Amph X-Men Movies & TV - Discussion

Personally, that's dumb. It pretty much kills Jean and Scott yet again and erases most of the reason Logan went back in time in the first place (He went back in time to stop mutants from being wiped out. And then after his happy ending, all of them are wiped out again? I guess we assume Kitty and Rogue died before they could just go back in time again? Since Logan remembers they can do that.) if 90% of mutants are dead. It works better as an alternate to that happy ending no matter what- whether that makes it yet another timeline or part of the pre-DOFP timeline, that at least makes more sense.

 

A whole lot of these "The End" storylines (of which Old Man Logan is very much one and Logan seems to be the basis) involve one lone hero left while everyone else is dead. They have inherently bummer setups but it's really about the Future Old Hero having one last hurrah.

But anyway, everyone's story ends up with them dying. Except for Wolverine. And The Hulk.

 

Personally, it doesn't matter one whit in the end. I'm head-canoning it as an alternate timeline regardless how much the film or everyone else says otherwise.

 

Well, as mentioned earlier, Hank said that it is possible that no matter what one does, inevitably, time will go down a certain path. In this case, they just delayed the deaths of the X-Men and the Mutant population at large. Not prevented it all together.

 

MAH RESET BUTTON!!!

 

As Arnold would say, "Judgement Day is inevitable."

 

All film timelines for Marvel and DC properties are alternate timelines. There is only one true timeline, the comics!

 

cracks knuckles

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, for no real reason other than boredom. As far as I see it, the X-Men film series has three core protagonists: Wolverine, Professor X, and Magneto. I'd structure a viewing order so as to frame the narrative around them and their development as characters in the most organic way possible; it's really just release order except for in a few instances.
X-Men –> X-Men United –> The Last Stand –> The Wolverine –> First Class –> Days of Future Past –> Apocalypse –> Logan

Deadpool is removed for having nothing to do with this narrative (and also potentially being set in its own alt. universe), and X-Men Origins: Wolverine is removed for being utterly terrible, frequently and flagrantly contradicted, and useless to both the narrative and Wolverine's character development; he doesn't remember any of the events of the film, so what's the point? The other two Wolverine movies function as epilogues to the two core trilogies. The second trilogy really only functions as a trilogy in the loosest sense, in my opinion, but I keep it all together anyway instead of putting First Class at the start. The most important film there is Days of Future Past, with First Class and Apocalypse bookending it. While the 2023 portions of that film function as a continuation of the first four movies, First Class sets up the relationships that directly impact the 1973 portions and Apocalypse is the pay-off to the timeline change, showing that Magneto now abandons the life of violence and hatred that would have consumed him as in the first three movies. His story ostensibly concludes here, whereas Wolverine and Professor X's ends (supposedly) in Logan, which has seems to have some nice beginning-end parallelism with Wolverine protecting X-23 the way he protected Rogue in the first movie.

 

Good call on X1 bookending Logan (Logan has always had a habit of protecting young charges / falling in love with redheads). And you actually made me like where Magneto ends up in Apocalypse a bit more because the original timeline basically just leads to death, destruction and depowerment (and Old Mags says as much in DOFP) so even though Xavier letting Magneto go again may seem frustrating, one can view it as (young Mags) in FC / DOFP / Apocalypse as far as his darkness can take him so he can really only turn towards the light from his point on. Because his original path didn't turn out so well. Or, like you said, Mags story can kind of end at Apocalypse with an unknown future on the horizon for him.

I'd still say, if anything, Wolverine: Origins is important in the grand scheme if only for the opening scene with James Howlett and the Creed / Logan credit montage of war throughout the ages. But that's really only, like, 7 minutes tops.

 

Origins is required for some things in The Wolverine to make sense.

 

I can't think of one thing in The Wolverine that would fail to make sense without the context of Origins. I mean, in relation to the order I posted I'd tack it on as a prologue if it were included for completion's sake, but what wouldn't make sense?

 

I think one could do a jump from X-Men United to The Wolverine because, hey, Jean is still dead (okay, cusp of being resurrected) at the end of X2 just when the credits roll and she's dead at the start of The Wolverine. The angst from Wolverine being the one to kill her in X3 I think is filled in quite nicely with the flashbacks in The Wolverine.

Oh did anyone see The Red Band Logan trailer? Exact same (pretty much excellently done) trailer except there's a shot instead of Wolverine blocking a swipe with his claws he pops them through some dude's head. And, to be honest, I think the non-head splat shot in the Green band trailer kind of works better because it focuses on Logan enduring hardship (which is the trailer's vibe) as opposed to Logan engaging in violence.

 

His memories of Kayla.

 

That's a really quick moment, though. It's not like it's a visual flashback, you just hear the word "Kayla" twice while he's unconscious, and it's really easy to miss, too. Anyway, memories had been returning to him here and there throughout the film, so it could just be assumed that Kayla was someone from his past life. It's par the course for the character. But still, Origins can be added as a prologue, and there's a small part of me that's considering doing that before watching Logan for the sole sake of watching every Jackman Wolverine performance before seeing his last turn. But yeah, it doesn't really fit comfortably into a viewing order anywhere else.

 

Hear hear. It should be written down as set-in-stone law that there's nothing in XO:W that is required viewing. Everything that has come since has made it a ridiculous and contradictory mess. Hell, it was a ridiculous contradictory mess when it first came out so, there you go. I can't recall the Kayla thing, but if the DOFP Flashpoint did anything is that you can retcon pretty much anything at this point.

 

Duly noted. But nope. I'm not maintaining any head-canon at this point that includes any part of XMO:W. That movie is just a drug-induced fever dream. As pointless, worthless and apocryphal as Star Trek V.

 

Jackman / Wolverine's likeness does appear in Deadpool if one wanted to be a completist about it. He's technically in every single one! (although that image of Jackman is from People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive cover that Wade uses to cover his face so, technically if we're playing it straight and not writing it off as a joke, both Hugh Jackman and Wolverine exist in the Fox movie X-verse. Deadpool simply knows he's a character in a movie so that's why he references / knows Hugh Jackman)

 

Which is irrelevant to the question of the canonicity of Origins. The timeline change affected all of the preexisting films other than First Class.

 

In regards to canon and the timelinesplit at Days of Future Past, First Class = entirely in canon. X-Men Origins Wolverine = in canon up to about near the end of the opening credits montage (when Logan and Creed are about to be executed, that's when Stryker finds and recruits them). Since we assume that in DOFP that Stryker hadn't met Wolverine up until he burst in and stopped the assassination attempt on Trask, those events at the end of the XMO:W credits montage / Stryker's recruitment couldn't have happened yet. One could assume that Wolverine was in the US at this point because he was away from the war at the time (a war that is about to wrap up when Trask makes his big pitch and is assassinated by Mystique in the original timeline). Creed might have been one door over in the apartment complex Wolverine woke up in. Basically about 5% of Origins is canon in the new timeline. But, in the context of The Wolverine, Origins is totally canon. In the context of Origins to The Wolverine to Logan, it's also kind of entirely canon, to Wolverine himself since Future Wolverine "woke up" with the memories of the original timeline Wolverine.

So basically the only "new timeline" Wolverine we see in the entire series is just the Weapon X sequence in "Apocalypse". Who knows what the heck happened to that guy but we do know that Weapon X Apocalypse Wolverine eventually met up and joined Xavier's school, etc. (that guy was effectively "erased" when time-travelling Wolverine woke up in the future)

 

I think it depends on whether you're just watching for yourself, or for newcomers. It isn't 100% needed, but it doesn't hurt to watch it in the context of seeing how much was changed after DOFP. Seeing different takes on Logan getting his Adamantium, on Cyclops meeting Charles Xavier and so on. I mean if you start with "First Class" then go to "X-Men" and straight through to "Apocalypse", we already see differences between Raven, Charles, Erik, Jean and Kurt. So going with "Origins" after FC, we see a different viewpoint with Logan, Scott and Stryker. To me, it's fun seeing that.

 

You're using "in canon" to mean "in the new version of the timeline". That's all well and good, I'm just saying that the stuff in the prior version of the timeline is also canon in the sense that it happened in the timeline before the timeline was changed.

 

Very much true. Logan has memories of the original timeline so it still has resonance in that regard. Anyway, an argument can be made for XMOW being still important since it does confirm what Stryker said about Logan coming to him and volunteering to become Weapon X. As well as answering what kind of person Logan was prior to the operation. Sure, you could argue his cameo in "First Class", but that doesn't reveal much about him and the WWII flashback is forty years before then. "Origins" tells who Logan was before then and shows us the relationship to Stryker that was hinted at.