Spoiler Alert!
With twists and turns galore in Bryan Singer’s mutant movie “X-Men: Days of Future Past,” screenwriter Simon Kinberg went on the record to discuss the deleted scenes featuring Rogue (Anna Paquin.) Kinberg admits the subplot would have changed the tone of the future portion of the film in addition to increasing the running time of the feature an extra ten minutes. Here is what he had to say in an interview with Empire Magazine.
“The Rogue subplot was originally there because I wanted a mission for the older Charles and Eric to do, something like Unforgiven – two last gunslingers, Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman – that kind of a mission for them. I just loved the idea of that. Nothing in the story necessitated that, but just for a lark, I thought it would be a cool thing to see, because we may never see it again.
When I initially wrote that, Kitty’s power was running out, and there was this super silly serum that was down in a farmhouse… it was terrible. I don’t even think it went to script, but it went to outline, and Matthew Vaughn said it was terrible, and he was right.
Then I thought that if her power was winding down, they needed something stronger or someone who could take over her power. This came from a conversation with Matthew, which was about no-one having the same power as her but then realizing there was someone who could take her power. I got chills. Rogue could be the McGuffin of that mission. (The McGuffin is a plot device in the form of some goal, desired object or other motivator that the protagonist pursues, often with little or no narrative explanation.) They’d have to get Rogue out of some dark scary place, and that’s what happens. It’s a really nice sequence, and it’ll end up on Blu-ray some way down the line.
But it does not service the main story. I thought it would increase the urgency and the stakes of the plot in the future, but it actually does the opposite, because it makes you feel like there is an answer out there. You think once Rogue gets here, we’ll have an unlimited amount of time. The ticking clock that we’d established with Kitty getting wounded and losing her powers… well, Rogue would show up and press stop on the clock. So for all of those narrative reasons, there was this ten-minute subplot that had to go.”
Here is the storyline for “X-Men: Days of Future Past:”
The ultimate X-Men ensemble fights a war for the survival of the species across two-time periods in “X-Men: Days of Future Past.” The characters from the original X-Men film trilogy join forces with their younger selves from “X-Men: First Class” in an epic battle that must change the past – to save our future.
“X-Men: Days of Future Past” is currently in theaters. The film stars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Rose Byrne, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Hugh Jackman, Anna Paquin, Ellen Page, Peter Dinklage, Halle Berry, Daniel Cudmore, Fan Bingbing, Shawn Ashmore, Booboo Stewart, Evan Peters, Omar Sy, Kelsey Grammer, Morgan Lily, Lucas Till, Adan Canto, Josh Helman, Evan Jonigkeit, Gregg Lowe, Thai-Hoa Le, Robert Crooks, Alex Ivanovici, Larry Day, Jaa Smith-Johnson, Jason Deline and Amelia Giovanni. Simon Kinberg wrote the screenplay from a story by Jane Goldman, Simon Kinberg and Matthew Vaughn, which is adapted from the comic book story written by Chris Claremont and John Byrne. Bryan Singer directs.
Sources: empireonline, wikipedia