X-Men hasn’t had the smoothest of rides as a movie franchise. After Bryan Singer gave it a decent stab with the original X-Men and X2, Brett Ratner took a massive shit in the gaping wound with 2006’s The Last Stand. Having thought we’d reached the lowest point in the series’ cinematic history, X-Men Origins: Wolverine happened, causing a thunderous clap made by the millions of hands simultaneously slapping their respective foreheads. With little hope to ride on, Matthew Vaughn rode in on his valiant steed and delivered stupendously with 2011’s First Class. There’s also last year’s The Wolverine, which was applauded for not being horrible.
Now we have Days of Future Past, an X-Men film that is so great, it manages to make the franchise’s prior eff-ups irrelevant. Literally. The way they use time-travel in this film COMPLETELY REMOVES THE EXISTENCE OF X-MEN: THE LAST STAND AND X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE FROM THE FRANCHISE’S UNIVERSE. It’s beautiful… so, so beautiful…
Similar movie franchises can learn from this. Better yet, they could just blatantly steal this technique and use time-travel to “correct” their own series’ timelines. And because I love to help Hollywood out with my amazing ideas that are constantly ignored, I’ve listed off a bunch of movie franchises that need to implement time-travelling in their next film.
The Fast and the Furious
Witnessing the Fast and the Furious saga attempt to cohere to its convoluted chronologically is a dumb, hilarious, guilty pleasure – like watching at a kid trying to eat soup with a fork. But it’s trying; my god, is it trying. Even so, most people can do without the Tokyo Drift. Unfortunately, it plays too heavily into the timeline to ignore, taking place in between 6 and 7. That’s why I propose…
Potential time-travelling sequel idea: Fast and Furious ∞
Dom (Vin Diesel) is forced to partake in a Speed-like game-of-death in Tokyo. If he cannot complete 100 laps in 10 minutes, his entire family EXPLODES!!! (Or something.) However, this is no ordinary track: this track is shaped in a figure eight and has course-altering enhancements like spiked walls, gauntlets… um… snake pits and… erm… flame throwers! With less than a minute to go, Dom hits the super saiyan nitro, travelling so fast that he reverses time Superman-style. He accidentally runs over Sean Boswell at the start of Tokyo Drift, thinks nothing of it and relives Fast 7 and Furious ∞ until he can complete the 100 laps. So not only is that infinity symbol the theme of the film, it’s the shape of the track AND it’s a number eight on its side. Triple entendre, baby! No, I haven’t thought it all through, but when has that ever stopped one of these films from being made?
Alien
Ridley Scott’s original 1979 sci-fi horror classic couldn’t be topped, until James Cameron topped it with Aliens. Then, no Alien film afterwards would even come close to either film, so where do we go from there?
Potential time-travelling sequel idea: Aliens 3
This is an alternate timeline story taking place after Aliens and concurrently with Alien 3, where Ripley’s (Sigourney Weaver) ship enters a black hole that splits the crew to multiple parallel dimensions (one being Alien 3). Aliens 3 sees the ship crash-landing on an uncharted planet alongside Newt and Hicks who do NOT die prematurely off-screen in a total limp-dick fashion. Ripley and Hudson have remained in cryostasis for years while Newt, now an adult (played by, I dunno, Rooney Mara I guess), has been powering their pods for decades. Also, there are aliens.
Star Wars
J.J. Abrams has demonstrated a Gallifreyan High Lord mastery of time-travel with the Star Trek reboot, so he may already be doing it with the upcoming Star Wars film(s). But in case he isn’t, allow me to indulge in my fan fiction.
Potential time-travelling sequel idea: Star Wars X: An Old Hope
The dark side has become a force so God-damn evil, they feel nothing for the current state of existence. So, in a move of gargantuan dickishness, they build the Doom Star, capable of collapsing the entire galaxy and ALL OF TIME. Starting from the very beginning of time, the Doom Star works its way up the timeline erasing all of history. The Jedi work with the Rebel Forces to take down the Doom Star before its time-collapsing abilities reaches the present. The good guys succeed, but not fast enough to save Episodes I, II & III from falling out of existence. In order to repair the time-space continuum, history must be rewritten – which means Disney gets to make another three movies. You’re welcome, Mickey.
Resident Evil
Paul W.S. Anderson’s blockbuster mega-franchise based on Capcom’s videogame series. There’s, like, five of them I think. Has zombies ‘n’ shit. I’m not a fan.
Potential time-travelling sequel idea: Resident Evil: Redemption
Amazingly, the word ‘Redemption’ hasn’t been used to name any entry in the videogame-action-horror-sci-fi-whatever franchise. Works out well for me then, because this time-travelling plot will see Alice journey back in time a year before shit goes bad in 2001’s Resident Evil. She wins millions in a lottery, buys Umbrella and liquidates the company, preventing the zombie outbreak and any further films from ever being relevant. Total running time: 10 minutes.
Will Ferrell
“Wait, Will Ferrell isn’t a movie franchise,” I hear you say, but you’re wrong – and that’s okay. As frightening as this prospect sounds, he’s a one-man movie universe, populated by an anchorman, a man-child, an elf, a man-child, a NASCAR driver, a man-child, a figure skater and a man-child with a step brother (just to name a few). It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when his Stars in Their Eyes caricaturing act started (probably with Zoolander), but half of them need to go.
Potential time-travelling sequel idea: Gaelic Brute: The True Myth of Gillian McTavish
‘Time-travelling Scotsman’ is one of the few characters Ferrell hasn’t played on screen yet, so I propose he does a Highlander rip-off that imitates Jet Li’s The One. The film will follow Gillian McTavish (Ferrell), an immortal Scottish barbarian who travels across time brutally murdering other Will Ferrell characters in order to get more powerful. (He starts by beheading Semi-Pro’s Jackie Moon.) The remaining Will Ferrell characters must do battle with McTavish in an Anchorman-like showdown – I drew this scene’s concept art on the back of the paper bag I found.
I don’t want to hog all the great ideas, so let me know in the comments below what other movie franchises need time-travel in their next films. You get bonus points for making up a clever title.
