With X-Men: Days of Future Past releasing this weekend, almost EVERYONE is flocking to the cinemas to catch it. It’s so hard to get a seat for a time slot this weekend. Now if you are watching the movie this weekend – who say’s forward planning doesn’t pay off eh? – here’s a few things to help you appreciate the movie a little better – or at the very least keep you from being lost and turning over to the person next to you and asking, “what’s his power again?”.
The X-Men series (from X1 – X3 and then the Wolverine Origin Movies and First Class) in my opinion are a timeline mess. Now remember, this is before the days that Marvel Studios got together and produced a well co-ordinated series like the Avengers and the movies leading up to it. Even Sony, who own the rights for Spider-Man, realised they hit rock bottom with Spider-Man 3 and decided on a reboot with the Amazing Spider-Man. Twentieth Century Fox on the other hand, decided its fine to just pile on the contradictions and inaccuracies with the hope that it’ll cover up past mistakes and hopefully get it right one day – and they just might have got it right with Days of future Past.
Here are 5 Things You Need To Know BEFORE Watching X-Men: Days of future Past:
[divider]1. Timeline[/divider]
First, Days of Future Past takes place in 1973, a decade after “X-Men: First Class” and thirty years before the first “X-Men” movie. So this movie is set to bridge the years between that gap. This also means that you’ll get a whole lot more references if you’ve caught both movies. Remember it’s about movie knowledge and no- so-much comic knowledge.
[divider]2. Stryker[/divider]
Army Lieutenant and Bolivar Trask’s second-in-command, William Stryker is dedicated to preserving mankind from the growing mutant threat. Stryker’s been a real thorn in the X-Men’s side and been around since X2 where he was harvesting mutants to take down bigger, badder mutants like Magneto. He’s also the guy who put adamantium into Wolverine’s body. How’s that for being a general (or Colonel) pain in the butt.
[divider]3. The Sentinels[/divider]
The Sentinels are simply BADASS and probably the greatest weapon against mutant-kind – well they were developed specifically for mutant genocide. The Sentinels have evolved over the years from the huge titan like constructs that we grew to love and fear from the comics and the animated series to the extremely adaptive and versatile ones in the movie. And oh yes, they’re made by Bolivar Trask who’s played by Peter Dinklage.
[divider]4. X3 – The Last Stand does not exist[/divider]
Yup. Remember when I said that Twentieth Century Fox is just adding on films till they get it right (let’s see them fix Deadpool)? That’s basically what they did with this one. It seems like the events in X-Men 3 – The last stand just don’t seem to exist. Professor X was killed and Magneto severely de-powered. Both of whom have made miraculous recoveries to reprise their roles in this flick. Truthfully i’m glad… X3 was one f the worst X – movies to date…. comparable to Wolverine Origins.
[divider]5. Watch it to the end![/divider]
As popular trends go, especially with comic-book movies – stay seated till the END! I cannot emphasis this enough. If you do, you’ll see the teaser for X-Men: Apocalypse. You guessed it, the next instalment in the franchise will introduce the Big Kahuna of the X-Men villains – Apocalypse and his 4 horsemen! War, Death, Pestilence and Famine. Will this mark the return of Angel as Archangel? I don’t know… will be real cool though.
Well it looks like X-Men: Days of Future Past got it right and erased the failures of the earlier movies and has built a strong platform to re-launch the series into a new phase.