*SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS*
DON'T READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE
This is also really long and opinionated. You know what I'm like. You have been warned.
X-Men: Days of Future Past was no exception.
The movie opens with a second Holocaust. The surviving mutants and the humans who helped them had been rounded up and forced into to concentration camps in New York City to be experimented on and slowly killed off. We see trucks driving past piles of bodies. More corpses fall from a tunnel as a young mutant (presumably) searches for something in the rubble and a voiceover explains how the world had ended up this way. The human governments had united and created an army of powerful robots capable of tracking mutants and adapting to their powers. They waged war against the mutants. However, soon killing mutants wasn't enough, and the robots, called Sentinels, started targeting humans who had the genes to produce mutated offspring. In short, nearly everyone on the planet was a target, and nearly the entire planet was wiped out.
The theme of "mutants are Jews" is very strong in the new trilogy. The X-Men universe has always had political undertones, and the movies are no exception. The original trilogy seemed to be based around the idea of "mutants are gay." Parents of mutant children were often horrified to discover that their children were different, and one couple in an early movie asked if their child had tried not being a mutant. The mutants were ostracized, misunderstood, and had to hide their true nature from those who would abuse and torment them. It's probably best seen in the character of Angel from The Last Stand, who shaves off his own wings so he can hide who he is from his mutant-hating father. He eventually gets fed up with being told to hate himself, and "comes out" with a bang, leaping through a window and unfurling his fabulous wings in a brilliant demonstration of gay, er, mutant pride.
"Tell them how Iiiiiiiii'm defyyyyy-ing graaaa-vity..."
In this new trilogy, the very first scene of X-Men: First Class opened in a Nazi concentration camp. Erik Lensherr, aka Magneto, is both a Jew and a mutant (no wonder he had such a rough time). His mother is killed by Kevin Bacon right in front of him in order to awaken his powers, and then he is experimented on until the end of the war. His horrific childhood leaves him with a deep-seated desire for vengeance against those who torture his mutant "brothers and sisters."
I think "mutants are Jews" makes more sense than "mutants are gay," especially in the world created by First Class and Days of Future Past (could these movies have longer titles?!) They're the scapegoat of a corrupt government who is looking for any excuse to explain why the world is such a mess. It is perfectly acceptable to experiment on and kill them, because they are seen as different from humans, less than human. In the dystopian future, they are tagged and branded, so that everyone will know they are separate and distinct. Just like every civilization since the dawn of time has hated and terrorized Jews, so too does modern civilization hate and terrorize mutants.
Of course, there is so much going on in DoFP that it's ridiculously simplistic to narrow it down to one overarching thing, but since I haven't even gotten past the first scene in my review yet, "mutants are Jews" will suit our purposes for now.
During this allegorical World War III, one group of lone survivors, consisting of characters from the original X-Men trilogy and a few new faces, was holding off against the Sentinels, surviving by working together as a team, utilizing all their unique powers. Warpath sees the Sentinels coming, he and the other mutants fight them off as Kitty Pryde sends Bishop's consciousness back to his younger body to warn the group, and then Blink takes the past-group to a new place using her awesome portal powers. Eventually they join up with Professor X and Magneto, who are back to being a bosom friends after a lifetime of fighting over ideological differences. Professor X tells the mutants that the entire war can be blamed on one act: "the first time Mystique killed." She'd discovered that Tyrion Lannister—I mean, Miles Finch—I mean, Bolivar Trask, a deranged scientist, had been experimenting on mutants, including her old friends. She tracked him down and killed him, leading the humans to believe that mutants were as evil as Trask had thought. They used her amazing DNA to make the Sentinels adaptable, and declared war on the mutants. Professor X needs Kitty to send one them back to 1973 in a mission that will not only save the world, but will also redeem the professor's childhood best friend and possibly stop her from engaging on the self-destructive path that leads her to becoming the second-in-command of the Brotherhood of Mutants and a very scary villain.
She's the blue one on the left. Terrifying, isn't she?
Because this is an X-Men movie, the person who has to go back in time and save the world is everyone's favorite singing superhero, Jean "The Wolverine" Valjean. In the comics, Kitty herself is the one who goes back, and this departure from the original story is, apparently, a crime against feminism and equality and minority rights and LGBT rights et cetera et cetera, according to this amusing review from Slate. Some guy wrote a review as if he were Kitty Pryde, and it's pretty funny, but some of it really irked me. That article is actually part of the reason I decided to write this, since I just got so frustrated. More on that later. For now, let's go back to the story.
So Logan (Wolverine) goes back to 1973, and boy, is it really 1973. First Class took place in the early 60s, but it didn't really feel like a period piece. There were some dated moments, but for the most part it felt pretty modern, which was fine for that movie. The first 1973 scene in DoFP, on the other hand, had a lava lamp, a Roberta Flack song, and a key chain with a lucky rabbit's foot. The whole world was slightly sepia-toned (which is something I've never understood. Was the past sepia toned? It always is in movies. And the 90s always looks kind of washed out. I vaguely remember the 90s being washed out, so maybe the 70s were brownish. But this isn't important) and chock full of ridiculous but strangely sexy clothing.
I was obviously born in the wrong era
Wolverine heads over to X Mansion to recruit young Professor X, as old Professor X instructed him to. There he meets his old buddy Beast, in the 70s an adorable nerd, who spends his time babysitting the tormented and drunken Charles Xavier. Charles can't cope with the events of First Class, in which he lost his childhood friend and love, his best friend, and his legs. He is addicted to a heroin-like serum that gives him the use of his legs and dampens his telepathic powers, allowing him to numb the pain. He eventually believes Logan's story about being from the future, and agrees to help, but only because it will allow him to save Raven from herself.
James McAvoy gives a emotional performance as the young Charles, brilliantly juxtaposing the tortured and broken man with his older, self-assured and confident self, played, as always, by Patrick Stewart. In the original trilogy, Professor X trains Logan, gives him a home, a family. Now, Logan must do the same for Charles. He must, as the professor said, "Lead me. Guide me. (*Walk beside me.)" It was quite incredible to see the future Wolverine, no longer a volatile loner, be the salvation for a man who has always been a pillar of strength. When Charles was throwing a frustration-induced temper tantrum, Logan didn't get mad or run him through with his spikes—he talked to him, calmed him down, inspired him.
The three heroes—Wolverine, Professor X, and Beast—put on their best "That 70s show" outfits and sauntered on over to Quicksilver's house to convince him to help them break Magneto out of his prison in the Pentagon. Since everyone who's read this has seen the movie, I'm not to go into a lot of details, but can we all agree that Quicksilver's scenes are the best in the entire movie? This kid was confident, snarky, and completely unfazed by the craziness around him. Unlike the other characters who were unsure and scared of their abilities as children, Quicksilver is totally at ease. This might be because he's Magneto's secret love child (probably not, but that was also a hilarious moment) and so he grew up with a mother who was aware of mutants and accepting of them. Despite the trouble her son caused, she loved him, and that shows the underlying theme of the entire X-Men franchise: it doesn't matter whether you're a mutant or a human, every person has the right and capacity to choose their own path. After all, it is our choices that determine who we really are, far more than our abilities.
Oh you know that's right
Quicksilver saves the lives of our heroes, then heads back home to spend some time growing up and stealing Twinkies. The rest of them take off to the Paris Peace Accords, where Raven plans to shoot Trask in the head as he attempts to sell his scary robots to the Vietnamese. They get there, they save Trask, then Magneto flips out and tries to kill Raven. That's the thing with Magneto: he can't ever see past the end goal. He rigidly follows his own moral compass, which is that the ends justify the means. He doesn't care how many people he kills, how many lives he ruins, as long as the mutants are protected. Well, more than protected. He wants them to rule the world, since the humans have apparently done a crappy job of it. Unfortunately, he doesn't realize that his own world would be just as corrupt.
Anyway, Erik pretty much guarantees that the dystopian future will happen, Raven is still determined to kill Trask, and Charles is a mess. He finally decides to get his powers back, and Logan helps him get over his problems. My personal favorite Wolverine moment (yes, not the scene where he's naked. I know, shocker) is when he, Hank, and Charles are flying to DC to stop Raven once and for all from killing Trask in front of the whole world and the worst Nixon impersonator I've ever seen. He makes Charles promise that, whatever happens, he will rebuild his school and find all of the lost mutants who need guidance, including Logan himself. He tells Charles, "Your best is enough." It's a turning point in both of their lives. Charles, who has spent the last decade being torn apart by self-loathing, is told that he is capable of saving dozens of young lives, that he isn't a lost cause. Logan, who has always kept himself apart from people so he won't feel the pain when they eventually die, is ensuring the creation of his future family.
Then there's Raven. I haven't talked about her motivations yet. She, of all the mutants, is unique. As Trask said, "Her DNA could hold the key to mutation itself." The entire movie she is torn between between what Charles is telling her to do, what Erik is telling her to do, and what she wants to do. Charles knows that what she's doing is morally wrong, and Erik thinks that she's not doing enough for the cause. She just wants to get rid of the monster who killed her friends.
The pivotal moment comes after she saves Nixon and Co. from death-by-Magneto. She incapacitates Erik, then turns to shoot Trask. In that moment, Charles begs her again not to kill the man, not to descend to Magneto's level. In anguish, she acquiesces, and all the humans see the humanity of mutants. Raven leaves the football stadium to, presumably, figure out her life. She eventually saves Wolverine, showing that not only is she on the path to redemption, but he's been saved some pain. War is averted, Trask is arrested, the world unites to hunt Magneto (rather than uniting to hunt all mutants), and just this once, everybody lives (literally. Everybody who died in the original trilogy was back. Which was fantastic. As my friend said, "They fixed every single mistake of X-Men: The Last Stand." It was a bit like the first three movies never happened, but that's fine with me. Besides, the first three movies happening is what led to that future which is what led to Wolverine going back in time which is what led to the new timeline, so they did matter.)
She's a deadly sharpshooter. But she's still never killed anyone!
It was this scene that really angered the fake Kitty Pryde. Even though the final choice belonged to a woman, because she listened to a man, she was being controlled by him.
And that really pisses me off. Why on earth is Raven being reduced to her gender? Why is the fact that she's a woman the only thing that matters here? She is more than a woman. She's a person, and her choice to do the right thing saved the world.
Another thing the review complained about was how white-washed, male, and individual the 1970s scenes were. However, they did grudgingly admit that they improved things in the future. The team was very diverse, and worked very well together.
I'm not so conservative that I can't recognize that it is cool to have people of different races working so well together, especially when everyone is getting so upset about racial issues. But why complain about the 70s scenes? Why complain about the past when, at least in that respect, thing ARE better in the future? (Furthermore, why is race the thing to talk about when everyone on earth is dead? Sure, different races get along, but literally an entire civilization has been wiped out because of speciesism.) I think the reviewer didn't grasp the point of going back in time. We see what 50 years of growth does to both the characters and the society.
Look, they're all best friends!
I feel like the people who criticize the movie because of some race or gender issue miss the whole point of X-Men. It doesn't matter if you're male, female, black, white, brown, or blue. It doesn't matter if you're a mind-reader or a giant monster or the president. Your choices are your own. Every single person has the same inherent worth. Every single person is capable of choosing good from evil. Why does her being a woman change what she did? So what if she listened to Charles? Him helping her make the choice was part of his redemption. In the end, she was the one who chose not to pull the trigger. And it wasn't Raven, feminist hero. It wasn't Raven, the mutant. It was Raven, the person. The sister. The friend. The hero.
The point of the X-Men is that there isn't an "us" and "them." The mutants aren't all good. The humans aren't all bad. No man is an island. Everyone has to work together, and stop worrying about the things that make us different.
The reason Magneto is a villain is not because he kills people. It's because he can't look at a person and not see them as either human or mutant. Professor X is a hero because he believes that everyone can coexist, and that it doesn't matter who you are or where you come from, you have a chance to live a good life. Looking at a movie and seeing it only as a statistic of race or gender is just as bad as what Magneto does. I understand that there is still discrimination, and still a huge lack of equality in some aspects of life, but narrowing a human being down to their race or gender does not solve anything. We shouldn't watch a TV show and think, "Oh they have a black person as a main character. This show is great because it's progressive!" It's the message that matters.
X-Men: Days of Future Past was an amazing emotional journey. I'm excited to see what comes next.
Hopefully more of this. Wolverine the Musical, anyone?
