For years, one of the main points of contention between X-Men fans and the franchise was that the fact that the continuity has continually been violated. That's what happens when three films essentially beget two unrelated prequels, and when the director of the first two X-Men movies decides to leave the franchise. But now Bryan Singer is back, and with X-Men: Days Of Future Past he's set to rectify some of these issues. Still, not every continuity mistake can be fixed, not every role recast, and not every piece will fit . For that, Singer is just gonna ask you to deal with it.
Speaking to SciFiNow in a recent interview, Singer said,
"Some things you let go. InX-Men 3 Bolivar Trask was an African-American guy, in X-Men 1 I personally wrote the line that of course I now regret: ‘When I was 17, I met a young man named Erik Lensherr’ and then in X-Men: First Class I changed that! Some of these I hope the audience will forget about but for the bulk of it I pay attention to the universe."
Despite what rabid fans might say, the common person is probably not exactly super up to date on what's happened in the past X-Men movies, particularly considering the first two are more than a dozen years old. It's worth noting that Singer isn't just negating some of the material that was put together by directors Brett Ratner (X-Men: The Last Stand), Gavin Hood (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) and Matthew Vaughn (X-Men: First Class), but some of his own: Singer actually had a producer credit and played a big role in developing the story for X-Men: First Class, which heavily rewrote much of the established mythology. As for Bolivar Trask, what the director is referencing is the fact that the character was played by the immortal Predator star Bill Duke in The Last Stand, while in X-Men: Days Of Future Past he will be played by Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage.
Singer also reveals that he and producer Simon Kinberg together wrote the post-script scene for The Wolverine that leads into Days Of Future Past, suggesting that he has a big hand in making an effort to unite everything as seamlessly as possible. All that said, at the end of the day these movies only really need to be able to stand by themselves, and Singer shouldn't stay awake at night wondering if he's already wasted a chance to cast someone big for Jubilee (who appears in the background of X-Men). While the hardcore fans are walking wiki pages for these films, most people see these movies once a year or every two years, and not every plot point stays fresh in their head.
