The Devastating Truth Of Deadpool 2's Ending
Think they undid that future? Nope.
Given the problems that X-Men movies have had with time travel and messed up timelines, it's really quite humorous to see how Deadpool 2 takes aim at time travel in its exceptional mid-credits sequence. And really, having a time travel story element AT ALL is quite brave in the franchise's wider context. Luckily, David Leitch just doesn't seem to have given a sh*t about timeline considerations anyway (or he wouldn't have included that confusing X-Men cameo).
Which is handy, frankly, because the entire end of the movie either depends on a fundamental betrayal of one of the simplest rules of time travel or the rules of time travel confirm that the ending is not as happy and simple as we might all have thought. That might sound needlessly obtuse, but there's such a big problem with Deadpool 2's ending that there's simply no way an intelligent screen-writing team (which they undoutbedly are) didn't know what they were doing.
In other words, the messy time travel conundrum at the film's heart (concerning Cable's family-saving hop back in time) has to have been precisely planned, which means the ending is actually a lot more devastating than it appears. Because, unfortunately, there is just no way Cable could have stopped his family from being killed.
Why? Here's why...
4. What You THOUGHT The Ending Meant...
At the end of the movie, Deadpool's noble sacrifice to save Russell while depowered is apparently enough to convince the future villainous Firefist not to kill for the first time and thus start down the unavoidable path towards evil.
In stopping that evolution into the villain he was destined to become, Cable killed the timeline in which his family is killed - as he explicitly notes they're now "safe" - and though he doesn't return to them, the film treats that as if it's a happy ending for the Summers family in the future. That much was confirmed by the fact that the teddy bear he carries miraculously loses its blood stains and scorch marks.
In this timeline, Firefist no longer goes on to become a bad guy, Cable's family aren't murdered and the only issue they have to face is the day their husband/father vanishes into thin air for some reason they'd never understand. Compared to death, that's only a SLIGHT trauma, really.
But there's a problem with all of that, thanks to the established rules of time travel from pretty much every single time travel movie ever...