X-Men: Days Of Future Past - 25 Easter Eggs & References You Must See

23. The Influences

As well as Fritz Lang's genre-maker, the film draws upon the rich heritage of time travel movies, with Simon Kinberg openly admitting that Singer was influenced by The Time Machine (1960), Back to the Future (1985) and Looper (2012). Arguably the most pertinent reference point is The Terminator (1984) whose vision of the future is very much referenced in the visual landmarks of Singer's future dystopia. Not only that, but the seemingly obligatory shot of Wolverine's impossibly chiselled backside when he first travels back in time feels very much like a cheeky nod to the Terminator's own first naked appearance. James Cameron also played an important part in helping Bryan Singer form his ideas of time-travel, which were based very much on Terminator and its first sequel, and informed Singer's take on String Theory:

"Until an object is observed, it hasn't really happened yet. The time-traveller whose consciousness travels through time I call The Observer, and until the Observer returns to where he travelled from, the result hasn't occurred yet. So he can muck about in the past and it isn't until he snaps back that the new future is set. As a result, we have parallel action, and there's underlying tension because there's always that threat Wolverine's consciousness could return to the future and leave the world in an even darker place."