X-Men: Days of Future Past

X-Men: Days of Future Past is a 2014 superhero film and the seventh in a series of films, after The Wolverine, based on the Marvel Comics series X-Men. The film focuses on two time periods and Wolverine going to 1973 to save the future of mankind. It is a sequel to both 2006's X-Men: The Last Stand and 2011's X-Men: First Class.

Directed by Bryan Singer. Screenplay by Simon Kinberg. Story by Jane Goldman, Simon Kinberg and Matthew Vaughn.

The future begins. (Taglines)

Prof. Charles Xavier/Professor X

[first words] The future: a dark, desolate world. A world of war, suffering, loss on both sides. Mutants, and the humans who dared to help them, fighting an enemy we cannot defeat. Are we destined down this path, destined to destroy ourselves like so many species before us? Or can we evolve fast enough to change ourselves... change our fate? Is the future truly set?

Dialogue

[Kitty Pride briefs Wolverine on the potential dangers of his time-travel mission]

Kitty Pryde: Basically, your body will go to sleep while your mind travels back in time. As long as you're back there, past and present will continue to coexist. But once you wake up, whatever you've done will take hold and become history. And for the rest of us it'll be the only history that we know. It'll be like the last fifty years never happened. And this world, this war...the only person who will remember it is you. Alright, Logan, I need you to clear your head and to stay as calm as possible.

Wolverine: What? What do you mean?

Kitty: If your mind gets rocky it'll be harder for me to hold you. You could start to slip between past and future.

Wolverine: What if I need to get a little rocky?

Kitty: Think peaceful thoughts.

Wolverine: Peaceful thoughts. You have any good news?

Kitty: Well, you don't really age, so you'll pretty much look the same.

Iceman: You won't have much time in the past, the Sentinels will find us. They always do.

Kitty: And this time we won't be able to run, we'll have no escape. This is our last chance.

[The Senate Armed Services Committee hears out Bolivar Trask]

Senator Brickman: We are reviewing our defense expenditures, and all the black books are being opened. We can't support a weapon that targets our own citizens. If these Mutants as you describe are already living among us, then they are living here peacefully.

Senator Parker: We haven't had an incident in over ten years.

Senator Davis: After what happened in Cuba!

Parker: It was never confirmed. [Addressing Trask] We have very real enemies out there. The Russians, the Chinese.

Brickman: We are talking about a tenth of a tenth of a tenth of our population.

Dr. Bolivar Trask: Allow me to read something to you.

Brickman: Please.

Trask: This was acquired from our friends in the CIA. [Opening a folder] It's a dissertation written by a mutant at Oxford University and I quote: "To Homo Neanderthalensis, his mutant cousin: Homo Sapiens," which is us, "was an aberration. The arrival of the mutated human species, Homo Sapiens, was followed by the immediate extinction of their less evolved kin." [Closes the folder] Well, now we are the Neanderthal.

Brickman: Speak for yourself, Dr. Trask. [Members of Congress laugh quietly]

Trask: You know, when you sent our soldiers to Vietnam without the weapons they needed to win the war, you underestimated your enemy. You do that with this enemy and it won't be some border skirmish halfway around the world. This time, the war will be for our streets, our cities, our homes. By the time you see the need for my program, it'll be too late and you'll have lost two wars in one lifetime.

Brickman: We're sorry Dr. Trask, but your Sentinel Program... it ain't gonna fly!

[In the elevator in the Pentagon's prison, Quicksilver changes clothes while Erik tries to catch his breath.]

Peter Maximoff: It'll pass, it happens to everyone. You must've done something serious. What you do? What you do? What you do? Why did they have you in there?

Erik Lehnsherr: For killing the President.

Peter: Oh… [mouths quietly to the taped up guard, who undeniably understands his shock] Shit!

Erik: If there's one thing I'm guilty of, it's fighting for people like us.

Erik Lehnsherr: How did you lose them?

Charles Xavier: The treatment for my spine affects my DNA.

Erik: You sacrificed your powers so you could walk?

Charles: I sacrificed my powers so I could sleep. [angrily] What do you know about it?

Erik: I've lost my fair share.

Charles: [laughs coldly] Dry your eyes, Erik. [angrily] It doesn't justify what you've done.

Erik: You have no idea what I've done.

Charles: I know you took the things that meant the most to me.

Erik: Well, maybe you should have fought harder for them.

Charles: [stands up in rage] If you want a fight, Erik, I will give you a fight!

Wolverine: Sit down!

Erik: Let him come.

Charles: [seizes Erik by the front of his shirt] YOU ABANDONED ME!!!!! YOU TOOK HER AWAY AND YOU ABANDONED ME!!!!!

Erik: Angel, [growing angrier as he recites the names] Azazel, Emma, Banshee. Mutant brothers and sisters, all dead! [Erik's rage begins to affect the plane's stability] COUNTLESS OTHERS EXPERIMENTED ON, BUTCHERED!!!!!

Hank: Erik--!

Erik: WHERE WERE YOU, CHARLES?! WE WERE SUPPOSED TO PROTECT THEM!!!!! WHERE WERE YOU WHEN YOUR OWN PEOPLE NEEDED YOU?! HIDING!!!!! YOU AND HANK!!!!! PRETENDING TO BE SOMETHING YOU'RE NOT!!!!!

Hank: [trying to maintain control of the plane] Erik!

Erik: [relinquishes his control of the plane, allowing Hank to regain control] You abandoned us all.

Charles: [about Mystique] How was she?

Erik: Strong. Driven. You should be proud of her. She's out there, fighting for our cause!

Charles: Your cause. The girl I raised, she wasn't capable of killing.

Erik: You didn't raise her, you grew up with her. And she couldn't stay your little girl forever, that's why she left

Charles: [angrily] She left because you got inside her head!

Erik: That's not my power.

[Rogue Cut only]

Professor X: The walls are made of reinforced steel.

Magneto: In other words, a door.

[Dr. Trask meets military representatives from Communist countries before proceeding to the official signing of the Paris Peace Accords]

Dr. Bolivar Trask: Good afternoon, everyone, hello, thank you all for coming. Congratulations on winning this war. Now, I know you all have hands to shake and photos to take downstairs so I will get right to the point. There is a new enemy out there; an enemy that will render your arsenals useless, your armies powerless and your nations defenseless. You'll need a new weapon for this war. [begins a slideshow presenting Sentinel schematics] I call them 'Sentinels', named after the ancient guardians who stood at the gates of the citadel. They have the aeronautic capabilities of a Harrier jet, armed with guns that can fire off more than two thousand rounds of thermoceramic ammunition per minute. But size, power, speed- you could find that at Lockheed or Boeing. No, what makes the Sentinels so special is the ability to target the mutant X-gene. A genetic guidance system that can lock onto a mark half a mile away and won't trigger unless it has identified the target. With this weapon, there will be no human collateral damage. If I turn it on, the system couldn't even activate in here [the detector starts beeping]...unless there's a mutant.

[The Detector stops at Raven who is posing as General Nhuan. Everybody else looks at "him" suspiciously]

General Nhuan: There has to be some kind of mistake.

Trask: My machines don't make mistakes. What are you?

[Charles Xavier is exasperated over failing to work Cerebro again after so many years]

Hank McCoy: I'll go check the generator.

Wolverine: It's not the machinery, is it!

Charles: I can't do this!

Logan: Yes, you can!

Charles: No, I can't!

Wolverine: You're just a little rusty.

Charles: You don't understand, it's not a question of being "rusty!" I can flip the switches, I can turn the knobs, but my power doesn't come from here [points to his head], it comes from...here [points to his heart]. And it's broken. I feel like one of my students. Helpless. It was a mistake coming down here , it was a mistake freeing Eric, this whole thing has been one bloody mistake! I'm sorry, Logan, but they sent back the wrong man! [Xavier starts to leave]

Wolverine: You're right! [Xavier stops, surprised to hear him admit this] Actually, it was supposed to be you. But I was the only one who could physically make the trip. And, uh, I don't even know how long I've got here. But I do know that a long time ago-well, actually, a long time from now-I was your most helpless student. And you unlocked my mind. You showed me what I was, you showed me what I could be. I don't know how to do that for you, you're right, I don't! But I think I know someone who might. Look...into my mind.

Charles Xavier: You saw what I just did to Cerebro! You don't want me inside your head!

Wolverine: [amused] There's no damage you can do that hasn't already been done, trust me!

Charles: :[reads Logan's mind and see his torture at the hands of Weapon X, his fragmented memories, the death of Jean Grey, and his hard life.] You poor, poor man.

Wolverine: Look past me.

Charles: No, I don't want your suffering, I don't want your future!

Wolverine: Look past my future! Look for your future. That's it. That's it...

[Charles reads Logan's mind and appears in the future, where Professor X awaits him.]

Professor X: Charles.

Charles: Charles. [looks around to see the dire situation that both mutants and humanity face with the Sentinels in 2023.] Is this what becomes of us? Erik was right. Humanity does this to us.

Professor X: Not if we show them a better path.

Charles: You still believe?

Professor X: Just because someone stumbles, loses their way, it doesn't mean they're lost forever. Sometimes, we all need a little help.

Charles: I'm not the man I was. I open my mind up, and it almost overwhelms me.

Professor X: You're afraid. And Cerebro knows it.

Charles: All those voices... So much...pain.

Professor X: It's not their pain you're afraid of. It's yours, Charles. And as frightening as it may be, that pain will make you stronger. If you allow yourself to feel it, embrace it, it will make you more powerful than you ever imagined. It's the greatest gift we have: to bear their pain without breaking. And it's born from the most human power: hope. [shows Charles his school for Mutants, his own compassion, what he fights for which helps ease his past self's mind.] Please, Charles, we need you to hope again. [Xavier, stunned, breaks the psychic link]

Wolverine: Find what you were looking for?

[The lights return. Hank enters, having fixed the generator.]

Hank McCoy: The power's back on.

Charles: Yes. Yes, it is.

[Wolverine smiles.]:

[Having unleashed the Sentinel Mark Is, Erik controls a news camera and hold President Nixon, his cabinet and Trask hostage.]

Erik Lehnsherr: You built these weapons to destroy us. Why? Because you are afraid of our gifts. Because we are different. Humanity has always feared that which is different, but I am here to tell you, to tell the world, you're right to fear us. We are the future. We are the ones who inherit this earth and anyone who stands in our way, will suffer the same fate as these men you see before you. Today was meant to be a display of your power. Instead I give you a glimpse of the devastation my race can unleash upon yours. Let this be a warning to the world and to my mutant brothers and sisters out there, I say this. No more hiding. No more suffering. You have lived in the shadows of shame and fear for too long. Come out. Join me. Fight together in a brotherhood of our kind, a new tomorrow that starts today.

[In the future, Blink makes a valiant effort to fend off the Sentinels. She is later killed by them as Magneto begins to succumb to his injury.]

Magneto: All those years wasted fighting each other, Charles, to have a precious few of them back. [Charles comforts him as the Sentinels begin using their energy beam to break through. Iceman tries to hold them off using his ice powers to barricade the door.]

[Charles Xavier wants to convince Raven not to kill Trask]

Raven Darkhölme: Get out of my head, Charles!

Charles Xavier: Raven, please do not make us the enemy today.

Raven: Look around you, we already are.

Charles: Not all of us, Raven. All you've done so far is save the lives of these men. You can show them a better path.

Hank McCoy: Shut her down, Charles.

Charles: I've been trying to control you since the day we met, and look where that's got us. Everything that happens now is in your hands. I have faith in you, Raven.

[As Mystique ponders what to do, the Mark X Sentinels destroy Iceman. They soon close in on Professor X, Kitty Pryde, Magneto and Wolverine. Just before the Sentinels could destroy them, Mystique tosses the gun aside and spares Trask, erasing the dark future. President Nixon and his cabinet are ultimately convinced that not all mutants are against humanity.]

[seeing Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Storm seemingly alive, Logan steps into Professor X's office]

Wolverine: You did it.

Professor X: Did what? Logan, don't you have a class to teach?

Wolverine: A class to teach?

Professor X: History.

Wolverine: History. Actually, I could use some help with that.

Professor X: Help with what?

Wolverine: Well, pretty much everything after 1973. [The Professor is surprised.] I think the history I know is a little different.

Professor X: [reads Wolverine's mind and understands what he went through] Welcome back.

Wolverine: It's good to see you, Charles. It's good to see everyone.

Professor X: Well, I had a promise to keep. You and I have a lot of catching up to do.

Wolverine: Yeah.

Professor X: What's the last thing you remember?

Wolverine: Drowning.

[Back in 1973, as the police rescues a younger Wolverine, an officer on the case reads a newspaper with articles praising Mystique for saving President Nixon from Magneto while others report the Sentinel program's cancellation and Trask's arrest]

Charles Xavier: The past: a new and uncertain world. A world of endless possibilities and infinite outcomes. Countless choices define our fate: each choice, each moment, a moment a ripple in the river of time. Enough ripples, and you change the tide... for the future is never truly set.

Officer: What do you want to do with him, Stryker?

Raven Darkhölme: [Disguised as a smiling Stryker] I'll take it from here.