I think they could've told the same story in the present day.
I never liked them making Charles and Erik so old in the first X-Men movie. I wouldn't have begun with Auschwitz in WWII, I would've started in the 60's during the Berlin wall, and Erik's parents being taken from him by the Communist West Germans instead of the Nazis. The first X-Men film could've followed a similar plotline, only with Scott, Jean, Hank, Bobby, and Warren, along with Raven, Erik, and Charles.