20th Century Fox, and Marvel Studios recently released a short series of behind the scenes clips as well as short interviews to prepare the world for the next chapter in their X-Men saga.  These short clips have revealed a key detail that may give die hard X-Men fans some pause.

During one interview with Ellen Page she says,

“Kitty Pryde is a young mutant.  She has the ability to send someone’s consciousness back in time, to their younger self.  In this post apocalyptic war era the X-Men are being pursued by the sentinels.  So they develop a plan to send someone back in time.  They just hope that they can stop all the madness before it has the opportunity to even begin.  The individual whose mind is going back gets weaker as time goes on, as well as Kitty.  We just hope that Wolverine can complete the mission before she has to let go.”

There’s a key sentence there, did you catch it?  “She has the ability to send someone’s conscious back in time, to their younger self.”

In the upcoming Days of Future Past movie we see a post apocalyptic world, and the only way to save the future is to send Wolverine’s conscious to the past.  In the original comic book series Kitty Pryde’s conscious is sent back in time.  The way they do this is by using a telepath, Rachel Summers.  Rachel is the daughter of this future’s Jean Grey and Scott Summers (Cyclops), and her powers are huge.  So in the original story Kitty goes back, they’ve replaced that concept with Wolverine.  Of course with the sliding timeline of the Marvel comics, and with Days of Future Past traveling back in time to the end of the 70s it makes sense to send someone that was actually alive during the 70s, thus enters Wolverine the almost immortal mutant.

On the subject of sending Wolverine back writer Simon Kinberg said, in an interview with Total Film:

“We made the decision for a lot of reasons, some of them obvious and some of them more nuanced, to make it Wolverine who goes back in time. One reason is that he’s the protagonist of the franchise, and probably the most beloved character to a mass audience. Probably the bigger reason is that when we started thinking about the logistical realities of Kitty’s consciousness being sent back in time, to her younger self, as opposed to her physical body being sent back..it was impossible.

Obviously in the book it’s Kitty..but you’re talking about an actress (Ellen Page) who, in the age of Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy, would have been negative 20 years old. So we started thinking again, and the first reflex response to that was a character who doesn’t age. Wolverine is the only character who would looks the same in 1973 as he does in the future.”

Sending Wolverine back in time isn’t really the problem though.  Sure some fans are upset that all the X-Men movies are actually just “Wolverine” movies.  The problem here is that they’re taking a character, that has already been established in three previous movies, and giving her a completely different set of powers.  Everyone whose seen any of the original three X-Men movies know the girl can walk through walls.  From the first time we saw her Professor X says “Bye kitty” and she runs past Wolverine and threw a door.  She was even a major character in X-Men 3 where she ran through wall after wall being chased by the Juggernaut.  It’s not uncommon for mutants in the X-Men universe to develop additional powers, but they usually coincide with their original powers.  Gambit can focus his energy without touching objects, Rogue can absorb powers as well as memories.  But this whole “I can now send people’s brains back in time” comes out of left field.

What do you think, is giving someone a completely new skill a type of cop-out?  Would you rather see a new character introduced?  Would you like to see Rachel Grey make her first on screen appearance? Or is this article just full of unjustified nerd-rage?  Leave your comments below.

-F

Related:
The New Faces of X-Men: Days of Future Past
Video - Sending Logan Back
/Film - How Did Wolverine Become a Time Traveler? ‘Days of Future Past’ Writer Explains

Images courtesy of 20th Century Fox, and Marvel Comics