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In the film X-Men: Days of Future Past, Kitty Pryde’s time travel ability is presented as a secondary mutation or a natural evolution of her existing phasing powers.
Here are the specific details regarding how and why she has this power in the movie:
In the comics, Kitty Pryde is the one who is sent back in time, while Rachel Summers (a powerful telepath) provides the power to send her. However, for the movie, the writers shifted this role to Kitty herself.
The logic used in the film is that Kitty’s ability to "phase" through solid matter has evolved to the point where she can phase a person’s consciousness through time. Instead of passing through a wall, she is essentially passing a mind through the "fabric" of history to inhabit an earlier version of that person's body.
The movie shows Kitty using this power by placing her hands on either side of the subject’s head. She must maintain physical contact and constant focus to keep the person's mind anchored in the past.
The film explains that this process is incredibly taxing on the mind. Before the events of the movie, Kitty had only been sending people back a few days to warn the X-Men of Sentinel attacks (allowing them to escape before they were killed).
Sending someone back decades (from 2023 to 1973) is described as physically and mentally impossible for a normal human or mutant; the mind would "shatter" under the strain. This is the specific reason Wolverine is chosen for the mission—his regenerative healing factor allows his brain to constantly repair the trauma caused by the temporal displacement.
The decision to give Kitty this power (rather than introducing Rachel Summers or using a telepath like Professor X) was largely a narrative choice by the filmmakers:
The summary fails to mention that the movie *never actually explains* the power, which is a significant point of discussion/criticism regarding the film. It instead presents a fan theory as the official explanation.
In X-Men: Days of Future Past, Kitty Pryde possesses the ability to project a person's consciousness back in time. The film itself provides no explanation for how she acquired this power, nor does it attempt to link it to her phasing abilities via dialogue or exposition. The concept of it being a "secondary mutation" or "phasing through time" is a popular fan theory and rationalization, but it is not stated in the movie. The filmmakers (Doylist explanation) gave her this role to replace the comic book character Rachel Summers, allowing Kitty—the protagonist of the original comic arc—to remain central to the plot without introducing a new character. Wolverine was chosen as the traveler because his healing factor allowed his mind to survive the strain of a 50-year jump, which would otherwise shatter a normal human mind.