The Sentinels were as chilling and relentless as longtime X-fans expected them to be in X-Men: Days of Future Past.
Director Bryan Singer and the X-Team showed us the original Sentinels as created by Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage) and the adaptable versions of the future. In an unique twist from comics lore, Trask used the shapeshifting genes of Mystique in order to make the robots adapt to any prey’s powers.
X-Men Apocalypse is the next movie in which the immortal first mutant will appear be the villain but is Team Fox X-Men finished with the Sentinels?
In the end it’s the villain (human or mutant) controlling the machines that really makes the story but this X-fan would love to see the evil robots appear in a future X-Men movie or spinoff. There are so many cool incarnations of the ruthless robots to use:
Nimrod was a virtually indestructible super Sentinel from the Days of Future Past alternate history named after a scripture in Genesis, “a mighty hunter before the Lord.” Nimrod followed Rachel Summers (daughter of Scott and Jean from the timeline that didn’t appear in the movie) into the past and altered his own programming to wipe out only the X-Men who would alter the future. Nimrod would assume a human identity and even become celebrated as a public hero before a deadly showdown with the X-Men and Hellfire Club. The ultimate Sentinel of the future eventually found a piece of the old Master Mold (a portable Sentinel building factory build by Trask) and past merged with present to evolve into an even deadlier enemy.
Wild Sentinels were a creation of writer Grant Morrison when he launched his New X-Men era in the storyline E Is For Extinction. Cassandra Nova (Charles Xavier’s “twin sister” evolved from a parasite copying his DNA) found an abandoned secret Master Mold in the jungles of Ecuador. Using the DNA of a descendant of Bolivar Trask, Nova unleashed an army of wild Sentinels who could adapt to any environment including attaching any metal to rebuild or grown itself. The Wild Sentinel attack on the island of Genosha took the lives of 16 million + mutants.
Omega Sentinel In Operation Zero Tolerance, Omega Prime Sentinels were human/machine hybrids developed by Bastion (a robot created by the merging of Master Mold and Nimrod – see above) using nanotechnology from the dark future in Days of Future Past. Manyhumans like police officer Karima Shapandar had no idea they were sleeper agents until activated. Karima would break her conditioning and go on to fight with the X-Men.
After a brief off-camera appearance (except for the severed robot heat) in X-Men: The Last Stand, the Sentinels finally got the big screen treatment in X-Men: Days of Future Past.
The Sentinels are still huge factors in the current X-Men storylines. S.H.I.E.L.D. now has their own army of mutant hunters which ignited a war with Cyclops. At one point there were Sentinels operated by a team of pilots (similar to but before Pacific Rim.)
Here’s hoping the Sentinels will return to challenge our mutant heroes now that cinema technology can allow for unlimited storytelling possibilities.
Nimrod vs. X-Force, anyone?
By Editor