‘X-Men’ Director Explains Unresolved ‘Days of Future Past’ Twist

The film X-Men: Days of Future Past ended with a tease that many fans expected would lead directly into the plot of the next X-Men movie, X-Men: Apocalypse. When Apocalypse opened in theaters, it turned out that was not the case. Now director Bryan Singer has finally offered some kind of explanation.

X-Men: Days of Future Past ended with William Stryker taking Wolverine into a custody. Stryker is the military man who was the villain of X2: X-Men United. Stryker led the Weapon X program that bonded adamantium to Wolverine’s bones and took away his memories.

However, Stryker’s eyes flash yellow before the scene ends. This is the telltale sign that someone has been replaced by the shapeshifting mutant Mystique. Fans assumed that this indicated that Mystique was taking Wolverine into custody, a change in the timeline caused by Wolverine’s jump back into the past from the dystopian, Sentinel-ruled future. So how would that affect things going forward?

As it turns out, very little. In X-Men: Apocalypse, Mystique isn’t hiding out within Weapon X, but traveling the world and rescuing mutants to bring them to the Xavier Institute. It is also revealed that Stryker is back at Weapon X capturing mutants for his experiments and that Wolverine is still in his custody. Mystique’s deception had basically no effect on the timeline, and there was no explanation of why she impersonated Stryker or how she left Weapon X and the real Stryker returned.

After seeing a question about this pop up on Reddit, X-Men: Days of Future Past and X-Men: Apocalypse director Bryan Singer offered an explanation on Instagram, saying that the eye-flash at the end of Days of Future Past was something of an afterthought.

“I have to be honest, the idea to have Stryker’s eyes turn yellow was added to the film very close to its completion,” Singer explained. “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 X-Men: Apocalypse.”

This makes sense…to a point. It is unclear how Mystique helped Wolverine since he still ended up going through the same experiments at Weapon X that he did in the original timeline. Perhaps she tried to help him and failed, and Stryker’s eventual return to Weapon X meant she had to move on. That works well enough as headcanon, and if nothing else, shapeshifting into Stryker provided with an easy escape route after the climax of Days of Future Past.

What do you think of this explanation for the unresolved plot twist in X-Men: Days of Future Past? Let us know in the comments!

X-Men: Days of Future Past and X-Men: Apocalypse both are now available on home media.

The next X-Men movie, X-Men: Dark Phoenix, opens on February 14, 2019.

Deadpool 2 is now playing in theaters. Other upcoming X-Men movies include Gambit on June 7, 2019 and The New Mutants on August 2, 2019.