10 More Movies That Had The Balls To Do It Better (& WANTED YOU TO KNOW)

X-Men: Days of Future Past was one of the first major movies to rather cleverly use time travel as an in-universe device to erase unpopular elements of the franchise.

In particular, fans loathed the fact that the third movie, X-Men: The Last Stand, unceremoniously killed off numerous beloved superheroes, namely Professor X (Patrick Stewart), Cyclops (James Marsden), and Jean Grey (Famke Janssen).

And so, Days of Future Past made an industrious effort to undo these deaths in a way that didn't seem like a continuity-undermining retcon, by having most of it happen by way of timey-wimey shenanigans.

First off, though The Last Stand's post-credits scene suggested a convoluted means through which Xavier could be resurrected in his twin brother's body, Days of Future Past skips past explaining this altogether and seemingly accepts that most fans would simply appreciate having him back.

The time travel comes into play for Cyclops and Jean, though, who are revealed to be alive in the new 2023 timeline at the end of the movie, where the events of The Last Stand as we know them didn't happen.

This was basically an impressively elegant way for the filmmakers to tell the audience, "Don't worry, we got this," emphatically wiping The Last Stand from the slate yet without breaking the fourth wall.