Changing the past for a better future

Spoiler warning!

I saw X-Men: Days of Future Past last week. I was on the fence about it at first. I'm still cringing from what they did to the Phoenix saga in X3 and despite some good performances First Class was a bit of a bore. However curiosity got the better of me. I had to see Bishop on the big screen. He's always been a favorite.

Bishop didn't disappoint (the little we got to see him) and the Sentinels were super scary and bad ass. The Time in a Bottle sequence was the best three minutes of the movie and I have to give the writers props for doing an admirable job retconning X3 out of existence (not going to cry about that). However they created unnecessary conflict in the past when all they needed to do was put the existing conflict in the future to better use. 

Kitty, Bishop, Colossus, Warpath, Blink, Sunspot, and Iceman was everything the X-men should be. They were a strong team of people who trusted each other implicitly in the most dire of situations and combined their strengths in amazing ways to fight back. It saddened me that we didn't see more of their struggles, how they became so cohesive. That's the movie I wanted to see. 

Did we need to spend 70% of the movie in the past? No. The final scene with the Sentinel attack on the White House lawn would have been just as good if it was in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. All of the key story elements could have been done in half the time, leaving a plenty of room for distopic battles that let the diverse future team shine. 

In spite of the setting imbalance and the fact that we didn't get to see Bishop, Warpath, Blink and the others nearly enough I still enjoyed it. There were enough geeky goodies to keep me happy and the resolution was satisfying.