The philosophy of "more is better" has become a bit of a trend in superhero movies over the years. Flicks like Captain America: Civil War and X-Men: Apocalypse featured tons of characters duking it out on screen. While some movies balanced the numbers better than others, there comes a tipping point where filmmakers have to trade story for character screentime. Maybe that's why the producers of X-Men: Apocalypse decided to cut a returning villain who was apparently going to be in the film. That villain was Bolivar Trask, the creator of the Sentinel program.
Bolivar Trask - played by Peter Dinklage - was the villain of X-Men: Days of Future Past who created the mutant hunting robots that eventually went rogue and took over the planet. In that dark timeline, the remaining X-Men eventually sent Wolverine back in time to unite the mutants in the seventies and stop Trask. We don't know the details of Trask's involvement in Apocalypse, but concept art from Bartol Rendulic was recently found (via Comicbook.com) that featured an ankle bracelet exclusively designed for Bolivar Trask. This heavily suggests that there was an early version of the script that involved the villain.
When we last left Bolivar Trask, he was arrested for his Sentinels immediately being compromised and killing a bunch of people in front of the White House. There is a mid-credits scene attached to the Rogue Cut which featured Trask sitting in a prison cell underneath the Pentagon - the same cell Magneto occupied when he was arrested for his involvement in the assassination of JFK. Considering that the concept art was for an ankle bracelet, it's likely that Trask was originally going to be under a form of house arrest in Apocalypse. It's possible that the government was going to bring Trask in to help stop Apocalypse after the mutant absconded with all the nuclear weapons. Perhaps the climactic showdown in Egypt was going to be X-Men vs. Apocalypse vs. Sentinels.
At the end of the day, Apocalypse was barely able to give enough attention to the characters that WERE in the movie, so Trask's appearance would probably have been too much. The villain was a little underwhelming in Days of Future Past, so it's not like his addition would have added all that much to the film. Still, seeing the Sentinels going ham on every mutant they see in Egypt would have been pretty sweet.
What do you all think about Trask being in Apocalypse? Yay or nay? Let us know in the comments.
