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SPOILER ALERT: This article discusses events– vague as they might be– from ‘Logan’.  Proceed with caution.

Some fans are walking out of ‘Logan’ with big questions about a certain past catastrophe at the Westchester, NY home of Professor Charles Xavier and the X-Men during which the mutant heroes were (all?) killed and 600 others injured, resulting in the United States government classifying Xavier’s powerful telepathic mind a weapon of mass destruction.

This unseen tragedy is later reiterated during a radio news report that compared the events at the Oklahoma casino to this former mutant disaster.

What happened?

Some fans are weaving together their own theories while others are just scratching their possibly bald heads in confusion.

Screenwriter Michael Green says that glimpses at the catastrophe were planted in early drafts of the film but those scenes were eliminated from later drafts.  Ultimately, the creators opted to let this event remain a mystery and simply cast a nebulous shadow over the events transpiring in the future-present.

“I wanted to make a movie less about information and more about character,” director James Mangold explained.
Green explained:

“It actually hits home a lot harder than the versions that really painted out specifically the flashback.  Of course there are versions we wrote that were never filmed with the actual flashback of what happened, but I’ve found the experience of watching it is far more poignant to just know that it was something really regrettable and it was bad and most likely, friends were lost. Or maybe it was people we didn’t know.”

Considering that there aren’t 600 X-Men– at least not in the movies– it’s safe to say most of those injured were either students or residents of the small town of Westchester.

Professor X himself, Patrick Stewart chimed in “Was it Logan? Was it Charles? It was probably Charles but he doesn’t know. He has no memory; he has no recollection.  He has an instinct, an impulse, that something happened and it was bad.”  (Note in the ‘Old Man Logan’ comic, it was Logan, but that story was only an inspiration for the film.)

Green acknowledges that he obviously knows what he had planned, but his decision along with Mangold’s to leave that incident a mystery and up to the audience to decide will lead to scores of fan theories… and the screenwriter can’t wait.

“Nothing will be better than going online and reading fan theories about what happened at the end because I want to hear that version.  I know what I think happened, I even know what did happen, but it doesn’t matter, because what’s canonized here is the emotional effect of things… I would love one day to read a beautifully drawn comic where someone actually writes out something.”

So fans?  What are your theories?

‘Logan’ is now playing in theaters.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter