The Tomorrow War (2021) (1 Viewer)

[jayembee]

I still do not understand why it ended the way it did.

Spoiler

If they prevented the future war from ever happening, why doesn’t the film end with Chris Pratt and his daughter back watching the football game at her party as everything resets?

Things are not completely reset. Otherwise, you have what's called the Grandfather Paradox. Simply explained, a man travels back in time, meets his grandfather and accidentally causes his death before the grandfather has any children. Which means that the time traveler won't be born (because his father wasn't born) and therefore won't go back in time and accidentally kill his grandfather. Which means that his father will be born, and therefore he will be born as well. Which means that he'll travel back and kill his grandfather. And everything goes round and round in an infinite loop.

Which is why some people think that the timeline branched off when the soldiers from the future appeared on the soccer pitch.

 

[jayembee]

OK...so the other night, I happened to finally get around to watching A Quiet Place (this is relevant to the subject at hand), which I quite liked. Not a great film, but it had genuine, well-earned scares. There was one problem I had with it. I didn't mind that the backstory of when and where and how the aliens arrived was nonexistent. But what did bother me was that the aliens were -- or appeared to be -- nothing more than mindless killing machines, like the xenomorphs in the Alien franchise. I didn't mind it then because it was obvious that they were intended as a weapon, and weren't the weaponeers. That could've been true of the aliens in A Quiet Place, but there was no way of knowing.

So, anyway, after I was done with that, I decided to watch The Tomorrow War. And, yes, it felt like the same thing was happening again. Except this time, the implication was -- or seemed to be -- that the Spikes flew a ship to Earth, and started exterminating humans. And it bugged me that they didn't seem at all intelligent/sapient, and didn't use technology (which they "obviously" had if they traveled to Earth in a spaceship) to kill. They just brutally killed and ate people, much like the aliens in A Quiet Place. I was thinking that at least the aliens in Independence Day (and the Progenitors, or whatever they were called, in Pacific Rim) had a rational (to them) reason for wanting to wipe out humanity. Of course, there was a twist to that idea here.

Anyway, I found myself enjoying it for what it was. What I've always said about Independence Day -- it's as dumb as dirt, and I love every dumb minute of it -- applies to this movie as well. If what you're looking for is just two hours of Blowin' Shit Up, this is the movie for you. The "Pitch Meeting" video for this is spot on about all the inanities in The Tomorrow Way, but that's what Guilty Pleasures are all about.

 

[Robert Crawford]

So, anyway, after I was done with that, I decided to watch The Tomorrow War. And, yes, it felt like the same thing was happening again. Except this time, the implication was -- or seemed to be -- that the Spikes flew a ship to Earth, and started exterminating humans. And it bugged me that they didn't seem at all intelligent/sapient, and didn't use technology (which they "obviously" had if they traveled to Earth in a spaceship) to kill. They just brutally killed and ate people, much like the aliens in A Quiet Place. I was thinking that at least the aliens in Independence Day (and the Progenitors, or whatever they were called, in Pacific Rim) had a rational (to them) reason for wanting to wipe out humanity. Of course, there was a twist to that idea here.

That's not correct about the Spikes flying their ship. There was a different species that flew that ship as the Spikes were cargo, who's purpose you can only speculate about. When they entered the ship the strike force made that discovery.

 

[Tino]

Yup. They were some kind of alien military cargo.

 

[WillG]

So I know I’m not supposed to be looking for logic, but.....

Spoiler

the ship carrying the white spikes (I assume) crashes sometime way back in the past and then what, just waits there to be frozen over by a polar ice cap, then global warming thaws the ship and white spikes escape. This would lead me to believe that the crew died in the original crash, but what prevented the white spikes from escaping then?

 

[Malcolm R]

Too bad it wasn't in theaters:

https://ew.com/movies/chris-pratt-celebrates-tomorrow-war-streaming-numbers/

EW has learned that The Tomorrow War ranked as the No. 1 streaming film across the holiday weekend, and, according to Screen Engine's PostVOD audience summary, ranked as the largest live-action streaming movie of the summer so far. The film also helped Prime Video set record viewership in Brazil, India, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Australia, Mexico, Argentina, and Japan.

I think Paramount missed the boat on this one, but I suppose they thought $200 million in-hand was better than rolling the dice.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I think they probably made the right call. A film with a $200 million budget takes at least that much to advertise, so now you’re talking a $500 million expense, which is gonna require the film to gross a billion dollars to break even, and as fun as the film was, I’m not sure it gets there. I think you have to factor in that people who would have paid to see this in a theater watched it at home, but not everyone who watched it at home would have paid to see it in a theater.

 

[Malcolm R]

I think you have to factor in that people who would have paid to see this in a theater watched it at home, but not everyone who watched it at home would have paid to see it in a theater.

Agreed, but you can say that about any film.

 

[Walter Kittel]

So I know I’m not supposed to be looking for logic, but.....

Spoiler

the ship carrying the white spikes (I assume) crashes sometime way back in the past and then what, just waits there to be frozen over by a polar ice cap, then global warming thaws the ship and white spikes escape. This would lead me to believe that the crew died in the original crash, but what prevented the white spikes from escaping then?

Spoiler

When Forester and his strike team board the craft all (?) of the Whitespikes were still in their containment pods, which implies that those pods prevented them from escaping during the initial crash of the ship. I believe the poisoning of some of the creatures caused the interruption of stasis as the creatures cried out in alarm. (Probably should watch that scene again before opining too much. )

Given that they were in the pods, it is pretty explicitly shown that they did not escape during the crash that killed the crew. Also, given the lethality of those creatures, if I were engineering a containment device I'd make sure it worked well.

When the ice cap melts exposing the crash site at some point in the future, one of the following may have resulted in the release of the Whitespikes into our environment.

A) Someone from the future discovers the site and their actions trigger the release of the creatures.
B) The ship's power systems finally run down, deactivating the containment pods.
C) The containment pods, or a subset of them experience a failure.

Scenarios B and C could have happened prior to the complete melt down of the ice cap, which would mean that the cap melting was the final event that released them on Earth.

- Walter.

 

[jayembee]

That's not correct about the Spikes flying their ship. There was a different species that flew that ship as the Spikes were cargo, who's purpose you can only speculate about. When they entered the ship the strike force made that discovery.

Perhaps I was unclear. I was referring to the initial implication. Until Dan returned to the present, and they started trying to figure out how to work out where the ship landed, the assumption was that the Spikes were the ones flying the ship to Earth. And even when Dan &co. worked out that they must've been on Earth all along, they didn't know that the Spikes were just cargo until they were actually in the ship. And certainly, we didn't know that until that scene, which is why I was claiming that as a "problem". Until that point in the movie, the assumption was that the Spikes were the only alien species involved.

(Which actually makes the similarity to A Quiet Place more notable. In that film, we have no idea (unless it was laid out in the sequel, which I haven't seen) whether the aliens that are preying on the humans are supposed to be intelligent tool-users or just -- like the Spikes, or Alien's xenomorphs -- engineered bio-weapons.)

With respect to the movie at hand, though, there was one thing that I failed to notice. Were there non-Spike skeletons in the pilot's compartment? Something akin to Alien's "Space Jockey" that was obviously not the same species they'd been fighting?

 

[Robert Crawford]

Perhaps I was unclear. I was referring to the initial implication. Until Dan returned to the present, and they started trying to figure out how to work out where the ship landed, the assumption was that the Spikes were the ones flying the ship to Earth. And even when Dan &co. worked out that they must've been on Earth all along, they didn't know that the Spikes were just cargo until they were actually in the ship. And certainly, we didn't know that until that scene, which is why I was claiming that as a "problem". Until that point in the movie, the assumption was that the Spikes were the only alien species involved.

(Which actually makes the similarity to A Quiet Place more notable. In that film, we have no idea (unless it was laid out in the sequel, which I haven't seen) whether the aliens that are preying on the humans are supposed to be intelligent tool-users or just -- like the Spikes, or Alien's xenomorphs -- engineered bio-weapons.)

With respect to the movie at hand, though, there was one thing that I failed to notice. Were there non-Spike skeletons in the pilot's compartment? Something akin to Alien's "Space Jockey" that was obviously not the same species they'd been fighting?

I think you're being a little unfair, but whatever.

Yes, there were non-Spike skeletons in the pilot's compartment as they clearly stated those aren't "Spikes".

 

[Johnny Angell]

Is this a limited run or a permanent item in the Amazon library?

 

[jayembee]

I think you're being a little unfair, but whatever.

Yes, there were non-Spike skeletons in the pilot's compartment as they clearly stated those aren't "Spikes".

I'm not sure why what I said was "unfair". I feel it was a legitimate "problem" (and I specifically use quotes there for a reason) with the story for most of the movie, just as I thought the same for A Quiet Place. It wasn't enough of a "problem" to prevent me from enjoying either film, but it's there.

On the second point, thanks. I figured there must've been, but I didn't notice them. And the user interface on Prime (and Disney+, and pretty much every other streaming platform) is annoying enough that I don't try to back-up to rewatch a scene. Another reason why I prefer discs.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I'm not sure why what I said was "unfair". I feel it was a legitimate "problem" (and I specifically use quotes there for a reason) with the story for most of the movie, just as I thought the same for A Quiet Place. It wasn't enough of a "problem" to prevent me from enjoying either film, but it's there.

On the second point, thanks. I figured there must've been, but I didn't notice them. And the user interface on Prime (and Disney+, and pretty much every other streaming platform) is annoying enough that I don't try to back-up to rewatch a scene. Another reason why I prefer discs.

You're being unfair because I don't think it was a legitimate problem because they did identify what those creatures were, just not in the time frame you wanted in this movie.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Is this a limited run or a permanent item in the Amazon library?

Im not sure but if it’s similar to other titles Amazon and Netflix have purchased from Paramount, they’ll likely have it as their exclusive for a year.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Perhaps I was unclear. I was referring to the initial implication. Until Dan returned to the present, and they started trying to figure out how to work out where the ship landed, the assumption was that the Spikes were the ones flying the ship to Earth.

Spoiler

I don’t think that’s true. It was mentioned at least once that the aliens just appeared. No spaceship or asteroid or anything was detected prior to their arrival. I started to think Alien and JC’s the Thing (the former for organic weapons and the latter for they’ve been here a while.

 

[Malcolm R]

I agree with Johnny. They never really knew where they came from, only that they first appeared in Russia and spread quickly. They said a couple times they had no idea how they got here, as they did not detect any space ships or asteroids or anything from space prior to the appearance of the creatures. I think they were called "alien" in the generic sense of an unknown lifeform unlike anything else ever seen, not that they knew for sure they came from outer space. They did not even know there was a "ship" until they pieced things together, went searching and found it.

With respect to the movie at hand, though, there was one thing that I failed to notice. Were there non-Spike skeletons in the pilot's compartment? Something akin to Alien's "Space Jockey" that was obviously not the same species they'd been fighting?

Yes, there was what appeared to be another more human-like lifeform inside the ship (it looked like it was hanging upside down to me) just before they discovered the Whitespikes in stasis, but it was obviously different from the Whitespikes and was assumed to be the species transporting the Whitespikes to who knows where, for who knows what reason, when they crashed.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Yes, there was what appeared to be another...

Spoiler

I’m going to interpret it (IMHO only) that the ships destination was the earth. The mission was to drop off their weapons and scour the earth clean. They crashed and their mission was delayed.

 

[WillG]

Was “The Sabbath” ever explained?

 

[Malcolm R]

Don't think so. They mentioned it, then said there was another "coming up," but I don't think it had any consequence in the film. Not sure why they even mentioned it.