Friday, May 27, 2016

Favorite Scene Friday! X-Men: Days of Future Past: "Time in a Bottle"

With X-Men: Apocalypse out today, I knew I wanted to share something from the franchise. I've had a scene in mind for quite a while, one that straight up left me dumbstruck with joy when I saw it in a theater. But I can't find a great version of it online and I want to make sure I do it justice, so I moved on. I eventually came across a franchise trailer someone put together and, while it wasn't great - just random clips, really - I was going to use it. But then, in said trailer, I saw a bit from Quicksilver's scene from Days of Future Past - another scene I had meant to use and forgotten about. Huzzah!

Rich Davies via Nerdist

In Days of Future Past, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) travels from a future overrun by mutant-killing giant robots back to the past to try and stop that future from ever happening. He needs a young Professor X (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) to tackle that, however, and that brings us to today's scene. Wolvie, the Prof and others have traveled to the pentagon to break Magneto out of jail. It's here where Quicksilver (Evan Peters) - a super fast mutant - comes in handy. Not only does Quicksilver break Magneto out of his cell, he single-handedly saves Wolverine, a powerless Professor X, and Magneto when some guards open fire on the group.

This scene is already a modern classic. Not only is the slow-mo fun in general (right off the bat, a slowed down shot of Wolverine's claws extending is great) it's just a joy to watch Peter's Quicksilver run around the room sabotaging the guards, rearranging items, and sampling soup. One of my favorite bits is actually the moment right after he puts on the guard's cap and notices that the bullets are getting close to the other heroes. Such a great subtle look of concern.

This scene actually kind of reminds me of Nightcrawler's first scene from X2. They're both great showcases of the mutants' abilities. Considering Bryan Singer directed both films, it's easy to see why.  Lastly, I'd be remiss if I didn't highlight "Time in a Bottle" by Jim Croce. The bittersweet song totally works here.

If you're interested, check out some behind the scenes videos here and here after you watch the actual scene below. And go see X-Men: Apocalypse!


What's your favorite X-Men scene?

What would you do if you had superspeed/could stop time?
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1 comment:

  1. RobertJune 1, 2016 at 12:06 PM

    Couple of things I wanted to include in the above but I didn't have time:

    There's some cool "making of" videos for this scene - check 'em out below.

    https://youtu.be/mdNcZ3XgXIg

    https://youtu.be/4OQDTVPEpJ8

    This scene is reminiscent of the Nightcrawler scene from X2 - the one where he's going after the Prez at the beginning. That's a great bit as well, both directed by Bryan Singer.

    If I were to nitpick this scene at all, it's kind of weird that Quicksilver's speed changes a lot throughout the clip, but the speed of everything else seems to stay constant. Or would that make sense? Dunno.

    Who knew this Quicksilver would be the better one compared to the version in Ultron (IMO anyway)?

    I read that Jim Croce wrote "Time in a Bottle" after finding out his wife was pregnant...and then he died in a plane crash three years later. That was too sad to include in the write up. :(

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