At the Ending of X-Men, released in 2000, Magneto captured Rogue so that he could exploit her power and use it to turn all humans into mutants. In this movie, everything revolves around Rogue. She was certainly an important part of X-Men.
So, what happened in Days of Future? How can a character so important suddenly become negligible? If we look into the comics and the movies, we see that Rogue ran out of gas but the 1990s.
When Chris Claremont was removed from the X-Men in the 90s, creators were confused about how to revive Rogue’s character. In the 2000s, she was kind of put on the shoulders of the roads and didn’t seem as important as she was earlier. Franchises generally try their best to grow with the help of new leads, but it is still unbelievable how could a fan-favorite character, Rogue, be kept aside for that. So, Why Was Rogue Cut From X-Men Days of Future Past?
What Happened To Rogue?
The year 2000 was an amazing time for Marvel fans when the company escaped bankruptcy and, with full Zeel, was back on track with more potential movies. Chris Claremont is the initial writer of Marvel. He was a bit inclined towards showing women’s complex depictions, which were way more than enough to skyrocket the comics.
Later, he was removed at the beginning of the 1990s, and the quality of Marvel movies and comics dropped, and Rogue was forgotten. This was because the new creators might not have understood Claremont’s idea. New creators weren’t worried about this since they only wanted to make a good movie.
Jack Kirby used work upon mutants very often, which was too unfamiliar for the audience, and in such a scenario, the audience’s just had Haim Saban’s X-Men (Animated Series). Producers got an opportunity to enter a character. Let’s say Neo is a lead fictional character in Matrix. The creators chose Rogue to introduce Neo. Rogue- A fan-favorite character that will be ghosted very soon. X-Men is basically about a world that has mutants and the central conflicts between Professor X and Magneto. In the movie, we meet a young character, Rogue or Marie D’Ancanto.
People were expecting high from Rogue since the one playing the character was Anna Paquin, an Oscar winner. After Patrick Stewart (Professor X) and Halle Berry (Storm), Anna (Rogue) was a big name. Therefore, the audience was expecting high from her character in her first X-Men movie.
Well, here it is! Unknowingly, she puts her boyfriend in a coma and runs away, and meets Wolverine. After this, they meet X-Men. When the movie starts, so basically, Rogue is a very important character through whom we are introduced to X-Men and their work.
Not only his, but Rogue was a relatable young character who was confused and horrified by her powers. While approaching the end of the movie, it is quite clear that her power-absorbing abilities are too important for the plot. Therefore, it was clear that Rogue was as important in the movie as in the books. After this movie, fans were expecting that Rogue would be included in the sequels, her strengths would be higher, and she would have a romantic relationship with Gambit.
But were the expectations fulfilled? Absolutely Not! With every releasing sequel, Rogue was getting pushed aside. X-Men United (X2) has had her for a few big scenes, but if you remove her entirely from the movie, it won’t affect it much. In X-Men Days of Future Past, she wasn’t even included in the movie.
Why Was Rogue Cut From X-Men Days of Future Past?
In X-Men Days of Future Past, Rogue was not there in the movie. She was removed completely, and then a Rogue cut was released with a runtime of 45 mins. In the Rogue Cut Days of Future Past, Rogue was rescuing, healing, and helping Logan’s mind. That’s it! Nothing Much. Was it essential? Well, for the audience, it wasn’t at all. None felt essential in an already released 2 hours long movie.
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Possible Reasons:
- Rogue has the ability to absorb powers. In the comics, she is incredible, and she levels up because she absorbs the powers of Ms. Marvel to upgrade herself. Now, as Fox didn’t have the rights to the Ms Marvel character, so including her powers or ‘her’ in the movies led to copyright issues. Since Ms. Marvel can not be included in X-Men movies, it is not possible for Rogue to achieve flight abilities or absorb Ms. Marvel’s abilities.
- Another reason that kept Rogue from achieving her full potential was Hugh Jackman. He played the character of Wolverine and had the maximum spotlight. Initially, he was quite an unknown cast in the movie since he didn’t have much importance in the comics, but his charismatic performance made him the one who got the most eyeballs. He became a worldwide superstar and the forefront face of the X-Men Franchise.
Because of these main reasons, creators had no idea how to include Rogue and level her up. However, the X-Men series isn’t the only one that sidelined a fan-favorite character. There are many other franchises that have forgotten their cast members. This happened probably because creators want every series of their franchise to get bigger than the previous one to survive in the industry. Hence, they have to introduce more cast members, powerful and capable faces.
