The Day After Tomorrow

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

The Day After Tomorrow
The Day After Tomorrow theatrical poster
Directed by	Roland Emmerich
Written by	Roland Emmerich (story) Roland Emmerich & Jeffery Nachmanoff (screenplay)
Produced by	Roland Emmerich & Mark Gordon
Starring	Dennis Quaid Jake Gyllenhaal Emmy Rossum Sela Ward Ian Holm Jay O. Sanders Kenneth Welsh Tamlyn Tomita
Cinematography	Ueli Steiger
Edited by	David Brenner
Music by	Harald Kloser
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	May 28 2004 (worldwide)
Running time	124 minutes
Languages	English French Japanese
Budget	$125,000,000 (estimated)

The Day After Tomorrow is a 2004 apocalyptic science-fiction film that depicts catastrophic effects of global warming and boasts high-end special effects, bending the lines between science, reality, and science fiction. Worldwide, it is the 44th top grossing film of all time, with total revenue of US $542,771,772. It is the second highest grossing movie not to be #1 in the US box office (behind My Big Fat Greek Wedding). It currently holds the record for biggest opening weekend gross for any movie not opening at #1 with $68.7 million. The movie was filmed mostly in Montreal, and, as of 2007, is the highest grossing Hollywood film in history to be filmed in Canada.

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. The film was originally planned for release in summer 2003.

Background

The movie was inspired by The Coming Global Superstorm, a book co-authored by Coast to Coast AM talk radio host Art Bell and Whitley Strieber. Strieber also wrote the film's novelization.

Shortly before and during the release of the movie, members of environmental and political advocacy groups distributed pamphlets to moviegoers describing what they believe to be the possible effects of global warming. Although the film depicts some effects of global warming predicted by scientists, like rising sea levels, more destructive storms, and disruption of ocean currents and weather patterns, it depicts these events happening much more rapidly and severely than is considered scientifically plausible, and the theory that a "superstorm" will create rapid worldwide climate change does not appear in the scientific literature. When the film was playing in theaters, much criticism was directed at politicians concerning the Kyoto Protocol and climate change. The film's scientific adviser was Dr Michael Molitor, a leading climate change consultant who worked as a negotiator on the Kyoto Protocol.

Synopsis

Global warming causes large areas of the Greenland and Antarctic ice shelves to break off and melt, diluting the Atlantic Ocean with large amounts of fresh water. This disrupts the ocean's thermohaline circulation and slows the Gulf Stream, causing a rapid cooling of the northern hemisphere. This triggers a series of anomalies and extreme weather events, eventually leading up to a massive "global superstorm" system consisting of three gigantic hurricane-like superstorms, which result in an ice age for the northern hemisphere within days. One hurricane-like storm 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 such a low pressure that extremely cold air (−150 °F or −101 °C) from the upper troposphere is sucked downward, instantly freezing all who are caught in the eye. A woman in NOAA argues that the freezing air would warm up and rise, such as in regular storms, but Jack states that the air is dropping too fast. The storm is headed to New York City, where Sam is trapped, and which Jack is trying to reach 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 warming—despite increasingly extreme weather conditions occurring throughout the world—insisting that measures to prevent it will do too much damage to the economy.

Plot

File:TDAT screenshot 1.jpg

Jack giving his presentation to a conference on global warming in New Delhi, India.

The story follows Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid), a paleoclimatologist. The movie opens with Jack in Antarctica with lots of snow. with two colleagues, Frank and Jason, drilling for ice core samples on the Larsen Ice Shelf for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The ice shelf cracks and breaks off from the rest of the continent, nearly killing Jack who almost falls into the crevasse while saving the ice cores. The concentration of greenhouse gases contained in the cores is used in a presentation he makes to a United Nations conference held in New Delhi, India on global warming. The idea, however, resonates with Dr. Terry Rapson of the Hedland Climate Research Center in Scotland.

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. 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. Jack is surprised at what Dr. Rapson is saying because he predicted that the events would not happen in his lifetime, but in a hundred or a thousand years.

Meanwhile, Jack's son, Sam Hall, is traveling to New York City for an academic competition, with his friends Brain and main protagonist Laura. After they reach Manhattan, a scene is shown where animals in the Central Park Zoo are behaving strangely and erratically, and the sky is covered by thick clouds.

A series of tornado's strike Los Angeles, devastating the city, while severe turbulence causes the FAA to shut down all air traffic.

After the competition, Sam and his companions are stuck in New York, as the flight they were supposed to leave on was grounded due to the tornado in LA. Sam calls his father, promising Jack that he'll be on the next train to Washington, where they live. Sam and his friends, meanwhile, will stay with a new friend they had met, JD, and take a tour of New York, including visiting the Natural History Museum. After they arrive at JD's apartment that night, it is raining heavily and the doorman comments on the weather, and Brian also commenting that it had been raining like that for three days now. The next day, they learned through a TV news broadcast that Grand Central Station had been flooded by the heavy rainfall, so JD decides to give them a ride to Philadelphia, where they can continue to Washington by other means. They also learn that the east coast of Canada has also been affected by bad weather- the sea levels rose by over 20 feet.

JD's driver is stuck in traffic a ways from the apartment, so they decide to walk to the car. As they exit, the street is seen in ankle deep water. Laura makes the suggestion to stay put, but Sam insists that they get home. Meanwhile, sewers are backing up, and the water is continuing to rise. Cars are still shown being able to drive, at least somewhat, and traffic is still more or less organized at this point. A scene showing water entering a subway station is shown to signify how bad it is.

As the four walk to JD's car, water continues to rise, now waist deep. At this point, the power is out in most of the city and all traffic is at a stand-still. Laura comments that they won't be able to drive anywhere in the chaos, and proposes to go back to the apartment. Sam, assessing the situation, states that they need to move to higher ground, and they decide to go to the Public Library.

A large wave is shown swamping the Statue of Liberty, and crashing into Manhattan. Many are killed, and Sam and his friends barely get into the library in time to escape the wave, being delayed by Laura using her knowledge of French to assist an African tourist.

In Scotland, the situation is increasingly worsening, and Rapson and his coworkers are trapped in their research lab. When asked to evacuate: Jack (over the phone): it's time you got out of there, professor." Rapson: "I'm afraid that time has come and gone, my friend." Jack: "What can we do?" Rapson: "Save as many as you can." (Static gets louder, phone disconnects). Later, Rapson's generator runs out of fuel, and his coworker takes out a bottle of scotch, proposing to run the generator for a little longer with the alcohol. Instead, Rapson, Simon, and Dennis each drink to mankind, England, and Manchester United respectively.

File:TDAT screenshot 2.jpg

Sam Hall, protagonist Laura Chapman, Brian Parks, & J.D. in waist-high water in Manhattan on their way to the New York Public Library.

The remainder of the story concerns itself with the proof of Hall's theory and the beginning of a new ice age, one that is short but still devastating, resulting in millions of deaths. Survivors are forced to flee to the Southern and Southwestern United States and Mexico, where strained relations between the two nations lead to refugee problems.

A subplot is the Royal Family of Great Britain being evacuated by RAF helicopters (see below under the science logic of the movie). The air temperature is cold enough to freeze the fuel lines in the helicopters, causing them to crash. An injured RAF pilot tries to crawl out, but is quickly frozen solid.

Dr. Hall decides to make the dangerous journey to Manhattan to find his son, Sam, who becomes stranded when one of the Arctic storms settles over that area. Before he leaves, he briefs the president and they decide to evacuate all the southern states (it is too late for the north, Jack says). When he leaves in his pickup truck, accompanied by his coworkers Frank and Jason, snow is shown completely covering the streets of Washington. Sam is trapped with several survivors in a branch of the New York City Public library. Along the route, Dr. Hall hears a radio message warning all people in the northern states that going outside can be deadly, and to burn everything they can to stay warm, and that all highways are closed due to dangerous driving conditions. Jack's truck then gets stuck in a snowbank, just north of Philadelphia, prompting him and his coworkers to undertake the rest of the journey to New York on foot. Jack and his assistants must endure the deadly storm, without any shelter save for a small tent. Frank is dangling when he falls through the glass ceiling of a mall. Jason tries to pull him up, but their combined weight threatens to kill them both, so Frank cuts the rope, to his death, to save Jason.

Jack's wife, a doctor, is forced to stay behind in Washington because her patient can only be transported by an ambulance. A call is put to the county ambulance service, and one comes just in time to save her and the patient from the storm. They go south to Mexico. The president also decided to evacuate at the last minute, but he was less fortunate- his car got caught by the storm and he was killed.

Inside the library, Sam Hall and the other survivors use advice Sam got from his father to outlast the cold. At one point, Sam and his two friends, Brian and J.D., are forced to leave the library and enter a nearby ship when a companion, Laura, starts to suffer from blood poisoning because of a cut on her leg. They narrowly avoid being killed by wolves that escaped from the New York Zoo, and manage to reach the library safely with the medicine, just before the cold air from the upper troposphere made landfall, and managed to keep the fire going in their room, saving their lives.

At the end of the movie, Jack manages to find the library and signal for help. He, Sam, and everyone inside the library are rescued in a helicopter. As they leave, they see other people leaving buildings, indicating that there were other survivors of the storm. The new president (formerly vice president) gives a televised speech, saying that for many years the world had ignored nature's destructive force, and that they "operated under the belief that (they) can continue to consume the world's resources without consequence." He admitted his fault, then went on to his gratitude over Mexico admitting the Americans in a time of need, and that there was cause for hope when Jack found his son alive in New York. The movie ends by showing the Earth from the International Space Station, and the astronauts commenting that the planet looks clearer than before.

Science portrayed in the movie

The film has been strongly criticized by scientists for its premise being physically impossible and "absurd". There is little meteorological or climatological science in the actual events of the movie. Critics of the science shown in the film have asserted that global warming is unlikely to bring about a sudden onslaught of natural disasters, but is rather a gradual trend in the average climate. In the film, the disasters are entertainingly sudden and cataclysmic. Criticisms of the science portrayed in the movie include:

• While the initial idea that an increase in freshwater could slow or shutdown thermoelastic circulation in the northern Atlantic ocean is scientifically valid and has a certain amount of probability to develop, it is impossible for the change to occur as rapidly as shown in the movie.
• The plot-feasibility condition that descending tropospheric air would be cold, because it was descending too fast to warm up, is physically impossible. The potential temperature of tropospheric air is higher, not lower, than the temperature of surface air. Rarefied air would be compressed as it descended, producing a temperature higher than that of sea-level air.
• The freezing temperature for the kerosene fuel used in most commercial and military jet engines, such as the RAF helicopters, is between -40 to -52.6 °F ( -40 to -47 °C) and not at the -151 °F Prof. Rapson informs Jack is the freezing temperature ("We had to look it up!" Rapson tells Jack). Yet jet engines are routinely flown at 30,000 ft (9144m), the upper part of the troposphere whence the supercold air is supposed to be descending across the northern hemisphere.
• The temperature required in the scene where helicopters froze solid in mid air would be far too low for snow to occur. Below about −40 °C the moisture capacity of air is so low that snow is very unlikely. The temperature in this scene would need to be much colder than −40 °C.
• In order for the sea ice to reach the level it does on the Statue of Liberty (approximately 215 ft or 65.6 m), 75% of Antarctica's ice would have to melt, which would take more than 2.5 years - only if all the solar radiation received by the Earth were concentrated on Antarctica.

Scientific evidence in support of rapid climate change

"Paleoclimatic records show that large, widespread, abrupt climate changes have affected much or all of the earth repeatedly over the last ice-age cycle as well as earlier – and these changes sometimes have occurred in periods as short as a few years."

— National Academy of Sciences, 2002

In the popular movie, The Day After Tomorrow, audiences are confronted with disturbing scenes of a "Superstorm" that dwarfs all other storms. Is such sudden catastrophic climate change really possible?

Until recently, scientists considered any theory of catastropic change to be heresy. However, science has undergone an astonishing paradigm shift and now accepts the compelling evidence that Earth has already begun a catastrophic change:

"An example of an extremely quick climate change came during a period of time known as the Younger Dryas, which happened right after the last ice age ended, about 12,000 years ago. The Younger Dryas itself lasted about 1,000 years. What we didn't know until recently was just how quickly the Younger Dryas started and stopped. In a period of less than 50 years, the climate from the eastern US and Canada to much of Europe went from climate conditions much like today's, to frigid readings more like the Ice Age, at least a ten degree Farenheit change. That's how it stayed for a thousand years - and then the climate flipped back to normal in as little as 20 years."

Greenpeace has released a classified study, prepared for the Pentagon, that warns of increasingly unstable and violent weather. This Pentagon Weather Report paints a grim picture of the Gulf Stream failing to deliver warm water to the North Atlantice, triggering widespread weather disasters:

"A world thrown into turmoil by drought, floods, typhoons. Whole countries rendered uninhabitable. The capital of the Netherlands submerged. The borders of the US and Australia patrolled by armies firing into waves of starving boat people desperate to find a new home. Fishing boats armed with cannon to drive off competitors. Demands for access to water and farmland backed up with nuclear weapons."

The idea that the Earth has been molded by sudden, catastrophic climate change is something that scientists have resisted for many decades, according to a scientific analysis of the past few decades of climate research by Spencer Weart, Director of the Center for History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics. In an article published by Physics Today, Weart explains how weather scientists have historically refused to comprehend the evidence before them supporting rapid climate change.

Each new discovery keeps shortening the time in which massive global climate changes are recognized and understood to have occurred. Shocking new evidence from Greenland now confirms that rapid global climate change has occurred on Earth in as little as five years, or less. In fact, a global storm recently enveloped Mars, demonstrating that such massive planetary storms are possible..

Polar Lows

" The storm center is over a polynya (open sea water) in Davis Strait, a part of Baffin Bay, in NE Canada near Greenland. It is fed by the air mass of the entire northern hemisphere. Winds of many times the speed of sound are involved and the amount of heat removed is in the order of 10 to the 23rd ergs. The ice mass eventually grows to 4 km thick. A truly immense amount of energy is lost in a mere six weeks."

-Owsley Stanley

Earth's most recent Ice Age began about two million years ago, and was characterized by cold (glacial), and relatively warm (interglacial) phases, that began about 70,000 years ago, and ended about 10,000 years ago. At the peak of the last glaciation, approximately 97% of Canada was covered by ice that was up to 3 miles thick. Many theories have been advanced to explain what causes ice ages, but each theory has serious limitations.

Owsley Stanley, an underground scientist living off the grid in Australia, has developed an weather model for massive global climate change -- all from one polar low that lasts six weeks.

Usually, polar cyclones range from 60 to 600 miles across, with surface winds of 30 to 100 mph. These lows tend to occur over the coastal waters of Labrador during very cold outbreaks when air-sea temperature differences are at least 20 degrees. However, when conditions are just right, Stanley believes a colossal polar cyclone suddenly appears and takes over the circulation of the entire planet.

According to Stanley's theory, SUVs and the production of green house gases have nothing to do with the change in our climate. Regardless of anything humans do, a catastrophic polar cyclone could come anytime, bringing mass extinction to the Northern Hemisphere.

What makes Owsley's theory so disturbing is the accelerating melting of the Earth's polar ice cap, creating an open water passage between Europe and Asia, a first in recorded history. Polar cyclones will now have enough open water to spin up to far greater intensities than ever before, creating the very real possiblity of a hemispheric or global superstorm.

Reception

The movie generated mixed reviews from both the science and entertainment communities.

• The online entertainment guide Rotten Tomatoes has rated the movie at 46%, with an average rating of 5.3/10.
• IMDB users have given it a 6.2/10 rating (52,127 votes, as on 29 Oct 2007).
• Environmental activist and Guardian columnist George Monbiot called The Day After Tomorrow "a great movie and lousy science."
• In a USA Today editorial by Patrick J. Michaels, a Research Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, Michaels called the movie "propaganda", noting, "As a scientist, I bristle when lies dressed up as 'science' are used to influence political discourse."

DVD Details

Releases

• It was first released on DVD in the USA on October 12 2004 in both widescreen and fullscreen versions.

• A 2-disc "collector's edition" containing production featurettes, two documentaries: a "behind-the-scenes" and another called "The Forces of Destiny", as well as storyboards and concept sketches were also included. It was released on May 24 2005.

• It was released in high-definition video exclusively on Blu-ray Disc in the USA on October 2 2007 in full 1080p with a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio track.

Deleted scenes

• One deleted scene included two surfers in Kona, Hawaii, who are killed by a canoe rigging thrown at their SUV by Typhoon Noelani.
• Another deleted scene revealed that the Japanese man killed in the hailstorm was talking on a cell phone to the rude businessman (the same one who later dies on the bus when the giant wave hits New York City) about a failing insider trading scheme. Instead, in the final cut of the film, he is shown talking to his wife.
• Another deleted scene showed Sam, Laura and Brian at Jack's house, preparing for the decathlon a few days before they depart to New York. Sam's bitterness towards his father is clearly shown when he is seen deliberately over watering one of his plants.
• Another deleted scene shows Jason and Jack recovering from snow storm in the kitchen on the Burger King. They eat and talk about what would happen after the storm.

References to real life and popular culture

• 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 O&O 250 miles (400 km) south in Washington, D.C. The FOX station for New York is WNYW-TV. Also, the Los Angeles FOX O&O KTTV is mentioned more than once in the movie as well in near-disastrous results such as a truck being thrown at the TV truck while on the 105 Freeway near LAX due to the force of the winds of the tornado
• In the party scene at the school in New York, Sam's name tag reads "Hello, my name is Yoda".
• Manchester United is mentioned a few times. There is even a shot of a Man Utd match in the UEFA Champions League showing Ruud van Nistelrooy scoring a goal. The match commentary states that the match is against Celtic FC in Glasgow. At that time Manchester United had never played Celtic in the Champions League at all, and subsequently lost their only match in Glasgow 1-0 when they did, also the opposition are clearly wearing blue, a colour Celtic have never worn, and the colours of their great rivals Rangers FC. The game being showed was actually from Manchester United's pre-season tour friendly against Argentine side Boca Juniors. Interestingly enough, Manchester United actually played Celtic on the same tour.
• The news footage of "a plane that was brought down by severe turbulence" was actual news footage of Avianca Flight 52, which crashed in Long Island, New York on January 25, 1990.
• The post-storm New York City segment includes several shots of a partly-buried, ice-covered Statue of Liberty, which evoke similar post-apocalyptic scenes from the conclusion of Planet of the Apes.
• A Burger King sign and a Wendy's sign are partially visible near the end of movie when Jack is in New York, moments before the super cell begins to freeze the city.
• The scene where the New York City bus driver sees the wave approaching through his rear view mirror is an allusion to Independence Day (also produced by Emmerich where a New York City bus driver sees the fireball approaching from the alien ship.
• When the camera shows people in line at the border, a Chuck-E-Cheese sign is clearly visible

Parodies

The animated show South Park has parodied this movie at least four times, in "Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow," "Die Hippie, Die," "Goobacks" and "Lice Capades."

See also

• State of Fear, a 2004 novel by Michael Crichton.
• Fifty Degrees Below, a Kim Stanley Robinson novel in which greenhouse warming similarly disrupts the Gulf Stream; the rate of cooling is somewhat less exaggerated.
• Superstorm, a 2007 miniseries.

External links

• Official Site
• The Day After Tomorrow at IMDb
• The Day After Tomorrow at Rotten Tomatoes
• USA today review
• CoolJunkie review
• Bad Physics Review
• Yahoo! Movies: The Day After Tomorrow (2004) - Movie Info
• Scientific explanations of movie scenes on cisci.net