X-Men Days of Future Past Reveals! Let's Look at a Sentinel and Bishop!

Bryan Singer's 2014 follow up to the awesome swingin' sixties X-Men First Class is X-Men Days of Future Past, inspired by the Claremont/Byrne story of the same name, and set to blend both future and past teams together in the threat of a mutant apocalypse. That means that your elderly Ian McKellan Magneto is going to be able to share time with - and possibly high-five - the dreamy Michael Fassbender younger Magneto. And at the core of all this is a villainous Peter Dinklage who plays Bolivar Trask, the jerk who constructs an army of giant robot Sentinels designed to exterminate mutants. Does any of that make sense?

So at SDCC 2013 they have a Sentinel head out on display, giving us a first look at one of these murderous mechanical pricks. You'll see a ton of similar images appearing all over the Internet as fans and reporters snap pictures of it, but I've chosen to pilfer this one by Bleeding Cool's Brendon Connelly who assures his image credit by being reflected in the Sentinel's head. That might also be his thumb in the bottom, thereby further marking this image with his unique fingerprint...

Now is this a good thing or a bad thing? I'm going to talk about Sentinels PLUS show you the first image of time-travelling mutant Bishop (and some others)... after the jump!

Short version? It's a good thing.

Can you believe that even Fox is now making a Marvel movie where the thing in the movie is actually recognisable as the thing in the comic. If you're new to all this (and bless you for trying to make sense of it) then this is what the Sentinels look like in the comics...

Yes they are big and purple. And Wolverine perches on their shoulders like a parrot. 

It may all seem a little bit silly but I, for one, am glad that they're willing to take some of these more outlandish comic book elements and bring them into the movie universe. And I think that the film design is great, combining many familiar elements but doing so with more of a real world, practical twist (i.e. making it look less eighties). In fact I heard that Singer was so keen to make this look legit that he put Peter Dinklage in isolation for the past three years and forced him to design and construct a giant killer robot himself in order to get into character. (Tyrion was replaced with a Henson puppet for the bulk of the filming on Game of Thrones). Okay, I didn't hear that at all.

But what I have heard, is that these character shots are the first to reveal Bishop! Now I can't pin down the exact source of these - I read that they were from the X-Men movie tumblr but I can't find them on there and no particular site is claiming them. So let's just share them and hope for the best.

You'll recognise Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen as the crotchety oldster versions of Professor X and Magneto at the top, but if you need a refresher that's Daniel Cudmore as Colossus in the bottom left and Omar Sy as new mutant Bishop in the bottom right...

I'm sure at some point Singer said, "Black leather? Naw, we're not just doing black leather this time. Just wait until you see these costumes!" So... black leather with chest plates?

Before we talk Bishop though, let's look at those other three. Now I do a bit of photography, and while I have no problem with the studio lighting or general composition, what's with some of those facial expressions? Patrick Stewart looks good, but Ian McKellan looks like he's just warming up - and screw it, I will criticise the lighting... the shadows appear to be unflatteringly deflating the left hand side of his face. But that Cudmore Collosus picture is the worst. What is that expression? He looks so self conscious and awkward, like he only just stepped out in front of the camera and isn't quite sure what the photographer wants. I would have put that one in the recycling bin. We need confident X-Men!

And Bishop? Not a lot to see here, but his look is reasonably close to the comic book. Although I'm only familiar with the nineties incarnation...

Note that Sy does have the "M" scarred over his right eye, I assume branding him as a mutant. As if the glowing red eyes weren't enough of a clue.

I like that they threw in a bit of (admittedly) muted red, but I would one day like to see them go nuts and just commit to the crazy costumes. I guess they're not very stealthy when you're avoiding giant mutant exterminating robots, but it would be visually a lot of fun!

What do you think?