OVERLAY REPORT

In the film *X-Men: Days of Future Past* (2014), the plot is set in motion by a series of desperate actions taken in a dystopian future to overwrite a single, pivotal mistake in the past. The story moves through four primary "starting" actions: ### 1. The Tactical Time-Loop (Opening Scene) The film begins in a war-torn **2023**, where highly advanced robots called **Sentinels** have nearly eradicated mutantkind and subjugated humanity. The plot is physically ignited when a small group of refugee mutants (including **Blink, Warpath, Colossus, Sunspot, Iceman, and Bishop**) is cornered by Sentinels in Moscow. * **The Action:** As the Sentinels breach their hideout, **Kitty Pryde** uses her secondary mutation (chronokinesis) to send **Bishop’s consciousness** back in time by a few days. * **The Result:** Bishop warns the group in the "past" (a few days prior) of the impending attack, allowing them to evacuate before it ever happens. This establishes the film's central mechanic: changing history to survive the present. ### 2. The Final Summit in China The surviving "Original Trilogy" X-Men (**Professor X, Magneto, Storm, and Wolverine**) meet the refugees at a remote monastery in China. They realize that their "hit-and-run" time-loop strategy is only a temporary fix; the Sentinels will eventually find and kill them all. * **The Action:** Professor Xavier identifies the exact moment the world went wrong and proposes a "permanent" change: sending someone back **50 years** to 1973. * **The Detail:** Because the mental strain of traveling decades would shatter a normal mind, **Wolverine** volunteers. His accelerated healing factor allows his brain to constantly regenerate from the trauma of the temporal displacement. ### 3. The Catalyst in 1973: The Paris Peace Accords The overarching conflict of the film is driven by an event that occurred in the original timeline (before Wolverine's interference). * **The Historical Action:** In 1973, **Mystique** tracked down **Bolivar Trask**, the creator of the Sentinel program, at the Paris Peace Accords and assassinated him. * **The Consequence:** Rather than stopping the Sentinels, this action turned Trask into a martyr and convinced the U.S. government that mutants were a lethal threat. Crucially, Mystique was captured immediately afterward. Her unique shape-shifting DNA was harvested and used to give the Sentinels their "adaptive" powers (allowing them to mimic any mutant's abilities), which is what made them invincible in the 2023 future. ### 4. Wolverine’s Arrival and Recruitment Once Wolverine’s consciousness arrives in his younger 1973 body, the plot shifts into high gear as he performs the specific actions required to stop Mystique. * **The Action:** Wolverine must locate a young, broken, and powerless **Charles Xavier** at the X-Mansion. He then convinces Charles to help him break **Magneto** out of a high-security cell beneath the Pentagon (with the help of **Quicksilver**). * **The Goal:** This trio is formed specifically to intercept Mystique in Paris and prevent her from killing Trask, thereby stopping the DNA harvest that leads to the mutant apocalypse.