else?). I’m very
curious to see how this will tie in to Singer’s original cast and even though I
know it’s not necessarily the X-Men movie I would have written, I hope it
delivers. My expectations haven’t been this high since X3 so it’s got a lot to
live up to.
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