9 Major Retcons That Saved Iconic Movie Franchises

5. Writing The Last Stand Out Of Existence - X-Men: Days Of Future Past

In era where the MCU has (almost) flawlessly created an interconnected franchise of characters and stories that all function together in the same seamless continuity, Fox's X-Men series has continued to struggle at even getting direct sequels to make sense with each other.

It's always been a bit spotty, but it was X-Men: The Last Stand and Origins: Wolverine that really confused things. The former wrote the series into a bit of a corner, with big characters like Xavier, Cyclops and Jean Grey being killed off and a bunch of mutants including Magneto and Mystique being stripped of their powers. Origins: Wolverine made things even more confusing, acting as a prequel that muddied Logan's backstory to the point where it didn't line up with what we'd seen previously.

Throw in a prequel series that further confused matters (Why is Mystique a good guy now, and Charles' adopted sister when they barely speak to each other in the original trilogy?) and there needed to be some kind of major solution before it got totally out of control. Fortunately, Days of Future Past was up to the challenge.

Blending the original trilogy cast with the new prequel stars for the first time, the movie ended with a timeline reset that wrote the entirety of X3 out of continuity. It solved the problems of the mainline series, but it's a testament to how messed up everything was that the characters had to change the fabric of the universe to pull it off.