X-Men: Days of Future Past

Funny, Last Stand was my introduction to the franchise and was my favorite for a time. First Class bothered me because of Xavier's portrayal, his backstory with Mystique, the villain, the mutants that were introduced, Darwin's death, the disconnection from the previous films, Beast's new portrayal, and the final battle.

• I don't like the way Xavier was portrayed in the beginning, this cocky telepathic womanizer.
• Unless it's a comic book thing, I've never seen any connection between Xavier and Mystique, so the whole "they were childhood friends" backstory rubbed me the wrong way, especially since that was never implied in the original trilogy.
• Sebastian Shaw was not my cup of tea.
• They introduced lame mutants like Banshee and Angel (not the Angel either), most of whom had bridges dropped on them in DOFP.
• They killed off Darwin like it was nothing, despite him having a power that was very self-preservative.
• The whole plot clashes with Xavier and Magneto going to visit Jean in X-3, and Emma Frost is here when we saw her in Origins (which, at the time, wasn't so Canon Discontinuous in relation to the previous films.
• The final battle, while badass... well... this is a good summary.
• Kelsey Grammer was an awesome Beast, and then they went with the new guy, this awkward scientist guy whose afraid of his powers - such a little bitch compared to the man he grows up to be (they fixed him in DOFP). His costume was better in TLS than FC.

Upon further rewatches:

I like Xavier and Magneto's character development, the introduction of Cerebro, Wolverine's cameo, Havok, Shaw's death scene, Azazel, the badassery when Magneto asked Charles to shoot him in the face, and the Bittersweet Ending. So I'll place it higher than Origins because, seriously, f'ck Gambit and Deadpool.

DOFP was clever, one big Retcon that allowed several actors to appear in the same movie. Pretty much what I loved about The Avengers and the Stage 1 films.

edited 18th Jun '14 12:26:37 PM by FOFD

Oh, so it's mainly due to inconsistencies with the earlier films. Like I said, I started watching with First Class, so it didn't bug me.

I liked that Xavier was, in many ways, an insensitive jackass. It made the split between him and Erik less "Erik turns evil" and more something that was the result of both of their character flaws - Erik's lack of hope that humanity can ever be any better than what he's seen from them (as observed in the earlier movies) and Charles' naivety and lack of understanding for people who have had to face things he's never had to worry about.

(The Xavier and Mystique thing was completely new, not present in the movies or the comic books.)

edited 18th Jun '14 12:54:07 PM by WarriorEowyn

My Introductory film was X2: X-Men United so I was given an unusually high bar for X-men movies.

The inconsistencies didn't bug me becuase when First Class came out I assumed it was a reboot and loved it for it becuase it meant I could pretend X3 never happened.

I didn't count on it being an in-universe reboot so it means I can say X3 never happened and the series will validate me.

edited 18th Jun '14 4:02:03 PM by MousaThe14

The best part of DOFP is unquestionably that Jean is back.

Do I still need to spoiler tag that?

I've sort of been watching the X-Men movies from early on (I caught 1 and 2 on DVD, saw them in theaters from 3-on), and at present First Class is currently my favorite. I'm still planning on seeing Do FP again, though, so there's a chance it might grow on me more yet.

Shaw was Kevin Bacon. How can anyone not like him? D=

We will be getting a Director's Cut with Rogue's scenes restored.

I would rank them:

1) X2 (a classic)

2) Days of Future Past (very fun)

3) X1 (pretty good)

4) X3 (not nearly as bad as people make it out to be) tied with First Class (not nearly as good as people make it out to be)

6) The Wolverine (started out kinda promising, kinda lost me towards the end)

7) Origins (utter trash)

Thank you.

Super-speed high-five!

edited 10th Jul '14 2:17:13 PM by FOFD

An article about a lot of elements from the screenplay that were cut.

Among other things, it looks like Havok was supposed to fall victim to Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome / Back for the Dead, Jubilee was supposed to have been part of Kitty's future X-Men, and the movie was supposed to end with Mystique actually rejoining the X-Men and returning to Westchester with Charles and Hank.

edited 10th Jul '14 6:41:21 PM by comicwriter

Shame Jubilee got cut. Would have been interesting to see her powers in combat.

Considering that Havok didn't really do anything in the movie, him dying probably wouldn't have made that much of a difference. The last one seems interesting.

I'm torn about Jubilee. On the one hand, it would be really wonderful to see Jubilee in the movies - which given the new timeline probably isn't going to happen at least until after the next movie.

One the other hand, her being in the future would mean we would have had to watch see her die, which would've been quite the punch in the gut, on top of all the other punches we got in those scenes.

edited 10th Jul '14 7:42:23 PM by KnownUnknown

Jubilee deserves better than that. I'm glad they didn't use her because it would mean she could only appear in films set in the present day at the earliest.

I'm a little surprised that people like Jubilee so much. I had thought she wasn't that well liked and/or a vampire now.

She's a Vampire, yeah, but I'm not sure how many people are happy about that.

As Marvel Vampires go, she's one I don't hate.

Do you half hate Blade?

Jubilee was in the 1990s X-men cartoon, which gets her a lot of residual support, I think. That's basically the 'default' X-men lineup in my head, seared into the flesh of my brain at age five.

Fair enough. Same happened to me.

She'll always be the teenage girl with the pink gloves, near-useless glasses, and goofy yellow coat.

Yeah, she kind of defines "Token Kid-Of-The-Team Character" for me. Seeing her get brutally killed onscreen would be like seeing something like that happen to Tails or something.

I really wish the future line up had Cannonball.

He would have wrecked a hell of a lot of sentinels, and his Invulnerability field is hard to counter.

....which is probably why he wasn't there. Good job answering your own question Rob.

Do a really good job driving home the idea of "bad future", though.

Now I wish Jubilee was in this movie. While I did like the 90's cartoon, I find it to have aged poorly and become a detriment to the comic franchise.

That being said, I like Vampire Jubilee. At least, when writers aren't pretending she isn't one.