Honestly, I prefer it. Mystique is fun to watch in the first two films, but only as a spectacle, rather than as a character. She struck me as little more than a glorified henchwoman.

I like it when characters are emotionally complex and have their own motivations for the decisions they make. I didn't see her as a silent, mysterious partner, because she wasn't a partner at all. She belonged entirely to Magneto, and because of this I saw her as a mere multi-tool used to accomplish tasks either given by Magneto, or devised by herself in order to bring us back to Magneto.

She wasn't her own woman in the original trilogy. They even went as far as to have her attempt to commit genocide on Magneto's orders without even the slightest hesitation. That pretty much sealed it for me in finding her to be nothing but a plot device used by him. She was like a flexible, transforming robot that was hardwired to do whatever Erik said or needed, and nothing more. That's just really disappointing to me.

Another thing that makes the original trilogy's Mystique disappointing to me (as a guy) is that I've always been impressed by the fact that X-Men had always put women front and center along with the men, and on both sides of the conflict. The films took this away by taking the one female character on Magneto's side and turning her into his near-silent subordinate. She didn't challenge him, she didn't influence him in any way, she didn't even have anything to say when he was around. Any time the two of them were in a group, she kind of just faded into the background and let Erik do all of the talking. Maybe a word or two here or there, but that's about it. That's just the kind of character she was.

With the new trilogy, we are getting a Mystique that is capable of making her own decisions and is experiencing an internal struggle that causes those decisions to be difficult to make. You know, like a person. That, to me, is a lot more interesting than someone who is simply an extension of another character.

Truthfully, I find it strange that all the things that objectively make a character interesting are considered a bad thing when it comes to Mystique. People normally want their characters to have emotions, struggles, development, etc. But not with Mystique. Fans of the original trilogy don't want her to have a voice, feelings, or anything that the other major characters have. Why?