For the sake of argument, let assume that the comic book continuity was not already ruined in the first movie by having Angel and Iceman being students rather than established members of the team. I am going to focus on one continuity problem at a time.
I have read on many message boards before the movie was released, ‘this movie is going to suck, why couldn’t they use the ‘real’ first class?’ And afterwards...all the complaints “the movie was good but not having the real first class ruined it for me.’ I am going to argue that there would be even more complaints if the original characters showed up in the new movie. I can hear it now, “how can these characters be in their 30’s in 2001 when they were in their 20’s in 1962!! How does that work??”
Simple...it doesn’t. The continuity from the comic books does not work and had to be changed to make a believable movie timeline.
All of the comic books that are currently being adapted to the big screen were written a long time ago with specific origins for their characters. When updating them to modern day movies, changes have to be made in order for the origins to make sense. Iron Man’s origin was changed from being a prisoner in Vietnam to being a prisoner held by terrorists. This made sense for the movie because if you stuck to ‘cannon’ you would have a very old Tony Stark in 2008. I did not hear many complaints about changing this aspect of the story from fanboys.
Unfortunately, the year of a character’s origin cannot always be so easily changed. For most characters this is not a problem; however, it is essential that Magneto begin his story in a WW2 prison camp. His experience here drives many of the underlying themes in X-Men; segregation, inequality, repression and fear. Also, as very well documented in the movie, this experience forms a large part of Magneto’s motivation for many of his actions and played a huge part in his development into the prominent villain in the X-Men universe. If you started the X-Men saga at any other time it would rob the greatest comic book villain of all-time of his rich and meaningful back-story. As a result, it is essential that the story of Magneto begins in WW2.
There is actually a fairly good continuity between these two ‘sets’ of movies. They may not be faithful to the comics (as I feel it is impossible) but they are reasonably faithful to each other. All of the characters featured in this movie and the original trilogy are reasonable based on the timeline. Magneto starts as a young teen in the late 1940’s and appears in his late twenties/early 30’s in the new movie. The math works for this: 12-15 yrs old + ~15 years = 27-30ish, approximately his age in this movie. You then add another 40 years to bring us to the start of the first X-Men movie and it puts Magneto in his 60’s when this movie takes place, which is reasonable based on his appearance and the age of the actor playing him. The math works here too: 27-30ish + ~40 years = 67-70ish, which could very well be his age in the movie. Xavier, his best friend, is also about the same age and his aging also works from movie to movie.
The other 3 characters appearing in both ‘sets’ of movies, Beast, Mystique and Wolverine, are also chronologically reasonable. Beast appears younger than both Xavier and Magneto in First Class; approximately 5-7 years I am guessing. When he shows up in X3, he is old and retired from being an X-Man and could very easily be in his 60’s based on his appearance and the actor playing him. Mystique’s slower aging process is clearly explained in the movie. Based on this, her age in the original trilogy compared to the prequel is quite reasonable. Wolverine obviously doesn’t age and appears the same in the 60’s as he does in the 2000’s. So the aging of all of the characters who carry across these movies (I have purposely not included Emma Frost, as the Wolverine debacle is for another article) works from a timeline standpoint.
Had the original 5 been introduced as Xavier’s first class of students, this would have presented some major issues within the timeline of the films. The first X-Men movie would not have been very good had it been a team of senior citizens trying to stop Magneto. These characters work best at the age they were presented, a well developed team in their prime. Had they been in First Class and appeared in the first movie as they did, there would have had to be a lot of explanations as to why none of them have aged over the last 40 years. The explanations presented for the characters included in both make sense in relation their powers (i.e. Wolverine and Mystique) but if you had tried to come up with something for everyone it would have got ridiculous.
To summarize my two main points:
You have to keep Magneto’s origin in WW2; his and Charles friendship and polarizing viewpoints are at the centre of the entire X-Men universe, and their contrasting approaches to human/mutant relations are solidified by Magnetos time in a concentration camp.
You cannot make a modern day X-Men movie with all of the usual faces at retirement age. The original trilogy could not have been what it was without the characters that everyone recognised in their prime.
Conclusion: these two points are in total contrast with each other and are both very important to successfully bring the X-Men to the screen. You cannot have both; as a result, the original class that Charles founded had to be different in the movie than in the comic books. I felt the writers of the First Class movie created a new continuity that worked well chronologically with the existing franchise. They have also left many story possibilities open and hopefully in the next film or two we will more familiar faces joining the X-Men team.
Gandalf