Current Events > So how do the events of Logan fit into the overall X-Men timeline? *spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

I'm not a huge X-Men buff or anything. I watched the animated series that was on Saturday morning when I was a kid and I've seen most of the movies. That said, I just saw Logan and I'm a bit confused.

I thought the 'future' in the X-Men canon was the bleak, desolate version we saw in the cartoons reminiscent of The Terminator movies with the sentinels roaming around? What happened to all that stuff with Cable and the time travelling and stuff? Or did that 'timeline' resolve itself and 'save' the future at some point?

It's kind of hard to believe that movie is canon, but according to what I read, it is? So that means the X-Men are over and everyone is dead except for those kids who fled to Canada?
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It's later in the timeline.
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Giant_Aspirin posted...

It's kind of hard to believe that movie is canon, but according to what I read, it is? So that means the X-Men are over and everyone is dead except for those kids who fled to Canada?

There are two simultaneous timelines. The revised history after DoFP and the original. Chronologically, it takes place at the ass end of the original timeline which includes X-Men 3. The shit that happened in Apocalypse is an alternate history branched off from DoFP.
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The desolate future in Days of Future Past was changed because of Wolverine going back in time and preventing Raven from assassinating Bolivar Trask

At the end of the movie, Wolverine comes to in the Fixed Timeline, where the Sentinel program was never started, all the X-Men (including Jean, Scott, and Beast) and Professor X are all still alive, and the Academy was never destroyed.


I was under the impression that Logan takes place after the end in the Fixed Timeline

But the director and cast I think have stated that Logan is in its own continuity?
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DrizztLink posted...

It's later in the timeline.

you mean the events of Logan are later, as in, after the apocalyptic stuff with the sentinels?
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dude it is comic book shit

they literally just make it up as they go along
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Giant_Aspirin posted...

DrizztLink posted...

It's later in the timeline.

you mean the events of Logan are later, as in, after the apocalyptic stuff with the sentinels?

I was just being a smartass.
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Doom_Art posted...

The desolate future in Days of Future Past was changed because of Wolverine going back in time and preventing Raven from assassinating Bolivar Trask

At the end of the movie, Wolverine comes to in the Fixed Timeline, where the Sentinel program was never started, all the X-Men (including Jean, Scott, and Beast) and Professor X are all still alive, and the Academy was never destroyed.


I was under the impression that Logan takes place after the end in the Fixed Timeline

But the director and cast I think have stated that Logan is in its own continuity?

ah, that makes sense. so the horrible future with sentinels roaming around never happened because that was 'fixed' at the end of DoFP.
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ChromaticAngel posted...

The shit that happened in Apocalypse is an alternate history branched off from DoFP.

which doesn't really make sense to me.

i mean if the new timeline is first created at the end of dofp, then supposedly an entire new past just pops up alongside it with its own set of events?
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It really was written as a standalone with stuff thrown in here and there to fit in with the other movies. You can try to fit it in or just as easily consider it not in the storyline at all and more of a what if.
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tbh they really should have made it much later in the timeline instead of 7(?) years.

the end of dofp was such a happy occasion where everything seemed right and then just a "few" years later it all goes to shit.
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It's an alternate future, they'll probably address Chuck's degenerative brain disease and averting its danger in later movie, thereby relegating Logan to a side universe. This is X-Men, after all; not hard to work it out.

AsucaHayashi posted...

ChromaticAngel posted...

The shit that happened in Apocalypse is an alternate history branched off from DoFP.

which doesn't really make sense to me.

i mean if the new timeline is first created at the end of dofp, then supposedly an entire new past just pops up alongside it with its own set of events?

The "alternate past" is First Class.
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AsucaHayashi posted...

i mean if the new timeline is first created at the end of dofp, then supposedly an entire new past just pops up alongside it with its own set of events?

Yeah I didn't know what to make of that.

The point of divergence between the two timelines is Raven assassinating Trask

In the Ruined Timeline, she assassinates him, is captured, and her DNA is used for the Sentinel program

In the Fixed Timeline, Wolverine and Charles stop her, then it kicks of the events that culminate at the White House

So I've always been confused as to why Apocalypse showed up in the Fixed Timeline and not the Ruined Timeline.
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Doom_Art posted...

So I've always been confused as to why Apocalypse showed up in the Fixed Timeline and not the Ruined Timeline.

They explain it when X and Havoc go to meet Moira.

The revelation of mutants brought about a renewal of older beliefs, including following En Sabah Nur.

No mutants, no reason for those guys to be in a cave under Cairo chanting.

It could have happened in the original timeline also, given enough time.
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It should be watched as a standalone with Easter eggs and cameos from the earlier movies. It's the best X-Men movie they've made, probably because they're not confined to the shit story line that they've backed themselves into.

Although DoFP and First Class were awesome in their own right
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Logan takes place 25 years after the ending of Days, which was a future in which the Sentinel program never took off to the degree it did in the original timeline, and the X-Men enjoyed the good PR of super heroes. Really, I want to see one of those movies, because we've not really seen a film following the X-Men as each other's functional 'found family.'

Doom_Art posted...

So I've always been confused as to why Apocalypse showed up in the Fixed Timeline and not the Ruined Timeline.

In the original timeline, mutants aren't outed to the public until the year 2000 when Senator Kelly washes up on the Coney Island shoreline. In the new timeline mutants become public knowledge in the 70's and are caught on TV acting heroically, instead of attempting to terrorize normal humans. Logan actually suggests that many of the events of X-Men 1 still happened, since it's apparently the subject of one of the comic stories. Things just played out slightly differently.
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The movies cherrypick what's canon and not all the time.

X1 is it's own thing.
X2 is a direct successor to X1.
For X3, it uses everything from the first three.
For Origins: Wolverine, it accepts that the events of the first three will more or less happen, perhaps with some slight differences.Origins also starts getting ignored by the other movies shortly.
First Class starts the real big retcons. It's still implied the other movies will happen, but there are definite differences between the movies at this point.
The Wolverine implies that X1 and X2 happened almost exactly the way they appeared on screen. X3 and Origins are up in the air where the general gist of what happened is still there, but the minor details here and there that are different.
DOFP tries to reconcile the differences between "two" timelines, but even if it retcons some things without the time travel.
Apocalypse is a direct sequel from First Class and fits in nicely there, and also it fits in the past stuff from DOFP nicely enough. The biggest issue here is that it's supposed to take place ~20 years after First Class and no one has aged at all (and don't say mutants age slower, Moira is the same fucking age).
Logan sorta takes a mishmash of what happens in the different movies but still is clearly in it's own little thing.


So what I theorize is that there are about 6 timelines right now, with the potential for more.
The original timeline: X1 --> X2 --> X3
The Wolverine Origins timeline: Origins --> X1 --> X2 --> X3
The 'fixed' timeline: FC --> DOFP (past) --> Apocalypse --> Dark Phoenix --> end scene of DOFP
Another Wolverine timeline: Origins (the gist) --> X1 --> X2 --> X3 (small details different) --> The Wolverine
The 'bad' timeline: FC --> X1 --> X2 --> --> X3 --> The Wolverine --> DOFP (Future)
Fucked up timeline: FC (minor details changed) --> DOFP (past) (minor details changed) --> Apocalypse (minor details changed) --> X1 (minor details changed) --> X2 (minor details changed) --> Logan


It's not that the slight differences are enough to say "oh look! A new timeline guys!" It's just that there's quite a bit of incompatibility. I think it's easier to say that the movies tend to be their own things where they pick inspiration from where to say is canon to their story (unless it's the original trilogy or the prequel trilogy where they're clear where they get their canon from).
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There are really just two timelines with First Class being the shared first movie.

So you've got First Class -> X1 -> X2 -> X3 -> The Wolverine -> Logan

And First Class -> (X1 -> X2 -> X3 -> The Wolverine) Retconned after Wolverine goes back in time for DoFP -> Apocalypse -> X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Now the real question here is where does Deadpool fit? We know it does, but where?
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We need to just reboot the damn thing.
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Iirc it was shot as if it was its own thing then Fox decided to make it part of the new continuity
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ChromaticAngel posted...

Now the real question here is where does Deadpool fit? We know it does, but where?

Deadpool likely fits in the altered DoFP future where the X-Men aren't killed by the Sentinels and have become publicly accepted as superheroes. If we take a literal interpretation, 24 years before Logan.

The way Deadpool describes the X-Men, as 'goody-two-shoes' altruists is consistent with the image we get of the X-Men from Laura's comic books.
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