MovieChat Forums > X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019) Discussion > So...is the timeline completely wrecked ...

So...is the timeline completely wrecked now?

posted 5 years ago by h-oates (172)
14 replies | jump to latest

I loved Days of Future Past. God, that movie was the perfect ending in my book. A real happy, positive ending... And then Apocalypse happened. A movie I just didn't like that much. But the one thing I admired was that it seemed to indicate that Logan travelling back in time had skewered the timeline more than we thought and that's why Apocalypse came back. And then, we had another movie that could (and should) have served as the ending to the Fox franchise. Logan. Yeah, more depressing and gritty, but it was powerful and was a strong sendoff... But now they make Dark Phoenix. Now, I haven't got around to seeing this movie yet. But from what I can gather, it doesn't lead into the Days of Future Past ending at all. I mean, in the Dark Phoenix ending the school has a different name, and Charles and Jean are no longer there.

So what? Is Logan in a completely different universe now or can this still be worked into one timeline (save for the changes Logan made by travelling back in time)?

[–] Truthtalker (1969) 5 years ago

Don't follow you
You like the happy end of DoFP or the gritty depressing end implied in Logan, where Charles kills them all by accident during a seizure?

[–] h-oates (172) 5 years ago

I like endings that are thematically satisfying. The romantic in me does really want the happy ending of Days of Future Past, but at the same time I do appreciate Logan's ending, too. Ultimately, I suppose I just wanted the series to end on a good note, and both of those films were great, despite contrasting endings.

[–] AP (5288) 5 years ago

They stopped caring about continuity around the time of Wolverine Origins. They can't get things straight form one movie ot the next, nor do they care to.

[–] Gastonian (946) 5 years ago

I just saw it and first of all, it is WAYYYYY better than anyone is giving it credit for. I thought it was actually a strong movie to go out on. Definitely better than the previous film and the Last Stand. Second, it doesn't necessarily contradict anything in the DOFP epilogue. The name change of the school is probably something that we just didn't see in the DOFP ending. And this movie takes place in 1992. There's about a 40-year gap between DP and DOFP. Plenty of time for Charles and Jean to come back at some point.

[–] h-oates (172) 5 years ago

Yeah, I suppose the name change thing is technically true. I just think it's weird having the school named after Jean and then her and Charles coming back. But I'm glad nothing directly contradicts Days of Future Past's ending. I do intend to watch the movie, and I'm sure it's better than people are saying. I just think ending with either Days of Future Past or Logan would have been a smarter move in the long haul.

[–] Gastonian (946) 5 years ago

Well yeah, if they had known Disney was going to eat up Fox they probably would have. Side note: I think this film has the best score of any of the films

[–] Duck6 (425) 5 years ago

I haven't seen DP yet but i've heard it doesn't even follow the continuity of the film that directly preceeded it, let alone the other films in the cinematic "universe". Like, at the end of Apocalypse she has phoenix powers but apparantly in this one she receives the powers at the start. It's an absolute trainwreck

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Hence the flopping thing

[–] DracTarashV2 (4493) 5 years ago

In a word, yes. And truth be told, I expected it. Duh!

This series has been saying screw continuity for years now, so this came as no surprise. As such, since day one I considered a film like Logan its own thing and never really felt it was worth trying to connect it to the previous films (despite any references that were made). Ah, classic Fox X-Men series.

[–] bozo_500 (13104) 5 years ago

The DOFP end future can still exist as DP is set 1992 and DOFP feel good end is 2023 so 30years for Jean and Charles to come back and Charles to rename the school (and the school could still named after Jean as we don't see what its called at end of DOFP) Also at the end of DOFP we no see Raven which ties in with the events of DP..

But then of course we know from 'Logan' that shortly after DOFP Charles accidentally kills some or all of the XMen lol

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Yes, the timeline is wrecked.

[–] Sacredpony (23) 5 years ago

Unmarked spoilers ahead, btw.

Yes. Timeline is something that does not really exist in comic book movies. Or in comic books.

In Deadpool 2 they even introduced a time machine, as in, a machine and not an ability of a mutant.

There is no reason to believe those history altering mechanisms were only used the few times seen in the movies.

So with that in mind, no one continuity or time line or whatever you want to call it, has a legitimate claim to be the right one.

Imagine, 200 years after the ending of Logan, humanity found out, they are facing extinction bc of the gene altering done to prevent new mutants and so they change their past, nullifying the crapsack dystopian world featured in Logan and resulting in the timeline that had Logan travelling back in time the first time, wich resulted in a supposedly happy timeline ... that had Mystique being killed in Dark Phoenix movie and Magneto never hunting out Rogue and accidently bringing Wolverine to X-Men. Well, ... actually I just wanted to wildly gurgle up something to illustrate the confusion once you bing time travel into a story, but now that I read that, it makes actually somewhat sense.

Anyway, you could try to mingle the movies in some kind of metacontinuity, but I think it is best to see them standalone in multiple alternate time lines that might or might not be influenced by each other due to time travel.

[–] h-oates (172) 5 years ago

Personally, I could never really enjoy the series as a whole if I looked at it that way. I know some people can do that, but for me continuity of at least decent standard is a must in a series of films like X-Men. It would be different if the movies were like most of the MCU's, completely disconnected from each other for the most part (Guardians and Ant-Man, for instance, don't need to be viewed in order to fully enjoy Thor or Iron Man). Of course, if you want to enjoy the Avengers movies then you need to have a basic understanding of basically all the films within the MCU. But with X-Men it is literally the same group of characters all the time. Yeah, we get young and old versions, but they're still the same. In a scenario like that then I think continuity is needed. And yeah, to be honest, Deadpool and its sequel are so far removed from the other X-Men/Wolverine movies that I don't mind classing that as being within a universe of its own, where the 4th wall be damned. Because when it comes to Deadpool...there are no real rules.

So yeah, after doing a decent amount of research I'm happy that they've quit while some semblance of continuity remains. I stand by the fact that I personally think Days of Future Past should have been the last movie of the saga. That was the peak for me.