“X-Men: Days of Future Past” (2014) is the most ambitious and complex “X-Men” movie, and “The Rogue Cut” – released last month on DVD and Bluray – only emphasizes that further.
The 17-minutes-longer “Rogue Cut” doesn’t merely restore the deleted sequence of Magneto and Bobby rescuing Rogue, who they need to take Kitty’s powers and continue to stabilize Wolverine’s mind. It also rewrites the movie, since in the original version, Kitty is able to hold on and Rogue is not needed.
As a consequence, Bobby’s death scene is changed. The filmmakers also took the opportunity to restructure the film in other ways, moving around some scenes and adding a major new one where Beast and Mystique rekindle their “First Class” romance before Mystique smashes Cerebro.
“X-Men: Days of Future Past — The Rogue Cut” (2014)
Director: Bryan Singer
Writers: Simon Kinberg, Jane Goldman, Matthew Vaughn
Stars: Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Hugh Jackman
It’s up to a fan to decide if the original cut or “The Rogue Cut” fits into their personal canon. I favor “The Rogue Cut,” for the obvious reason that there’s now more Anna Paquin in the movie. While Rogue’s role is just to get rescued and then take over Kitty’s task, she’s also crucial to understanding the future Sentinel traits: These monsters were originally developed using Mystique’s DNA, but their ability to take on various mutants’ powers comes from Rogue’s DNA.
THE STORY
Picking up in 2023, about a decade after “The Wolverine,” and in 1973, about a decade after “First Class,” “Days of Future Past” blends the “old” and “young” “X-Men” actors and “modern” and “past” characters in a story that hits the reset button on the franchise via time travel.
In the original timeline, Mystique kills Trask, inadvertently accelerating the Sentinel program that leads to the post-apocalyptic future of 2023. In the reset timeline spurred by Wolverine mind-hopping into his younger self, the government arrests Trask and cancels the Sentinel program. Wolverine wakes up in a much better 2023: Xavier’s school is bustling, and even Jean Grey and Cyclops – who both died in “Last Stand” – are alive.
BEST GOOD GUY MUTANT
Quicksilver. The slow-motion sequence where Quicksilver uses his super-speed powers to topple a room full of guards and complete our heroes’ rescue of Magneto from the Pentagon is the best of the movie. In addition to the brilliant effects, we also get Evan Peters’ spot-on laconic expression, and it’s all set to Jim Croce’s “Time in a Bottle,” which sums up the 1970s, time travel and Quicksilver’s powers and attitude.
BEST BAD GUY MUTANT
Magneto. It’s hard to pick one for this category, as the film’s villain is the human Trask, and the enemy soldiers are robotic Sentinels (which, granted, are fused with mutant DNA in the future battles, but I hesitate to call them mutants). But Magneto does become a villain of sorts starting at the point where he shoots Mystique. He means well, but ultimately goes too far, thus putting him in the category of a bad guy mutant.
WORST MUTANT
Magneto. Again, it’s hard to pick one for this category, but again, I’ll go with Magneto, particularly his 2023 self.
Some critics have said the good guys – rather than using Quicksilver to rescue Magneto – would’ve been better off simply adding Quicksilver to their team. In the good guys’ defense, their goal was essentially to perform an intervention to convince Mystique to not kill Trask. They didn’t know Magneto was going to shoot Mystique, and even Magneto didn’t know that action would set in motion another chain of events that would accelerate the Sentinel program.
That having been said, Future Magneto might have warned against the idea of rescuing his younger self during the planning session at the monastery. Not that he could have known about the chain of events that followed his wounding of Mystique, but he perhaps should’ve known his 1973 self was not to be trusted.
Then again, I’m being picky for the sake of having an entry in this category.
BEST NON-MUTANT
Dr. Bolivar Trask. Although Peter Dinklage sports a great ‘stache in this movie, Trask is the opposite of a mustache-twirling villain. Based on evidence such as Magneto’s assassination attempt on JFK (which we learn from Magneto was a misunderstanding – he was actually trying to save JFK, who was a mutant), the weapons designer truly believes mutants are a threat and thus devises the Sentinels to protect the American populace. His argument about using robots instead of human soldiers on the battlefield is even more compelling.
MOST UNDERUSED MUTANT
Blink. In the original cut, the answer is Rogue. But since “The Rogue Cut” rectifies that problem, I’ll go with Blink as the most underused mutant. Her power of opening portals in space is cool, and it’s nicely rendered by the effects crew in the opening sequence. And Bingbing Fan totally looks the part of a comic superhero brought to life.
CONTINUITY NOTES AND ODDITIES
It makes a certain amount of sense for our heroes to try to rewrite history by wiping out the Sentinel program at its inception in 1973. Another option, not presented in the movie, is to try to erase the resurrection of the Sentinel program, which had to have happened between “The Wolverine” and this movie.
After all, the Sentinels are not mentioned as an option by the government’s anti-mutant faction in “Origins: Wolverine,” “X-Men,” “X2,” “The Last Stand” or “The Wolverine,” so the program had to have been resurrected after “The Wolverine,” although the details are not touched on in “Days of Future Past.” (As a side bit of trivia, we know from “The Last Stand” that Xavier and his students are aware of the Sentinels before their resurrection, as a Sentinel is used in the Danger Room sequence.)
One explanation for the Sentinels being taken out of mothballs is that the Bolivar Trask from “The Last Stand” is a relative of Dinklage’s character of the same name (he’s a large black man while the original Trask is a little-person white man, but there could’ve been an adoption along the way) and he restarted the Sentinel program.
Perhaps he did so after the failure of the mutant “cure” from “The Last Stand.” The cure started to fail even at the end of that movie, when Magneto is able to move a metal chess piece, although beyond that, the failure of the cure hasn’t been explored in any story. But clearly, both Rogue and Magneto have their powers back in “Future Past” despite being “cured” in “Last Stand.”
Speaking of huge plot points that are barely touched on, Xavier is just fine in 2023 despite being killed in “The Last Stand.” We knew he was resurrected thanks to the post-credits scene of “The Wolverine.” Logan asks “How is this possible?” and Xavier gives a vague metaphysical answer. Fans have theorized that Xavier’s mind went into the body of his braindead twin, based on vague references in “The Last Stand.” Presumably, Xavier’s allies in “Days of Future Past” know the story of his resurrection, but weirdly, we movie-watchers haven’t been made privy to the details.
Except for Mystique, all of Magneto’s allies from “First Class” are dead, as we learn from Trask’s files and through Magneto’s conversation with Xavier on the plane. The dispatching of Angel, Azazel and Riptide is comparable to Newt and Hicks being killed off-screen between “Aliens” and “Alien 3.” While Magneto’s allies were supporting characters rather than main characters, they were interesting enough to be further explored in a sequel.
Banshee and Havok, two surviving Xavier allies from “First Class,” aren’t mentioned in the 1973 portion of “Days of Future Past.” The good news is – unlike Magneto’s allies — they could presumably return in “Apocalypse.” Havok, played by a different actor of course, is one of the X-Men fighting at the monastery in the 2023 scene.
Some major characters who were alive and well at the end of “Last Stand,” notably Beast, aren’t in the 2023 monastery battle. Presumably this is because they are either dead or fighting the Sentinels on another front. Xavier believes Rogue to be dead before Bobby and Magneto successfully rescue her. “The Rogue Cut” features a shrine to deceased X-Men in the monastery. Perhaps a close look would reveal Beast is on it. At any rate, he is alive and well – and played by Kelsey Grammer in a cameo — after the successful timeline reset.
What’s the deal with how the U.S. government authorities view Magneto? He’s moving around out in the open in “X-Men” in 2000. Perhaps he was cleared in the JFK case off-screen, and after lying low for a few decades, Magneto would certainly be able to surprise the New York police – not privy to federal government secrets — with his powers. But it’s still a big chunk of backstory that hasn’t been revealed.
Having stopped the Sentinel program, quashed Magneto’s takeover of the Sentinels and then saved Wolverine’s life – disguised as Stryker — in the last scene before the credits, Mystique is clearly a good guy. While she doesn’t choose a side in the emerging Magneto-Xavier rift, there’s absolutely no sense that she would choose Magneto’s side.
Yet she is his right-hand woman in 2000’s “X-Men.” We know that Magneto and Xavier are allies again in the 1980s (from “The Last Stand’s” Jean Grey recruitment flashback), so we know there are shifting allegiances between “Days of Future Past” and the original “X-Men.” But still, we are missing a linking story explaining why Magneto and Mystique teamed up and broke ties with Xavier.
Wolverine loses his adamantium claws in “The Wolverine” and reverts to simply having bone claws. In “Future Past,” he inexplicably has adamantium claws again. While there are ways to explain this, including Magneto doing some sort of metal manipulation to restore the adamantium claws, it goes utterly unaddressed in the movie.
Before this movie, Kitty Pryde’s power was phasing through walls and other solid objects. Now she can also send people’s minds (or at least Wolverine’s, due to his healing factor) back through time. No reference is made to how or why Kitty has this additional power, which is often referred to by fans as a “secondary mutation.” Comic-book Kitty does not have this secondary power.
The filmmakers used Kitty in this role so she’d be prominent in the story, as a nod to the fact that she, rather than Wolverine, is the time-traveler in the “Days of Future Past” comic. Rachel Summers – the daughter of Scott and Jean in the comic – performs Kitty’s role in the comic (sending Kitty’s mind back through time, rather than Wolverine’s), but the filmmakers decided that introducing such an important new character would’ve been too much for this already overloaded film. I suppose that’s understandable.
WHERE IT RANKS
The unanswered continuity points (which puts it on par with most “X-Men” films) are frustrating. Although I understand it would be impossible to answer them all in this film, it’s disappointing to realize they probably will never be answered on screen, unless there are some sort of special edition versions of these first seven films down the road. “Days of Future Past” concludes with a clear happy ending in 2023, and the next film, “Apocalypse,” will continue from the reset 1970s timeline into the 1980s.
Still, this is the biggest and best “X-Men” movie in both ambition and execution. Who would’ve thought in the wake of 2000’s solid but simple original entry that we’d someday get such rich backstories for characters that were initially action figures brought to life — particularly Mystique, Magneto and Xavier? Plus, I’m a continuity nut, so I resist flat-out reboots. “Days of Future Past” respects the previous films, ties together the “past” and “present” eras and resets the stage for next year’s “Apocalypse.” Like “Star Trek” (2009) and “Terminator Genisys,” it’s a soft reboot that allows for fresh stories but doesn’t toss out the established continuity.
My rankings of the seven “X-Men” films on this original continuity are 1) “Days of Future Past,” 2) “First Class,” 3) “X-Men,” 4) “The Wolverine,” 5) “The Last Stand,” 6) “X2” and 7) “Origins: Wolverine.”
How do you rank the seven films? And what are your theories about the saga’s unresolved plot holes? Share your thoughts below.