Yesterday the cast of X-Men: Apocalypse was joined by director Bryan Singer and writer/producer Simon Kinberg onstage at Hall H and dropped some information about the movie as well as showed a very early cut of some of what they have filmed so far (they are five weeks into production). I have to say, it all looks pretty badass. Let me set the scene a little before I get into the footage description.

The film is set in 1983, ten years after the events of Days of Future Past. Mutants are accepted by most people in many parts of the world because of Mystique's (Jennifer Lawrence) heroics in stopping Magneto. Magneto (Michael Fassbender) isn't really active in the mutant struggle and has settled down with a wife and kid. Raven is mostly just Raven, not Mystique, mostly I think because of the whole worldwide hero thing. Now let's get into it.

The trailer began with a series of apocalyptic images, like a mushroom cloud, and then a close-up of Jean Grey (Sophie Turner). Then we cut to Jean, all nightmare sweaty in her bed, telling someone that she saw the end of the world. Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) tells her, “It was just a dream.” Then we hear Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) monologuing about how old he is while we see close-ups and tiny clips of all of our mutant heroes and villains. Moira MacTaggart (Rose Byrne) is back, telling Charles that since the world became aware of mutants, cults and secret societies have sprung up to worship them. They’ve identified the first mutant, born 10,000 years ago. This is Apocolypse’s voiceover: “I have been called many things over many lifetimes — Ra, Krishna, Yahweh… [Something about turning the gears of civilization] You are my children, and you are lost because you follow blind leaders. Everything they’ve built will fall, and from the ashes of the world we'll build a better one.” At the end of the monologue we see a hooded figure accompanied by Storm (Alexandra Shipp) approach what seems to be some kind of underground meeting of mutants, and then Magneto turns around and says, “Who the fuck are you?” We finally see Apocalypse, all big headed and blue — much more like a comic character than anyone else in the films — we see that Psylocke (Olivia Munn) is also with him, and he says, “Come and see,” and beckons Magneto to follow. Then it’s all kinds of crazy shit.

Charles is doing his Cerebro thing and with zero chill (and a single, solitary tear) says, “He can control all of us.” Then Magneto is pulling Charles in his wheelchair away from a group of mutants — including Angel (Ben Hardy) in his Archangel wings — as Raven yells, “Charles!” Quicksilver (Evan Peters) is running down a hallway (I think the underground one that leads to Cerebro), then Angel is running down the same hallway. Raven is looking very Madonna in her Like A Virgin phase. Charles is Professor X — bald, in a wheelchair, and wearing a suit. Magneto is maybe killing people to save his family and saying, “Is this what you want from me?!” The trailer ends with Xavier using Cerebro, his eyeballs black, saying, “I have never felt power such as this.”

We'll get the full video of the panel posted soon, so stay tuned.