So what follows is not meant to nitpick the plot ofFuture Past.
I borrowed a piece of binder paper and attempted to graph the timeline.
If you stuck around through the credits, here is what you saw:
Shots of the desert.
Shots of a strange, shadowy figure atop a dune.
(No, they were not chanting “Deshi Basara.")
We already know that 2016’sX-Mensequel will be calledX-Men: Apocalypse.
Immortal, he haunts human history, less a supervillain than a dark god.
Apocalypse is a bad guy on a radically different level from anything else the Movie X-Men have ever faced.
He wants to conquer the world, but that’s a relatively minor ambition for him.
(He’s like a Darwinist one-percenter.)
Will it be Magneto?
PART TWO: WHAT THE HELL HAS HAPPENED TO THE SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM?
“Days of Future Past” was originally a two-issue story arc, appearing inUncanny X-Men#141-142.
Fortunately for the X-Men, they have Rachel Summers, daughter of Cyclops, and Jean Grey.
Like her mother, Rachel’s a mega-powerful telepath.
Kitty works with the present-day X-Men.
They stop Mystique; Future Kitty’s consciousness disappears.
Some broad strokes remain in the big-screenFuture Past.
(We’re meant to understand that this experimentation was happening offscreen during the entire firstX-Mentrilogy.)
Now, Wolverine manages to stop Mystique from killing Trask in Paris.
This erases the original timelinebut it doesn’t solve the problem.
President Nixon freaks out and tells Trask that actually, hewouldlike to launch the Sentinel program.
The dark future hasn’t been savedif anything, it might actually bedarker.
it’s possible for you to delay it: it’s possible for you to’t prevent it.
So Wolverine and Professor X travel to Washington DC, to stop Mystique from assassinating Traskagain.
Problem: Young Magnetoalsowants to assassinate someone.
But he’s setting his sights higher: He wants to kill the President.
But this doesn’t happen.
Again, it all comes back to Mystique.
Once again, she holds a gun on Trask.
And this time, shedoesn’tkill him.
We are meant to understand that this changes everything.
Instead, we see Wolverine wake up.
He is inside the X-mansion.
He sees Storm, Beast, Iceman, Rogue, Colossus, and Kitty Pryde.
She looks happy to see him.
Wolverine touches her…and thenCYCLOPS APPEARS.
Wolverine goes to see Professor X.
He explains to the Professor that he doesn’t remember anything about the last 50 years.
Hedoesremember the original timeline, and hedoesremember traveling back in time and sinking to the bottom of the Potomac.
Wolverine gets plucked out of the Potomac by William Stryker.
Stryker turns to the camera…and his eyes glow yellow, revealing that Stryker is actually Mystique.
The closing narration clearly establishes that the past is now as mysterious as the future.
Roughly paraphrased: “Everything you think happened in theX-Menuniverse between 1973 and 2023 might be changed now.
But we leave her with Wolverineand here’s where things get hazy.
InX-Men Origins: Wolverine, Logan meets William Stryker sometime in the early ’70s, in Vietnam.
Yadda yadda yadda, he gets amnesia and wanders the earth untilX-Men 1.
InOrigins, Stryker is played by 47-year-old Danny Huston; inFuture Past, he’s 28-year-old Josh Helman.
ButFuture Pastdoes explicitly reference Brian Cox-as-Stryker inX2.
SoX-Men Origins: Wolverinedidn’t happen?
But what aboutThe Wolverine?
The character has been resurrected so many times in comic book form.
But again, this will never happen, because everyone just wants to forgetThe Last Stand.
What does this mean for the 2017Wolverinethreequel?
The nextWolverinecould take place during that two-year period.
Or it could take place anytime in the half-century between 1973 andFuture Past.
At the end ofThe Wolverine, Logan has bone claws.
In the dark future ofFuture Past, he has adamantium claws.
Um, maybe Magneto gave him adamantium claws?
Like, he just had some adamantium lying around?
Does Bright Future Wolverine have adamantium claws?
We don’t know.
Because they’re awesome.
Aw man, I love Havok.
InDays of Future Past’s dark future, Professor X is alive and in his own body.
How is this possible?
But then why would he still be in a wheelchair?
What does this ending mean forX-Men: Apocalypse?
Bryan Singer told EW’s Tim Stack that the next movie will be set in the 1980s.
But Singer also established that he wants to bring in “familiar characters at different ages.”
Because the original X-trilogy has now been tweaked, that means that anyone is on the table.
So there is hope for Lupita Nyong’o as Young Storm, guys!
Does Rogue still have her powers, or did she still get the mutant cure?
Hey, but, like, Blink was really cool!
