selenak

Courtesy of dvd releases and the extreme heat meaning lots of time in doors:

Aka the one with 30 additional minutes, of which those featuring Anna Paquin as Rogue are actually not that many. (It's still only a cameo appearance.) This said, there's some good additional character stuff in both time lines there.

One of the things it does is that additional material furthers the connection between the original X-Men movie trilogy and the new one. No more is this more evident than in the scene where Old Magneto, with Xavier in his head guiding him through the layout of the place, and Bobby break out Rogue from imprisonment and torture. This is cross cut with the scene of Young Magneto getting his helmet, and on one level, it juxtaposes the two versions of Magneto with each other - the young one uses his power on a self appointed solo punishment/demonstration mission which he thinks will help but which will make everything worse, the older one works together with others to not only save one specific young woman but also to save everyone. (The other reason why they're retrieving Rogue is so she can relieve a wounded Kitty from Logan-time-travel-sending duty, I'll get to that.) But the cross cut scenes also are a call back to both First Class, where Erik enters the submarine with Charles in his head the same way old Magneto does here enter the former X-Mansion, now converted to Evil Headquarters. Rogue is kept and experimented on in Cerebro, because it's the one place Xavier's telepathy can't reach into - which was true for Shaw's chamber as well. And because it's Dark Cerebro now and because of the way it's staged, it's also a callback to X2, Magneto and Mystique entering there where Xavier is kept controlled by Jason and Stryker. But in X2, Magneto then instead of saving Xavier simply alters Stryker's order from "kill all the mutants" to "kill all the humans"; here, he's finally gotten over his movieverse tendency to go for his own plan at the last minute and really focuses on the getting Rogue out plan, which is why it works. And of course the fact that it's Magneto getting out Rogue so she can take another mutant's place to save everyone is neat karmic irony; the light side of what he does and intends to do to her in X1.

("I've been here," Magneto says when seeing Rogue on the lab table, and he has, twice over; once as Shaw's victim, once as the man who put Rogue into the cage/instrument himself.)

Since the future scenes of this movie are the last for these versions of the movieverse characters X1 introduced, including Rogue - and letting her, instead of Kitty, be the one with old Xavier and Magneto and the subconscious Logan when the Sentinels arrive, just before time is reset - makes for a thematically fitting finale, given that these four people are arguably the main characters, minus Jean Grey, of the first trilogy. Mind you: it's not as if Rogue gets much to do. Basically Anna Paquin's acting job is first to be weirded out to see Magneto coming to her rescue, then horrified to watch Bobby sacrifice his life so they can escape, and then, her one true character scene, be gentle yet firm when she delivers the bad news to Kitty while simultanously taking Kitty's powers so she can relieve her on Logan watch.

Kitty and Bobby still being a romantic item, something introduced in X3, is something the additional material gives some scenes to, both with each other and with Bobby's reaction to Kitty getting wounded by Logan. One unintended side effect, however, is that it makes Bobby look, err, a bit questionable, in the scene that goes something like this (paraphrasing dialogue)

B: Kitty can't keep this up much longer in this state, she needs to be relieved.
M: Well, there's no one to take her place, so.
B: There is. She took your place once.
X: I tried to find Rogue and couldn't.
B: That's because she's kept in former Cerebro where they experiment on her to give her power to the Sentinels.
X & M: If you know this, you didn't try to rescue her before why?
B: Too heavily guarded.

Except that no, Magneto (plus mental Charles) and Bobby on their lonesome manage to break out Rogue just fine on their own. Well, okay, not "just fine", Bobby dies in the process plus in the extended cut, this is how the Sentinels discover where our heroes are hiding - they track the Quinjet back to the temple. But still. It does come unintentionally across as if Bobby & Co. are only motivated to save Rogue from gruesome experimentation now that Kitty's life is at stake in addition to everyone else's.

(BTW, the last but one scene in the new time line is still identical - so in the new future, Bobby and Marie are back to being an item, and Kitty standing with Peter Rasputin may be a hint she's with him in the new future.)

Speaking of the stakes: one additional scene early on I really liked was that after old Erik and Charles have explained their back to the future plan and Logan has volunteered, the younger mutants point out that if Logan does manage to change the time line, he might end up inadvertendly wiping them out of existence. Even if not, they'll be different people; who they are now will be irretrievably gone. In essence, by agreeing to this plan, they're sacrificing themselves. Logan points out that if they don't, everyone dies anyway, which does get the younger team on board, but I like that the point is raised, and there's an argument about it, instead of everyone immediately agreeing.

Said debate and the saving Rogue sequence aside, the new material, to my surprise, isn't in the future sequences but in the 70s timeline. Some is really just minute and really unnecessary (Logan finding the girl 70s!Logan was sleeping with in waiting in the car and saying "off you go"), some is great for comic fans but not strictly necessary (Peter's mother tells her little daughter "go upstairs and bug your sister", thus establishing there's a Wanda and that the little girl must be Lorna), but there's also an entire new sequence involving Raven (and Hank, and indirectly Charles) which I'd have loved to see in the cinematic release, not least because it presents follow-up to the Raven and Hank relationship from First Class and at the same time explains Hank's apparant readiness to believe she's doomed in the scene where he says "maybe this is who she was always was meant to be" in both versions.

This sequence is set up with a last line from Charles at the end of his telepathic conversation with Raven at the airport which isn't in the cinematic release. He makes the mistake of telling her that if she does proceed with the Trask assassination, he'll stop her with his power if necessary. (BTW this gives Charles' decision NOT to do that in the showdown later, and to apologize and let Raven make the choice instead, an additional layer.) A scene or two later, Raven shows up at the mansion, to Hank's delighted surprise, but says not to wake up Charles, who's asleep. Hank does some more medical care of her gunshot wound, and it's clear he's still crushing on her. She asks whether he's "like this" (i.e. "normal" shaped) all the time (at this point Raven is in her blonde version); he explains about the serum and how when excited etc. he reverts to Beast form anyway. Some more dialogue later, they kiss and start making out; Raven assumes her natural shape, Hank is in Beast form. She asks him whether he remembers telling her nobody would consider her beautiful in this form, and whether he still believes that. Hank, ultra repentant, apologizes and declares she IS beautiful. And then Raven asks: "What about yourself?"

Hank: stops abruptly, pulls back from her, sits up, silent.
Raven: Do you remember the last thing I told you?
Hank, not looking at her: Mutant and proud. *rises, still not looking at her, declares he'll get another bandage, exits*

Oh, Hank. Nicholas Hoult is heartbreaking in that scene. It's still not the end of the new sequence. Next thing we see is Charles, limping towards Cerebro, because he's not really Charles but Mystique, saying "I'm sorry, Charles" as she enters Cerebro and sabotages the helmet, as she will do in X1 , though in a different way; here, she keeps the sabotage simple and just destroys the wiring and smashes the thing to pieces. Exit Raven. Hank, Charles and Logan find the sabotaged Cerebro and Hank, concluding this is why Raven truly came back, feels played and foolish, which leads directly into the "maybe that's who she was meant to be" scene from the cinematic release.

Like I said, I wish they'd kept this sequence, not solely because more Mystique is always good, and this another excellent example showcasing her in the in between young Raven from First Class and Mystique from X1 stage, but because it offers some follow-up on Hank's still not conquered self loathing. One understands Raven and him both.

In conclusion: worth watching if you're a fan. There's also an audio commentary which I haven't listened to yet, and some more extras.