There are so many questions about the time travel storyline to Bryan Singer's X-Men: Days of Future Past - a kind of bridging sequel between X-Men: First Class and the original X-Men movie trilogy - which is aiming to straighten out the franchise's massive continuity issues.
With recent indication that iconic X-Men movie stars Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen would be back as the older versions of Prof. X and Magneto, respectively, fans were wondering if the two elder stars would get some scenes opposite their younger counterparts, played by First Class stars James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender.
Well we can now wallow in the bad news that at least one half of the pair WON'T be sharing the screen; in a recent interview with Empire, James McAvoy let it be known that he and Patrick Stewart won't be sharing any scenes together, stating that doesn't "think we get any scenes together, sadly. I don't think there's any future self talking to past self."
While this is certainly a letdown in terms of enjoying the sheer geeky thrill of two Charles Xaviers being onscreen together, from a logistical standpoint it makes sense. Why Prof. X would ever go time-hopping in his wheelchair is a hard thing to explain - and a meeting between older/younger versions of the same person (even through telepathy or other loopholes) inevitably evokes Christopher Lloyd's frantic rantings about time paradox in Back to the Future. No thanks; the X-Men movie universe is complicated enough already...
The scenario that level-headed fans guessed at from the beginning is most likely the correct one: Days of Future Past - like the 1980s comic book storyline that inspired this film - will most likely deal with a pivotal character (Ellen Page's Kitty Pryde) who is bounced around time trying to prevent some cataclysmic disaster in the past from ruining mutantkind's future (possibly at the fury of Bolivar Trask and his mutant-hunting Sentinel robots). Along the way our "time-hopper" likely meets two sets of X-Men teams; the one we saw in the original trilogy (with Patrick Stewart) and the one we met in First Class (with McAvoy), who we catch up with eleven years later in the era of the '70s.
This format allows for the most flexibility and affords the most opportunity to "correct" either (0r both) timelines so that they are more unified (or, at the very least, able to be written off as an 'averted timeline'). We'll still get both of the Xaviers we know and love - we'll just have to enjoy them one at a time, it seems. (But will the same hold true for Magneto and other characters?)
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X-Men Days of Future Past will be in theaters on July 18, 2014.