The Day After Tomorrow

For other uses, see The Day After Tomorrow (disambiguation).

The Day After Tomorrow is a 2004 apocalyptic science-fiction film that depicts catastrophic effects of global cooling and boasts high-end special effects, bending the lines between science, reality and science fiction. It is the 36th top grossing film in the world, with an average of $542,000,000 in US dollars.

The Day After Tomorrow premiered in Mexico City on May 17, 2004 and was released worldwide from May 26 to May 28 except in South Korea and Japan where it was released June 4 and June 5, respectively.

Taglines:

This year, a sweater won't do.
Where will you be?
10,000 years ago, one storm changed the face of our planet. On May 28, it will happen again.
Whoever said "Tomorrow is another day"... didn't check the weather.
Nature has spoken.

Synopsis

Global cooling destabilises the climate causing a series of anomalies, eventually leading up to a massive "global superstorm" system consisting of three gigantic hurricane-like superstorms, which result in an ice age within days for the northern hemisphere. One hurricane is over Canada, one over Scotland, and a third over Siberia. The movie follows Jack, a paleoclimatologist for NOAA; his son Sam, a high school student; and his wife Lucy, a doctor.

The film portrays the “eye” of the superstorms as having extremely low pressure; so low that the temperature therein drops rapidly to at most 150 degrees below zero, instantly freezing to death all who are caught in the eye. The storm is headed to New York, where Sam is trapped, and which Jack is trying to reach in the hostile frozen environment with Arctic gear and his survival skills.

Throughout the movie, a subplot involves the refusal of the Vice President of the United States to accept the threat of global cooling - despite increasingly extreme weather conditions occurring throughout the world - insisting that measures to prevent it will do too much damage to the economy.

Criticism of the science

Critics of the science shown in the film have asserted that global cooling is unlikely to bring about a sudden onslaught of natural disasters, but is rather an observed (heretofore slow) trend in which the average climatic temperatures are shifting. In the film, the disasters are entertainingly sudden and cataclysmic, and according to current understanding could not occur as they are portrayed.

Plot

The movie is based on the idea that the Gulf Stream (or North Atlantic drift), an ocean current which circulates warm water from the tropics to the Northern Hemisphere, is disrupted by the melting of the polar ice caps.

This leads to catastrophic changes in the Earth's climate, as the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere stabilises into a new pattern. The changes manifest as three interconnected hurricane-shaped storms spread across the entire Northern Hemisphere. Although not believed at first, the initial predictions are that this will take some six to eight weeks to take effect. However, these combine over the space of a week to form a huge planet-wide storm system. The eye of the three cells sucks supercooled air from the upper troposphere, causing anyone caught outside to be flash frozen.

The story follows Jack Hall, a paleoclimatologist, who has forecasted such an event, though he expects it to happen much more slowly (on the order of 100 to 1,000 years in the future). The movie opens with Jack, in Antarctica, with two colleagues, Frank & Jason, drilling for ice core samples for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The concentration of greenhouse gases (e.g., carbon dioxide) contained in the cores is used in a presentation he makes to a United Nations conference held in New Delhi on global warming. Ironically, in that scene, snow is falling on New Delhi, where it rarely, if ever, snows. Present at this conference is Dr. Rapson of the Hedland Climate Research Center in Scotland. After the conference, Jack and Dr. Rapson meet for a cup of tea to discuss Jack’s findings, which establishes a relationship between the two that will be needed later.

Shortly after Dr. Rapson arrives back in Scotland from the conference two buoys in the North Atlantic simultaneously show a large drop in water temperature. Other buoys soon begin showing the same. Dr. Rapson concludes that the melting of the polar ice has begun to disrupt the North Atlantic current and calls Jack to see if his paleoclimatological weather model could be used to predict what will happen. In Tokyo and Los Angeles, the beginnings of the superstorm begin to show. Large hailstones the size of grapefruits (about 5 pounds) fall on Tokyo’s Chiyoda District, causing massive damage and fatalities. In Los Angeles, numerous tornadoes devastate the city, destroying notable landmarks such as the Capitol Records Tower and the Hollywood Sign in a spray of debris. Jack approaches his boss, Tom, at NOAA for time on the mainframe to run his paleoclimatological weather model with Dr. Rapson’s data. The results show the global climate will change in 6-8 weeks.

Meanwhile, the FAA stops all air traffic in the U.S. because of the unusual weather. However, two planes didn't get the order in time and crashed in the Midwest due to heavy turbulence.

Sam, Jack's son, with his friends Laura Chapman and Brian Parks are attending an academic decathlon in Manhattan. When a severe rainstorm hits Manhattan, Sam calls his father (according to the DVD commentary, the woman on the other side of Sam from the phone is Kirsten Dunst). Jack convinces Sam to head back to Washington, D.C. via train the following morning. In the meantime, Sam, Laura and Brian stay at J.D.’s, a fellow decathlete’s, apartment in Manhattan. While they are in the apartment, the rain continues and they see on TV that the train terminal has been flooded and service suspended on all trains; this changes their plans to driving. Their plans change once again when flooding continues and car transportion is no longer an option. On their way out of the apartment, electricity goes out in the entire area.

Stranded in Manhattan, and with a waist-high level of water, the group seeks a higher location: the New York Public Library. Before they get there, Laura cuts her leg (which will result in blood poisoning later) on a car fender, and helps a black woman and her daughter, who are trapped in a taxi by the rising water (both of them can only speak French, and Laura translates for a cop who is trying to help them), and the women get to the library in time. Meanwhile, beyond Manhattan Island the Statue of Liberty is pounded by a wave of water that nearly surges her head and crown. Laura goes back to retrieve the woman’s purse from the taxi, while the water approaches behind her, and Sam runs to her rescue; he is able to get her untangled from the half submerged cars and they are able to run to the library with a few other lucky civilians as the wave smashes into the front of the building and swamps the streets and Bryant Park beyond, sending more people to their deaths. (The scene, as noted in the commentary was made all the more difficult to film as the virtual water would frequently submerge the initial low resolution models of the building; this was later corrected by changing the physical height of the library without visually distorting it.)

Trapped in the library (with many others) with no power, Sam manages to call his father on a payphone about what to do, following J.D.'s inability to gain service on his cell phone. Jack tells Sam to forget heading south, as the storm was going to worsen into a massive blizzard with possibilities of freezing to death in seconds. The flash-freezing effects were discovered when three helicopters and their crews (evacuating the Royal Family) were flash frozen over Scotland when the fuel in their fuel lines froze. Jack and his team discover that their estimates of 6-8 weeks were not even close; the world will be in another ice age within ten days. He tells Sam to stay in the library and burn anything to stay warm, and wait for Jack to come to Sam. While waiting, a Russian freighter ship floats down 5th Avenue and stops just past the library.

Too late to leave, Dr. Rapson and his two colleagues, Simon and Dennis, stay at the Hedland Center. When they are about to run out of petrol, Simon suggests they burn a twelve-year-old bottle of Scotch. However, Dr. Rapson makes them have one final toast as their generator fails.

Prior to Jack leaving for Manhattan, he advises the President to evacuate the southern half of the country to Mexico, which he does (while saying that it is too late for people in the north due to the proximity of the storm). Jack’s wife, Lucy, however, stays behind to care for a boy with cancer that she is treating until an ambulance arrives. It later does, after everyone leaves, and Lucy and the boy make it to Mexico. In the meantime, an ironic twist to politics causes Americans to flee the nation’s border across the Rio Grande into Mexico illegally (the Rio Grande is susbtantially lower due to the frozen water in the north from the ice age). As the superstorm approaches, the rain turns to snow in New York and the water freezes, beginning a new Ice Age.

Most of the people in the library leave as they see hundreds of others in Manhattan heading south despite Sam pleading them to stay with the statements his father told him in mind. The only people left in the library are Sam, Laura, Brian, J.D., Judith the librarian, a man named Jeremy, a woman named Elsa, and a homeless man named Luther with his dog Buddha.

In order for this group to survive, Sam successfully convinces them to burn books, rather than the huge amounts of furniture that also happen to be in the building, which are used for comfort, and are less likely to burn. Sam (with Brian and J.D.) ventures out to the Russian ship to get Penicillin for Laura's blood poisoning. While they do so, the eye of the storm begins to develop above the city, leading to a race against time to avoid a somewhat incongruous wolfpack that escaped the Central Park Zoo beforehand (strangely not affected by the storm surge) and return to the warmth of the fire in the library (with J.D. who was attacked and injured by the wolves, slowly in tow), in order to survive the flash freezing effects of the descending cold air. In the scenes depicting the “superfreeze,” the Empire State Building is seen slowly being engulfed in ice from the aerial mast down. A unique twist is that when the freeze occurs, some of the windows on the skyscrapers shatter.

Meanwhile, Jack Hall and his buddy Jason Evans come to grief with their truck just north of Philadelphia as the ice and snow become too deep. They resort to walking from there, and as they do they face brutal hardships from the arctic conditions, and at one point one of their comrades falls into a deserted shopping mall, leading to his death. Eventually, they reach a frozen suburban Burger King restaurant at the time the eye of the storm passes, leading them to hurriedly get inside and light stoves and fires as the supercooled air descends. Afterwards, near the end (Staten Island, New York) they discover the dead bodies of those who ignored Sam’s plea to stay in the library.

The mass evacuation of the southern half of America to Mexico results in a political drama after Mexico closes the border. In order to get Mexico to open the border, the President agrees to forgive all Latin American debt.

As Hall finally approaches New York, the storm suddenly disappates, as their last mile of journeying shows shockingly clear weather. As they journey toward the sunken and frozen island they are greeted by one of the film's more memorable moments; the Statue Of Liberty, half submerged and covered in a thick layer of ice.

As Hall and Evans voyage into the city they are dismayed to find that the Library has been completely buried, but their hopes are rekindled when they spot a single broken window which allows them access into the superfrozen Reading Room. They make their way through the rooms they can traverse and the two explorers find Sam and the rest of their group have survived in the Board Room. The movie ends with people emerging onto the roofs of skyscrapers to be rescued and Jack (with the library group) being picked up by a helicopter, the President noting that there are survivors in the north of country and the space station crew observing that they have 'never seen (the Earth's atmosphere) so clear'.

Cast

Dennis Quaid - Jack Hall
Jake Gyllenhaal - Sam Hall
Emmy Rossum - Laura Chapman
Dash Mihok - Jason Evans
Jay O. Sanders - Frank Harris
Sela Ward - Dr. Lucy Hall
Austin Nichols - J.D.
Ian Holm - Terry Rapson

Background

The movie was inspired by The Coming Global Superstorm, a book written by Art Bell & Whitley Strieber. The pair used to co-host a paranormal themed talk show. Art appeared on the show throughout the week on his Art Bell Show (now Coast to Coast AM) while Whitley hosted the weekend segment of the show entitled Dreamland. On both shows, the co-authors/paranormal talk show hosts would delve into such topics with guests as what life would be like after humans have depleted all of their natural resources and destroyed their environment. There are relativley subtle connections between the book and the film: one being that there is a scene depicting a rescue mission at the New York Public Library.

Shortly before and during the release of the movie, members of environmental groups and former Vice President Al Gore distributed pamphlets to movie-goers describing what they believe to be the possible effects of global warming, which generally did not agree with the film; some believe Gore looked too much into the film as what he may have thought to have been "a scientifically accurate movie". During the session of which the film was out in theaters, much criticism arose towards politicians concering the Kyoto Protocol and climate change, and in the end the movie created quite the political stir.

Science analysis/criticisms

There is little meteorological or climatological science in the actual events of the movie. Criticisms of the science portrayed in the movie include:

The initial idea that an increase in freshwater could cause a slowdown or stop of the thermohaline circulation has some probability. However simulations generally show a gradual slowdown over a timescale of centuries rather than days; and overall the temperature continues to warm.
Other aspects of the science in the film that descending stratospheric air would be cold, because it was apparently descending too fast to warm up, for example are incorrect; the potential temperature of stratospheric air is higher, not lower than the temperature of the surface air. Also, the "descending" air is depicted as freezing without a matching downdraft).
Hurricanes do not form over land (as stated in the movie), but the superstorms have similar properties.
Hurricanes cannot produce frozen precipitation, as was shown in the movie.
The size of the superstorms is not realistic.
The buildup of massive snowpiles and glaciers, such as in the ice age, would again take thousands of years.
The closest thing to a "snow-driven hurricane" in reality is a polar low: very small, shortlived low-pressure systems found in the high lattitudes. Most of these storms are not capable of leaving the polar regions and causing serious damage, although when they reach land they're capable of bringing large amounts of snow in a short space of time.

Environmental activist George Monbiot called The Day After Tomorrow "a great movie and lousy science." ^*.

DVD release

It was first released on DVD in the USA on October 12, 2004 in both widescreen and full screen versions. A collector's edition was released on May 24, 2005.

Trivia and errata

In the shot where Jack Hall is explaining why the air coming out of the cyclone is so cold, the computer model of the low pressure system is spinning clockwise, not counterclockwise as cyclones spin in the Northern Hemisphere. This occurs multiple times throughout the film.
In a similar vein, in the scene where Jack is describing the disruption to the ocean currents and the Gulf Stream, the currents on the animated map in the background are going the wrong way.
Reflections play a key role in the tornado sequence: when the devastation was not seen directly in the film, it can be seen as a refleciton through a glass window, car windshield, etc.
It's not entirely certain, but Roland's former plans of "city-wide destruction" included disasters such as sandstorms, hurricanes, landslides, supercells, and many more bizarre weather events that may have been located in the cities of Paris, Cairo, Moscow, Sydney, London, Hong Kong, and Rio de Janeiro, along with the cities of Los Angeles, New York City, Tokyo, and New Delhi, which were all continually incorporated throughout the film.
Art Garfunkel was originally slated to play the role of Jack Hall, but he pulled out for personal reasons and so the part went to Dennis Quaid.
Previous concepts of the super freeze sequence had Jack Hall escaping the lowering temperatures in a McDonald's next to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.
One deleted scene included two surfer bums in Kona, Hawaii whose lives are cut short by a canoe rigging thrown at their SUV by Hurricane Noelani.
Vice President Becker is thought to resemble Vice President Dick Cheney, the vice president at the time of this film's release into theaters.
The news reporter in Los Angeles at the time of the tornado outbreak is crushed by the infamous Angelyne sign, a notable landmark to native Angelenos.
In the party scene at the school in New York, Sam's name tag reads "Hello my name is Yoda"
When Sam, Laura, and Brian are at J.D.'s apartment in New York, they are watching the local FOX station on the television. The logo in the bottom-right identifies the station as WTTG-DC, the FOX affiliate 250 miles south in Washington, DC. The FOX affiliate for New York is WNYW-TV. Also, the Los Angeles FOX affiliate KTTV is mentioned more than once in the movie as well in near-disasterous results such as a truck being thrown at the TV truck while on the 105 Freeway near LAX thanks to the force of the winds of the tornado.
Tornadoes in Los Angeles are not science fiction: on December 28th, 2004, the neighborhoods of Inglewood and Ladera Heights were shocked when a small tornado blew through the district, just outside of the city center. Part of the Los Angeles Convention Center was damaged severely by the twister. On average, a total of 90 tornadoes spawn each year in the Los Angeles County area (though most are in the areas eastward of the city: the desert).
We are told that Australia has suffered its worst typhoon ever, though in Australia typhoons are referred to as Cyclones instead.
When they are heading to New York they are shown incorrectly using a Trimble GPS. In all cases the Trimble unit shown is displaying the satellite screen; however, the map screen is required to identify location. Furthermore, given the severity of the storm, it is highly unlikely the system would be able to get a satellite reading.
On the New York bus driver's radio can be heard a news reporter saying "There's a wall of water coming towards New York City...everyone, get out!" The voiceover was done by one of director Roland Emmerich's close friends.
In a previous version of the helicopter super-freeze sequence, one of the British soldiers climbs out of the final crashed helicopter, stands on a large snowpile, and then freezes. The spinning helicopter blades then shatter his frozen body. The scene was altered so that the soldier froze moments after the crash, keeping the rate of the freeze at the same speed as the amount of freezing on the helicopter.
This film was going to be released in Summer 2003.
In the scene where Sam breaks into the vending machine in the library staff lounge, the time on the microwave is lit and clearly visible even though all power to the island is out!

External links

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