The X-Men franchise has produced a number of notable films over the years, but few can compare to X-Men: Days of Future Past. The 2014 time travel romp has become widely regarded as one of the series' best installments, with airtight storytelling and some awesome set pieces. That said, there are some issues with the plot that fans have questioned over the years, such as the decision to have Mystique stand in for William Stryker at the end of the movie and save Wolverine. Many fans have wondered why that ending was chosen, and Bryan Singer recently took to his Instagram account to explain how it ties into her X-Men: Apocalypse arc. Addressing the late addition to the film, Singer said:
I caught your question on #reddit I have to be honest, the idea to have #stryker 's eyes turn yellow was added to the film very close to its completion. However I ended up liking it because it showed #mystique 's path of secretly helping mutants. In that case #wolverine It is a path that continues into #xmenapocalypse
As you may recall, the moment in question comes during the final moments of X-Men: Days of Future Past when Charles Xavier's narration closes out the film. He makes a remark about the future not being set in stone while we see Wolverine rescued from the Potomac River in Washington D.C., at which point it's revealed that a disguised Mystique was the one who got him out of the water, not the United States government. It's played as a massive twist ending for the movie (as Wolverine's history in the Weapon X program is a massive plot point in the franchise), but as Bryan Singer explained in his recent post, this was a last-minute change that telegraphed Mystique's arc in the subsequent film.
You can check out the awesome scene, below!
From there, it seems likely that we will see Mystique's arc continue to X-Men: Dark Phoenix, which is set to premiere next year. The blue heroine makes some bold leaps from X-Men: First Class to X-Men: Days of Future Past and X-Men: Apocalypse, so there's a reasonably good chance that the 1990s-set mutant adventure will adequately round out her trajectory as a character. Perhaps Dark Phoenix will also offer up an explanation of how Wolverine still ended up in the real Stryker's custody by the time Apocalypse rolled around, which is something that still has yet to be explained.
CinemaBlend will bring you more information related to all of the biggest updates out of the X-Men universe as more details on these films are made available to us. Until then, watch out for X-Men: Dark Phoenix when it hits theaters on February 14, 2019!
