Fishing in the Discount Bin - X-Men: Days of Future Past -- The Rogue Cut

Here we go again on Fishing in the Discount Bin, my weekly watch of of a movie I own, followed by blogging about it.  As I elaborate on in this week's entry, I've never been that obsessive about director's cuts, but on the other hand, it gives me a great chance to re-visit a film I love.  And since I loved X-Men: Days of Future Past, I picked up its director's cut, The Rogue Cut, when I saw it for $10.  This showed up in my notes at November 1, 2016.

I've said before that I'm not obsessive when it comes to director's cuts.  Most of the time, it's just an excuse for the dreaded double-dip...a shameless ploy to get you to buy the disc again.  There seems to be two different director's cuts out there.  The first kind is put together by the studio's marketing department.  They slip back in a few scenes that tested well, but had to be dropped for one reason or another.  The second kind is a proper director's cut:  completely re-edited by the director to bring it more in line with his original vision. 

About 10 years ago, director's cuts were a big deal.  It seemed like every DVD featured a director's cut.  It all kind of peaked with Peter Jackson's extended editions of The Lord of the Rings.  Websites used to analyze each new extended edition in great detail, to see what was added or removed to enhance the film.  But now, they come and go with barely a flicker.  But there was a certain degree of excitement for the director's cut of X-Men: Days of Future Past, christened "The Rogue Cut."  Even so, it came and went this past summer with barely a flicker, and I was surprised to see it in discount bins already.  So I snatched it up.

You can add me to the list of folks who think X-Men: Days of Future Past is the best X-Men movie to date, so I was mildly curious about The Rogue Cut.  It's so named because Rogue finally returns.  In the theatrical version, her role gets edited down to just a cameo at the end of the film.  I remember watching it in the theatres, when Kitty Pryde gets injured as she's beaming Wolverine into the past, I thought to myself, "A ha!  That's how they worked in Rogue, I bet.  She probably uses her powers to take Kitty's powers, and then spells off Kitty."  And that's exactly what happens, only with the addition of a new action sequence where the Professor, Magneto, and Iceman go to bust Rogue out of her concentration camp when they realize Rogue can help them. 

There's a little bit of dramatic tension, too, as they pick-up on the threads of the Rogue/Kitty/Iceman love triangle that they spun in The Last Stand.  Iceman and Kitty are very much a couple, and things get turned asunder when Rogue comes back. 

But yeah.  Despite being the most publicized of the deleted scenes, and the name of this extended edition, Rogue actually doesn't play into it that much.  It's mostly extended dialogue scenes and characters have a little more room to breath.  Beast and Mystique have a moment before all hell breaks loose at the climax.  When Wolverine goes back to the past, there's a gratuitous shot of the World Trade Centre still standing in New York City. 

At the end of the day, The Rogue Cut is about the same as the theatrical version.  Not better, not worse...just more.