Movies - The Day After Tomorrow

Home > Listing Index > Movies > The Day After Tomorrow

	Movies - The Day After Tomorrow

The Day After Tomorrow is a 2004 apocalyptic science-fiction film that depicts catastrophic effects of global warming and boasts high-end special effects, although the science on which the story is based has little credibility.

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.

Synopsis

Global warming destabilises the climate causing a series of anomalies, eventually leading up to a massive "global superstorm" system containing three gigantic hurricanes, which result in an ice age within days for the northern hemisphere. One "hurricane" is over North America, one over Europe, 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.

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 or 1,000 years). 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. 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 fall on Tokyo, causing massive damage and fatalities. In Los Angeles, numerous tornadoes devastate the city (and the Hollywood sign). 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 an African 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 The impending storm over North America drastically raises the water level in the Atlantic Ocean, which then floods Manhattan. (Although the height of the water is shown to be up to the armpit of the Statue of Liberty, which is approximately 225 feet (69 meters), the height of the water in the city appears to be substantially less.) Laura goes back to retreive the woman's purse from the taxi, while the water approches behind her, and Sam runs to her rescue. They reach the library in time, although thousands have drowned in the wake of the wave.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for The Day After Tomorrow ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article The Day After Tomorrow; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay