After Earth (2013)
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A father and son must navigate a dangerous, abandoned Earth after their spacecraft crashes in the distant future.
The story
In a future where humanity has evacuated a desolate Earth following a massive environmental catastrophe, a father and son, Cypher and Kitai Raige, find themselves crash-landing on the abandoned planet. When Cypher is injured in the crash, Kitai must venture into the wild, dangerous environment to find a backup beacon to signal for help. To survive, he must navigate a landscape filled with highly evolved animals and a mysterious extraterrestrial creature that hunts by sensing fear.
Full plot (contains spoilers)
On the space colony Nova Prime, the S'krell race uses 'Ursas'—blind creatures that hunt by sensing fear—to attack humans. Cypher Raige, a leader of the peacekeeping Ranger Corps, uses a 'ghosting' technique to defend the colony. After his daughter is killed in an attack, his son Kitai trains to become a Ranger but is rejected. Cypher eventually takes Kitai on a final mission to train with a live Ursa. During the flight, they are caught in an asteroid shower and crash-land on Earth, a wasteland abandoned 1,000 years prior. With Cypher's legs broken, Kitai must locate a backup beacon in the tail section of their ship. Along the way, Kitai faces various hazards, including a pack of monkeys and a deadly predator. After a series of trials and a tense confrontation with a loose Ursa, Kitai successfully uses the 'ghost' technique to defeat the beast and activate the beacon, leading to their rescue.
- First release year
- 2013
- Runtime (minutes)
- 100
- Production countries
- United States
- Original languages
- English
- Directors
- M. Night Shyamalan
- Writers
- Gary Whitta · screenplay; M. Night Shyamalan · screenplay; Will Smith · story
- Cast and characters
- Jaden Smith · Kitai; Will Smith · Cypher
- Genres
- post-apocalyptic; action-adventure; science fiction
- Themes
- father-son relationship; survival; overcoming fear
- Tone and mood
- action-packed; scary
- Premise and plot tags
- space exploration; post-apocalyptic; survival
- Source material / true-story basis
- Original story idea by Will Smith
- Franchise connections
- Intended as the first in a trilogy (1000 AE)
- Reception
- The film was panned by critics and considered a box-office failure, though it received mixed reviews regarding its special effects.
- Reported review scores
- Rotten Tomatoes · score: 12% · scale: percentage · review count: 214; Metacritic · score: 33 · scale: 100 · review count: 41; CinemaScore · score: B · scale: A+ to F
- Production trivia
- The film was originally not a science fiction story but about a father and son crashing their car in the mountains.; It was the first film from Sony to be both shot and presented in the emerging 4K digital format.; The production was intended to be the first in a multimedia franchise titled 1000 AE.
Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.
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