The Continuing Search for Hope

[Spoilers follow - beyond “The mutant-destroying robots don’t win,” which was never in doubt.]

By the end of X-Men: Days of Future Past, one may be tempted to ask, with Master Samwise, “Is everything sad going to come untrue?” Mind you, I’m as happy as anyone that we can all put The Last Stand behind us - time travel most definitely has its uses. But in spite of all the fun and the well-earned joy, my primary sense as I process this latest entry is one of beautiful melancholy.

I enjoy the X-Men saga for the action, the humor, the sheer inventive joy of watching various filmmakers play with their ever-expanding gallery of mutant powers (Quicksilver, indeed!). But the saga resonates with me because it is, and always has been, about the battle between Charles and Eric. And the battle is for Eric’s soul.

[Side rant, and you may as well shoot me now: I am probably the only person on the planet who doesn’t like X2. It’s particularly odd when you consider that I really like watching X2. I mean, it’s got Nightcrawler! And Magneto’s escape from his plastic prison! And the “good guy” scene! And a fantastic ending! And Nightcrawler! But I can’t make all of that add up to anything, and I think I’ve finally figured out why. The plot  - for very necessary reasons - completely sidelines Professor X, removing him as a mentor/authority figure until the very end. Which means that the moral choices made by the other characters do not directly reflect upon or affect his relationship with Eric. End of rant.]

Though Days of Future Past resolves and re-sets a lot of plot threads, what it doesn’t restore is at least as interesting as what it does. Logan, for example, receives a great and unanticipated joy, but “some things never change.”

And Charles? Mystique makes her climactic choice, but Raven does not come running back into her foster brother’s arms. And Eric is still on the path he chose at the end of First Class. Days of Future Past shows us, among other things, how lonely it is to be Charles Xavier. “We need you to hope again,Charles,” begs Logan, and hope is just about all he has. By the end of the film, Charles has returned to his wheelchair, doing his best to carry the pain of thousands: there is a glorious moment when Magneto accuses him of repressing his powers so that he can have his legs back, and Charles cries out, “So that I can sleep!”. It is suffering that makes him into Professor X, but it’s not automatic: it happens precisely because he consciously accepts that suffering. I am tempted, in fact, to say that he embraces the St. Andrew’s Cross.* But all of that is not enough to win the battle that he most wants to win.

We in the audience are given a little bit more. A glimpse of an ending that might have been, and might someday still be. The future that Logan so happily averts offers one moment of grace, as the dying Eric reaches, at long last, for his friend’s hand: “So many years wasted fighting each other, Charles. To have just a precious few of them back…”

Hope does not disappoint. I come back to X-Men to be reminded of Charles’ hope, and to remember that it is a hope we are all called to share.

*How ‘bout that? I did say it!