Trailer Breakdown: “X-Men: Days Of Future Past”

What exactly is happening in this huge, time-travel-y trailer? Let’s find out!

The last X-Men movie took us back to the beginning as we saw a young Charles Xavier join forces with a young (and so, so, so badass) Magneto to throw submarines at people while picking up chicks. This new movie sees the casts of the first three movies combine with the cast of the prequel to try and make the events of the first movies come about by not letting the events of the prequel’s sequel get out of control with time travel. Confused yet? You will be!

SHOT 1

It’s Wolverine! With grey hair! This must be the future. It’s also – going by what we know about the story from reading the comics because, yes, we are not-so-secret nerds here – some kind of dystopian hellhole, which could explain Logan’s angry, frowny face. Or it could be because someone served his waffles cold. You never know what’s going to set Wolverine off.

SHOT 2

It’s Storm! But is she older? Her hair was always white, so it’s hard to tell. Again, though, she looks like she’s not having a good time. Maybe someone told her she was going to have to wear that wig from the first movie again.

SHOT 3

It’s…Iceman? Is that who that is? Why is he never actually made out of ice? And why does he have a beard? Isn’t he going to get icicles in his mustache?

SHOT 4

Professor X enters Cerebro as we hear him say to Wolverine, “You’re going to have to do for me what I once did for you.” So…does that mean he wants Wolverine to forcibly draft him into his teenage militia group so he can go and fight the underlings of his best/worst frenemy? Because that’s a weird request.

SHOT 5

“You’ll need me as well!” intones Magneto, presumably addressing the producers.

SHOT 6

It’s Bishop! That guy no one’s cared about since the ’90s! In the comics, he was a mutant hunter from the future who goes back in time and joins the X-Men. His powers included absorbing (and then firing) energy, and the ability to do battle right after an all-you-can eat session at Red Lobster (that’s what the bib’s about, right?)

SHOT 7

Oh, hey, it’s…this guy!

SHOT 8

And, uh, this guy.

SHOT 9

And…we’ll be honest, we have no idea who any of these people are. Adam Ant fans, perhaps?

SHOT 10

Plot! Xavier wants Wolvie to go back in time. Wolverine will apparently wake up in his younger body and go find young Xavier in an effort to avert the terrible events that have laid waste to the planet.

SHOT 11

And here he is! Young Xavier, with a truly luscious mane of hair. What’s going to be worse for him – discovering the future is a post-apocalyptic nightmare, or finding out he goes bald?

SHOT 12

“It’s going to take the two of us,” insists Magneto. Alright, dude, we get it, you’re in this movie too. Jeez.

SHOT 13

Fuck yeah. Young, murder-happy Magneto. If we get anything as good as the bar scene from First Class where he kills the former Nazis, it’s going to be awesome.

SHOT 14

Xavier tells Logan he’ll have to guide him, be patient with him. “Patience isn’t my strongest suit,” quips Logan, before a quick cut to him screaming while someone electrocutes his brain. Oh Wolverine, you so wacky!

SHOT 15

Exploding stuff in some kind of temple! Will we see über-villain Apocalypse at last?

SHOT 16

Wait…in the second movie, the President was horrified that the X-Men had a private jet that rose up out from under their basketball court. But now it turns out he has a secret tunnel built into the Oval Office? Hypocrite!

SHOT 17

Oh look, bad guys shooting at someone. I wonder who their target could possibly be?

SHOT 18

OH HAI WOLVERINE. Totally didn’t see that one coming.

SHOT 19

Young Xavier flips out while having his hair permed. This must be the ’70s. 

SHOT 20

Oh God, it’s worse than Apocalypse! It’s Richard Nixon!

SHOT 21

It’s Peter Dinklage as Boliver Trask! The only man in the world with a stranger name than “Peter Dinklage”!

SHOT 22

That really must have been quite a view. Just sayin’.

SHOT 23

“I don’t want your future!” screams young Xavier, presumably talking to the hapless goon who Wolverine’s stabbing to death.  

SHOT 24

Lots of Mystique this time around, which is unsurprising since Jennifer Lawrence has become a global superstar since the last installment. Still, who’s complaining? Not us.

SHOT 25

“Please…we need you to hope again,” says old Xavier to young Xavier as the trailer draws to an end. So, what did we learn here? Three things: Firstly, that the cast for this is huge, and in most cases, fantastic. Secondly, the plot is epic – seriously, this looks like a really fun movie, with all the angst, action, romance, and important lessons about teamwork and not being dicks to each other that you’ve come to expect from the X-Men franchise. Third: They’re holding out on us. This movie has Peter “Tyrion Lannister” Dinklage as the bad guy, and we only get a tiny glimpse of him in this trailer, as well as seeing absolutely nothing of the Sentinels (giant, purple, mutant-killing robots) either. Excuse us while we respond by destroying our computers in a berserker Wolverine rage.