X-Men: Days of Future Past Trailer Breakdown

Gavin Gronenthal ’16 / Emertainment Monthly Staff
Darks days are ahead in the new X-Men: Days of Future Past movie, and this trailer certainly showcases it. Here are a few things to look out for in the trailer. And, as always, watch out for SPOILERS!

For those of you who don’t know, Days of Future Past is a story about time travel. One of the stories takes place in the dystopian future where few of the X-Men have survived the attack of the Sentinel army. The other takes place during the 70’s as the X-Men attempt to prevent an assassination attempt (more on that later).
In the film version, there’s only one actor who will appear in both timelines: none other than Hugh Jackman, the Wolverine. The most important thing to note about this image though is the grey streaks along Logan’s hair: it’s a huge deal in the comics–even relating to the signature cover art–and will probably be the signifier of where Logan is at the time. And, you know if Wolverine’s hair is grey, which isn’t really supposed to happen due to his advanced healing factor, something serious is about to go down.

Time travel is tough. But, with the X-Men’s already convoluted chronology in film, this could be the movie that takes the franchise to whole new level.  The plot of the comic follows future Kitty Pryde’s consciousness being sent back to what was present day Kitty in order to warn the X-Men about an assassination attempt on Senator Kelly. Here, it appears Wolverine is going to head back to do this, putting what Old Wolverine knows in a younger Wolverine’s body to warn Young Professor X (James McAvoy, pictured) about the impending tragedy. Whether it’s an assassination (or who’s being assassinated) has yet to be confirmed, but it would seem that regardless, something happens in the 70’s that needs to be fixed.

This is where we get our first glimpse of some new future mutants, most notably, Omar Sy as Bishop, the time traveling X-Man from the future (picture above), with the power to redirect any energy back at someone. Also shown was Bingbing Fan as Blink, a teleporter; Adan Canto as Sunspot, similar to Bishop but he redirects solar energy; and Booboo Stewart as Warpath, who has highly enhanced strength, stamina, and speed. But that’s not all the X-Men from the future: also returning is Halle Berry as Storm, Ellen Page as Kitty Pryde, Shawn Ashmore as Iceman, Daniel Cudmore as Colossus, and Anna Paquin as Rogue. Suffice to say, the battle for the future is sure to be one for the ages.

When future Professor X (Patrick Stewart) sends Wolverine’s mind back in time, future Magneto (Ian McKellan) reminds him that it will take both young Xavier and young Magneto (Michael Fassbender, pictured) to stop the assassination. In the comic, neither of these men are heavily featured (except Magneto in the future) so this is a big change for the film. Both men remind Logan that their past selves are also lost, with future Xavier asks Logan to “be patient with him,” as future Magneto tells him he will be following “a darker path.”

As it takes place in the 70’s, director Bryan Singer has decided that the president at the time, Richard Nixon, will probably take a huge part. Just as X-Men: First Class was closely related to the Cuban Missile Crisis, could Days of Future Past be closely related to something like, say, the Watergate Scandal? Or will Nixon be the subject of the assassination attempt, as Senator Kelly has yet to be cast?

Here, we get our first glimpse at Bolivar Trask, portrayed here by Peter Dinklage. Trask is the founder and creator of Trask Industries, which is responsible for The Sentinel Project. Though not pictured in the trailer, Sentinels are basically giant robots that target and eliminate mutants. They are directly responsible for the dystopian future we saw so much of in the beginning of the trailer, so you can bet the Trask is one of, if not the, antagonist in this film.

In one of the final shots of the trailer, we see a young Magneto attacking a young Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence). Considering the end of First Class, where Magneto and Mystique start the Brotherhood of Mutants together, this is definitely a sudden change for their relationship. It’s also important to note that Mystique was the villain who attempted to assassinate Senator Kelly in the original comic story, so it’s very questionable about whose motives are the most pure here. Other mutants that appear in the past are Beast (Nicholas Hoult) and Havok (Lucas Till) from First Class.

The final shot of the trailer has both past and future Professor X face to face, with Old Xavier pleading his younger self to ”hope again.” Will the two really meet face to face in the film? My money is that this is a telepathic conversation through time, helped by Cerebro in the past (which was shown earlier). This line probably indicates one of the main plot points of the entire film: past Xavier, who already looks defeated and downtrodden, is on the verge of giving up his dream. For the sake of the future of mutantkind and all mankind, he needs to start believing.
This trailer could not be more intriguing. With such a huge cast of returning and new faces, two time periods, this is easily the most ambitious X-Men movie yet. And with the triumphant return of X-Men and X2 director Bryan Singer, everything is coming up X-Men.  Just as a reminder, X-Men: Days Of Future Past comes out on May 23, 2014, and stars (here we go) Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Halle Berry, Ellen Page, Peter Dinklage, Anna Paquin, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Shawn Ashmore, Omar Sy, Lucas Til, Evan Peters, Bingbing Fan, Daniel Cudmore, Booboo Stewart, Adam Canto, Ian Mckellan, and Patrick Stewart.