# X-Men: Days of Future Past (spoilers included) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 23, 2014, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-men-days-of-future-past-spoilers-included/689079 "2014-05-23T11:12:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-men-days-of-future-past-spoilers-included/689079/221 "2014-07-04T13:11:28Z")
> [@Mince](#): > > At the end of DOFP, Rogue still did not have her powers which she voluntarily gave up in _The Last Stand_. We know she didn’t have her powers because she was holding Bobby Drake’s hand with a glove-less hand. She had gloves on…though I admit I’m not 100% sure. I could have sworn she was wearing gloves, meaning her powers are back(uh…were never lost). ---
**Author:** ![emarkp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3be4f8/32.png) [@emarkp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emarkp)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-men-days-of-future-past-spoilers-included/689079/222 "2014-07-04T15:54:51Z")
> [@Mince](#): > > But interestingly, Wolverine said in DOFP, in the scene when they stop Mystique from shooting Trask in the hotel room, that he just saw someone (in a memory) who is going to cause him a lot of pain some day. That is bizarre, considering he underwent the adamantium treatment voluntarily. …which was painful. And then there’s the events of X2, which weren’t exactly a treat. But yah, old Wolvie is of the original timeline, and Kitty specifically said that the traveler’s changes wouldn’t apply until she brought his mind out of the past. So while arbitrary, at least they set it up in-universe. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-men-days-of-future-past-spoilers-included/689079/223 "2014-07-04T17:44:31Z")
> [@Mince](#): > > What the hell happened between 1962 and 1973? > > At the end of First Class, Lehnsherr and Xavier parted, but they were still tentative friends. In DOFP, they hated each other and (apparently) several mutants died because of X and several humans died because of Erik. There seems to be a whole other movie missing here. Instead, the producers write it off with a “just trust us” scene or two in DOFP. _Tentative friends?_ At the end of _First Class_, Erik crippled Charles, stole his girlfriend, and tried to start WWIII. I think their friendship was pretty much done at that point. > [@](#): > > And what happened after 1962 (original time-line)? In DOFP, Hank asked Wolverine if he made it and Wolverine said “No.” Huh, what the hell happened to Beast and when? He’s not asking about something that happened in the past, he’s asking about something that happens in the future. When Hank asks, “Did I make it,” he’s asking, “Did I survive the global genocidal war that’s all but eradicated the mutant race?” Apparently, he did not. > [@](#): > > When, and how, did Erik and X become buddies (after the events of the original 3 movies, when they were bitter enemies)? Charles and Erik are interesting enemies because they’re both pursuing the same goal: the protection and nurturing of the mutant race. The source of the conflict between them is the possibility of a future war between humans and mutants. Charles thinks the war can be avoided, and that mutants and humans can coexist peacefully. Erik thinks the war is inevitable, and the best chance the mutants have to survive it is to strike first, before humanity is ready. In the portions of the movie set in the future, this conflict no longer means anything. The war has already happened, and the mutants have lost. With the central conflict between them resolved, there’s nothing preventing them from working together on their shared goal: saving the few mutants still living on Earth. I don’t think any of that really needed to be explicitly stated in the movie, though. The general point is that, in the future, things are so bad that even bitter enemies must work together to survive. Because the whole point of the movie is to make sure that future never happens, there’s no point in spending too much time setting up the specific scenarios where these changes happened. > [@](#): > > How did Magneto get his powers back? He got them back in the same movie he lost them: his last scene in X3 showed him manipulating a metal chess piece with his power, indicating that the anti-mutant serum was not permanent, and was already starting to wear off. > [@](#): > > How was X resurrected? Also resolved in X3. He projected his mind into the body of the comatose patient seen earlier in the film. At the end of the film, the patient wakes up and speaks in Patrick Stewart’s voice. Him still being in a wheelchair can be handwaved away as an effect of the accident that put the patient into a coma in the first place. Why he still looks like Patrick Stewart is, admittedly, inexplicable, but it gets Patrick Stewart back in the franchise, so I can’t complain too much. > [@](#): > > That was my initial though also, but breaking into the Pentagon was pretty dangerous. X, Wolverine, and Hank never revealed to QS the overall mission or its importance, at least not on-screen. In QS’s last scene, he asked why they were going to Paris. Why they chose not to reveal their mission to QS and enlist his help is an unanswered question. Now, that’s a bit of a hole. My best guess is they weren’t expecting to fight anyone in Paris, and figured fewer strangers around would make it easier to talk Mystique down. But that’s pretty weak. > [@](#): > > It cheapens the narrative. Anytime anything adverse happens, she can just port someone to the past to gain a favorable result. Except she explicitly can’t: the big risk in sending Wolverine back to the '70s is that she won’t be able to use her powers to undo the incoming Sentinal attack. > [@](#): > > But interestingly, Wolverine said in DOFP, in the scene when they stop Mystique from shooting Trask in the hotel room, that he just saw someone (in a memory) who is going to cause him a lot of pain some day. That is bizarre, considering he underwent the adamantium treatment voluntarily. Like **emarkp** said, even if it was voluntary, it still hurt. And the adamantium booster shot was hardly the only thing Stryker ever did to hurt Wolverine - arguably, it wasn’t even the worst. > [@](#): > > We know from the narrative that Mystique dropping the gun in the end eliminated the Sentinels; but what else did it change? Scott Summers and Jean Grey were not killed by Sentinels (they were killed by other X-Men–Scott by Jean, and Jean by Wolverine), but they were alive again, so Mystique’s choice obviously had more of an effect than just stopping the Sentinel program. At the end of DOFP, Rogue still did not have her powers which she voluntarily gave up in The Last Stand. We know she didn’t have her powers because she was holding Bobby Drake’s hand with a glove-less hand. This may seem like a nitpick, but it also seems the producers of DOFP thought it important enough to focus on at the end of DOFP. > > The effects of the actions in DOFP seem to be almost random, unknown (even to the producers), fiat, convoluted, and willy-nilly. That’s pretty much the original time travel trope, though, isn’t it? Minor changes in the past having unforeseeable consequences in the future? Go back in time and step on a butterfly, and when you go home it turns out that the Nazis won WWII. I mean, one major change: Hank McCoy wasn’t working with the X-Men in the first two movie, but he was one of Charles’s oldest friends, and the only one who was sticking by him when he was wallowing in his depression. Apparently, in the original time line, Hank got fed up and left, and Charles had to pull his own shit together. In the new timeline, Wolverine showed up and forced Charles to shape up, so Hank never left. In this new timeline, he’s presumably present when Magneto attacks New York in the first X-Men movie, and is there at Alkali lake in the second. his presence there would almost certainly dramatically alter how those events played out, if they even occurred at all. Plus, like **KarlGrenze** said, Charles read Wolverine’s mind, and so has some degree of foreknowledge of what’s going to happen, and can use that knowledge to avoid some of these tragedies. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-men-days-of-future-past-spoilers-included/689079/224 "2014-07-04T21:33:54Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > \ > Charles and Erik are interesting enemies because they’re both pursuing the same goal: the protection and nurturing of the mutant race. The source of the conflict between them is the possibility of a future war between humans and mutants. Charles thinks the war can be avoided, and that mutants and humans can coexist peacefully. Erik thinks the war is inevitable, and the best chance the mutants have to survive it is to strike first, before humanity is ready. In the portions of the movie set in the future, this conflict no longer means anything. The war has already happened, and the mutants have lost. With the central conflict between them resolved, there’s nothing preventing them from working together on their shared goal: saving the few mutants still living on Earth.\ To strike a rather crude (not as in crass) analogy, Professor X is MLK, and Magneto is Malcolm X. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-men-days-of-future-past-spoilers-included/689079/225 "2014-07-04T22:24:49Z")
I am right that Rogue had gloves on at the end, though, right? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2014, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-men-days-of-future-past-spoilers-included/689079/226 "2014-07-05T15:46:54Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > I am right that Rogue had gloves on at the end, though, right? My memory is that she didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2014, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-men-days-of-future-past-spoilers-included/689079/227 "2014-07-05T18:59:00Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > My memory is that she didn’t. [This wiki agrees with you and suggests she has learned to control her powers.](http://xmenmovies.wikia.com/wiki/Rogue) ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-men-days-of-future-past-spoilers-included/689079/228 "2014-07-06T00:53:39Z")
Saw it today, liked it, not a big comic book film person but the family wanted to go and I wanted to be with them, so there it was. Last X-Men movie I saw, Magneto moved the Golden Gate Bridge. In this one, he moved the stadium. Is this something (moving big things) he does every movie? And how does he fly? Being a many-worlds hypothesis guy when it comes to time travel stories, this one only bothered me at the end: there was no need to have everybody disappear like that when the sentinels were about to deliver the final blow. Since none of the “future” characters remembered anything that happened in the 1973 timeline, what was happening in 1973 had no more relevance to their lives than things occurring in 2473. But cinematicaly, yes, I understand the need. But it still was wrong. 🙂 Lastly, a minor nitpick: Just because the guy moves fast doesn’t mean the Pong machine gets to start acting like it’s a souped up quad-core Pentium running a MAME emulator with incorrect settings. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-men-days-of-future-past-spoilers-included/689079/229 "2014-07-06T01:40:53Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Last X-Men movie I saw, Magneto moved the Golden Gate Bridge. In this one, he moved the stadium. Is this something (moving big things) he does every movie? And how does he fly? He’s not flying - he’s moving the Earth. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![yellowjacketcoder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/4bbf92/32.png) [@yellowjacketcoder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowjacketcoder)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-men-days-of-future-past-spoilers-included/689079/230 "2014-07-06T03:16:18Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > And how does he fly? He wears clothing with metal in it. He’s not flying, he’s moving his clothing, which he happens to be wearing, around. > [@JohnT](#): > > Lastly, a minor nitpick: Just because the guy moves fast doesn’t mean the Pong machine gets to start acting like it’s a souped up quad-core Pentium running a MAME emulator with incorrect settings. 😉 Quicksilver probably overclocked the thing. Or stole the fastest prototype chip he could find and upgraded the machine himself. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-men-days-of-future-past-spoilers-included/689079/231 "2014-07-06T04:17:11Z")
😃 Seriously though, there were no microprocessors involved in the original Pong machine, and the fastest prototype chip he could steal was probably an 8-bit 4004 microprocessor from Intel. The max speed on one of those was a blisteringly fast 750khz and there is no way he could have sped up the machine to be able to play at his “super speed.” It just wasn’t possible. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-men-days-of-future-past-spoilers-included/689079/232 "2014-07-06T13:54:29Z")
_That’s_ where your disbelief can’t be suspended anymore? You’re okay with people growing claws and reading minds and flying and picking up an entire stadium and so forth? But Pong was too fast for the technology?? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2014, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-men-days-of-future-past-spoilers-included/689079/233 "2014-07-06T21:39:23Z")
Yup. I can accept physics violations when they are for story and plot needs. But when you start F-ing with real-world physics in things that are not germane to the story and plot… yeah, that’s where they tend to lose me. It’s like that train fight scene in Spiderman 2 - I can accept the radioactive spider bite, Doc Ock still being alive and functional as Spidey is punching him in the face (despite SM having super strength and all that), etc, as those violations of physics are necessary for the story. [But when Doc Ock throws Spiderman forward, only to have Spidey catch Doc Ock from behind as Spidey lands](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z00fTwhmYX0&t=1m35s) … yeah, that’s when I call bullshit. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Mince](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@Mince](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mince)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-men-days-of-future-past-spoilers-included/689079/234 "2014-07-07T02:49:54Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > _That’s_ where your disbelief can’t be suspended anymore? You’re okay with people growing claws and reading minds and flying and picking up an entire stadium and so forth? But Pong was too fast for the technology?? > > 🙂 He has a point. In the context of the movie, their powers are explained: genetic mutation. But the super fast Pong has no explanation. It is not affected by Quicksilver’s speed, Wolverine’s claws or X’s mind. ---
**Author:** ![Mince](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@Mince](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mince)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-men-days-of-future-past-spoilers-included/689079/235 "2014-07-07T03:40:11Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > She had gloves on…though I admit I’m not 100% sure. I could have sworn she was wearing gloves, meaning her powers are back(uh…were never lost). I saw the movie again today. It is very difficult to tell, even when looking for it, but it does seem Rogue had her gloves on. That means she still has her powers and is still unable to control them. Or she was headed outside on a very cold day, in which case all bets are off. [QUOTE=Miller] Tentative friends? At the end of First Class, Erik crippled Charles, stole his girlfriend, and tried to start WWIII. I think their friendship was pretty much done at that point. [/QUOTE] Reevaluate the beach scene. Lehnsherr was protecting himself and unintentionally deflected a bullet into Charles. After, he cradled him and apologized. Raven _chose_ to go with Lehnsherr, Charles even suggested she do so, because that’s what she wanted. When Erik and Charles parted at the end of _First Class_, there was no where near the animosity that was depicted in the early X-Men films and DOFP. Some intervening events happened to reach that state, which was never fully explained, just alluded to in a few scenes in DOFP. It was either an oversight on the part of the producers or some plot device. Either way, it’s pretty unsavory. At the end of _The Wolverine,_ the credit scene hinted that X and Magneto were allied, but again, no explanation was given for it. I’m probably being pretty neurotic here, but I want show, not tell. [QUOTE=MrKnowItAll] I was really distracted with the whole Kitty Pryde time travel thing. I mean, yeah they had to have some way to do it… [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Mince] It cheapens the narrative. Anytime anything adverse happens, she can just port someone to the past to gain a favorable result. [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Miller] Except she explicitly can’t: the big risk in sending Wolverine back to the '70s is that she won’t be able to use her powers to undo the incoming Sentinal attack. [/QUOTE] But now the Sentinels are gone. Imagine Beast is taking a casual walk through the park, you know how he loves the park. He steps on a rusty [pull-tab](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Beverage_pull_tab.jpg) from a can of Schlitz, cuts his foot, and develops an infection. He checks into Mutant General where he contracts a staph infection and dies. Upset, Wolverine strolls over to Kitty’s house on a lazy, sunny, Sunday morning. They gather in her sun room where she sends Wolverine to the past an hour before Beast’s fatal walk. Wolverine picks up the pull-tab, waits for Beast to pass, then returns to the future where Beast is now alive. Such possibilities reduce the significance of events because of the possibility of easily correcting these events. I guess that is the inherent problem with most of the mutant’s superhuman abilities, if they used them to potential, there wouldn’t be much conflict, unless among themselves. Why couldn’t X just influence Trask to abandon his project and join the mutant cause. But I think therein lies the root of mutanism, they mostly didn’t abuse their powers to affect humanity, it was mostly a defensive mechanism. You say Lehnsherr crippled Charles and tried to start WWIII; but in each instance, wasn’t he just protecting himself from unprovoked attack? Charles even recognized that the humans were the first aggressors. The Russians and Americans who shot the missiles on the beach and the CIA agent who shot at Lehnsherr. I’m pretty sure there is a whole other movie missing here that the producers are either saving for a “gotcha” or just flippantly abandoned in favor of a new narrative. ---
**Author:** ![Mince](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@Mince](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mince)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-men-days-of-future-past-spoilers-included/689079/236 "2014-07-07T03:52:52Z")
> [@KarlGrenze](#): > > Young Xavier, when he entered Wolverine’s mind, saw all that had happened in the other movies, so he would be in a position to know perhaps what not to do and avoid Phoenix. I can subscribe to this opinion, though Jean Grey lives again; I wonder what will prevent Phoenix from doing the same. ---
**Author:** ![emarkp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3be4f8/32.png) [@emarkp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emarkp)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-men-days-of-future-past-spoilers-included/689079/237 "2014-07-07T04:08:52Z")
> [@Mince](#): > > Lehnsherr was protecting himself and unintentionally deflected a bullet into Charles. Incorrect. He stopped defending against the missles and turned to counterattacking. At which point Moira was defending the fleet by shooting at Eric. Why did Eric deflect those bullets instead of stopping them like he had so much else? Shrug. > [@](#): > > I’m pretty sure there is a whole other movie missing here that the producers are either saving for a “gotcha” or just flippantly abandoned in favor of a new narrative. I’ll point to choice B. I think they said, “we could burn 60 minutes explaining stuff, but that wouldn’t be a fun movie.” IMO we didn’t get a fun movie either. It was about half of a fun movie, with a lot of muddle between two other movies. ---
**Author:** ![Mince](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@Mince](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mince)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-men-days-of-future-past-spoilers-included/689079/238 "2014-07-07T04:31:19Z")
> [@emarkp](#): > > Incorrect. He stopped defending against the missles and turned to counterattacking. At which point Moira was defending the fleet by shooting at Eric. Yes, but killing someone who is trying to kill you is still “defense.” > [@](#): > > Why did Eric deflect those bullets instead of stopping them like he had so much else? Shrug. Plot, of course. How else would Charles have gotten crippled? Sure, it could have been a fall down those significant flight of stairs he has in his institution, but it wouldn’t have set up such a delicious conflict. Incidentally, Charles never blames Erik for crippling him, at least not on camera. Not even a hint. Maybe it was because the cure (developed by Beast) rid him of his mind powers, which he very much abhorred. ---
**Author:** ![oft\_wears\_hats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7993a0/32.png) [@oft\_wears\_hats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oft_wears_hats)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2014, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-men-days-of-future-past-spoilers-included/689079/239 "2014-07-08T12:49:53Z")
> [@Mince](#): > > Yes, but killing someone who is trying to kill you is still “defense.” > > Plot, of course. How else would Charles have gotten crippled? Sure, it could have been a fall down those significant flight of stairs he has in his institution, but it wouldn’t have set up such a delicious conflict. > > Incidentally, Charles never blames Erik for crippling him, at least not on camera. Not even a hint. Maybe it was because the cure (developed by Beast) rid him of his mind powers, which he very much abhorred. Charles’ angst over his powers did feel kind of off to me. He’s always been portrayed as being very comfortable with his powers (and also a starry-eyed idealist), but because the DOFP plot required it, he’s moping around for the first half. It felt a little contrived. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2014, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-men-days-of-future-past-spoilers-included/689079/240 "2014-07-08T14:34:45Z")
> [@leahcim](#): > > I assume that he lost and reacquired them at least a dozen times in the interim. It’s like his keys - he kept leaving them in his other pants. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-men-days-of-future-past-spoilers-included/689079.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/x-men-days-of-future-past-spoilers-included/689079.md?page=13)