Of course, this is not new territory for the X-Men franchise: The 2006 film X-Men: The Last Stand focused on genetic-level “cures” for mutations, resulting in the weaponization of ex-mutant therapy. But in Days of Future Past, the question is not of simply curing difference (by choice or force), but of eradicating it entirely. The villain this time around is Dr. Bolivar Trask (played by a wonderfully smug Peter Dinklage), a coldly brilliant scientist whose work focuses on identifying and exploiting the genetic foundations of mutation so that their possessor can be marked for capture and/or termination. Trask’s research eventually produces the Sentinels, a breed of mutation-sniffing, rapidly adapting super robots whose sole mission of killing any carrier of a mutation—or the potential for it in their offspring—leads to a very bleak future indeed.